Dani and Alex the Photographers

Santa was kind enough to bring a kid-friendly camera for the girls to share. It's been fun watching them get excited to take a picture and run for their camera! (not unlike Mommy...)
Here's a sampling of their first "roll". I've been bad about downloading them frequently and I suspect they've deleted some of their own shots because pressing buttons is fun.

Dani's creations include one of her cousin Owen, one of me with Alex, and one of Alex on the slide.





Alex caught one of Dani at the sink, one at the couch, and one of our visit to Uncle Rex and Aunt Janina's house. She also took one of me in the playroom while her sister drove "the car." 




The rest are of unknown origin, since one of the girls isn't in the photo! I love the kid-level perspective. :)

Snow Gardening

We got lucky and were able to go out and enjoy the recent snow before the extreme COLD hit last week. I think the girls miss planting sticks in the dirt...
(Ben, however, is happy to be in the baby bjorn under my coat. It's where he'd be anyway, snow or no snow.)

Dani is funny

Again, only have a story for this one, but it was cute...

Today after dinner, Jack was singing 'The Wheels on the Bus' with the girls. Dani decided to add her own verse out of the blue and began singing, "The Toys on the Bus say Clean Up Time, Clean Up Time, Clean Up Time..."

We all LOL, including Alex who loves word play.

Alex is funny

I wish I had a video to accompany this one, but the stories will have to do.

The girls and I were talking in the car on the way to daycare on tuesday, and the subject of how they slept the night before came up. Dani said, "Good" but Alex said, "I had a scary dream." So I asked her, "What was in your dream?" She put up her hands in the way kids usually do when describing a bear - with claws out - and made a grrrr kind of face like a bear, but as she did this, she said, "Babies."

Tonight she cracked Jack and I up at bathtime. Jack was joking with her about her toothbrush and he said something to the effect of "Ok, let's brush inside your nose." And she said that no, this was a toothbrush, "But there is a brush that looks just like this one only it's for your nose. It's a nosebrush."

We've been Elfed

Merry Christmas!

Alex, Ben, and Dani are excited for Santa to come tomorrow night (we're playing with dates a bit to accomodate family travel!) so here they are to bring YOU some holiday cheer. We love all you friends out there and hope to see you in 2009!

Santa!

This is the first year the girls willingly sat on Santa's lap (after some candy cane ringpop bribery and witnessing 2 other kids who survived the event) and Ben was in a good mood too, so we actually got decent pics! Hooray for good Santas! And for nice days at the mall. (We go so infrequently that Dani asked me to explain what a mall was. I think we need some variety from our weekly Costco/Trader Joes/Kroger trek!)

The Garbage Man

Things we've pulled out of Benny's mouth in the last 3 days (besides somewhat appropriate toys and food):
- magazine paper (many many times... if paper had nutritional value, he'd be huge)
- crayons
- cracker dropped under the girls' play table
- pirate booty (cheese puffs)
- lint
- bit of candy cane (from the floor of a gymnastics gym - UGH!)
- unidentifiable whitish item looking like dried paint
- blue painter's tape
- spinach (a full leaf)

He is reaffirming my belief that I really should get CPR certified... I never got around to it, but now we have a BOY in the house.

let it snow... pictures please!

Since my last post (sorry for the delay. I blame facebook.) we've had our first snow, and another one. And the girls made their first paper snowflakes! Dani's is on the left and Alex on the right (see photo with two snowflakes). As different as the girls are! They made a bunch more after those first. 

In addition, I tried, in vain, to make it snow inside for our holiday card pics. Word to the wise - when you have three kids under age three, keep ideas simple and setup to a minimum. I should know this by now, but I never seem to learn. I made more snowflakes after the girls were done (LOVE making snowflakes! A holiday favorite. Mike, have you made at least ONE this year?!) and then set up a home studio in the playroom.  Since I have no idea what I'm doing, the lighting was terrible, the setup awkward, and the results? Well, here are the outtakes. Ben isn't even pictured - he was crabby and slept through the whole thing. 

Needless to say, I'm formulating a new card idea. Stay tuned.

Daddy sandwich

Dad is always the best jungle gym on rainy days. Winter's going to tough on Jack's back... this is 60 pounds of squirmyness on him!


Alex the acrobat:

Ben does steps

Ok, it's getting a bit ridiculous now - Ben has a new milestone almost every day. He's now able to completely stand while holding something (like the TV or my leg) and today he did not one but FIVE steps in an attempt to follow his sisters up the stairs. I'll try to catch a video tomorrow but it's hard to make sure he doesn't fall AND grab the camera! Here's his first attempt 5 days ago.

Raspberries!

Even though we try to eat local as much as we can, I can't resist really good looking organic raspberries at Costco (our second home) whenever I see them. The girls can't resist them either!
Dani started this at dinner

Then Alex joined in

Aren't we funny?!

