Sarah is super into rhyming right now and loves to sing the "Name Game" song (Sarah Sarah bo-bera, banana-fana-fo fera...) and says stuff like, "I want to be in your arms your arms your barms."

Posted by Becky at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a couple of quick Sarah & Anna-isms:

Every night when Craig comes home from work, the girls run to him and yell, "SURPRISE!!!"

One of the "games" the girls like to play is to run up and down the hall of the apartment and yell, " Fire! Fire! My toes are starting to burn!"

Posted by Becky at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I took the girls into town today to buy some new indoor shoes for school tomorrow and (obviously wishing she were wearing her new shoes and not her old ones) in the car on the way home this is the conversation I had with Sarah.

Sarah said, "I've got two problems....."
Becky: "Oh, really? What are they?"
Sarah, pointing to her feet, "It's these shoes!" (her old ones)

How did she get so hilarious is what I want to know!

Posted by Becky at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I keep forgetting that we left the hospital so early and that we normally wouldn't have even been home by now! Here are some things we've heard around the house since we brought Henry home yesterday:

Anna talking to Grandma: "His skin is so soft! Your skin is really hard... like wood."

Sarah: "I don't like Henry's crying voice."

Anna: "He is the cutest baby!"

Sarah: "I love you Henry."

Posted by Becky at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sarah can count to ten and then starts to make stuff up after that. She'll say eleven, twelve, fifteen, seventeen, nine, etc. Today on the way up the stairs she started saying, "five-teen" which makes sense. Today while playing with blocks that have pictures of things on the sides she was counting, "ten, eleven, thirteen, ice-cream-cone-teen." Obviously she saw a picture of an ice cream cone but I thought it was pretty hilarious!

Posted by Becky at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sarah mis-heard me when I said we were going to King Soopers (the grocery store here) and thinks that the store is called Pig Slippers or Pink Slippers.

Posted by Becky at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anna has been calling herself "Star" for several months now. The other day she elaborated that she is Star Adele Rose. Where did the "Rose" come from? She married Sarah. I guess Sarah is now Sparkle Elinor Rose. I have no idea why my children have a different last name than me or who allowed them to marry each other but it's just the way it is, I guess.

Posted by Becky at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sarah will only refer to her socks as "stockings."

Posted by Becky at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already but Sarah is picking up on some Korean-English. Koreans will often add an "-ee" to the end of words. "Orange-ee," "beach-ee," "finish-ee," etc. I don't know why this is, but suddenly Sarah has started to say "hug-ee" instead of "hug" when she wants me to pick her up and hold her. I'm trying to correct her but her extreme desire to do the forbidden makes her want to do it more. I will have to stop correcting her!

Posted by Becky at 8:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whenever Sarah thinks something is funny she says "tickles." It's super cute and I'm having a hard time convincing her that the word she's looking for is "funny."

Posted by Becky at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sarah is talking up a storm. I've stopped keeping track of her new words because she repeats everything now. Today I asked her, "how did you get so smart?" and she replied, "daddy." (Thanks a lot, Sarah! My time with you each day apparently counts for nothing!)

Posted by Becky at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Anna went to Kristen's this afternoon so I had written out a few things I wanted to get done while she was out (and Sarah napped). When she saw my list she wanted to have her own which then turned into a recipe. Here is Anna's recipe for "Cad-the Cad-the"

Ingredients:
salt
flour
pepper
a little bit of baking powder

Directions:
Clean up
Sit down
Take a little nap

Posted by Becky at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anna says: "Don't I look fantastical?" when she tries on certain combinations of dress-up clothes. I'm sure she got this word from me but it's funny to hear her say it anyway. Craig says she is just a "little Becky" with most of the things she comes up with to say.

Sarah is adding new words like crazy! She is also a chronic liar. Ask her just about anything and she'll say, "no." With a little smile that says to me she knows she's not telling the truth! Occasionally (maybe when she is particularly passionate about something), she'll say, "yeah" with an even bigger smile.

Sarah's new spoken words: yum-yum, book, wrapper, eye, duck, apple

Sarah's new animal noises: bear, elephant, pig, and mouse

Posted by Becky at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sarah had fun picking fallen leaves on our way back to the car after dropping Anna at school in the morning.

When one girl is in the car the other inevitably ends up in the swim ring.

Anna has been singing along to the songs we listen to for our afternoon dance parties and really getting into dancing along, too. She has been singing "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder, "Burning Love" by Elvis, and the Strawberry Shortcake theme song on her "radio" in the car outside. She totally cannot interpret the lyrics to these songs though and insists that Stevie Wonder is singing: "a beras-do-persition... nothing on your way" (instead of "very superstitious.. writing on the wall"). She also really likes "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers and "Don't Bring Me Down" by Electric Light Orchestra. Another favorite is "San Francisco Bay Blues" by Eric Clapton because it has a kazoo in it. A favorite to dance to is "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees (she also is singing along on this one). I'm glad I decided to make a random sampling of music CD for the car because it has really broadened our musical horizons!

Posted by Becky at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The girls had fun at Tumbland again today. Today was an art day and we painted with bubbles. The real reason I'm posting is to record what Anna said after her first day at Tumbland when Craig asked her why she had a bunch of stickers on her shirt, hands, and face (the teachers had put them there). Her response was, "so I can enjoy them later at home!" The way she said it was hysterical and sounded like a commercial (which she is not exposed to at all).

Anna really seems to like her (Korean) teachers at Tumbland and when I asked her who is her favorite teacher at Playschool she said "Stephanie" (who is Korean as was "Minnie" at school).

Posted by Becky at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I told Anna all of the buttons on my jeans mean that it was a "button-fly," she decided "button-bee" was a better name.

