Rock, Paper, Scissors

Anika is now able to sit up on her own! Today, she and Ezra were playing together on the bed when she would sit up in front of Ezra. Every time she fell over, Ezra thought she was trying to play a game with him and would beg her to "Do it again!" They've really become quite a pair (although the scratch you see is a reminder that jealousy still sometimes creeps its way in...)

While we were in the car yesterday, Ezra kept asking baby sister to listen to him. He would call, "Baby, baby, listen!" And she would start to laugh at him. Ezra would then play the "rock, paper, scissors" game by saying, "1,2,3,4,5,6,7, SHOOT!" Every time he did this, you could hear a squeal coming from the rear of the car. Anika really looks up to him, and he usually helps her do things and looks out for her. I think she's starting to figure out it's nice to have a big brother!

The Borrowed Car

Tonight while we were feeding Anika her dinner (she was NOT impressed with carrots, by the way) we put some water in a little plastic cup. Christina taught her how to hold it and within a little bit she was grabbing it herself and putting it up to her lips, taking little sips. It was the first time she'd ever drank from a cup all by herself! We were really amazed and she seemed to really love it as well!

Ezra had a play-date with his friend Dylan today. When he returned home, he was holding a toy car that Dylan's mom had let him borrow (most likely because he refused to give it up). So Christina asked him, "Did Dylan let you borrow that car?" and Ezra replied, "No. Dylan GAVE it." Christina said, "Ezra, he didn't give it to you, he let you borrow it." And he would reply, "NO! Dylan GAVE me car!" After three or four hours, he finally admitted that the car was Dylan's and he had just let Ezra borrow it. Then, of course, Ezra wanted his own version.

Anika is 6 months and Jon is ABD!!

Sorry for the delay in posting, but Ezra and Anika have been really sick and we've been up too late! Luckily, they're both starting to feel a little better, so we're keeping our hopes up for a good night tonight.

Today is Anika's half-birthday, which is really exciting! We've been so happy to see her grow and become such a wonderfully sweet little girl over the past six months. We took her to the doctor today and they said she is 15lbs, 8 oz (20th percentile); 26 inches (50th percentile); she has a 46cm head circumfrence (60th percentile) and she is also extraordinarily cute. She's getting so good at rolling around and grabbing the things she wants (you can ask Ezra how good she is at pulling hair!) and she's begun to babble a lot during the day. She loves her swing and her favorite thing in the world is to lay down on a blanket surrounded by toys and play a little "grab and release" with all of them! She also loves to drink water from a glass, and will use her hands to force the cup to her mouth if you are not giving it to her fast enough!

In other news, today Jonathan passed his dissertation prospectus examination, which means he now owns the title "ABD." ABD stands for "All but dissertation," and it means that there are no more hoops the department/college can put you through before you defend your dissertation. The defense consisted of Jonathan sitting in a room surrounded by his dissertation committee, answering questions about his dissertation for around 3 hours. Afterward, while he was basking in the glow of accomplishment, his advisor said, "Now all the work begins." It was a sobering moment to say the least. It is, of course, true; only around 1 in 10 people who are ABD actually finish the dissertation. Jonathan thinks that once people get past the point where others are telling them what to say, they find out they don't have anything to say themselves. In case you are interested, Jonathan is writing his dissertation on Henry David Thoreau and the concept of "privatism." So far, he's written around 40 pages, which means only 350 or so to go! Hopefully, he will finish by the end of the summer.

"I awesome!"

Today we took Anika to the Doctor's office because her cough started to sound like a barking seal. It seemed that everyone in the greater Lafayette area had the same problem, because it took nearly an hour to get to see a doctor. When we finally got inside, the nurse who checked her out would not put her down, saying "I'm going to take you home!" She thought Anika was really cute and, of course, Anika loved every second of it. She brought the other nurses in to see her, saying "Come see this baby, she looks like a doll!" Anyway, all of the nurses got to hold Anika and she laughed at them and did her best to keep their attention. Once they were done playing around, they gave us our prescription and we were on our way.

When we ask Ezra a question like, "Are you sick?" or "Are you a big boy?" or "Are you nice?" he would usually respond with "yeah" or "no." Recently, however, he's taken a different approach. When we ask him a question like the above, he responds, "No, I'm Ezra!" which is really funny. Today, he was playing around with his toys and saying "I'm Ezra" when he started yelling, "I awesome! Ezra awesome!" And then we asked, "are you awesome Ezra?" and he would respond, "yeah, I awesome!"

