Baby Steps

I'm a couple days late with Sarah Claire's ten-month monkey picture, but it's not because I haven't been trying! She has been a little bit under the weather this week with a nose running like a faucet and eyes producing massive amounts of yucky stuff.

However, as yucky as the stuff in her eyes was, she was not interested in having them cleaned. My attempts to wash them usually just triggered more crying which meant more runny nose and eyes!

So, my first two attempts at a monkey picture came up dry, but today we finally got a decent one. You can still see some of the redness in her eyes, but trust me, this is much better than she's been looking! I'm so glad that she's feeling better, and just amazed that she is really ten months old already.

This has been a fun month. She is an expert speed-crawler now, and she is so very close to walking. She took three tiny steps in a row one time today, but she usually falls after her first step. She is also doing lots of baby signs for us--dog, cat, more, all done, bye-bye, duck, and no-no are all part of her repertoire. And she gives the sweetest kisses in the world. :)

Happy Tenth Month to our little princess!

Our Little Poet

Lee Anna and I have read lots of poetry together this year, and she got excited when I told her that her assignment today was to write her own. She declared immediately that they should be "silly" poems, and then we worked together to come up with some ideas. The assignment was to write an "imagery poem," so we talked about making comparisons and painting pictures with our words.

Here are her compositions:

The Clock
One day my father climbed
into the clock
to make it ding.
He was the dinger.
I thought it was the clock.

The Rain on My Head
The sun shone on my head,
so hot that the sweat came down
from my head like raindrops.

The Hurricane
The baby goes from room to room
making a mess like a hurricane.

The Monkey
My monkey brother climbs, climbs, climbs
in our jungle house.

The Dust Storm
The dust rolls out like a sleeping bag
spreading out to be slept on.

I admit I'm extremely biased, but I was impressed! We both had so much fun that we will definitely be writing more soon.

Sunrise Celebration

Happy Easter, Everyone! We hope you had a joyful day celebrating Jesus.

This morning we did something new for our family--we watched the sun rise from a sailboat on the river! Our kids haven't seen many sunrises in their time (especially if you don't count the ones from an airplane window!), so this was a special treat.That 4:30 a.m. alarm sure was early, but definitely worth it. The kids only took a minute or two to come out of their fog and remember that we were going on a BOAT! Once that sank in, they sprang to life. We made the short walk to the sailboats and waited for our friends to join us.

We had a great time singing together (led by my floating minstrel husband), eating delicious breakfast treats, enjoying the peaceful calm, and of course watching for the sun to rise.

Here's our first glimpse!

We had a double-dose today, because we also got to spend time later with more friends as our families celebrated Easter together. I don't have any good pictures from that get-together, but we had a great time telling and reenacting the Easter story, enjoying lots more delicious food, and even hiding an egg or two. It was a wonderful day.

Happy, Happy Easter! He is Risen!