Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
February 2013
What a fun February!
You’ll see in many of our photos that we sported runny noses
for much of the month. And such is
life. We have had several layers
of nasty cold symptoms this month, including a few trips to the doctor and one
to urgent care for croup-y cough.
But we’ve been generally well, otherwise, and nothing has slowed us down
for too long.
Two of our favorite outings this month were the Smithsonian
Museum, where we saw neat transportation and music exhibits, and even caught a
cool live jazz concert; and the Air and Space Museum, where we loved running
around and looking at all the planes and special exhibits (it was Science
Saturday). We even met a former
pilot of Air Force One, who gave us our first Air Force wings. He wanted to let us try on his helmet,
but we decided that watching him put it on was enough for us. We got to see the
airplane restoration observation deck, and explored the “inside of the cockpit’
of many aircrafts using an interactive screen that let us turn in all
directions and even fly!
At school and church, we’ve been playing with our
friends. We got to watch the
children’s cantata performance at church, and loved all the singing and pretty
music. Our class at school painted
hands and feet and made hand and footprint trees, which was lots of fun. We’ve been learning about our body
parts and the five senses, which have been fun things to talk about at home,
and we are really adding some new words and phrases to our vocabulary! And we
LOVE to sing songs from school!
Our latest favorites are “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”, “The Itsy
Bitsy Spider” and “Row Your Boat”, although we still love a rousing rendition
of “Happy Birthday” and “Jingle Bells” too. A new phenomenon this month is that only Ms. Gayle (at
school) is allowed to sing some songs.
The kids will gleefully cut off Mommy and Daddy singing a song with “No,
Ms. Gayle does that”. :)
At home, we’ve had some chilly and rainy weekends which have been great fun with throwing and rolling balls, chasing
around with pull toys, using our tunnel and slide, reading books, coloring, and
playing with play dough. We’ve had
a little fun with our food this month, making our own peanut butter sandwich
shapes, biting into our own little baby pears (no more slices for us!), and
helping Mommy out in the kitchen too, pouring things in, stirring, and helping
put things away. We always love to
see (and later try) what’s in the pot. :)
We’ve also had a couple of warm weekends, which have found
us outside, trying out our balance bikes.
We’re getting really good at holding on while Mommy and Daddy are
“driving”, steering when we want to turn, and even walking with them on our own
a little!
We can’t believe we’re two and a half! Our growth is really incredible, when
we think about how small we once were!
Katharine is about 26+ pounds (25-50th percentile), and 37
inches tall (75th %).
And Christopher is at 32+ pounds (75th%) and 39 inches (off the
growth chart for his age!). We
LOVE to climb, and run, and dance, and jump (Christopher gets some air time,
and Katharine loves to “jump down”, with hands held).
We’re also starting to ask lots of “why” and “where”
questions, which are challenging Mommy and Daddy to come up with good, and/or
appropriate answers. Questions
like “Why did you do that” are a little easier to answer than “Why is that box
red” or “Why is that tree there”?
But what a fun new adventure this is! We’re also doing a great job of talking about what we want
and need, like and don’t like, and how we feel. We’re doing a great job (with a little help) about saying
“please” and “thank you”, as well as “no thank you”, “my turn”, and “I’m
angry/sad”, which has been especially helpful in diffusing some of our 2 ½ year
old moments.
We can’t wait for Easter, and Spring Break, and seeing our
Grandma and Grandpas! And we’re eagerly awaiting the warm weather, and getting
out to play more again! Yet, we watch
with anticipation as March comes in like a lion with our first big winter storm
on its way! (Maybe another
snowman in our future?)
We hope you enjoy our photos from this month!
Love,
Katharine and Christopher
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
January 2013
Happy New Year!
Things have been fun and busy at our house. So while the blog and photos have been ready for a while, we're posting a little late this time! :) Enjoy!
January was a fun and busy month!
It took a few days to get back into our school and work
routine, but we had a great time playing with our friends at school this month!
And we continue to enjoy playing with friends at church and at playgroup (we
got to go on Martin Luther King holiday!) We’ve enjoyed a mostly healthy month,
too, which makes things all the better!
Our family went on some great outings! We went to the final night of Zoo
Lights. We had so much fun seeing all the lights, and got a great indoor look
at the gorillas eating their dinner! We also got to enjoy the last night of the Walk Of
Lights at Meadowlark Gardens, including a beautiful performance by the Vienna
Choral Society. What a wonderful
way to round out our holiday season!
We also bid farewell to the season by helping out at home taking down
the tree and lights – although we were still fairly melancholy about that for a
couple of weeks afterward! So…we decided to leave our snowflakes on the
windows, along with the new hearts we put up, to keep things festive.
We took a family trip to see the fish at the aquarium over a
chilly weekend, and we loved seeing the dolphins jump! On Sunday after church,
we had lots of yummy fun playing with cars during brunch at Silver Diner –
and we even go to use real plates and grownup silverware!
We’ve had lots of fun at home too, building towers,
playing a little basketball, sliding on our indoor slide (because it’s been
“BRRRR, cold outside”), playing “ring-around-the-rosy” together and trying out
the fun new toys we got for Christmas.
We’ve even gotten a little crafty, using our new art easel and paints to
make some pretty creations.
And at the end of the month, we got a little SNOW at our house
– enough to at least take the sled in the backyard, although no one wanted to
ride it this time. And we made our
very first Keller family snowman!
Mommy and Daddy made sure to snap some quick pictures before we were
able to demolish it with our snow tools. We decided to leave him up, but the
sudden turn to almost 70 degree temperatures brought a quick end to our snowman just a few
days later.
