All Things Supercinski

Josiah’s croc-like sandals broke one morning on our way out the door. We made a quick stop at Target to pick up some new shoes where I let him pick out some Toy Story tennis shoes that light up. Annalise spent the trip trying on every single sparkly shoe within reach. There are many. Our next stop was HEB where Josiah was jumping around and dancing all over the store, making the shoes light up. It was so obvious that his shoes were brand new that at least five different ladies asked him if he got new light-up shoes.

On the way home, he said, “Mom! Guess what is on the bottom of my shoe. It says ‘Andy’!” I was surprised at the shoe manufacturer’s creativity. Turns out, when we got home, that it doesn’t really say that on the bottom, Josiah thought it would be a funny joke.
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Just a cute picture of Annalise:

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We have been lax with how much we make Josiah try new foods, and decided that enough was enough. We have required him to try at least one or two bites of whatever I have made in order for him to get anything else to eat (baby steps, people!) This has led to countless tears and frustration on Josiah’s part. He daily reminds me that, “I eat what I eat, and I don’t what I don’t.” I retort with a reminder that if he doesn’t try new things, he doesn’t eat anything else.

The other night, he had a really hard time trying a bite of mozzarella meatball from Fix, Freeze Feast cookbook (have I told you guys lately how much I love that cookbook?) After many tears and finally trying a bite at 9 p.m., he ate some yogurt. On his way to bed, he said, “thanks for the meat, Mom,” with such sarcasm it was hard not to laugh.
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(Each of our kids have a hymn that is sung to them pretty much nightly. I think this idea is from Treasuring God in Our Traditions.) I overheard Josiah singing Annalise’s hymn to her. His first lines went like this, “Before the throne of God above, I have a strong man perfect please…”
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We have a lot of talks about babies in bellies around here, not because I have one, but because of all of my “teacher friends” and friends who have babies. One day, we had a long talk about how those babies get out. Josiah guessed that they came out of the mother’s belly-button. I gave a simplified explanation that God gives Momma’s a special door that opens and lets the baby out when it is time, and closes when it is done. (Thanks Dr. Bradley for the baby door/cervix simplification!) Almost daily, Annalise has a baby in her belly. Mostly it’s legs are stuffed into her waistband and dangles around as she walks.

It has been a long time since I posted anything on the blog. Sorry, grandparents!

Annalise is mostly potty trained now. She still wears a diaper during naptime and bedtime, which makes teaching her how to get #2s in the potty more difficult, but she has only had one accident in two weeks. I am so impressed with how quickly she caught on to it. She gave us a lot of signs that she was ready, and it was pretty much smooth sailing. She even used a big potty in public for the first time last week! That same day, she was so brave that she got her first mini-adjustment at the chiropractor. She climbed up on the table all on her own, motivated by seeing Josiah get his adjustment first.

Josiah has been plugging through his Explode the Code workbooks and is reading up a storm. We are getting ready to start homeschooling more formally this fall, and we are all very excited. We are taking it slow and not rushing or pushing too hard, but he is very interested in doing his phonics lessons and workbooks together for 10-30 minutes a day, so I won’t make him stop, and will just kick it up a notch. A post on what we plan to do is coming soon.

The kids love going to the pool. Annalise, in true Annalise form, is quite a little fish, dunking her head under water, actually swimming about 10 feet at a time with a noodle tied around her chest, and jumping into my arms (dunking in half the time), over and over again.

I have been neglecting the blog the past few weeks as I have been making a little website for my Bradley class. I needed a place to post resources for my students (so I would stop flooding their inboxes), and a place to post birth stories. If any of my past students are reading this and want to share their birth story, send me an email and I will put it up. I have also been working on a website for our local chapter of La Leche League, but it is not up and ready yet. Who knew making simple (and I stress simple) websites would be so much fun? Maybe because Thomas does the hard parts.

These are a few random pictures from last week that I find to be rather hilarious. First, Josiah can make a huge food baby I’m so proud! I have some awful pictures of myself making food babies on the beach in college, yikes.

Annalise had her first (and hopefully last) ride in the back of a police car at the Big Rigs event at the library.

