Morning Ritual

For some time now Anneliese has taken to sharing Frosted Mini-Wheats with her Daddy in the morning.  Ethan as well to a lesser extent.  She stalks me in the morning, pointing to the cabinet and then directs me to the couch pointing to where I should sit.  She usually wants to sit in my lap with the bowl in front of her and then she and I fight over who gets to hold the spoon.  She often wants to feed herself as well as me.  It's irritating and sweet at the same time...kinda like the cereal.

Rain!

We're having quite a series of rainstorms here, significant enough to close freeways!
According to Liz, turning down Wardlow Avenue which intersects our street, the water was up so high that one could barely make out the raised grass median in the middle of the street. Crazy!

Anneliese

Here's an Anneliese personality update.  She loves having her shoes off'.  Many a car ride start off with her shoes and socks hitting the floor before we've even turned onto the big street.  She is very sweet and ask for "kiss" and "squeezes" at night and when I leave in the morning.  She has gotten more words down like "help me", "please", nods and shakes her head, says "yes" or "no", and does chores when she's in the mood saying "O.K.".   She can be very independent and says "my do it" because for months she's been very into posession pointing to chairs, drinks, food and saying "Mommy's", "Daddy's", "Eth's" and "My".  Poor thing went through a double ear infection recently.  She throws a total fit when she doesn't  get her way resulting in: throwing things, biting, hitting, flopping on the floor crying, or sometimes just running off to their room crying.  The biting could get worse as her incisors are starting to come in.  She's definitely rough.  She likes pulling Ethan's hair and loves head butting Mommy and Daddy in the chest repeatedly for fun when we hold her.  She enjoys wrestling either Daddy or Ethan by straddling us on the floor.  At the same time, she's a nurturer.  If she sees a kid crying at the playground she'll go up to them, pat them on the back saying "shhh shhh shhh".

Recent Ethan Quotes

(As he's getting himself dressed for school)

"Hey Mom, I'm running a little low on pants!" --Ethan
                                         

(As we're researching local kindergartens) 

"Ethan, what kind of school do you want to go to next year?" --Daddy

"College!" --Ethan

Oma & Opa Expose Kids to Art

Oma & Opa dropped in for a visit as they were in town for a few events honoring Richard's colleagues. Despite our coaching to the contrary, Anneliese kept calling Opa "Pappy" as she had done for Pépère over Christmas. We all went to the J. Paul Getty Museum as Richard was interested in an exhibit on the drawings of Rembrandt and his pupils which was pretty neat.  Aside from that, this month included a lot of Lego tower building, train track creating, and running around the house naked (this kids that is).

Click here or the album for more photos!

Liz' Purse Stolen from Car

First Monday post-holiday dropping off Ethan at his preschool at our church, Liz returned to the unlocked minivan four minutes later to find her nondescript black diaper bag (with purse inside) missing from the back of the van!  Suprising on so many levels...the bag doesn't look like a purse, it was between the back seats where our windows are tinted like a limo, and Liz was gone for a very short time.  The loss of the cash and hundreds of dollars of gift cards stunk but so did the loss of the purse and having to face the hassles of calling all the card companies.

Later that evening, a Pizza Hut guy came by with Liz' bag with her purse and another lady's purse all mixed together!  He was very sheepish stating that he'd found them behind his store and had only looked at the ID to know where to return it.  Liz separated the items and took inventory.  The expected stuff was missing but our suspicions of local school kids went away when we discovered that of all the Christmas checks Liz had in her purse, only the in-state check was missing.  We filed a police report that evening only to hear from the preschool that additional thefts had taken place the next morning!  I had considered doing my own sting operation but I figured the odds of a back-to-back thief appearance were slim...guess I was wrong.

Recent Ethan Quote

"Everybody has a sweatshirt but me.  When do I get a sweatshirt?" --Ethan

"You have sweatshirts Ethan." --Mommy

"No, when do I get a morning sweatshirt?" --Ethan

(Referring to Mommy and Daddy wearing theirs first thing every morning.

Christmas 2009

We had a fun Christmas. Ethan always enjoys setting up tree and wants to sneak on more Star Trek starships than Mommy prefers. Ethan made a gingerbread house and got to be a wise man in his preschool Christmas presentation. We had a mini Christmas at our house before heading up north. We had plans to spend a week in Sacramento starting on Christmas but my work schedule forced me to leave Liz and the kids after just three days off. Anneliese quickly took to calling Pépère "Pappy" which we all got a kick out of. The grandkids had matching pajamas. Ethan got a Razor scooter which was a big hit. Before I left we had a crazy family picture session where despite two-dozen shots of the group it still took four different shots to merge into a good one via Photoshop. Most of our family made it back home without getting sick from cousin "Typhoid" Grant who was pretty sick.

Click here or the album for more photos!