We continue to surprise Mommy and Daddy with the things we
know how to say. Our favorite new
phrase with Daddy at bedtime is “peace out dude”. Much to Mommy’s chagrin, this
one has currently replaced the “I love you’s” that are often heard through the
monitor after we go to bed. But we
continue to entertain by singing fun songs when we wake in the morning, as well
as throughout the day. Some of our
favorites are Jingle Bells, the ABC’s, Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday, No More
Monkeys Jumping On The Bed, and “Who Built The Ark – Noah, Noah”… Mommy taught
us this one so we could help her out at Sunday school!
While we had a pretty active month, we didn’t spend as much
time capturing photos of our fun.
We do have a few cute pictures to share below, and we hope you enjoy
them!
We hope you had a wonderful beginning to 2013!
Love,
Christopher and Katharine
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
December 2012
What a wonderful December we had!
We enjoyed lots of fun this month, amidst all the holiday
preparations, colds, and busyness. We got to visit with our friends Zack,
Anthony, and Robert at a holiday party early in the month. We had fun exploring
at the mall while Mommy and Daddy worked on the holiday “to-do’s”. On a warm evening, we headed back to
see the lights again at Meadowlark, and had even more fun on the second
trip! And we enjoyed our very
first “Angel Breakfast” at church, complete with star pancakes, stickers, and
activities.
We enjoyed resting and playing at home between errands and
to-do’s on busy weekends. We
learned all about elves and reindeer, Santa and snowmen; and angels and Baby
Jesus. We had fun helping mommy make
cookies and gingerbread and decorate our first tree; we watched with glee as
Daddy put our first outdoor lights up; we played with our nativity set,
decorated the windows, and then had even more fun rearranging the candles in
the windows and the decorations on the tree! We also did lots of holiday-themed
foam sticker crafts – decorating ornaments and snowflakes, gingerbread men,
snowmen, and trees. And sometimes
we just ran around silly!
At school, we made lots of holiday crafts with construction
paper, from candy canes and wreaths to stockings and trees. And at our holiday party, we made fun
reindeer and wreath hats, and had fun playing with our friends.
At the end of the month, we traveled to Ohio to visit with
our families. We had fun in Kenton
at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, playing with our cousins, Uncle Mike, and Aunt
Robyn, and our friends, Miss Ann and Chloe. We explored, made tinker toy creations, and watched the
doggies and kitties (Upon arriving
back home, Katharine announced at bath time that “Christopher loves dogs every
day, all day” and “I love cats”!)
And we played in the snow for the very first time! It was such an
adventure for us all to get bundled up and take our first steps and sled rides
in the snow! And sometimes we just
ran around silly!
On Christmas morning, we took great pride in helping deliver
presents to the hearth as Katie and Sam lowered them from the loft (the tree
was upstairs this year, to keep things safe for little hands and for the new
puppy, Cupcake)! We had a lovely
brunch and lots of fun playing with our cousins!
After nap, we headed for Wadsworth on Christmas evening,
arriving just in time for the big snowfall the next day. We had a fun adventure picking out our
first “twin” sled in the morning, before heading back to the house to watch the
snow fall. What a beautiful first
Christmas in their new house! We
explored, stopping by the windows to watch the snow; played with Grandma and
Grandpa, and also just ran around silly!
We had lots of fun visiting with our cousins, Clara and
Joseph, and Uncle Matt and Aunt Linda!
We opened gifts, and got to play in the snow together before lunch. Again, we had quite an adventure
getting all bundled up, but this time, we were a little hesitant about the
snow, as it was much higher, and we got frustrated when we fell down –
brrrrr! So we hung out on the
sidewalk for a bit, while Uncle Matt and Clara helped us make our first little
snowmen, and Joseph showed us how it’s done on the sled. Eventually, Christopher ventured out to
check out the lit tree in the snowy yard, while digging with his shovel. And Katharine ventured out on the sled
with Mommy, saying “again, again”! After lunch and nap, we had wonderful fun playing with
our new toys and trying out our new art smocks and paints.
We returned to Virginia in between snowfalls and found that
there was no real snow left anywhere at home. But we enjoyed several days off at home together, getting
caught up with things and each other!
And we got to see the train display at the National Botanic Gardens in
DC, and had great fun eating dinner out on New Year’s Eve as a family, seeing all
the festive excitement, eating our very own bowls of ice cream, and seeing the
ice skaters and the pretty tree!
What wonderful memories we’ll have from our third Christmas,
our first real snow, and our trip to visit families in Ohio this year!
And goodness, we’re growing! As we look back on the year, we have grown so much. We’re 31
and 25 pounds, and we’re great climbers and runners. We love to roll and throw balls, make towers with duplo
blocks, walk in Mommy and Daddy’s shoes, and figure out how things work. Christopher
can even jump, and do some steps without holding on (although Mommy would
prefer that he did). And Katharine
is very adept with fine motor, loving to draw, make crafts, get shoes, jackets,
and other clothes on and off, and playing with stickers. We love to laugh and be silly, and are
developing a great sense of independence and creativity. We have long ago lost
count of the number of words we know and the number of words we can put
together in a sentence. We’re
starting to surprise Mommy and Daddy more and more with the things we say and
do, and are thinking about. We are
getting really good with saying “please” and “thank you”, and even
occasionally, “no thank you” and “you’re welcome”. And we LOVE to give kisses and hugs, and say I love you!
We can’t wait to see what 2013 will bring! Until then, we hope you enjoy our
photos and videos from this month.
Wishing all a New Year filled with Blessing!
Love,
Christopher and Katharine
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