The house addition is finally finished, passed final inspection last week, and is painted and carpeted. We have the new living room furniture in, some of the computer gear into my new study, got a Christmas tree yesterday, and moved the TV stuff over last night. With the space that (and a little playroom rearranging) opened up, we also brought our old dining table in from the workshop, so we have a place to sit down and eat once again!
Today we're headed to Ikea to get closet organizers for our bedroom, furniture for my study, and whatever else we can fit in the U-Haul trailer we're renting for the day. We still have a lot of odds and ends to finish up (things we'd decided early on that we wanted to do ourselves), but it's great to have the contractor's work done and be able to start using the space.
Our house phone is not working -- we have had intermittent problems ever since the electricians chopped through the phone line while doing some work out back. It's been repaired (a couple of times), but it really needs a whole new piece of cable run underground, something that I doubt will be accomplished in the next few days. We're on cell phones and email until it gets fixed. Fortunately we have a cell phone plan with a gazillion minutes, and in fact this might be the last straw for dropping the home phone entirely, which we've been thinking about for a year now.
Oh yeah, the kids... that's why you're reading this after all, isn't it?
I have a bunch of pictures to pull off of my camera, maybe tonight. I did post a couple of new
YouTube videos of Sarah's latest accomplishment, eating (and feeding herself, with some difficulty) Kix and Cheerios. in the few days since she first tried them, she now can't get enough Cheerios. She's also eating (baby food) meat and loves it. She cracks us up with a funny scrunchy-face sniffing thing she does -- Katie did the same thing for a while -- and she laughs when we do it back to her.
Jimmy and Katie are full of surprises almost every day. They have conversations with us and with each other, but not in any language we understand. It's clear they're saying something meaningful to them, though, with the facial expressions and body language that go with it. They are getting better at expressing what they want in ways we can understand -- the other night Katie woke up crying, and once I got her calmed down a little, she said, very clearly, "read read" (her word for anything having to do with books). I looked around, and sure enough the book she'd taken to bed with her was on the floor. Once I retrieved it, all was well. She also combines the "eat" sign with the word "cracker" when she wants a snack.
Jimmy gets us giggling when he dances, which he'll do any time there is music playing or people dancing on TV. He also loves the tickle game, and comes after me and his sisters, wiggling his fingers and saying "tickle tickle". He gives us all hugs and kisses too, and he's surprisingly gentle with Sarah even when she grabs at him or pulls his hair.
When they're not pushing, biting, or otherwise annoying each other, the twins definitely show their bond. I love seeing them "talk" to each other, play together, and give each other things. Jimmy will often find Katie's sippy cup and hand it to her, and Katie feeds Jimmy crackers at snack time. Yesterday she took a handful of goldfish crackers and put the whole pile on the couch, then took one at a time to feed Jimmy or me. Jimmy got in on the act too, and before I knew it I had both of them shoving goldfish into
my mouth as fast as they could.
We are about as ready for Christmas as we're going to get, and I'm thrilled to have the Christmas tree in the new living room. The smell alone gets me into the Christmas spirit every time I walk into the room. I still have to wrap gifts and put at least a few lights and decorations on the tree, but overall it's a pretty low-key holiday for us this year with everything else going on.
And finally...
This morning we headed out to the larger of the fenced-in playgrounds nearby, and I thought to bring along a pack-n-play for Sarah... best idea I've had in a long time! Sarah played with her toys (and even napped for a little while) in there, and I could spend some time playing with Katie and Jimmy without worrying about Sarah crawling off into some sort of trouble.
It was such a beautiful sunny day I took along my good camera and took lots and lots of pictures, some of which are on the December 2008 album page.
the three of us played together for a while. While I was preparing Sarah's dinner, I looked over and she and Katie were playing together all by themselves. Katie picked up a couple of rings from the stacking toy, put them on top of the Little People garage (which Sarah had pulled up on), and let Sarah pick them up from there. They just kept doing it over and over, each time Sarah dropped a ring (or Katie took one away). Katie and Jimmy are both doing so well with Sarah now, they seem to realize that they have to be gentle with her, and I think she's becoming more of another kid to them instead of a funny little toy.
Jimmy and Katie had their first haircuts today, and both did very well. We went to a kids' haircut place where they have fun car-shaped seats and video screens at every station, and the stylists were great with the kids. We did have a little trouble right at the end -- the clippers tickled way too much for Jimmy to sit still through that part, and Katie had just had enough by the time her quick trim was done. They do look much nicer now, and no more bangs hanging down in their eyes. Of course we saved their first little locks of hair and even got certificates commemorating the occasion.
(their first stroller nap in many months, hopefully the return of a good habit :-).
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