Kali wants to go to bed!!

This is headline news in the Myers-Benner household. Kali just said, "Let's get to bed." This was after explaining how she was willing to go to bed after we finished our game of Sequence since that meant an extra long Matilda story and that Christmas morning would come sooner. We have one VERY excited 8 year old in our home. It's been a very fun-filled day with us together here at home. I had just commented to Jason out in the kitchen how our girls are really the best Christmas presents ever when Kali, who was in the living room playing with Alida, exclaimed full of joy, "I think Alida is making this the best Christmas ever." We couldn't agree more. And to prolong our suppertime tonight we gave her first present (a great $1 Gift and Thrift find). Here's what she thought of it:



The next stage of the present opening will get added to this post on Christmas - afterall Kali is wanting to go to bed and the video is still uploading!

Merry Christmas all! Well, Kali is still sleeping (she doesn't take after her Aunt Anna on Christmas morning). Here's the next stage in the Christmas present opening last night. I think we were all right about what part of the presents Alida would like the most.



Now she really did end up having a good time with her duck, once I had to take the tissue paper away as she was attempting to consume pieces of it...

Family times

Yesterday we started putting the rocks into the "water recharge pit" in Nora's garden. It felt really good to work side by side as a family again, this time with Alida along for the ride. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems that we all get great pleasure from collecting rocks from our rock pile and moving them to another location. Soon after Nora died we build our parking space by hauling load after load of rock from the pile in the woods to their designated spot near the house. Hard work! Good times! The same was true of yesterday, though Jason was the main one who worked hard. After a number of loads I took the girls to the swingset and then in to make lunch while Jason carried on with the task. But it was a taste of things to come, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Last evening then Jason and I enjoyed an evening just with Alida. Kali had a sleepover with friends and I was initially going to write that we enjoyed a quieter evening than normal, but then realized that would not be true. Alida seemed to want to make up for the lack of Kali's noise in the mix. She also was enjoying having Mommy and Daddy's attention all to herself. So much so that she didn't sack out to almost 10pm. Here she is doing her "old man voice" at dinner and then a fun game of peek-a-boo an hour or so after I thought she would be ready to sleep. Jason and I are both convinced she was calling for Kali to come say goodnight for awhile. I tried to walk around the house with her to let her know Kali was gone until the next day, but I'm not sure it soaked in.

Kali update!

Well with all the changes in this household with the rapid growth and development of a baby, there is another gal who is growing and changing by leaps and bounds. Below are a few snippets that I don't want to lose.

On Nora's fourth birthday my dad had sent Kali some "math problems" on email and here they are with her responses. Kali continues to be a pretty "private" gal and does not often open up regarding her feelings. And she rarely talks about Nora. Her answers to the adding up of various persons was all I needed to see on that day.

242 + 242 =you must WHIET it DIFRETLEY
242 – 242 =0 of corse
242 X 242 =you must WHIET it DIFRETLEY
242 ÷ 242 =1
Kali + Nora + Alida =little kids
Jason + Janelle =groenup kids
Jason + Janelle + Kali + Nora + Alida = a famlae
Grandpa + Grandma =birds&flaowrs
Sadie + Milo =doggies
Write 1 trillion as a number = 1,000,000,000,000,000

The other day I was working on an excel document and Kali saw me. She had never seen one and she got quite interested in making her own. I have no idea how to put an excel spreadsheet here but what she wrote amused me! Here are the columns separated by commas.

favorut math thing to do, why do you like to do it

multuplay, don’t know

do calcualadr math, it,s easy

find aainguls, brack from numbers stell math

find pattrins, it,s fun

do anneything, freedom!

do puzzles, brack from numbers stell math

long diveigon, don,t know

Currently the big project around here is Kali working on Alida's Christmas present. It is the first year that Kali is really getting into giving gifts - and ones in which she is thinking more about what the recipient would like than her own tastes and preferences. That combined with her keen interest now in sorting and getting rid of things is a huge breath of fresh air for one of her parents. :)

So the other day she cooked up the idea to create a book for Alida in which she will help Alida learn the difference between "pet" and "pat." (see previous video). So far the lessons have been completely unsuccessful - Alida is great at "pat" and amused by Kali's attempts to get her to "pet" something. Anyway, we've been taking photos and making plans and I think it has the potential to be about the sweetest present ever.

