Preschool

Today was Luca's first day of preschool! He is going to one through the city parks department and we are excited about it. There are just ten kids in Luca's class and two teachers. They work on uppercase letters, numbers one to ten, and some shapes, colors, etc. Today was just an hour long orientation so the kids played in their classroom while the director gave the parents the low down on everything. Next week will be his first real day of school. This year he's doing two half days a week. Not too much, but enough to get him acquainted with the concept of school. I'm guessing I'll have a harder time with it than him--it'll be the first time someone not related to us is responsible for him since he stayed in the nursery overnight when he was born. Whoa.

Anyway, here's our little man on his first day of preschool!

Eleven Months

There's no way its been eleven months since Tessa was born, just no way. Blows my mind...

She's been walking holding on to our hands for a couple months, but this month she started doing it without bending her knees. It's just as funny now as it was when Bai did it... 15 years ago... It only lasted about a week though, now she's back to bending her knees.
The teeth keep coming. The bottom left one is pretty much through, and the top right one is too. The one to the right of that on the top is also coming in. I think the bottom right one is starting to poke through, but she seriously doesn't like us checking.

About a week ago she learned to shake her head no. There are little metal seashells on the wall over her changing table and she likes to swat at them. So when she was doing that I told her no, she looked at me for a second and very slowly shook her head no. Then smiled and swatted at it again. We're working on it... =)
She likes to do downward facing dog. While she's doing it I like to flip her over so she does a somersault. She doesn't mind.
When she wakes up from nap the first thing she says is most often "cah." I think she's asking where Luca is.
We're starting to see sibling issues--Luca likes to get in her face and tell her what she can and cannot play with, and Tessa is starting to get annoyed by that. If he's bugging her she screeches. Really high and really loud. It's a warning, if he doesn't back away quick she starts smacking at his face.

Her favorite toy right now is anything that can go in and be taken back out. Greeting cards and the magazine table, Luca's toys and his toy basket, fabric squares and an old wipes container. Cassette tapes and bin. Coasters and a basket. Everything goes in. Everything comes out. Again and again.
She is a crazy eater, already eating us out of house and home. I mean really, it's impressive. A whole hotdog, big squeezy pouch of vegetables, handful of blueberries, handful of puffs, pieces of our meal, and that's one lunch. And the only reason she stops is because we fear an explosion and leave the table. I'm pretty sure her tummy is supposed to be the size of my fist. I think her leg is hollow too. She also started feeding herself with a spoon.

Mmmm... mashed potatoes!

She sleeps!  She's got a pretty consistent nap schedule and routine. Either I feed her (yep, still doing that) or we read a couple books. I put her in the crib with one nuk in her mouth and one in each hand. She immediately sits up. I spread her blanky out and tell her to lay down and she plops down onto the blanky. Tell her nigh-night and I'm out the door. At night she's still sometimes waking up and crying, but she puts herself back to sleep so she's in bed from about 8pm-7am. Of course her crying still wakes me up so I'm not sleeping all night yet either, but it's coming!

Our Anniversary

Six years and one day ago I was at Grandma's house with my bridal party. I had just decided that I did want to do a little favor for our guests so we were making and decorating several dozen sugar cookies.

Six years ago this morning I was up early trying to finish my final from my first semester of grad school. Then I went to get my nails done, without my wallet, which I didn't realize until my nails were drying. On the way home I called Josh to ask him to use Dan's computer and send my professor an email asking for an incomplete for the semester and let him know that I'd finish the final when I got back from my honeymoon.

By six years ago this evening all of the crazy of the last couple days was completely gone as I wandered around the Uptown Theater asking people if they'd met my Husband.

In the last six years we have moved three times, held three jobs, earned a degree, bought a house, got a dog, and had two kids. About five hundred DIY projects, about fifty finished DIY projects, ten thousand kisses, a hundred thousand "I love you's" and countless memories. We are infinitely lucky to have found each other literally half our life ago, and even luckier to have realized eleven years ago that what we had was special enough to hang on to forever.

He is without question my very best friend and my better half. Here's to us. =)

Playing Outside

The weather has been... unusual. Now that I have to pay to keep the house cool, I don't love the 100*+ days as much. But that is what I think of when I think of summer temperatures. So the fact that it's been pretty much stuck in the upper 70's and low 80's for a couple weeks is pretty bizarre. But it's also nice because we can be outside without worrying anyone is going to over heat.

So I put out the picnic blanket, brought out some toys for Tessa, and we watched Luca swing and ride his bike. His legs need to be just a little bit longer to be able to push the pedals on his big bike, so after trying for a while and getting frustrated, he switched to the little one.

Tessa enjoyed taking the toys one by one and putting them in the grass. Then when they were all in the grass she would take them one by one and put them on the blanket. Once they were back on the blanket she'd put them on another spot on the blanket, then all back to the grass again. Back and forth and back and forth. We were still outside when Daddy got home.