Sick Day

Days when the kids are sick are always sort of bittersweet. On the one hand, we get to be reminded how much fun it is to have kids who want you to hold them (at least in Ezra's case; Anika still wants to be held all of the time). On the other hand, it's heartbreaking to watch them suffer through a cold or the flu. Today it appears both Ezra and Anika feel under the weather. Ezra was up all night--yelling, "I need mom, I need dad" about every 45 minutes or so from 1 to 7 am. Anika either has a cold as well or is perhaps teething--she really felt crummy last night and was almost impossible to get to sleep. We're hoping that tomorrow is a better day. It has snowed several inches and, if Ezra feels okay, maybe we'll get to build a snowman! That should cheer them up!

Quiet Book, Part 2

Quiet Book

I started this project about a year ago and I finally finished it. My sister in law gave me the instructions and materials to do this. I was excited to do it, but then my sewing machine died on me. Now that it's up and running again I can finish all my old projects.. so here is part one. (I am really hoping that this will help keep Ezra quiet in church!)

Brother and Sister

We weren't sure how Ezra would take the news that a new baby was coming to live with us. At first, he seemed interested and managed to be pretty nice and helpful around the house. After three or four days, however, we distinctly remember him looking at Anika and saying to his mom, "Okay, baby all done. Baby go bye-bye now." From that time until about 4 months, it was a constant struggle to keep him away from her. Ezra had attached somewhat to his dad (which is natural, given all the time mom gave to feeding and caring for Anika). When dad would pick up Anika, Ezra would go nuts. He had staked a claim to his dad. The last few months we've witnessed an extraordinary change. Not only has Ezra gotten used to having Anika around, he really enjoys her. He always wants to "go see baby sister" in the morning when he wakes up. And, when he gets up from a nap, the first thing he does is run over to Anika and say, "Baby sister, Ezra's awake!" Perhaps what is more interesting, however, is Anika's reaction to her older brother. She absolutely adores him. She lights up every time he comes by, and she loves to give him "sloppy kisses" (he puts his cheek on her mouth and she sucks and slobbers all over him). They've really become close in the last few months, and we've loved every minute of it. We can only hope that they continue to stay close as they grow older.

Our Two Year Old

Ezra turned two just last month. He's the kind of kid that makes you want to have more kids. For the last two years we've been blessed to watch him grow from a wrinkly little 5-pounder into the wonderful, smart, cute, and loving little boy he is today. Ezra is wonderfully curious; he spends his time asking questions about everything and everyone, figuring out how things work, drawing his "favorites," and trying to teach his sister how he would have her play with her toys. Ezra has always been pretty talented in the language department and everyday he says something that we can't believe. He also has a kind soul. The nursery workers at church told us that he is the kid that goes around asking the other (crying) kids if they are okay and offering them toys. He is a joy to be around! We sure are lucky!!

Infant Scientist

Today Anika had her first experience as an "infant scientist." She went to the Purdue psychology department to do some testing in the baby lab. They were testing the relation between infant memory (specifically human faces) and various sounds (music, human voices). Anika had a blast. She got to pick out a book as a "thank-you" and really enjoyed the whole process. One of the tests used the sentence, "rabbits eat leafy vegetables." Now, every time we say that sentence, she goes crazy with laughter. 

This morning Ezra was playing with his cars (the cars from the movie "Cars," which have become his favorite toys). He named them Daddy, Mommy, and Baby Sister. While playing with them again this afternoon, he raced them around the couch and said, "Daddy go fast. Mommy go really fast." Dad asked, "Does baby sister go fast?" Ezra replied, "No. Baby Sister crying crying." 

Anika takes charge

Today was Anika's day to be independent (she continues the trend to this moment by refusing to go to sleep). After making a trip to the store, we put her in the high chair for a little bit of oatmeal. She really enjoyed it--so much so, in fact, that she kept wrestling the spoon out of Christina's hand and feeding it to herself. She couldn't possibly put something as important as her dinner in somebody else's hands...

While Anika was eating her oatmeal, we put Ezra in the bathtub. He usually carries on quite a one-man conversation while he is in there. Today, he was coloring the bathtub while saying, "This is daddy right here," "this is mommy over here," "here is a baby sister," "Right here is a BIG zebra," "this is a red car over here," etc. He drew his entire day on the wall while in the bath. Each color represents someone different. 

My favorite mommy

Yesterday morning Ezra woke up a bit early, so we put him in bed with us. He was a little grouchy, so we decided to play the "favorites" game (this involves us asking Ezra what his favorite car, baby, animal, book, song, is and him responding with laughter). Well, we'd gone through the animal, car, song, et cetera, so I finally asked him, "Who is your favorite baby?" and he replied, "Baby sister!" Then I asked, "who is your favorite mom?" and he exclaimed, "Christina!" (which he pronounces, "Two-Teena"). He was really proud of himself. 

