Happy Halloween

from the surgeon


who chased a fairy,


and the skunk


who was blessed by a fairy!

Hope your Halloween is as sweet

as these three!

posted by Rachel for Yvette :)

costume glimpse

You can get a glimpse of Henri and Cosette in their costumes by checking out Rachel's blog. Dr. Henri Little is running in the background of one, and you'll see Cosette, the skunk with a small bow on her head so that nobody confuses her with Henri Le Pew. You will also be delighted in reading the wonderful writing of my friend Rachel and see Ava as a fairy princess ballerina.

"We don't celebrate Halloween; we celebrate Reformation Day."

is what a 3-year old boy explained to me and another nursery worker on Sunday.

"And I'm going to wear my King David costume and my King David crown!" he continued, very excited.

Fascinated, I did a little research and found these here and here and here. But being that it is October 31st, we will continue with our originally scheduled plans. I'm taking the kiddos in their costumes to a preschool Halloween party at a local park. Henri is going to be a doctor again, using the same costume as last year. He really didn't get to wear it long last year. I put it on him and took lots of pictures being large and pregnant at the time and on partial bedrest. Our neighbors stopped by, and we talked to them a long time. Then it was very late, so we went with our friends the Knights, dressed in aluminum foil (we were burritos after all) and picked up free burritos from Chipotle. So I think he can be a doctor again, even though he's been eyeing that Spiderman costume wherever we go. (Have I mentioned his interest in Spiderman? It all started with that backpack.) Hmmm, I'll have to pick it up on clearance for him to wear next year. Although I like the idea of the kids being something related (like Cosette being a nurse or a patient or another doctor), Cosette will be wearing the well-made skunk costume my mom sewed up for Henri when he was a baby. I tried the costume on her, and though she doesn't like the hat, she looks so much like her brother did! I will post side-by-side pictures when we get our new computer up and running.

No trick-or-treating for our family this year. Tonight, Johnny's working and I'm volunteering in Henri's class at church as usual. Maybe next year. Since Johnny and I are big fans of the Reformation, perhaps we will have to also look into celebrating that holiday, but maybe next year.

my daughter makes truck noises & other fun facts

At first I thought it was just a coincidence that Cosette was playing with Henri's trucks and making noises. But there it was again today. Cosette was playing with Henri's loader and saying, "Brrrrrrr. Brrrrrr." And she only made these noises when playing with the trucks.

Cosette also:

• carries toys in her mouth while crawling, reminding me more of a puppy than a baby.
• has started fighting me during diaper changes & while trying to dress her, crying out and trying to roll over during them.
• attempts stair climbing and falls down a lot--as we don't have gates up (bad parents) due to the fact that our pressure-mounted gates do not work well against the banisters & baseboards.
• likes to pull Henri's and my hair as well as drive her fingers into people's mouths.
  
• eats everything she finds on the floor, especially that which is under the table--also adding to the "I have a puppy in the house" feeling. (Fishing fuzz & rocks out of her mouth is a constant activity during our day together). When Henri made a huge mess of his chicken soup tonight (thanks for the recipe Rachel), thinking it funny to rub it all over his face to make his sister laugh, he had to clean up all of the rice off the floor. Cosette was happy to help him clean up by eating it. And I let her...
  

on order

Well, parts of almost an entirely new PC are on order as Johnny waits to build a new one. Since the pictures I uploaded yesterday and all of our e-mails were not backed up, Johnny is working on pulling out parts from the fried PC and putting them in an old PC to see if he can extract them from the hard drive. Johnny's not sure if the power supply that burnt out also burned up the hard drive. Yikes, these expenditures just keep coming right when I think we're pulling something together to throw at our debt. But the Lord is carrying us through, and I do thank him for bringing us through this season of trials to discipline and sanctify us and draw us to himself in prayer and in the reading of His Word.

P.S. While I can access my e-mail online on Johnny's work laptop as it comes in, all the e-mail that's been downloaded to our PC is for now "gone". I'm sorry about not responding if you sent me something.

oh dear

I walked into Cosette's room while she was napping and smelled something burning. The computer is in there and wasn't working. Johnny unplugged it, and we've yet to figure out what burned out on the PC. So now I'm on Johnny's work laptop, thankful that Johnny installed just a few days ago software that's been backing up our pictures and other files onto an external hard drive. Seriously, folks, my husband is fabulous, especially in the tech arena.

