The Adventures of the Siewert family

The pros of independence

2012-02-14T21:52:00.000-06:00

It feels like Sara Beth has grown vastly more independent this past week.She has definitely been coming up on her own with new and unique things to do with her time. She decided that Heather needed a present, so she came to me and asked for some wrapping paper. I gave her the remainder of a roll leftover from Christmas. She came back asking for scissors. Then tape (lots of tape). Ribbon and a bow followed. Then, her gift was all wrapped so she brought it out for Heather to unwrap. It was a tupperware container filed with odds and ends from her playroom, but she was really excited that she has wrapped it all by herself.

Speaking of tupperware, Sara Beth pretended to have a picnic in the kitchen. She pulled out all the picnic plates and cups that she needed out of the tupperware cabinet and set them up all over the floor in the kitchen. The best part (for me at least) is that she will no clean up the entire thing and place it all back in the cabinet when she is done without having to be asked twice.

She is still going strong with her chore to feed the cats. One morning, she noticed that the cat's food dish was getting low. Instead of asking Heather to get the food off the shelf over the dryer for her, instead she moved a kitchen chair into the laundry room to use to climb on top of the dryer. She had to use the kitty pooper scooper as a door stop to keep the entry open enough to let her chair through. She was quite proud of her creative solution to get the food without any help, but, in order to avoid accidents in the future, Heather moved the food down to a spot where Sara Beth can reach without the need to climb on any of our appliances.

Then, there was the time this weekend where I noticed that the lens on the camera was having some issues. After questioning Sara Beth, she admitted that she had been using the camera to take pictures. She had taken about 10 pictures including the below one. I'm glad she admitted to using the camera, as the below photo would have incriminated her beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Not to be outdone, Hudson has been working hard to catch up with his sister. Heather swears that he has grown by a foot overnight. Sunday night, while working on his growth spurt, he slept from 8pm to 7am without interruption! Unfortunately, he is a noisy sleeper, and often it is hard to tell if he is just making noises while sleeping or he is awake and crying for attention.

Sara Beth definitely is taking after her mom when it comes to cleaning. While feeding the cats Saturday morning, she noticed that the place mat that the food dish sits on was dirty. So she carefully takes it into the kitchen to clean. As soon as she begins that, she goes back to the laundry room and notices that the spot on the tile where the place mat sat is also dirty. So she begins to clean that too. Then she wants to sweep the laundry room floor. And then she asked to mop it. I felt like I was living in the "If you give a mouse a cookie" book, but since Sara Beth was doing such a good job of cleaning, I'm not going to complain too much.

Chores

2012-02-06T20:48:00.000-06:00

Sara Beth has significantly matured these past two weeks. She said she wanted to take the money in her piggy bank to buy a stuffed animal. We counted it up and told her that $5.43 was not going to be enough, but that she could trade some of the stuffed animals she does have with some extra stuffed animals we have in the attic. She did trade some out but then asked how she could get some more money. I told her if she dusted the house, I would give her 10 cents. I think we both came out ahead on that exchange. I then told her that she could start earning an allowance. Her first responsibility is feeding the cats. Every morning since then, she has gotten up to check the cat's food and water bowels. Also, she likes talking to Heather on my cell phone whenever she can.

My Aunt and Uncle came into town to visit my parents this past week. Sara Beth really took to Aunt Carol and wanted to show her all of her toys and asked if she wanted to watch cartoons with her.

Hudson has been very smiley recently. He will grin from ear to ear quite easily, and really turns up the charm for women. There has already been one instance where a mother, who had decided she was done having kids, has now decided to grow her family after seeing Hudson a couple times.

Sara Beth said that she wanted a doll house. Heather suggested that they build and decorate one themselves. So they sat down and began to overhaul a cardboard box. Sara Beth put up a gigantic TV with hearts on it along one wall, and Heather built and upholstered a cardboard couch in wrapping paper. Sara Beth decorated the walls with wallpaper and the occasional bat sticker. She was very proud of how it turned out once they were done.

Hudson has returned to a steady and relatively consistent sleeping schedule. Most of the time he will sleep through the night with one feeding around 4am and then he takes a long nap in the afternoon. Today, however, his long afternoon nap continued into the evening. Around 8pm, Heather and I look at each other and decide that we should go wake him up so he can have his medicine and one last feeding for the night. Hopefully, he hasn't thrown himself off of schedule; I don't want to stay up too much past midnight tonight. Here is an unrelated picture of Hudson smiling.

Hudson party

2012-01-27T21:02:00.000-06:00

The big news this past week is that Hudson has begun to sleep through the night. Sunday, he slept till 3:30am. Monday, he slept to 5:30am. Heather and I were starting to get all excited that this was his new sleeping schedule, and to celebrate, we stayed up late till 11 the next night assuming we would get a full nights rest. Instead, that night night, Hudson decided to wake up at midnight and fuss till 3am.Fortunately, last night, he went back to sleeping till 3am again.

Hudson loves to be held. If we set him down to cook dinner, then he begins to get upset. Fortunately, Sara Beth is a great big sister and tries to keep him entertained until we can pick him back up again.

Heather talks about how big Hudson's smiles are. They start at the top of his head and reach all the way down to the bottom of his feet. Hudson smiles a lot more for Heather than for me, but every now and again, he will break out into a huge grin for me as well.

Whew

2012-01-18T19:51:00.000-06:00

Well the past week has been a blur. On Monday, a friend at work asked me what I did over the weekend, and I couldn't remember. I think it involved Hudson fussing though. This past week, Hudson has definitely been exercising his lungs instead of sleeping. Today, Heather took Hudson to the doctor, and he prescribed a different acid reflux medicine. Hudson took the medicine, slept for nearly 5 hours, and woke up full of smiles and sunshine. He is back to being a sweet happy baby.

Hudson does enjoy sitting in my lap at dinner time.Ignore the rings around my eyes.

Sara Beth doesn't sit in a seat quite as well as her brother once she is done eating. Instead, she tries to grab a bite of Heather's rice crispy treat. Initially, she tried to grab mine, but I stuffed mine in my mouth before she could grab it.

Sara beth takes being a big sister seriously. She will try to help keep Hudson happy. She will bring him toys, play peek-a-boo with him, or help hold in his pacifier.

This past week, Sara Beth had a specific plan on how she wanted her hair done. She directed Heather on where to put the braids and where to put the bows. She willingly let herself be photographed with a smile on her face once she saw how good her idea turned out.

Visit from the wise men

2012-01-10T20:38:00.001-06:00

Sara Beth must have been paying attention to her Sunday school lessons around Christmas; her latest fad is dressing up in a blanket and crown and then claiming to be one of the wise men that came to see Jesus. I asked her if she was a wise woman, but Sara Beth didn't seem too keen on it since they weren't mentioned in that Bible story.

Hudson is growing like a weed. We now have had several people come up to us and tell us that he is now a real baby and no longer a newborn. We have had to put up all his newborn clothes and have moved into the 3-6 month clothes.

Sara Beth and Hudson pose for the camera, but I think that Hudson was more interested in getting his breakfast than in getting his picture taken.

Monday morning, when Hudson was napping, Sara Beth and Heather spent a morning playing "hair salon." They washed, combed and brushed a full assortment of dolls and stuffed animals.

So supposedly, it is winter. I'm not really convinced. A couple days, after I get home, we have gone as a family to the park. Sara Beth has become much more proficient at riding her bicycle. I have only had to carry it home once.

We put Hudson in the swing for the first time. His eyes opened wide up. I couldn't tell if that meant that he liked it, or that he was scared of it. I'll assume the first option and keep putting him in there.

Out of town company

2011-12-31T14:51:00.001-06:00

We are already to January 3rd, and I have yet to catch you up on all the excitement around here. So I am still behind on the blog posts. This one comprises December 26th through yesterday. And once this is published, I will be all caught up. Who would have thought that having two children would be so time consuming?

Heather's mom and step-dad were able to come in town to visit. They got to play with Sara Beth and hold Hudson, which meant that Heather and I could sit and have a bit of a break. I think everyone thought they were getting the good end of the deal on that one.

While shopping at the local Sam's Club, Sara Beth went in one cart with "Ms Cindy and Mr Dennis" and went off in one direction while Heather and I went in another direction to fill our own cart. When we met up at the checkout lane, our cart was full of practical items like cat litter and popcorn, while Sara Beth's cart had some strikingly pink items in it. When we got home, Sara Beth had to try on her new stuff.

This past week, we also went ice skating for the first time. Sara Beth enjoyed it, as long as I held her up. I enjoyed it too, once I found a pair of ice skates that did not crush my feet into pulp. And holding up 40 pounds of dead weight while in a crouch was a good back workout.

At one point, she did want to ice skate on her own. She successfully went back and forth from me to the wall of the rink several times, then she wanted me to help her spin like the professionals on TV. After a while, we had to get off the ice for the Zamboni machine. The driver kept smiling and waving at Sara Beth as he circled past. Sara Beth decided she wanted to meet the driver after he was done on the ice. I was not as amused about her wanting to hang out with the first guy that gave her attention.

At the end of last week, Assi and her friend Sue were able to come by. It was good to catch up with Assi, and, of course, it is always fun to show off Hudson to whomever comes by to visit.

I think Hudson really enjoyed everyone that came in town and held him last week. Now, he figures that he needs to be held at all times, and if he is not being held, then he will work his hardest to inform us of this. We're slowly easing him back into the real world.

Christmas

2011-12-31T14:18:00.000-06:00

Well, these weeks seem to be going by more and more quickly. Hopefully it had something to do with it being Christmas. Yes, I do know Christmas was already a week ago. And, yes, I'm behind on the blog posting, I'm planning on catching up this weekend.

So, lets get started. Jill came down for a week of relaxation before Christmas. And how better to relax than with a sleeping Hudson. He works like a tranquilizer.

On Christmas eve, we went to my parents' church along with Heather's aunt, uncle, and cousins. Right as we sat down for the service, Hudson started to make noises in his sleep as if he were hungry, so Heather whisked him out to get ready to feed him, but he wouldn't eat. After service, we all went back to my parents' house, and Hudson decided to finally eat right as we were sitting down for dinner. He successfully prevented Heather from being in the service and from eating with the rest of us. He has pretty good timing for things like that, but on the other hand, Hudson gave us a wonderful Christmas present by nearly sleeping through the night. He got up at midnight and 4am, but slept the rest of the night!
That helped us get some rest because Sara Beth was definitely ready to open her Christmas presents in the morning. We let her open the gifts in her stocking and then got ready to go to church since it was Sunday morning.

After church, we went to my parents' house for lunch, and then back to our house to unwrap the mountains of gifts that had appeared. It was a little crazy how much there was to unwrap. We went around the circle unwrapping gifts one at a time. About half way through, Sara Beth grew tired of unwrapping and went in the other room to play with the gifts she already had, so the rest of us took turns unwrapping the rest of her gifts.

We tried three different times to get a Christmas family photo. In every situation, at least one person was rather unhappy.

I may just have to break out the photoshop tools and create a composite photo.

Notice that in the one photo where Sara Beth decides to smile, Hudson decides that he is now unhappy.

Rotovirus

2011-12-21T20:37:00.000-06:00

Well, this was a long week. In the middle of the night, I hear Sara Beth calling from her room, "my tummy hurts". I go back and take her to the bathroom and bring her back to bed. She still says that her stomach hurts and asks for some tummy medicine. She has done this many times before as a delay tactic to avoid me going back to sleep. I tell her she's fine and make her lay down to go back to sleep. Then she vomits. All over her bed. And her hair.

So it turns out she really wasn't crying wolf this time. We have been very fortunate as this is the first time she has been really sick. She mostly laid around the house not eating until she felt better Thursday.

Hudson, on the other hand, has been eating like crazy and growing like a weed. Heather took Sara Beth to the Dr to check out what was causing the vomiting. While there, Hudson got a checkup, and the Dr's exact words were "this amount of growth is not typical". He has gained another pound.
But he now fusses through the night, so that had cut into our allocated sleep time too. Who thought having kids would be so tiring :)

Hudson's dedication

2011-12-18T20:26:00.000-06:00

Well, you know how I have been saying that Hudson is a champion sleeper and that Heather and I have been getting tons of rest? Well, I take it all back. The past several nights, he has been a rather restless sleeper, and has kept Heather and I up most of the night. This more closely matches the expectations about having another infant around, and we did get some reflux medicine for Hudson on Friday that should help with the issue.

The big news is today, we stood up in front of the church to dedicate ourselves as parents to raising Hudson as part of a God oriented family. Sara Beth came up to, though I held her the whole time since she was a little apprehensive about being in front of the whole church.

A package came in the mail from Heather's dad and Assi on Friday. Sara Beth saw the gift to her and asked to open it early. Heather acquiesced, and Sara Beth got to work playing with her new unicorn puzzle, though she did need a little help putting it back together again.

Hudson has really started to fill out. He definitely has a double chin now, and, in addition to keeping us up in the middle of the night, he is also starting to be more aware of us during the daytime, and has begin to track us with his eyes.

He is also getting really good at pooping. Really good. The picture doesn't really do this justice, so let me give the story. Friday night, Heather is playing with Sara Beth while I go to give Hudson a bath. I draw the bath water and undress him. I then take off his diaper as I move him up into the tub but not quickly enough. He squirts a good amount of poop onto my pants. At this point, I stop and call out to Heather to bring me a wipe to clean myself off. Hudson then squirts some more onto my other pant leg. I figure he is definitely done by this point, but he proves me wrong by then pooping again on the carpet and the side of the tub. Needless to say, Heather ended up giving Hudson a bath while I took a shower.

Quite often, we are asked how Sara Beth is handling being a big sister. So far, she has been wonderful. If Hudson is crying in his swing, she will ask if she can go push him. She tries to help me carry his car seat around, and this morning, she sat down in front of him and ate her breakfast while watching him sleep.

School let out for winter break last Thursday, so they celebrated their happy birthday Jesus party in class that day. They had a book exchange.

And got to eat cupcakes. They also had juice boxes, but nearly all juice boxes contain apple juice in them. Sara Beth's digestive system reacts poorly to apple juice (in her own words, she has said it turns her poop into syrup). Fortunately, Heather had a spare water bottle for Sara Beth to drink, so we were syrup free that day.

More cookies and a bath

2011-12-13T22:09:00.001-06:00

First of, Heather wanted to point out that Hudson grew 1.75 inches for his 2 week checkup, not a measly 1 inch. I stand corrected.

Since Hudson arrived and Heather has been recovering from the c-section, I have made her lay low and stick to reduced activity levels. But when Sara Beth requested to bake Christmas cookies with Heather, she couldn't resist saying no. Sara Beth was having a lot of fun until too many of the yellow sprinkles gushed from the container. That resulted in some tears, but it all got resolved in the end and eventually all the cookies were decorated and she ended up giving some to her teachers at school.

Hudson got his first bath yesterday. Sara Beth said she wanted to help, and we figured it wouldn't be an issue for a little while. Sara Beth actually did a good job of cleaning his belly and arms. I handled everything below the waist, and Heather cleaned Hudson's face and hair. All in all, it was a success.

Growing like a weed

2011-12-10T22:41:00.001-06:00

Hudson went in for his two week checkup on Friday. He has gained 13 ounces (up to 7 pounds 6 ounces) and has grown nearly an inch since he was last measured 10 days ago. If he continues at this rate, he will overtake his sister before he is 6 months old. Also, I found that I enjoy making him ride a cat like a cowboy.

So, in the past couple days, Sara Beth has asked two big questions. First, she asked if we could get another baby. She wanted another baby brother or sister. While that is a huge compliment to Hudson's temperament, we told her God made our family with four in it.Then, she asked if Santa Clause was real, I sort of side stepped that question as I was not prepared to answer it yet.

After lunch on Friday, she asked if she could do some dusting around the house. I gave her the duster and told her to go wild. And, as you see, she is in her gymnastics leotard. She is enamored with gymnastics.

In case she didn't love going to the gym enough, today, one of her fellow gym classmates had her 4th birthday party and rented out the gym to play. Sara Beth had a great time getting to use the big girl equipment. She loved running up to the horse and then I would help her jump up onto it, then she would leap from there into the foam pit. There was a rope swing into the pit as well, but she bumped the rope into her teeth and didn't want to do it again after that. I tried the rope swing after all the kids went into the other room to eat cake and ended up tearing off a layer of skin from rope burn. I think the lesson here is that I need to develop a stronger grip.

