Sometimes I am lonely when Kevin is on call and so I let a certain someone stay up too late with me for weeks at a time, eating ice cream and, most recently, watching the Olympics for hours on end.

Another Little Peter Post

This guy is just melting my heart left and right these days. He LOVES to color and learned where the markers were stored a little while ago. He opened about 30 of them and had them sitting haphazardly on the couch. He just looked at me with the proudest little expression when I found them. Needless to say, they are now stored somewhere else:)

These pictures were taken during a snow storm when we were pretty much inside for 2 or 3 days straight. We were pretty much all going crazy by the end but we had a a good time making Valentines and art projects and cookies.

Better make sure my hands have plenty of this on them:)

That's Jill under there wearing her long, curly and pink hair that she wears almost ALL the time and gets very upset if it is upset from it's meticulously placed position.

I recently found this at the top of the stairs, where Peter had left it. Even "woof woof" needs his blankie on occasion.

Peter watches his big sister like a hawk. If she gets up at the dinner table, he gets up. If she gives me a silly hug, he does. If she wants to go somewhere, he's right behind with his shoes in hand.

He is also trying so many new words. Before if he couldn't say something and you encouraged him to try a word he would just do a grunt of sorts. Now he's mimicking everything and can see his look of concentration when he puts more than one word together, usually when it's something he's copying. He has started saying yes but it sounds like "Yesh."

He has also mastered "the lip" and will do a little huffing and puffing when reprimanded. He'll avoid eye contact until he feels better about things, whether it be having time to think about it or having Mom or Dad explain why he's in trouble and inviting him back to be with us in a sugary voice. It's really hard to be tough when you see this face.

I asked myself an age old question today. Do humans come with an instinct to stay away from certain things? Snakes? Spiders? Toilets, perhaps? Today I found Peter and Jillian in the bathroom having splashed tons of water out of the toilet, all over the bathroom with an open lotion bottle that they dipped in and poured all over the bathroom as well. So, if people do have some sort of an instinct regarding toilets, my kids are missing that gene. As I was scolding Peter, okay, laying in to him, and told him not to EVER play with the toilet, he looked up innocently and said "Ever?" Cute little stinker! Don't worry, they've been disinfected, by Kevin. I just wasn't up for the task. And so my toilet phobia continues...

Peter said his first sentence this week. It was when we were driving in the car and we were giving him Twizzlers to keep him happy. He said "I want more candy."

happy birthday sugar

Today when Grandma asked if Jillian knew how old Daddy was and told her he was 29, she replied (Gasp) "Oh, I thought he was 40!"

I was about to post this in "According to Jillian..." but felt it needed some explanation.

Jillian thinks "getting married" is dancing to fun music because she's watched our wedding video several times. Every so often, when she wants to dance, she'll come downstairs all dolled up and ask Daddy to "get married." Then she'll tell Peter and I to get married too. We've tried to explain a little more but it was seemingly pretty innocent until about a month ago she said "Okay, now let's turn off the music and get pregnant."

WHAT????

We certainly don't use vernacular like that around here!

I'm sure it was just her trying to make sense of words she's heard, not all at once!, but when she put them in order like that she had us laughing and laughing.

Exclamation Point

My mom described Peter as an exclamation point and that description fits so well! Everything he says is an exclamation "Yeah!" "Moo!" "Wait!" "Stop!" "Cheese!" "Please!" "Knock, Knock!" He hasn't walked anywhere since he learned to run but has recently been a good little hand holder in parking lots and even looks back for us, which is so fun. It could be argued that he doesn't always think before he leaps and will throw himself off the couch or into furniture but usually just rubs his head with his hand (the palm rub with cute outstretched fingers like kids do), says "BooBoo," and bounces right back up. We'll have to help him channel this in some athletic way in the future and prevent careless craziness! For a while now he has been walking around repeating, loudly, to himself "Happy! Happy! Happy! Happy!" while he plays. Well, really he says "Huppy" but we know what he means. I have no idea where he picked this up but it's sweet. I love his passion and exuberance. And let me tell you, I'm glad I didn't have this guy when I was 40, because I would be exhausted:)

We went sledding down a really big hill. When we went down with him he'd get snow in his face so he preferred going down by himself.

Puddle jumping, Grandma's idea:)

Pete makes SUCH a mess during every meal that he's gotten used to us pulling out the dustpan and has started helping clean up after himself. Usually it makes more of a mess but we'd better encourage it anyway, right?