Dance Recital

Lucia's dance class has come to an end, and with that, it was time for her recital! We got to watch half of their last class period as they showed us the different positions they learned. Since I have never taken ballet and don't know anything about it, I was glad the instructor showed the girls what they were supposed to do - otherwise I'm not sure I would've recognized what it was they were demonstrating. ;-) Lucia is the one in the tan tights.

Lucia and her friend Maddy being 3-year-olds. :)
Lucia showing off her mad ballet skillz. :) I think we're done with dance for a while. I don't think she'll miss it much, actually. Maybe we'll have to try gymnastics again... :)

Madison Zoo Outing

Last weekend, we met up with my cousin Jonathan, his wife Nikki, and their little 13-month-old, Gilbert, at a GREAT Indian buffet place in Madison. Jonathan had been there a few times with people from work and really liked it, and we're always game to try ethnic restaurants (especially Indian/Thai/etc.). It was excellent, and both of our girls really liked it too! Afterwards, Nikki and I checked out a cloth diapering store that was located in the same square as the restaurant, while the papas hung out with the kids. Then - the real destination: the Madison Zoo, which is FREE! :) We all enjoyed walking around outside, seeing some animals and other parts of nature (that day, Lucia was especially intrigued by ... LEAVES. We really had to work to turn her attention to the animals every now and then. :) )

A large Rhino
The Dylhoff family
Nikki the tortoise :)

A confused little Gilbert wondering why on earth this tortoise reminded him so much of his mother.

The reason I posted this picture of Lucia is because, every time I look at it, I see MYSELF. It's so strange - the first picture of her that does that to me. Sadly, it's not in focus, but ... I don't know... this was me! (And note: there's a leaf in her hand, which she repeatedly "washed" in puddles along the way. :) )
Proud of her leaf.
Rhea enjoying the poky tickles of some grassy bush (you might not be able to tell in this picture, but she fell in the parking lot right after lunch and had a huge lip all day. Poor little sveet.)
Papa the baby polar bear. Lucia was too reserved/inhibited to try it herself, even after both Nikki and Papa modeled the baby bear for her. She has to analyze and warm up to things before she tries them herself. :)

Walking with Papa. I love this picture for lots of reasons. I see two of my favorite people in it, but then, more abstractly, I see the care of a father for his child. I could go on and on about it, the spiritual parallels that are so obvious to me (including Rhea's independent streak and how she would go in all directions but the right one, and how it sometimes takes physical overpowering to get her to do what's best for her, ... this child, this child! :-) ... you can even see that in the way David is holding her hand... it's not a casual "hand-holding" position, it's a strong guiding/pulling forward grasp of her whole wrist. :) ) And yet the patient tenderness of allowing her her own pace, letting her walk on her own two feet, and making occasional stops to discover and enjoy little things along the way.

Rhea and Gilbert in Mama Roo's pouch. :)
And our exhausted little Rhea in the car on the way home. We all had a great time and commented on how it was fun to randomly get out and connect with some other people! We just might have to do it again. ;-)

A Few Recent Pictures

Still trying to catch up...

Here Rhea was sleeping peacefully and I just wanted to capture it for some day when she will no longer wear a sleep sack, won't look like a baby anymore, and when I will certainly miss the times I had to go in to her at night and cuddle her for a few brief moments (though they are certainly tiring now).

Rhea with Lucia's baby - she's starting to get into babies too. She's already figured out the gentle 'pat-pat-pat' with just her fingers on baby's back. Not long, sweet girl, and you'll be soothing your own. And I'll be a grandma. Sigh.

A picture of Lucia enjoying Arabic tea one evening out back. David has been making fires occasionally, so he decided to introduce her to some of his favorite memories from Africa. She loved it (especially the tiny glass :-) )!

Loxley Shenanigans

Our family has adjusted well to Loxley, and Loxley has adjusted well to our family. He's very intrigued by the bathtub (as is Rhea) - and when I saw the two curious little creatures like this, I just HAD to capture the moment. They stayed like this and investigated for quite a while. :)




When he isn't sleeping, Loxley likes to be where the action is. He usually follows us around, but especially when bathtime is involved, he is right there!! Last time (thankfully after the girls were out but while there was still water in it) he accidentally fell into the tub and scrambled to get out. :) In his scare, he jumped around in the water three or four times before he figured out that he had to get OUT entirely before the terrible wetness would stop. Haha - I wish I'd had my camera right then...

