The bathroom is no longer a safe place

Hide your toilet paper. Put your trash can at least 5 feet off the ground. Leave no towels on the racks. Little Mae, aka " Moo" ( more on that later) has become our little bathroom demon. Turn your back for one moment and she will decimate the place. We have included several pieces of photo evidence for your perusal.

Oh, about the nick name "Moo". That would be a combination of "Mae" and "Poo" that was uttered by Michael as he entered the bathroom on night as Mae and Jonah were taking a bath. I will let you fill in the details. (ICK!)

Happy Birthday Beautiful Mae

We love you and we can't believe it's been a whole year. You have brought us so much happiness with your happy, smiley, delicate and loving ways.

Halloween Fun

The Sprouts Co-op Preschool had a wonderful Halloween party hosted by Jon, Kate and Isabel. All the kids dressed up. Thanks to Sandra's sewing skills (Stu's mom) Jonah had a punk rock outfit that matched his buddy Stu's. He was so thrilled that in most pictures his feet weren't even touching the ground (and that was before candy).

Mae was a sweet little lion and enjoyed the comfy warm costume. Hallie was a faerie and I couldn't wear my costume as it was just too scary for the kids. I went as a zombie (though some of the students at Athey Creek thought I was a hobo).


The only problem I see with Halloween is that now Jonah thinks that when we go on walks around the neighborhood he can just knock on a door, say trick or treat and receive candy. If only life worked that way.

New Ideas Everyday

Jonah has made some wonderful observations and posed some intriguing questions recently.
While talking about leaves falling from trees Jonah said, "Do leaves have parachutes?"

While playing down in the basement Jonah found the wireless doorbell button in his horde of toys and said, "the ding dong."
Hallie teased Jonah, "You are a ding dong."
Jonah replied, "I'm not a ding dong mommy I'm a little boy."

Jonah is kind of becoming obsessed with a couple animated movies at the moment. Though he typically only gets to watch about 20 to 30 minutes of tv a day he still chooses to watch the same video each time... Monsters Incorporated. In a quest to end his obsession (because I really can't bare to hear Billy Crystal as the voice of a one eyed little blobby monster anymore) I showed him the movie Cars. Now all he wants to know about is "What is Lighting Mcgween doing right now?" While in the stroller Jonah asked, "Do cars have mouths?"

Now Mae has had some monumental discoveries lately too. Today she clapped and looked at me in anticipation. I clapped and she responded then she decided she needed to clap daddy's hands for him and took my hands in hers and pushed my hands together. It was a sweet moment that ended with both Mae and I giggling about our interaction.

Jonah shared his food with Mae today and invited her to come play in the tent we made out of a sheet in the basement. He let her throw some balls around and play kitchen with us too. Jonah is beginning to warm up to his sister and it only took nearly a year.

So we are doing pretty wonderful ourselves. We just completed a remodel on our house which includd moving the front door and putting a porch on the house. Moving an entryway to a room and making way for our bedroom suite in the back of the house. And we redid our kitchen. We are so happy to have the house done, the kids growing so quickly (bittersweet) and our happy little lives remaining beautiful and full of joy.

This is how it really works

I started to realize the other day that although Michael and I do a lot of work keeping these two little ones alive and happy, it is all the amazing helpers in our lives that keep the two of us alive and happy. And so we are able to keep it together (for the most part!), get on with the task of being parents, and have enough energy to love our babies just a little more. We keep thanking our lucky stars that we have such giving and amazing people in our lives.

So thanks grandma and grandpa diltz, grandma and grandpa clark, kealie and chris, heidi and joe, sandra and sean, gabrielle and ellie, shannon and mike, lori and ryan, terri and ro, erin and craig, jess and dylan, matt and alexis, elke and byron, miq and thui. You are all family to us and we
couldn't pull this off without you. Here's to a wonderful community of friends and family that has enriched our lives so tremedously.

My Precious Little Mae. A Brief Retrospective.

Having two children is not as easy as having one. Of course no one in their right mind said it would be but I still didn't imagine that it would seem more than twice as challenging. For me it often is. Things I thought I'd still have time for, like writing for our family blog, pulling weeds from the garden or taking deep breaths seem to have been pushed to the side for the past 10 months.

I often wonder if years later Jonah and Mae will read these entries and realize that many moments of Jonah's early life were catalogued here whereas Mae will wonder to herself, "I wonder if they love Jonah more than they love me." Not possible my little Mae.

So many things have gone un-recorded here and to recreate a bunch of posts to relive them will not do it all justice so I have put together a bulleted list of the many things I missed posting but think about each and every day when I see my sweet little girl.

• You say dadda like it is the best word in the world (nevermind that besides that and cat you don't really have any other words so I am really only in direct competition with the cat. Now that I think about it you just say my name, smile and point but for the cats you also giggle....hmm)
• You love to feed me crackers, cheese, and anything else you may have been slobbering on. It is sweet even if I sometimes only pretend to eat it.
• You love getting hugs from daddy and it shows.
• I can't go anywhere without someone commenting about your beautiful face or how your hair proves you must be daddy's girl.
• You are so cute it almost hurts and I lose my breath.
• You have the same wonderful, Zen-like, disposition as your mom. (Sorry Jonah but you got more of my disposition than mom's I think. But that is okay, you'll think everything in the world is absolutely intriguing for the rest of your life)
• You love to touch flowers, play in the grass and look at the sky in awe.
• Swings make you happy.
• Your brother makes you happy (even if he currently is in the try-to-kick-Mae-in-the-head-when-no-one-is-looking stage he still gives you the best hugs goodnight)
• You love to point at people and smile
• You love to smile
• I love your smile
• You love to pull yourself up to the little toy piano and bang away.
• You love to maul the cats and for some reason Rufus lets you.
• You eat everything.

I could continue, but these are the moments that I think about and get to live each day. Life has seemed stressful as of late with a house remodel underway, returning to work after an awesome summer off, mom beginning piano lessons again, Jonah starting at our co-op preschool and just the general daily things in life that attempt, but fail, to get in the way of the important stuff; loving you and Jonah.

Jonah's First Day of Preschool..."I Want a Snack"

Today was Jonah's first day of our little community co-op called "Sprouts" and this is what our friend, Luke, had to say about how the kids did. Priceless.

"Let's keep those tips about how to interpret and engage our kidscoming -- they are invaluable. For example we were glad to have heard
from Jonah's folks that "I want a snack" usually actually means he is
ready for something else to do. Because we knew what that meant we
were able to keep engaging him in new activities. He asked to go
home a couple times but was never very upset about it and it was not
hard to get him engaged and having fun again quickly. Overall he and
all the kids did great being patient and engaged and self-entertaining
and were excellent at following directions and making transitions. I
was totally impressed with our little guys! That's pretty much it for
comments on how our kids did. They all seemed pretty happy."