The sounds of Christmas are louder this year....

So it's time to stop procrastinating until Brent gives in and makes a post....

I always intend to keep up with this so it's less intimidating when I sit down to do it, but I think sometimes my free time is spent recuperating from the little ones in our house rather than reminiscing about them! My sweet hubby is taking us out to eat tonight so I'm using meal prep time to catch up on computer tasks.

Our days are filled with funny sweet little moments, the occasional laughing out loud moments, the pull your hair out as you try to summon up your last bit of patience moments, and the occasional so yucky I'll spare those of you with weaker stomach moments as you clean up something that surely could not have come out of such a little person. We had one of those this morning, which allowed Ella one of her favorite pastttimes---waiting until Mommy is distracted with Ethan, maneuvering to the wipes box, and gleefully plucking them out one by one until she's discovered. This maneuvering is no small task, as she's not crawling yet. She likes to sit on her bottom and scoot around, or rotate around on her stomach around the room. She LOVED the wood floors at her grandparents' house, and pushed herself backwards all over the floor. Ethan has decided that he will help teach her how to crawl. A while back he was crawling in front of her across the playroom shouting "I'm signing crawl....I'm signing crawl!" Ethan has this sign language thing figured out, even if the signs are not official ASL!

We are also pretty sure she's saying her first consistent word (other than dada and mama); it's pretty funny that it's her variation of "pat". This is in response to her absolute love of pulling her brother's hair....she's heard "pat, Ella!" many, many, many times! Now she will lean over to him, start patting his head, and say "pah, pah" over and over.

Ethan is enthralled by the lights, trees, and music of Christmas this year. He asks frequently for the "christmas tree music". I'm pretty sure we must be one of the only families that does a countdown not only each time we light our tree, but also when we unplug it (as this is the main way we've found to avoid whining and/or meltdowns when turning off the "pwetty lights".) As Brent mentioned, he's become a big fan of singing, and will break into music throughout the day. Current favorites include row row row your boat, the ABC's (which he tells me makes Ella happy and offers to sing when she's crying), and halleluh halleluh (which he gets stuck on singing over and over until you help him end it).

I realized this week once again that I should be prepared to hear what I say mirrored back as I repeatedly heard Ethan respond to Ella crying by saying "I'm right here Ella...don't cry." I wish I could say that the sweet tone in his voice on this one was the tone heard most often around our house!

In one of the most recently posted pics in the web album you can see Ethan holding a cord up to his belly. This was in response to him asking me about his belly button and "what's in there?" After he wasn't satisfied with the easiest answer of "nothing" and "your belly is under there", I decided to explain that he used to have a cord when he was a baby in mommy's belly, and that the cord was how he got food. He immediately walked over to the power cord for Brent's laptop and stuck it in his belly button. He still brings that up every once in a while (with one of his most frequent expressions these days---"that's silly!"). Brent has thanked me for not explaining who cut that cord!

It's an amazing (and busy) time of the year, and it's so much fun with both kids being increasingly aware of the world around them. We're just at the very beginning of the journey of making decisions about how to enjoy all the fun traditions and family times and still keep central the birth of Christ. Currently his biggest fascination with the Christmas story is that Jesus slept in the hay around the animals. I get the impression that no room in the inn would have been a wonderfully exciting adventure rather than hardship in his little mind.

Ethan ends most phone calls to family these days with a big hug to the phone (complete with a little "ugh" to let you know it's a "big hug"), so if he was writing this post I'm pretty sure that's how he would sign off. You can all be glad that even though you miss out online on the great hugs, you also get to miss out on the unfortunate sliminess that comes with both our kids' kisses this week as they get over this cold. Hugs and wet, wet kisses go out to all of you.