Books

I have to share my new favorite photo of the two girls.



Wayne and I have said how badly we feel that Marissa just doesn't get read to. When Lindsey was a baby, and I mean a TINY baby, we read to her every night. By the time she was one year old she had a regular bedtime routine that included reading two or three books every night.

At 15 months of age, Marissa's bedtime routine consists of a bath and a long one at that; unlike Lindsey, Marissa looooves the water, a bottle and then bed. We rarely read to her, and when we try, if Lindsey's around she hijacks the book and the lap and ends up reading the book herself, and Marissa wanders away to play with a toy.

But despite our best attempts to make her a non-reader, Marissa has suddenly found an interest in books! She has one favorite one, "Tails," that she picks up quite often, playing with the tufts of fur and bumpy textures of the animal tails in the book. She loves flaps and textures, colors and shiny panels, and can now get absorbed in a book.

The other night we were getting Lindsey ready for bed, and were reading her books in her room. It was quite early so Marissa was still up (usually she's asleep by the time we're reading books to Lindsey), so she wandered in and wanted to "read" too. They were so cute together, Lindsey turning pages and narrating her book, with Marissa just turning all her pages and grinning.

Halloween!

Can you tell how excited Lindsey was to become Cinderella at Halloween?? Here she is, dressed up and ready to go to the Children's World Fall Festival on Wed, October 25th.


Marissa was a butterfly...not that she cared. She did have lots of fun being at CW, though, with both her parents around. She was lurching about, screeching and grinning, happy to play on all the equipment for the millionth time in a row. And yes, "lurching" is the best word I can describe her walking abilities. She's very steady when she "walks," but when she gets excited and wants to run, she lurches instead, sometimes falling right on her butt, other times falling sideways. It is quite a stitch to watch, especially knowing how quickly she's going to become proficient at it.



Lindsey's best little playmate at Children's World is a little girl named Talayah. Her mom actually works at CW now. We have such fun w/Talayah, we get hugs from her most morning when we drop Lindsey off. Lindsey really wanted Talayah to be Cinderella together w/her, and her mom happily obliged.

Breakfast of Champions

Marissa has officially left the highchair. The last few times we tried to put her in it she would squeal and squirm until we finally gave up and realized -- she's ready for a booster chair!

And not only is she ready for a booster, but she likes to sit at the little white table in the kitchen with Lindsey. Here's a photo of them from this morning, sharing breakfast while wearing their matching yellow sleepers. Yes, the sleepers are EXACTLY alike.

We resisted the urge to buy in twos for a long time, buying Marissa and Lindsey the same but slightly different items. Normally we would buy one a yellow sleeper and the other a pink or blue one from the same manufacturer. But this was a Costco stop, yellow it was, and it had the same decorations on them.

This morning when Lindsey got up she wanted to get dressed immediately. I knew Marissa was wearing her yellow sleeper, so I asked Lindsey, "Are you sure you don't want to get dressed later? It's the weekend, you know!" No, she wanted to get dressed right away.

She had her clothing all picked out (down to the matching underwear...no lie!) when Marissa heard that she was up, crawled up the stairs and came toddling in. The minute Lindsey saw her in her sleeper, she gasped, turned to me and said, "Mommy, I want to get dressed LATER!" and out the door the two of them went, giggling and squealing.

Some day she will be absolutely appalled that she wanted to wear the same clothing as her sister, but for now it's fun!

The Wedding

This past weekend we attended Wayne's nephew Darin's wedding. Unfortunately it turned out to be more of a quick, frantic drive than a nice relaxing weekend, as I had a business trip Sunday afternoon that I had to get back for. But, while we were home we made the most of it.

The ceremony was lovely and the dinner and dance were divine. I wished we could've stayed for more of it. We had to stay long enough for Lindsey to get a few dances in, she was so excited to go dancing! It was great seeing her on the dance floor, holding her little pink and black dress out and twirling around!

Marissa had a great time just walking around in a big space, screeching with delight and trying to keep up with the big kids. She has absolutely no fear and will approach anyone, so different from Lindsey at that age.

When we got home, I pulled my wedding dress out of Lindsey's closet. I don't think she realized it had been hanging there the whole time. She was fascinated with it, and asked if I wanted to get married again. "No sweetie," I told her, "I'll only get married once, because I love your daddy forever and forever!"



She had lots of fun trying on the veil, so I had to take a few photos of her with the veil and her favorite dress-up dress, the dress she wore to Rita's wedding in New Mexico earlier this year. She is such a girlie-girl!

Marissa, on the other hand, was busy competing with Dax to eat the dog food, so I had to snap a few photos of her, too. Yes, that's dog food in her mouth that she's chewing on. Hey, it's the most nutritious food in the grocery store, what else can I do?!

Marissa's 1-Year Photos

We finally got back Marissa's 1-year photos. They are framed and ready to go, so I'm just posting some photos here of them for family who don't get to our home often and wouldn't see them.



We had done a birthday cake for both, it's rather fun to compare the two. Lindsey HATED her cake, she hated being dirty and cried when she couldn't get the frosting off her hands. Marissa, on the other hand, was so fascinated by the cake it was hard to get photos, we couldn't get her to look up to not photograph the top of her head! At one point she shoved both her hands straight into the cake and pushed into it HARD. It slowly moved apart, it was like watching tectonic plates get moved by a great force.

In the last photo of Lindsey, she is looking straight on at the camera, crying. In Marissa's last photo, she has a big chunk of cake poised at her mouth, ready to eat, with a big grin on her face. Could two girls get more different??

Telling Stories

I've written before about how Lindsey has discovered the story of Cinderella. It started with my telling her the story from my own memory, no book in front of me.

Lindsey's now seen the Disney version of this story several tens of times, and has the Disney version down pat. The other night, getting ready for bed, she asked me to read her the Cinderella story. I said, "But honey, we don't have the book of Cinderella, just the movie." She said, "Yes we do!" and she proceeded to pull out an entirely different book, one about ladybugs, and said, "See? It's the Cinderella story!"

Oohh! Of course it is. How silly of me to have forgotten where this saga started -- with the spoken word, from imagination, no books or movies to dictate the telling.

So I "read" her the Cinderella story and read it for her every night right now, from the same "10 Little Ladybugs" book (she does insist that I turn the pages, as if really reading the story).

Of course, she'll let you know when you forget parts. Her favorite two parts are when the mean sisters rip Cinderella's original dress that that birds and mice made for her, and also when the mean sisters are trying on the glass slipper. Lindsey does a fabulous mimicry of the sisters' faces and grunts as they try on the slipper. One of the sisters (she could tell you if it's Anatasia or Drisella) does eventually manage to stick her whole foot in the shoe, but it's so large the slipper flies off her foot and the servant has to catch it. The sound effect that Lindsey has determined goes with this is "PING!!"

While I love telling her the story, I think she tells it best.