Cookies and Tummies

2011-12-07T20:24:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I worked a full day at my job, the first full day since Hudson arrived. Heather has almost completely recovered from her c-section. I can tell she is doing better because she has resumed cleaning and laundry again instead of allowing anyone else to do it for her.

Today, Heather and the kids went over to my parents house to help bake Christmas cookies. Sara Beth studiously placed the red-hots on the cookie Christmas wreaths and pressed out the sugar cookies.

We thought that Hudson should start doing his "tummy time." Sara Beth loved it, never fussing when she was placed onto her stomach, and Hudson appears to be the same way. He pulled his head up and looked around for quite a while. Sara Beth sat next to him and practiced her flash cards for colors, shapes and letters. She got all of them right and was showing them to Hudson one at a time so he could get a head start on learning.

Family, games and books

2011-12-05T20:38:00.001-06:00

Heather's aunt and uncle were able to come over on Sunday to hang out for a while. Hudson, of course, made an excellent arm warmer while Sara Beth performed her duties as a tour guide, pointing out her play room, her room, and Hudson's room.

I have been trying out different genres of video games with Sara Beth to see if any of them interest her. So far, she has gotten a kick out of the original Mario Brothers and Marble Madness. This weekend, I tried the more recent Zelda: Wind Waker. She really enjoyed the more cartoon appearance to the game and so we played it for a couple hours over the course of the weekend. Sara Beth sat in my lap and helpfully pointed out whenever I missed a coin or when to hide when I tried to sneak past a guard.

I went into work for the first time since Hudson was born. I only worked in the morning, so that I could slowly ease back into things. I was a little concerned that Sara Beth had gotten used to me around the house and would cause trouble now that I wasn't around. I needn't have worried. Instead, she tucked Hudson into a custom made pink bed (with Heather's help), and then read to him.

Glass and pictures

2011-12-03T20:23:00.001-06:00

Well, yesterday was exciting. Sara Beth got to go to the urgent care center. She stepped on a piece of glass, and it embedded itself too far into her foot for me to extract. So we go to the local urgent care center. All the way, she is asking if she is going to get a shot, and we couldn't give her a definitive answer. The answer turned out to be yes, the doctor did give a shot of lidocaine before digging around in her food. That was Sara Beth's least favorite part of the trip. Her favorite part was when they gave her a handful of suckers to munch on, though one did end up getting stuck in her hair.

Heather made some tutus for our friend Melissa. In exchange, Melissa said she would take some photos of Sara Beth and Hudson. From what I saw, the photos look excellent. She really has a way with kids.

Initially, Sara Beth was not interested in getting her photo taken at all. After some persuasion and a pep-talk, she reluctantly agreed to it. About half way through, she really got into it, especially when she saw that Hudson got his picture taken too. Every shot that Hudson got, she wanted to be photographed in a duplicate pose. This got difficult when Hudson's picture was taken in a basket that Sara Beth couldn't fit.

A warm December

2011-12-01T21:21:00.001-06:00

Its December first, which means: first day of the advent calendar. Sara Beth has been eagerly awaiting this day since we put it up at the beginning of the week. After a busy morning of practicing her gymnastics moves around the living room, Sara Beth got the opportunity to open the first door.

Hudson still sleeps like a champ. He did cause a little trouble last night around 1am when he couldn't decide whether he was hungry or sleepy, and he kept deciding the opposite of what we were providing at that moment.Once we began stripping of his swaddled blankets and me poking him, he stayed awake long enough to finish eating and the crisis was averted.

We got several packages in the mail today. Hudson got an authentic University of Alabama outfit from Heather's dad, which Heather was very excited about, and Sara Beth got a box of candy from Heather's cousin, which she was excited about.

She got to take the sucker with her while we went on a walk around the block, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather. By the time we got home, this is what Sara Beth's face looked like.

Also, while on the walk, Sara Beth found a burnt out Christmas light that she wanted to turn into a necklace. I eagerly got out the soldering iron out and began to attach a ring to the bottom of the light bulb to loop some ribbon through. She was excited, until it began to smoke and emit the typical solder odors. Then she was less interested in being nearby.

I must say, Hudson is like a tranquilizer. I planned to hold him on the couch for a while. Heather took this picture of me in the middle of my hour long impromptu nap.

Outside

2011-11-30T20:24:00.001-06:00

Supposedly, it is getting colder outside as we get closer to Christmas, but, apparently, the weather has it's own plans. It was a nice spring like day so we decided to spend part of it outside. Hudson said "Hi" from his protected position under blankets.

Sara Beth was very excited and begged Heather to let her help push the stroller around.

Meanwhile, I was climbing on our roof installing Christmas lights. Fortunately, I learned from last year's mistakes and successfully avoided blowing any fuses. Surprisingly, Sara Beth was not interested in going for a walk this evening to look at Christmas lights around the neighborhood. Instead, she was enthralled in watching me play Zelda: Wind Waker. I began playing the cartoon like game while she was waking up from her nap, and, if she had it her way, we would have played that game all evening long. After she finished her dinner, she asked if she could wait in the TV room for me to finish my dinner. And when she went to bed for the night, when I asked her to come up with a happy thought to ponder while going to sleep, she said she would think about playing Zelda with me.

Another day, another 20 diapers.

2011-11-29T19:36:00.001-06:00

Hudson is still pooping like a champ. But, fortunately, he is sleeping like a champ too. He slept from 1 am on, and at 5 am, I woke up with a start and realized he had not woken us up all night. I rushed to ensure that he was still breathing. He was sleeping contentedly until I woke him up 30 minutes later to make him eat.

While Sara Beth went to school, I drove Hudson and Heather to their respective doctors. Hudson was examined and weighed, and, even with all the sleep he has been getting, instead of loosing weight like the typical baby after leaving the hospital, he has actually gained 3 ounces since Sunday! Heather got her staples removed, and is definitely feeling better (She was not weighed at her appointment, but she probably wouldn't want me posting any weight details even if they were part of her appointment).

When Sara Beth got home from school, she wanted to hold Hudson. We let her, under close supervision. She wanted to rock him back and forth rather rapidly. Fortunately, Heather was at arms reach to help instruct in the proper ways to rock a baby.

For dinner, I got some chocolate mint milk for Sara Beth. She loved it and even licked the inside of the glass after drinking every last drop of it.

Preparing for Christmas

2011-11-28T20:36:00.001-06:00

Well, there are certainly skills that I need to remember about caring for a baby.

Skill one: not getting pooped on. Last night, I changed Hudson's diaper 5 times. Once, he peed on the wall. Twice, I got pooped on. Several times, I put on a clean diaper, just to have him immediately soil it. I think I only had one diaper changing mission that completed without incident.

Skill two: functioning on less sleep. Heather looked at me last night after feeding Hudson and asked "Do you think I should feed him on the other side, or give him some junk food?" I told her "Just feed him on the other side," to which she responded, "Oh, but he brought his baseball and football here." She had no recollection of the conversation in the morning when I asked her about it.

Hudson's great aunt Sue headed back to the cold land of Wisconsin, and his great great aunt travels back to Georgia tomorrow morning, so they dropped by to say good by. We were able to snap some 4 generation photos.

Along with the first picture of Heather, Hudson, and I. Sara Beth was in no way interested in getting her picture taken, so she was off to the side waiting to eat lunch. We'll have to wait a little longer to get all four of us in a single picture.

Traditionally, we will put up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Hudson put a monkey wrench in those plans. But today, we began the process. Hudson supervised from his swing. He pretty much slept through the day, only waking on occasion to poop on me, or to get some more food (which he quickly turned into more poop).

Sara Beth got all excited about the decorations and all the people, so she decided to change into her gymnastics leotard and show off some of her tumbling skills. A little later she asked me to be the gym teacher, so I gave her some routines to preform

Sara Beth kept asking about the Christmas tree angel. So, once we put on all the ornaments and lights, she helped me put the angel on the tree.

Coming home

2011-11-27T22:18:00.001-06:00

Heather successfully talked the doctors into letting her and Hudson come home late this afternoon. We had to wait around while they prepared the discharge papers, but we got out.

Hudson looked even smaller in the car seat than Sara Beth did when we came home with her.

Once we got home, we got out the big sister gift that "Hudson got" for Sara Beth. It was a bag full of dress up outfits and dresses.

The Snow White dress was definitely her favorite and she immediately put it on and even smiled for the camera.

We tried to get a picture of me with Sara Beth and Hudson, but Sara Beth was acting all squirrelly and was no longer interested in giving a proper smile for the camera.

After prying the princess dress of of her, we finally got Sara Beth into bed. She popped right back out when she heard Hudson fussing while I changed his diaper in her new sibling's bedroom. Currently, Hudson falls asleep much more readily.

And there was evening and there was morning.

2011-11-27T08:55:00.001-06:00

Well, that afternoon nap pretty much extended through the evening and into the night. We didn't to much of anything except try to catch up on sleep. Fortunately, Hudson seemed to agree to this plan. He woke up about four or five times through the night to eat, but other than that, he slept peacefully, which means that Heather and I were able to sleep peacefully too (aside from the regular disturbances from the nurses).

We, hopefully, will be allowed to go home today. This is a nice hospital, but we are definitely looking forward to getting back to our bed. Sara Beth has been really good staying with my parents, but I'm sure she is ready for us to be back too.

I realized I never took pictures of the room. It does have a view of the trains (which Sara Beth liked to watch when she is here). Again, it's pretty, but our house is prettier.

Holding a baby

2011-11-26T15:40:00.001-06:00

Who doesn't like holding a baby? Right around lunch time, my family came back to visit. They brought flowers in exchange for the opportunity to hold Hudson. Grandmas love that sort of thing.

Hudson's great aunt Alma also got to hold him as well. Her wrist is doing much better now that it has a brace on it. Sara Beth and my aunt Sue got to hold him as well, but I wasnt quick enough with the camera to capture that.

Of course, no one holds Hudson better than his mommy.

Sara Beth ate lunch in bed next to Heather. She got some mac and cheese from the cafeteria and then finished her meal with some strawberry frozen yogurt. By the time she had finished up, both Heather and Hudson were about to pass out, so I kicked everyone out of the room so they could get a good afternoon nap.

Good morning

2011-11-26T09:44:00.001-06:00

Well, we all slept during the night. It has been less than a day and we can already tell differences between Hudson and Sara Beth. When Sara Beth was in the hospital, she fussed as soon as her diaper got a little dirty. Hudson, on the other hand, was not upset at all about a dirty diaper. He was more upset about us having to change him.

Here he is taking his hearing test. He passed with flying colors.

Visitors

2011-11-25T18:58:00.001-06:00

Whew. That was quite a rush. We have a lot of extended family on both sides come to see Hudson. First and foremost, we let Sara Beth in to meet her new baby brother. She kept asking to pet his hair and his hands. Through the whole ordeal Hudson happily snuggled next to his mother like a champ.

Once Sara Beth got acquainted with the newest member of the family, we allowed my family to come in and meet baby Hudson. But then they got kicked out when the nurse came by to clean Heather's incision. As they were going out into the hall, Heather's family arrived too. Once Heather got all cleaned up, her family got to come in the room, but just long enough to say hi, before the nurse said that everyone had to get out so Hudson could nurse some more.

So everyone but Sara Beth got kicked out again. Sara Beth got to open a present for herself and also one for Hudson as well.

Sara Beth was ready for dinner, but we had to wait for my great aunt. She had hurt her wrist so she was seeing the doctor while we were all down at the hospital. The doctor was slow. Very slow. Very very slow. Sara Beth was patient, but as soon as Alma entered the room, they left to go get some Chinese food and then head home. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, everyone will be able to see Hudson a longer consecutive period of time.

We got him!

2011-11-25T14:01:00.001-06:00

The nurse's brought him back. Heather has to hold him skin to skin for at least an hour: doctor's orders. Heather didn't complain at all.

Well, that's unexpected

2011-11-25T12:51:00.001-06:00

So I had a blog post that I was finishing up, that included some awesome pictures of Sara Beth partying for Thanksgiving. Well, that post will have to wait, because this is now officially the Siewert Family blog. Hudson decided to come early.

He is a happy and healthy 6 pounds and 13 oz. (Initially I thought he was 6 lbs 11 ozs) We don't know how tall he is yet. They have not brought him back from the nursery. The sonogram doctor was right; he does have big feet. The c-section went well and both him and Heather are healthy.

I don't know if it was Heather's well practiced skill as a mother, or if Hudson is a natural nurser. He got right to nursing and happily snuggled his mother.

They had to take him off to the nursery for his bath and for some shots, and so right now we are waiting around in our room for the nurses to bring him back.

Older post

2011-11-22T20:11:00.001-06:00

So this is an older post that I was working on. If you are interested in the latest and greatest pictures of our newest addition to the family, scroll on down to the next post.

I needed to fix a skylight diffusor and it involved cutting melted plastic. Sara Beth wanted to help, and to avoid having bits of molten plastic fling into her eye, I put on safety goggles. Unfortunately, my hand slipped and the goggles ended up poking Sara Beth in the eye. We ended up doing the cutting the next night once her eye got better.

Sara Beth has been very sweet and snuggley. She was even able to grab an unsuspecting Catta and snuggled her for a picture.

Some of my extended family came in town for Thanksgiving. Sara Beth decided that her Great-Great Aunt Alma needed a painted shell as a present. It is chock full of pink and purple paint and pink glitter. The day after, she asked if she could make one for herself too.

Winter is nearly here. We went out for a walk, and I thought Sara Beth looked so cute, so I tried to take a picture of her. She was not amused about her walk being delayed.

She is not a fan of being delayed while getting a snack either. In case you cannot tell, that is her not amused face.

So, great great aunt Alma, great aunt Sue, Aunt Jill, and Uncle John and Aunt Ali came into town for the Thanksgiving holiday. My sister stayed over at our house. The next morning, when Jill got up, Sara Beth walked over to her and said "I have a lot of toys in my play room. Do you want to come see?" Jill said yes, and so Sara Beth showed off all of her toys.

We went over to my parent's house for the big Thanksgiving meal. Sara Beth kept her great aunt company while they watched the Packers beat the Lions.

There was ham and Sara Beth ate her fill of it, along with some of the delicious cranberries, sweet potatoes, and all sorts of other goodies.

After the meal, we headed over to visit with Heather's Aunt and Uncle. Sara Beth had ran around so much that she was exhausted and actually fell asleep in the car. Little does she know that the next day, it would get even more exciting.

Another Sara

2011-11-16T22:25:00.001-06:00

One day this past week, Heather and Sara Beth went to the store to get some things for Hudson's room. While there, Sara Beth found a friend:

Sara Beth decided that this pet elephant would be named Sara, which, I guess, is better than the name she had previously given to her other elephant: Zero. She has taken this new stuffed animal around with her everywhere. When I went to Walmart, she put Sara into her baby doll stroller and wheeled her around the store. When we sat down to eat some popcorn, cheese, and fruit while watching TV on Sunday evening, Sara came along too (Sara Beth is the one in a tutu).

Sara Beth even wanted Heather to put a sweatshirt on Sara to keep her warm and dry. Heather was making a slurping noise as Sara "licked" Sara Beth.

Another thing Sara Beth got this week was a book full of wallpaper samples. She decided she needed to put the wallpaper on the walls (duh, where else would it go?). So, with Heather cutting the samples out, Sara Beth would tape them on whichever wall or door she felt it would go best.

Parties and cleaning

2011-11-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Sara Beth had a great time on Halloween. We had plans to go trick or treating with two other families, but as we walked around the neighborhood, we saw more and more friends, and the gaggle of children grew larger and larger. At one point, we had about 15 kids and 10 adults all roving from house to house in one massive group. It was sheer chaos. Bara Beth had a good time, and brought back a decent haul of candy.

In preparation for Hudson, we decided we needed to get the carpets professionally cleaned. It is cheaper if they don't have to move any of the furniture. So the night before they came to clean, we moved all the furniture off the carpets. We put most of Sara Beth's stuff on the back patio. She still wanted to play with some of her toys, so I helped navigate her through the obstacle course. And of course, we may be in a sever drought here in Texas, but the one day we put indoor furniture on the back patio meant that it had to rain a little that evening.

