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Powered by LifeType8/7 - Faith started using the more sign consistently and spontaneously. She will now also use it to mean "I want that."
8/11 - Faith took her first step. It was sort of accidental, since she was walking holding to my hand, and I slipped my finger out. After that first step, she realized she was not holding anyone anymore and she sat down. On 8/15, she took another step in a similar way.
8/12 - Faith shook her head along with the more sign to indicate "no more". She has not done it again.
When Noah starts telling a story he begins, "Wunt 'pon time..."
Noah's word for spaghetti is "ebbi." (More)
7/5 - (oh, yes, this means I have not posted in at least a month...) Faith crawled upstairs all by herself (with Mom behind her all the way.)
Noah says he can do it "all mine by self."
Jonathan: "The person I love most after God is Faith." (More)
There are various reasons why I don't think Obama's healthcare (or any federal healthcare program) is a good idea, but today happened across an Associated Press story that talks about how less and less members of his own party support his ideas, and that he is losing support across the board.
The title of the article is about health care protections, but doesn't include something I guess you could call a "protection" and that is about the cost of premiums. I can offer someone a plan today that offers the same "protections" that Obama is assuring us we'll have - you can keep your health plan as long as you pay the premiums in full, and I'll even throw in his out-of-pocket maximums (note, every plan I've looked at in the last 12 months (approximately 100 different plans from 15 different providers) all included out-of-pocket maximums). I'll admit, the troublesome part about the insurance I'll sell you today is that the premium is pretty steep... :)
A company down the road from us has a billboard that has various comments posted on it from time to time, some political, some not. The current one (or at least the last time I noticed it) says, "How's that Obama thing working out for you?"
6/18 - Talking at the dinner table about what something tasted like. Mommy: "My tongue said [it was yummy]." Jonathan:"My tongue said, too." Noah: "My tongue said, one!"
6/25 - Fire safety lesson. We learned about Stop, Drop, and Roll. What a fun thing to teach! We've also been discussing what to do if there's a house fire and what to say if you have to call 911. Jonathan knows Daddy's cell phone number and our street address. He also can recall our home number if he gives it some thought, but Daddy's cell comes quickly to mind.
6/28 - Noah's third birthday! Since it was on a Sunday, the church sang to him, which was more embarrassing to him than I would have guessed. When Paul asked him how old he was, he said, "one." But after some coaching throughout the day, he now says, "'ee!" The Weavers came over for chips and salsa (Noah's requested birthday dinner) and cake and ice cream. There was lots of crazy fun, including a rubber band fight, swinging, and a football game in the backyard. After that, Noah had a couple of phone calls but was falling asleep while talking to Grandma and Dad-o, so he took a nap. Jonathan woke him up for dinner but he was too sleepy to eat. After that, he opened presents, which was quite fun and woke him up thoroughly. Pictures will come sometime. We measured Noah on the height chart (a birthday tradition here) and he is just over 40" tall, which is only an inch shorter than Jonathan was at four years.
6/28 - Sometime in the evening, when the boys were playing with the presents and Mommy was cleaning up, I noticed Faith sitting up on the corner of the coffee table. After the suspects were questioned, it was determined that Faith had crawled up there herself with the help of a box the presents had been in.
6/29 - Jonathan and Noah were playing Star Wars. Jonathan said, "I'm Obi Wan." Noah said, "Me not Obi Wan, me Obi Three!"
Heather remarked at dinner tonight (at the Olive Garden - thanks Wightmans, we've got 7 more dinners at this rate to celebrate our anniversary) that we are a rich family: we now own two cars and two houses. I did realize that some people spend more on their cars than we spent on our first house, but nevertheless, we have been blessed financially.
Our new vehicle is a 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette van in near perfect condition - the seller is more meticulous and pays more attention to details than I do, if you can believe that. (More)
I keep forgetting to post this. A friend who currently lives in China wrote:
It has been interesting to hear some of my former students express excitement and intrigue about the presidency of Barack Obama. The reason it has captured their attention is because it proves to them that the US truly is a democratic republic. The government of China often down plays American democracy, insisting that, in reality, only a few families have any power (Kennedys, Bushs, Clintons, etc.), and so the election of an ethnic minority, relatively unknown just five years ago, to President of the United State has proven to my students the US really is a democracy, contrary to what they are often taught.
