Wayback Video!

I found an old video and wanted to share - this was from my cousin Darri's wedding 2.5 years ago. 

Amelie the flower girl is twirling - she would have been six years old. She was very impressed with her dress! Plus a bonus James in the corner (he'd have been four years old).

Here's the link to the post about the wedding. 

James Says / Amelie Says / Leah Says

While we were remodeling the kitchen we had the microwave stored in the playroom. James asked, "Can we keep it?"

This fascination had some unexpected consequences, though, when James thought I was too slow with his after school snack and decided to take matters into his own hands by warming up Spaghettio's in the microwave - by putting the entire can in the microwave! There were sparks (possibly flames) and I thought the whole thing was ruined (but at least the house didn't burn down - and it turns out the microwave is fine, too). After things had calmed down, James asked Sam, "How do you make Spaghettio's?"

One day James very seriously asked me, “Did you know emojis weren’t always a thing?”

James got into trouble at school the other day and I guess is still feeling salty about it. This morning, he said, "I wish school wasn't a thing." And then a pause, "And work wasn't a thing." And then an even briefer pause, "And money wasn't a thing." 

——
We made Sam cupcakes for his birthday and the first batch turned out crumbly, so the kids and I turned them into cake balls (which I had never had before). Anyway, we needed chocolate chips to coat the cake balls, and I said I’d pick them up on my way home from work. I guess Amelie missed that I would be at work because after supper she exclaimed to Sam that “Mama went out for chocolate chips hours ago!”

—
Leah is saying all kinds of things! She's not terribly clear & they're mostly just one and two-word utterances. She's been saying "Mama, um on! Um on, Mama!" and motioning with her hand for me (or James or whoever she's talking to) to come on!

The one 3-word construction I can think of is, "I need Elmo." (Or whatever else it is that she needs.)

Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot, “Mama, up me!” Meaning, ‘Mama, pick me up!” And then she said what might have been her first 4-word sentence today, “I need a diaper!”

She seems very concerned with who things belong to, and will say "Mama's phone," or joke and say, "It mine."

When we were cooped up in the playroom while the workers were here, I let her watch 'Baby Shark' on my phone. She started asking for "Baby doo doo," but now she'll say "Baby Shark!" She also really likes the song "Are you sleeping?" and will intone "Are you sleeping" over and over. She does this with "Row, row, row your boat" as well - where she'll just repeat "Row row" over and over.

Here's a list (as far as I know - I'm sure I'm leaving some off) of all of her words:
Hi
Bye Bye
Please ('please' and 'more' are the only signs that she still does - and 'more' is fairly infrequent)
No
Yeah
More
Uh-oh
Yuck
Hot

Leah
Mama
Dada
James (Ames!)
Amelie (More like 'Ah-me' than when James would just call her 'Ahm')
Nana
Papaw
(Grandma) Mary
Holly
Elmo

Cat / meow
Puppy dog
Duck / quack
Bird / tweet
Shark
Cow / moo
Horse / neigh
Pig / oink
Monkey / ki ki
Dragon / roar!
Bug

Milk
Water
Snack
Breakfast
Cheese
Berries
Spoon (poon!)
Chicken
Banana (nana!)
Grape
Apple
Cracker
Chips
Juice
Bite
Cookie
Ice Cream (I keem!)
Sauce (apple sauce)
Yogurt
Egg
Pepper (as in a green pepper)
Popcorn

Bath
Go
Walk
Work
Stuck
Kiss
Up
Draw
Come on!
Google! (Aunt Holly gave us a Google Mini and Leah mimics the rest of us shouting "Hey Google!" at it.)
Wash
Zip
Want (not terribly clear pronunciation, but the intent gets across)
Need
The end!

A
Mine
My
I
Me
It
This
All done
All gone

Jammies
Shoes
Boot
Jacket
Pocket
Ring
Backpack
Pants

Baby (this is both an adjective and a noun)
Ball
Phone
Soap
Book
Bed
Pillow
Blanket
Schnucks (Nooks!)
Outside
Nap (frequently 'No nap!' even though she goes down easily)

Diaper
Pee
Poop
Wipe
Potty (can you tell we are potty training?)

Eye
Nose
Mouth
Cheek
Chin
Neck
Thumb
Butt
Button (belly button)

That's over 100 words!

