Baby baby

Emilia - 2011

Lily - 2005

Two years

William went to his two-year check-up last week. It comes as no surprise that William is off the charts (and I mean way off the charts) for height. At 24 months, he is a whopping 40 inches tall. A common rule-of-thumb is that children are half of their adult height at 2 years old. This would put William at about 6 ft. 8 in. as an adult. I don't really think he is going to be that tall, but I do think that he is going to tower over everyone else in our family by the time he's done growing. Carl and I were joking that we are most likely going to have two girls that are about our height, with brown hair & brown eyes and then a very tall, blue-eyed, blond-haired boy....no one is going to believe that he's really ours!

William is growing in all kinds of ways lately. As you can see in the video below, William has really gotten into naming letters. I had only pointed out the letters on his wall to him a couple of times, so I can't really take credit for teaching him his letters (even if I'd really like to take the credit). He just seems to be really "into" letters and can identify a good portion of the alphabet. He is also talking a lot more, and although the actual words can be a little difficult to understand, he almost always gets his point across. William continues to be a wonderful sleeper and an absolutely horrible eater, but I guess you just can't win 'em all.

Happy birthday, Papa!

A boo-tiful halloween

Lily was so excited Halloween. And who could blame her? With Halloween parades, parties and trick-or-treating, it is a kid's dream come true. I packed her a special spooky lunch with jack o'lantern peanut butter sandwich, ghost and pumpkin-shaped cheese, witch's brooms, and mummy juice box.

They had a parade at Lily's school with the younger grades marching in the parade and the older kids cheering them on.

I volunteered to bring in some snacks for the party. This is the vegetable platter with hummus.

These "pumpkin" rolls were a big hit with the adults. They are super easy to make - just cream cheese mixed with dry ranch dressing, spread over a sun-dried tomato tortilla shell, topped with chopped ham and shredded cheddar cheese - roll and slice.

I also made some witch's brooms for the kids in Lily's class.

One healthy class - these kids attacked the veggie platter!

Trick-or-treating at mom & dad's house: Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the White Rabbit.

Lily even talked me into being the Queen of Hearts!