She received a lot of accessories for her birthday. This is just a sampling of the ones that I didn’t pull out immediately for Operation Christmas Child.

I leave two kids coloring in the kitchen while I go in another room for just two minutes, and this is what came to find me…

The post-discipline washing:

And then we dressed up for a tea party.

We had a little birthday party for Annalise on Saturday. All three sets of grandparents attended along with one aunt and our next door neighbors (minus their dog). We did a monkey-themed birthday since Annalise is quite the little monkey–always climbing on things, and I thought it was appropriate for a two-year old. There is plenty of time for the princess stuff later.

On her actual birthday, Josiah was so sweet and wrapped up four of his cars in paper and scotch tape and gave them to her, along with one of his favorite stuffed animals. I was blown away by his generosity with her! He got frustrated when she kept giving everything back to him. :)

Annalise got a lot of dress-up accessories–the high heels are a favorite.

For her cake, I did Martha Stewart’s monkey cake. I tried a different chocolate icing, but it was so runny, I should have stuck with regular old buttercream. The monkey looks a little scary, but she was tasty.

We had a mini-banana hunt around the living room and played pin-the-tail on the monkey. Annalise successfully roped in all but two grandparents to participate in the blindfolded game. She was a sweetie and led many of them by their hands to the monkey.

She even had a cute monkey outfit to wear.

The afternoon ended without naps and a lot of bouncing and splashing around outside. Thomas’ parents brought this trash-to-treasure find for us that they acquired. It is a little sun-bleached, but it works great. The kids had a blast!

Both kids were asleep by 7:30 that night; it was a nice end to a great day!

Dear, sweet Annalise,
The past two years have flown by with you adding so many smiles to our faces. You are daily changing from a chunky little toddler into a “big girl” who loves to dance, chase Josiah, laugh, read books and play. You amaze us with your abilities to climb out of things (including your crib already) and your fearless and daring spirit. The only things that seem to frighten you or slow you down are bugs and big dogs.

While you love to run fast and play, you also love to sit and read books and give snuggles. Your sweet little hugs and kisses make all of us–Daddy, Josiah and me–just melt.

You are so funny and are constantly making us laugh and smile. You are talking more and more these days, and you make funny words, words like, “nopey”, “catty”, “yeppy.” It is getting more difficult to baby you these days since you are getting so big, but you still make plenty of time for being held and cuddled.

You are such a beautiful girl, Annalise. Full of energy and excitement for life. I pray that God draws you to Himself and that He uses your vibrancy and sweet spirit for His glory. We love you, sweet girl, and I am so thankful for these two years to be your mother.

Love,
Mommy

Our little monkey is growing so fast! It is hard to believe she is almost two. She really has grown a lot lately as evidenced by the tightness of her clothes and the shortness of her dresses.

At almost two, Annalise still loves playing with her babies. She loves feeding them, nursing them, reading to them, rocking them, kissing them and lugging them around with her just about everywhere she goes.

Annalise also has a love of small dogs, thanks to our sweet neighbors who let Annalise torment their puppy almost daily. She lets that puppy (Posy) kiss her all over, holds the leash, pets, and tries to carry poor Posy around with her. If you ask Annalise who her friends are, Posy is at the top of the list. I must get a picture of the two of them together. She reminds me of Elmira from Animaniacs–you know the little girl always squeezing and holding anything smaller than her? She even tries to hold Josiah sometimes.

One of her other favorite friends is her brother, “Siah”, whom she plays with a lot these days. They really seem to be playing together better and better lately, their favorite activity being the marble race thing in Josiah’s room.

Annalise also loves accessorizing, with whatever accessories she can find. Lately, her favorites include her winter hat and mittens. Another random tidbit is her love for watermelon–she asks for it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She is talking up a storm these days and getting her point across well. We sure love our sweet little Annalise!

It is hard to believe our sweet girl is so close to two years old. Perhaps it is all the sweet baby skin I can see these days in her warm-weather clothing, or perhaps she has grown a lot lately, but she seems so big to me. She is talking up a storm and putting more and more words together. She cracks us up with some of the things she says. Yesterday, we walked through the “woods” at a local park. Annalise was a little scared and kept saying, “Momma, hold you me… hold you me…” it was so sweet.

