Cutest Toddler Quote Ever

A bedtime conversation:

Me: Catherine, let's put some pj's on and then you can stay up and play with Grandpa T a little longer.

Catherine: And Daddy too?

Me: Yes, Daddy too, but if you want you can play with Grandpa T for a bit because he has to go home tomorrow so we aren't going to see him after tonight.

Catherine: Oh, but why won't we see him?

Me: Well, he has to go back to work and D-ma is waiting for him at home, so in the morning he has to start driving back home.

Catherine: Oh, back home far far away?

Me: Yes, Grandpa lives far far away so he has to start driving back tomorrow.

Catherine: Oh, but I love him (lip quivering and all).

We eventually talked it out and she accepted that we are going to fly out and see all the grandmas and grandpas (who love her very much) in a few weeks. Needless to say, although Grandpa T's stay was much too short, we had a great visit!

Thanksgiving (and Easter)

Ta-Da! We're back. Sorry it's been a few days since posting - we've had a very busy weekend and beginning of the week.

Saturday we went to a wedding for a couple at church. Catherine immediately decided she and Mary had to wear their "Easter egg dresses," which does not mean dresses with Easter eggs on them, but dresses that they wore when they ran around finding Easter eggs. I'm not exactly sure how Catherine squeezed into hers, but she seemed pleased none the less.




Sunday and Monday were spent preparing for our Thanksgiving Warm-Up Feast, which we had Monday night, I think with about 18 people. Here are Catherine and Mary helping me spread out the bread on a pan so it could dry out for stuffing. If you can't tell, it probably took a bit longer than necessary.



I don't have any pictures of the actual dinner (I was just a tiny bit busy with getting dinner on the table and getting the kids, who were falling asleep in chairs, to bed at the same time) but it all came out pretty well I think. This afternoon we have Thanksgiving again at Nick and Athena's... hooray for multiple turkey dinners!

Of course, Monday we also had the great fun of welcoming Aunt Kristin, Uncle Brian, and cousin Christopher. Kristin seems to have picked up a cold during all that traveling, but everyone is settling in well. Catherine is quite pleased with the arrangement - she has already chosen a couple times to stay home with Aunt Kristin rather than go out on a walk with me and Mary. I think she's studying Kristin, preparing to challenge her to a dual: winner gets the permanent job as Christopher's mother.


Mary is a tiny bit more skeptical of little Christopher, who likes to grab onto her shopping cart as she runs by, run into her while pushing his walker, and *gasp* play with her farm puzzle. However I think she'll be over it soon enough - the three of them are already collaborating in shenanigans. For instance, Aunt Kristin gave Christopher some cheerios in a "spill-proof" cup, Catherine immediately taught him how to foil the spill-proof lid and shake the cheerios all about, and everyone reaped the benefits.



Now we have a lovely long weekend for everyone to get settled in. I wish the weather was going to be nicer so we could spend some time outside, but it looks like cold drizzliness for several days. That means shopping cart races are in our future...

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Their Way

After a couple weeks of slowly making their way east, visiting friends and family along the way, Kristin and Brian have made it to NYC and should be completing the last leg of their drive tomorrow. Assuming that they manage to maneuver their way out of the city tomorrow morning, we should see them on the Cape tomorrow evening!

Catherine is very excited about the whole idea, and has counted up the new number of boys and girls in the house repeatedly over the last couple days.

If you think I was kidding about them not bringing a lot of stuff, here is how they're getting here:


Ha. Just kidding. Well, only a little bit. That really is their car, the car in which they've been traveling for several weeks with an almost-one-year-old, but my dad is also bringing out a pick-up truck of their stuff later this week. Still not much though (I don't think we could fit Catherine's belongings in a single pick-up truck right now).

And you'll be seeing a lot more of this cutie very soon!

Dinner Time

Here's what Catherine has on the menu for you:

A Beautiful Fall Day

Well Mary was apparently sick at some point during the night last night, but acted like she felt basically normal the whole day (including devouring a whole PB&J sandwich and close to a head of broccoli) and no one has a fever so I guess we're all fine.

The weekend and today were cool but mostly calm and sunny (except for some drizzly fog on Sunday) so the girls got to spend a bit of time outside. Mary's favorite word, and object, right now is "hat". She believes she and everyone around her should be wearing a hat at all times, and her favorite hats are the ones with the flaps that go down over her ears (she has several to choose from in Catherine's hat collection). We have even seen her fall down and not be able to get back up because she refuses to let go of the braids that come down off the flaps. Since the hats are a little too large, they also work well for peek-a-boo.



Catherine decided she needed some basketball practice so she and Mary ran around with the balls for a while.




Daddy held Catherine high up above his head once so she could try to make a basket and she thought it was so great that he ended up doing it at least twenty times. That is no small task.

I think this is the closest she came to making it.


And I think this is her telling Michael exactly what he did wrong that kept her from making the basket.


And then they even got to help me rake some leaves... such lucky kids.

Catherine's Latest Hit

This is a song Catherine wrote in tribute to her favorite band, Tripping Lily. It clearly had to be written on the ukulele, which she calls her "Tripping Lily guitar."



It was a prolific songwriting day for her. Other titles include:

"Castle Castle Sand-Castle"
"Piano, Lamp, Plant"
and "Yook-a-bailey My Yook-a-bailey"

Saturday Morning

There are two things we do almost every Saturday morning:

1. Make pancakes for breakfast.
2. Vacuum the house.

You would think that the pancakes would be the highlight of the day, but the girls actually like the vacuuming at least as much.