In addition to cleaning the carpets, I needed to do some maintenance on the rocking chair. It was a cheap one from walmart, which Heather used extensively while nursing Sara Beth. The hinges were getting old and squeaking. The chair came with a ottoman that had the same type of hinges and was not as heavily used. So I swapped around the hinges and re-greased the whole thing. Sara Beth was a good helper during the process.

Heather's birthday was back on the 27th. Sara Beth, of course, helped open all of her presents.

For those of you who don't know, the Dallas area is experiencing a massive shortage of rain. My dad found a way to take advantage of the situation and take us down to the lake. The water level was down about 10 feet, which meant that the shore line had receded back about a quarter mile from where it used to be, and what used to be the lake bottom was now dry land. It was a perfect time to explore and collect shells.

Sara Beth picked up on the shell collection procedures quickly. She scurried around collecting shells in her bucket. As the bucket got more and more full, I asked her if she wanted to start taking out some of the smaller or broken shells to make more room for the larger ones, but she didn't want to give up any of them. Eventually, her bucket was full, and so heavy that she asked Heather to carry it for her.

Sara Beth had a school recital this past week. Just like the recitals from last year, she sang out long and loud, but this time, she had friends in her class that she wanted to play with once the performance was over.

Preparing for Halloween

2011-11-08T23:02:00.001-06:00

Boy howdy. I'm behind on posting. Let me finish up this post I started last week, and then post the Halloween pictures by Friday in a feeble attempt to catch up.

We went to the McKinney farmer's market over the weekend. We had fun looking at all the fresh produce and bought some beef jerky. While looking at one of the stands, the seller asked us if Sara Beth was answered in getting her face painted. Of course, the answer was yes, and she selected a picture of Hello Kitty to be applied to her face. Only after the painting had been finished did we find out that she charged $3 for her time.

My dad decided to take us on a tour around the yard on the lawn mower. Sara Beth had a giant grin on her face the whole time as we tested the torque capacity of the little mower's motor. There were definitely some times I worried it wouldn't have enough power to pull all of us up a steep part of the lawn, but it always made it through.

We carved pumpkins in preparation for Halloween. Sara Beth drew out her pumpkin's design. She requested heart shaped eyes and she added the mouth and hair. Once she added the hair, I began to cut off the top so that we could scoop out the insides. She was adamant that I be careful to make sure I didn't cut through any of the pumpkin's hair.

Carving my pumpkin was a much more speedy ordeal. With a 3/4" drill bit on a power drill, I was able to carve my face in under a minute, a new personal record. Sara Beth complained that I was making a mess, and, to be honest, there definitely was a lot of pumpkin bits that were flying about as I made my cuts.

Sara Beth will routinely ask to use the camera. In this case, I let her take a picture, and it appears that all the camera practice is starting to pay off. Below you can notice that I am fully in the frame, and it honestly looks more artistic than any pictures I make for the blog.

Sara Beth and Hudson got care packages in the mail. Sara Beth had a big grin on her face as she help unpack her's and Hudson's things.

Sara Beth is here trying out her Halloween costume. We let her play with it early. The tiara is a little broken, since she was not being careful with it, but it still mostly works, and it will be dark out when we go trick or treat, so no one will notice.

Around the house

2011-10-26T23:38:00.000-05:00

Sara Beth baked some cookies all by herself this week after watching Heather regularly make cookies. Some firefighters were going to come to her school, and her teachers sent home a note requesting that the parents bring some sweets for the occasion. Heather told Sara Beth where the ingredients were, and how much of each needed to be put in the mixing bowl. The only thing that Heather did was put the cookie sheet in the oven.

Heather has made several awesome fleece blankets as Christmas presents. Sara Beth wanted to get in on the action and carefully measured her cuts using the scraps that Heather gave her. She put the scraps in her "sewing bag" that she toted around the house.

Sara Beth can now brushing her teeth with minimal supervision. I still need to give her teeth a good once over to ensure that they have been brushed in their entirety, but she has the general actions down.

She cares for her two Emma Rose dolls, Emma Rose and Emma Rose's cousin, Emma Rose. She asked Heather to tuck them snuggly into the baby carrier so that Sara Beth could carry them around without being concerned about them getting cold.

With Halloween quickly approaching, Heather found a Halloween cookie decorating kit that was already on clearance. They decorated some haunted house cookies. Initially, Sara Beth asked if she could have a whole cookie, but soon realized that we would only allow her a small portion as an after dinner desert.

And, lastly, Sara Beth has begun helping Heather fix her hair in the mornings. She loves using the brush and hair dryer. We don't let her play with the curling iron yet.

Uncle John's Wedding

2011-10-18T21:42:00.003-05:00

I'm slowly catching up on the backlog of pictures I have accumulated. So these are the pictures from the week of the 6th of October. And a lot happened that week. First off, Hudson decided that Sara Beth was getting too much attention, and he wanted some of that attention too. Heather and I ended up going to triage at the hospital due to her experiencing premature contractions at 2am. I wish Hudson would have picked a better time for that one. Anyways, the doctors ran their tests and diagnosed the situation as an irritable uterus, and gave Heather some medicine that makes the situation not a big deal. But the doctors did want her to take it easy and not go on our planned trip to Colorado for my Brother's wedding. So, instead, just Sara Beth and I packed out bags and headed out leaving Heather at home with Hudson.

Sara Beth loved the airplane ride, but by the time we landed and got to my brother's house, Sara Beth was all tired out. My dad gave her a glass of chocolate milk to restore her energy.

The chocolate milk did the trick. Sara Beth wanted to explore my brother's backyard. John showed off his rose bushes and when Sara Beth saw that some of the leaves were falling from the trees, she requested a rake and began raking the leaves into piles to help my brother out.

The next day, my parents took us up into the national park. At 2 miles above sea-level, it was about 31 degrees and the wind was blowing at 20 miles per hours, which meant the wind chill was something lower. Heather very carefully packed a winter coat for Sara Beth, but I didn't think to bring it into the mountains. I didn't mind the cold, but she got out of the car for this picture, and then she was ready to get back out of the wind.

At lower elevations, Sara Beth was much more interested in exploring. She even got in a race with my mom and I while going down some of the trails.

On our way back down to Boulder, we pulled off to the side of the road to look at the Elk herd that was hanging out in the middle of the town outside the park. Sara Beth kept calling it a "milk heard."

The day of the wedding, Sara Beth helped me setup the snack food for all the groomsmen to eat.

She sat in the front pew with my parents while I stood up in front as best man at the wedding.

At the wedding reception, she collected all the blue decorative jewels at our table and made designs out of them.

I gave Sara Beth one of them to keep, and it quickly became her favorite item. She kept taking it out and showing it to everyone she could. Wedding guests, relatives, and waiters all got to see her jewel.

The next day, I went to the local tea factory with Sara Beth and my sister. Both of them are tea fanatics, so they sat next to each other in the cafe where they offer free samples and discussed their passion for tea. Since I have no such passion, I sat back and started snapping pictures. I think I took a little too many; they started getting tired of the camera flash.

That night, my aunt came over to our room and read several books to Sara Beth, including a specially selected Halloween themed book that Sara Beth got to keep.

It certainly was exhausting to take care of Sara Beth without Heather around, and I was glad to come back home to a house that had been cleaned top to bottom by Heather. Sara Beth loved the vacation and wedding ceremony, but she got so much "daddy time" in Colorado that playing with Heather is now at the top of her priority list. Sara Beth even asked Heather if they could get married.

Fancy Glasses

2011-10-04T21:46:00.003-05:00

Sara Beth has been reading books about "Fancy Nancy," a girl who dresses up all an bejeweled outfits and has all sorts of impressive hairdos. Well, in one story, fancy Nancy wanted to have fancy glasses, so she took the lenses out of some sunglasses and then decorated the frames. Sara Beth asked Heather if she could do something similar. Well, she asked the right person. Heather has enough craft supplies that it would choke a donkey, and so she brought out some of it and they set to work.

Here is the end result. And yes, that is one of the few genuine smiles on her face for the camera. She smiles all the time, but, generally, as soon as a camera comes out, her smile will turn into a grimace.

She wore them while watching the Cowboys game with her parents. In this case, she didn't realize that I had the camera, until after I snapped the picture.

She got some glasses for Emma Rose to wear as well. So now they both look extra fancy.

She wore them while, in her words, "exercising her hair." Yeah... Neither Heather nor I can exactly explain that one. She was whipping your head back and forth quickly, and that will exercise your hair, according to Sara Beth.

She tried on my not-so-fancy glasses, but decided she likes hers better. I think the combination of corrective lenses and extreme lack of jewels convinced her my glasses are not as fun.

With the days becoming cooler, we enjoy the benefits of a screened in patio more and more. Sara Beth will routinely ask to eat breakfast on the patio, or to sit outside and read, or to organize the clips that should be on the clothesline.

My wife is not the only one that is crafty around here. My mom took Sara Beth to the store and had her pick out some fabric for a dress. Then my mom made one for Sara Beth and one for her doll too. She loved it.

Arboretum at three

2011-09-22T21:42:00.007-05:00

Wow. It has been a busy couple of weeks. So, now, I have a huge backlog of pictures to post. Most of them come from the Dallas Arboretum, which we went to with my parents.

This is a picture from the Arbordtum trip we made about three years ago:

This is her now. She has a lot more energy, so she doesn't accidentally fall asleep during the middle of a photo opportunity. In addition, she can now pick up (and drop) most of the pumpkins.

Every time we go, the arboretum does something a little bit different. This time, they had scenes from different fairy tails on display. Sara Beth went straight for the throne in the Little Mermaid castle.

Sara Beth wanted to go to all the fountains in the Arboretum. I explained how to use the map, pointing to where we were and the direction of the next set of fountains. She had the most fun at the frog fountain because she could splash around in the water.

We probably spent twenty or thirty minutes at the frog fountain.

Sara Beth demonstrated some of the moves she learned in gymnastics for us. At least, I think she learned this in gym.

Sara Beth discovered this little chair hidden down a little trail a bit off the main path.

One of the things Heather worked on with Sara Beth was a bit of biology. They discussed the different plants and animals that live near ponds. One of the things they talked about was lily pads, though Sara Beth had never seen them in real life. As we get up to this water feature, Sara Beth exclaims "Lily Pads!" and wants to show them off to every one as it is the first time she has seen them in person.

In this picture, she found some fish swimming in the water, but was a little apprehensive about them since they were rather large.

Once we got home, Sara Beth decided that the carpet was lava, so she needed a bridge to get from the chair to the couch without getting her feet burned.

Heather has been trying to make fall come sooner by baking some fall foods, like pumpkin cake. It appears that it works. she has cooked this pumpkin cake three times, and it has always been cooler outside the day after the day she bakes. Sara Beth, of course, likes to help.

I'm not sure I know her favorite reason for helping. It is either the fact that she is helping Heather, or that she gets to lick the utensils once they are done.

Heather and I went on a date! With my parents now back in town, it makes the whole process of finding a baby sitter infinitely easier. For dinner, they made octopus and seaweed (aka green noodles and hot dogs).

Heather and I were sitting in the living room talking one afternoon, when we realize it has been rather quiet in the back of the house. Naturally, we assume that Sara Beth must be getting into some sort of mischief, so I go investigate. It turns out she was just sitting and reading her Bible.

Growing quickly

2011-09-15T20:41:00.002-05:00

Ok. I've heard people say "They grow up so quickly." I took their advice and made sure to spend as much time as reasonably possible with Sara Beth. And yet, she still seems to grow up too fast. This week, I got home from work. Instead of running up to give me a hug, Sara Beth was sitting in her bed room. I go in there to say hi and she says "Excuse me, Dad, but could you leave? I'm reading." Spoken like a teenager. Actually, it was probably a lot more civil than the typical teenager, but still, you get the idea.

Also, Heather snapped a picture of Sara Beth's block masterpiece. It doesn't seem that long ago that Sara Beth was knocking over towers that I made. Now she is building her own. It will actually be interesting to see how she responds in about a year once Hudson is old enough to crawl over and knock down Sara Beth's tower.

Fortunately, she has not grown up completely yet. Here she after getting dressed all by herself, wearing two different sets of pajamas simultaneously, and standing next to her pretty design she made with play dough. A little later we found about half of the play dough, half dissolved into a cup full of water. Sara Beth claimed that it needed to be washed.

Breakfasts these days consist of either a yogurt parfait (yogurt and granola) or dry cereal with a cup of milk on the side, along with whatever mommy was going to eat. Heather will often have to make a second breakfast for herself after Sara Beth eats Heather's original breakfast.

New School Year

2011-09-08T19:14:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday was the beginning of Sara Beth's new school year. Last year, she oozed excitement from every pore of her body about going to school. This year, there was less oozing. She was apprehensive about going to a new class; knowing that she wouldn't have the same teachers as last year. Fortunately, her friend Ashlyn goes to the same class as she does, so she already knows someone. Of course, a week later, the apprehension has worn off, she looks forward to going to school, and the teachers send home glowing reports praising her ability to follow directions and expressing surprise at how smart she is.

The weather this past week has been amazing. We were outside most of Labor Day playing volleyball with friends from church and replacing flowers in the front yard with some that have not been burned to a crisp. Heather and Sara Beth have a skin completion that lets them tan elegantly; my skin, however, does it best to look like a cooked lobster. Earlier that day, Sara Beth decided she was going to be an explorer and needed to create an appropriate outfit for the occasion.

Whenever we get a new stuffed animal for Sara Beth, she wants to preform surgery to cut the tags off, and then put band aids on the spot were the tags were located. Additional stuffed animals apparently have suffered massive trauma; the kind of trauma that only a band-aid can fix. After enough requests, we just gave her her own box of band-aids. Her sheep, Penelope, apparently walked across something and needed band-aids on all four of her feet.

Here we are performing routine house maintenance. The seat in the guest bathroom was getting old and needed to be swapped out. Sara Beth wanted to help. So when I went into the garage to grab the relevant tools for the job, she grabbed the measuring tape, claiming that it was necessary. So while I swapped out the lids, she went around measuring things. According to her measurements, Heather is taller than I am. I'm not so sure about that.

We have been working with Sara Beth to teach her that running around naked is not something that a big girl does. We have explained the concept of being modest, and Sara Beth has taken it to heart. This past week, when Heather changed her out of a wet bathing suit at the pool, Sara Beth exclaimed "Careful mommy. I don't want to show my modesty" when her belly was exposed.

A tale of two pigs

2011-08-31T20:05:00.003-05:00

We were at the Salvation Army store on Friday looking around. Heather found a pair of pants, I found a couple pair of shorts, and Sara Beth found a pair of pigs. There were two identical "beanie baby" pigs that Sara Beth picked out and declared that she wanted them. Since she rarely asks for something like that, we obliged. Before we got them to the car she had named them: the girl pig was named Sara Beth and the boy pig was named Smelly. Don't ask. I don't know either. When they got home, Sara Beth wanted us to perform surgery to remove the tags, then she applied band-aids to the spots where the tags were formerly located so the pigs would feel better.

An update to the double Emma Rose problem. Apparently, Sara Beth realized that holding on to two Emma Rose dolls, one in each hand, meant that she ran out of hands. So she kept giving "Emma Rose's cousin, Emma Rose" to Heather or putting her into Hudson's crib for a nap. So we silently put the duplicate back up in storage to wait for the next time that Sara Beth cannot find her current Emma Rose. You know, I really am dreading the day that Sara Beth learns to read, and reads though these blog posts discovering how we have mislead her.

After dinner, Sara Beth will typically ask for Smarties for desert. We have a five pound bag where she will grab one. On Tuesday, Heather and I asked her if she wanted some brownies and ice cream but she deferred to her typical candy. But when she saw that I had finished off the ice cream but had left the lid, she decided she needed a second desert.

The gig is up!

2011-08-25T20:18:00.002-05:00

So, as I have mentioned before, Sara Beth has a favorite doll named Emma Rose. Well, to be honest, we actually had two different Emma Rose dolls that we rotated out on a regular basis. That way, washing her would be painless, and if we were unable to find the one at bed time, we could always "discover that she was hiding in the closet" without interrupting bed time. Well, this week, an Emma Rose got lost somewhere in the house and we couldn't find her, even with through searching after Sara Beth went to bed. A couple days later, Sara Beth was digging around in the couch and exclaimed happily that she now has two Emma Roses: Emma Rose, and her cousin who is also named Emma Rose. She decided that Santa gave her an early Christmas present. Heather and I are stumped about what to do, since she now wants to carry both around with her.

