Annika

Screams a lot.

Definitely entering the terrible twos, albeit a few months early. She has an opinion about how everything should be done and if I don't do it exactly right....she screams. (and by scream, I mean full on SCREAMING. Not fussing. screaming.) If I've done something to particularly offend her, such as say....put away the milk before handing her her milk cup - she shrieks, lays down, kicks her feet and screams some more. Or if I forget to immediately zip/button up her jacket - another fit. Definitely her first stage of trying to assert herself and the last couple weeks have been exhausting.

Laughs, runs, falls down, jumps, dances. You name it, she loves it.

Loves to copy her brother. Yes, they fight a lot, but they also are playing more and more "games" together with Saben telling her exactly what to do. Sooooo cute.

Climbs onto my lap with a book everytime I sit down. It took a while, but Annika definitely loves books now and would spend all day reading them if she could.

Makes a huge mess a million times day by poking, pushing, grabbing & spilling everything. She is always getting things off the kitchen counter (saben hardly ever did this) and is just a bundle of exploratory mess making energy.

Is definitely the clown, she tries to make us laugh all the time and loves it when we laugh at her.

Saben

Loves preschool & playing with kids his age

Talks constantly about absolutely everything, especially Chitty Chitty Bang Bang & rockets.

Asks questions about absolutely everything I say or do or that he sees.

Copies his sister whenever she is making a fuss so that he can get some attention too. (yes, he screams too)

Sings Chitty Chitty Bang Bang all day everyday. Even loudly as we go through the grocery store.

Is getting really good on the glider bike he got for his birthday. He loves going down the huge (5 ft tall) dirt jumps at Daddy's work and is so confident on it. He rides it all the way downtown with us and back home with no problem. (1.5 miles roundtrip) We love that thing.

Has eaten Salmon, salad shrimp, pork pupusas and steak in the last couple months. He also likes green beans, which mommy has almost never offered him because it was the vegetable I hated as a child. However, even I enjoy fresh ones sauteed with garlic.

Dad

Has been gone a ton - 4 out of the last 6 weekends including a 6 day trip to colorado.

Won his first ever downhill bike race and placed 3rd in the next one.

Is so hot and good looking.

Mom

Taking care of the kids by myself a lot

Declared "taking a break" on our basement remodel to protect our bank accounts and sanity

Planting our veggie garden & coddling my tomato starts

Helping others with veggie garden plans and my parents with a new landscape design.

Planning all the family vacations for this summer & some fun stuff for our anniversary. So sick of looking at calendars, cabin rental sites, camping reservations and hotwire. blech.

Joined a gym (in february) and loving it

Dreaming up crazy ways of making money (that would be fun for me), now just need to pick one and go for it. (write a book? become a professional blogger? garden consultant?) Or not.

waffles

Tonite Saben & I were praying before bed. Usually I have to sort of prompt him to think of things to say and do most of the praying myself. As I was leaving Saben calls out:

"Mom, I have one more thing to ask God. I want to ask him to make our waffle machine make waffles faster."

We haven't even had waffles in a couple weeks, so funny that this is what he thought of and especially that its one of the first "prayer requests" he's come up with on his own. Last time we had waffles, we did talk about how we'd need another machine soon so that we could make waffles faster. Still....

In the last photo below, Saben was saying something like this:

"Annika, you need to get these things on so that you won't get hurt when we go to fight. Come on, put the hat on. Ok, now here is your weapon....No put the hat back on. We need to go in our tent now so that we don't get wet, but keep your weapon..."

My two little warriors in their battle outfits.

10 on 10

Not super inspired, but the day got super busy around noon and I spent all afternoon cooking....

Find out more about 10 on 10 here.

clothes

First, there was the raincoat Grandma Young gave her. She always seemed to want to wear it, but I ascribed this to her love of puddle jumping that usually took place in the coat. Then there was her ballerina skirt. She always seemed to pull it out of the drawer when she went to find something to wear. Give a little hop & dance when I pulled it up over her leggings. Smooth her hands down over the tulle.


Then last week, we got some serious joy from these saucy pink silk pajamas. They had been in the drawer for a while, but I hadn't let her wear them because they are so light-weight and it was winter. This particular night, mommy was out shopping and Annika came running out with the terribly light-weight pajamas at bedtime and handed them to Daddy.

Thinking nothing, absolutely nothing, about the flimsy warmth giving qualities of the pajamas, he helped Annika into them. And she went nuts, smiling, laughing, touching them. Sooooo happy. Now she always pulls them out if they catch her eye and often throws fits if we don't put them on, even if its the middle of the day.

Last night, I bought Annika her first pair of dressy sandals so she'd having something to wear with her Easter dress. This morning I wanted to try them on to see if they fit, and they did not leave her feet for the rest of the day. She was running, jumping, laughing, pointing at them, saying "shoes!" over and over. It was so adorable and she kept at it for an hour.

