We made mini-pizzas!

(And cleaned up afterwards. Good helpers!)

Happy Valentine's Day...

And Happy Birthday to Uncle Mikey!

Bye Bye BaBa's

On January 27, the girls took their last drinks from their bottles for breakfast.



Then after nap they helped me put all their bottles into a box, tape it up, and they said bye bye. Then we had a bye-bye-baba party! They enjoyed cookies and juice and had a good old time being "big girls" with sippy cups while sitting on the counter. ;)

A new era is dawning - they now seem ok with being big girls. A few short weeks ago, when asked whether they wanted to be babies or big girls, they would answer "babies". Now they ask for big girl cups at dinner and they're progressing slowly but surely in their potty training. Dani went poo in the potty chair for the second day in a row today! Yeah Dani! And Alex is doing well too. They enjoy keeping each other company in the bathroom. With enough books on hand, they'd stay in there all day!

Winter blues... and yellows and reds!

With the frigid cold weather, we've been having lots of indoor fun, and
the girls get more creative every day. They get artistic:




And they get downright silly:

We do everything in 2's

As we do every year, we had two Christmases, one in Chicago with Gramma, Opa, Uncle Mike, Aunt Irene, Cousins Olivia & Ariel, and GrandOmi & GrandOpi, then another on new year's eve with Ama, Akung, Aunt Jean, Uncle Aaron, Clay & Owen. The girls enjoyed both and were quick to learn how to open presents, even saying Tankoo by the end. During both holidays, they also stretched their culinary skills - cookies at Christmas (thanks Gramma!) and on New Year's they made sushi and pigs in a blanket (thanks Ama and Aunt Jean!). We've all been enjoying our new toys and books since the holidays which is good since it so COLD that we never play outside anymore. :)

Christmas Eve & Day - states represented: Illinois, Indiana, Idaho, & Missouri!

Gramma & Opa

Cookie Time!


New Years Eve - the presents continue...

...and so does the food. My fav meal of the year - Sukiaki! And this year, Clay and Owen added cheesecake. What more could we want.

Then Jack's fav day of the year - New Year's Day with family, football, and food. The girls' first sushi making day!

So that's the holiday wrap up. It's only taken a month to get posted. :)

Since then, the residents of Weiville have been working on potty training. The big phrase around here is "Special Treat" which is code for "I get an M&M when I pee-pee". We're no where near ready to get rid of diapers (we tried) but little by little, the girls are growing towards independence. I'm sure I'll post big exciting pictures when they finally get #2 into the pot. ;)
Stay warm everyone!
PS: Congrats, Lilie! The girls will try their best to give you the day of your dreams.

The Office

What you are about to see constitutes about 20-30 hours of Jack's free time. So it's a darn good thing that I'm in love with it! My new office/studio feels like the first real space I've had to do my work, rather than something cobbled together quickly and piecemeal. The desks are (xplane style) made from doors that he custom stained to match the trim and the shelves are hand picked as well. Only the white wire shelf above my drafting table is something we repurposed, but that fits in with everything and will look even better once we get the white blinds delivered. It's a fun, functional, high-crafted space and I'm super happy with it (and its creator). :)






Ahead you can see the current view from my drawing table. In the spring, it'll showcase our beautiful front yard pond which is frozen over right now. So the fish and I will get creative together! Actually, in the spring, I probably won't be sitting there much unless it's to nurse... maybe summer. ;)


Hmmm... it'd be fun to see all my past office views... I'll have to dig up some drawings from St. Louis someday. I was in the digital photo world for Philly... and my Tucson view showed the pool. 



Guess I've always been very very lucky no matter where I live! Enjoy your spaces, everyone. Home is wherever you stash your daily tools. :)

Stuff I should have posted in 2007

Happy 2008! Hard to believe the 90's are almost a full decade past now... they were such formative years for me. But now that our kids are around, the early 2000's seem more important. Life without the girls is hard to remember, and I'm sure we'll feel the same way about the new baby once he or she makes an appearance. (Thanks for the input Renee! I'm starting to feel more confident that I may know enough this time to keep it around longer than a few months... LOL!) Anyway, below are a few picks from December that should have made it onto this blog a long time ago. I'll show off holiday pics and MY NEW OFFICE in another entry as well as OUR NEW CAR! That's right, I'm a minivan mom now, but as Rachel said to me - it's a car even a "cool car guy" like her hubby appreciates, so maybe I'll maintain whatever small snibbles of coolness I had before kids... HA! Well, it is a very cool car; let's leave it at that. As is my office. BIG kudos to Jack for his late nights and hard work to get it done. 2 more rooms to go! Guest room is next - all you loved ones who come in 2008 (Please! Come!) will enjoy his expert paint choices. History has proven over and over (and over) that I stink at it.