11 Months

My beautiful baby girl is 11 months old today! Wow, how these months have flown by, and we've enjoyed her so much! She's been learning to "sign" a bit in just the past few weeks. She:

• waves "bye, bye"
• does "so big"
• signs "more" and "all done", but I don't think she's grasped the concept
• claps
• plays peek-a-boo
  

She'll also try and mimic things Henri & Johnny do like putting their hands on the sides of their face. Cosette crawls in many different ways--mostly using the normal crawl, but also changes to a bear crawl and occasionally does the "Ava" crawl (scootching one leg underneath her on smooth floors). She pulls to stand on anything she can pull up on, and cruises just slightly--a step here, a turn there--before falling to the ground.

Cosette babbles a lot, but doesn't say words. Though we can get her to say specific consonants now and then like "da, da, da, da" and "ma, ma, ma, ma." Mostly her babbling is a mixture of many sounds.

Cosette's favorite place to be is under the dining table eating any scraps of food she can find. Seriously, as soon as she's set down, she crawls straight for the table.

She's afraid of the vacuum cleaner and of dogs.

Cosette loves her brother and lights up every time she sees Henri. They like to laugh together. But like any baby sister with a 3-year old brother, her laughs often turn to tears or cries of protest when she gets knocked over, a toy taken away, or hugged too hard.

We're all loving this girl: her smiles, her laughs, and her general babyhood. Plus God gave her to us. We love her. We love God. Thank you Lord Jesus for Cosette Abrielle.

oh good...

Johnny just figured out how to turn my phone into an mp3 player since our iPod has gone bananas. It turns out that my phone came with ear buds too, and I didn't even know it! This is Johnny's territory. Isn't he wonderful? :)

7th Tooth

Lower, right of center. Cosette says, "Dah, dah, dah," and that she's feeling better now.

my friend Jennifer had a baby girl last Friday

Their 3rd child, and 1st daughter. They named her Maisie Derain. She's so beautiful that I have to point out Jennifer's blog to you so that you can see pictures.

copycats

Camera & iPod misbehavior

• Not so great pictures have been coming from our camera lately. Outside the sky and Henri's head glow. Inside pictures look like shadows. The settings haven't been changed on our little point and shoot.
  
• Our iPod stopped working yesterday, not sure why. Since Johnny showed me how to use it, I listen to podcasts everyday while I do housework & cook. I'm missing Way of the Master Radio.
  

Who do you think of when you look at this?

Do you think of?

Just wondering. It's supposed to be a caricature of Johnny on an M&M from a ribbon-cutting ceremony he went to yesterday for work. I guess I'm not seeing a close resemblance.

when the 3-year old plays with your camera's battery charger

Thankfully, our charger came with another power source...but that means charging it in the car.

finally! a family picture

last day at the north campus

When I arrived at church today, I was met with balloons and signs with my name in LARGE print. It was my last day working Sunday mornings in the north campus nurseries where I've been for 5 years. I'm moving on to working at the downtown campus nurseries. It's bittersweet really. We know so many people north, and I love the people I work with. But the drive is long, and the downtown campus is very near. I'm enjoying learning another nursery and meeting new people. I brought the balloons home so that Henri could play with them. Now they're stuck against the ceiling in our stairwell where no one can reach them.

the 3-year old strikes again, gleefully

When Johnny got home last night, he went into Henri's bedroom to say goodnight. Johnny asked Henri, "Were you a good boy tonight?" I had taken the kids to the Wednesday night activities at our church for Henri's preschool class.

"No, I was naughty," came Henri's reply.

"What did you do?" asked Johnny.

"I pushed some kids, and I rang the bell."

Johnny, not knowing about this bell, asked Henri, "Why did you ring the bell?"

Henri, very excited, "Because it was a BIG bell, Papa, and it was FUN!"

So here's the story: There is a large old bell in the foyer at our church that used to be in the bell tower of the original church building that has since been torn down. Henri ducked underneath it and began pushing the pendulum back and forth in it amidst my calls for him to stop. By the time I got to him, "DINNNNNNGGGGGG!" went the bell, ringing its glorious songs throughout the church building and attracting the stares and smiles of everyone around us. Yes, everyone, that's my boy.

so far today

I have pulled out of Cosette's mouth while at our church running childcare:

• a crumpled up name tag
  
• paper (twice)
  
• a small rock
• a small wooden peg

I also caught her by her dress as she began her descent down our stairs after lunch.

