An early morning good night kiss

I worked at church until later last night so I didn't get to see the kids before they went to bed. At 3:00AM Micah came into our room and said, "Mom? Good night, I love you (kisses me). See you in the morning."

Meena

Amelia says her name now. She calls herself Meena. We kind of like it. We've never come up with a nickname that we liked, so we've just called her Amelia all along. This might be her new nickname, who knows? How would you spell it, though? Mina? Miena? Mena? Myna? Möna?

A new "mom feeling"

Watching my kids, I've become more aware of how incredibly unique God makes every person... things that are innate to a child. For example, Amelia LOVES her babies. She is constantly feeding, burping and kissing them. About a week ago, she started a new bedtime routine. When we go into her room at night, she has to turn her nightlight on, then she goes over to her baby cradle, lifts her baby out, puts her back in and covers her with a blanket, then leans over and kisses her, then rocks the cradle furiously. After that we do prayers and put her to bed. I didn't teach her to do all that. She has this incredible nurturing quality. Micah, on the other hand is a natural leader. He helps Amelia learn new things and he is so gentle in how he teaches her. He shows her how to do something and then lets her try it herself. My heart melts when I watch them play together. They have this amazing love for each other. I could never have imagined this kind of "mom feeling."

"That was easy!"

This picture accurately describes our experience with banning the binkies. (One of Micah's favorite gifts was the "Easy" button that we got him. He loved pushing it when we went to Staples, and he loves pushing it at home. When you push it it says, "That was easy.") So, the first night she slept great, cried for like 20 seconds and then went back to sleep. The next day she napped fine but put up more of a fight at bed time, but really, after 30-45 minutes she was fine. Last night she didn't wake up at all. When we took Micah's binkie away at 6 months, it wasn't as bad as I expected, but it was horrible compared to this. Micah's first night included 1-2 hours of crying at two different times. The second night had 30 -45 minutes of crying each time he woke, third night a little less and the fourth night he was done. I sure hope potty training has an easy button.

Speechless

Frankly, I'm speechless. This morning we decided that Amelia needs to be done with binkies. So, I cleaned out her crib and all of her hiding places (she drops her binkies in secret places around her crib so she can find them later), and tonight we put her to bed without a binkie. Here's the shocker... she hasn't made a peep! While we were putting her to bed we told her that there were no more binkies and voila! Time will tell, though. We'll be hearing from her in the middle of the night. For now I'm enjoying the unexpected silence.

Christmas Morning

What an exciting day we had yesterday! Micah actually slept until 5:45. Around 6:00 we opened stockings and played with Micah's gift from Santa, then at 7:00 my parents came down and we had breakfast. After that we opened the rest of the gifts and then lounged around until more family came over at 1:00. It was a very exciting day. I think all of us were in bed by 8:00.

I can't believe we made it through the day without a picture of Micah in his spiderman costume. It was one of his favorite gifts... muscles and all.

Letters to Santa

Micah wrote three notes to Santa and placed them on the bricks by our fireplace where Santa would see them.

This is where he put them:

"This one says that I want Elefun for christmas"

"This one shows how I can draw straight lines."

"This one shows how sharp my teeth are."

I never thought about telling Santa so many details. Amelia loves to play the piano when Mom or Dad play. Here she is playing with Dad.