And this is also a familiar sight. I'm glad for Loxley's sake that we have a baby gate, which means there is always a place for him to go if he's had enough of the girls (which does happen on occasion :-) ). Below, Rhea is trying to get to him, and he's still enjoying our company JUST far enough away to be safe.

"HOW can I get to him?!?!"

Lucia Quote of the Day

Lucia is trying to read a book in the lazy boy. Rhea is having fun trying to rock the chair. Lucia: "Rhea, go away. I want to have alone time in the chair." So I tell her that Rhea is allowed to be in the living room too, and if she wants alone time, she can go read in her room. Rhea, in the meantime, is giggling to herself because she's enjoying rocking the chair.
Lucia: "Mama, Rhea can't laugh at me because I'M NOT FUNNY."

My serious daughter to her core. :-)

Catching Up...

These pictures are several weeks old already. Some of my parents' good friends were on vacation in Wisconsin not too far from our place, so they decided to stop by for a visit one Sunday. They met up with us at church and then spent the afternoon here, which was fun (and made my worlds collide. :-) )
Here, Uli is reintroducing himself to Rhea, who is holding on the the pillar for security. :-) It was cute - she didn't move for a long time!! Normally, she takes to people very quickly and is not shy - and she warmed up to him after a while too.

At the apple orchard, where we went to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. Uli and Edel Schilling peeking through the leaves.

We had to get a picture of us too :-) (when are there ever people to take a picture that we can BOTH be in?!)

Rhea getting a bite of "bapo"

And our two girlies. No, Lucia is not choking Rhea...

Even After Terrible Nights...

...His mercies are new every morning. :) Rhea and I were up from 11:30 until 4:00 a.m., when David came to relieve me. And of course he was able to get Rhea to go to sleep in her bed within 20 minutes. Who knows what the deal was (aside from teething and a slightly stuffy nose, and probably being over-tired from several bad nights - though thankfully none as bad as the last one). But I'm grateful for completely unexplainable, clearly divinely provided energy today, an hour's nap already (while Lucia watched a Kermit DVD), and an equally unexplainably well behaved, courteous, polite 3 year old today!! Thank you Lord for the little things which amount to HUGE things on days like this. Right now she is rolling the die to the Scattergory game (with a bunch of letters on it), and then writes the letter that she rolls onto a piece of paper. She's writing letters she's never written before without a flaw! Sweet girl. :-)
And yesterday... I meant to post two little blurbs from her before I forgot them, but never got around to it. I have a feeling my 3-year-old is going on 9 (or ... maybe 13?!)

Mama: "Lucia, it's cold in the house, could you please go put your slippers on?"
Lucia (with a 9-year-old's drama and expressiveness): "But I don't know where they ARE! They could be ANYWHERE!!!!"

And her new exclamation of disappointment or frustration (with equal expressiveness):
"aaw MAAAAAN!"

:)

P.S. I think she gets it from her cousins. ;-)

Lucia's Better...

... and now it's Rhea's turn to feel miserable. She doesn't have what Lucia had, but she's getting some new teeth. So that brings its own misery. Both lower eye teeth are through, but her gums behind those are swollen, so she's probably working on her first molars too! :-( Poor baby. Sunday night I was up with her between 12:30 and 3:30 (though I did get a couple short snoozes in during that time). For a while, I even pulled her into bed with me (and David went to the guest bed), but she didn't feel like sleeping in our bed. After a good 20 minutes of clapping (*clap clap clap* ... *clap clap clap* ... *clap clap clap*) which then evolved into repeated covering her eyes in the darkness, only to uncover them and squeal "PEE!" (- mentally add the "K" at the end), I finally realized she needed to go back to her own bed, David needed to move back to our bed, and I had to move to the guest bed for any of us to get some decent sleep between 3:30 and 7:00.
Last night was better, though not by much - I was still in her room 5 times or so and we were VERY close to play musical beds again. But after the fifth session of crying and soothing, she finally fell asleep for the rest of the night. Here's hoping tonight will be back to normal!

Tonight is David's last Mission House night - it's only a two hour class he's teaching, so I'm looking forward to having some time together after that. Last night was a 4 hour class, the last two of which he brought the kids over to our house for Bible study and apple crisp. It was fun for me to meet them and see what they had been doing all along, and it took me back to my college days. I miss the fellowship they are sharing at the Mission House, the silliness, lack of responsibility and schedule, and the amazing friendships that are made so quickly and intensely at this phase in one's life. We had a great time, and they all enjoyed meeting Loxley (who in turn seemed happy for all the attention - we definitely seem to have a people cat!).