Tonight, for the first time, we put Anika in the bouncy chair. We've noticed that she gets increasingly bored with her toys/chairs in recent days so we finally got this little attention-grabber out of the storage. She absolutely loved it! She played around with the ball for most of the time, and started to learn how to shift herself a little bit. Of course, Ezra and his friend Dylan loved it too, so they showed her how to do everything. This was about as excited as we've seen her in a long time. 

Tina's life drawing

Here is a recent life drawing. Christina draws once a week at the college and has really enjoyed it thus far. 

Anika's revenge

This morning Ezra was babbling some of his favorite things (usually song lyrics with the occasional name of a friend) when he stopped and exclaimed, "Yea Halloween!" Halloween has been Ezra's favorite holiday for some time now. He had the opportunity to trick-or-treat at the girls' dorms while they told him how cute he looked as a doctor. He's been very keen on Halloween since then...

For roughly the first four months of her life, Anika lived in fear of Ezra's version of "playing." She usually had a scrape or two around the face and as soon as one would heal, Ezra would be back to mark his territory once again. Well, this morning she began the long journey toward getting her revenge. While Ezra was playing with her in her swing, he let out a blood-curdling scream and cried for about five minutes. The reason? Anika was pulling his hair as hard as she could. And one did not have to look too closely to see the grin on her face while she did it. 

Be Mine

Today I took the kids to a Valentine's Day party. I wanted to find them matching shirts to wear. I couldn't find any boys shirts, so I ended up making these. Ezra's says "be mine" and Anika's says "be mine too." So it might sound kinda dorky, but they looked really adorable. I decided I should make them matching shirts more often. It was really easy to do. Ezra loved it, he kept running up to Anika, looking at her shirt and yelling "Same shirt! Same!" It's pretty easy to please him!

Photo Update

We thought we'd use today's update to post some recent photos we think are either funny or cute. Enjoy!

Itsy-Bitsy 'pider

This morning Ezra woke up and wanted his dad to come and read stories. So, when dad came to his room, and asked which story Ezra would like to read, he looked around and found the songbook that has "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" in it. He picked it up and exclaimed, "Daddy, read 'Itsy Bitsy 'pider water pout, down rain wash 'pider out, out sun dry rain, 'pider up 'pout again!'" And then he thrust it into dad's arms and said, "Read it!" Dad said, "You just sang the whole song yourself!" Ezra replied, "I did it!"

Anika woke up a little while after Ezra did, and she was in a great mood. She kept dropping her bottle because she was smiling and milk was spilling out of her mouth. We went into Ezra's room to see what he was doing, and he said, "Dad and Anna Banana play ring rosies." So, I let Ezra grab one of her hands while I held onto her and grabbed Ezra's other hand. We played about 5 or 6 times and she laughed and shrieked through it, especially when we would "all fall down!" I think this is the first time she played this game, and she loved it!

Valentine's Day Crayons

I saw this project in a magazine that I wanted to try. It turned out really cute so I thought I would share. Here is the directions:

Heart-Shaped Crayons

You'll need: 

Crayons, heart-shaped mold pan or tin

To Make:

Use crayon scraps or break up full crayons into 1/2" bits. Use a single shade or mix several together. Fill the mold about 3/4" high with crayon fragments. Bake at 250 for 10-15 minutes, or until crayons are just melted. Remove and let harden. Tip: Put in freezer for a few minutes and the crayons will pop out easily. 

Church clothes

The kids looked so adorable today in their church clothes that I had to take pictures of them.  Ezra has on a brand new tie with dinosaurs on it.  We got him his first big boy tie yesterday, and he was really excited to wear it and be like dad.  And Anika looks like a pink princess. She looks cute in everything  but she looks especially sweet today--and she knows it. 

Anika's baby blessing

Anika Drew McKenzie received her blessing on November 25, 2007. This was just one day before she turned three months old. We were really excited for her blessing because it is such a wonderful time for reflection and she finally got to wear the dress that Christina's mom made. As you can see, it looked great! We were happy to have our friends Andrew, Sarah, Hannah, Jon, and Rachel Thomas there for the occasion all the way from 
North Carolina! Andrew had defended his dissertation in the History department the previous week and they stuck around for the blessing.
We were really glad they

did. A kind soul from our

ward transcribed the

blessing in its entirety,

so if you would like to 

see it just let us know, we'd be glad to send it to you.