What a pout! Sad little Tessa...

In spite of the face, we really are loving this weather!

Team work

I made a sticky wall for Luca a while ago (tape contact paper sticky side out to a wall/window) and cut a bunch of construction paper squares and triangle for him to stick to it. After he started throwing handfuls of paper at it to see what would stick and sweeping any that didn't under the rug (literally) I took it down. But it had been a while, so I thought maybe he forgot how much fun that was and I put up a new one. This time Tessa wanted to play too, so I taped up another little one closer to the floor for her. Mostly she likes smooshing her hand on it and then peeling it off or sticking up the felt food from the nearby kitchen. And Luca asked to put up a bag of paint to play with. So, for about 5 minutes, they played happily side by side.

It was wonderful. =)

Music lessons by 6

Between the harmonica when he was little little, the piano, drums, and the recorder, not to mention the singing, Luca is a musical little fella. And Kay decided to foster it some more.

That friends, is a Mickey Mouse guitar. That is tunable. And has been in tune for about five minutes total. He strums and strums and plays up like normal, flat in his lap, and every variation in between. Very talented.

Labor of Love

I've been meaning to put up pictures of the quiet books for ages. Finally, here they are! There are three books total, but I already posted the seasons one. The other two don't have themes. Here are the pages! We didn't use patterns for any of them, but most are inspired by another page somewhere.

These two pages are an artist's pallet with a paint brush and paint blobs that velcro on. They can be put on the facing page (a frame on an easel) and then matched by color back to the pallet. Or the paint brush can be used to paint any picture the imagination decides.

This one is a monkey with a zipper for a mouth. It comes with a couple of bananas that he can eat (and are then stored in his mouth).

This one is a fish bowl with plastic sheeting over it. Then it has three fish, a star fish and a jelly fish that can go in and out of the bowl.

Here is a tool box that has a wrench, saw, screwdriver and hammer in it, along with a tool bench on the facing page for all sorts of projects. 

Of course this little guy is Jude. He's got a collar to practice buckling, and the "I love my dog" keychain has a carabiner on the end that he can use to clip onto the ring of the collar.

Mom worked really hard on this page, it's the Itsy Bitsy Spider nursery rhyme. The spider is on a long string so he can climb up the water spout. But...

Open the spout and flip up the piece with the flower and the rain comes down to wash the spider out! Put the pieces back where they belong and Itsy can climb the spout after all.

The last page in this book is a jacket with a zipper to practice on.

And now for the second book!

The first page in the second book is a rotary dial phone. The dial really spins and the phone has a magnet in the ear piece to hold it in the cradle. It's just like the one in our basement, except a pretty shade of blue instead of plain old brown. Luca gets calls all the time on it, but they never seem to be for him. He is also happy to call other people on your behalf, and then tell you about it as he's handing you the phone.

First is a mailbox with a flag that can go up and down, and a door that opens and shuts with a magnetic closure. Right now the mail in it is from his Christmas mailbox, so the letter is from Santa and tells him to be good. But since he can't read every time Luca is asked who the letter is to or what it says he comes up with a new answer. The next page is a little laundry line with one sock in each pair hanging on the line, and the matching socks in the basket at the bottom. They have magnets in them so they will connect to their mate.

On the left side is a little airplane who can hide behind the sun/cloud, the clouds, the hot air balloon, or stay in the hangar. On the next page is a six piece puzzle of a tree. Eventually I might make more pieces for a different picture.

This is one of his favorite pages. The barn has doors that open and close, and inside it are finger puppets of a chicken, pig, cow and horse. The cow has a "fluffy" tail which Luca thinks is funny. He likes to hand everyone a puppet and then ask what their names are. The facing page is a matching shape game with snaps.

This page is a shoe to practice lacing and tying a bow. At this point Luca mostly enjoys putting his foot or hand inside the shoe and laughing. The next page is his other very favorite. It's a treasure chest (with working lock and key). Inside is some gold coins and a treasure map. When mom made it she thought she was putting sharks in the middle, but the first time Luca looked at it he said they were ships (they do look like sails). So you go by the pirates (the skull and crossbones in the corner), then through the ships, under the coconut tree, over the island, and then you're there!

The first page on this spread is a tic-tac-toe board. The little drawstring bag is hooked onto a ring so it can't get lost. The second page is a flower with petals that are held on with buttons. The loose petals can be stored inside the flower pot.

Finally there is a page with beads on a string that can be slid back and forth for counting. The last page is a maze with a marble sewn in. On one side of the page you can see the path easily, on the other side the thread (and path) is harder to see. Luca pushes the marble along the path.

And that is our big project that took lots of time but has even more love! Of course, I'm already thinking up the next book. And we'll need to add some "girly" pages when Tessa gets bigger. I love never ending projects! =)