Dani left, Alex right:

Alex:

Dani:



A true Daddy-driven snowman - m&m's for a mouth and girl scout cookies for eyes...


EDIT: I added names before pics above. I just realized I haven't been good about that lately.

Merry Christmas and (a belated) Happy Hannukkah!

Hello friends and family! I hope you've been enjoying preholiday preparations and, if you're like us, playing in some snow. It's been on my to do list to post pics of the girls' first snowman and family snow play day, and now we're up in Chicago with Gramma and Opa, so the pics will have to wait. But the merriment can't, soooo - HAPPY HOLIDAYS! The guest room is always open up in Carmel (even after our new "guest" comes in April. He/she won't eat it up) and we hope to see as many of you as possible in 2008. Peace, love, and happiness in the new year!!! Love, Dani, Alex, Jack and Alyssa

Laughing all the Wei Hahaha

Yes, I already have Christmas songs stuck in my head now. And since jingle bells may be useful for this year's holiday card, it was on the tip of my fingers as I titled this post. But it's true - the girls make us laugh every day. For example...

On Halloween, Dani was really into Clay and Owen's electric guitar that plays heavy metal riffs on its own. So much so that (I wish I had my video cam for this) she started head banging while playing! I have no idea where she got that idea - Laurie Berkner and Raffi are hardly teaching her to head bang...


And our little bookworm Alex was captured on film by Daddy last weekend. What else would a 20 month old want to read but some thrilling Tom Clancy?!?



Today's funny story goes along with the potty theme, too. Daddy was holding both girls when I asked, "Alex, are you stinky?" to which she replied, "No. Dani's poopy."

Another Wei on the Way!

Yep, that's right. This blog name may need to change to "Wei 3 Be" because we're expecting a singleton in April. We're excited and the baby is doing fine. Today was the big 18 week ultrasound, so I actually have pics to post. We had one other at 11 weeks, but it was a pretty mundane pic... 'Yep, it has a head and arms. Ok, back to life.' (funny how things change the second time around, eh? Last time the girls had had over 5 ultrasounds by now and I was excitedly posting every single one) So, here's Baby Wei, loner. We're not going to find out the sex of it until we meet him/her in person, so we have another 22 weeks to go until we can say, "It's a...."!

Not quite Siamese...

Happy day after Halloween! We had a great time yesterday with our little kitties. They marched in the parade at school (a few laps around the parking lot - thank goodness for sunny warm weather!)




Then we went over to trick-or-treat with "Ama", Ahkoh", "Ah Jee", "Ohnco", "Kay" and Owie". (For those of you who don't speak 19 month old, that's Ama, Akung, Aunt Jean, Uncle Aaron, Clay, and Owen.) The girls totally got it after the first few houses. They happily walked up the steps, opened their bags, and said "tankoo." Then it was off to the next house in the wagon. They discovered that taking candy out of their bags is a LOT of fun, because that's what candy is for, right? To crinkle and put in and out? That's Daddy story and he's sticking to it. ;)






Then back at Aunt Jean's, Alex decided to do a tribute to the drawings of my buddy Dan Zettwoch.

Chicago Bound

It's been too long since I posted, and I apologize for the silence. We've been battling more sickness around here - flu, ear infections, colds, you name it. But hopefully with some good new antibiotics, we'll be back to sleeping at night and having fun all day. We did actually have fun up at Grandma and Opa's house a few weeks ago, so here are a bunch of shots from our visit. The girls loved Grandma's toys this time - they played in the daycare space for hours and expanded their ride-on toy expertise to include motorcycles (Uncle Mikey would have been proud!).