Sara Beth will sometimes pretend to be some cross between a bird and a cat. So she will create a nest and then meow as she gets cozy in it with a book or two.

Summer is drawing to a close. We are about a week from her preschool starting up again. Heather and Sara Beth are finishing out the summer going to the pool and visiting with friends. Today, at the pool, Sara Beth was getting into the pool when she sees something and scrambles out running to Heather crying that there is a snake in the water. It turns out there was an 8 inch snack in the kiddie pool. Heather, being the awesome mother that she is, went over to the pool, scooped the snake out of the pool in a bucket and threw it into the bushes. Unfortunately, she was so busy saving the day that she didn't have time to take a picture. Instead, I'll show a blurry shot of Sara Beth as she is careening around Bounce U. She ran around so quickly, most of the pictures were too blurred to distinguish anything.

Rain!

2011-08-17T22:31:00.005-05:00

Well the heat of the summer has finally broken, at least for a day or two. It even rained long enough that Sara Beth asked to go outside in her rain gear, and the driveway had not yet dried out by the time she got outside. Heather and Sara Beth are venturing outside more and more often.

Up to this point, if they wanted to get out of the house for any length of time, they would have to go to the mall to hide from the heat. Not that that was all that big of a problem. They have an interactive display there, where Sara Beth can step on different parts of the scenery and the screen reacts as if the item on the screen was actually stepped on.

Every morning and evening, we brush Sara Beth's hair to get the tangles out. She is not a big fan of it. At all. But after getting it done, she will occasionally mimic the process with her dolls, to get them ready to go out too. She will pretend that they are crying while Sara Beth is styling their hair and then Sara Beth will sooth them and let them know when it is all done. Note that Sara Beth and her victim, I mean ... doll, are wearing matching outfits.

Sara Beth has really gotten into using nail polish to "be fancy". We got a special kind of polish that comes off easily.With it, there is not much worry of it sticking to the walls or cabinets, and she loves being ale to put it on "all by herself."

If I am allowed to dress Sara Beth, things are not nearly as likely to match. Take this outfit, for example, which Sara Beth and I picked out while Heather was in the other room.

We went over to Heather's Aunt and Uncle's house for dinner this past weekend. They have exercise equipment which Sara Beth loves to try out. Her princess dress did not slow her down one bit as she rotated through the machines.

Sigh. What are we going to do with this cat? She thinks she is a person and will try to beg for people food from Heather or I. I think she has finally realized that I will not be swayed by her demands. I think Little Bit is now venturing out to see if she can grift some food off of an easier mark.

Three years old

2011-08-03T22:15:00.005-05:00

Sara Beth turned three this past weekend. On one hand, Sara Beth acts as if she is already at least seven, and on the other, the past three years have flown by. Sara Beth celebrated her birthday along with her friend, who turned four a little over a week ago. In my opinion, Heather and Sophia's mom pulled off an awesome tea party, though, to be honest, I don't have many tea parties I can compare it too. Sara Beth and Sophia could totally pull off some sort of twin themed costume when Halloween rolls around.

With every birthday comes birthday presents; this one was no exception. Sara Beth got a fairy makeup set.

She wasted no time, eagerly applying copious amounts of makeup to herself and Heather.

My parents came down from their cottage in north Wisconsin for the weekend. I'm sure they enjoyed the 105 degree days of Texas summer. Sara Beth asked to put some of her makeup on Grandma too.

Sara Beth wanted to show of her new bracelet for the camera too. She has owned the hair bows for a while, but she decided she needed to put some extra in her hair for her birthday.

Sara Beth still loves her cat piano. I figured she could play the piano while I accompany her with my guitar. It became a little tricky when Sara Beth changed her instrument from piano mode to "cat meow" mode, but I put some good effort into keeping up with her.

With all the planning and preparing for Sara Beth's party, Heather still found time to have Sara Beth and Ashlyn decorate some shirts. Sara Beth didn't realize she was using glow in the dark paint until she took the shirt into the unlit bathroom. She though it was cool that her shirt would glow green.

So, on every night that I put Sara Beth to bed, she always wants to sleep next to Heather and I. Every night, I tell her no, that she wiggles too much, and if we laid down next to her, she would get too excited and not sleep. This week, she informed me that she needed to sleep in my bed that night. According to her, Emma Rose, her doll, wiggles too much, and gets too excited when Sara Beth sleeps next to her. Clever girl. I responded that if it was too big of a problem, Emma Rose could sleep in the bean bag chair next to Sara Beth's bed.

Haircut

2011-07-26T21:36:00.004-05:00

So the time has come for Sara Beth to finally get her hair cut, just in time for her 3 year birthday party. When she was born, she had all these little pretty curls in her hair, and as her hair grew out, we didn't want to cut of her little baby curls at the tips. But, obviously, her hair became more and more difficult to keep tangle free, so, Sara Beth took her to get it cut. I think it turned out well.

For the past couple weeks, Sara Beth has been apprehensive about getting her hair cut. She watched an episode of "Aurthur" where Arthur's little sister ended up getting her hair all messed up because she was wiggling while getting her hair cut. Needless to say, Sara Beth sat very still as she didn't want her hair to suffer the same fate.

We brush Sara Beth's hair every night to get the tangles out; she is not a big fan of it. Sara Beth decided that she needs to brush her doll's hair every night before we can do her hair. We tried to explain that her doll's yarn based hair does not get tangled, but that doesn't stop her from attempting to stall her hair brushing.

We have put Sara Beth in the local rec center's gymnastics class. We have no hope of her being a national level gymnast; she is already taller than most of them, but it is good for developing those coordination skills. Instead of being a gymnast, I think she would make an excellent international spy. She told Heather she wanted to read a book on Heather's locked cell phone. She was half way though entering the unlock code before Heather took the phone away from her. Apparently, Sara Beth has been looking over Heather's shoulder and memorizing the code.

Ashlynn came over to play again. They had a great time playing around in Hudson's room. Sara Beth pretended to be the baby and crawled into Hudson's bassinet while Ashlynn gave her a bottle.

Hudson

2011-07-20T20:25:00.003-05:00

So for those who don't already know, and were not able to guess from Sara Beth's shirt in the last picture of last week's blog post, we're expecting our 2nd child. His name will be Hudson Thomas Siewert and he should be making his appearance around the middle of December. This weekend, I turned 30. I'm not into big birthday parties, so to celebrate heather cooked homemade spaghetti, may favorite food, with carrot cake, my favorite dessert, and converted our guest bedroom into the nursery. Sara Beth helped paint and simultaneously needed the screwdriver, hammer, and nail punch to do something or other; I'm not sure what it was, but she seemed to think it was important.

Friday, we had the sonogram to find out if the baby was going to be a boy or girl. After finding out it was a boy, Sara Beth and Heather went out for lunch at some girly place. Sara Beth had a blast, and ordered some hot tea with her "big girl" lunch.

Sara Beth and our neighbor's daughter Ashlynn got together to play on Thursday. They played school together, Ashlynn played the part of the teacher and Sara Beth was the student. They got all dressed up for their roles too.

For those of you who were wondering, in December, this blog will change from "The Adventures of Sara Beth" to "The New Adventures of The Siewert Family". http://siewertfamily.com already points to this blog. Feel free to update your bookmarks now.

The Pre-"birthday party" party

2011-07-11T19:09:00.005-05:00

My 30th birthday is less than a week away, while Sara Beth's 3rd birthday is 3 weeks away, and already she has more presents than me; fortunately, she is getting old enough that I can play with some of her presents too. When Heather's mom asked what Sara Beth wanted for her birthday, Sara Beth responded "a basket ball and a dump truck." When the package came in the mail, Sara Beth played with the dump truck all morning. Around lunch time, Heather noticed that Sara Beth was no longer tearing through the house with her new toy. Sara Beth decided that the truck was getting tired, so she tucked it into her bed for a nap. This past weekend, Sara Beth and I put the basket ball to good use. She would practice bouncing the ball to me, and I would practice throwing it in the net.

For the 4th of July, Heather made a cake. Sara Beth decided that it had to be a birthday cake, so it became "Slithery the snake's" cake. We sang "Happy Birthday" and Sara Beth had the snake blow out the imaginary candles.

In case you were wondering, we really don't see Catta around the house all that often while Sara Beth is awake. This picture gives a good indication of the reason: Sara Beth enjoys snuggles much more than the cat does.

Sometimes, you just need to get on a laptop really quick to check for email messages (at least, you do if you don't have a fancy cell phone). Sara Beth will pull up her laptop and check her messages too.

So, we were rearranging furniture around the house, and were trying to find a good spot to put a cedar chest from my Grandma. We ended up moving it into Sara Beth's room. She quickly dubbed it her "princess table". Also in the photo, you can see her round globular clock that turns green at 7:15am when Sara Beth is allowed out of her room in the morning. Well, theoretically, that is how it works, except Sara Beth kept opening it and resetting the time and alarm functions. After the second night of the alarm going off, I cracked open the clock and disabled all the buttons. It now requires a screwdriver to change the time, but the alarm hasn't gone off at in appropriate times either.

I was at Guitar Center purchasing a tuner and some new strings for my guitar. Sara Beth was fascinated by all the instruments, but I think the drum kits were here favorite.

For those of you with excellent observational skills, Sara Beth's shirt gives a hint of big things that are going to happen around here in December. I'll give more details next week.

Waiting for the rain

2011-06-28T19:18:00.003-05:00

With summer in full swing, Sara Beth wanted some cooler weather outside. Specifically, she wanted it to rain. So, she put on her rain coat and rain hat and waited for it to rain. She was saddened by the weather's lack of cooperation.

Heather continues to work on school projects with Sara Beth nearly every day. Sara Beth loves it, and quite often, when I walk in the door from work, Sara Beth takes me by the hand and drags me back to the play room to show off the project she had been working on that day.

Sara Beth loves the smarty candies. She found some behind the couch. By the time Heather came to investigate the crinkling wrapper noise, it was too late.

The highlight of last week for me was when Sara Beth and Heather made cookies and brought them up to me at work. Here, Sara Beth is helping to bake the cookies. This Monday, they came up and ate lunch with me. Sara Beth explored my desk and found her little toy raptor-on-a-keychain that I had commandeered for myself to fiddle with while working. She exclaimed "I have one of these too ... but I don't know where mine is." I did feel a little bad, so I explained to her that I took hers and let her take it back home.

Here are some more pictures of Sara Beth cooking, this time in her own kitchen. She is allowed to use this oven. She really mimics Heather's love for cooking. If she picks up on even half the skill of her mother, she will be an awesome cook.

More Summertime Activities

2011-06-23T21:30:00.003-05:00

Summer is in full swing around here. Up until two days ago, the weather has been easily reaching the 100s. These past two days, thunderstorms have rolled on through about 2am. They douse the land with some much needed moisture, but the thunder wakes Sara Beth up, which means I wake up too, loosing some much needed sleep.

The peach tree in the back yard was growing like crazy in some rather undesirable directions, so I decided it was time to trim it. Sara Beth helped, making a fort out of all the branches I hacked off the tree. She requested to have Heather's gardening gloves on her, so that her hands did not get dirty.

Sunday was Father's day. One day, last week, Heather gave some markers to Sara Beth early one morning make a father's day card while Heather quickly showered. When Heather got out of the shower, instead of a nicely decorated card , she found a nicely decorated card with marks all the way down to her belly button. Fortunately, the walls and carpet were unscathed.

Sara Beth loves to give our cats treats. Whenever she gets it in her mind, she will run to the pantry to get out the cat treats, and then feed the treats to the cats, one at a time. Catta will always try to quickly run in and grab one of the other's treat, but Sara Beth will scold her and push her away.

This summer, Heather has involved Sara Beth in several baking projects. After learning about the sights and sounds and smells of a pond, Sara Beth got to help make lily pad shaped cookies. Sara Beth helped with the icing.

Here is yet another picture of Sara Beth holding "her kitty." Honestly, I don't know why Catta puts up with all the torment, as Sara Beth chases her through the house and holds her with grips more often seen in UFC battles. Catta may not be happy about the whole ordeal, but I think, deep down, she enjoys all the attention she receives from Sara Beth. Deep down. Really deep down.

Summer Fun

2011-06-14T22:23:00.004-05:00

This summer, Heather has put her teaching skills to full use. She found some activities at the local teacher supply store, and has laminated and prepared a full summer curriculum to keep Sara Beth engaged this summer. Sara Beth loves it and these days, when I come home from work, Sara Beth runs up to me and drags me by the hand back to the play room so she can show me what she worked on that day.

Heather also found someone to give Sara Beth swim lessons along our neighbor's girls. As an intro to swimming, one of the activities is to throw rings into the bottom of the shallow part of the pool and make Sara Beth pick them up, forcing her to go underwater to reach them with her hands. Sara Beth figured out she could pick them up with her feet.

Sara Beth loves the pool, and Heather typically has to drag her out of the pool hours after the lesson. Once they come home, Sara Beth crashes, exhausted, onto whatever float surface she can find.

All those activities require quite a bit of energy. Here, Sara Beth is trying to convince Heather that she should give Sara Beth some of her desert.

Poor Catta. Sara Beth's love for "her cat" grows by the day. We keep instructing her in the proper ways to hold a cat, but when Catta squirms to get away, sometimes things get a little more uncomfortable. But now, only one arm is around the cat's neck.

We got a new storage container for all of Sara Beth's stuffed animals. One day, Sara Beth found out that she could fit into it as well. Now she asks for us to close the lid and then as we or the cats walk by, she will pop up in an ambush.

The end of an era

2011-06-07T23:20:00.002-05:00

We have declared Sara Beth to be fully potty trained! There are no more diapers in our house. For the past month or two, we have continued to put them on at night time, but we ran out and didn't feel we needed to get any more. Along with that, she has given up her afternoon nap. We still enforce a mandatory quiet time in her room, but she can now handle herself without a hour rest.

Recently, I applied my handyman skills and successfully cut a hole in our roof and installed a skylight. With all the natural sunlight streaming into our bathroom, the old paint revealed its age. So we repainted it a lighter shade, and, of course, Sara Beth wanted to help. She got her painting skills from her mother's side; she was a natural and actually helped with minimal amounts of mess. This is also the last picture of her in a diaper.

This past week, Sara Beth has repeated some of the same antics I did when I was her age. I decided that it would be funny to put on all the pairs of shorts that I own at the same time. On Saturday, when I got Sara Beth from quiet time, I found she had put on 12 different pairs of socks, along with a set of leg warmers for good measure. She proudly smiled for this picture.

Out of the blue, Sara Beth decided that she wanted to write a letter to "Ms. Cindy," Heather's mom. So, she colors some papers and declared that she is going to mail them and begins to walk out through the garage to put them in the mail box. Heather and I were in the middle of finishing dinner, so we stop her and explain that you cannot just put a letter in the mail; you need a stamp on it. We go back to eating and she goes back to her play room. A couple minutes later, she comes out with 8 stamps and about 12 return address labels on her paper, pilfered off my desk, and redeclares her intent to mail the pictures. Heather reclaimed the stamps, but we did praise her ingenuity. I did something very similar when I was 3 with about 200 return address labels and a moving box.

One thing I didn't do as a kid was put on a dress and 4 skirts.

Heather and I were driving in the car while Sara Beth was in the back seat. We were telling Sara Beth our food preparation for the weekend, how we were going to have hamburgers and hot dogs with chips and have some friends over. We then asked her, "Doesn't that sound good?" From the back seat we hear "Wait! You forgot drinks!" Only once we explained that we did have juice, milk, and water, did she agree that it sounded good.

Sara Beth and I are getting better at our block building skills. We can now construct a semi-durable hour for her doll: Emma Rose.

School and Summer

2011-05-25T21:55:00.005-05:00

Sara Beth had her last day of school of the year. To commemorate the occasion, Heather took another picture of her by the front of the house.

Just for comparison, below is a picture of her in the same location back in last October on her first day of school.

Now, technically, she had school this past Monday too, but we had to pull her out a day early as we were going down to Florida for a family vacation with Heather's family. The drive down was as pleasant as can be expected for a 11 hour car ride with a nearly 3 year old. On the way, she fell asleep about 45 minutes before we arrived at our hotel room, and then would not go back to sleep for 3 hours. But we did arrive at the final destination, a condo we shared with Cliff, Kathy, Jonathan and Allison, in one piece.