Yesterday was also Lucia's last dance class, which ended with a little "recital". I'll have to post some pictures soon. She and her little friend, Maddy, certainly paid more attention to each other than to the teacher... who knows how much Lucia actually "learned" over the past six weeks. :)

I'm going to post this without pictures for now since both girls are in their beds and I have a short window of opportunity to accomplish a few things (besides uploading pictures). :-) More to come soon!

Big Girl Is Sick

Last night was a bit rough - Lucia started waking up around 9:30 p.m. complaining that her ear hurt. I tried giving her a drink, singing some songs, putting drops in, letting her blow her nose, nothing seemed to help. She kept falling asleep, just to wake up again crying that her ear hurt. So... sounds like an ear inflammation/infection to me, though we've never gone through one or had one officially diagnosed. She finally requested (around 10:30) to sleep in our bed, which she's never done before. So... anticipating a night full of interruptions, we decided to start her off in our bed and David went to sleep in the guest bed to try to get a good night. Lucia slept restlessly and woke up at 4:30 wanting to get up (and kept asking off and on until she went to sleep again at 6:30). So needless to say, my night wasn't the best either. The only thing that seemed to help her ear was heating up a rice bag for warmth - she kept asking for it to be reheated throughout the night and this morning.
It's now 5:30 and she's been sleeping more or less since 4 p.m. already. This is probably the 5th nap for the day - she literally has not left the couch or bed all day. Her fever started out at 101 this morning, and the second time I took it this afternoon it was at 102.5. Poor little thing. :( Here are some pictures of her throughout the day.

Her first ever breakfast in bed (though she didn't eat much). Adopting Loxley was perfect timing - being sick is so much more bearable when you have a constant companion to suffer with.
This is how I found her minutes after I took the previous picture - I just went to get her some apple slices...

This afternoon:
This later afternoon:
And now she's in her bed. I wonder how long she'll sleep. And if we should wake her up before the night?!

29 and Counting

So... a lot has happened since my last post. I had my 29th birthday a week ago Saturday (2nd), which we celebrated at Mark and Julie's in Chicago. They were so kind and loving and generous to babysit the girls so we got to go out. We actually spent 7 HOURS together without kids!! I honestly can't remember the last time we did that. Oh wait, that was in June in Italy. So it hasn't been THAT long, but it was still a very special treat. We commented several times on how it felt special to just ride in the car together without kids in the back seat, and our most exciting plan for the evening (drum roll, please)... wait for it ... was, after going out to dinner, to pick up some Sudoku and go sit somewhere and race each other. Haha. Still makes me laugh. But we never get to just hang out, do next to nothing, with no interruptions, without feeling like we need to rush home to relieve a babysitter, without thinking "she's going to wake up any moment!" etc. We ended up going to one of David's college reunion events at Wheaton, which was great fun too. We ran into some of our old friends, reminisced a bit, and stayed out LATE (11:15 pm, haha). It was fantastic.
And ... David gave me the most romantic gift yet: A litter box! :) So... after five years of marriage, the moment has finally come. We can have a cat! I think this might have been the ultimate sacrifice on his part... laying down his life for his bride (*wink wink*). It was a complete surprise, I was NOT expecting that, and the sweetest thing ever. So within days I scouted out the animal shelters in the area and found the newest member of our family: Loxley.




So far, he has been amazing with the girls. He plays well with both of them, even though Rhea likes to chase him squealing loudly with her hands raised high, and when (or if) he lets her catch up with him, she gives him some rather solid pats. You'd think he was a dog. That's how patient he has been with both of them (but especially Rhea). He's about 4 months old or so, and his shelter name was Blue Moon. He and his siblings were all named after beers; there was a Heineken, Miller, and some other ones that had already been adopted. We decided to change his name to Loxley, after Sir Robin of Loxley (Robin Hood's estate before he was made an outlaw). (We're currently sort of addicted to Robin Hood, the British TV series that we can watch on Netflix Instant... hence the inspiration. :) ) Here are a few more pictures of the girls enjoying him, and we've both commented how fun it's been to hear Lucia laugh the past couple of days. He brings out a belly laugh in her that we rarely got to hear before. And today I realized that having him around has already given me more time to myself since they have someone else to play with. In the past, they would've been pestering each other or coming after me for entertainment, but now... there's Loxley! :) He has been using his litter box from the very first day, sleeps in the laundry room, and has even made friends with our neighbors' dog already. So far, I'm impressed. :)