Pancake making time would be very tense if there was no need for two mixing bowls.


It takes about an hour the vacuum the house, because Mary has to have a turn, then Catherine has to have a turn, then I have a turn (in order to actually vacuum). This happens with each rug in the house. There are nine of them upstairs.



And don't feel sorry for them trying to push around that giant vacuum. It is all their idea. This is the look I get every time I tell Mary it is someone else's turn.

Michael II

It seriously just occurred to me this very second that I never wrote a post after our baby ultrasound a couple weeks ago. At least I can't remember writing one, and didn't see one in the archives.

I'm assuming everyone knows this already, so I'm mostly writing this post now so everyone has a place to get out their "I told you so"s: they say it's a boy!

Meet Michael II.


I decided I can't post the picture where the ultrasound technician drew a line of arrows to the proof that it's a boy. It's just too much for the world wide web.

In case you can't figure out what you're looking at above, here is the same picture with some markers. The baby is looking up, so you are seeing the left side of the body. You can't see any legs because they're on a different plane (but don't worry - we saw them).

Is This Fall?

Like a lot of you we had a couple really nice fall days this week - it wasn't 75, but we'll take 60 degrees, calm and sunny any day in November. It meant one more day of playing outside for "children's church" and probably one of our last trips to the park that didn't involve replacing mittens every 3.8 seconds.

These pictures are all from Sunday morning.
My kids love sticks.





And trees.






And clapping.


And belly buttons.


And hugs.

Snow Bunny

Catherine taught Mary how to get dressed for the snow.

They might need to review.

Uncle Tommy

Tonight one of the books we read for bed time was Catherine's "Somebody Loves Catherine" photo book that Grandma made for Valentine's Day a couple years ago (except now we read it "Somebody Loves Catherine and Mary"). It has pictures of each of the family members doing something they like. Next to this picture of Uncle Tommy is says "This is Uncle Tommy. He loves to run, and he loves Catherine [and Mary]." Following is the conversation that took place when we got to this page.


Catherine: Why's Uncle Tommy wearing an undershirt?
Me: Because he's running a race.
C: Oh. But why is he running a race?
Me: So he can show everyone how fast he is.
C: Oh. But why is he fast?
Me: Because he practices a lot.
C: Oh. But why are his arms like that?
Me: Because he's excited that he's running really fast.
C: Oh. Because he practices a lot?
Me: Yes.
C: Oh. But why does he have goofy hair?
Me: The wind made it goofy while he was running the race.
C: Oh. Because he's really fast?
Me: Yes.
C: Oh. I can run really fast. You have to take your shoes off to run really really fast.
Me: Ok.
C: Yeah.
Mary: Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!
C: Mary, that's not Daddy, that's Uncle Tommy.
Mary: Oh.

Swamp Things

We took the girls for a "hike" at a marsh/swamp preserve out in Eastham last week. I guess a swamp doesn't sound that nice, but it's really beautiful (as long as it is not green-head fly season) and it has boardwalk paths winding through the swamp.

If you are ever unsure about how to entertain a toddler, take her somewhere with a path to follow.

We headed up this little hill from the car. Every time Mary stepped over one of the steps she would give a loud grunt and then laugh.


Then we walked on the swamp/marsh boardwalk. Backpacks absolutely necessary (but I think they were empty).


They would stop to look at the water...


It looked like this:


Then we would keep walking on the path. Mary had to trot almost the whole time to keep up with Catherine. I think she burned about 4000 Calories. Except when she got too tired and I had to carry her. I think I also burned about 4000 Calories just strolling.


At the end of the swamp path there is a nice view of the marsh and the ocean in the distance.


The girls were much more interested in throwing leaves to a very small worm they found in a puddle in a rock.

Then we headed down a different path...


And back to the car.



Aren't you glad I was walking at the end the whole time and you got all those lovely pictures of everyone's backs? I'm always doing my best for you. : )

Dora, Boots, and Hooley-Hoops

Some friends had a Dora the Explorer costume Catherine's size available and she couldn't have been happier. As soon as she decided she was going to be Dora, she knew immediately that Mary had to be her friend Boots the monkey.

I had to make a monkey costume.

If you've ever seen Dora you know boots is actually grey and yellow, but I didn't have any grey felt or grey clothes for Mary and I did have plenty of brown felt and brown clothes for Mary, so Boots was brown. Really the only reason it looked at all like Boots was because of his signature red boots. Actually, lots of people commented on our adorable Mary Mouse. Oh well.

Oddly enough (actually, not that odd at all) I only have about 1.5 good pictures of them in their costumes, and the better ones are from the car ride to a friend's house in the afternoon. There is definitely something to be said for having them strapped down when you're taking a picture.



Here they are with their baskets getting ready to go trick-or-treating.


We had to go really early because Catherine will not go out in the dark. It didn't matter too much, because she made it to exactly three houses before she started refusing to say "thank you" and had to go back home. Lucky for her those houses were very generous, and a few neighbors brought stuff by for the girls later in the evening.

They also had just as much fun standing on the couch looking out the window, yelling "kids are coming" every time they saw (or wanted to see) kids coming to the door for candy.

So Daddy somehow got a hold of several hula-hoops the other day. I cannot even begin to list the number of things Catherine can turn a hula-hoop (or hooley-hoop, as she calls it) into. Here are their attempts at actual hula-ing.