Posted by Becky at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Anna has a nail that tears and needs to be trimmed she says she has a "sharp."

I was telling Anna that I needed to work on Sarah's baby album and she thought I said something about a "baby elbow" and got kind of upset when I corrected her until I showed her her own album that I had done for her. She kept thinking that the pictures were of Sarah in Anna's album but after a couple of looks through the book finally "got" that they were pictures of "Baby Anna."

Posted by Becky at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The girls had a ton of fun with the bus tent and tunnel. I am not sure how many times Sarah went through this tunnel but it was a lot! She would get the end, look over her shoulder, see the tunnel and feel compelled to do it all again. Anna had a ton of fun doing the "Sister Train" (her words, not mine) and following Sarah through the tunnel and cheering her on.

Posted by Becky at 9:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday Anna wanted to close the velcro on her hat but didn't know the word for this action so she said she wanted to "gump" the ties. Today she wanted to take off the dishtowel she claimed was a bib (Craig tied it around her neck for her) and said she wanted to "boing" it off. I guess when you don't know what the word is, fake it and maybe no one will notice?

Posted by Becky at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anna is running around saying "Ack!" a lot these days. I think she got it from the book A Day at the Airport by Richard Scarry but "ack" can be a noun or a verb and is just said for the sake of saying (or shouting) something as far as I can tell.

Posted by Becky at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sarah got her first taste of sweet potato last night and we couldn't tell whether she loved it or hated it; she was definitely sending mixed signals. Anna asked to have some "smashed potatoes," too. Tonight though Sarah loved the sweet potatoes. Her other favorite so far is pumpkin mixed with oatmeal (served warm, she was opening her mouth like a baby bird for that combo).

Posted by Becky at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anna set up her cookies as "piano buttons" so we could re-enact the videos I made of her and Grandma playing the piano at grandma's this summer.

Posted by Becky at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We loaded up my parents' Tahoe today and drove up to Craig's parents' house for the next two weeks. We literally had no room to spare in the Tahoe, it was quite obscene. The kids did well on the drive (about an hour and forty-five minutes) but I think Anna was a bit sad that we aren't going back to Grandma & Grandpa's and Jake & Sam's houses.

Anna is doing much better up here than she did at Corrine's. She went on a walk with Nana, Papa, Craig, and Riggs the Dog this afternoon and had a good time and she calls the outside here "the forest," which is accurate. Sarah sounds like she is congested, however; I hope it doesn't develop into anything.

Posted by Becky at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anna calls my parents yard "the woods" which I find intriguing since we had so many more trees at our old house in Texas. It's little things like watching her run around their yard that makes me realize how depressing it might have been to spend the rest of the summer in Doha not getting outside at all.

Posted by Becky at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anna calls the air conditioners in our house in Doha, "Snorts" (like the "snort" in Are You My Mother).

She has also taken to calling everyone "somebody-Mouse." Mommy-mouse, Anna-mouse, Daddy-mouse, Sarah-mouse, Grandma-mouse, and "the-other-mouse" (my dad).

Posted by Becky at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anna & I were eating grapes for a snack while I made dinner tonight and I found a couple of bruised ones and put them on a paper towel and told Anna to put any grapes that looked squished or bad on the paper towel and we'd throw them out instead of eating them. She put a couple there and then looked at one and decided to eat it and said it wasn't a "bad" grape, it was a "happy" grape.

Posted by Becky at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you ask Anna what she dreamed about last night she will either say "six sleepy sheep" or "a yellow whale in a purple sky." The six sleepy sheep are from Sandra Boynton's Snoozers and if you ask what they were doing in her dream, Anna will say that they were reading. The yellow whale is from a little book about some sea-friends (one being a yellow whale) but I have no idea where the purple sky came from. Maybe the nighttime sky at the Villagio (a mall here)?

Posted by Becky at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anna latched onto Baby Einstein's version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake today but, in spite of my corrections, half the time she asks to hear Swan Snowflake.

Posted by Becky at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anna is reading from Mickey Mouse Heads for the Sky and the last line is "I'm going to take flying lessons." Grandpa will have to take Anna out to the airport while we're in Colorado this summer to check out the planes again.

The other thing Anna has been saying lately is when she or someone sneezes she'll either say the conventional, "bless you" or she'll say (as my dad says when he sneezes), "Mercy!"

She has added "mercy" to her regular sayings and now after a good drink of orange juice she'll say, "mercy! That's refreshing!"

Posted by Becky at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This one makes me sad. Every day I ask Anna if she wants barrettes or pigtails and she always chooses pigtails (but if her hair is exceptionally nice in the back sometimes I don't ask and just put barrettes in because I like that look better!). The past few days when I've been putting pigtails in her hair she says, "Keep your head still so I can pull your hair" and I always correct her and say, "no, I don't want to pull your hair! When you move your head I will probably pull your hair, if you keep your head still, I won't." No amount of correcting is getting the correct phrase out of her mouth though. She keeps picking pigtails in spite of the (hopefully minimal) hair-pulling involved.

Posted by Becky at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anna thinks we are saying "Meows" when we're talking about how many Qatari "Riyals" something costs.

Posted by Becky at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you ask Anna where she's going the most common responses are:

"Sant Citgo" (San Francisco). (She likes to watch a video we made of her walking in San Francisco.)

or
"Landmark Mall" (to ride the carousel)

Posted by Becky at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm adding a new category here: "isms." I want to remember all of the funny little things Anna says (and that Baby Girl will say, too!).

"Tore it into bite-size pieces!" (a tissue, mail, anything when made into smaller pieces)

"Cold frozen strawberries." (an ingredient in smoothies)

Posted by Becky at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)