Sweet Friends

I took the kids to a health fair a few weeks ago and discovered that Callie is just a little over 5 pounds heavier than Zane. Craziness. Needless to say, Callie is on the petite side for her age and Zane just keeps growing like a weed. Whenever we go out in the double stroller, we never fail to hear the locals call out "twins, twins." We're not sure if it's because they think they look similar sized (I think they're similar, but not that similar!), or just because they're in a double stroller and since we live in a place where most people only have one child, they assume the only way we could possibly have two is if they were twins. Their reasoning remains a mystery to me.

Callie and Zane are such sweet friends. They love playing together. Zane is almost ready to crawl, and often times Callie will get down on her hands and knees and they'll hang out together. Callie likes to call him "buddy" when we say "Zane." She likes to imitate his noises and hand toys to him. Zane just loves the attention. Sometimes she is a little rough on him - she'll push his head down or grab and pull at his skin. How do you teach them the concept of "gentle"? Anyway, we're sure Zane will outgrow Callie any day now and he'll have his turn. Here are a couple pics of them playing together.

This past weekend, I (Anita) attended a mom's conference while Jeremy watched the kids. It was such a fun and refreshing time. I enjoyed hanging out with the other moms, catching up and sharing tips and life experiences, and shopping - a past time that I love yet rarely get to do anymore. We also stayed up late (another thing I rarely do), and I enjoyed the hotel's great breakfast spread. A couple breakfast items that I made sure to thoroughly enjoy were over-easy eggs and an omelet, both of which I don't ever make since the hubby's not a huge fan. I had a lot of fun, but I have to admit that I did miss Jeremy and the kids and it's good to be back. As for Jeremy, I think he survived pretty well, though he was under the weather for a couple days afterward - I think the kids wore him out a little.

We can't believe we'll be flying to North America in a couple weeks. We have a pile of things to pack and are figuring out what else needs to go. The last time we were back we were having Callie, so we're not quite sure what it'll be like traveling on a long plane ride with a toddler and a 9-month-old. Any tips out there for survival??

Daddy Dates, Doggies, and Dress-Up

Zane has just started sitting up on his own over the last couple weeks or so. He's also getting more and more interested in his surroundings. A couple days ago he noticed a dog for perhaps the first time and got really excited. It was so cute seeing his reaction. Here is a cute pic of him sitting up.



Callie's hair is finally long enough to put in little pigtails. Of course she always pulls them out a few seconds after you put them in. She loves to play with hair bows and thinks that "hair bows" and "pretty" mean the same thing: hair bows.



Jeremy had the day off on Monday, and took Callie on what we call a "daddy date" for the first time. They went downtown to a ball pit, which Callie wasn't too crazy about and then went out for lunch. Here is a picture of her enjoying the fishies in the fountain.



Last Friday night we went to a Harvest Festival put on by some folks in our city. Zane went as batman, and Callie went as a fairy princess. Here is a picture of all of us at the festival



On the topic of eating, Callie has just started understanding the concept of "if you eat your veggies (or something else relatively nutritious) first, you'll get to eat some more bread (or something else she enjoys eating)." At McDonald's, of course it's all relative; oftentimes we find ourselves saying "if you eat some more chicken nuggets, you can have some more corn." You pick your battles, right? Also, she thinks that "try it" is a certain item of food, though rather confusing. Sometimes it's tiny pieces of bacon, and other times it's tofu or something else new to her palate.