Fun Photos from September and October

I'll save the Halloween photos for another week and post them all together. (Can anyone guess what Katie will be? It's orange and cute and she can make the appropriate facial expression.)

In the meantime, here are a few cute photos from September and October that haven't yet made the blog:

Dressed up for church:
Enjoying a bouncy seat that we bought from a friend for Baby #2:

Enjoying Mommy's soup bread bowl from Panera:

Playing with her best friend Daniel's car at playgroup (this car is definitely being added to Katie's Christmas wishlist):

Katie's obsessed with dog leashes, so I decided to see just how much she enjoyed them. Guess not this much:

Reading her Tails book with Great-Grandma:The best way to amuse Katie while waiting in the Costco customer service line? Allow her to play in the cart:

Bottoms up! Katie tries to swig the Tabasco sauce at my college reunion event. Since the bottle was closed, I thought it was a safe bet, but I guess there were traces of Tabasco on the cap. Whoops! I was too busy trying to cool off her mouth to get a photo of the resulting facial expression.

Our 3rd Tiny Talk Tuesday

Katie is 17 months old this week and learning how to talk. Here are her new words this week:

"Mama" and "Dada" are quickly being replaced by "Mommy" and "Daddy" (starting 10/24, as first witnessed by my mom). My heart melts every time she says "Mommy." :-)

"Jay-Ja-Je Jee" is a favorite phrase. It's easily translated "Sesame Street".

Along the same lines, "Mamo" is now heard regularly -- that's "Elmo".

And when she sees Grover, the response is either "Gucci" or "Cookie" (her name for "Cookie Monster", who's also fuzzy and blue)

One of Katie's favorite foods is "cocker" -- a Ritz cracker.

And she can also say "bubble". Bathtime is so much more fun with bubble bath, even though Katie won't stop trying to eat the bubbles, so she doesn't get the privilege very often.

And this isn't a new word, but just an FYI: Katie's new favorite book is Goodnight Moon. It's so fun to see her enjoying the same things I did as a kid!

My YouTube Playlist

With all the Sesame Street shows that Katie and I are watching on TV these days, I find myself on YouTube quite often, looking for old Sesame Street clips that I either remember from my childhood or that will fill me in on plot developments that I missed along the way. (Another great resource I've found is Muppet Wiki.)

Anyway, I thought those Sesame Street fans in my blogging audience might enjoy some of my favorite Sesame Street clips as well. After I list them, I'll also list some non-Sesame Street clips that rank as some of my favorites on YouTube. Feel free to list your own favorites in the comments section!

Favorite Sesame Street clips:
Luis and Maria's Wedding
35th Anniversary Montage
Bob and Susan singing "I've Got Two"
Grover and Madeline Kahn singing "Be My Echo"
REM singing "Furry Happy Monsters"
Feist singing "1-2-3-4"
James Blunt singing "My Triangle"

Favorite non-Sesame Street clips:
Josh Groban at the 2008 Emmys singing dozens of TV show themes in less than 4 1/2 minutes
The musical episode from "Scrubs": Part 1, Part 2
David Cook singing "Billie Jean" in last year's American Idol competition
Davy Jones singing "Girl" on "The Brady Bunch" (Oh, if I'd only been 18 in 1971 instead of -5!)
Ricky sings "I'm in Love with the Dragon's Dinner" to Lucy in a dream sequence on "I Love Lucy" (song begins at about 1:45 in the clip)

Our 2nd Tiny Talk Tuesday

Since I listed a bunch of Katie's new words last week, I'll list just the new words Katie has said this week.

1. "Hi" and "Buh-Bye".

The cutest example was when Katie's betrothed Kai was crying in his highchair, and I leaned Katie in to kiss his head and try to cheer him up. She got right into his face, started waving, and said, "Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" Kai, who seems to be crushing on Katie as well, immediately cheered up.

2. "Pooh" (as in "Winnie the...") (first said 10/17)

Winnie the Pooh is everywhere in our house, and now she's referring to him by name.

3. "Two" (first said 10/18)

Katie was trying to get into a bottle of floor cleaner and I was giving her a countdown of one-two-three to encourage her to walk away before I had to intervene. I started the countdown: "One". She immediately replied, "Two!" That was her first time saying "two" in context of counting, and of course I couldn't be mad as she showed off her new word. I did, however, still remove her from the floor cleaner. :-)

4. "Bee" (first said 10/18)

We've been reading the Dr. Seuss book, "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" before bed a lot recently. After Mr. Brown moos like a cow on the first page, he buzzes like a bee on the second page. Katie had buzzed once, but yesterday as she was picking up her bath toys and making animal sounds for each, she picked up the bee and said, "Bee." Good for her. Maybe we'll finally embark on a trend of saying the animals' names instead of just the sounds they make.

5. "Puppy" (first said 10/19)

Speaking of the animal name trend, another of Katie's new words is "puppy." No longer does every dog have to be "Bella." Unfortunately, I discovered this new word while trying to sit quietly with Katie during our evening church service this past Sunday. I handed her the "Puppy Love" book in the pew, hoping that she'd "read" it quietly while I listened to the sermon. Opposite reaction -- she started screaming "Puppy!!! over and over again in excitement. We exited shortly thereafter. :-)

(Others' Tiny Talk Tuesday posts are here.)

