Bless me blogland for I have sinned...

...it has been over a month since my last blog post. I must repent. I don't know why this has been slipping through my hands lately...or my mind...with facebook updates I feel like most of my faithful blog readers already keep up with the kiddos, but I know this is different!

So...a quick update. Cole turned 18 months yesterday. A year and a half! How did that happen??? He's SUCH a boy. Such a boy. All trucks and loud crashing noises when he "tells" a story. But on the other end he gets all whiny if his hands get messy in the dirt? Really dude, because there's ketchup and yogurt all in your HAIR and you care about a little bit of dirt on your hands? He's also very sweet--he loves taking Addie's baby doll (ironically, the one named "Baby Doll Cole") and putting her (yes her) to "seep" (sleep) by placing her on a bed with a blanket completely covering her body and face (poor thing can't breathe). There's also a giant hedgehog in our living room named Lucy that looks like this. Cole is constantly trucking his sippy cup over to Lucy, plopping down next to her and waving in her face. "Hi. Lucy. Water." He likes trains (tah-mis) and is obsessed with mickey mouse. He still loves music and knows the last word to most of the lines of each Little Mermaid song (seeing as how we listen to it about a hundred times a week in the car). He's putting two and sometimes three words together in sentences ("Inono cookie book" also means "I don't know where the cookie monster book is, but please find it for me NOW so we can read it"), can identify shapes (heart, star, circle, triangle, sometimes oval and square), and know some colors (but is less consistent, and his default color is always "wat" (white). He can count to 10 so cutely while walking up and down the stairs. I have yet to capture it on video, but that is my next goal. If you sing the ABC's and leave a letter out, he can fill it in for you. This week he started saying abcd and then dissolving in a heap of giggles for some reason only known to that goofy little child. He's becoming a WAY pickier eater than I'd like...sigh...missing the days when he ate piles and piles of whatever we put in front of him. He's a big fruitatarian these days. All in all, a wonderful kiddo with a short temper and a huge heart.

Addie started a new school this year. Since she's a November birthday, she'll have 3 years of preschool, and the school she attended last year wasn't the best fit for her or the family. It was a co-op, which meant that I worked 1-3 days in her classroom a month and there was 1 steady teacher plus 2 parents who rotated each day. The inconsistency of me being there sometimes and not other times and of different parents each day left Addie a crying mess at almost every drop-off. We chose a new school which is not a co-op, so she has 2 teachers who are the same each time and...poof...she loves the school, hasn't shed a single tear, BARELY EVEN LOOKS BACK AT ME when I leave the classroom. May wasn't that long ago when she was clinging to my leg, but she is a changed woman :) And SO proud of herself too! Addie has a hilarious sense of humor. She knows when she's made us really laugh and then she declares "I'm funnier than the Great Zucchini!" (A local "funny man" that we saw recently). She's doing bigger things on the playground--she can flip on the rings that we have on our swingset, and she can almost pump her legs on the swing exclusively (but, she will let you know, she quite likes being pushed). For a girl who was terrified of going down the slide when we moved into this house...that's a huge deal!

They've been able to play together a lot more, which is SO nice. They get along for the most part, but do get on each other's nerves. We do our best to let them sort it out because I know they can do it, but we do have to intervene here and there to make sure no one gets hurt. But if Addie gets hurt, Cole is the first to rush over and give her a kiss. If she's sad he looks at us and says "Addie. Sad" and then runs over to give her a hug. But just as he knows how to make her feel better, he knows how to push her buttons. All in all....I couldn't ask for a better pair of siblings.

Pictures coming in a post soon...I promise....