She loves her brother, “Siah” or sometimes “Josiah” or “Jo-Jo”, depending on her mood. She will follow him around and play with him all the time. They have been getting into some mischief together outdoors involving sand, dirt and water. Josiah is tall enough to turn on the hose now, so their outdoor play the past two days has somehow resulted in a soaking wet (and happy) Annalise. Serious warnings and dire consequences have been issued.

Annalise loves to swing in the big kid swing, either on her bottom or tummy. She enjoys helping me cook by stirring and dumping ingredients, and sometimes sneaking in a secret ingredient or two such as a pretzel she was eating or piece of cracker if I am not looking. She also likes trying to fold laundry, put on said laundry, and taking care of her babies. “Baby Love”, her most loved baby, was tragically lost at a Houston Target last month. We replaced her with a new “Baby Love” who looks very much like the old one, but if I ask her where “Baby Love” is, she always replies, “gone”, in a sad little voice, until I show her the new one. They aren’t so attached yet.

We upgraded her sleeping situation to include a pillow and blanket, slowly, slowly easing the transition to a big girl bed. It took a few days to get used to, but now she likes it. This picture below is of Annalise painting an egg that the librarian gave each of the kids to decorate at home. You will notice that her shirt is on inside out and backward, which is often the case as Annalise likes to take her shirts off and put them on by herself.

You may recall that she began learning to use the potty last month. Those efforts went well for several days resulting in two days with no accidents, and then she got a horrible diaper rash from some nasty overnight diapers and refused to sit on the potty for a few days. We abandoned the potty efforts for awhile and may resume again soon. She goes every time she sits on it, but I’m not sure of her holding capabilities yet. This update is so long, but I hope you can see how much we love our baby girl!

Blogging has been a little sparse these days. I have been spending almost every spare moment finishing up my lactation educator requirements and they are done! I hope to get them in the mail this week. You can imagine how free I feel! Now I have a few little projects to start (and finish)–taxes, landscaping in the front yard (with the help of Big Event), and repainting the laundry room.

We gave Josiah a bicycle with training wheels for Christmas, but it was a little too big. We put it away since it was too cold to ride anyway and pulled it out two weeks ago. He grew enough for his feet to reach his pedals and is enjoying riding it. He has improved so much in such a short time and is getting better about stopping on his own.

Thomas and the kids enjoyed the snow last week in their non-waterproof winter-wear. They built a little snowman, which Josiah crashed down shortly after it was finished.

And lastly, a cute picture of the kids.

Only three more of these updates to go until she is two. Our sweet girl is very independent these days. The phrase I hear most from her is, “Do it!” Which translated means, “I want to do it myself, don’t help me.” Some things she is doing herself these days include putting on her shirts and working hard on her pants (the backs just don’t come up right!), buckling herself in strollers and part of her carseat, zipping up coats, putting on coats, and wiping herself after going potty.

Yes, you read that correctly. Going potty. I had resigned myself to not even attempting teaching Annalise to use the potty until closer to three after some of our experiences with Josiah. However, this girl has a different plan. She is learning to use it and has been since this weekend. She stayed dry today from the time she got up until her nap. Granted, we went to the bathroom at least seven times, but she is learning. Her new big girl underwear are one of her favorite things.

Annalise loves to dress up, cook in her little kitchen, stand on a chair and “help”/watch me cook, and play with Josiah. Those two can entertain themselves chasing each other around the house for a long time. She loves to play in his room with his Lego duplo blocks and will sit and stack and take them apart for a long time. She still plays with her babies a lot and dotes on Baby Love (whom she no longer calls Baby La, but Baby Luff). She loves to help in the garden and has stomped on almost every little sprout we have out there.

Annalise will sit still for books and loves to read longer books these days. Her favorite this month is “Bumblebugs and Elephants” by Margaret Wise Brown. When we read it, she always points to herself and says “Am-weese. Little.” It is so cute.