Good bye Nukkies!

This week marked a huge milestone for us!
Noah has not needed his Nuk to sleep for some time. He has, however, requested it because Hannah is INSISTENT on having a Nuk when she sleeps. Wednesday night, Hannah decided that she is a big girl and no longer needed her "Nukkie". (OK, so Mom & Dad helped the process a little by slicing a small hole in her soothie pacifier and making that hole a bit larger every few days. Wednesday the slice had turned into a small hole, so the pacifier apparently no longer what she wanted.) As she had for the past few nights, she told us her Nukkie had a hole in it. As we had told her for the past few nights, she had to either suck on it as it was (with the hole) or throw it in the garbage. We didn't have any more for her. So, after a week of telling us it was OK with a hole, she told us that she was a big girl and didn't need her Nuk and was ready to throw it in the garbage. Mom took a picture, although it didn't turn out to be a great picture for such a momentous occasion in Hannah's life.
Over the spring/summer, we decided to ONLY give him his Nuk if he asked. Hannah asked every night. Noah asked occasionally - less and less lately.
So, our big kids have visitors this week. Grandma & Grandpa P came up from Arkansas to visit. They brought cousin Alex up to visit his mommy (who lives up north), so he visited for a few minutes then left. We will get to hang out with Grandma & Grandpa P. for the week until we go to visit our other grandma & grandpa on Friday.
Have a great Holiday week. Happy Thanksgiving!

The past few days have been so nice - 40's and 50's during the day with some sunshine! We've been lucky enough to play outside at daycare a few days this week.
Yesterday (11-14), Hannah wanted to go outside after naps. (Yes, both kids took naps, although they were only a couple of hours long), so we went outside and brought Cheyenne to the backyard. Hannah decided she wanted to ride her bike and she did a really good job pedaling on her own power! She often got stuck and needed a push, but if Mom had her hand on Hannah's back, that gave Hannah the confidence to push herself and Mom barely had to push. We pedaled up and down the sidewalk (from the garage to our new cement steps in front of the house) and back to the alley. We went all the way down the alley to the north, around to the front of our block and to our house on the street. It was a long bike ride, but Hannah did really well.
After church, we went home and got ready for a party. Dad wanted to get there early, so he asked if Noah or Hannah wanted to go with him or Mom. Both kids said they wanted to go with Mom, so dad left...but Noah stood by the window as Dad drove away yelling "Dad! Wait! He's leaving! NO DADDY!" Noah cried and cried when daddy left; he was sure happy to see Daddy when we got to the party 10 minutes after him! Noah & Hannah got to skip their nap to play with their friend and their cool toys. (It's always fun to go to someone else's house to play - especially when they have a set of Thomas the Train toys!) They even watched a movie, but Hannah didn't watch if very long because she said the Polar Express was scary.
Have a good week!

The other night we were talking about how God gave King Solomon anything he wanted, and King Solomon chose wisdom. We asked Noah & Hannah what they would want if they could have ANYTHING they wanted.
Hannah said "Cereal!" and Noah said "Milk!"
I guess Christmas will be easy this year!

Our household is sad. It has been over a week since Noah has taken a nap at daycare or at home. Hannah is still spotty - she naps some days, but not all. It will be unfortunate to lose naptime as a time for Mom & Dad to get things done in the middle of the day! Hopefully we can figure out a way to make him relax and have an hour or two of quiet time to unwind.

The kids are very good at telling us what sounds letters make. (Noah's favorite song is "every letter makes a sound!" Thanks, leapfrog.) We have started to show them how to sound out simple words (mom, dad, toy), but they didn't really catch on. They really enjoy being read to. They're a little young to read themselves, and it's fine that Mom & Dad read to them. Hannah loves to draw and Noah loves to build with Legos.

We had so much fun yesterday! It really made up for kind of a crazy week.

Hannah was home sick on Monday & Tuesday - and we even had to sit at the Minute clinic for over an hour just to get Hannah's ears checked on Tuesday. But, we tried to be good, so Daddy and Mommy took us to Burger King and let us play on the play area slides. We had so much fun.

Friday, we had our party at daycare. There has been a lot of energy and buzz around that place, and we had fun exchanging treats with our daycare friends.

Yesterday we got up and Mommy let Hannah dress in her Minnie Mouse dress and Noah in a Mickey Mouse outfit. (Normally, Mommy won't let us eat when we're wearing costumes, but we got to wear them as a special treat because it was Halloween!) Hannah took a short nap in the morning and Noah didn't want to nap, so when Daddy got home from volleyball we went out to play in the backyard. Daddy raked a big pile of leaves together and we got to jump and play in the leaves. YEAH! Then, we went down our slide and Mommy raked a big pile of leaves for us to land in when we got to the bottom of the slide.

At 5, we got our costumes on and went trick-or-treating around the block with our neighbor, Yoda. (AKA Griffin). Noah really liked trick-or-treating. He went to the door, knocked, said "Trick-Or-Treat" (whether the residents had opened the door yet or not!) and held out his bucket. He was so excited he forgot to say Thank you a lot, but Mommy reminded him and said it for him. Hannah was too cold and too shy to be a very good trick-or-treater. Mommy had to carry her around the block because she was cold, and she buried her head in mommy's shoulder when she should have said "thank you."

