April 1

Not too much exciting happened this week.
One morning, I think it was Tuesday, I opened a jar of goat's milk to pour glasses for breakfast and set the lid on the table. Brendan saw the cream that had collected on the lid, said "MILK!", grabbed the lid and licked it. He had cream on his nose, lips, and chin and was quite happy!
Luke has discovered dancing. He spins around in circles until he falls down. Then he tries to get back up and keep spinning, but he's usually so dizzy that he falls back down before he gets all the way up!
He absolutely loves the Ergo Baby Carrier I bought with some of our tax return money. The Maya ring sling worked wonderfully when he was little, but now he's just a bit too heavy for me to comfortably carry him in it. So, I got an Ergo. It is wonderfully comfortable and fairly easy for me to get him in it on my back. I clip the waist buckle, set him on a chair, sit down in front of him, and he climbs right onto my back! He knows what needs to be done and he loves being in it, so he's quite willing to co-operate. Sometimes, he'll even bring it to me if wants to be carried. It's so cute when he does that! I do quite a lot of my housework with him happily on my back now.

March 25

We're almost over our colds here. Just some runny noses to deal with yet.
I learned yesterday to make sure that the stickers are put away where Brendan cannot get to them. I went downstairs to change the laundry, came back up, and Brendan was covered with stickers! And Luke had a pair of cows on his bottom and a pair of zebras on his wrist. They were both quite pleased with themselves...


Potty-training is going fairly well. He still has plenty of accidents, but it's getting better and better. On Thursday, for the first time, he asked to go to the potty and actually went when he sat down. That was very exciting!
Our other exciting news is that goat's milk seems to be okay for the boys! We get it fresh from a friend of our neighbor. It's a little bit more expensive than rice milk, but it's so yummy! I never could drink rice milk myself, but I really like this goat's milk. Michael says I can't have a goat though. Oh well, maybe someday!

Happy Birthday to Luke!

It was a good day, if you ignore the fact that Luke and I both have nasty sinus colds...
My parents arrived last night after the boys were in bed. Everyone woke up a little too early today. We had banana muffins for breakfast, played for awhile. Brendan found and opened one of Luke's birthday presents before anyone could stop him. While Luke took a morning nap, my mom and I made a chocolate cake. I made popcorn with dinner - Luke's favorite treat. And then we had cake! Luke didn't want to blow out his candle. He was fascinated by the candle and wanted to touch it, but he wouldn't blow it out. The cake was delicious, Brendan kept asking for more and more. Luke ate the frosting. First he used his fingers to eat the frosting and then he picked up his bowl and licked the frosting off of the cake. He only ate a couple small pieces of cake. Then we opened presents. He loved them all, thank you to everyone! After that both boys got a bath and put to bed.

March 18

Bath time is so much fun! The other night, Luke decided to go bobbing for rubber ducks during their bath. I couldn't see what he was doing at first, but he kept ducking down and popping back up, laughing, and with his face dripping wet. And then he came back up with a duck in his mouth. He took it out and quacked. They have quite a few rubber ducks and Luke loves to play with them and quack. He doesn't just quack at the neighbor's dogs... Later on, after I had gotten them cleaned up, Brendan apparently decided that I hadn't done a good enough job on Luke's hair. He took the wash mitt, dipped it in the water, and wiped off Luke's head. Then he did it again several times more.
Brendan is becoming a wonderful helper to me. Today, while I was folding towels, he came over and asked for the pile of napkins. I knew that he knew where the napkins belonged, so I gave them to him and asked him to put them away. When he came back, I handed him a pile of dish cloths. He said "thank you" and happily walked off. After he was done with the dish cloths, I gave him the bibs. He said "thank you" again as he walked off. Thanking me for letting him help me, wow! When I got downstairs, I checked the drawers and he had gotten everything into the correct drawers! Not exactly neatly, but everything was where it belonged.
My parents came to visit for Luke's birthday and "Gamma" helped by starting to potty-train Brendan. He did it twice the first day and several more times the second day! I'm very proud of my boy.
Brendan has a new "Spiderman" trick. Our front window is very close to the floor. He gets his toes up on the sill and holds on to the top of the sash and sidles back and forth along the length of the window - probably about 9 ft.

Two recent pictures

Brendan got a cut on his hand last night. Kira put some ointment on it before bedtime and also put a Backyardigans band aid on it. Once he realized what was on the band aid he was thrilled! He even tried scratching himself and asking for more band aids. We didn't give in. But it's good to know that if he gets hurt again, we can give him another band aid and at least distract him from the boo-boo.


Mama also helped Luke draw his very first picture. This was the first time that it was his own piece of paper (and not his scratches on his brother's picture). Mama helped him get crayons and to make sure that they didn't go in his mouth. He had fun and so did Mama.

March 11

Ummm... I know stuff happened this week, but my mind is drawing a complete blank. Hmmm.

Well, I finished weaving the first half of the stole! That was so exciting. I cut it off the loom and everything. Later today or first thing tomorrow I'll start on the second half.
This morning, as I was changing Brendan's diaper, Luke came over with Teddy and dropped him on Brendan. Brendan said, "Dee do, Buke!" (Thank you, Luke!)
On Friday morning, the boys and I walked up to the Lanham's. As we reached their house, the dogs came running around the corner barking. Brendan started barking back. Luke started quacking.
This afternoon, Brendan helped me make soft pretzels. He had a great time playing with a little ball of dough. He tasted it too, but wasn't too impressed with that! He was very happy to get to eat the pieces he had made.
Lately, Brendan has been calling Luke "Buddy". I referred to Luke as that while cleaning him up after breakfast the other day and he's been calling him that ever since.

There's our updates for the week!

March 4

Hello again.
I've been quite busy here. Working hard on finishing up an ordination stole for a Sem 4 student. Plus, trying to keep the house and family from sinking too far into chaos while I do that. Not an easy task...
My parents are coming to visit for Luke's 1st birthday. So, I've got to work on tidying up the basement for them to stay in. Shoot, and I should probably get Luke a present too, shouldn't I?!
Let's see, what else has been going on? We've been talking about potty training Brendan. But every time we ask him if he has to go potty, he says, "ummm... nope." Luke is finding plenty of mischief to get into. We have also learned that Luke loves popcorn and Brendan can't stand it. Brendan is speaking in sentences more and more now. Very cool! He can also be a great little helper to me.
We're going to be doing psanky here pretty soon. I'm really looking forward to that. It's been two years now since I've done it.