Little Make-Up Artist

Claire has enjoyed playing with make-up whenever I’m getting ready. I think she might have a future career in make-up. Although it looked like she had a black eye when she was done. Maybe she needs some more practice.

While this was going on, Henry was having fun in his highchair with some yogurt:
A nice bath returned them to normal! 

Portion Size

 

This is what happens when I leave Paul, who took the day off, to finish baking the cookies I made:

Can you tell which ones he baked? Impatient men…

A Little Catch-Up

 

For our own personal journal, I thought I would take the time to write out what the kids have been up to in terms of milestones, funny habits, and general developmental stages. We always have a fun time looking back and reading them.

Henry(15 months):

• The last month or so, Henry has really increased his word count. I would say it is close to 10. His new ones are: Claire-“Care”, Daddy-“Addy”, shoe-“ssshu”, Ria-“eeea”, and bubbles-“bubus”. He doesn’t say as many words as Claire did at this age, but he sure does babble ALL the time.
• I mentioned shoes, he absolutely loves shoes. His favorite thing to do is to get his shoes and hand them to me. I sit down on the floor and he turns and backs his way into sitting in my lap to put them on. After they are on he thinks we are leaving right that second. He also likes finding everyone else’s shoes for them.
• He has now slept through the night a total of eight times (yay!). We are thrilled. Two nights in a row! (He will now wake up twice tonight since I acknowledged the trend).
• He still only has four teeth and is constantly drooling. Yet, the lack of teeth do not stop him from eating like a teenage boy.
• Since it has been so nice outside he now is learning the amazing world of grass, bugs, and dirt. Leaving the house is a chore because no matter what we are doing he will get extremely upset if we go into the car and not outside.
• Dirt/Sand is his best friend. We often go to a park with a giant sandbox (I hate sand) and he insisted on carrying three shovels with him. Digging in the dirt is also a favorite pastime (such a boy).
• Claire’s little shadow- Henry will follow and copy whatever Claire is doing. It is so sweet to us, and so annoying for Claire. She takes gymnastics at school and does somersaults all the time. Henry watched her and then tried to do one:

Claire:

• Our little running commentator. She will talk about EVERYTHING she sees, whenever, where ever. She never stops talking.
• At bedtime when we’re leaving, she always says after we turn out the light, “I can’t see!!” in the most adorable mousey voice. It’s almost like a surprise to her every time. We are lucky that the second we shut the door, she stays in her room and does not come out until we get her in the morning. I have a feeling we won’t be as lucky with Henry.
• She gets excited about everything. Anytime she tells a story she gets this look on her face like she is going to explode from excitement.
• She tells little fibs/stories. Her big thing is telling me she is going over to a friend’s house after school and will ride in their car. Also, how Ria bit or scratched her. Funny thing is, the cat is always hiding during the day.
• For the past few Saturdays we have been going to the local Farmer’s Market. She loves the little bands that play there and dancing to the music.
• She loves helping me wash the car, water plants, and fill her little pool. Basically anything that has to do with the hose. 
• Now that she is aware of different sports, she has really been into tennis and loves playing with Daddy.  She also likes for him to chuck the football as high into the tree as possible, to see if it’ll get stuck. She thinks this is hilarious.

It been so much fun with these two now that Henry’s a little older. We love just going outside and letting them wander/explore. It is great seeing their little minds at work.

Little Cleaners

 

Claire and Henry love any type of cleaning item/product. Whenever I attempt to sweep the food under Henry’s highchair he runs over either to: 1) attempt to eat the food in the pile(yuck) or 2) take the broom from me. Claire loves when I spray the appliances or furniture to dust. She insists on taking a towel to “help” me. Even if it creates a bigger mess at times, it is well worth the few minutes of quiet!

Mrs. Koch Goes to Washington

 

This is Paul, guest-blogging for Kelli. Our blog has been on hiatus the past couple of weeks due to the unexpected passing of Kelli’s grandmother and our daughter’s namesake, Claire Norsworthy. She meant a lot to all of us, with Kelli growing up on visits to Walla Walla and she and her husband Ray treating me as their own grandchild. Kelli and her grandma Claire spoke on the phone constantly, with Claire always loving to hear updates on her great-grandkids through those conversations and this blog.

We weren’t sure exactly how to start this blog back up, but I thought it appropriate to write how much we are missing her now and have heavy hearts as we start to write this again.

That being said, Kelli packed up and flew out to Washington state to be with her family this past week, providing me the opportunity to play Mr. Mom. With full days of work and two kids, I’ll say a couple of things – it was all about making it to finish line (KELLI’S HOME!), and thank goodness for Adrian. The kids and I got to know each other a little better, I think, in that the kids now know that Daddy is not just the one that comes home and plays with them. In fact, he has considerably less patience then they anticipated. By the end of the week, it was pretty apparent that Claire was ready for Mommy to be home, Henry was ready for Mommy to be home, and Daddy was ready for Mommy to be home. My parents also came out for a pre-planned visit mid-way through the week, so that provided some nice diversification of playmates for kids / reinforcements for me. Highlights of the week included: (1) going to Claire’s school for “Bike Day” and forgetting my camera, then helping Claire with the decision to lend her bike to a classmate and consoling her when she realized that lending her bike to a classmate meant she was no longer riding her bike; (2) trying to get both kids to take a bath at the same time, resulting in Claire crying uncontrollably when I took her out, up until Henry was crying so loud that she stopped her crying to see what was up (I believe she kicked him in the face, though I’m sure she’d claim is was “accidental”); (3) the kids manipulating me into somehow walking them in the wagon all the way to the park at 4pm on a HOT day (I still don’t know how they did it – I just about passed out);  and, my favorite (4) playing outside with them 20 minutes into Day 1, tripping while holding Henry when turning to talk to Claire, and dropping Henry on my way to the ground (luckily able to cushion his fall somehow, though I can’t exactly remember how).

The kids and I CERTAINLY appreciate that Kelli is home again. One thing I did NOT take time to do this week was take pictures, so instead here are some from the swimming session today.