Art Projects

Both Lauren and Max enjoy playing with paints, crayons, markers, and playdough. Lauren love to pull out the playdough and bring it to me. Unfortunately, she still tends to put everything in her mouth, but has gotten to the point where we can put her in a chair with paints and she ends up with at least as much on the paper as on her face and in her mouth. Max has moved from from painting carefully to making as big a mess as I will allow. He especially enjoys finger painting, or foot painting, or entire body painting.

Theresheis!

Lauren loves to play peekaboo, covering her eyes with her hands or a playsilk or shirt and saying "Theresheis!"

And yes, she does have her first black eye. She took a little tumble down Papa's steps. I think it scared Papa and Mommy a lot more than it scared her, though.

Just Like When We Were Kids

Max got a Lincoln Logs set for Christmas. It has wooden logs, not plastic. He has really enjoyed building things with it.

Supermax and the Dinosaur

Max loves to play dressup, putting on hats, and using our playsilks as capes or other things. He pulled Lauren's halloween costume out (still had the tags on it because we had to skip halloween this year) and declared her a dinosaur. Together, the fought evil with his magic keyboard.

Sometimes, it is best just not to ask, but instead, to enjoy watching it.

Sharing Spaces

Diamond has definitely warmed up to Cisco, though she still lets him know who is in charge from time to time. She will even share a bed with him, though Cisco has to lie down first. If Diamond is on the bed first, Cisco will keep his distance. He does, however, bark at me as if to say "hey! She is on MY bed!"

Happy Babywearer

Lauren doesn't have many words yet, especially compared to Max at that age. However, she is very capable of letting us know what she wants. If she wants a bowl of cereal, she will take my hand, walk me to the cabinet, open the tall cabinet door, indicate that she wants me to pick her up, pull out a bowl, open the top cabinet, pull out the cereal of her choice, ask to be put down, walk to the fridge and pull on the door until I open it, pick out the milk she wants, then wait until I pour, and walk over to the chair of her choice (these days, she seems to prefer Max's chair to her own, which is a bit of a problem). Before I took this picture, Lauren brought me Josh's Napsack. I thought she wanted me to put her up on my back in it. But that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to wear her bear in it.

Seeing as I did this for Max around this age, here is a list of Lauren's words:
Daddy
Josh (yes, she has two words for him and none for me)
Doggy
Cisc (Cisco)
Hi
Bye
Done (let me down from the high chair, carrier, car seat, high spot that I have climbed up to but can't get down from....)
This (the universal word for everthing)
Uh oh
Ouch
Theresheis (when playing peekaboo)
Downstairs
Cheese

Dr. Max

Here are all of Max's current loves in one picture. He loves to pretend to be a doctor, the movie Cars (or "Race Cars" as he calls it) and airplanes (as represented by the airplane hat.)