Merry Christmas!

 

It has been a wonderful, crazy day in the Koch household today as I’m sure every house with children has been. We have Meema and Boopa visiting from Oregon again and it has been a wonderful time celebrating with them. Santa was very kind to our kids and the big hit was their scooters. It took awhile to convince them to open anything else. Another hit was our new house pet, “Petchulah”, our giant stuffed giraffe which Claire had fun naming. It was a relaxing day and feel very thankful to have family in town to celebrate with us. Merry Christmas!

Spotting the gifts under the tree:

  

Having fun with “Petchulah” and scooters:

    

Some more playing and then “Petchulah” needed to take a nap:

   

Christmas Program 2012

 

The past two days we have been attending the kids’ Christmas programs. And by program I mean a bunch of preschools either staring or crying at their respective parents.  I’ll start with Claire. She was very excited when she saw us and the whole entire time she just stood staring at us saying, “Mommy, Daddy!”. She also informed the little girl next to her who we were and also pointed out the little girl’s brothers to her. I don’t think she sang one line she was just so excited we were at school!

 

Henry’s was today and he had a wonderful time. He was smiling and waving as they were walking in. When he saw us, he gave us a big smile and wave!

I feel I need to explain Henry’s face…He fell on the cement and scraped his nose and last night he fell into the table corner. His eye looks a lot better than it did last night. I thought it was going to be all black and blue. The poor kid looks like he was in a fight!

Kiddo Update

 

I feel like it has been awhile since I have done just a list of what the kids are up to with milestones and behavior. It’s always fun for Paul and I to look back at these.

Up first is our spunky Claire-Bear(3 3/4):

• This girl keeps us on our toes, she is constantly asking questions about everything she sees, hears, comes across.
• Since November 20th she has asked if it is Christmas at least three times a day. Thankfully it is December now and we can refer to our advent calendar.
• This past weekend we did an overnight trip to Black Mountain, NC which is about 15 miles east of Asheville. During the trip she asked us about every five miles, “Is this Asheville?”.  Cute, but oh so tiring.
• We have new neighbors and their little girl is in Claire’s preschool class. Since we discovered this every single afternoon Claire insists on walking to the girl’s house and standing outside until she comes out. We’re not quite sure how to explain the meaning of “stalker” to her. It’s cute to see Claire have a neighbor friend.
• She loves playing “restaurant”. She rearranges all of our kitchen table chairs and creates a little restaurant complete with menus and food.
• Another favorite pretend game is “doctor”. She loves trying to “check” our ears, mouth, head, and stomach for problems she can solve.
• She thinks it is funny when she calls us by our first name. She will say our name and give us a funny little smile to see if we catch it.
• When we play outside her favorite game is “airplane”. We all pretend we’re airplanes flying in the sky.
• Finally, she has started saying the phrase, “I wish…” For example, “I wish we could go on an airplane to Oregon.” or “I wish we could have a dog like so and so…”. It’s pretty cute.

(She decided putting stamps all over her face was a good idea.)

And now Mr. Henry-Sir(21 months):

• Oh my goodness does this kid have a set of lungs. Since his speech is limited he has resorted to screeching at the top of his lungs about everything. I think I need to start wearing ear plugs.
• He continues to love school. He is so excited to put his backpack on, get in the car, and go with big sis Claire. Enthusiastically he will wave “bye” when I drop him off.
• At the Y they offer a fun “Pee Wee Sports” class for toddlers/preschoolers. The last month I have been doing it with Henry and he has so much fun. As of now his favorite sport is basketball(yay!). He loves when it’s time to play.
• When we are outside he loves walking, climbing, sitting, rearranging stone, on our rock wall. I can’t get that kid away from it.
• Claire still has to deal with Henry as her shadow. It’s been a bit hard recently because Claire has gone to our neighbor’s house by herself to play with her friend and Henry just doesn’t understand why he can’t come too. Poor little guy, he just looks so hurt.
• He is starting to talk some more. It is still limited to about 10 words but he’s trying.
• Henry loves trains. For awhile I wasn’t sure what he really liked because he didn’t seem to attach to anything. All of sudden he loves trains. He collects his, loves our Thomas books, and building tracks.
• It took awhile for Henry to enjoy sitting and listening to stories. Now he loves to be an active listener. Claire was much more into just sitting and listening to the story being read. Henry wants to help flip pages, make comments, and make the book interactive. I think he new interest in the train books really influenced this one.
• Finally, he loves to figure out how things work. Claire likes to be shown and told how something works; Henry wants to figure it out on his own. He wants to put the train tracks together; take apart a block tower, he’s more of a “cause and effect” kind of child than Claire was/is. It’s amazing how different their personalities are.