Zoo Lights!

Ooops! I wrote this in December but forgot to post it:

Every year we make a trip up to the Portland Zoo for their zoo lights display. It's really quite dazzling and the kids LOVE it. This year we brought along a couple of school friends, and the four kids ran from one light display to the next with shouts of joy and awe. 

The highlights, aside from the lights themselves, were the bats and the elephants. The bats were awake and active, "walking" along upside-down, fighting over food, and just being their creepy, batty selves.

In the elephant house, we had a good laugh. The mama elephant stood facing away. All we could see was her swaying backside. Her back was covered with sawdust, and there was straw and sawdust and large lumps of elephant poop scattered on the floor around her. Beneath her feet, lying on his side was the baby elephant.

"Do you see the baby elephant?" I asked the row of kids with their noses pressed to the glass.

"Ye-es!" they chorused.

"I see the baby elephant!" Annabel yelled. "And look! I see more baby elephants!"

"Where?" the other kids asked.

"There!" She pointed away from the mother and baby to the far side of the enclosure to the brown lumps lying on the floor.

"Those aren't baby elephants, Annabel," said her brother. "That's poop."

And then the boys started in on the poop jokes. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Welcome 2014!

Happy New Year everyone!

Well, my prediction did not exactly come true. I can't really say that Mieke was walking by the end of the year. But on New Year's Eve she did take five steps. Five lurching, about-to-fall-over steps. But five steps nonetheless.

And she leaves 2013 behind with a total of four teeth. Two on top, two on bottom.

We celebrated the new year with two other families, games galore, and fondue. And I didn't hear one resolution all night. Alexander made it to midnight and beyond, but both Annabel and Mieke conked out early.

Happy New Year!

Mieke's First Step!

It's official! Mieke has taken her first step...with no assistance. Only a bit of cajoling. Yesterday evening she was just standing around in the middle of the room, like you do when you're learning to use these leg things. I came over and sat next to her, but not to close. And she took a step in my direction. We tried to make her do it again so we could capture it on film, but she didn't repeat her stunt.

I'm thinking it will be a while before she's a full-on walker, but the first step is always exciting.

Teeth, Reading, and Walking

Alexander is losing his teeth, and Mieke finally has one - a little one poking up on the bottom.

The other big news in our family is that Alexander is now officially a reader. Yay!

He has been able to read simple books for a while now, but he never wanted to. Every time I tried to get him to read a word here or there, he would clam up and get all grumpy. But just the other day, he and Annabel were looking at books together, and she got him to read to her. Afterwards, he bounded over to me, saying, "Mom, I can read now!"

It finally clicked with him that he can do it. I'm still amazed at how Alexander learns big things. He did this with potty training and with riding a bike. He doesn't do it, doesn't do it, refuses, refuses, and then one day you turn around and he's doing it. Seemingly out of nowhere.

I just hope he doesn't do this with driving a car.

Oh, and Mieke is also walking behind a push-car. She puts on her proud little smile, sticks out her tongue, and walks along like she's been doing it for weeks. Any day now she'll take her first step. In the tenth month, just like big brother and sister.

Beach Trip

What a glorious long weekend at the beach! One house, my whole family, endless fun. The weather was perfect...as good as it is in the summer. The kids and big boys even jumped waves.

Standing, Legoing, and Writing

Oops! I actually composed the following three weeks ago and forgot to post it!

Tomorrow Mieke will be nine months old. Yikes! In September, on the 25th to be precise, she pulled herself up to standing for the first time. Now it's all she wants to do. She especially likes to crawl under the table and stand there. Won't be long before her head starts hitting.

She's still our Buddha baby with all her chubs and rolls, but now that she's a lot more mobile, I suspect she'll get leaner. She's getting into eating solid foods, but breast milk is still her go-to meal. No teeth yet.

Alexander and Michiel went to a Lego Expo up in Portland, which was amazing and wonderful, and they came home with tons of loot--a few minifigs, a game, etc, etc.

And our Annabel is learning so much in school. Already she's about a year ahead of Alexander at that age. Shhh, don't tell him. The other day she was writing letters and declared, "Look, I wrote Oma!" I started to give her some that's-very-nice-dear praise without really looking when I realized that she actually had written "Oma." Then she said, "I want to go visit Oma so I can show her what I wrote for her. Let's go today!"

Halloween

All of us dressed up this year. Jo came with us on the Goblin Walk in downtown Silverton. All the businesses give out candy in broad daylight so we get to see everyone's costumes. We usually meet a whole bunch of friends and end up forming our own little mob on the sidewalk.

 Annabel stole my minion eye, so I joined Jo in her Dia de los muertos makeup. I think we're going to do it again tomorrow.

 And Mieke, like all of our children, appeared as a gnome for her first Halloween.

 Alexander had the coolest costume in his tractor that had working headlights and a secret compartment for candy.

And I had fun with the makeup, but I much prefer painting other people's faces. It's a whole lot easier! Happy Halloween!