Apple Picking

We went to pick some apples today. I've never done this before either and I thought it was pretty fun. We went to Sweet Berry Farm near my parents house. They had lots of different apple varieties to choose from. We ended up getting Gala, Honeycrisp and Cortland. Scott is the apple expert in our family, so its too bad he wasn't there to help us. He'll be coming home soon!

Anna finds a good Gala.

And Matthew liked carrying the bag until it got too heavy.

There were so many apples!!

Anna enjoyed collecting gravel off the road a little more than collecting apples, but all in all we had a good time.

Halloween Preview

We tried on some different Halloween costume possibilities today. It's always fun dressing up.
Here's sweet Anna...

...and scary Anna!

We also made some Halloween cookies (blondies with Halloween colored M&Ms on top)

The kids were eager to help sprinkle the M&Ms on top...some of us did more eating than sprinkling

Here's our version vs. Martha Stewart's version (ours still needs to be cooked in this picture). We used more of a free form M&M arrangement than Martha. ;)

And here's Matthew wearing a pumpkin shirt (for babies from the Target dollar bin). I tried it on him just for fun and he insisted on wearing it for the rest of the day. There was also a baby pumpkin hat that he wore around for a while. He's eating some other Halloween cookies we made (pumpkin shaped sugar cookies). They seemed way too huge once they were cooked. Oh well. We're excited for Halloween!

Office Space

A few weeks ago we made pretend offices for the kids. I was surprised how much they liked it. I think they liked having their own space. Here's Matthew hard at work.

Anna in her office. Who knew sitting at a desk was so rewarding?

Matthew looks something up on the computer for Anna.

Here's a closer picture of Anna's computer. Very high tech! See Matthew's computer HERE.

Getting dirty

My computer is still in the shop...the thing they thought would fix the problem didn't fix it so they have to send it to the depot (a magical place where they fix macs) for more work. Bummer...so I have to get on with my life, sans computer...or at least without my computer. I put some pictures on my parents computer so I can update the blog. Here goes...

These pictures are from a few weeks back. The kids were playing in some dirt from one of my mom's planters. I think she let them play with it to keep them from digging up her garden.

It was very exciting for them.

Matthew was a little uncomfortable being dirty.

But Anna loved it.

Matthew requested a cleaning after a few minutes and felt much better after that. I guess it's ok to be dirty as long as it's only short lived.

The More the Matthew-er

A few more Matthew stories...and a few more pictures from my parents stash (these are from our August vacation).

We were driving somewhere yesterday and I was singing along with the radio. Matthew says to me, "Mom, I don't like this song. Don't sing it anymore." I guess he's 2 going on 14? I thought I had a few more years before everything I do annoys him. Oh well. At least he can verbalize it. Later he asked me to hold and snuggle him, so that made me feel somewhat better about it.

We were innocently singing "Open, Shut Them" and my mom, also innocently, substituted the "Clap, clap, clap" line with something like "stomp stomp stomp." Matthew, who doesn't quite say his L or R sounds very clearly yet (although he's getting better), looked at my mom and shouted, "It's CWAP Grandma!! CWAP CWAP CWAP!!"
It reminded me of a line from the opening scene of Transylvania 6-5000.

And the other day he said, randomly to my mom, "You're Grandma-licious."

This is a reference to a library book he likes (Pinkalicious) but its funnier to think of it completely out of context. Pinkalicious was also the inspiration for the green cupcakes in the picture above.

And two last pictures from my parents. These are from my sister's graduation.

After Ruth's graduation in the morning

After Dana's graduation in the afternoon
They needed to rest up for the big graduation party after wards. :)

More?

Is this a "more" or a "down" situation?

My computer is in the shop. It's a sad day, but it had to happen...so I'm without it for a week or so. I did have a few things I wanted to post about, mostly Matthew and Anna's latest hi-jinks (isn't that ALL I ever post about?) but all my pictures are on my computer and I don't really feel like putting them on my parents computer today (which is what I'm using now), so here's one from my parents stash. This one is from Coeur D'Alene from our vacation in August.

And to go with the pic, the latest Anna-isms:

Anna's vocabulary is growing and growing. She can say I'm sorry...which some grown ups can't do. She mostly says it after she hears someone else say it. She has also been able to say "more" for a while now as a signal that she'd like more food. She says it like Mr. Bumble in the movie Oliver when Oliver asks for more gruel. Her voice goes really high at the end. It cracks me up. She does it because that's how I say it sometimes when we're joking around. And now Matthew says it that way too. So we're all screeching "MOOOORRE?" at the dinner table and laughing about it. It's all very civilized.

Here are a few of her words...
Mommy, Daddy
Mash-you - Matthew
Anna
Bumpa - Grandpa
Mimi or Gammaw - Grandma
Hi, Bye, Night night
Down, More (MOOOORRE?)
Brush - Toothbrush
Rock
Ducky - Duck
Duggy - Dog
Doddy - Dolly (those last three sort of run together)
Walk
Baby
Shoe
Dee - Drink
Saw - Strawberry (it's a hard word)
Chee - Cheese
Dat - That
Book
Cup
Ball
Eye - (she likes to say this while poking someone in the eye)
Beep - the nose beeping sound
Moo - what the cow says (more of a sound than a word, I know)
Wuh wuh - what the dog says
Yesh! - Yes
and of course
NO! which is probably her most frequently used word.
She likes to use it in threes ("NO NO! NO!!")
And her first sentence (I think):
"I sorry"
Is it a bad sign that her first sentence is I'm sorry?