Sara Beth loved the beach, though she kept asking to go to the condo's pool. I kept telling her we didn't drive half way across the country to play in the pool, so I forced a daily mandatory beach time before we could play at the pool. Sara Beth did enjoy the sand, though the waves did scare her a bit. She did enjoy it when I dug a "baby ocean" in the sand where the water could seep in, but no waves could reach her. She decorated the walls to "her ocean" with shells we collected along the beach.

In addition to the family sharing the condo, she also got to interact with all of the family we don't see all that often. Here is Sara Beth and Aunt Doodle sitting down to read through the scrap book that I mentioned in my last blog post.

Sara Beth blew bubbles at her Granddaddy. And when the bubble wand fell into the bottom of the bubble container, she insisted in extracting it all by herself. After several minutes of struggle and one mangled olive grabber utensil later, she let her Granddaddy help get it out. A little while later, the wand fell in again and this time I had to get it out. It would have been so much easier if the bubble container was half an inch wider.

Sara Beth also got to see her cousins. She showed off her "baby ocean" to Madison, gently guiding her to see all the sights.

She also kept saying hi to Wesley. A lot of people kept telling her how much they liked Sara Beth's dress, to the point that it is now her favorite dress. She proudly displayed it for the camera and then asked Wesley if he liked her dress.

The long days out in the sun with no nap finally caught up with her on the last day there. She fell asleep before dinner and we couldn't wake her, so we just put her to bed in her dress. She did wake up a couple hours later to eat some yogurt and be carried along the beach before passing out again. Then, for the first time all vacation, on the day we wanted to get up early and leave for home, she slept in till 8. On the 11 hour car ride home, she was, again, really good. Though she did burst into tears when, in the middle of Louisiana, she asked to change into her new favorite dress and didn't like hearing that it was packed and needed to be washed before she could wear it again.

How to get a smile

2011-05-17T21:09:00.002-05:00

Well, now I know how to get Sara Beth to smile for the camera: give her a bicycle.

Heather likes to plan ahead, so she found Sara Beth's birthday present (the bike) months ago, and we have been storing it in the attic for her Birthday. Well, I decided that we could let her have it early so she could get more use out of it (Heather had been ready to do this for a while and was just patiently waiting for me). So, my parents get her a helmet, I stay up late one night assembling it in the garage. The next day, she wasn't on the best behavior, so we didn't let her know that it was sitting out in the garage. But then, she had a day where we didn't worry about rewarding poor behavior and bring her out into the garage. She has no problems smiling for the camera.

My parents brought over some of my old toys like a metal tractor and wagon that goes behind it. Sara Beth loves it and will haul stuff around the house in the wagon. Earlier this week, she was pulling a full load of markers into the dining room. This time, she filled it up with underwear and was taking it to her playroom.

Story Time

2011-05-10T21:25:00.002-05:00

Most nights, at bed time we give Sara Beth a bed time story. And then Sara Beth will ask to give us a story next. One night, Sara Beth proceeded to tell Heather the following story:

"Jesus was walking on the water. Then a shark came up and went CHOMP on Jesus' legs. Then Jesus went to shore where there were monkeys in a tree eating bananas. They gave Jesus a band-aid with a picture of Dora on it, which made his legs all better."

Summer is approaching quickly. Sara Beth's school put on an end of the year singing recital. Sara Beth performed wonderfully, singing at the top of her lungs. But for one song, they were hitting sticks together in time with the music and I sat in my seat cringing as Sara Beth enthusiastically swung her wooden blocks mere inches from her neighbor (the picture below was taken at the beginning of the song before Sara Beth started to get more in the groove and more energetic).

After the recital, Sara Beth's teachers wrapped up scrap books for each of the children chock full of pictures from her year in the mother's day out program. There were identical packages on the table with kids names on them. Sara Beth recognized which of the labels was her name and correctly selected her scrapbook. She then wanted to review it with us several times, and pointed out all the things she was doing when the picture were taken.

I don't wear normal shoes. I wear Vibram Five Finger shoes, that basically look like gloves for your feet. I love them and their comfortable feel, but they do have a tendency to make my feet dry out. I don't mind dry feet, but whenever Sara Beth notices the callouses in them, she becomes concerned about "daddy's dry feet." Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I gave Sara Beth some lotion and told her she could rub it into my feet. She does give a great foot massage, for a two year old. She then went on to tickle Heather's feet.

One evening, we sat down to play with play dough. I got some shape molds out and began to form creatures. Whenever I got a completed form out of a mold, Sara Beth wanted it so that she could cut off the excess pieces.

We are still working on smiling for the camera. This was right before going to her recital. Her excitement definitely comes through in the picture.

Easter Pictures

2011-04-26T20:29:00.004-05:00

Happy Easter everyone! We got all dressed up for Church on Sunday in bright colors, as is deemed appropriate for the holiday. Sara Beth wore a smocked dress made by Heather's aunt.

Sara Beth refused to take a picture without including her doll, Emma Rose, in it as well. It took several tries to get a picture where she was 1) Smiling, 2) Not sucking her thumb, and 3) Not holding Emma Rose in front of her face.

I'm not really one that does holiday celebrations. Heather put together Sara Beth's Easter basket without any involvement from me, but aside from that there wasn't really any Easter type paraphernalia around the house. School, on the other hand, appears to go all out for the holiday, and Sara Beth came home last Wednesday like this.

I attempt to add posts to this blog on a weekly basis, but for those of you that are keeping a close watch will notice I skipped last week. We were recovering from a trip. I decided that it would be a good idea to take a 4 day weekend and drive to Georgia to see my great aunt Alma. She is an amazing woman who has great stories to share (ask Heather about the worm story as that is her favorite). And for this extended 96 hour weekend, we decided that it would work best to drive the 14 hours to get there. After you include the time driving around town, that adds up to around 1/3 of the entire weekend spent in a minivan. And that is 1/3 of ALL hours, not just waking hours. I probably should have thought that one through a little more. Sara Beth handled it as well as can be expected, but she did have some trouble smiling for the 4 generation picture that we were trying to take.

With enough patience, we eventually got a good one.

My parents came with us on the trip, and we took their van. Sara Beth loved all the fancy options that our vehicle lacks. Her favorite, by far, was the automatic doors. She got quite a kick out of pressing the button to open and close the door. And the open and close them again, and again. She got in trouble quite a few times playing with the door buttons. Their car also has all sorts of neat compartments that our car lacks.

My great aunt has some roses growing in front of her house. Sara Beth loves to pick flowers and asked if she could pick a rose for mommy to add to her dandelion collection. I said no, but I did tell her she could smell the flower instead.

Finally, I know I mentioned that Heather and Sara Beth are feeding Little Bit strawberries. I suspect that cat has become a berry addict, but they continue to feed that cat's habit.

Cats

2011-04-13T22:15:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth loves the cats. I know I have mentioned it a couple times in previous posts. And the cats have acclimated to Sara Beth; they no longer bolt whenever she comes near. Now, when Catta was sunning herself in the afternoon, she didn't bat an eye when Sara Beth decided to join her.

Little Bit, of course, will like anyone that feeds her. Strawberries are in season, and Sara Beth and Heather both feed the strawberry tops to the cat. Little Bit will now come up to the table and start meowing for strawberries while we eat. I wanted to keep my strawberries so I tried feeding her some asparagus; she didn't like it as much.

We got some packages in the mail this past week. Sara Beth excitedly helped to open the boxes. As soon as the contents were removed, Sara Beth decided she wanted to be boxed up next. Any explanations I offered concerning improper box sizings and volume estimations fell on deaf ears.

One night, we went over to my parent's house for dinner. We stayed over a little later and decided to give Sara Beth her night time bath in their jetted bathtub. Sara Beth requested bubbles, and the results were rather impressive.

Dinosaurs

2011-04-04T20:23:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth has been exceptionally well behaved these past weeks. To further encourage this good behavior, Heather talked me into purchasing a animal vet box for Sara Beth. Typically, I feel that providing a roof over Sara Beth's head is reward enough, but Heater did make a convincing argument. So now, instead of trying to carry the real cat carrier around the house, she will lug her kid sized puppy carrier around. She absolutely loves it.

Sara Beth, this week, has started singing some of the words to "Frosty the Snowman" but to the tune of "Old McDonald." From the back seat of the van words will emerge: "with a corn cob pipe, and a button nose, e-i-e-i-o."

This weekend we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park, two hours south east of our house. It was the first fun adventure we have taken in quite a while, and Sara Beth absolutely loved it. We took off our shoes and walked in the river. I pointed out the fossilized footprints to Sara Beth.

It was quite a workout. The river bed was rather slick, and so, ever five seconds or so, Sara Beth would loose her footing, and I would be holding up 35 pounds of weight at arms length, preventing her from going below the water. She would regain her footing, and we would go on to look at the next waterfall or rock. I think Sara Beth cared for splashing about in the water more than the dinosaur foot prints. And though the park regulations strictly forbid "disturbing the rocks," I think we may have moved some of the rocks as we were stepping on them.

Grandma and Grandpa came with us as well. We sat down and had lunch at a park bench. Within 30 seconds of beginning to eat, Sara Beth had dropped her sandwich in the dirt. Without even pausing, she grabbed mine and began to eat that one instead. Fortunately, Heather was willing to share hers with me.

The great outdoors

2011-03-23T16:47:00.003-05:00

In case you don't know, my one fear is worms. I am terrified of them. I have no fear of spiders, roaches, rabid dogs, wombats, bears, squirrels, or anything else. Just those nasty worms. So, when we were playing in the back yard, and Heather found a worm, I was ready to jump the fence. Heather showed the worm to Sara Beth, but she wasn't too excited about being near the vile creature either.

I decided that Sara Beth is getting to be old enough that I can look into camping. Apparently, there are a lot of camping places within only a few hours of here. So, step one: bring the tent out of the attic and make sure I can put it together. Sara Beth helped by stepping on all the wrinkles.

Once it was up, Sara Beth loved playing in it. We put in sleeping bags and were planning on spending the night out in it. Sara Beth could not sleep, and complained that it was too noisy. It was an understandable complaint, with all the dogs barking and cars on the street. But I am going to consider the test a success. So now I just need to find a suitable camping spot.

Sara Beth has now declared Catta to be her cat. She will grab her and give her kisses and pets whenever she can get her arms around the fuzzy creature. Catta, for the most part, is a good sport about the whole thing.

Sara Beth randomly decided to sit in the laundry basket and asked to be pushed around in it. I told her she was too big, and I didn't want to break it. So then, Sara Beth decided that she was going to drive the basket around and proceeded to make tire screeching noises as she sharply turned her imaginary steering wheel.

When Sara Beth is not trying to pet Catta, she will pretend to be Catta. I brought the pet carrier down from the attic as a "time out box" for Gracie cat, as she has begun to wake me up in the middle of the night, again. I thought I had broken the habit, but Gracie had other ideas. So, if Gracie begins to make noise at night, I will throw her into the carrier. Sara Beth will pretend to meow like a cat and ask to be put in the carrier as well.

Potty Trained!

2011-03-16T22:00:00.002-05:00

We reached another milestone. Sara Beth will now say "I need to go potty all by myself." She then will go to the bathroom, pull up her stepping stool, pull down her pants, put up the lid, go to the bathroom, wipe, wash her hands, and mostly pull her pants back up. She only needs some help with not pulling too much of the toilet paper off of the roll. We canceled our monthly subscription of diapers, and are sitting back living the easy life.

Sara Beth is a gum addict. She will regularly tell Heather "I need some gum." She will chew it, swallow it, and then 30 minutes later say "I need some more gum."

We didn't take many pictures this week, but here is one that we did take. Sara Beth definitely takes after Heather when it comes to spoiling the cats. She will ask to give the kitties treats like this strawberry.

Diapers and Dandelions

2011-03-08T20:16:00.002-06:00

The big news this week is Sara Beth appears to no longer need diapers. Heather and I have known for some months now that she has the bladder control, and it is more an power struggle between her and us. Well, today she did not need a diaper change at all. She wore her "big girl panties" all morning long without an issue. Heather put her in a diaper for nap time, and it remained dry till I put her in bed this evening. There was even a bowel movement that went in the toilet like it should. Hopefully, we have purchased our last set of diapers we will ever need for her.

Spring has definitely sprung around here; and one of the most common thing to spring out of the ground is dandelions. Sara Beth loves to collecting the flowers, something that we whole heartedly encourage. She might single handedly keep the dandelion problem in our yard under control. She comes with two fist fulls of the flowers saying, "I picked these for you!" We already have several vases in our house with the dandelions in them, but the rest, unfortunately, have to be tossed. I do feel bad about throwing out Sara Beth's collections, but they do make a big mess.

Sometimes she will store the dandelions in her stroller or in a purse. When she found Heather's grocery bag collection, she put it to good use as flower bags. In her mind, you can never have too many flower bags.

She will also "drive" her car around the back yard, and by "drive", I mean I push her car through the yard. Whenever she saw an unpicked dandelion, She will ask me to stop. She will then either reach her arm out the side of the car to pick the flower, or if it is too far for that she will alternatively ask me to drive closer, or actually get out of the car to pick it up. Either way, once the yellow flower has been collected, she puts it in her storage compartment in the back of the car and wants to continue driving around the yard looking for more targets.

Singing Sara Beth

2011-03-01T19:55:00.005-06:00

Yesterday was Sara Beth's first school performance in the evening. That evening, Sara Beth needed a little persuasion to go. Initially, she had said that she wanted to go, but when the evening of the performance came around, she became apprehensive and declared that she did not like to sing and, in addition, she was not a good singer. I reassured her of her skills and she changed her mind. We went to her school, and I did have to peel her off of me to go to her classroom to prep for the show. Personally, and I may be a little biased, I think she did the best job of anyone in her class. In the below picture, take careful note of how many of the kids are singing and performing the actions. Just sayin.

Before the event, I was able to get a picture of Heather and Sara Beth in our front yard. Notice how Sara Beth does have a bit of an apprehensive look on her face.

Who can resist cupcakes from the discount rack at the grocery store? Definitely not me. Sara Beth likes them too.

This weekend, we went to the zoo with my parents and some neighbors. The Dallas Zoo offers the ability for visitors to feed the giraffe a leaf of lettuce for $5. Seeing as how that was way too expensive for a single leaf of lettuce, I found some pieces of lettuce leaves that had fallen on the ground near the giraffe cage. Both Sara Beth and Heather got to have a giraffe eat lettuce out of their hand. Unfortunately, I was busy making sure that Sara Beth didn't leap into the giraffe enclosure so I was unable to take a picture of it.

Sara Beth has grown to the point where she recognized the animals and I see us going to the zoo often now that the weather is getting better.

Sara Beth has become unusually tender hearted this week. We are used to her saying the occasional "I love you" or pausing to give us a hug as she bolts through the house chasing cats, but this week, she has been exceptionally sweet. Right after school got out, Sara Beth and her friend were out in a field next to the school running around. Her friend picked a dandelion for her mom and so Sara Beth decided that Heather deserved a flower too, but, apparently, her friend had picked the last one in the field. After unsuccessfully searching for one, Sara Beth came to Heather in tears, heart broken that she couldn't find a flower to give.

Our Storyteller

2011-02-23T20:56:00.003-06:00

At bedtime, Sara Beth gets a story. Currently, she asks for Bible stories about Jesus. After Heather or I tell her one of the stories from the Bible, she will get comfortable and then say "Let me tell you about my day." And that is where the fun starts, as her days are a lot more exciting than mine apparently. One day, this past week, she started with, "Jesus was walking towards the crib. But it was empty, so he turned around and got in his space ship, and it blasted off. He was very lonely, but then the Tyrannosaurus Rex came and tried to bite him." I couldn't keep up and lost track of the story line at that point, but it continued for another 5 minutes.

By now, I'm sure you know that Sara Beth loves her noisy toys. One of her new favorites is a little dog chew toy squirrel. It is LOUD, but she has a great big grin on her face when she squeezes it.

This weekend, Sara Beth was not behaving. She was acting grumpy and making poor choices. On Sunday night, we noticed that she had a fever. Monday morning, Heather took her to the doctor. She has a double ear infection and an upper respiratory something or other, which probably explains why she was not acting well over the weekend.

Poor Catta. She is Sara Beth's favorite cat, and Sara Beth will try to pick her up and give her hugs, but she is still learning how to properly support the cat's body weight. The funny thing is that Catta just lets it happen, and doesn't run away like the other two cats.

