Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Jack loves to color and draw. He's certainly much more into artistic pursuits than Hannah was at that age, but sadly he also enjoys eating crayons so we have to keep those in pencil boxes unless Jack is under close supervision. In general, Jack is limited to colored pencils and those markers that only leave color on the special Crayola coloring books. He loves to stand on Hannah's desk chair and draw and color away, especially when he lucks out and wakes up sooner than she does.

Mail

The kids unexpectedly got a big package from my aunt Fran today. It was full of fun new books and puzzles. They immediately sat down and looked at all the books, and then we put together the huge barn puzzle. When they were done with the puzzle, Hannah went back to the books, but Jack carefully took the puzzle apart and put each piece back in the box. What a good boy!

Here is Jack, "reading" to us from the card Fran sent the kids. His version of "reading" is to babble things with varied inflections and tones of voice. It's hilarious. He won't do it for the video camera, to my chagrin. Maybe soon I'll get it recorded on tape for posterity.

Moppets

I took the kids to the MOPS open house tonight, and they both apparently loved it. Jack, who had basically fussed all day, didn't cry at all and made all the other kids laugh with his antics. Hannah made lots of new friends, went to the bathroom all by herself without even being prompted, and cleaned up the toys without being asked.

Where were these children all day long???? At least they were well behaved in public.

I think MOPS will be good for the kids and for me, and I'm looking forward to the meetings and play groups and all that.

Blogging - The Next Generation

Noticing Hannah diligently working with a piece of paper and some crayons, I asked her what she was drawing.

"I'm not drawing Mama," Hannah said firmly. "I'm writing my BLOG."

I couldn't actually decipher her "blog" but I'm sure it was brilliant.

Church IS Far Away, But Not THAT Far!

Hannah loves to chatter away, and today she told us she was leaving for a trip. She said she needed to go see Dr. Voelkel (my OB), and when asked why, she said because she needed a pink bandaid with cats on it. After the doctor, she said, she would be going to Africa.

"Africa?" we asked, "Where is Africa?" We were just wondering how she would respond.

"OHHH," said Hannah with appropriate dramatic inflection, "Africa is FAAAAARRRRRR away, right by church!"

OK, so we live about 45 minutes from church. It's far, but not THAT far. She's just lucky she doesn't have to take a covered wagon to church, such as the one she observed in the picture above, which was taken at the Fair.

A Boy and His Dog

Jack is a boy who speaks little but ponders much. His few words include:

Mama
Dada
Nana (Hannah)
Uh oh
Bye Bye
Nigh' Nigh' (night night)
tra' (truck)

And today, for the first time, Jack pointed at our dog Bailey and said "Beh-leh!" Later, while Hannah was talking about a dog, Jack said, "woof! woof!"

A Haircut Story

Last night I cut Hannah's hair - it was long overdue for a trim in the back, because it's thin and looks messy if it gets too long. Above you can see the result. I think she looks cute in a little bob.

After her haircut, Hannah recounted the story to her daddy.

"I was s'posed to not move my head, but I CAN'T not move my head!!!! So Mama said, 'Be still be still be still AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

And to be honest, that is a pretty much what I said while I was cutting her hair! It's very tough to get a straight cut when you're dealing with a wiggly two year old who wants to see in the mirror the whole time!

Gigi and Grandad

Today after her nap Hannah suddenly sighed dramatically and said, "Oh poor Gigi and Grandad."

I asked her what she meant, and she replied, "Gigi and Grandad are SO sad, because they haven't seen me in a very long time, and that makes them sad."

Probably true.

Fixed Up Beach Baby Shots

I tried to lighten some of these up a little bit and cropped a few. Still not the greatest, but probably as good as I could get with my camera.

Four Generations

On our trip this July we visited my grandparents - above you can see four generations of our family!

