Daniel & Annabel's Adventures

Basically October was the best month! We just had such a great time playing together, being together, doing things and going places or being at home...it was a fun family time month. I felt such calm and connectedness with my family, not that I don't normally, but there was something in the air this month that made it all the more wonderful! That's not to say October didn't have any challenges, because believe me, it ain't all roses, what with name-calling, tongues sticking out, potty talk (it was bound to start sooner or later, right?), and the typical sibling fights and I can't forget the whining, but beyond that- there really was a lot going right in October, a lot going well, for us. We just had FUN together. It goes back to magic ages- 6 and 3 are good ages, at least for us, so far. I'm loving it. We're in a good place right now and that feels SO good.

With that, I'll get started on our October randomness and stories, because boy do we have them!

Annabel likes her ballet class. These pictures were taken the second week of class, after she first got her ballet shoes, which she just loves. Also, she had a substitute teacher that day and the teacher had left the class door open, which was so fun because we all got to watch class better this way! Annabel is such a doll! She loves to show off her ballet class moves when we are at home!

Typical Sunday morning in our house? Lego building and chocolate chip cookie making!

Wrestling- this would make it to the top five words I have to describe the month of October. My kids LOVE wrestling these days. They wrestle almost every day at some point in the day. It sure gets the wiggles and giggles out!

The kids are SO over naps and quiet time now (I think the last time I attempted it, Annabel ended up playing in Daniel's room anyway! She was never my napper anyhow, so I stopped trying- finally, after 3 1/2 years. That alone- that I stopped trying- felt good, it felt right.) but every now and again, we get to do this wonderful snuggling when Annabel falls asleep in the car, which she'll do if we've been busy and she's tired enough and we're in the car around 2 or 3.

Annabel was beyond thrilled to do her first "map" just like Daniel has done over the years in preschool. This is her solar system- she was so proud! For the record, she calls all large poster projects "maps"- she just loves to do big projects!

Picture Day for Daniel!

Picture Day for Annabel!

Annabel took it upon herself to "dot" letters for me to trace, just like her teachers did for a while at school, so she can learn how to write letters (she's past that now- writes her name really well!). I thought it was so cool that Annabel figured out how to do this- that's pretty sophisticated letter development, in my opinion! This girl sure LOVES to play school- we play school almost every single day at some point- I still learn a lot about what they do at school this way!

Annabel also wrote numbers- many of them pretty well, too.

This girl is always doing dance and gymnastics moves around the house!

Daniel was really proud of his block creation one night and wanted me to take a picture of it. Love that cute smile!

The kids have been into feeling their heartbeats when they are exercising. It's so cute to watch them just stop and put their hands on their hearts to feel the heartbeat. And this shirt- not 6 months ago this shirt was way too long in the sleeves- like a good two inches, I swear, well maybe only one, but seriously, now it fits great- how is this little girl growing so fast?! She's leggy, too- when did she get so leggy?

More gymnastics moves! Always. Gosh I wish I was that limber.

And of course they're wrestling again!

Daniel cleverly made a maze for his remote control car with boxes and books. The kids had a lot of fun with it! I was just super impressed with his neat idea.

My new wall art! Made by Daniel. I'm in love with it. On the way home from school one day, Daniel said, in his point-blank manner, "Mommy. I need to paint a night sky." So he did. He wanted it on large paper and he did it over the course of two days so the blue could dry before he painted the stars and moon. It turned out awesome! I just love it. It makes me so happy!

When the kids came downstairs the other day, I found that Daniel had "done" Annabel's hair with about a million clips! It was too funny. He was so proud he could do it himself, which was really so sweet. Annabel clearly didn't mind! She kept finding them in her hair and asking which clip it was. The clips stayed in for a good long while, too! Anyway, they were happy to pose for a picture for once, which I just loved.

Seems like the kids are forever doing gymnastics tricks around here!

Daniel still loves to take pictures with his camera. Annabel was quite happy to pose and do her tricks while he snapped away and then she'd come running and asking him to see the picture he just took. It was too funny.

The biggest development of October was starting to learn to read! We're READING- SO fun! Daniel is great at sounding out words so far and is picking up sight words pretty quickly. Annabel loves to try, too. We've had many nights where the kids are the ones who will read to us at bedtime and we LOVE it! I pulled out all my sight word activities and mini-books from my teaching days and the kids are loving it all, soaking it all right up. It's been SO fun. The kids both have a handful of words that they know how to spell, too- they are quite proud of this. Daniel was setting up a game with some word cards I had and he needed more words, so he and Annabel wrote more words. It was awesome! The kids also LOVE rhyming these days- they are constantly asking if two words rhyme or coming up with their own rhymes. They also love to walk around and spell words out, at random. All of this has only just added to the awesomeness of this Fall!