Yum!

It's Leafing

Gramma and Opa visited a few weeks ago when the leaves were first starting to fall. Thanks to "Little Bear" (yay Maurice!) the girls get very excited when leaves fall like rain... "It's Leafing!" they squeal. Gramma got plenty of leaves down her shirt and plenty of giggles. And we all got to enjoy hot chocolate (the girls' first!) afterward.

I can't keep up

To give you an idea of how fast Ben is growing up (and how he's VERY MUCH a boy), today's "firsts" included first time smashing his own fingers in a drawer and first time muscling up one step to sit on a platform. I wish I'd caught a picture of both (he looked at that drawer, mad as all get out, like it was a dragon who'd bit him!). Instead, here are a few recent smiley shots and one of my new haircut. ;)




No one but me is probably interested in this stuff, but I've gotta preserve SOME memory of Ben's babyhood and this is the only place information is being stored right now! I haven't touched the baby calendar since he started grasping objects 4 months ago. Poor kid. I wrote down every day that the girls tried a new vegetable, every check up weight, every milestone until they were 18 months...

Three for Halloween

We had a beautiful day here on friday and the girls had a great time being out in their costumes, especially for trick or treating.
Our little bunny Alex was happy to hop along:



Elmo Dani was la-la-la-laughing all the way to each door:



And Benny the dog was taking a catnap for much of the fun:



As we've done every year, we went trick or treating with Clay and Owen in their 'hood (where they actually have houses with KIDS instead of RETIREES!). It was a blast (into outer space!)

Even more progress

One day after pulling to his knees, Ben decided to keep movin' on and is now pulling to his feet! Our pediatrician saw him today for his 6 month check up and said he's progressing faster than any 6 month old she's seen in her 13 years of work. I can't decide if I'm tickled or sad to see my little guy growing up so fast. He's also keeping up with his sisters in other ways - he got his first ear infection last week. :( Hopefully we'll get to stay away from the Ear Nose and Throat Doc with him, but if he gets tubes like his sisters, I won't be surprised.



The girls are speeding ahead in their development as well. Dani has been drawing amazing shapes and filling up pages, coming back to a single drawing throughout the day. Our walls are getting full of both girls' beautiful art!



Alex enjoys drawing too, usually making large sweeping movements with many different colors, but she also loves pretend play and finds incredibly creative ways to use her toys. Here she is "making muffins".



Tomorrow should be a fun day of trick-or-treating and a parade with their school friends. I'll post pics of our bunny, Elmo, and doggie ASAP!

Keeping up with the Wei girls

Ben is determined to be a toddler. He pulled himself to his knees today for the first time and was looking into the big bin of balls when I found him. He's exactly 6 months and 1 week old. STOP GROWING SO FAST little man!!! I need my baby to be a baby for at least a few more months!!! Halloween and fall leaf pics coming soon.

Sit ups

Today was the first time since August I actually recorded one of Ben's milestones in my journal... He sat up from a crawl! That's right, not only did he sit himself up, but he's crawling. I've been meaning to post about that but it's been crazy around here since the last week of September when I fled the house for a weekend in San Diego - the first time I've left Ben for more than a few hours. I figured he would learn to crawl while I was gone, just to spite me, but he waited until a few days later and is now doing a very strong army crawl style forward movement. His favorite "toys" to dart towards are electrical cords and the tubes on my breast pump! After that very fun trip with the ole' Wash U illustrator crew (thanks for 2 FUN days, guys!!! And Congrats Chris! It was a GREAT wedding. Everyone should have a photo booth at their reception!) I hosted a twins club board meeting at my house, spent a week with Chrissa working on the book (it's OUT! We'll see if our chosen Rep bites on the project), organized a table at local baby expo all weekend, started having back spasms (I should be doing sit ups now too... Oh, physical therapy, why are you so hard to fit into my day...) and am now finishing 3 Halloween costumes. After tomorrow's spooky party, I'll try to post a few pics of everyone and a very cute video of the girls on their teeter totter. :)

Here's Ben, at 6 months old.






And here's our second annual trip to the pumpkin patch

Benjamin v2.0

Ben's added a lot to his resume the last few weeks. He's not only a cute baby who laughs but can now roll over, eat cereal, and - as of TODAY! - can rotate 180 degrees on his belly. Here's the proof that:
Ben eats:

Ben rolls:

Ben scoots:

A Dentist Needed for Wild Things...

Today Ben turns 4 months old and Jack took some adorable photos of him. But I also just had to share a quick post with today's "Kids say the darnedest things" moment (we have one almost every day but I don't always get around to recording them!). While Jack read tonight's bedtime stories, he learned that, according to the girls, Maurice Sendak's 'wild things' go around "Smashing their terrible teeth" before rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws! Ha!