Our Three Girls

We are so thankful for our three wonderful girls!

Bella has recently taken to wearing her Cinderella dress and dancing to the song "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. She even goes so far as to declare, "Mommy, I can't go to school today. I need to stay home and practice my dancing!" and she throws a fit whenever she cannot wear her Cinderella dress (although she at least agrees to change clothes for mealtimes to keep it clean). Often "Cinderella Bella" also wears wings so that she can fly. Why not?

Annabelle talks (or sings) non-stop these days. One of Bella's idiosyncratic phrases is to feel me better, as in "I need some medicine to feel my tummy better" or "Ice cream feels me colder." She can spell and write BELLA on her own, and she loves the letter B. When she sings the alphabet, B makes multiple appearances (standing in for P and V and sometimes other rhyming letters). Her pronunciation of words like pajamas and dessert begins with the B phonic. Poor Bella has suffered a dramatic loss in hearing these past few weeks because her ears are full of fluid, but at least she doesn't have an ear infection. Hopefully she'll recover soon.

Although I mentioned in my last post that Katarina finally learned to sleep through the night, we have not had the pleasure of enjoying that new ability; she is cutting her second tooth and waking up frequently. At least she's cute! She is learning to clap her hands, and we started signing with her. She is also able to scoot short distances while sitting on her bum, so greater mobility is not far in her future. Little Kati loves bathtime and laughs when I pour warm water on her.

Gabi recently competed in her First Feis (pronounced "fesh") in Irish dancing, and she won a second-place medal! Congratulations, Gabriella! She is also learning to play the glockenspiel (a German xylophone) at Kindermusik class. She is very social and has invited all the girls in her class to be in "her club." I wonder where she gets these ideas! Here she is with some friends at a pirate birthday party:

The first week of November, one of Gabi's Kindergarten homework assignments was to write a riddle about her favorite animal. She wrote this all by herself. Can you guess what it is?

Teething and Sleeping

You wouldn't expect those two things to go together, but in Kati's case, they do. Kati turned 8 months old on November 2nd, and that was her first night to sleep through the night. (In the few weeks prior, she had slept until 5 AM a couple times, which was also very welcome.) She now sleeps through the night (at least until 5 AM) most nights, although she no longer wants long daytime naps. I'll take that trade-off!

Two days later, we discovered Katarina's first tooth!
Me: "Ouch! Did you just bite me little one? I think you have a tooth... Yep! Hey, Daddy! Come feel the baby's first tooth."
Michael: "I'm not sticking my finger in there. She just bit you!"
Now she's working on her second tooth (the other bottom front tooth).

Kati is eating baby food very well now. She prefers the orange vegetables over the green ones, though - especially sweet potatoes. Yum!

Trick or Treat!

The girls had a fun weekend in their Halloween costumes. First, we went to Boo at the Zoo where we got to ride on some rides and also do a little "trick-or-treating" at booths scattered around the zoo.

The treat bags doubled as funny masks!

Kai-Lan and Rintoo peek around the corner in the hay maze

Rintoo jumps in the inflatable obstacle course

Kai-Lan: "Thank you for my candy!"

Dancing with Daddy

Riding the carousel with Mommy

We also had a neighborhood party, complete with a hayride and a firetruck to climb on!

Daddy and his girls on the hayride

Our cute little Hoho monkey

A lovely Irish lass in front of the fire truck

And of course, on Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with our friends, Preston and Kristin (and bigger sister Nicole).

Pirate Preston poses while Gabi/Kai-Lan gets her candy

Rintoo/Bella and her friend Cinderella/Kristin pick out some goodies

Mommy and Daddy in their Irish-themed Renaissance costumes

When we got back home, the girls enjoyed
handing out candy to trick-or-treaters at our door

Meanwhile, little Hoho played with Rintoo's tail

Happy Halloweeen!

Halloween

We have enough Halloween pictures for two posts, so here is the first set. Last Wednesday, we carved the pumpkin that we bought at Motley's Farm. Gabi drew the pumpkin face, Daddy carved it, and all the girls got a chance to help scoop out the insides.

The girls helped bake cookies in pumpkin shapes and bat shapes (and a few other shapes) with our new cookie press.

Gabi and Bella wore their costumes to school on Friday. Gabi was Kai-Lan and Bella was her tiger-friend, Rintoo. Kati was the white monkey, Hoho, from the same cartoon. (I forgot to put Kai-Lan's "jade" necklace on before the first picture. Oops!)

Kai-Lan in Kindergarten

Rintoo trick-or-treating at school

Kai-Lan trick-or-treating at school

Back at home, our little monkey got her own photo session (although I forgot to put her hat on for the first one):

Kati's Monkey Face

Yummy tail!

After school, I took the kids up to Daddy's office so he could parade the girls around in costume. Michael and I put the costumes together ourselves, although most of the credit (for the ideas and for the tails and ears) goes to Michael. We did buy Kati's monkey hat, though.

Shy tiger at Daddy's office