She also seems to find ways to communicate with us even when she doesn't know the words.

On Sunday Anna hustled over to my mom, clearly on a mission, and started jabbering frantically at her and gesturing. Trying to understand what she wanted, my mom followed Anna over to the piano. Anna kept jabbering to my mom and pointing and gesturing to the piano, but we still couldn't figure it out. Finally she took her index finger and started tapping it on the piano bench as if hitting the piano keys and, in her best singing voice, said "DO DO DO."
Apparently she wanted my mom to sit and sing and play the piano with her, as she sometimes does. So my mom did, much to Anna's delight. It was funny how Anna acted out the piano playing complete with singing when we couldn't figure out what she wanted. I was impressed. :)

What we've been up to: Part 2

More of our recent adventures.

Our laundry situation is dire. Scott does the laundry most of the time at our house. So laundry isn't exactly on my radar. Sometimes I forget to do it until we have nothing but non-matching pajamas left. Whoops. You might be thinking that since Scott has been gone quite a while, I might have adapted by now and learned to do the laundry sooner...but I haven't. Here are the kids standing on the clean laundry in the basket. I have to get going on folding the laundry sooner too.

Matthew has a peanut butter sandwich at his favorite little lunch place: the front porch. Matthew's face here reminds me of Scott...the expression, not the peanut butter.

Here's a blanket I made for some friends and their new baby. I love flannel blankets!

I tried to take a picture of Anna and I. Those pictures never really work out for me. Anna looks so thrilled to be a part of this. I think we'll have some matching pictures like this when she's a teenager. :)

Here she looks a little happier...after eating a few berries.
She's getting so big and learning so many new words.

We made a weather board (really just a cookie sheet with some homemade "weather magnets") to record the weather every day. We still get to use the "sunny" and "hot" magnets for a little longer. Hooray!

Here's Matthew playing with the pudding paint. To see Anna playing in it, go HERE.

Matthew supervising the lawn mowing activities.

One of the blog books I finished.
I've been working on them for a while. Nice to get some of them done!

And here are some lovely flowers that Scott sent me this week. I got them after a particularly discouraging morning. I don't know how he does it, but he always does things like this at just the right moment. He might have magical powers. ;)

What we've been up to: Part 1

I haven't been posting much lately, mostly because nothing interesting has been happening...so here, for your enjoyment, are some pictures of our non-exciting late summer adventures.
Here Anna gets a driving lesson from Matthew...and has a collision with a much bigger vehicle.

Anna eats some tempura vegetables and seems almost surprised that she likes it.

Matthew uses trainer chopsticks to pick up his chicken. We're getting ready to go back to Japan! He can also say Ohayo gozaimasu (good morning) and Arigato (thank you). We are going to be all set for Okinawa.

Playing in a box is always a good time...and as it turns out, the size of the box is not that important. Matthew and Anna both tried to climb inside this smallish box and thought it was great fun.

This is what Anna was doing while Matthew sat in a high chair and pretended to be a baby (he's not doing that so much anymore). She carts the phone around making important calls to people. So grown up.

Anna vs. Bedtime

She's not big on sleeping lately. Naptime, bedtime...whatever. She's not that interested. There is just too much excitement to sleep. I had to get her these pajamas when I saw them at Target. Somehow it makes me feel better about the whole thing. :)

Matthew is growing more hair and it's all very exciting for me, since he has been pretty minimalist in the hair department so far.

Here he styled his new crop of hair with what I believe may have been teriyaki sauce.

And I had to take a picture of this for Scott. Matthew has been doing so many Scott things lately, which amazes me since Scott has been gone for the better part of 7 months. It has to be genetics. Matthew has to wind the glue WAY down in the tube before putting it away...just like Scott. They are so related!

Anna's Quilt

Anna and Matthew have an eye-poking moment on Anna's newly completed baby quilt. She's 13 months old now, but who's counting? I bought the fabric in Japan (except for the backing) a few months after Anna was born and I've been chipping away at it for a while. My mom helped me finish it and I'm really happy! I love pretty much anything that is rainbow colored, which is probably why I did the quilt this way. To see Matthew's baby quilt, go HERE.

Matthew, our amateur photographer, took a few close up pics of the quilt. Anna loves this green square that has ducks in it. She finds it, and points, smiling and shouting, "DUCKS!" It makes me so happy that she likes the blanket...or at least something about the blanket.

Hiding in the blanket. I'm so glad it's done and we can play with it now!

Who ya' gonna call?

We were playing on the back porch today when Matthew started (as he often does) to pretend spray things with the hose. My mom said it reminded her of Ghostbusters. I can see it.

Here he is on a ghost hunting job.

Uh oh! He found one.

Ouch!

Me: I love you Matthew!
Matthew: I DON'T love you, Mommy.
Me: You don't love me? Why not?
Matthew: Because you took my tent away.

My mom: Mommy took your tent away?
Matthew: Yes, because I bite-ed Anna in the tent, so Mommy took my tent away.

It's all true...except (I hope) the part about him not loving me. :(

The tent in question, in happier times. This picture was taken by Matthew.