Building boom

Jonah's been experimenting with architecture lately. Pop-Pop received a door as payment for removing it, and he cut it up into these blocks as a Christmas gift for the boys, per my request. Since Jonah's life virtually centers around his train table ("Best $30 we ever spent," I thought today), his block-building activities do, too. If I had a dollar for every time that he begged me, "Mama, come look at what I'm making!", I could hire that maid I've had my eye on...



An ice cream factory. Quite a majestic building with all those columns and that height, if you ask me.













This might be "the wash-down" (that's certainly some lingo from "Thomas the Tank Engine," though I'm not entirely sure, as I don't actually watch shows with my kids). What I think is interesting is the second horizontal layer, which has to be balanced by the offset first horizontal layer. It's exciting to see Jonah's skill and reasoning develop to make an overpass like this.

The sheds for the engines, plus some sort of skyscraper. Plus, I think Manny looks really cute in this picture.

Sir Topham Hatt looks out proudly from his custom-made office building. I can tell that my kid is a city kid when his office is a skyscraper.

So proud!

Three peas

How cute IS this? "So, so cute," is the answer.
A much more typical picture: diverted attention, half a face hidden, one smile out of three, but still so full of life.





Jonah absolutely dotes on Iohan. Jonah was so young when Manny was born that Manny was more of an occasional diversion than he was an object of adoration. Lucky Iohan. Our "cute little chubby guy," as Jonah likes to call him.

Children painting, not on cookies

Gangee (i.e. Grandma Patten) managed to find an easel for the boys on the cheap for Christmas. Jonah has been a little slow to show much interest in coloring and painting over the past couple years, but has recently started to put brush to paper. Manny has been a little artist right off the bat. When my sister (Auntie Kara) came to visit a couple weeks after Iohan was born, she brought a coloring book with her for the boys. Manny selected a few colors for his pictures and went to town; some coloring pages are virtually covered with wax, without any white patches of paper showing through. Chicago winters aren't exactly my idea of a good time, but this easel is helping the time to pass a little more quickly.

They don't typically share the space, but it works (briefly, and somewhat infrequently).

Jonah is making either stegosaurus footprints or fireworks. Or, stegosaurus-footprint fireworks!

Finally, a little alone time.

Little artist

Finger-paint project. Hee, hee, my hands are dirty.

Ha ha, really dirty!

You want me to what? Look at you? Look at the camera?

No way, lady.

Snowthing

Finally my first two sons are old enough to enjoy playing in the snow after a couple years of hating that cold, icky stuff. One day after returning from the store, they wanted to stay outside and play. I momentarily got into the spirit long enough to roll a few snowballs and make them a snowman, sans accoutrements. The snowman quickly became a tall column with points on top, a snowman with kid-flair.

Pretty, pretty... what?

The day Iohan wore this outfit, our priest seemed to get a case of the giggles when he saw Iohan at the chalice. Then, Jonah said that Iohan looked like a princess. Yup, that's right, a prinCESS.


See? Atop his head sits a crown...








...and down here is a dress. (When he said that, Jonah tried to fluff the skirt out a bit.) Makes sense, right?

Apparently Iohan is not convinced either.

Rogue's gallery

Last year I picked up a $4 box of Crayola gingerbread cookie mix, frosting and edible paint. I finally used it this winter as a way to pass one of our too many cold days. They actually tasted quite good. I tried and mostly succeeded in supressing my "the cookies all have to look cute!" urge; I let the boys paint them however they wanted after I applied the frosting. Gabe's comments were that we had quite the "rogue's gallery" of cookies; and that these cookies would be quite disturbing if they weren't painted by children. Here are Jonah and Manny's creations, in all their glory. I'm learning to love preschool art. Mr Scarf 'n' Boots, no eyes. (Manny, except for the boots.)

4 Eyes. (Manny)

Mr Minimal-Paint. (Jonah)

Half-a-Smurf. (Manny)

Ugh. This cookie looks too gory for comment. At least Manny succeeded with proper eye-placement on this one. (Manny)

Rainbow Snowsuit. (Jonah)

Smile practice

Now that he's discovered smiling, Iohan is full of smiles. (These photos are from Jan 1.)

Here's a face-breaker.

The half-smile.

Mr Inquisitive.

Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Smiling and dancing apparently go together. (I think he looks like he's dancing, anyway.) Can you spot the baby-gut threatening to spill over his waistband? We love the baby gut! Interestingly, at Iohan's 4-week visit to the doctor, he was only 1 pound 4 ounces heavier than his birth weight; in contrast, both older boys had gained over three pounds by their 4 week visit! Iohan has been packing it on lately, though, so I'm curious as to what the scale will read at his 2-months appointment this coming Monday.

Why do baby-eyes take up 30% of the area of their faces?

Tannenbaum

This was our family's first year having a Christmas tree. We've always gone back to Grand Rapids for Christmas, and I haven't felt like buying a tree, hauling it into our house and dealing with maintenance and clean-up for a couple weeks, only to be gone on the day that is the reason for having a tree! Since we stayed in Chicago this year, though, a tree went up. After much searching, I even found my coveted all-blue lights at Walgreens. Of course, that wasn't before I'd decorated the tree with multi-colored strings of lights, so I was briefly faced with the dilemma: Redecorate, or no? I really wanted those blue lights, so I did.

Jonah with my old-time Sports Santa ornament. This was the first (and so far only) casuality among our ornaments. It currently lies in two pieces on the kitchen butcher block.

Manny contemplates -- what else? -- a Handy Manny ornament. This one is his favorite to point out on our tree: "Hanny Manny!"

The children's attempts to actually hang the ornaments were completely futile, but sometimes it really is the thought that counts.

Where is Thumbkin?

What's cuter than a baby in a fuzzy blue lion suit?

How 'bout a baby in a fuzzy blue lion suit who's frustrated that the little suit just won't let him suck on it, pacifier-style?

This poor child wants to suck his thumb so bad. One of these days, kid.