Boxes and baloons

2011-02-16T21:15:00.003-06:00

As my parents continue to unpack their piles, and piles, of stuff, they end up with a lot of empty boxes. Fortunately, Sara Beth knows what to do with them: pack herself and her toys in. Unfortunately, Gracie cat also likes to play in the boxes, and, unlike Sara Beth, the cat can get stuck in them. Two nights this past week, I had to go extract her from a box she jumped into, but couldn't jump out of.

This is the season for birthdays. Sara Beth went to a party last Saturday, and we are going to another one this coming Saturday. Her friend celebrated her birthday at "Bounce Town", but we didn't look very closely at the invitation. So after hyping Sara Beth, we arrive at "Jump it Up" only to realize we went to the wrong place. Sara Beth was not amused. Fortunately, we made it to the correct location only slightly late, and Sara Beth got to bring home a balloon once the party was over.

Sara Beth has really gotten into nesting. The covers on her bed never stay tucked in through the night. Every morning and afternoon, Heather will make Sara Beth's bed, and every nap and bed time, Sara Beth will "get comfortable".

Sara Beth has grown tall enough that she can turn on the sink faucet. So now, when she is done using her chalk board, she will go clean it, all by herself. She didn't want to listen to my helpful tip about only using a little water.

For Valentine's Day, Sara Beth and her friends had a party. They played all sorts of princess games and had a great time. The mothers all had a great time taking pictures.

Catch Up

2011-02-03T20:24:00.003-06:00

Wow. It has been three weeks since I last updated this blog. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you; it has been so hectic that I have not had enough free time to do it.

Three weeks ago, my parents were able to finally move into their house, 15 minutes down the road. We helped unpack, and Sara Beth was really into reorganizing. There was a folded stack of packing paper that was sitting in their living room. Sara Beth went over to the stack and picked off pieces one at a time, carefully unfolded it, and then carried the paper into the pantry to place it in there. Once the stack was completely gone, she reversed her process and carried pieces out, one at a time, refolded it, and then put them in a new stack on the couch. Once I told her it was about time to go, she worked double time moving the paper back into the living room. She carried in huge arm-fulls at a brisk jog.

Two weeks ago, Heather went back to Alabama by herself for her granddad's funeral. We decided it would not be a good idea for Sara Beth to go as well, so I stayed back in Texas with her. Fortunately, with my parents now down here, they were able to help with the babysitting so I didn't have to burn all my vacation time in stay-at-home daddy day care. Even with my parents helping, it was exhausting caring for a 2 year old without Heather around.

It was so nice that Saturday that I decided it would be a good idea to wash the cars. Sara Beth liked playing with the bubbles in the water.

As soon as she pulled her head out of the bucket, she realized her hair had gotten an even closer look.

So then, since the cars were nice and clean, this past week God covered the entire US with a giant blanket of snow, so the cars would get dirty again on the icy/slushy streets. At least, that might be the reason that we got snow. In any case, Heather's flight was able to make it back safely and without delay.

Sara Beth kept asking to build a snowman. Unfortunately, it was not the right kind of snow. I tried to look up the Eskimo word for this type of snow, but apparently, Eskimos don't actually have 50 different words for snow, it's an urban legend. Anyways, whatever you call the stuff, it made a big enough mess of the roads that my work was closed for two days, and it made a big enough mess of our cars that they will have to be washed again this coming weekend.

And finally, to top it off, yesterday, at Super Bowl half time, I start putting Sara Beth to bed. When it is time for her to go to the bathroom, she starts crying really hard. It turns out she has a urinary track infection, and so, instead of watching the second half of the game, Heather and I took Sara Beth to one of those 24 hour doctors and filled a prescription for antibiotics. I heard the Packers won.

Cat Toys

2011-01-18T18:58:00.003-06:00

Everyone knows that laser pointers work as excellent cat toys. I brought it out for the first time in a while this past week, and I think Sara Beth enjoyed chasing it more than the cats. The cats would perk up their ears and make a few moves towards the laser dot, and then Sara Beth bolted after it, scattering the cats. It was hard not to give Sara Beth a hard time, placing the dot right above her reach, but I managed to restrain myself, mostly.

The other day, while eating dinner, Sara Beth took too large of a bite. She then took too large a swig of juice, and started to cough. I asked her "Are you ok? Do you need some help?" Her response: "Some ice cream would help!"

Sara Beth loves to play pretend. She will announce "I'm a baby baby" and then crawl onto her baby bed, but by the time she gets up there, she will likely have switched and will now be "Catta" and begin to meow, or she will be baby Jesus, or Mary or Joseph. Her identity shifts rather quickly and it is hard to keep up.

By this point, Sara Beth probably knows her way around Heather's iPhone better than I do. I am impressed with her ability to correctly identify all the letters and shapes in the various educational games on the phone.

Snow

2011-01-12T18:31:00.005-06:00

An actual snow fall happened in Texas again. It rarely gets cold enough for gloves, and so when Sara Beth and I went for a walk out in the snow, I just changed out of my shorts into blue jeans, and put on tennis shoes and a jacket. We walked around the block, and then, when we got back to the house, Sara Beth asked to build a snowman. Since I didn't know where my gloves were, I didn't want to spend an extraordinary amount of time with by bare hands rolling snow balls around. We did get a fairly decent snow man built, and Sara Beth was a good helper, adding little handfuls of snow here and there as touch-up work.

She definitely had a great time helping, but I was ready to go in before she did. As soon as we stepped inside, she asked to get a carrot and buttons to make the nose and eyes on the snowman. I had to wait for the feeling to return to my hands before I was ready do retrieve those items and venture back outside to install them.

Sara Beth loves to sing. She will go around the house singing her own variation on familiar songs. She got this cat piano as a present a while ago, but she has really started to use it a lot recently. It will automatically play familiar songs, and she loves that when you push a button, those songs are then preformed by cats meowing. It is truly as obnoxious as it sounds, though Heather doesn't mind it, and Sara Beth absolutely loves it.

So this past week, I decided to bring out the guitar so we could try singing together. Sara Beth had a wonderful time singing and clapping in time with the guitar. But since no cats were singing along, she got bored with it by the second night and went back to her singing cat piano. I think that is a subtle hint that I need to brush up on my guitar playing skills.

A little earlier in the week, Sara Beth asked to help clean up the driveway after I had messed it all up with a heavy duty tree pruning job. She then proceeded to push her doll around the yard with the broom.

Spring Time

2011-01-04T20:24:00.003-06:00

Well the new year has arrived, and the cold winter weather is already leaving, or at least, it is on hiatus. It was back to shorts and t-shirt weather. It was so warm that Heather let Sara Beth play with some of the neighborhood girls splashing in the puddles.

The other girls are 6 and 7 years old, but Sara Beth tries her hardest to keep up with them, and actually does a pretty good job of it. The other girls will slow down so that Sara Beth can catch up as well. If the kids are playing in the middle of the road and a car turns onto the street, Sara Beth will call out to them from the sidewalk, "Watch Out! Car!"

After Christmas, it can be a chore to make sure all the sweets get eaten before they go bad. Fortunately, we have Sara Beth to help. I gave her a cherry cordial as desert one night. She picked it up and popped the whole thing into her mouth, and then she tried to figure out a good way to bite down on it without having to take it back out of her mouth. I had enough time to grab the camera to take a picture before she figured out her plan of attack.

Sara Beth got all sorts of sticker packs for Christmas. On Sunday, she decided she wanted to put all the snowman stickers onto her cloths. They actually stuck on pretty well didn't come off until I ripped them off at bed time.

Christmas

2010-12-28T19:47:00.006-06:00

Ok, loyal readers of this blog can put away your torches and pitchforks. I have a new update. It was a fun filled holiday season, with everything going on, I didn't want to stop to write about it. A big thank you goes out to all of you that gave gifts to Sara Beth. This was the first Christmas that she understood that gifts were for her, and she enjoyed ripping the wrapping paper and tossing the tissue paper willy nilly.

So this is the executive summary of the past three weeks. Sara Beth's school had a Christmas party three weeks ago, and Heather was able to go. I knew that Sara Beth was a tall kid, but I had no idea that she was this much larger than the other kids her age.

Two weeks ago, we went to visit Heather's family out in Alabama. The trip went very well and we had a great time visiting with all Heather's family that we haven't seen in a long time, or in some cases, met for the first time. Of course, everyone was impressed with Sara Beth. Heather's granddad got a huge kick out of listening to Sara Beth sing Christmas carols and kept mentioning that he never had heard a kid her age carry a tune so well.

By the time we got all packed in the car and drove home, Sara Beth was so tired that she actually fell asleep in the back seat of the car! And yes, I did take that picture while I should have been focused on driving, but she was so cute curled up with all her toys.

Once we got home, we had only a couple days to fully recover before my family came in town to visit. The neighbor girls down the street brought her a princess outfit.

She also got her nails painted, though she was so excited to show the camera, she didn't actually hold her hands the right direction.

And on Christmas, she took a whole sheet of stickers and put them all on her hand. You can see her purple nails.

Sara Beth is enjoying the cats more and more every week. She has realized that chasing them around the house yelling "Come back! I want to pet you!" is not very effective. Instead, she asked to hold Catta, and I helped to capture the cat. And Catta actually might have enjoyed it a little.

While my family was down, my brother and I played a little old school Super Nintendo. Sara Beth and John played a little as well, though the competition was a little less intense.

I'm Super Grover

2010-12-07T20:05:00.003-06:00

Out of nowhere, on Friday, Sara Beth declared that we should now refer to her as "Super Grover". So, over the weekend, we would ask "Sara Beth, come clean up your toys." And she would respond, "ImSuperGrover"so quickly it sounded like a single five syllable word. Slowly, over the weekend, she corrected us, so that we would remember to call her by the correct name. Anything else would result in the response of "ImSuperGrover." The only variation came when Heather asked her, "Sara Beth, do you want milk or juice?" She replied, "ImSuperGrover... I want milk." To complete the Super Grover look, she brought a cape for us to attach around her neck:

Heather's well known dislike of squirrels has begun to color Sara Beth's attitude of the fluffy creatures. This morning, Heather asked "Do you like squirrels?" Super Grover replied, "No, I do not." "Why not?" "One bit me." "Oh dear! Where did it bite you?" "On my back. I have a owie."

We went to a Christmas craft fair over the weekend. Sara Beth climbed up a 30 foot inflatable and slid down it all by herself, though it might have been a little too exciting for her. She didn't want to go on it again.

Out of nowhere, Sara Beth has started taking her stuffed poodle with her everywhere. She got it for her first birthday, but has not really played with it since, until now. She will now bring it in the car with her, carry it around the store, and take it on walks around the house. We had to talk her out of sharing her food with it, and explained that pretend puppies needed to eat pretend puppy food only.

Ok, so when Heather first sent this picture to me, what do you think crossed my mind? After considering the fastest route to the emergency room, I read the note attached to the picture. It isnt a massive injury, just a red frosting holiday oreo.

Electronic Christmas

2010-12-01T21:19:00.004-06:00

Christmas is approaching quickly. The day after Thanksgiving, we took the Christmas decorations down from the attic and began to put them up. Sara Beth got in the seasonal spirit by putting her winter coat on, even though it is plenty warm in the house (and outside for that matter). She helped to setup her six inch Christmas tree and the nativity scene in her room. We setup a foot switch for her Christmas tree so that we don't have to reach behind her book case to plug and unplug as it does not come with a switch, and Sara Beth loves to turn it off and on "All by herself."

So about 5 years ago, I got a singing dog as gift for Christmas. You press its paw and it will start barking out the tune to "We wish you a merry Christmas" and other classics. Last year, Sara Beth was scared of it. This year, she loves it and has claimed it as her new toy.

We tried to show Sara Beth the Wii controls the other day. It worked, sort of. She did not throw any controller through the TV, and she did get the general principles down, but she never made it past the first level of anything.

In the beginning of November, Heather got an iPhone. Now, Sara Beth can navigate through the phone without any help. She knows which folder contain her books and games and will open them and select the game she wants to play. When she gets bored, she will repeatedly press the one button on the iPhone until it exits out and brings her back to a point where she can select something new to look at. I'm not sure if Sara Beth or Apple's usability engineers are the ones who should get credit for that feat.

Doctors and decorations

2010-11-23T20:30:00.003-06:00

One day last week, I came home from work and began to talk to Heather in the kitchen while she made dinner. For whatever reason, I decided to sit on the floor by the fridge while chatting. Sara Beth then came rushing in with a handful of her "doctor equipment." She dropped them on the floor by my feet and then ran back to her play room to retrieve a second handful. She then began to give me a checkup.

It was going quite well until she decided that I needed a shot of medicine in the eye. I probably spoiled her budding career in the medical field. Heather took some time from making dinner to capture the event.

Sara Beth loved the Halloween decorations that were up three weeks ago. Every night she would ask to go out for a walk to look at them. After they went down, we consoled her with the knowledge that Christmas decorations would be up soon. There are a few early over-achievers that have put their decorations up already (Heather would probably be one of them if I didn't tell her that we can only decorate for one holiday at a time and Thanksgiving isn't here yet.) So now Sara Beth goes for walks every evening looking at the twinkling lights and lighted reindeer. We told her that we will put our decorations up at the end of the week, and she is excitedly awaiting their arrival. As I put her to bed tonight, she informed me that we need to have wreaths on our windows too.

Dress Up

2010-11-17T21:16:00.004-06:00

Typically, Sara Beth does not play with her dress up clothes, but since my parents were in town, she wanted to show off her whole play wardrobe. Though you cant see it, she is wearing a pink tutu skirt under her blue dress with the purple butterfly wings.

At around the age of three, I decided it would be fun to put on all my pants at the same time. I came down stairs and showed it off to my mom. Sara Beth decided to do something similar with all the hair clips in her closet, though she did need some of Heather's help to get them all in. This was in addition to the wings and multiple layers of clothes.

By the end of the box of hair clips, Heather was having a hard time finding space on Sara Beth's head for all of them. Sara Beth kept insisting that all the clips go in her hair. This is about half way through the box.

And here we have the final product. Sara Beth helpfully pulled them all out of her hair about 5 minutes later and put them back in her hair clip box.

As the weather cools, Heather begins to drink hot tea more often. Sara Beth excitedly requests to share. We keep having to remind her to "ask nicely" and use the word please. After a while, Sara Beth remembers to add the word to her request once or twice to each sentence. She will ask "Can I please have some tea please?" We do feel like we are making progress when, after Heather got all the tangles out of her hair, Sara Beth stood up, turned around, gave Heather a hug and said "Thank you for brushing my hair." And then she didn't even ask for any tea or candy!

Creatures

2010-11-09T19:15:00.002-06:00

Sara Beth trick or treated for the first time this Halloween. Our little ladybug , and she had grown old enough to understand how the holiday worked, and, unlike last year, she did not get sick. I rang the door bell at the houses as she did not feel comfortable doing that herself, but she had a great time getting all the candy. Fortunately, she forgot all about her bag of candy the next day, so we avoided having to care for a sugar infused 2 year old.

We went to the zoo last weekend to celebrate Heather's birthday. We took the train to avoid the traffic and the hassle of parking, and Sara Beth enjoyed the whole ride. She saw Heather's phone in the stroller and began to pretend to call people on it.

In the zoo, at the reptile house, I think it was about feeding time for all the snakes and lizards. They were all crawling around their cages and up the walls. Sara Beth ran from one window to the next looking at the active reptiles. The only place that she didn't want to go near was the alligators'.

Of all the animals at the zoo, Sara Beth liked the fish the best. I suspect it was because she could get up close to them. The fish tank had clear plexiglass sides right at Sara Beth's height. She ran around and around the aquarium following the fish as they swam right on the other side of the glass.

Heather now owns an iPhone and she loves it. It allows her to keep all her lists and calendar items all in one place. Sara Beth loves the phone too. Heather found an app that will ready books out loud. Sara Beth will sit with the device and press the button to turn the pages herself.

New Songs

2010-10-26T20:15:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth sings all sorts of songs nowadays. Typically, it will be something like "Jesus Loves Me," and we can totally understand which song she is singing. Which is useful when, in the middle of a verse, she will stop, look at me, and say "Daddy, you sing it now." Even more problematic is the times when she requests a song but cannot communicate the title. Last week, she asked me to sing the "Cherry" song. I have no clue what that is. I asked her to hum a few bars, but she just insisted that I sing the "Cherry Coke" song. Heather had no clue what it was either. The mystery persisted for a couple days, until, in a flash of insight, I realized that she wanted me to sing the song "Jimmy cracks corn" and that she just had never heard the name Jimmy before. The next day, when she asked me to sing the "Crack Song," I knew what she was talking about.

