Rolling, Rolling, Rolling!

Yep, the baby's rolling! Elias has figured out how to go front to back and back to front. Actually, he knew how for a long time, he just didn't do it much. Now he's rolling to get places! I can put him down on his play mat, and if he gets bored with the toys on that, then he starts rolling off to other adventures. I've found him as much as 10 feet away from his play mat. He's gone visiting the dogs, the guinea pigs, the table, the piano, and various toys that get left out by his very helpful sister (at least helpful when it comes to being able to get into things!).

He's almost able to sit on his own. He's trying REALLY hard. In fact, if you lie him down on something he strains as hard as he can to sit up. He's almost managed a few times when he's been in a reclined position instead of a flat on the back position, but not quite. If you sit him up he'll maintain his sitting position for a few minutes though. He just ends up toppling over after that. :)

Rebecca has become quite interested in scissors, glue, and anything arts and crafty lately. She's also started trying to trace things if I make dotted lines for her (she doesn't do a very good job, but she's not even two yet, so I guess that's to be expected). She loves to use stickers, and to do "cut and paste" type activities. She likes to shred things using her scissors... everything ends up being about 1cm in size... or smaller. If we're doing cut and paste stuff, I do the cutting so there's something left to paste!

She's becoming quite vocal about what she likes and doesn't like as well. She regularly will run up and inform us things such as, "I like my shoes" or "I no like the food" or whatever... She was actually telling us in the car on Saturday afternoon that she likes her shoes, and Justin told her he was glad, but we had a budget, so she couldn't get too many of them, and she started to cry! Must have been quite distressing news to her! :)

There are a number of churches in the area that have been having fall festivals in the last few weeks, so we've been spending our weekends at various church activities having fun on bouncy castles, doing crafts, getting candies, and just plain having fun. Rebecca even rode a pony! She refused to get on by herself the first time, so Justin went with her, and then the second time she'd actually spent some time petting the pony, and she was willing to ride him on her own after that.

Anyway, I think that's about all I can think of right now!

Everything That's Happened

Well, not everything, because I don't remember everything, but I'll try to remember the highlights.

I had my biometrics appointment in August, and we were awaiting an appointment notice for the interview, and instead received a notice saying that the conditions on my permanent residence had been removed and I would be receiving my 10 year green card within the next 90 days. The card arrived a week later, so I now have my "real" green card, which is valid until September of 2020.

Rebecca is advancing a little faster than I'm ready for at the moment. She's figured out how to work scissors properly, so I need to pay attention to where those are left, in order to keep our house and possessions safe! She also learned how to do buttons this past week, which fully impressed me. :) She's becoming very helpful, and tries to do anything that I'm doing, be it sweeping, picking things up, or even changing Elias' diaper. I'm sure she'd change him for me if he wasn't already more than half her weight! Her jabber is making more and more sense, and there are a couple of new words that are making life interesting. One is "what?" in response to her name being called (and if you ask her what she's doing, she'll let out a long stream of words about whatever she's doing!) . We're working on getting her to come instead of answering with a "what". She WAS coming to her name, and then she learned that word. Such fun! The other word is.... "WHY?" So pretty much anything now, she'll ask "why" about. :)

Elias has started attempting to sit up, and does extremely well if he has the Boppy pillow around him, or is on the bed-- he can stay upright if he's leaning forward, but he tips to one side or the other quite easily still. He is also a little chatter box, and "talks" all day. He will babble at whoever, or whatever is available, and if he feels he's being ignored will actually say "hi" to get your attention, and then continue on his little conversation. He's also fascinated with anything machine-- lawn mowers, backhoes, ditch diggers, you name it. Such a boy! :)

We've had quite a few rainy days in the last few weeks, this past week being the worst. Our road flooded three times in one day! This is largely because only 1/3 of the ditches have been dug out by the city, so the culverts and ditches are mostly clogged up still, and the water isn't draining properly. We still have water standing in the ditches at our end of the street, two days later, and the ditches at the other end of the street (where our ditches are supposed to drain to) are pretty well empty!

I didn't work too hard at encouraging Elias to form an attachment to a toy, just did what I did with Rebecca-- put various toys in arms' reach in his bassinet. However, he did develop an attachment, it seems. The toy he loves is a little "lovey" blanket from my sister with a Winnie the Pooh head in the middle, and it's fuzzy on one side and silky on the other. He will actually go from crying to happy within minutes if you hand him that toy, and often he'll even go from crying to sleeping within five minutes upon being given the toy. We've decided we need a second one for down the road, just in case this one goes missing!

See? He'd been crying not even 5 minutes prior!

Beach, Mostly.

Elias has started taking an interest in books and toys recently, so there's a picture of him with a little book he was given. It has little lights that light up when you press a button, and other than that, it's just a cloth picture book of transportation methods. :)

We took Rebecca to the beach (Elias too, but he slept the whole time in the Moby Wrap). We'd been planning to do so for a few weeks, but both kids caught colds, I got an ear infection, and no one was really up to it for a couple of weeks there, so we waited until much later than we'd intended. However, Rebecca had a really great time, despite being afraid of the waves!

The ocean is like a giant puddle-- great for splashing!

Elias!

Some pictures of Elias!

He has some of the funniest expressions. He smiles a lot, but we've thus far failed to catch it on camera, so you get to see his overly serious side instead. :)

I don't feel nearly as tired as I look... really...

Elias discovered fans in the past month, and will lie there staring at them for 15 minutes or longer at times!

Finishing up August

I took these pictures all at the end of August...

Rebecca loves to hold ("hug") Elias :)

Doesn't his expression look like he's a little concerned?? :)

Yep... definitely concerned!

I thought this looked cute with them both sound asleep facing the same direction.

Apparently Uh-Oh likes to look over the fence with an unobstructed view, so he goes walking over the roof of our shed! Justin noticed him there one morning, so we took a picture.

It's been a challenge to keep things tidy, let alone clean the house, since Elias was born. Rebecca is into everything, and thinks she's "helping" even though she's often NOT helping at ALL. So, one day I pulled out a sheet of snowman stickers and a piece of paper, sat her on a chair in the living room, and cleaned the rest of the room while she sat and did her stickers... and then stuck the stickers all over herself as well. :)

Justin was amused to find that when Elias spat his pacifier out, he had turned his head in such a way that the loop on the pacifier looked like a monocle... Justin called it a pacicle instead. :)

A month without posts?!

Okay.... so I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted anything. Have no fear-- I've been taking a lot of pictures all summer, so I'm about to do an overload of picture posts. I'm working on them right now, and will put them up over the next few days!

We've been busy with a lot of different things over the last month, though most of my busyness has simply been keeping up with the toddler and baby and house... though not doing so well with the house part!