Fun in the Leaves!!

Last weekend we happened upon a bunch of trees with fall leaves! It's funny the little things in life that can bring such joy. Trees and leaves aren't the most common sight what with living in a big city. All the kids wanted to do was to make a pile of leaves and jump in it . . . so, that's what we did!

Zeke the Realist...

Zeke's our little realist...

From Tami:

Zeke was feeding his Bonko Bear. I said, “Aww, you’re a good daddy.” Zeke looked shocked and said, “I’m not a daddy. This is just a pretend bear. I’m just pretending to feed him.” I looked at Kaiyah feeding her baby. “Are you that baby’s mommy?” Kaiyah, “Uh-huh!” Zeke to Kaiyah, “That’s just a pretend baby!”

The other night we were eating dinner and Kaiyah called me Daddy. So I took it upon myself to call her Zeke and call Zeke Kaiyah. Kaiyah thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She laughed so hard she got hiccups. Zeke, in the meantime was on the other side of the table yelling, “NO! I’m Zeke, not Kaiyah!” He kept saying, “You’re just joking, aren’t you, Mommy.” I finally told him I was and he said, “Well, why did you joke like that for so long?”

From Dan:

A few weeks ago, we were on a boat and Kaiyah started to pick something up off the ground, or at least I thought she did. So, I held out my hand, and she dropped something, which appeared to be nothing, in my hand. I proceeded to pop the imaginary food in my mouth, chew it up, and swallow it. She giggled and bent down to get me something else. Shortly thereafter, she held out her hand and I did the same for her. This was the first time I had tried this game with Kaiyah, and she's the one who instigated it. I tried something similar with Zeke when he was about Kaiyah's age, and he said, "But there's nothing there." He has also always felt a need to clarify whether things are real or pretend, whereas Kaiyah, pretends that everything is real. It's really funny.

Ah, the differences in children…

Zeke's speaking Turkish!!!

Well, a little. We picked Zeke up at preschool the other day and his teacher said, quite excitedly, "Zeke said 'Hayır' today!" Then, today, when we went to get him, she said, "He's not just saying 'Hayır' anymore. Today he said 'Yapma'!" "Hayır" means "no" and "yapma" means "don't do that." Well, it's a start. (-:

All the happenings . . .

Zeke just completed his first week of preschool! Friday was a little tough, but in general he did incredible, far better then I ever expected. I'm so thankful! So far we have been very pleased with how the school manages everything. Zeke's favorite things about school thus far are getting to play computer games and getting fruit tea for breakfast!

Even with all this growing up he is still my little boy. Periodically he will come up to me and say, "Can you cuddle me mommy, since I haven't had much cuddle time today?" Such a sweetie.

I wasn't sure how Kaiyah would respond to Zeke being gone so much, but I think she is enjoying getting to rule the house a few hours every day! There is also a big park right by Zeke's school, so she has enjoyed getting to play there a few times this week.

I love listening to Kaiyah talk. It is sometimes hard to pass on the cute little things they say and do at this age. An example is this: "Kaiyah shewwee not, mommy." or "Want to play hide and seek not, want to play beach ball." When she answers a question affirmatively, she often says, "Uh huh. Oh yea!" And the other day we were playing brown bear, brown bear. At the end of the game Kaiyah told me to ask her "Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?" She responded, "I see mommy's blue eyes looking at me!" Ha.

Sierra is 3 months old today! She can roll both directions, but more typical is for her to roll from back to front and then squeal until someone flips her over. Then she promptly rolls over again, and so the cycle continues. She is still a pretty easy, laid back baby. She goes to bed between 7 and 8 at night and wakes up between 7 and 8 the next morning. We'll take that! It is fun to watch as she starts to observe her brother and sister. She'll be in on the fun before we know it!

Rolling Over Now!!!

Alright, enough of the smiles. (See the video below.) Sierra's rolling over now! She learns something new every day!

Sierra in the morning...

This is a video from the last day of vacation. There will probably be more later. Sierra likes to give her Daddy smiles in the morning...

Amazing Memory

Today I was walking down the street with Zeke when we passed a hotel. Zeke asked, "What is that?" I said, "It's a hotel." Zeke said, "We lived in a hotel once. It had fish in the bottom." How in the world did he remember that? He was 13 months old!

Later this evening we were reading out of his Berenstain Bears' science book. It has probably been at least a month since we've read it. I was flipping through to see where we had left off. Zeke said, "Can we finish that part we didn't finish last time about energy?" I looked and that was exactly where we had left off. His memory really amazes me these days.