Then I tried to take them off before going to the park. It quickly became apparent that this was NOT going to go over well, so I quickly gave in figuring they had to get broken in sooner or later. I tried again at nap time, and gave in again as she screamed and wailed. Decided it was worth getting a picture of the princess napping in her precious shoes.

We did finally remove them tonight before bed, but she was screaming, wriggling, writhing even, huge sobs of despair. It was heartbreaking. Trying to get out the door to where they were, we could barely get it shut.

The annoying part is that the sandals are already looking scuffed from just one day of wear. Stupid cheap target shoes.

The amazing part is that she has never been this attached to anything - no toys, dolls, stuffed animals....

Speaking of dolls, she has been playing with this doll I got her a lot and seems to really like it, but its so funny....some nights she wants it in bed with her & on other nights she screams and holds it out to me yelling "doll! doll!" and I have to actually remove it from the room before she'll calm down. Just had the throw that tidbit in there.

My son has reached that oh so sweet stage of a boys life where spending 20 minutes running around with a friend shouting "Dog Poop!" is the funniest fun thing ever and sober stories about Christ's death & resurrection lead to games that involve the phrase "I'm whipping you!".
(not to mention "I'm going to punch you in the face!")

And yet he is still sweet, thoughtful and innocent and generally his testosterone is under control. I am so proud of him & sort of enjoy his little bursts of potty talk/violence because its a sign of him growing up, being a boy and he does a good job listening when I explain things that are innapropriate. He's so careful & measured in everything he does, its fun to see him let loose sometimes with these things. But mostly, it's just plain hilarious.

First of all, Annika is scared of flying bugs. Extraordinarily scared. Or maybe just ordinary scared, I haven't really compared her to any 1 yr 9 month olds other than saben. (he was also scared, but ordinary scared) But...If you heard her, you'd think she had fallen and broken her arm. First...blood curdling screams. Full on screams. Then hysterical sobbing and sobbing as I hold her and comfort her until she finally calms. This happened about five times today and I can only guess what the neighbors are thinking.

Kyle was gone this weekend, 2nd weekend in a row. (for a bike race in port angeles....he got first place last week in Spokane and 3rd place this week. Woo hoo! Except really, he's just there to network, he's not a serious racer. thank goodness.) Yesterday, we went to the farmers market and Saben rode all the way there & back, all by himself on his new glider bike. It was really fun, even though the market was incredibly chaotic & crowded. I did score some leeks, shitakes & mizuna which I used for dinner tonite. More on that later.... The kids scored honey sticks and donut holes. My hair also scored some honey stick when Annika waved her honey hands in my hair.

The rest of the weekend was blissful under the warm spring sun (in the 60's...for the record when I read this later and have forgotten the awesome springy-ness of this weekend) We went to the park, I got to do some serious yardwork & lawn mowing....

Then tonite I was enjoying my filet mignon (on sale at haggens!) and sauteed shitakes & leeks with truffle oil on top of a bed of mizuna when Saben says "There's poop on my train tracks!". Oh bother. Sure enough, Annika's diaper had leaked & the goo was on her hands, on Henry The Train & on the train tracks. So I took a little break from my beefy feast & immersed myself in the poo cleaning. But the best part was sticking both kids in the shower and finishing my dinner in the bathroom. Yum.... Sipping red wine, finishing off my steak, while the kids splashed in our rubbermaid tub, climbed into it - swamping the bathroom & then drank the water they were sitting in. That's always sooooo cute.

And then somehow I was in a good enough mood to give the kids popcorn, let them stay up late watching CARS and wait for Daddy to get home so they could give him hugs. Am I an angel or what? Too much sun I guess.

Generally, Annika spends about 75% of her day in wet pants and goes through 2-3 pairs of pants each day. This girl loves water and is constantly dousing herself in it. A few of her favorites:

Puddles
She loves to stomp in puddles, run through puddles over and over, throw rocks in puddles... and my favorite - sit in disgusting muddy puddles. We went to our favorite nursery the other day and it was cold, rainy and she would not stop sitting down in the puddles - IN HER TIGHTS & skirt. I had dressed them in rain boots & rain coats, but somehow didn't anticipate the sitting down. It never seems to bother her either.

Water dispenser
So just when Saben has finally reached the age where he can go get a glass of water for himself from the fridge door dispenser - Annika reaches the age where if you leave the dispenser unlocked for even a few minutes, she'll find it, fill up multiple cups, put things (like sandwiches) in the water, dump water from cup to cup and finally dump it on the floor & splash around in it. Awesome.

Cups of water
Annika loves drinking from cups, but usually spills most of it down her shirt. I can't tell if it is on purpose or not because I usually start doing something nearby while she drinks.

I'd love to continue, but you get the general drift and the kids are fighting over the plunder from Saben's preschool easter egg hunt. Oh joy.