After we went trick-or-treating, we went to McDonalds to eat! Yummy! Then, we got in the truck and drove to a few friends that Mom & Dad play volleyball with. We got to see Anika, Piper, Dion, Ben, and we stopped to play at Trevor & Dylon's house until WAY past our bedtime! It was fun, but we were so tired that the last thing we remember is getting in the truck. The next thing we knew, we were home in our beds. We were so tired we slept until 9. We slept so late, we almost missed Sunday School!

Mommy thinks we're getting really good at manners and being polite, despite the fact that we do naughty things to each other. We are two, and just can't help but push or hit each other, or take toys away from each other. But we still have to sit in a time out, apologize or go to our room when we're naughty. But, we also say "Thank You", "Please" to mommy and Daddy, and always say excuse me when we burp. "I'm sorry" is still hard to say, but we'll work on it.

We also can recite some books and songs and videos that we hear often. Noah likes to sing the Leapfrog "Every letter makes a sound" song, so he knows what sounds every letter in the alphabet makes. Hannah knows most of the letters but sings more fun toddler songs like "take me out to the ball game".

Have a fun week!

Noah & Hannah

Noah & Hannah are such cute kids.

Monday, Noah picked up Dad's hat, put it on sideways and said "I'm Junior!" (As in Junior Asparagus, one of the Veggie Tales crew.)

Today, Hannah was cuddling with Daddy in "the big chair", and Daddy told her "Hannah, you melt my heart." Hannah looked at him with serious eyes and said "I'm sorry, Daddy."

Noah likes to wear his Bob the Builder sweatshirt and say "Can we fix it? Yes, we can!" and wears Mickey Mouse pajamas or t-shirt and runs around the house saying "Hi! Can you find my clubhouse?" "Thanks for visiting my clubhouse. Bye!" It's fun to see him putting himself into a character.

They got to spend a little bit of time with Grandma S. and Aunt Angie. We did a little bit of trick or treating at the local strip mall, so they got some practice in saying "trick or treat!" and "Thank you!" (Although, Hannah puts on her shy face often when it comes time to say "thank you" to strangers.) I think they're looking forward to Halloween - they enjoy playing dress up at home, and had fun when everyone else was dressed up at the mall.

Looking forward to a fun week with Noah & Hannah. And we're looking forward to Halloween with them now that they're almost 3.

Mom

We had a fun weekend.

Friday evening, daddy called us to eat supper after we were playing in the living room. I got up on her chair and saw there was just a piece of cheese on her plate, so I got down, went to the oven and turned on the light to look inside, then looked at Daddy and said "Are we only having cheese for supper?" He laughed, and I told him that I wanted pasta! He lifted me up to show me that he had made spaghetti! YEAH!

After we ate, we got to help Mom bake cookies - they were pumpkin cookies. We helped put the cookies on the sheet, and taste tested them when they were done. They were yummy!

Saturday Mommy went to a volleyball tournament, so we hung out with Daddy all day. We got to play with big alphabet puzzle pieces on the floor, and made tunnels in the living room.

This morning, we got up and had breakfast and drove out to an apple orchard. We got to ride on a cart behind a tractor and see all the apples on the trees, then we went to play in the play area. We saw goats, chickens and horses, slid down slides, played with pumpkins and got to have a snack down by the river. It was so fun. Then, we got to go eat while we watched the Vikings game. Go Jared Allen! He's Noah's favorite player.

Have a good week. We're hoping that it's nice so we can see the tractors working in front of our house. The past few weeks have been rainy, and Mom and Dad said it's too wet for the tractors to work on the streets around our house. We really like to see Bobcats, so we hope they bring the bobcats up and down our street more!

Have a nice week.

Hannah

We got snow! When we got Mommy & Daddy up this morning, they told us to look out the window and there was snow all over! Snow on our yard, on our swings, on our clubhouse, on our picnic table...everything. There was just a little bit, but we were so excited that we didn't even finish our cereal, we just wanted to get out to play. We put our rainboots on, our mittens, hats and coats and went out in our pajamas to play in the snow. We played in the snow a little last year, but this is the first year we really remember getting our first snow and being so excited about it. We had to check out the snow in the swimming pool, on our slides, and especially on the picnic table. Some snow even snuck through the trap door to get in our clubhouse! Hanna made a snow angel, as you can see in the pictures. She had beautiful wings, though her legs didn't quite make a full skirt.

We had fun playing in the snow, then went in the house to play legos for the rest of the morning. We built a castle with really tall walls so princess ariel and her fishy could get inside the castle.

Mom asked Noah if he wanted to wear underwear today. Hannah is a big girl who has been wearing underwear all summer, and for the past couple of weeks, she's been sleeping in her underwear, not a diaper. Noah said he wanted to wear his Thomas the Train underwear, so Mom let him. But, within a half hour, he had wet pants. So, mom told him that he had to make SURE to go potty in the toilet next time he had to go potty because he didn't want to get his Bob the Builder underwear wet. Within an hour, he had wet his pants again. Apparently, Noah isn't ready for underwear yet, but as long as he tries to go potty when he's asked, he's making progress.

Have a fun weekend!

N&H