With the expense of airline travel these days, we thought we might consider a method of cost-reduction for this trip.

Laura demonstrates the proper way to pack the bag:

She feels pretty safe since she’s just a bit to big to fit into that bag.

Seattle here we come!

It’s been a couple of weeks now but there was great excitement among the little girls in our house because we bought a nice set of bunk beds at a garage sale and set them up in Laura’s room. Laura is now the proud owner of a “big bed” - a real twin-sized bed with real sheets and pillow. We’ve set up the upper bunk as well (the pictures were taken before it got set up) and while we don’t have any immediate plans to move Addie in with Laura, I imagine it’ll happen eventually.

So it’s time for some before-and-after pictures, well, of a sort. Back in November 2005 when Laura was 16 months old and we knew that Addie was on the way, we set up a new crib for Laura and she wanted to help assemble it. This was the scene:

Fast-forward to May 2008 and Daddy now has two little helpers.

And the finished result:

Apparently this is something that goes by generations, too. I’ve done Kermit (among others) for a long time… (including on YouTube… twice) and now the girls are up to it, too.

Today I decided to wear my Beaker t-shirt. No sooner did I come home this morning (Becky’s not feeling well) than they both pointed at the shirt and asked, “Who’s that guy?” So here they are, doing their best Beaker impressions.

For reference, the t-shirt:

Laura:

Addie:

One of the things that just fascinates me is observing the girls’ learning - not just what they learn but how they learn. Sure, I’m a nerd, but thinking not just that “hey, she used a funny word” but realizing how that particular word reflects the fact that she’s learning about verb tenses (without even knowing it!) just blows me away.

Recent highlight: Laura, looking at a book of nursery rhymes in the van yesterday on our way home from the mall. It’s not a book we’ve read to her very many times. And she’s not reading yet, so what she does is look at the pictures in the book, recite from memory as much as she can, and then improvise based on what she understands from the pictures. So Becky and I are sitting in the front seat talking, and soon we hear this:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker man, bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it, and roll it, and mark it… um… with some frosting…”

Hilarity ensued.

My mom has mentioned more than once how she enjoys seeing our girls’ personalities as they get bigger and start to really develop. She sees Laura as having more of my personality: quiet, methodical, the classic introverted engineer. (Poor kid!) Addie, on the other hand, is the more ornery outgoing one, much like my brother Ryan. I knew I more or less agreed with Mom, but saw it very clearly last night.

We showed up at church around 5 pm to get ready for Wednesday night dinner (which we were serving). The daycare kids who occupy our basement after school were just getting ready to leave. Of course Laura and Addie wanted to play with them, and for a few minutes both of them did. But it was only a couple minutes later that Laura started feeling overwhelmed by the group of noisy kids, and she retreated into the kitchen with us. She was much happier just hanging out there where it was quiet.

But Addie? She was wearing a necklace of gold plastic beads that she got from a parade this summer; it has a big gold plastic disc pendant that advertises a local bank. Since the kids didn’t know her name, they saw the bling and started calling her “hip-hop baby”. She spent the next 10+ minutes chasing them around, teasing them, ducking into the kitchen where they weren’t allowed, only to then poke her head out, get them to scream, chase after them a bit… All the more hilarious because she’s not yet 2 and they were all between 8 and 10.

Parenting is so much fun.