In case you have not been keeping up with the posts, Sara Beth likes to try everything that Heather and I do. So when she saw me eating a drumstick, she wanted nothing to do with the nice bite-sized pieces of chicken on her plate. I gave her one of my drum sticks and she brought it to her mouth only to have the meat fall off the bone and into her lap. Determined to eat holding onto the bone, Sara Beth began eating her mashed potatoes using it as a makeshift spoon.

Heather's birthday is tomorrow and Sara Beth is enjoying every minute of the preparations. She loves to help her mom open presents.

And while helping me bake a birthday cake, she shared some of the batter.

School

2010-10-20T21:37:00.002-05:00

Ever since Heather helped out a friend by picking her daughter up from school, Sara Beth has been enamored with the concept. Four or five times a week for the past several months, Sara Beth will ask Heather "I go to school now?" We had talked about putting her into school next fall when she is three, but since she was so insistent, Heather and I talked and decided we would let her go to a 2-day a week program.

On Monday, Sara Beth was so excited for her first day that she posed for a picture without any of her usual antics. Heather brought her up to the school, and Sara Beth walked right it, just turning around once to say "Bye." Sigh. They grow up so fast.

The day before, we sat down to eat dinner and watch the football game together. Sara Beth really enjoyed watching.

Though at one point, she graped the whole bunch of grapes that we had brought for all of us to snack from, and began to feed them to herself, one handful at a time.

Sara Beth loves the Halloween decorations that are starting to come out. Most evenings, after we have finished dinner, we will go walking around the neighborhood looking at the various displays that are out. She likes the "creepy ones", but doesn't like the "scary ones." She has not clarified the difference between the two, but if decorations are too scary, she will say "I not go this way. I cross the street Daddy." She will then hold out her hand for us to cross to the sidewalk on the other side of the street to give the scary decorations some distance. But she can never see enough, and we always have to come in before she is done. Last night, as I was putting her to bed after bringing her inside, she asked to go see the moon, and I acquiesced. Once outside, with the moon clearly shining in the sky, she said "Hm... I don't see it. Maybe see it over there by decorations." Very clever.

Tea with extra cream

2010-10-13T20:11:00.003-05:00

What could be more fun then drinking tea? How about drinking tea with whip cream! We had some whip cream and fruit and were eating as desert after dinner. Sara Beth noticed that Heather was drinking tea with her desert and decided that she wanted some too. The combination of sugar and tea was consumed in a matter of seconds.

On Saturday, one of Sara Beth's friends had a birthday. Sara Beth sat still long enough to get her face painted as a butterfly. She also got the party hat and a party favor bag. She liked it all, but the bag of party favors, or "party bag" as she calls it, is her favorite by far. She has carried that thing around with her for the past 4 days almost non-stop. She burst into tears when she wanted to go find the "party bag" and I told her she needed to come brush her teeth. We ended up compromising: she could hold the bag in her hands while I brushed her teeth, as long as she put it down before she went to bed.

We got a care package from Heather's mom. Heather had mentioned to Sara Beth that a special surprise was coming in the mail today. When the door bell rang, Sara Beth sprinted to the front door talking about her surprise. When she saw it was a package, Sara Beth declared it to be her birthday and that she was going to open her present.

There was a lot of cool things in there. But, of course, the gloves and purse were Sara Beth's favorites.

End of an era

2010-10-06T20:03:00.003-05:00

This week, Sara Beth convinced us that afternoon naps should be optional. She has now grown out of the napping stage. For several weeks now, nearly every day has included a battle to force her to lay still long enough for her to pass out. This week we decided that it wasn't worth the battle. We still make her stay in her room and be quiet for an hour or two in the afternoon, but we no longer force her to stay laying down in bed. She will still nap on occasion and everyone is happier with the new setup; it makes the afternoons more pleasant.

Sara Beth is quite a runner. This evening, after dinner, she and I went outside for a walk in the wonderfully cool evening weather. Sara Beth decided that instead of walking we should "run and chase." We ran around several blocks side by side while she repeated "run and chase, run and chase." By the time we were done, I suspect we ran at least a mile. On a related note, she fell asleep rather quickly this evening.

Cookies and coconuts

2010-09-28T20:07:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth has begun to sing to herself. Unprompted at 7am, we will hear chorus to "Jesus loves me" repeated over the baby monitor. It is really cute how she can't carry a tune.

We got a coconut from the store the other day and Sara Beth wanted to help open it up. We carried it into the garage to smash it open with a hammer and screw driver.

Sara Beth, of course, wanted to use the hammer to crack it open, in her words, "all by herself."

Today, she got her flu shot. In order to reward her for receiving it without much of a fuss, Heather decided to back cookies with her. Heather handed the ingredients to Sara Beth, and she dumped them into the mixing bowl. She then sampled to dough regularly while Heather placed them on the cookie sheet.

Once they got out of the oven and cooled off, Sara Beth and Heather sat down and had one to celebrate a job well done.

Dinner with friends

2010-09-22T20:05:00.002-05:00

This past Saturday, Sara Beth and her friend Adrinna, had the opportunity to play together for most of the day. When Sara Beth got her pink stuffed dog to carry around, Adrianna got the brown stuffed dog. Sara Beth put on her fairy wings and Adrianna put on a yellow princess dress and both had a great time. The only trouble came when they both wanted the same purse to accessorize their outfit. It was resolved once I got another purse from Sara Beth's stash. For lunch, they got fruit and crackers and a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Sara Beth has been asking more and more about getting earrings. Initially, Heather and I had said that we were not going to get Sara Beth's ears pierced until she was old enough to ask. Well, now she is old enough to ask, but not old enough to realize what she is asking for. Heather has some screw on earrings from my grandmother, which are rather uncomfortable to wear. So Heather asked Sara Beth if she wanted to wear them, in hope that Sara Beth would realize that they didn't feel good and would stop requesting her ears to get pierced. It didn't work. Sara Beth loved them. So, Heather took Sara Beth to the jeweler and had the lady their explain the process of getting her ears pierced. Sara Beth's eyes got wider and wider and she decided that she didn't want to get her ears pierced after all; but she wore my grandmother's earrings for the entire day.

After the rain

2010-09-14T22:04:00.006-05:00

It rained quite a bit around here the past week. Not quite as bad as the national news stations declared. No one got washed away, though I did have to find an alternate route home the day it rained two inches in one hour as a road was flooded. After the sun came back out, Sara Beth, Heather, and I decided to go down to the local creek to see the effect the rain had on it. Sara Beth asked to bring all her friends.

And this is what we found. Sara Beth is standing on the sidewalk as it goes towards what used to be the banks of the creek. Sara Beth enjoyed throwing random debris into the water. As you can see below, she throws like a girl.

A little later in the week, Sara Beth asked Heather if she could sit on the counter and help make dinner. Heather gave her a bit of cooked chicken to munch on while Heather concocted her recipe. When Sara Beth asked to help stir, Heather needed to get another ingredient from the other side of the kitchen, so she let Sara Beth use the spatula. Sara Beth tossed her half eaten piece of chicken into the bowl and mixed it in with the rest of the dinner before Heather could stop her.

One of Sara Beth's favorite recipes for us to make for her: mix 2 parts ice cream with 1 part M&Ms and serve chilled. She consumed the entire bowl full in about 60 seconds.

Helping in the kitchen

2010-09-07T22:13:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth has been helping out a lot in the kitchen this past week. She helps take the junk mail out to the recycle bin. In the below picture, she realized that I was trying to toss a James Avery jewelry catalog. Instead of following me to the recycle bin, she started flipping though the pages, uttering "Oooh, pretty..." on almost every page. If you look carefully, you will notice that she is holding the magazine up side down.

Quite often, while Heather and I are cooking in the kitchen, Sara Beth will want to sit on the counter and watch as we prepare a meal. I left the butter knife within reach of her hands, and she decided she wanted to help by stabbing the butter.

Last Wednesday, Heather and Sara Beth made cup cakes together. Sara Beth worked hard at putting the frosting on them.

Runnning around does take a lot of energy. Sara Beth is eating a tortilla here while the rest of dinner is finished up.

Watch what you say

2010-08-31T21:46:00.003-05:00

Sara Beth has gotten a knack for repeating phrases that she hears. Heather will talk to the other drivers while traveling down the road. So, as she pulls up behind a car at a stop sign, Sara Beth pipes up from the back seat exclaiming "Go Person!" to the car in front of Heather. Heather, always looking for teachable moments, seizes the opportunity and explains how a 4-way traffic stop works. Sara Beth responds by saying, "Hurry up mommy!"

In other news, today while Heather and Sara Beth were in the cleaning supplies aisle of the grocery store, Sara Beth declares "I need chocolate." When Heather asked for clarification, Sara Beth explained "A good treat for a good girl!"

Sara Beth has been eating quite a few gummy bear rewards; each time she goes to the bathroom, we give her one or two. Well, one time, I handed her the little squishy treats, and she bounded to our bedroom and flopped on the couch right next to the Gracie-cat to munch on them. The cat was in a dead sleep, right up to the point when Sara Beth exploded into her personal space. Understandably, the cat bolted from the room. It just so happens that Sara Beth flopping onto the couch also knocked the gummy bear out of her hand. So, now, Sara Beth is sitting on the couch without her treat while the cat bolts from the room. Sara Beth came to the conclusion that Gracie-cat must have stole her gummy bear, so she leaps back off the couch and takes off after the cat calling after her to give back. This is all near bed time when she should be settling down. I had to catch Sara Beth, bring her back and show her where the gummy bear landed, and then made her apologize to the cat for the false accusation.

My parents were in town for the weekend. Sara Beth loved to read with them.

By dinner time Sunday, Sara Beth was exhausted and ready to go to bed.

To the farm

2010-08-24T20:11:00.002-05:00

Heather took Sara Beth to a farm/museum/petting zoo down the road. Now that Sara Beth understands how to pet the cats, she wanted to pet the chickens, but since they had a tendency to bite, Heather didn't let her. She also got to wash cloths the old fashioned way, pick apples, visit a one room school house and have a wagon ride behind a tractor. The only thing that she didn't want to go near was the milking machine that looked like a cow.

Sara Beth uses her kitchen toys. When I get home from work, she will occasionally run up, grab my hand, say "Come with me", and drag me back to her play room for some tea while Heather finishes up with making dinner.

Heather was trying to take pictures of Sara Beth while she was having a tea party. She was so serious and not cracking a smile. Heather said "Smile big. Show your teeth." This was the result.

In case you forgot, Sara Beth still loves to drink tea. Heather left her "empty" cup unattended one morning and Sara Beth grabbed a hold of it and sucked every last drop of tea out from the bottom of the cup.

It has finally started to cool off ( relatively speaking). Today, it was only in the high 90s, so Sara Beth played in the backyard quite a bit. If she walks outside without sunglasses in the middle of the day, she will say "It's bright. Where sunglasses?"

This evening. after dinner, I took her around the block on her tricycle. She can reach the peddles, but she prefers to propel herself forward by running with her feet on the ground while sitting down. It works, mostly, but her arms will move in time with her legs. Since her hands are holding onto the handle bar, the tricycle zigs and zags back and forth with each step she takes, and it is actually very effective. Her top speed is better than my comfortable walking speed.

Bed time stories

2010-08-17T20:58:00.002-05:00

When I put Sara Beth to bed for the night, Sara Beth will tell me bed time stories. She will tell me about things in the day, like seeing a fire truck or splashing in a fountain, and other times she will tell me embellished stories, like how a bunny rabbit jumped into the sky near the moon and how Cookie Monster came over and ate cookies and strawberries and friends. I was afraid to ask for clarification on that one. Tonight, she said that she saw a loud train with a window. I told her that if the window was open, then all the loud noise from the train would come in the window. Sara Beth responded, "Train go inside window... no fit"

Who would have guessed that little girls like to play dress up. Sara Beth and her friend Sophia tried out some of the dresses that Sara Beth got for her birthday.

When her friend Adrianna joined the mix, it became a high volume playtime in the bedroom. They pretended to be sleeping, but as soon as any one of the girls got under the covers, the other two tried to tickle her.

If there is one thing that Sara Beth likes more than dresses, it is shoes. She outgrew her old pair of house shoes, but fortunately, Heather was there to the rescue. She kept her eyes open for a good deal on another pair and her vigilance paid of when she found a new pair for $3. Sara Beth, of course, took off her outside shoes to try the new pair on right away.

Poop everywhere

2010-08-10T20:29:00.003-05:00

There have been several poop related incidences in Sara Beth's life, but yesterday took the cake, as long as "taking the cake" means grinding poop into everything. Heather went in to get Sara Beth in the morning. As she walked up to the room, Sara Beth stood at the gate and said "need diaper change." And then Heather smelled it: Sara Beth had been awake for a while and had been busy. There was poop all over the floor and ground into the carpet. It was in Sara Beth's hair, on her bed sheets, in her books, it coated her bracelets. Unfortunately, taking a picture of the scene was not Heather's top priority, so there are no actual pictures. But it took Heather 2 hours to clean up, and if you know Heather, you know how big of a mess it needs to be for Heather to take 2 hours to clean it up. Fortunately, everyone survived the incident.

Heather did some research about how to prevent repeat incidents. Someone suggested putting a bathing suit on over the child's pajamas. Sara Beth does like bathing suits...

Heather will occasionally drink coffee in the mornings. Sara Beth will beg and plead to have some too. So Heather will put some in "Sara Beth's cup"

Ice cream is also a favorite.

So one of Sara Beth's friends has a toy laptop and Sara Beth enjoys playing with it. The last time we were at Target, a week ago, Sara Beth saw the toy on the shelves. So when Sara Beth and Heather went to pick up some milk there today, Sara Beth reminded Heather that the laptop was still there. She then batted her eyes and, since Heather was so impressed with her memory, Sara Beth is now the proud owner of a new laptop.

Party like your 2

2010-08-04T22:23:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth turned two years old over this past weekend, and she had a great time with friends. If you haven't ever heard 7+ girls all under the age of 6 all screaming at the top of their lungs ... repeatedly, let me tell you, it can create some rather unique resonating patterns of interference, and it is loud. I think my ears are still ringing.

Heather did a wonderful job decorating, and Sara Beth tried several of the strawberries to ensure they were still fresh before any of the guests came over.

Since she still fears tearing wrapping paper, or even removing tissue paper from a gift bag, so we helped her unwrap presents after everyone left. She, of course, wanted to try everything on at the same time.

She also got a fuzzy pink stuffed poodle, along with matching blanket and neck pillow. She calls the neck pillow her "poodle necklace".

I think she is starting to look like the "Mr T" of bracelets. She will put so many on her arms that they are no longer able to bend at the elbow. But she loves all of them. In her other hand, she shows her "cammera," as she calls it.

She has changed so much in the past few weeks. She will routinely say complete sentences. She now enjoys jumping into swimming pools and going underwater. When her hair is pulled back she looks like she is old enough to go into kindergarten. But then I realize what age she currently is, and that we need to get through the "terrible twos" first.

Sitting at the table

2010-07-28T06:48:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth has decided that she is no old enough to sit at the table without a booster seat. In part, she will now always ask to sit in Heather's or my lap instead of her seat. We tell her no because we are mean ... and also because it is messy: her food gets in our laps and my food gets in her hair. When we offered a compromise, her sitting in a chair with out her booster, she accepted. Her mouth is about the same height as the table, but she seems to enjoy sitting in a seat just like the adults.

Her hair has grown to the point that it can now be put in a full ponytail. It is amazing how much more grown up she looks with all her hair pulled back.

My parents came down this weekend and brought presents with them. Sara Beth has a tendency to tear up books into their component pages, so we have worked hard to emphasize that we need to be careful and not tear pages. Needless to say, she got confused when we told her it was ok to rip the wrapping paper off.

Once the wrapping paper was off, she got down to business and started looking at all her new books and puzzles. She helpfully identified the dump truck for Grandpa.

Heather was working outside on the flowerbeds, weeding and cleaning up. Of course, Sara Beth loved playing outside too. Our yard is rather bumpy and we regularly use fill dirt to even out the yard. Sara Beth got down and scientifically analyzed one of the larger spots that had fill dirt in it.

