magical tummies

Sofia: I'm not going to have a baby in my tummy.
[After some more thought...] Some girls are magic and some are not. You are magic
Me: Why?
Sofia: Because a baby came out of your tummy.

The next day:

Me: Do you want Lhasa to get up on your bed?
Sofia: Yes. Did she come out of a doggie's tummy?

emerson eating

hammond's candy factory

as a special holiday outing, we toured Hammond's Candy Factory with some friends.

zoo lights

We went to the zoo to see it all lit up with Lyle, Jade and Rylie. It was cold, but fun! I think we were all crazy, as we planned a night out at the zoo and then dinner... that was just a little bit too much for one evening for these little ones! Oh well... we can try! Next time we'll just plan one evening per activity. :)

By the way, Fia didn't want her picture taken...

emerson at 5 months

at 5 months, emerson is playing peek-a-boo, rolls over, pushes up on his arms, wiggles around all over the floor, reaches for anything and if he gets it he grabs on, and is still a sweetheart. we started feeding him brown rice cereal last week, and he absolutely loves it! tonight he tried avocado mixed into his cereal. it was a little different, but he still asked for more.

speakin' spanish

The other night, as Kent was putting Sofia to bed, as is our routine these days, it came time for story time. Usually Kent will read two books to her. But, this time, Sofia kept telling him the book she wanted to read in her gibberish-Spanish. After three tries, Kent finally got frustrated, and told her when she could tell him in English, he would read the story. He left the room, and Sofia ran after him in tears! She came to me, and cried that daddy wouldn't read to her. I told her that she has to tell us the book in English, because we don't speak her Spanish. She said, "but you speak Spanish with me!" I told her yes, I speak some Spanish it is true, but not the kind of Spanish she is speaking (i.e. not the gibberish-Spanish!) She said, "but you have to ask Ms. Rachel (her teacher). I said, "I don't think even Ms. Rachael could help us with this one! Sofia, you've got to speak to some people only in English."

This is only one of the many incidents we have lately with Sofia telling us that we have to speak in Spanish now! It will be nice when her Spanish is really Spanish, so at least I'll understand her! She does say quite a bit in Spanish, but it is usually phrases here and there.

the kleenex incident

On Friday, Sofia, Emerson and I went to friends house to play. Sofia and Rowan went back to Rowan's room, as usual, and played. We heard lots of giggling, and wondered, what were those two doing! As you would think, of course they were getting into trouble!

When I walked back to check, they had managed to completely destroy a kleenex box, tissue spewed and shredded all over the room! Sofia and Rowan looked like they had had the time of their lives!

Sarah came in, and said, "oooh, how wasteful!" Sofia responded, "that's OK Rowan, you can waste kleenex at my house!"

Fia and the Magic Wand

Hi, it's Kent blogging this time...

I just wanted to preserve the memory of Fia and this Christmas. First of all, everything is Cinderella. Anyone can be Cinderella. Our Shelf Elf is Cinderella, Fia is Cinderella, Lhasas or Leone can be Cinderella, and even I can be Cinderella on my best days. If someone is bad, they're Anastasia. Rounding out this magical princess/fairy trio is Tinkerbell.

So, we are in the land of princesses and fairies for sure. This despite all of our Jayhawk basketball watching (sidenote: She *does* love the Jayhawks. You'll be glad to know, that Fia's favorite player on the Rockies baseball team this past summer was... the Jayhawks).

Now with all of this as background, Fia is getting a Magic Wand for Christmas. Every day, 10 times a day, Fia is getting a Magic Wand for Christmas. This much, she is 1000% absolutely for sure. We're trying our best to communicate with Santa Claus in hopes that he's able to bring Fia *just* the right one.

The outcomes of this to me personally are a bit frightening. For instance, what if Santa doesn't bring the right one? I think he has 5-6 to choose from. And then...what if, once Fia has the Magic Wand, she's unable to "Wand you" with the desired outcome?

This is something Fia says all of the time: "If you are a good boy, and you say please and thank you, then I will wand you into a princess".

It'll be an interesting Christmas time for sure, this Christmas of Fia's Magic Wand.

opt out of phone book delivery

So, we never use our phone books - not even as booster seats! We definitely prefer to search online for phone numbers and addresses. For years I've wondered how we can stop receiving such a waste of paper! Luckily, we can recycle them, but it's still wasted energy and trees to just receive them.

Now I've found it!

http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/

Just go to this website, and opt out of delivery!

Now if we could just do the same to stop receiving so many useless catalogues!!! (argh!) I feel sorry for our mail carrier, having to deliver all of those!

We've got a Shelf Elf!

We started a new - and very magical - Christmas tradition. It's a "shelf elf". He appears every year before Christmas, and watches and reports back to Santa whether we've been good or not.

Sofia has been totally taken in by this magic of the shelf elf! He appears in different places around the house. She asks questions about him, and thinks a lot about how he does what he does. She has named him "Cinderella"!

The first day we met the shelf elf, she said, "why doesn't the shelf elf blink?" Then she answered her own question with, "I know, because he's plastic!" (of course I am a bit worried here...) Then, she asked, "why is the shelf elf plastic?" I didn't know what to say! Luckily, she answered her own question again, with, "I know, because Santa is plastic!" Well, I guess I hadn't considered the fact that to Sofia, plastic does not have the "cheap, fake, evil" connotation that it has for me, so it could very well be magical for her!

We're enjoying looking for the shelf elf and talking about all that he does!

I got a kiss!

Today I swear that Emerson gave me a kiss! He put his little mouth on my cheek, twice! Is 4.5 months too young to do that? Anyhow, I swear he did it on purpose.

He also played peek-a-boo with me. While I was taking a bath, I was playing with him with a washcloth, putting it over his face. After a while of doing that, he started peeking around it purposely and smiling at me!