Peter's reading!

Thank you to all those who sent books as gifts...and to Sesame Street, Leap Frog (Letter & Talking Words Factory), Super Why, & Word World...it's made great progress in Peter!

Peter has been reading lately more than ever, trying his best in word recognition and sounding the letters out. It all started when I would hear him in the back of the van reading signs along the road like "Stop", "Open House", and "Blue Moon" (No, we don't serve alcohol to minors; we were parked outside of The Vine and the glowing blue sign was eye-catching). Even then, we were amazed and impressed.

NOW, he's blowing our minds with this:

He surely has a gift and we hope that his love to read will continue for years to come!
He even has good influence on his younger sister Natalie!

Elaine's milestones update

The beginning of December was a busy time for Elaine hitting some milestones!

Just when unleaded gas was down to $1.59 a gallon, we started purchasing another expensive form of liquid: baby formula. We made the switch to formula for Elaine and she took it very well, maybe too well. She never looked back on breastfeeding...made Mommy feel like chop liver, but that's ok. She started to take longer naps and sleep through the night, which was warmly welcomed by Mommy.

Peter has even managed to be a helpful big brother and feed her a bottle.

Also, she started to sit up. It was a wobbly start, but 2 months later, she's doing really well at sitting on her own. I'd say she's about 90% there!

Another minor milestone (at least in this household) was that Elaine was able to grab and pull on the Exersaucer toys to make music. It's always sweet music to hear when you realize she made it happen all by herself!


Next, she found those stinky little toes! Started off with left hand grabbing her right foot (vice versa) and now, she's all over them! Just the other day, I think I spotted her trying to eat them! I guess that formula isn't enough!

If formula and stinky toes weren't enough, we started her on solid foods early January. She seems to like oatmeal just fine as well as applesauce and squash. She was not a fan of banana at first as the taste made one of her eyes twitch involuntarily. Kind of freaky but a sign that we'll wait on bananas a little longer!

First teeth came on January 8, 2009 while at a photo session at Sears. I just looked at her and saw the little teethers coming through.


Since then, this is often what you'll see Elaine doing:

As if all these changes over the past month or so wasn't enough, this week she started to show signs of crawling!!! Here I was able to capture her first crawling attempts. She's really working hard to get that bottom of hers off the ground!

Our baby girl has been growing up so fast...she needs to slow down and let us enjoy her baby phase before it's over!

Things I hear from the kids - Part 4

Natalie:

But Mommy, it's not going hurt (while she indeed is doing something to inflict pain, like hanging off my neck from behind)

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what...you had for breakfast! (an unexpected twist to her normal bedtime song)

Peter:

Mommy, do you know something? (typically followed up by some random thought he's having)

Smarsh-schmellow (aka Marshmellow)

Elaine:

(no translation needed)

Christmas 2008

December 18th, 2008: We headed down to Georgia a day before a sizeable ice/snow storm hit the Iowa City area. We spent good times with our family and friends over our two-week visit there.

Reunion of friends at the Anderson's home:

Georgia Aquarium where Peter and Natalie were in awe of the big fish...

...and the moving sidewalk.


Self portraits with Aunt Arlene

Grandparents with grandchildren

The Burer family Christmas 2008

The Lau siblings

Peter & Sam with Peter's new train Peter Sam (huh?)

Elaine kisses with Texas cousin Michael

Natalie's lessons on girl playtime with cousins Julia and Madeline

All snuggled up with Chattanooga cousins Rachel and Sarah

Sweet smiles with Uncle Anthony

We enjoyed everything from family, friends, to the warm Georgia weather.
So fun...we had to do a little holiday dance:

Peter's 4th Birthday party

As his birthday was coming up, we started to ask what kind of birthday cake he wanted. Fear started to set in me as he was coming up with an answer. He had a pretty awesome train cake for his 3rd birthday, which took me a whole day to make.
Last year's cake:
I could only imagine what he'd come up with this year! With a little help from me, we decided we'd have an safari animal cake. I imagined a green sheet cake with animal figurines lining a stream or something. Then, Peter threw in something he really wanted on his cake: a waterfall! Always up for the challenge on birthday cakes, safari animal cake with a waterfall is what he wanted...I would do my best to make it happen!



I think it was a success!

On November 30th, we held Peter's 4th birthday party at Scanlon Gymnasium for some indoor play, cake and snacks. If history has its way of repeating itself, it snowed again on the day of his birthday party. As oppose to last year's ice storm, it was only a light snow so that most of his preschool classmates and our neighbors made it to his party!

It was a great time for everyone, especially Peter who seemed to be having the time of his life!

After an hour of playtime, we moved into the party room where we had snacks (including animal crackers, of course) and the cake. We decorated the room with balloons tied to the party bags and drawings of safari animals. You can't see the drawings well but I took a sample picture of one at home.

Lastly, we sang HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

and had some cake, which everyone wanted piece of the waterfall and which left most people's mouths looking like this:
After cake, Peter opened his presents which was the chaotic moment of the party. Excitement and wrapping paper was everywhere! We didn't have the extra set of hands to capture any pictures, but as Peter opened up his presents, most of the other kids started to shred the wrapping paper into a million little pieces! I guess tearing the paper was all they could do to satisfy their desire for presents too! :) It was good fun and they did help clean up rather quickly in the end.

Mommy with her 4-year old boy...how fast times flies!!!

December 26, 2004

Peter's Preschool Christmas program

Peter's preschool put on a short Christmas program called "Santa's Reindeers" featuring the 3-year old preschool classes. They sang a few traditional Christmas songs and new ones they learned in school, including one of Peter's favorites "Thank you Lord". He's been singing that song at home for weeks!

Afterwards, they had cookies and punch in their classroom. It was a fun time in preparation for Christmas, especially since it was snowing outside!

Here is Peter with his teachers, Nick and Connie.

Natalie and Peter enjoying some of those cookies and punch:

Peter was really excited to be singing in the program.

And finally, Peter really gets into his favorite song...watch out drama department!

Peter is in the antlers behind the girl in the red dress. :)

"Gators in the swamp say 'Thank you Lord' chomp chomp chomp.

/.../

Thank you Lord for making me!"

November 2008: week 4 - Thanksgiving

Otherwise, weeks 2 and 3 were a huge blur to me in November. I just survived having Sam gone for his trips and then worked on recovery once he got back.

Week 4 started off with Elaine turning 5 months old!

Happy 5 months birthday, Elaine!

Elaine also hit a couple of milestones lately. She started to respond to her name on Thanksgiving day! She also has mastered the art of rolling back to belly to back again. She actually learned to roll onto her belly a month or so ago (that's when the longer naps started). She just figured out how to get back onto her back. It's a little painful to watch, but here is one of her earliest moments:




By the end of Thanksgiving weekend, she made the switch to formula milk. Yes, I was just a month shy of the 6-month goal, but felt like I needed it to happen. Elaine took the switch very well. In fact, she started to sleep longer through the night on formula, which was SO NICE!!!!

Aside from having the stomach bug going through our house Thanksgiving week (that was a lot of fun and laundry), this is how we spent our 2008 Thanksgiving:

Natalie did become quite the drummer!

Having not fully recovered from Sam's long trips to Hong Kong and Minneapolis, we decided to get Thanksgiving food from the Bread Garden. It was quite yummy and nice not to slave in the kitchen. I did cook the less stressful garlic/lemon chicken and potatoes meal (sort of looked like a turkey) the next day. I guess I had a little guilt about not cooking some sort of bird for Thanksgiving!