Sara Beth Gone Wild

2010-07-20T20:38:00.003-05:00

I think the picture speaks for itself.

Anyways, Sara Beth has been getting a lot of gummy bears recently. Whenever she asks to use the bathroom, then we allow her to get a treat. And almost every time, she will ask for gummy bears. I have to quickly re-attach her diaper after she empties her bladder as she as a tendency to hop off of the potty and sprint to the pantry for her treat as soon as she is finished doing her business. It is a very promising start to the whole potty training thing.

Sara Beth's birthday approaches like a bullet train. We sent out the invitations this weekend, and by we, I mean Heather. My Aunt Sue has already sent Sara Beth a gift in the mail. Sara Beth looked at all the books with interested after tearing through the paper.

And then like any kid, she decided that the wrapping paper was too good to waste, so she brings it over to her table and starts to color pictures on it.

Escalators

2010-07-14T20:40:00.002-05:00

Sara Beth loves escalators. Whenever we are at the mall, she will ask to go on any one that she sees. And now when we read a book with pictures of alligators, she will point to them and proudly proclaim "escalator," though I think she is being silly as she says it with a silly smile on her face.

We went to "The Taste of Dallas" downtown over the weekend. Sara Beth sat in wide eyed silence as we took the light-rail down to the event. She has seen the train from a distance before, but this is the first time she sat on it. Once we got down there, Sara Beth wanted to be carried the whole time so that she could be above the crowds of people. I don't know how much she weighs, but the next day, my shoulders were sore. I think I need to life some heaver weights at the gym. While down there, there was a setup with some hula hops. Sara Beth saw some older kids use them and figured that she could get in on the action as well.

She also saw a bear statue so we had to get closer to investigate.

If given the choice between taking a bath or a shower, Sara Beth will always choose the shower. She loves carrying her towel and shampoo to the master bath where she takes her shower and will get rather upset if one of us carries the items for her.

So, this picture needs some explanation: first, it was raining outside. And when it rains out, Sara Beth wants to wear her rain coat, despite the fact that she was not actually going out side. The mere sight of precipitation sends her scurrying to her closet for the jacket. And second, she wanted to help me clean up with the dust buster.

Sara Beth tries to be a big "helper" around the house. I don't know if she does it out of a sense of kindness as she sees Heather or I doing a chore or out of a sense of "that looks like fun, let me do it." Regardless, in addition to dust busting the floors, she also helps to water the trees in the backyard too.

Fireworks

2010-07-07T20:44:00.003-05:00

Initially, we were not planning on watching the fireworks this 4th of July. Since she is not even 2 years old yet, we figured it would be too late at night. So we put her to sleep around 8:15 the night of the 4th and settled down to relax for the evening. Around 10pm, the sound of firecrackers and rockets started to echo around the neighborhood. People were setting them off. It was so much noise that Sara Beth woke up and started to get restless. Since she was already up, Heather and I decided to get her up and show her the fireworks. We whisked her out of bed and into the car and we drove to the nearest parking lot that had a good view of the Richardson fireworks display. She loved it. As soon as it was over, we got back in the car and drove to an empty field that had a good view of some other fireworks displays to the east. Sara Beth kept pointing to the fireworks, and she would say "Push" and shove her hand in the air towards the horizon, in an attempt to make the fireworks go higher in the air ... or something.

The past few days since then, she will continue to mention the "fireworks." We keep having to explain that they only happen once a year and that she will need to wait until next year to see them again.

You can never have enough purses. When I asked Sara Beth take out some recycling, she needed to collect all her purses before she could step outside. Along with Emma Rose, her doll, she is carrying 4 purses. Also, her cell phone was not in any of them, as it had to be clutched in her right hand.

I am starting up reading "The Lord of the Rings" out loud right before Sara Beth's bed time. Sara Beth decided she wanted to do more than just sit and listen, so she brought various books of her own to read next to me. This book was nursery rhymes, and Sara Beth is showing me the actions for "The insey winsey spider" song.

My family was in town this past weekend, including my brother and sister. Sara Beth asked to get her nails painted. Then Heather got hers painted. Jill, my sister, already had hers painted. We then "helped" John paint his toenails. It took Heather, Jill, and myself to hold him down long enough to get one foot painted. This is the picture after the fact.

Making dinner

2010-06-30T19:36:00.002-05:00

This past week Sara Beth made dinner for her and Heather. She went to her play kitchen, and prepared some plates of play food to eat. She then went to get Heather. Heather was led back to the play room to eat "dinner" with her. Heather was so proud of her, she had to take a picture.

Sara Beth made the final touches to her meal and then asked Heather to sit down with her to eat it.

The mere fact that it is summer outside won't slow Sara Beth down from putting on her winter clothes. She opened the dresser drawer on her own, and dressed herself. Heather suggested to her that perhaps it might be a little warm for the hat and scarf and leg warmers, but Sara Beth would have none of that talk and wanted to go outside anyways.

Don't let the sleepy look fool you; Sara Beth's morning has slowly shifted from 8:15 to 7:15. For a while she was wanting to get up for the day at 6:30am, but we were going to have none of that. In the mornings, before she fully wakes up, she will snuggle up with you, so I do enjoy relaxing with her on Saturday mornings. Before long, inevitably, she will fully wake up, and begin to run around for the day.

Sara Beth is facinated by loud noises. Last week, an ambulance with its siren on passed Heather's car, and Sara Beth has mentioned it every day since then. Earlier, I mentioned the hot Texas summer around her, but, fortunately, we have had rain this week, so it has cooled off and has been rather pleasant. With the rain storms comes all the thunder and lightning. Sara Beth will always mention the thunder when you talk about the rain with her.

While it was raining, we have gone outside to play. I showed Sara Beth the drain pipe and explained how the "intsey weensey spider" climbed up a water spout just like that one. When I sang the nursery rhyme, Sara Beth did the hand motions.

I did it

2010-06-22T20:12:00.003-05:00

Sara Beth's lingual skills have developed to the point that she will now routinely use short sentences. Her favorite is "I did it!" She will repeat that whenever she accomplishes any size task. When she puts some trash in the trashcan, she will say it. When she climbs into her chair for dinner, she will say it. If she gets her doll stroller stuck in a tight spot somewhere in the house, she will say "Help! Help!" and then when she frees the stroller on her own three seconds later, she will exclaim "I did it!"

Spring has definitely sprung around here. The afternoon temperature consistently flirts with triple digits. But, on the bright side, it gives us a perfect reason to eat popsicles outside. Sara Beth loves the treat, but will end up consuming about half of it after it has dripped onto her arm or arm.

Sara Beth enjoys her indoor bounce house as she can do all sorts of physical exercise and Heather and I don't have to be concerned about heatstroke. Once she starts to slow down from the exertion, she will sometimes lay down in the middle of the bounce house. If Heather or I try to lay down next to her, she will loudly proclaim "Wake up!" I'm just glad that we still keep a gate infront of her bedroom door so that she is not able to come into the master bedroom at 5 in the morning to say that same thing. I think it is only cute when the sun is shining outside.

My parents are coming down more regularly to check on the house that they are building. When they come down, Sara Beth has a great time playing with them. In this picture, she took Grandpa's hat, ran around the living room with it, and then climbed back on the couch to put it back where she almost exactly where she found it.

Heather plans our dinner's a week in advance so that she knows what she needs to purchase from the grocery story. She uses a pen and paper to make the plans and a dinner list at the same time. Sara Beth likes to color using the same pen and paper. When Sara Beth saw the pen and paper in Heather's hands, she sweetly climbed up next to Heather, snuggled her for about 5 seconds, and then made a lunge for the pen.

I have introduced Sara Beth to video games. I think that I will introduce them to her in the order that they were released, since the early ones were the easiest to figure out. I fired up the original Nintendo that we have and showed it to Sara Beth. In, Mario Brothers, she likes the pause button as that makes the coolest noise, but her favorite game is duck hunt. She can't actually hit anything, but she likes the bright flash when she pulls the trigger and loves the ducks and dog that show up on the screen.

Tea and Necklaces

2010-06-08T18:46:00.003-05:00

Not that it is a surprise to anyone, but Sara Beth loves jewelry, just like her mother. Lately, she has her favorite bead necklace. We don't want her snapping it and choking on a bead while she sleeps at night, so she doesn't have it then. But most mornings, she begins her mornings by asking for the necklace, and then keeps it on until she goes down for her nap, and the process repeats after her nap until bead time. She is really good about giving it up, though. We ask her and she will voluntarily remove the necklace and hand it to us though she does it with the saddest eyes. You can see the pink beads in a couple of the below pictures.

Sara Beth loves tea. She will ask for a sip from Heather's cup...

And whenever she gets that sip, she will then ask to have the whole rest of the cup for herself.

Tea cups are not the only thing that Sara Beth wants to share. After declaring herself all done with her dinner, she got out of her seat and then went over to sit in Heather's lap. She then wanted to take Heather's knife for her own purposes. Heather didn't give it to her, but Sara Beth kept reaching for it, stopping only to smile for the camera. Sara Beth didn't have the beads in this picture because we just got back from the pool and sat right down for dinner so she didn't have time to adorn herself.

While Sara Beth loves her necklaces, bracelets, bows, purses, and dolls, she also enjoys playing with matchbox cars. She has several that somehow turn up in her toy collection, but she will then take the car and drive it around the house producing the sounds of a revving engine and squealing tires.

Jump

2010-06-01T20:53:00.003-05:00

Well, Memorial day weekend has rolled around, and ToysRUs celebrates the holiday by putting stuff on sale. So, we bought Sara Beth's birthday present a little early. Ok, a lot early. And we put it up right when we got home instead of waiting until her actual birthday. Since that point, Sara Beth has had a lot of exercise jumping in her new bounce house. With every leap, she says "Jump". So, while cooking in the kitchen, I can hear "Jump .. jump ... jump ... jump" from the other room.

Occasionally, when our cars are sitting in the garage, we let Sara Beth sit in the front seat. She loves turning the wheel, pushing all the buttons, and making engine noises. Our neighbor bought a new truck, and when Sara Beth and I were sitting in the back seat in his driveway, she climbed out of my lap, over the front arm rest, and into my neighbor's lap and began to play with the wheel. And now, whenever we go to any store, she will continually ask for the "car cart." Some stores have carts with a steering wheel for the kids to turn, and if Sara Beth had it her way, all stores would have those carts.

All kinds of fruit are now in season, which means all varieties get to be a part of dinner. Sara Beth, of course, wants to use the cherry pitter herself. She knows that her mom is more likely to let her play with metallic tools at the dinner table, so she slides up into Heather's to fulfill her cherry pitting desires.

Sara Beth has actually gotten to be rather helpful when it comes to putting up dishes from the dishwasher. She knows to which cabinet each item goes. The only two issues are:m1) she cannot reach half the cabinets on her own, and 2) she can get distracted playing with all the cool stuff in the cabinets.

In what we will call the before-bounce-house era, BBH, Sara Beth enjoyed playing with the cushions on the couches. Or, to be more exact, she enjoyed playing in the structures that Heather and I built from the couch cushions and blankets. She would come up to us and ask for her "house," which is what she called the mounds. Now, she wants us to drape the blankets over her new bounce house, and doesn't care for the couch cushions anymore.

Pool time

2010-05-26T19:47:00.002-05:00

Summer has arrived. The temperature has been 95 degrees in the daytime and rising. So, to combat the heat, we have been going to the pool on a regular basis. Every time we go, Sara Beth gets more brave and willing to try different things. She still is not willing to float in the water unless she has a Kung-Fu-Death-Grip on either Heather's swim suit or my chest hair, but she will now leap off the side of the pool into our arms again. For those of you with good memories, yes, she did this last year as well, but this year, she actually leaps into the pool instead of merely stepping over the edge.

Her favorite part about going to the splash park, located next to the pool. Whenever it turns on, Sara Beth will drop whatever she is doing and trot over to the fountains. Only rarely will she actually get in the water, but she sure does enjoy looking at it. One of the contraptions at the splash park is a bucket about 8 feet in the air that fills with water and then tips over spilling its contents on the ground. Every time it happens, Sara Beth says "Uh-oh."

We have begun to work with Sara Beth on learning to use full sentences. When she runs to the fridge repeating "Milk, milk, milk", we now stop her and make her say "Milk please mommy," or "milk please daddy," depending on which is appropriate. She seems to be picking it up rather well.

Something she has also picked up is the propensity to wake up and start banging around at 2am, and not go back to sleep until 5am or so. And that is only with constant reminders from Heather and I to go back to sleep. It isn't the most pleasant of habits, and we are working to break her of it, or at least to be quieter so that we sleep through her early morning party time.

Leaf soup

2010-05-18T20:39:00.002-05:00

Before I start, I did want to say "Happy Anniversary Heather!" It has been a wonderful 8 years together, and, every year I fall deeper in love with you. Thank you for marrying me.

So, on to the regularly scheduled blog post. It has been rather rainy and overcast this past week. Good for the grass, but it does feel rather dreary. Right after a rain storm, Sara Beth asked to go outside to to play. She dutifully walked around the yard with her snack in one hand, collecting fallen leaves with the other. She carried them over the the gutter drain and put all the leaves in it. She then leaned down and began to sip her new soup concoction before we stopped her.

Sara Beth discovered that she can climb into the cabinets. She will then pop out like a cute trap-door spider missing a few legs and say "Peek-a-boo".

Even though we got a brand new camera, we did not put it to good use this week, so that is all the pictures. We went to the pool a couple times. Sara Beth had her pink "Dora the Explorer" water floaties on, and will walk up and down the steps of the pool, but she is still too nervous to float without a kung-fu death grip on either Heather or I when her feet can no longer reach the ground. We're working on it.

Useful training

2010-05-11T22:08:00.002-05:00

My parents were in town this past weekend. Sara Beth had a great time receiving all the attention and getting spoiled in a way that only grand parents are allowed to do. On Saturday night, Heather and I went out on a date while Grandma and Grandpa watched Sara Beth. We came home and received the report that she behaved and even helped Grandma with the proper nighttime routine and told her what to do next if she missed a step.

We have been working with Sara Beth to teach her all sorts of new skills. This includes things like learning her letters. She has "S" down, and some of the others as well, and mastering more every day.

She will now read by herself. She looked so much like a big girl when she carried her dinosaur book over to the living room couch, pulled herself up onto it, and began flipping through it all by herself.

If Sara Beth is going to have any hope of being as good of a cook as Heather, she is going to need an early start. Heather is just that good. Sara Beth watched as Heather made some M&M cookies, and then she helped me lick the mixer clean.

Sara Beth is a natural when it comes to washing cars. Heather and I started washing about 4 months of dirt off my car, and Sara Beth picked up one of the unattended sponges and started washing the bumper clean. One we were done with the front of the car, I redirected her to the side panels, and she dutifully wiped them down until I washed them off. This repeated until we were all done. I took the below photo a second after Sara Beth got a wayward spray from the hose as Heather washed the soap off the hood of the car.

New Camera

2010-05-04T20:18:00.003-05:00

Hurray! After much moaning and groaning, we finally decided that enough was enough and we definitely need a new camera. So if anyone wants a used camera guaranteed to cause frustration, just let me know. So the last two pictures in this post and all future pictures will be with the new and improved camera, so that means that the images should all be in focus and no issues with it taking too long to snap the picture.

Sara Beth has been interested in building houses lately. Now, "building" a house consists of having Heather or I put a blanket over her table in the play room. She will climb in and pop out. On days that she refuses to take a nap and acts tired, she will take her stuffed dog "pinkey" under the table with her and lay down relaxing in her own domain.

Sara Beth plus cookies are always guaranteed to result in smiles and a big mess.

We took Sara Beth to the park to play and try out the new camera. Instead of playing on the swings or the play structure, she kept going to the locked gate, trying to get into the pool next door.

When we finally opened the gate for her she cantered into the pool area and looked around like a kid in a candy store (not that we would ever let Sara Beth loose in a candy store). Heather sat by the edge of the kid pool and dangled her feet in the water. Sara Beth followed suit. Since I had shorts on, I got into the kiddy pool. When Sara Beth realized that the pool had a bottom, she wanted in too. She had a great time jumping and splashing around, and was very sad when we had to go back home to eat dinner. Also, note how the below picture is in focus. Isn't it great?