Busy these days

so here's a rundown:

• Cosette is a scavenger, eating everything in sight as she crawls on the floor. I can't set that girl down anywhere before she shoots across the room, having spotted a small piece of paper or pebble or raisin or Cheerio or something, ANYTHING!
• Because I didn't do much this summer, I think I may have over-packed my fall. I think it'll get better though as I adjust to all the new stuff.

I need to go clean my kitchen...

Cousin David comes to call

Johnny's father's sister's daughter's husband, David, was in town for a missions conference this weekend. He, his wife Lorraine, and their two young children live in the Denver, Colorado area. It's been around 3 years since we last saw him, so what a treat it was to meet him at our church and have him at our home for a few hours!

Henri was very excited to have Cousin David over. Before we met up with David, we found it difficult to convince Henri that David was not his age, so we began telling him that "Uncle" David was coming over. Still, Henri was happy to show David all of his toys. It was like a flashback to when Aunt Alice first arrived at our home last year. Apparently, old habits die hard; Henri put the same hat on David that he put on Aunt Alice and handed him puppets and other toys. We found out that Aunt Alice was able to visit with David's family (she's their aunt too) recently. How lovely for them!


Anyway, it was great to spend a little time with David laughing over the funny things our children do. Oh, how we treasured our time with him and wish we could have seen Lori, Steven, and Clara too.

10 Months Old

Cosette is 10 months old today. She:

• drools (as seen above).
• crawls.
• pulls to stand wherever she can get a grip.
  
• has developed separation anxiety in the church nursery. Today Cosette cried and cried in the nursery. So I took her and worked on the nursery computer while she happily played by my feet.
• loves playing with balls--any size.
• loves Henri and gets very excited whenever she sees him.
• now enjoys Cheerios & cheese as finger foods. Plus she enjoyed the baked beans her brother gave her yesterday while Johnny & I weren't looking.
  
• likes to sleep with her pacifier, sleeveless sleepsack to wear, and old long-sleeved sleepsack to cuddle with.
• still sleeps in a pack 'n' play in the guest room/office. We're not brave enough to have her in the crib in her brother's room yet.
• takes 2 naps a day, going down for the night around 7:30pm, waking up around 6:00am. I can usually coax her back to sleep for another hour after nursing in the morning, but not always.
• doesn't like to stay on her back long enough for a diaper change.
• cries when I tell her "no", which we've started to do when she's spitting at the dinner table.
• is very noisy, and likes to babble or just say, "Aaaaaaaaaaaa" a lot.
• scratches her nose frequently with her fingernails when rubbing her eyes.
• eats everything she finds while crawling--carpet fuzz, cheerio, grape stem, paper, pebble, ect.
  
• has a long, wide torso and short arms & legs with little feet and a round head with kissable cheeks. I think she's perfect & super cute.

6th Tooth

A 6th tooth has been discovered in Cosette's mouth (upper left of center).

Henri & his cousin Chase

at my cousin's wedding at my great-grandparents' farm September 15th. Though chilly, it was a beautiful day for an outdoor wedding. The ceremony was in a mowed field, and the reception was nearby in the yard.

growth spurt

Henri must be growing. In the past few weeks, I have put away all of his size 2 pants. The pants seemed fine a month ago, and all of a sudden I'm putting pants on him in the morning, and they're too short. The size 3 pants that seemed so long for him last spring fit very well now (except Johnny told me that even the jeans (size 3) he was wearing yesterday were starting to get short on him. On top of that, he's outgrowing his size 3 long-sleeve shirts. They're short in the arms. So he fits best in size 3 pants & size 4 shirts these days.

I was not very happy today when Johnny told me that the little velveteen jumper/dress that Cosette has worn TWICE since the weather turned cool needed to be put away (it's 6-12 month) because she's too big/wide for it. But yet she was drowning in the sleeves of the 6-12 month shirt underneath.

(Disclaimer: This is not a request for new clothes (the kids are well-clothed), but rather a report of my amazement in how quickly Henri has moved into a new size in such a short time.)