Goodness.

I really want to be better about updating. It's easy to let the thought slip that my children won't be this small forever. Fascinating things happen everyday! I will be better about documenting it!

Ok, so Elijah turned three years old in October. I have a three year old! He is attending at a fantastic Montessori Preschool as of September 1st and absolutely loves it. Well, the first month he cried everyday I dropped him off, but really I think that happened mostly because he got in the habit of crying every day. When I pick him up, the first words out of his mouth are typically, "Momma, I had so much fun today!" Speaking of words, Elijah's speech has improved significantly and his vocabulary has expanded as well. His sentences are fluid and he is enunciating. I love that others are more easily able to understand him and that I only need to translate slightly more than half the time. While this means he's readily able to execute talking back, it's been enjoyable nonetheless. Though I will be more than relieved when he stops the "broken record" method of getting my attention:

"Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy......."

Elijah was a pirate for Halloween. It was rather unfortunate; he came down with a horrendous chest cold the day of Halloween. I was still so eager to take him Trick-or-Treating, though. We had planned to go around the neighborhood my in laws live in and were thankfully able to stop by a few houses. Elijah did have a blast despite the cold. We warmed up by the fireplace and sorted the loot. But the cold came out of nowhere, no inkling of sickness the day before, and BAM- he woke up on Halloween with the ugliest cough I've heard in a long time. The cough was one of those, deep, heavy sounds in his chest. Not really even cough-like. Once it started breaking up it sounded more like a cough. Naturally it got passed around the entire family and now Emily is on the tail end of the lingering cough.

Mr. Potato Head, right? The resemblance is uncanny!

My little M&M is nine months old (already!) and not only crawling and pulling herself up, but cruising around at every moment's chance! This girl is amazing. A blast! What a sense of humor this one has. She loves to laugh, play peek-a-boo, dance, and play the talk back game. We take turns making noises at each other. And when we play peek-a-boo, she's the one that holds the dishcloth over her face, then yanks it off quickly with a smile on her face. When she dances, she sits straight up and does this rock on her butt with her hands above her head. It's the cutest thing, ever.

It's interesting the amount of sass Emily has. It is not hard to figure out what this girl wants. Spoons get smacked out of my hand met with irritated cries, bread bits get swept off the highchair tray with one sweep. When we got shopping I know when she's eager for more attention because she'll take the toy she's playing with, hold it outside the stroller with her right hand, look me straight in the eye and drop it on the floor. Give it back to her enough times and she starts chucking it out. She's also gotten into the habit of tossing her pacifier out. I believe that to be her boldest statement. Emily loves her pacifier so I know she's fed up when that green soothie goes flying into the aisle of the grocery store and bounces against the shoe of some stranger. I've had to start carrying more than one nuk with me lest I have to run to the bathroom every few minutes to wash the flippin' thing. Regardless, I very much enjoy taking Emily shopping with me while Elijah is at preschool; it gives me a chance to get some one on one with her while taking care of errands.

I went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra over the weekend and took my Mom and the kids with me. I'm glad I decided to go; I wasn't able last year and (regrettably) relinquished my tickets after a schedule conflict arose. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is incredible and I strongly encourage everyone to experience them at least once! They tour every year during winter for the holidays. I wasn't going to let the fact that I couldn't have free hands hold me back. My husband was in Pittsburgh over the weekend so I couldn't ask him to sit the kids. In any case, Emily and Elijah had a great time. It's a long show (three hours) and at one point Elijah actually fell asleep for a little over an hour. Emily, being the trooper she is [insert eye roll here] only dozed for a mere 20 minutes. However, when both awake, they were enthusiastic and throughly entertained.

...Fine, we'll go see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. If we have to...

"Mmmah!"

That's what Emily is saying as she looks deliberately into my eyes. No joke, the girl is calling me! I was hesitant to assume that was the case until both Mom and Josh confirmed that was in fact what they were hearing as well. It's so exciting. I wanted Elijah to talk so badly when he was Emily's age; alas, he was not interested for a long, long while. Another wild difference between the two of them is how curious Elijah was with his toys. He was fascinated with the workings of his toys and didn't play with them per se, but investigated how they functioned. Emily is more interested in testing out her toys via her mouth, and then pounding them on the floor or at other toys - much like a typical baby would.

Someone loves to swing!

Ok, yes that is Elijah's hat.

Emily loves to observe though, much like Elijah did (does). She is much more interested in being on the move and catching up with Elijah. When Emily is having tummy time, I try to get her to crawl by putting a toy just out of reach. She'll get this determined look on her face, pull her lips in, grunt, reach with an out stretched hand.... and then go limp knowing that she's not quite ready to crawl. She puts her face on the floor and whines with an arm still stretched out in front of her. It's cute how quickly she gets frustrated; "If only I could crawl!" I know that once she's ready to crawl that she's going to just go. There won't be any practice/test crawls. It'll be more like next thing I know I'm racing after her because she's out of the room.

Elijah's third birthday is coming up (okay, not 'til October, but still!) and I've been shopping! I bought him a Toy Story bed tent, and a scooter, that is also Toy Story. He had his first experience on a scooter when he went camping with Josh and, from what I heard, wouldn't get off the thing. This has the handle bars complete with a zipper bag on the front. He saw me grab it at Target today and was all, "Momma! Momma! Momma! What is that? Let me see? We can play it outside?" There were only two left and I knew that if I came back later for it they'd be out of stock. Thankfully I was able to sidetrack him with a water gun from the $1 bin! My Mom and I found one of those huge floor pianos at Toys R Us, so that's what Elijah's getting from Grandma.

Elijah also got his hands on a number of those hand held touch screen gaming systems that are designed for children. There was one from Leapster that he did better with (ages 4-9, I might add). It was fun to watch him with the educational games - he rocked! I sent that bit of information along to my Mother-in-Law because I wasn't sure if she had an idea for him or not for his birthday.

He's going to have an awesome birthday. I want to have a pinata, also. My Mom took him to a birthday party a few months ago where there was a pinata and it was reported back to me that Elijah was just ecstatic over it.

Time to catch some ZZZZZs. I'm exhausted after going to the chiropractor, the post office, Target, and the post office again (the first post office had a sign up inside that said their credit/debit machines were down and I never carry cash on me) with the kids in tow.