We are the happy recipients of two used swingsets - one from a family at church and one from the next door neighbors. It is loads of fun and we're planning on building monkey bars between the two sets.
Recently, when I was reading one of our storybooks about Noah and the flood, our Noah asked me, "Why God tell me make ark?"
6/6 - Jonathan came up to me and said, "Four is exactly halfway between nine and negative one." He had figured this out from an addition facts table he had posted on our fridge, looking at the column headers and pretending that the plus sign in the corner stood for -1.
Jonathan is now helping me with the laundry, and it is wonderful. I showed him what settings he should use, which he marked with stickers. Now when I ask him he will bring down the hamper and do all the steps on his own. He can also do the transfer to the dryer, but he prefers not to sort and fold afterwards. Fine by me at this point! It is amazing to me how nice it is to have this help. Mostly because I am not usually bothered by laundry, except that it is one more thing on the todo list.
Whew! Enjoy this because I bet you'll have to wait a while for more posts.
Faith is 21.8 lb, 29" tall. Those are both 90th percentile. Everything checked out great, though he did do some extra fiddling with her legs because she has "asymmetrical creases" in her thighs. This can indicate problems with the hips or differences in leg lengths, but he concluded that she's fine. She got a shot and her lead test, which was unhappy, but she was quite curious about the multicolored bandaids and managed to pull them both off before the end of the appointment. (More)
After we hear others talking about ticks everywhere, we hadn't seen any at all in our yard. And then Jonathan gets Lyme Disease. He had a fever and slept all day for two days, and then he was better so we didn't think anything of it. A few days later, he gets this red rash on his cheek, rather like a sunburn. But it didn't hurt or itch, so I didn't do anything besides keep an eye on it. Then last Saturday, he started getting the bulls-eye rashes showing up on his wrist, arm, and leg. By Sunday several more had appeared. Talking to a friend about it linked the previous fever to the rashes. Jon went over every bit of Jonathan's body with a magnifying glass, but the culprit had left. (I'm itching all over just typing this.) I called the doctor's office the minute they opened Monday morning, and got an appointment for just as soon as we could get there. (More)
We now have a dishwasher in our kitchen, which Jon installed himself (running new electric, supply, and drain.) Yeah!
There is also a ceiling fan/light fixture in our bedroom to replace the bare bulb fixture. Yeah!
5/13 - N count to 10
5/13 - Jonathan's practical math problem that he solved himself: If you have a foam octopus with 5 legs, how many do you have to cut in half to get eight legs for your octopus?
5/18 - Jonathan can do multiplication by: x2, x10, x1
5/23 - Faith will now sometimes crawl to the bathroom when she needs to go.
5/24 - Jonathan can pump himself on a swing, from still to high.
5/29 - I saw a hummingbird at the feeder!
Noah likes to play "Robo-bot" and when he does, he always has a wire sticking out of his back that shoots water, and lasers on his arms.
5/30 - Jonathan was complimenting me on the yummy lunch I made, and included the line, "Good old Mommy." Noah retorted, "not old..." Then ensued a discussion of age and who I was older than and younger than. Somehow this turned into relationships and fathers-in-law. Jonathan discovered that he does not have a father-in-law, though his first guess was Papa. Then he asked who great-grandpa Wightman's father-in-law was. I remembered his last name, but not his first name, so I got out Mom's Honor Enough book for that branch of the family and looked it up. Then Jonathan wanted to know the name of Whitney Porter's father-in-law, and his, and his, as far as I could. There you go, Grandma, a budding geneaologist!
I've noticed the "kids" at church (in quotes, since folks are quite sure where to place me, the "adults" say I'm a kid, and the "kids" say I'm adult (I think primarily since I'm married and have kids of my own)) hug more than I am used to, and I had internally wondered a couple times if it was a culture thing (e.g. confined to our church) or if it was a larger generational thing. (More)
I guess I fail the test, since I answered "no" to both questions, though I suppose Brad Andresen from college (the one who always said of me, "You're more liberal than you think you are.") would be happy to hear that I'd be more likely to think it alright to slap my dad in a skit than to worry about touching a faucet.