The Big Brother

I also got some pictures of big brother yesterday. After a few goofy poses and some serious bribing on my part, he gave me a nice smile.

The silly look

The surprised look (why does the word "surprised" always look like I spelled it wrong?)

My usually-sweet boy

The Birthday Girl

It's been a while. We'll start with a picture of Maggie several weeks ago in a cute little sweater/hat ensemble:

********************************

And now, heeeeeeeere's Maggie!

Maggie's interests include talking on the phone, playing in the (toy) kitchen, walking, eating, and climbing, climbing, CLIMBING! Her biggest achievements are climbing onto the dining room table unassisted and getting a seventh tooth. Her motto for life is "Hi Da-da! Yeah yeah yeah!" She loves to give hugs, but watch out for that temper! Let's hear it for this one-year-old!

For her birthday she got a carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Getting the cupcake

Trying to grab the flame

Being told she can't touch the flame

And finally getting to enjoy her cupcake

Couldn't resist throwing in this picture of her in the adorable hat Aunt Beth made her

Little Sister

Sometimes when Tjabe and Maggie are playing in his room, he gets the idea to dress her up and go on a trip. He collects a bunch of her clothes and hair clips from her room, puts on her what he can, and sticks a bow randomly on her head. She never seems to mind. Here she is on a trip they took "on a rocket."

Nothing new

Just an update on what the kids are doing, since that's all anyone cares about anyway (and justly so!).

Maggie: Has recently taken to holding any type of phone to her ear and barking "Hi" into it over and over. That's the only way I know to describe her husky voice. We're convinced that she's going to be a sultry lounge singer. Not only can she do the deep Diana Krall sound, but she can also hit Mariah Carey's high falsetto when she gets really mad.

She also tries to climb onto anything she can find, any way she can, and gets very angry when she has trouble doing this (or is thwarted by a cautious adult).

Tjabe: Has started doing school with me for an hour every weekday (although not always on Fridays - sometimes we do something else that day, like the library or a big art project). He loves it. We're working our way through his big Bible (I would recommend it to anyone with kids - it is theologically sound with great pictures and we probably get through it every month, and then he's excited to start it over again the next day). Then we do his catechism questions and memory verses, then writing his letters and numbers, then an art project, then reading practice. Often then he will go teach school to some of his toys, where he gets to be in charge.

He has been very excited about the snow we've gotten and can't wait to play in it. He gets sad when it melts but I try to convince him that there will be plenty more to play in in the weeks to come.

When we practice writing his letters I will sometimes have him write words that he knows - the typical "cat," "mom," etc. Then he makes long combinations of random letters and writes his own words. The other day he told me he was writing "huge words. Powerful words." If you have read the beginning of the aforementioned Bible you will understand.

From his point of view

Tjabe has been talking about death a lot lately, probably because we have had two deaths within our extended family over the past few weeks. The first was Mary, the mother of our brother-in-law, a very dear woman whom the Lord called home at the end of August. The second was Kirby, my parent's dog, who had to be put down a couple of weeks ago. Tjabe has talked more about Kirby's death, since he had never met Mary and doesn't really grasp what happened there, but has met Kirby several times. My parents are now beginning a new chapter of their life as they invite Darwin, their new puppy, into their home in a few weeks. Since hearing about Darwin, Tjabe will randomly talk about animals or people dying and their "owner" getting a new one. Today in the car we had this conversation:

T: Mom, when I get bigger, as big as Winston, and Grandma dies, then Grandpa can go and get a new Grandma!

Me: I hope Grandma doesn't die when you're as big as Winston [Winston is seven]! Plus, I think it's a little bit different with people.

T: And then when people die they'll go to Minnesota.

Me: They'll go where?

T: No, they'll go to Iowa, and then heaven. But first Iowa.

This happens to other people too, right?

I lent Sam my phone for the afternoon and evening. When I got it back tonight, I checked voicemail and listened to the six messages I had. The last message went something like this:

"Hi, it's me. [The voice in my head is thinking: Oh, it's Megan] I think I probably will come [She must be talking about visiting this Thanksgiving or Christmas - yea!], but I'll probably be a little late [Does she mean the end of the holiday?], like around 6-ish [Wait, what is she talking about? Is she coming here tonight from Washington?]. I'm just getting things finished up here. [At this point I'm assuming that she thinks she is leaving a message for someone else] I'll talk to you later. Love you, bye." I stewed over this for a minute, thoroughly confused, before it finally dawned on me that this was a message I had left for Sam earlier about our plans for the evening (which I didn't make it to ).

The kids today