Giggles

I love little baby laughs. I discovered that if I tried to make the sound one of the toys makes that Marie would just laugh and laugh. Luckily Arnold thought to get a video of it. :)

She must be related

I guess we all do some pretty funny things as little kids. This is one of them for me and apparently someone inherited the desire too.

Unfortunately every time we try to get a good picture of it she beats us in taking it out. So these aren't of her crawling with it in her mouth and I had to grab her hands to keep the sock there. Either way, it gives you a good idea.
We kinda look alike too. :)

I'm grateful for...

...A loving husband who takes care of us, especially the gazillions of times he has let me sleep in while taking the babies, washed dishes, done laundry and the other endless list of things he does to make my life easier without being asked or expecting anything in return. I don't know what I did to deserve him since he found me but I'll always be grateful for him chasing me down and winning my heart forever. I don't know what I'd do without him! I also love how wonderful and loving he is with our little ones. He's even willing to hug trees with our little man.
For Sam who provides lots of energy, smiles, laughs and new adventures each day. He just throws himself into everything he does with his whole soul and every ounce of energy he has. It's amazing to watch. I love the few moments like this where he's just chillin.
For Marie who provides endless giggles, smiles and new discoveries each day. She is so thoughtful and quietly ponders things while she also has energy and liveliness. I can't get enough of those beautiful eyes and curls. I think my Mom knows a poem for this picture... ;)
I love my little family and all they do for me. I don't know what I'd do without them. Seeing the world through my children's eyes brings so much laughter and fun as they learn and play each day. I just can't get enough of the fun moments and wait for even more as they grow older.

Jammies

Gran (my mom) sent some warm jammies since I couldn't quite find what I was looking for here. These are what she sent and they were a huge hit with Sam. He loves his "Bagga Jammies" (Bagger is the German for construction tractor) and Marie's "Pitty Lala Jammies" (or pretty flower). It was pretty much all he would wear for a while until he got a high fever and we made him wear his Thomas jammies again since they are not as warm.

More Creativity or Clownishness

Yea, so I'm not sure that's a word but it works.

Marie has decided to use her current creative abilities to climb. She's already pushing chairs around to get on things she wants to get things she thinks are interesting. Here she is about to climb on the top of the chair in an attempt to get on the table. Lucky for her I noticed fairly quickly what she was doing and put my foot on the bottom bar to hold the chair down.

The other day Arnold found Sam and Marie using these as hats. It was so cute we tried to get pictures of it. Sam cooperated but Marie got distracted and it didn't work as well for her. Still cute though.

And finally, Sam will use anything that looks like a tool as a tool. I wish you could here his impressively high pitched and very noisy drill sound to go with the picture but this is all you get. And yes, that is a water hose attachment. That's where the creativity comes in.

Creativity

We have two little creative people. It's just fun to watch their minds work and watch them do new things. Now these pictures are a little old (they are from the end of July) but I saw them as I was looking for something else and couldn't resist.

To start with, I hope Marie likes this picture when she's older because she did this all the time for quite a while. We finally got a picture (or 5) and I'm so glad we did cause it's hilarious. It's funny to see the differences between Sam and Marie because Sam never really did this even though they are both little clowns.
Sam saw the boards leaning on the bench and guess what he decided it was. They got put to great use while they were located there (with lots of supervision). He climbed up and slid down over and over and over again.

And finally something that hasn't stopped...The Mommy Playground! Or more recently the Mommy Park!! I'm not really sure where Sam came up with the idea but at this point if I ever end up on the floor that's what I become. I've tried to do exercises to fix my stomach gap(from two big babies) but every time I get attacked by these two one of which says, "Mommy Park!!!!!!" with as much enthusiasm as you can imagine. I don't know if my stomach will ever be the same for multiple reasons all to do with these little people.

Sam actually requests the Mommy Playground now. I guess that should be flattering right?

My little tree hugger

My little man likes to give hugs. He's really cute although somewhat abusive in the way he loves to hug his little sister. She sometimes loves it and other times I get to run to the rescue. Well, the other day we went to a park and walked around a bit. Sam had a ton of fun climbing and running around. He also decided he liked the trees and decided to go around hugging a bunch of them. So here is a short clip of the tree hugger. (When he says "Ih-Ah", it means "Big Hugs" and is said frequently around this place although not usually to trees. This was a bit of an exception. I guess he was excited to be free and running around in nature that day.)