Annabel had the camera in the car with her the other day and this was one of the pictures I found on it- made me crack up! I had to share it- she'll love me for it someday, I'm sure! :) She kept trying to take other pictures, too, as we drove past certain things and I'd hear her in the back going "MISSED!" or "Got it!!" which was so cute.

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles- we can't get enough of them around here. Daniel is totally into puzzles right now. And games. We're constantly playing games and doing puzzles these days. This is how my kitchen table often looks. Nevermind that we actually need to eat meals at this table!

And now for some videos...singing, dancing, doing gymnastics tricks, and so on! Enjoy! And don't forget to read on for some funny things and other notes I have to share! :)

Things we've heard lately and other cute stories:

Annabel: (to Mommy) I love you the BEST!
Daddy made a sad face, looking put out.
Annabel: (still to Mommy) I love him the most, and I love you the best.

In the kitchen one day...
Annabel: This stool was sitting there waiting and waiting for someone to stand on it.
Cracked me up!

One afternoon, Annabel made it a point to eat the last banana, "before it turned to chocolate." We thought this was cute.

Annabel: Is it tomorrow in the morning?
Me: Yes.
Annabel: YAY!

At dinner one night, out of the blue...
Annabel: "One fell off and bumped his head"...how many are left?
All of us: Ummmm?
Yep, we were clearly not privy to her own conversation/singing going on in her head! She was perplexed we couldn't answer her question- and no answer was the right one!

We like how windmill is "windshield"- actually most "wind" things are windshield, there are others she says like this that I can't think of right now, but it's cute. Also scarecrow when she first said it way back at the beginning of October was "squarecrow" which I thought was cute, but she quickly corrected that. And "forgot" is just "got"- that one is taking some time to get used to, because often I'm thinking "no I didn't get that" and then it dawns on me, "ohhhh, I forgot that."

We also like "we two are going..."- it's just so cute the way she says the "we two" part. I love it. And if it's both kids and me, it's "we three" of course. :)

7:00PM one night, we announced bedtime soon:
Annabel: I want to skip naps.
Me: We did. But now it's bedtime soon.
A: No! I want to skip naps.
Me: Okaaay. We did that already, now it's bedtime.
A: NOOOO!!
We finally convinced her by telling her she would get to go preschool in 12 hours but first she had to sleep! And yes, naps are definitely a thing of the past. And you know what, I'm actually okay with it, I've made peace with it, it's nice to just have our day together, no time constraints, no clock-watching- I think that's another part of what made October so awesome, I've relaxed a bit more, I'm more in the moment.

Annabel says "structions" for instructions..."follow my structions." Too cute.

I think "everwhere" and "everwhat" and "everwho" are super cute! Annabel will say "everwhat you want" (whatever you want) or "everwhere you go" (wherever you go)- this has to be the cutest "whatever" "wherever" "whoever" you've ever heard! Love it.

At the library with just Annabel one day, perusing shelves on the second floor for books for me to check out...
Annabel, loudly: BEEP BEEP BEEP (because she could? I have no idea why the beeping!)
Me, quietly: Annabel, we're in the library, we're supposed to use quiet voices, like a whisper.
Annabel whispers: beep beep beep
At least she got the point- too funny!

Annabel was being silly one day..."I was tricking you! You have a trickster in the house! ME!" Another day, Annabel was wearing her birdie hat and she exclaimed, "You have a birdie in the house! ME!"

Nearing dinner hour one day...
Me: Daddy, what's for d-i-n-n-e-r?
Annabel: Dinner?
Daddy: Where'd you learn how to spell?
Annabel: Preschool!!
And actually, it's getting much harder to spell around here, since Daniel is doing very well sounding out words! Think our spelling days may be over soon!

We also think it's a hoot that Annabel is always doing play by plays, particularly funny because often the other of us has been in the room the whole time. A conversation with me will immediately be repeated verbatim to Daddy even if he was in the room- Annabel gets such a kick out of this, it's hilarious. Ben wonders where she gets that from and then looks at me. (Moi??)

Another funny Annabel story...we were at McDonald's one night for dinner and she'd gotten this charm? locket? Happy Meal thing that opened and had pictures inside it. While Annabel was off playing on the climbing structure, Daddy changed the picture that was in it (there were six different pictures you could display). Annabel came back to the table, picked up her new toy to admire it and was shocked; she stared at it with such concern and confusion- she started shaking the thing, nothing happened, she shook it again, nothing happened, oh well she tossed it aside and ran off to play again. Daddy changed the picture again- Annabel had the same reaction again. It was pretty hilarious and it was all I could do to not laugh. She was so confused. Daniel got in on the action in the end and it was pretty funny to see him helping us out and watching Annabel's reaction. I will never forget the look of shock on her face- it was priceless! Don't worry- she finally figured it out! And we would have showed her, eventually...

