More Pictures

Here are some pictures from Halloween and the rooms in our house that were somewhat recently rearranged.The guest room/baby's room/former office

The wall of books on my new shelves in the guest room

The baby's "nook" in the guest room

The living room, minus the red couch and plus a couple of armchairs

The dining room with our new benches that Sam built

Tjabe's room minus the green chair (now in the living room) and rearranged

Fireman Tjabe

Christmas gifts...

This may seem early, but Christmas and Tjabe's birthday are only a couple of months away, and I am assuming we will start getting questions on gift ideas for the little ones. So to assist our loved ones, especially those who shop early, here are some thoughts.
- We have PLENTY of toys, stuffed animals, and blankets for both Tjabe and baby. We don't even have enough room in Tjabe's room for all the toys he already has... we have been very blessed.
- We have more than enough baby girl clothes through age 6 months. We have some clothes for a girl that are 6-9 months and 9-12 months.
- Tjabe is currently on the border between wearing size 3T and 4T clothing, depending on what it is.
- Some gift ideas, if you would like to get a gift for Tjabe or the baby, are the following:

• Books. Sam has started a wish list for books for our kids on Amazon.com. Click here to get there. The nice thing about this is that we obviously don't have books listed that we already own, so you don't have to worry about getting the kids multiples of the same thing. And Sam would say, "You can never have too many books."
  
• Trains. Sam and I decided to get Tjabe one main gift for Christmas and his birthday combined. His favorite thing to do right now (whenever we go to a friend's house that has one) is play with their train set, or read about Thomas the Tank Engine, or really anything to do with Thomas. So we bought him a wooden train set, with some cars, signs, tracks, bridges, etc. to open on Christmas. I think he will be really excited. This is a generic set, however, because the quality was the same as a brand-name wooden Thomas set but the cost was about one-quarter of a new Thomas set. However, the Thomas cars do fit on this set, and he would be overjoyed to receive some Thomas cars. If you do decide to get some cars, however, be sure to get the right ones so they fit - apparently there are several different types of Thomas and Friends train cars and they are all different sizes. Make sure you get the all-wooden cars with the magnetic connectors. Some of the engines are battery-powered and some aren't , but either one should fit on these tracks as long as they're all-wood and magnetic. Tjabe's favorite engines are Thomas, Percy, and James, but really he knows and loves them all and likes the freight cars too. I know you can buy them at Target and online. I haven't seen them anywhere else but also haven't looked for them... Feel free to email me or post on this blog if you do get him a certain engine so we know not to get him the same one.
  
• Money. We would like to eventually open an educational savings account or 529 college savings plan for each of the kids, so any monies they receive will go towards reaching the minimums for opening one of those, unless you would specifically like it for something else. Of course, they won't have any idea about this gift, but they'll appreciate it when they're older, right? I'm starting to sound like my dad...
  

I hope I haven't been too presumptous with this post. The main thing is that Tjabe and the baby really don't need anything, but if you want to get them something, these are some ideas for you. I always like to have some ideas when I'm shopping for others and hope this is helpful. And of course, if you already have other things for them, even if they're things we didn't mention, please know that we are very appreciative and grateful. By no means do I want to keep people from giving our children special things that they really want them to have. Instead, I just want to provide some guidance, for those who want some and maybe don't know where to start. Our friends and families have been more than generous to us and our kids, and we are so thankful for all of them.

Birding

Saturday Sam and his birding buddy Radd took Tjabe birding at a lake around here, while I helped host a baby shower for a friend. They left pretty early and got breakfast at a little po-dunk (how do you spell that?) cafe - kind of a birding tradition for them. Tjabe told me he got a pancake. Anyway, here is a shot of father and son scoping out the lake for waterfowl.

Last night

My computer has been down for a while, so I actually have a good excuse for not blogging lately (much better than my normal laziness excuse).

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We've been asking Tjabe to think of things that he wants to thank God for during our family prayer time at night. Last night he wanted to pray first, and it went like this:
"Lord God, Thank you for lights and books and pants. Thank you for [something I couldn't understand, that went on for a few seconds]. Now Dad, pray."

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Tjabe was playing with this little game he has, that is all of the planets cut out of a piece of thin foam, and then he can put them back into the "puzzle". He and Sam were goofing around and Tjabe ended up throwing all the little foam planets into the air several times, then gathering them up and repeating the process. At one point we couldn't find Jupiter, which is, sensibly, much larger than any of the other foam pieces. We finally found it, but I have been forbidden to disclose on my blog where it was or what Sam's comment was when we did find it. So if you want a laugh, ask me in person some time, where I can give the appropriate disclaimer and preserve your good opinion of my husband.

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We learned yesterday that Tjabe likes to say the alphabet backwards now. I was impressed - I think he does it faster than I could. He must have gotten tired of singing it the right way, loudly, every ten minutes, as he has been known to do lately. On that note, have fun with him this weekend, Mom! Nothing gets stuck in your head like the ABC's! And when he's done with that he sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! It doesn't drive me crazy at all! I love going to sleep with it running through my head, and waking up to it, and eating to it, and ...! Whoever gave those two songs the same tune had a death wish.

Picking Pumpkins

Last week Tjabe and I went with some other moms and kids for a hayride and pumpkin picking at a local farm. He loved the tractor that pulled our hayride and was really excited to run into the field and get his own little pumpkin. There are also some stacked haybales that they made into forts for the kids to play in. Here are some pictures. Thanks Elizabeth for taking pictures for us!

Baseball

The MLB post-season has begun, and Sam is loving it. Yesterday after work he came home and promptly turned on the TV to watch whatever game happened to be on at the time. I'm pretty sure the Cubs were playing. Tjabe had just gotten up from his nap* and rushed into our room to join Dad on the bed for some baseball-watching. After five minutes he was fast asleep, and he slept this way for about an hour. Sam is still awake in this picture, by the way; he's just looking down at the TV.



*"Nap" is such a relative word. What Tjabe had actually just done was talk and play in his room for an hour and a half. He's getting over a little cough/stuffy nose, so I was really hoping he would sleep. Especially since he hasn't been sleeping for naps these past few days, and we had a bedtime melt-down one night because of it. So after him persistenly asking if he could come out of his room yesterday afternoon after his nap, and with me still wanting some Mommy time to get things done, I told him he could come out when his clock (the one is his room is, unfortunately, digital) said "four-zero-zero." When Sam got home I think it was around 3:57, and he asked for three minutes if it was time yet, with me reminding him repeatedly, "What does your clock say?" I think that's a concept that will take some time for him to grasp, but we'll keep working on it. Let's just say that when it did finally say 4:00, he was thrilled and ran out to see Dad (and the TV).

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Sam, being the nerd that he is, wrote out the baseball game schedules for the rest of this week on a photo-copied page from his calendar. He listed the games with three-letter abbreviated names of the teams that were playing. Out of curiosity (and to be supportive of his interests) I was reading this schedule last night. I thought I was doing pretty well at recognizing the teams. For someone who only watches baseball if it happens to be on and I have nothing else to do, I was proud of myself for being able to identify "MIL" as the Milwaukee Brewers, and "CHC" as the Chicago Cubs. Then I saw "LAD."
Me: Who is LAD?
Sam: Los Angeles Dodgers
M: I thought it was the Brooklyn Dodgers.
S: It used to be - they moved to LA.
Me (with surprise at this disruption in my entire thinking of baseball): Really?! When?
S: Oh.... in the 60's, maybe?

Can I help it if my only exposure to the Dodgers is when I read "In The Year Of The Boar and Jackie Robinson" in sixth grade?