Sisters

These videos speak for themselves. Loving watching these two gals love and enjoy each other!

Baby's slacking...

Or maybe just balancing out a bit...

We just returned home a little bit ago from Alida's 8 month appointment. I wasn't too surprised to learn that her growth has slowed a bit - the girl is burning calories these days! She is ready to go, go, go most of the time! She shrieks, babbles, wants to face out if she is facing in and get down if she is facing out, kicks her little legs, rolls and ooches all over the living room floor, and is becoming better at pulling herself up onto her knees. Watch out plants!

She weighed 22lb 2oz, measured 30 inches long and her head was 17 3/4 inches around. She has "fallen" to the 97th percentile in weight, still above the 100th in height and her head is catching up now at the 90th percentile. It's nice to see her continuing to thrive in the height and weight categories - that means something to us. But we are much happier even to report that she is an active, vibrant, creative, fun little gal. And she is a bit too smart to be tricked at the doctor's. She got fussy the second the nurse tried to measure her and as soon as the nurse left the room she started talking up a storm to us and the butterfly hanging from the ceiling. She is not impressed at all by a measuring tape being put around her head, being stretched out on the table to be measured and sitting on a hard cold scales naked. Can't blame her!

She endured two shots and is now sacked out in the front pack catching a late evening nap - which is enabling me to put up this update but may not bode well for the night sleep ahead!

To end I'll share the picture Jason took of me after Alida was "done with me" last evening. While she may look innocent, she is not!!

Family picture

Prior to our exciting afternoon, officially beginning our stint as the adoptees of Happy Valley Road, we attended church together and then had a family date eating lunch at the EMU cafeteria. While I did have my camera along, for the purpose of getting a family picture taken (we finally felt ready to have a new family picture taken - sadly without Nora, happily with Alida), I did not take a video of Alida during church (mostly because I was occupied with her until she sacked out nursing). The clip below, however, is a little taste of what she did during most of the service. I'm glad our gal is finding her voice and ready to use it in church, but she was rather loud this morning. It is especially cute when she "sings along."

Conspicuous Altruism at Home

Our family's highway adoption has been...I'm searching for the best word...consummated?

That is to say we just picked up trash from our road's margins for two and half hours this afternoon, which is something we've done sporadically ever since Janelle and I married in May of '99. The difference is that this time we got to use fancy orange trash bags and wear the glowingest reflective vests I have ever squinted at.

It was every bit as fun as we thought it would be. Kali was veritably leaping down the road at first; her enthusiasm was so intense as to cause her to overlook nearly every piece of trash she passed! This could be because she was spending more time gazing at her snazzy vest than scanning for foreign materials. After she developed her eye for it, and as her exuberance mellowed into mere eagerness for the task, she became quite good at spotting beer bottles, aluminum cans, fast food detritus, and matted paper.

Now, I will admonish you not to confuse eagerness with a drive towards efficiency. For once any particular object was discovered, it then needed to be submitted to a proper inspection and perhaps processing before being relinquished into the yawn of plastic film at the bag's mouth. Certainly no aluminum can could escape its due flattening, which when performed by an eight-year-old's foot is not an especially quick and merciful kind of demise. Even wadded-up paper napkins or faded candy wrappers could not be submitted briskly, but merited a curious few moments of gazing as they teetered on the edge of a tender, gloved hand...then toppled in.

Janelle and I called it "meditative trash pick up." At first it was actually kind of relaxing. I mean, how many times in adult life do we really slow down and appreciate the moment we're in like that? But then again, I was spending quite a bit of time standing at the side of the road in a goofy vest holding a giant orange trash bag in each hand and trying to be patient as my daughter picked away at some unit or other of waste matter, gingerly freeing it from the built-up soil and tangled vegetation. It got a bit old, but in a good-natured sort of way.

By the time we made it back to our driveway we were all pretty worn out, but none the worse for the wear! In the end we had a bag each of trash and recycling redirected to their proper end, and could enjoy the satisfaction of having contributed to the well-being of our neighborhood...officially!