Jack and my grandfather

Our Homeschool Preschool

On my blog, I posted a series of posts about our Homeschool Preschool for this fall, you can check the links below:

Our Homeschool Preschool - Introduction
Our Homeschool Preschool - Reading and Language
Our Homeschool Preschool - Math and Science
Our Homeschool Preschool - Music, Art, and Motor Skills
Our Homeschool Preschool - Bible

Fair Play

Wednesday the kids and I met up with Jamie and her daughter Tara and went to the Indiana State Fair (there was a free admission ticket in Tuesday's paper, so that was nice). You can see a lot of marvels and learn a lot of things at the Fair.
For example, I bet you didn't know that tigers are afraid of umbrellas. I have now added "umbrella" to my list of "Things To Take To The Jungles of Wildest Borneo" and I suggest you do the same.
You can also see amazing sculptures crafted entirely from cheese! If I were going to make a sculpture from cheese to enter in the State Fair, I would make something really tremendous like a scale model of the Taj Mahal or something. Of course, that presumes that I can sculpt in cheese, which I cannot. And that is why I didn't win any blue ribbons at the Fair this year.
If you're so inclined, at the Fair you can eat a lot of bizarre things deep fried and impaled on sticks, such as the "Deep Fried Pepsi" you see advertised above. I do not know how one goes about deep frying Pepsi, and I was not inclined to sample said delicacy. The people in the picture are not related to us or friends of ours in any way, but were merely innocent passers-by. Now they are famous on the internet. I hope they don't mind.
Jack got a free hat in the children's "pretend to be a farmer" section. He also rode a very small tractor and took it very seriously. In the picture above he is noshing on some string cheese while deciding if the prize winning dairy cows were accurately judged. He waved his cheese in an authoritative way that I took to mean he concurred with the judges' decision.
Hannah enjoyed a ridiculously expensive corn dog on a stick for her lunch. Jack didn't like his ridiculously expensive corn dog, so he threw it on the ground. For the uninitiated, a corn dog is a hot dog skewered on a stick and wrapped in cornbread. Some of the food places advertised "hand dipped corn dogs" but that was a little too fancy for us, so we went with the more pedestrian plain corn dogs, and tried to avoid thinking about how they were dipped if not by hand. By foot? By someone clutching the stick betwixt their teeth? By an elaborately constructed machine twirling about in the back of the little trailer mechanically dipping hot dogs in cornbread?

We missed seeing the world's largest pig, who evidently is so morbidly obese that he cannot stand on his own legs for fear of breaking them. That's pretty fascinating if you ask me. Maybe we'll get to that next year.

Anecdotes

Hannah wakes up chatting and pretty much keeps up a running commentary all day long. It can get exhausting, but it's always entertaining. Today, for example, when I mentioned that Sarah was kicking a lot, Hannah declared,

"Sarah is married to Abraham."

I wasn't tracking with her, so I said, eloquently, "Huh?"

Patiently, Hannah explained herself. "In the Bible, it says Sarah is married to Abraham."

I agreed, but said our Sarah isn't married. Not to be dissuaded, Hannah firmly announced "Sarah IS MARRIED to Abraham, Mama."

We had a nice long discussion about how just because you have the same name as someone else, doesn't mean you ARE that person, and our baby Sarah is not the same Sarah we have been reading about in Genesis. Just in case I ever wonder if the kids pay attention when we read the Bible to them, now we know!
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In a separate incident, Hannah asked when God has to take a nap.

"God doesn't take naps, Hannah" I told her, "The Bible says God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He is always awake taking care of us."

"So when I take my nap, God can be wit' me?" Hannah asked.

"Yes Hannah, God is with you all the time." I said.

Nodding her satisfaction, Hannah said, "That's GOOD."
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I walked in to Jack's room yesterday looking for him, and found him on the floor with a blanket and a Snappi, which he was attempting to use to diaper himself! He had the Snappi halfway on, right side up and everything! He was pretty proud of himself. Fortunately he was wearing a diaper already though, because we don't use blankets as diapers around here, generally speaking.
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Jack likes to make his coy little smile, ducking his chin down and batting his long, thick eyelashes (lucky boy), and wave while saying "bye bye" to people. Lately though his "bye bye" sounds just like that Saturday Night Live skit where the flight attendants say "Buh BYE! Buh BYE now! BUH bye!" It cracks me up.
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Finally, lest I weary my audience with an overabundance of anecdotes, I will just mention that Jack invented his own sign for "eat." I am not a big baby sign person, mostly because Hannah talked early and there didn't seem to be much need for signs, and with Jack, well, maybe because he's the second baby I'm a lot more laid back about his baby-hood and not feeling the same burning need to communicate that I did before Hannah talked. Anyway, Jack makes a funny sign when he's hungry, which is basically a pantomime of him putting food into his mouth. It starts slow, with a move as if he is grabbing a single imaginary Cheerio and placing it in his mouth. If real food is not immediately forthcoming, he ramps up the drama a bit and starts shoveling handfuls of imaginary food into his gaping mouth. It's pretty funny, and quite effective.