The New Normal

Some of our adventures over the last month...

At the National Zoo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Brother and sister playing.

At Mt. Vernon...

Is there anything better than throwing stuff off a bridge?  

Visiting with the Washingtons at Mt. Vernon (that is my niece Katie with Sydney).

Things have been a little hectic and a little stressful around here.  Trying to get Oliver into the child development center where I work has been a bit of a nightmare, but he will finally be able to start tomorrow even though I went back to work last Thursday!  My sister watched him on Thursday, I had to call out on Friday and Daddy stayed with him today.  We will be back to our regular schedule tomorrow and will be having to figure out how to make it work with Oliver, because he sure does make things interesting!

Looking out the window.

Oliver is a wonderful little person.  He is full of energy and curiosity; he wants to be independent yet wants to be taken care of.  He is very loving, free with lots of hugs and kisses; and he is highly intelligent.  We are amazed at how quickly he is picking up English.  He has picked up several signs, but is really trying to learn to speak the words as well.  He says "hi", "bye", "uh-oh", "hungry", "no", "mama", "dada", "I do", "thank you".  He is quite the little parrot and so observant.  He copies EVERYTHING Sydney does.  I hope this means he will speak soon and potty train early.  I know he will do very well at the CDC once he gets used to it, and will learn a lot there.  

Going to see Santa!

Sydney is doing well even though she is going through lots of changes.  She has moved up to a preschool room at school.  She had a bit of a rough time on her first full day.  She cried when I dropped her off and then had several potty accidents during the day.  BUT-she is almost potty trained.  We have graduated from Pull-ups to cotton training pants.  She doesn't really go potty on her own yet, she has to be reminded constantly, but she doesn't put up a fight most of the time and the accidents are few and far between (although if we didn't remind her to potty, there would be a lot more).  I can't believe how much she has grown in the last few months.  She will be three next week!  My baby is gone and has been replaced by a three year old preschooler, with lots of sass and attitude.

We are really looking forward to this holiday season.  It should be lots of fun!  We already went to see Santa.  We got a really good picture of Sydney smiling with Santa, but Oliver was having none of it.  The picture with just Sydney and Santa wasn't as good, but still cute.  There have been lots of requests to go see Santa again, so we just may have to do that :)
I have updated Sydney's and Oliver's pages with new pictures.  Enjoy!