Our First Tiny Talk Tuesday

This is my first shot at Tiny Talk Tuesday, a blog event my friend Mary started to record the funny things her kids say every week. Since Katie's saying more and more words all the time, I decided it was time to join in!

Full sentences Katie (age 16 months) has said:

"She says moo." (response to the question "What does the cow say?")

"Whazdat?" and "Whoozdat?" (she asks this of everything she does not know the name of -- she is one curious child!)

"Bad Bella!!" (she says this constantly, whether or not our dog Bella is being bad and sometimes when Bella is miles away from us) (she also says this when trying to say "banana")

"It's a Bella" and "It's a baby." See video below as she marvels over the little plastic babies that I got as part of a twin baby shower favor.

Other words she says on her own now, besides the ones I mentioned in July:

"Shoe"
"Eye"
"No" (for both "no" and "nose")
"Mow" (for "mouth")
"Yes"
"Cookie" (for both "cookie" and "Cookie Monster")
"Wheeeee!"
"Bella" (she calls all dogs "Bella" now)
"Dank you!"
"Ow ow ow!" (as she hits Mommy -- we'll have to work on curbing that one)

Animal Noises she's improved upon:

Cow -- "Mooooo" (it's the first animal noise that she's really mastered in terms of both inflection and pronunciation)

Elephant -- "Brbrbrbrbrbrb!" (High-pitched motorcycle noise while she lifts her arm like a trunk -- it actually is the best elephant noise I've heard a child make)

Chicken -- "bak bak" (refers both to the animal and to the food. At least twice a week I have to go through the drive-thru, and all I have to do is ask Katie if she wants some "bak bak" -- chicken nuggets -- and I have one happy little girl)

Wolf -- "HOOOO-oooo!" as she points her mouth up to the sky

Tiny Talk example of the week: The word "Wheeeee!"

Katie's just learned the expression "wheeeee!" We use it when pushing her around the room on her fire truck or when pushing her in the swing or when going down the slide.

She had never used it in observation before, but we were watching a classic Sesame Street segment of gibbons swinging from rung to rung in a zoo. Since gibbons are similar to monkeys, I expected Katie to start making her monkey noise "Ay yi yi yi" (see this post to find out why that's the noise a monkey makes). Instead, as the gibbon swung from rung to rung, Katie started cheering it on: "Wheee! Wheee! Wheee!"

And tonight I was checking email while Katie was absorbed in watching Sesame Street behind me. Suddenly I heard her saying "wheeee!" and there were no gibbons swinging this time. She had climbed up on the coffeetable, and was using her "wheeee" to describe the adventure she was having. Note to self: Listen carefully for "wheee"s whenever Katie's out of sight. :-)

Katie Has An Important Announcement!

That's right, we're due March 20th with Baby #2. We hope to find out the gender on November 5. Please keep us in your prayers!

Mommy's 10 Year College Reunion: Boy She's Old!

Last weekend the three of us flew to Chicago for my 10-year college reunion. It was an exhausting but wonderful and fun weekend.

The flight there was the best flight with Katie so far -- there was an empty row of seats so she got her own seat in between us. Then we fed her some donut pieces at the beginning of the flight and she spent almost the entire flight bouncing in her seat and waving to everyone around us. When she started to crash after her sugar high, she fell asleep in my arms in minutes. Amazing. Thank God!

Once we landed, we decided to do a little sightseeing before my friends arrived. With our new GPS (thank you, Grammy and JayPa!), we were able to make several spontaneous detours without getting too lost. First up: Superdawg, a 1940s-style drive-in hot dog joint. John loved his burger, and the shake was so good we went back for a super sundae.


Next we drove over to Lakefront Drive to enjoy the views of Lake Michigan. We stopped long enough for John to hop out at Soldier Field and enjoy the spectacular architecture of the Chicago Bears' stadium.

That evening my three college roommates arrived, and spending time with Ruth, Karin, and Kelly (some of my best friends ever) was definitely the highlight of our trip. Here the roomies visit the suite where we first lived together our sophomore year (though we'd been inseparable since September of our freshman year):

We also lived together in an apartment our junior and senior years. Our senior year, we lived next door to an apartment that included Kelly's future husband, Jeff, as well as three other guys (Dan, Josh, and Jason) who became close friends. In this photo, that other apartment is represented by Rachel on the left, who was dating Dan that year and is now married to him with two kids; Josh making a muscle in the background; and Kelly on the right (my roommate and Jeff's wife) with one of their two children, Riley.

And here are the roomies with our unforgettable friend Duane.

While roommate time was wonderful, I also enjoyed my time reconnecting with friends I don't have as much contact with. Friday afternoon we met up with the professor I used to TA for who just got married for the first time at the age of 74! Then we met up with Emily and Morgan, a friend from home and her five year old daughter. And Sunday, just before we left to go home, we had lunch with one of my prayer partners from college, Amy, and her family (husband Kris, children Elena, Ian, and Anneliese). Here are photos from that fun afternoon:

Katie's highlights of the trip were playing with all the children she met -- Amy's three children, Kelly's daughter Riley, and Emily's daughter Morgan. She learned the word "baby" that weekend as well, and got to practice it on Anneliese. Unfortunately, a college campus isn't very babyproofed, and Katie has been sporting "war wounds" on her face this week from the four faceplants she did while in Illinois.