Daddy's Notes

1. Aviva thinks she's a big girl now. Mostly because she now sleeps in a big kid bed. About a week ago we asked her if she wanted to sleep in the bottom bunk of Max's big-kid bunk bed. Boy did she ever. The first night, she fell asleep quickly and every night since she's gone to sleep at night and for naps on the bottom bunk. After a night of successfully sleeping in the bottom bunk, she said to me, "I's a big kid. Baby Leo sleep in my crib." So that's that.

2. Aviva is also fully potty trained. Well, it's been a long time since we remember her last accident. You may recall that she potty-trained herself a few months ago. Then Leo showed up. She was all out of sorts with his arrival, but now she's back on track.

3. Max loves his mommy. Kristin now leads music time during primary at church (which is impressive since she has no musical training to speak of). But she shares the responsibility with another mom named Holly. Last week after church, Max and I were driving home and I asked how church was and what he did. He mentioned singing time in primary and I asked how Holly did. No lie, he responded with, "Why would you think she's better than mom?" Um, I didn't Max, but good to know you got Mom's back.

4. And his fingers, too. It's disgusting, but we cannot keep him from putting his fingers in his mouth. Argh.

5. Max and his CTR ring. In primary at church, Max's teachers gave him his first "Choose the Right" ring with the acronym CTR on it. He loved it. And lost it within 24 hours. On Monday, he got in trouble and Kristin asked Max why he did the thing she'd asked him not to. His answer, "I lost that ring that told we what to do."

6. Leo looks just like Max. Only I recall Max smiling a lot. I know that Leo is still young, but I wonder if we have a serious "Max" on our hands. It's almost incomprehensible because if there's one that thing that Max is not, it's serious.

7. Leo is a great sleeper. And almost doth convince me to have another baby. (Well, technically, Kristin would do the heavy lifting.) He'll take one long nap in the afternoon (3-4 hours), then he'll sleep at night from 9/10-5/6 on almost a nightly basis. And he'll go right back to sleep after waking up at 5/6. It's a miracle. Seriously.

8. Aviva hates to be at home. She's starting to recognize our neighborhood and as soon as she figures out what's going on (i.e, we're getting close to home), she screams like crazy from the back seat, "NO HOME. NO HOME!!"

9. Aviva thinks she's Kristin, or likes to act like it. When Max gets in trouble and Kristin reprimands him, Aviva will almost always repeat Kristin. Immediately. As if she's Kristin's echo. "No, Max, you no do that." Which prompts Max to scream, "You're not my mom." Aviva's not scared to get in on the act in other families either. At Max's friend Noah's house recently, Noah got in trouble and Noah's mom heard an echo: "No, Noah, you no do that."

10. Max loves filthy lucre. We forgot how much Max loved money until we recently decided we were tired of helping him get dressed every morning before school and get in his pajamas before bed every night. Kristin has started offering him a quarter every time he puts on his clothes/pajamas after only being asked once (don't worry, we stop shelling out quarters after he's shown he can do it on his own for a while). He's made a lot of money this week. Sadly, all he wants to buy are things like this: http://toys.goolian.com/index.php?case=product&proddb=9&pid=12786.

These two are either best friends or bitter enemies. Aren't they cute? I thought taking pictures of two was hard. Three is a nightmare. Look at poor Leo. It's got to be nice when you can finally hold your own head up. Speaking of Leo, he's been sleeping from 9 pm to 5 0r 6 am every night. Knock on wood.

Christmas

We spent Christmas at Ryan and Amy's house and it was wonderful, as always. The best part - Grandma and Grandpa were there! Here's a little video of the kids climbing all over grandpa.

Grandpa's best line over Christmas: "Aviva has the body of Tinkerbell and the personality of Mr. T." Nice. His favorite game was to take anything in the room when she walked in and say "MY blanket (toy, food, etc.)," knowing she would immediately take the bait and start screaming that it is her blanket. The "played" like that all weekend which as you can imagine, was a real treat.

Christmas Eve we tried starting a new tradition with lots of different appetizers instead of a big meal. It was a big hit. Presents were a big hit too of course. I think Max loved all of his presents equally, but it is very clear that Aviva's favorite Christmas presents were her backpack, or "pack pack" as she calls it, and her new dress up clothes. I got her a bunch of girly tutu's, capes, accessories, etc. and then I threw in a doctor's coat, hat and instruments for good measure. To her parent's delight, the Dr. coat is by far her favorite. With the fancy elbow length gloves and clip on earings of course.

Michigan

My mom came and stayed with us after Leo was born. I felt really overwhelmed and as she was leaving I started to cry. Abram's response was, "Maybe we should go to Michigan." And by 3:00 we were on our way.

We got in at 1:00 am and Aviva did not sleep the whole way. I repeat, Aviva did not sleep the whole way. It may be a while before we do the road trip again.

While we were there we went to a party our friends threw with lots of our favorite people. I had so much fun it made me desperately miss living there. Of course most of them will probably move away over the next few years, so that's what I have to remind myself of and move on to convincing them to move HERE.