Only a Matter of Time...

A few days ago, London started pulling herself up! She's been working on it for awhile, so I knew it wouldn't be long. I just thought there was a longer break between crawling and pulling up, but it seems like we've hit a developmental spurt or something! Today she started waving hello and bye bye...just randomly, out of the blue. She is finally eating like a normal baby (today she ate THREE solid meals!!!!), which makes me VERY happy. I still think we are awhile away from walking. She seems to be following a curve of two weeks behind Jackson, meaning that she almost always does new things two weeks after Jackson had done them. Even with teeth! It's so wierd. Jackson started walking a week after his first birthday, so if she stays true to form, I'll have until February. (This could be wishful thinking, though. She may bust it out sooner!).

Sibling Love

I wondered how Jackson would act around his sister. Would he be the angry sibling who pushed and shoved and caused strife? Would he be the bossy brother who always has an agenda? Would he be gentle with her? Would he want to play with her?
In the beginning, he stayed away...understandably. She was small, noisy, and smelled like poop alot. As she has gotten older, and especially now that she is able to go anywhere he goes, he always wants to play with her. He even gets upset when she crawls away from him! Their relationship is more than I could have ever imagined for them. It isn't to say that they don't have their moments, because they do, but Jackson genuinely loves his sister, and she truly delights in his presence.
I'm going to force them to look at these pictures in 15 years as they argue over who gets the car that night...

Another round of Peek-A-Boo...Crib Style.

This is seriously her favorite game. If she is ever grumpy, I can always count on a game of Peek-a-Boo to get a laugh out of her. It works especially well in the grocery store! I'm not even her favorite person to play it with...she probably pees her pants (literally) in laughter when Jackson plays with her. :) While I only caught a few seconds of it on video, we played this for a good 15 minutes when I went to get her up from her nap. Such a happy baby!

Favorite Places

Now that London is crawling, she gets "lost" a lot. I sometimes have to just follow her squeals to figure out where she's gone. It's quite different from when Jackson was at this stage; we lived in a tiny, ghetto apartment that was maybe 700 sq feet. London has about 2700 to enjoy, and boy does she! She has two favorite spots: the first being the doorstop by our bedroom door. She will sit there and bang that thing over and over again. The second is pictured above...the railing where you can overlook the family room from the loft. Her little toy area is just behind her, and she'll crawl over to the banister and giggle and play there, looking all around. Her favorite part is when you come up to the landing of the stairs and look up at her...I bet it makes her feel so tall and big.

Other than us frequently asking, "Where did London go?", nothing much is new around here!

Sunset

The desert isn't known for many good things. Sure, we have nice weather for about six months out of the year, but who can enjoy nice weather when you are avoiding the following:

1. Scorpions (really, I think this one alone should count for about 5)

2. Jumping Cactus

3. Rattlesnakes

4. Bees (we have lots of those!)

5. Big spiders

6. etc.

But the sunsets?

The sunsets are wonderful.

I used to think the sunsets in Kansas were the most beautiful I had ever seen. When the sun set there in the summer, it looked like the cornfields were ablaze. What makes the desert sunsets so beautiful (I think) is the light reflecting off of the sand and the sheer expanse of land...there isn't a whole lot built waaaay out there. Throw some clouds in there...and wow. These photos don't even really capture the full majesty of last night's sunset...it was amazing...the best I've seen yet.

The Other Things

Even though we aren't "officially" doing school yet, I still provide Jackson with materials that he likes to do (worksheets, books, etc). Well, I recently realized how ridiculous it is that my 3 year old can read chapter books but can't get himself dressed! So, we are taking a break from all things "school" (unless he specifically asks to do something) and focusing more on life tasks. So, he has this little chart that he uses to earn stickers for doing things all by himself.
It actually made me realize how much I baby him. I mean, I thought it was going to take him a few days to figure out how to make his bed and put his own clothes on. Umm...no. True to form, Jackson was shown once and now can do it alone. He can't button things on his own, so I'm going to get some buttons for us to practice with so he can learn to do that. He loves getting stickers and putting them on his chart, and I love giving him more responsibilities.
So, we have two blank spaces to put two more jobs. Any ideas?

The Bee and the B.

Look at me. So on top of things...blogging the night of Halloween. I'm waiting for Greg to get home, which will probably still be awhile, so uploading pictures helps make the time go by faster!

We had a great time at Fall Fest, which is the annual festival/carnival that our church (Greg) puts on every year on Halloween (you may remember the Bear from last year). It was a little bit more crazy for me this year; toting London around made it a little difficult helping Jackson with all the games and activities. I basically "single parent" it since Greg is in charge of everything, so he's all over the place. Jackson, though, is at the age where I can be more of a bystander as he mosey's on through life, on his great quest for a)popcorn, b)cotton candy c)MORE CANDY!, d)snow cones and e)MORE CANDY!. He was practically vibrating with all the sugar!

His costume turned out okay. I actually didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked on it. I was supposed to put it together yesterday, but with the Great Hole Incident, that didn't happen. The front had some things that started with the letter B, and the back had a huge B and some more B things. He had this cute "B" antenna thingies that he wouldn't wear (which, of course, were my favorite part). Everyone thought it was adorable (and quite clever) to have the Two B's. London was stinkin' A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E. 'Nuff said. I really didn't get a lot of pictures; handling two kids among 500+ people can be a bit draining!

My favorite time of the year begins!!! I love November/December!

There's a hole in my ceiling, dear readers, a hole!

How the Hole Came to Be: A Timeline of Events

Friday morning, 8:32 am: London wakes up with frozen toes, fingers, and chapped cheeks from her bedroom being so cold (she has the coldest room in the house).
8:33: Greg decides to venture up into the attic to do...something...to the furnace so it will work. The attic entrance is in Jackson's room.

8:42: Greg arms himself with a flashlight, ladder, and a tshirt (I really should have grabbed a picture of this) wrapped around his face. I don't know why.

8:45: The grand entrance to the attic begins, while I contemplate the fun tasks that lay before me for the day.

9:00 am: I take London upstairs to get her ready for her morning nap. She was super cranky, so I decided to lay her down early.

9:13: BOOM, CRACK, *poof*, "BECKI!!!!"

9:14: I exit London's bedroom and stumble upon a huge, gaping hole in our ceiling AND about 1 foot's worth of insulation covering our staircase. Jackson is screaming, terrified of what he just saw. (He was standing in the family room, so he saw everything, including Greg's leg pop through).

9:15-1:00 pm: Cleaning up insulation. NOT what I had been thinking about at 8:45.

9:15-current time: Convincing Jackson that nothing is going to come out of the hole, that the hole can't suck him in, that its okay to walk underneath the hole, that I don't have to carry him upstairs, its okay to look at the hole, yes we will fix the hole, no a new hole isn't going to happen, etc etc etc. He was really freaked out.

Apparently, while Greg was walking on the catwalk, his foot slipped and his leg just popped right through. Luckily he caught himself or he would have fallen the two stories down! My favorite moment? When Greg looks out of the hole and says, "Um, babe, we are going to have to clean this up." Really? You think?! :)

*sigh".