Buffaloe Xmas

We celebrated Christmas with Sam's folks on Saturday.

Leah brought this package to me and signed "more" - I'm pretty sure she thinks that means "give me what I want." (Maybe slightly more polite than that.) 

This giraffe might have been her favorite present - thank you, Uncle Joe & Jen!

James was initially consternated about the jump rope (because he's "not any good at it.") but he's been playing with it a ton at the house (and even some as it's intended.) 

Here's James delivering the Christmas beer to his Papaw. 

I realized putting this together that we didn’t get a cousin photo this year!

Professional Photos

Rhiannon at Lollipop Photography has been taking our professional photos since forever.

We got some made in November to send out with Christmas cards.

I love the pictures of all 3 kids together the best.

Leah looks grumpy (or maybe suspicious) in all of the group pictures!

I feel like Grandpa Bob would approve of the classic car shots.

Amelie kept posing:

Amelie is 8 and a half years old in this picture

Amelie wore this sweater last year.

James is 6 years and 2 months old in this picture:

And Leah is 20 months old:

This was the one we picked for cards:

James happened upon this sled (prop?) all  by himself after the shoot and insisted on an extra picture. He's so photogenic.

Here's a link to the photos we sent out last year, which were from Leah's 6 month pictures: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2018/05/professional-photos.html

Finished Deck

Sam recently went on a spate of home-improvement projects (like building the playhouse).

Here's Leah on our deck. This is halfway through the backyard projects - I can see that they playhouse is finished in the background and it looks like the green table in in the yard - it must have been when we were painting it. 

Anyway, we decided it was high time to power wash the deck and paint it. Aunt Holly loaned us her power washer and general homeowner's expertise. This is the deck before

Notice Amelie helping:

And here's the deck after it was washed and painted (and a bunch more leaves fell).

Thanksgiving

I found these pictures from Thanksgiving on Sam's phone! I was looking for pictures from Christmas and saw these from Thanksgiving instead.

Here's Grandma Doris reading to Leah.

This is the "before" picture.

Don't these two look excited?

Yum!

James did go to the bootheel with us, despite a lack of photographs taken! And we visited with Uncle Jeff, too, and Patti made an impressive spread for Thanksgiving with several pies. I guess this is the only picture from their house:

Magic Tree

We went to see the Magic Tree out at Cherry Hill.

Sam took a picture of me and the girls.

And then James came back and another person said they'd take a photo of all 5 of us (then Sam returned the favor for their family).

Leah liked the lights.

She enjoyed them a lot last year, too.

James (and Amelie) wanted to spend the whole time playing over by the fountain, and then when we left he said, "But I didn't get to see the magic tree!"

 

Our selfies tend to look a little "deer in the headlights."

Warm Springs Ranch

We went out to see the Busch Clydesdales near Boonville and the lights/decorations.

Here's Leah - I think she may be tasting her coat.

The kids liked seeing the horses, though we didn't wait in line for the picture with one. Leah and Amelie petted a nose.

James was somewhat underwhelmed by the experience 

We had our free beers and the kids had hot chocolate and other treats.

Christmas Overload

I tried to whittle it down some, but not too hard. I went a little overboard with Christmas, both in terms of photos and in terms of presents.

Since they were up late for Christmas Eve, the kids all slept in for Christmas morning - they were up around 7:30 (their bus usually comes at 7:05). Here they are right before we let them have at it.

Reading the instructions. 

Amelie asked for a nesting doll after someone from Russia came to her school to talk about Russian culture. 

Cutting open an LOL pet ball. This seems slightly dangerous.

Leah got an Elmo, which was actually a toy that we already had that I just wrapped up for her since I don't think she knew about it. "Elmo" is one of the (many!) words she knows - from a Sesame Street book that we have. 

She also kept redistributing the gifts - deciding at random that "This Leah's" or "This Dada's" and passing presents and packages out again. 

Look at James's face when he opened the boomerang he asked for. 

Mayhem!

 

 

Sam made Leah a collage of family photos. She enjoys it a great deal - she kept going back to look at it all day long. She'd point to each person and name them.

Then we lost them to electronics the rest of the day (almost). James went out to play with his boomerang a few times and then Sam took the big kids to the park twice to hunt for Pokemon. 

Video footage:

Here's the link to last year for comparison.