Alice in January

Alice suddenly seems to understand everything we say – well not everything but a lot of things. For a very long time now (months) she’s understood the word bath. Whenever we say “bath time” she takes off running for the tub. Now she seems to understand so much more. When we’re getting ready to head out Alice sits down by the shoe tray and tries to put on her own boots which is hilarious to watch. I think she hears me hassling Norah about it being time to go. If I ask her if she’s hungry she’ll go to her high chair and reach up – because of course she’s hungry! She’s ALWAYS hungry. She has had a voracious appetite lately. That day we went to Costco with my mom? Alice ate half a Costco hot dog and a 1/3 of a churro and every single sample she was offered – which was a lot. I think she might have eaten the other half of the hot dog if we hadn’t given it to Norah. Today, after feeding Alice a Greek yogurt, a clementine, and half a banana, Norah requested a piece of toast. Norah wandered off after eating just half of it and when she came back it was gone. She complained to me that someone had stolen her toast and I thought she was just being her clever self trying to tease me before saying “just kidding mom, I ate it” but she insisted her toast had been stolen. Low and behold Alice was hiding in a corner eating her toast. I didn’t realize she could reach the table! Here she is quickly trying to destroy all the evidence of her theft.Notice the doll in the picture. Alice LOVES this doll. I put the doll to bed in the doll crib in the playroom every night and every morning Alice gets her out of the crib and pushes her around the house in the doll stroller. It is very consistent. If it doesn’t happen before breakfast it certainly happens after. That doll couldn’t ask for a better mom – although lately Alice has been taking her clothes off constantly. Another cute thing she has been doing is bringing us books to read her. Confession: We barely read to her during her first year of life. We didn’t think it was important when she was a little baby and we were just trying to get Alice to bed so we could read to Norah. Before we knew it, she was one and we felt shame. We moved the board books to the living room to promote literacy and it hasn’t taken long for Alice to develop a love of books. When she brings me a book she usually holds it with her arms straight up so she’s holding it over her head and and then she walks toward me, turns around and slowly backs up to sit in my lap. It's so cute I can’t stand it. Other random things – Alice wakes up before anyone else – usually a little before 6. Bryan gets up with her because I pretend to be asleep and they have their own special routines together. This morning I witnessed Alice bring Bryan his shoes (unprompted) when he sat down to put on his socks and I was amazed but Bryan told me she does it all the time. Then he told her he wanted the brown ones (while pointing) not the black ones and she went and got him the other pair! She also always gets a “baby tax” which is some of his cereal.

Alice is joy to be around. We just need to get her to stop waking up at night and we need her to start saying a few more words so she’ll stop her ear piercing squawk every time she wants more food.

Norah in January

Norah is a primary now. She is so happy to be in primary and I love that I’m in there with her for sharing time and get to see her participate. Norah loves her Sunbeam teacher. She probably has the best Sunbeam teacher in the entire church. Her teacher is amazing – she is an artist and a former pre-k teacher and it definitely shows. Norah comes home with these great art projects every week. The first week she came home with a water colored earth. Another week she had a rolled up piece of butcher paper with a life-size outline of Norah (like a gingerbread Norah) and she told us that she was made in God’s image. This last week she came home with this lion mask

and told us that “some bad guys put Daniel in the lion cage because they wanted to punish him but he was a good guy so he prayed and an angel came and shut the lions’ mouths.” I am impressed with how much Norah is absorbing from primary. I hear her singing primary songs to herself during the week and then it reminds me to try to sing them with her. This may or may not be related but I feel like Norah has been especially kind to Alice lately. For example, the other night I was reading books to Norah (we read to them separately because they have different literary interests and that night Norah asked me to read to her) and Alice was clearly jealous and wanted to read with me instead of Bryan. I feel like I’m always passing Norah off to Bryan appease Alice and I’m trying not to do that anymore so I just ignored Alice and kept reading to Norah and she said “Mama, you need to read to Alice. I’ll read with Daddy.” I actually disagree and think that I have plenty of one on one time with Alice and need to have more with Norah but I thought that was so gracious of her and I wasn't about to discourage her generous spirit.

In other Norah news, she’s still coloring away like a maniac and she’s starting to write letters. In anticipation of my mom’s visit she asked how to spell Lorraine and it wasn’t too bad. It is hard to see the yellow but take a lookI love her i. She’s been busy trying to write everyone’s name now. Norah is great company. She can really carry on a conversation and she surprises me with how much she understands. I can’t think of an example, but she often makes observations and then draws conclusions from them that astound me. I’m going to try harder to write things down in February and I’m also going to make a point to get some video of her talking. We’ll have to tape an interview with Norah.

Alice Rocks

Alice loves her rocking moose from Ikea Santa. She rocks out several times a day.

Grandma Lorraine Visits

My mom got a $20 plane ticket to Dallas so she came down for the weekend. It was so great to have her here and Norah is already asking me when she’s coming back.

Some highlights were

- Norah proudly introducing her as her abuela (all on her own!) to her preschool teachers

- Norah showing off her coloring skills and her brand new box of 64 crayola crayons (she’s been reading “The Art Lesson” by Tomie DePaola)

-A trip to McDonalds

-A visit to the Perot Museum

-Grandma getting to witness Alice Rocking on her Moose (there will be a post devoted to that later)

-Grandma getting to observe Norah in primary

-Playing ball at White Rock Lake

- And a trip to Costco

A Rainy Weekend

A few weekends ago we had a torrential downpour that kept us inside. We decided to check out the old Nature and Science museum at Fair Park and it turned out to be a lot of fun. It was just like how I imagine museums being 50 years ago. This place was so out of date that it felt like an intentional preservation. As if it were itself an exhibit on how museums used to be. Our favorite part of the museum was the hall of mammals that were native to Texas and you’d think that would be pretty boring but we were surprised to learn that black bears and grizzly bears and, wait for it, jaguars used to populate Texas.

This is what we did after church the next day

Alice in her cap

I was going through a file from 2013 (its now 2015) and came across a few pictures I didn’t know I had. I was just feeling bad a few days ago that I don’t have more pictures of me holding my babies and it made me feel good to see these of Alice and me. I think I remember taking these now. We were just about to go to dinner at Pier and Paul Larson’s house and I dressed Alice up because I knew Pier would gush over her and she delivered for me!

White Rock Lake

Every Sunday and some Saturdays we go for a walk around White Rock Lake. When outings become routine like this I tend to stop taking pictures of them but today was a little different because Norah asked to ride in the bike trailer. So she went off with Bryan while I took Alice for a walk. I think it was this small deviation from our pattern that prompted me to take pictures. And taking pictures put me in a stop-and-smell- the-roses sort of mood so when Alice arched her back and make it clear she wanted to get out and have a look around I agreed even though she didn’t have shoes.I really should try to take pictures of our typical outings more often because I always appreciate the richness of my life more through a lens.

A Map Of Texas

Over the holiday break Bryan and I watched Bernie (you can find it on Netflix) and I just can’t resist sharing this clip. This guy is NOT an actor; he’s a Texan.

I really really want to visit Austin.