Sweetness and Snow

Grandma and Grandpa left today for a visit with Cousin Daniel and family. We sure enjoyed having them here! They just missed the first snow of the season by a few hours.

Matthew has been doing the sweetest things recently. The other night we were getting ready to put him to bed, and we had just gone upstairs. Matthew started to climb back down the stairs, and I told him that he could say one more night-night to Grandma (who was still downstairs), and then it was time for bed. So he went downstairs, ran over to Grandma, gave her a big hug, and then came back up the stairs. Such a good boy!

A different time Matthew, James, and I were in the nursery, and Mattie wanted to go in another room (I think to visit his vacuum cleaner). I said, "Come on, James," but James was still playing by the chair. Mattie took me by the hand and led me out into the hall, then he went back into the room, and gently put his arms around James's waist to try to get James to come with us! So adorable.

And then we have a soft photo album with a couple pictures in it that we put together to take to the hospital when James was having his surgery. One of the photos is of me and James. Mattie turns to that page, points to the picture of me and says "Mama", and then gives it a hug. :) Awww.

Of course, he was also up until the wee hours last night and threw up twice because of this cough that he has, so it's not all roses. :) Poor kiddo!

Mattie is also all ready for basic training. We have a bench downstairs ("the red thing") that we recently moved behind the loveseat. Mattie has figured out how to pull himself up on the bench, then stand up on it, pull himself up over the top of the loveseat, and flip over the top to land on the cushions. (Such a little monkey!) He did it over and over again the other night -- I think he was surprised that we didn't stop him! (Jamesie wanted to do it, too, but he's not quite tall enough to manage it yet -- so Grandma helped him.)

I am probably going to lose track of Mattie's new words pretty soon here, but some recent ones are "light", "off", "gate", "night-night" ("na na") and I suppose I should count "vacuum" even though it's not a terribly clear one, because it's very consistent ("bak"). When they were reading a book together and Mattie started to wander off, Grandma asked him if he was all done or wanted to look more, and he said, "look more," and came back and picked up the book again.

I'm pretty sure James is saying "down" (for going down the stairs), although it's a bit difficult to distinguish it from his other "da" words except for the context (pointing down the stairs). We think he also said "light" this evening when he was looking at the Christmas tree lights, and Grandma heard him say "bye bye milk" when he dropped his bottle. (I hope he repeats that one, because if so, that would be his first two-word combination!)

The boys are both happily drinking water out of their sippy cups (and in fact, they usually ask for water at dinner), but we tried again with milk in the sippies this afternoon and they acted like we were trying to poison them. I think James drank a little bit of it, but Matthew took one sip and then stood at the door (to go upstairs) crying and signing milk. (We relented, since we don't want to turn it into a battle of the wills, especially when he's a little under the weather.)