Another fun anecdote from October was the adventure Annabel and I had at the Halloween costume store near us, you know- those pop-up stores that are everywhere for Halloween time (first time I'd ever set foot in one actually). Anyway, we went in looking for a broom, because she insisted her witch costume have a broom, which we didn't end up using very much because it was so cold and windy on Halloween. We found one right that Annabel liked right away, and then Annabel proceeded to have a blast checking out all the creepy displays all over the place, even going so far as to push all the buttons- she had the most fun. I was shocked she was as bold as she was. The only displays she didn't like were the ones where things popped out from behind something, otherwise Annabel loved the displays and wanted to see them and push the buttons over and over again. It was a great way to spend a half hour until it was time to get Daniel...and I think she would have stayed longer, she was having that much fun! Who knew? It's like I discovered a well-kept secret!

Daniel asked for water one afternoon: "I need water. My lungs are dry."

I was looking at a new cookie cookbook one afternoon and mentioned that there's a National Popcorn Day. Daniel immediately chimed in, "I want to go there!" Not a place to go, buddy, just a day, we can eat popcorn that day. (I don't remember what day it is- I should find out though!)

Cute misunderstanding:
Daniel: I'm not bringing this toy into Grandma's house.
Daddy: Thanks for sharing.
Daniel immediately reacted: I'm not sharing it with Annabel.
We had to explain what Daddy meant...thanks for sharing as in thanks for telling us. It's so funny how sometimes expressions we take for granted get misunderstood in the minds of children.

Daniel, giving me a small piece of some food one afternoon: "Here. Just try it. You'll see it tastes great!" So earnest, so sweet and cute.

At McDonald's one day for lunch with Daddy, Daniel said we "need to take him to Old McDonald's more because meat is on his food pyramid and he likes nuggets." That pyramid, I'm telling you- he made it his first year of preschool and it still makes appearances around here, not that it actually helps him eat more of anything!

Driving home one day after school through a very commercial area in town, Daniel plainly stated: "Mommy. That guy is a miner." He'd spotted a car next to us that had a large "crystal" dangling from the rearview mirror. He went on, "There's probably mining going on under us right now!" It was so innocent. I loved it.

Playing some electronic pretend laptop toy, Daniel earnestly said, "Mommy. Do you know why I'm playing this toy? Because it's an educational toy! So I'm learning from it!" Oh boy. And in case you didn't know, I'm on a BIG anti-technology kick right now. It's just not sitting well with me, all this technology stuff. In fact, we canceled cable in our house! I LOVE it. The day we did it I felt like I could breathe more all of a sudden- it's back to that no more clock-watching, no more worrying about trying to squeeze our shows in before the next episode is on or it gets deleted, no more commercials, just no, I just feel all this space to just be. It sure didn't faze the kids one bit. We mostly watch DVDs we own or get from the library, we watch things free from Amazon Prime, which we love, we watch things we get off our Roku box (this is a word in our kids' vocabulary now- they know how we get the good stuff!)...and really, we just didn't care enough about the few shows we did watch, most we can get free elsewhere anyway, or we'll just wait...I can wait, seriously. It's not like we don't watch any TV, we just do it other ways and we pay much less- yay for saving money! Canceling cable- yet another reason I LOVED October- see? Great month for us! Anyway, it was right during this anti-tech kick that the kids rediscovered this toy laptop computer that Annabel has...a bit ironic I thought. But Daniel's right, he was spelling on it, they were learning letters and sounds, and having a ball. Can't fault them for that!

While we're on spelling...
Daniel: Annabel, what does ___ spell?
Annabel: I don't know.
Daniel: I don't know either.
This made me laugh.
But seriously, these kids can't get enough of spelling. They are always playing spelling games with each other, what does this spell or how do you spell this. I mentioned they are going crazy with rhymes and Annabel can also often be heard going "duck duck /d/ /d/ /d/" all around the house, car, town, and even in bed while she's trying to fall asleep at night! It's so cute. She really knows a lot of letter sounds!

Daniel has started saying things are a "bad incidence"- we think he means bad influence. We're not sure where he got that, but it kinda cracks me up, even if he doesn't always mean it nicely.

And this cracked me up- one night, Daniel woke up and had to go potty. Ben saw his chance and ripped a long-worn band-aid right off Daniel's leg (Daniel has a thing about band-aids, he never wants to take them off) which made Daniel wail, poor thing. The next morning, Daniel exclaimed, "My band-aid came off during the night!" He totally didn't even remember the incident the night before- it was pretty dang funny, because he'd wailed when Ben did it! Guess he was half asleep!

So that's what we've been up to! I have a few more posts in the works...when I get a chance, because we've had some other fun things come up lately, too!