Molly walking 2

Here are Molly's crazy walking skills again. :)

Molly helps Austin workout

Molly is definitely Daddy's girl, at least lately. On Monday she was so much more content sitting in a stroller watching Austin workout than having my undivided attention inside. Austin took her interest in stride and let her help him pull the sled with weights on it.

O Christmas Tree

We made our annual pilgrimage to the best Christmas tree farm ever. The only problem with it is that it takes much too little time to pick out a tree if you're trying to make it a family outing. We tried to be REALLY picky this year, but still was out of there in 25 minutes, including loading/unloading kids and tree. The highlight this year was when the tree almost fell over on Tucker, which the video actually captured!

Tucker's Christmas Concert

Tucker's preschool had a Christmas concert on Thursday night that was highly entertaining. Tucker was in the second row behind a little girl in pink so it's hard to see him (he's wearing a green and red stiped polo shirt). I wasn't sure if he'd sing or not, and was surprised by how excited he was and how into it he was. By the end of the concert I think he was the only boy left in his class still actually singing!

He looked forward to the concert all day, and took a bath and picked out Christmas clothes all by himself with no prompting besides asking him to at the dinner table. Wow! He did have a moment of stage fright when we were walking to the concert hall (the local middle school auditorium) when Austin told him this was where the big boys went to school. It took a lot of reassurance to convince him that it was, in fact, just his preschool friends that were going to be there that night.

Besides seeing my little man sing, the other highlight was the youngest class--the two and three year-olds--that had two boys who stole the show. Someone had taught one boy how to bow low, and he spent the first half of the concert continually bowing low. Another little boy in that class had the only solo of the night when he started "This Little Light of Mine" about 10 seconds before everything else--yelling. I think throughout the concert he was as loud as almost all the other kids put together.

Molly rolling around

This video is of Molly rolling around yesterday on the couch, generally having a fabulous time.

Bible Study Concert

I find this video hilarious. Tucker had a concert last year where he was so animated he was the star of the show... no longer! The shy monster has gobbled him up and this time he stood in a corner looking at his friend. I think he mouthed the words once!

Lots of singing: processionals and light up shoes

Here are a couple recent videos of Tucker. The first is his rendition of a processional at church… he was carrying the Swiffer around the house as a cross while chanting until Austin made one of his own. The lyrics to this song he made up make sense, but sometimes he sings Jesus chants to the tune of Old Macdonald, and in fact, the other week I think the lyrics went something like “Old Macdonald tickled Jesus….”





The second video is Tucker enjoying some new light up shoes by dancing in circles to make them light up.

Vermont

A few videos from our time at my mom's house. Her connection is so much faster than ours, I need to post videos while I can!

Molly picking blueberries:


Tucker blueberry picking:


Tucker and my mom doing a dress-up parade (there have been a lot of parades this week at her house):


On an unrelated note, I was a bit surprised at lunch yesterday that our waitress didn't know that wheat was in all bread. Hmmmm.

Climbing Stairs, Throwing Food and More

A day in the life of my kiddos....

Tucker singing "Patty Cake" to Molly... though for some reason he has turned it into "Peavey Cheek" instead of Patty Cake.


Molly crawling up the stairs and feeling very pleased with herself. She's only 9 months old, I can't believe she can do this already!


Oops... did I throw that? (Molly eating.)


Tucker explaining why it's necessary for Molly to swing with Ducky. I listen to these explanations all day long (and they are usually much more elaborate!)

Look at Molly Go

I'm shocked that my three and a half month old can actually manage to move herself in this walker. She can't move herself forward yet, but she's only had one day with it so far. She is very enthusiastic about her new found powers.

Going to college

This is Tucker "going to college." Why, you may ask, is my son talking about college already?

The other day he emerged from his room wearing cool-kid jeans (a little loose and sitting a little low on his hips) and a hoodie sweatshirt. He looked so old to me all of a sudden. I told him he looked like he was about to go to college and that I wouldn't let him go, I was going to gobble him up and keep him home with mommy. He has no idea what college is, of course, but he thought it was a fantastic new game--he tells me he is going to college and I feign shock and despair and tell him he can't go and I'm going to keep him home with me.

Yesterday two of my friends from college visited. Before they came I told him about the upcoming visit, and that I knew these friends from college. He got so wide-eyed that they were from the mythical place called college and we had the following discussion:
Tucker, looking a little betrayed: Mommy, did you go to college without me?
Me: Yes, sweetie, you were very, very, very little when I went to college. You were too little to come. [Understatement of the year]
Tucker: If you ever go to college again, I will get to come, right?

Of course, my love.

Another video

This song accidentally got edited off Tucker's concert but it's a special song just for Henny.

Tucker's Concert

This is Tucker thinking about birthdays, specifically how he thinks he will have a birthday in two weeks. He knows his birthday is in September, and so there's a great stretch of dialogue that goes something like this:

[Talking about his birthday being in September]
Tucker: is there a sock in Socktember?
Us: No, there's no sock in September.
Tucker: I think there is a sock in Socktember.



I'm not sure if anyone except the grandparents will watch this whole video, but it's Tucker enthusiastically singing a lot of songs (actually, trying to sing every song he knows)... don't worry, I didn't post all of them.

A couple videos

I don't think either of these published correctly when I tried a couple weeks ago... maybe this time around they will work.

A couple videos

My mom noted the dearth of videos on here lately, so here are a couple for her.

The first video is Tucker watering some plants with the hose in a steady rain. He doesn't sense the irony of it yet.

The first one wasn't able to capture the scene as well as real life. Tucker was dropping every spice and kitchen utensil he could find down the sink of his kitchen and yelling "INTO THE BANK!!!" but of course when I turned the video on, he quieted down. It was still pretty funny.

Yes, that is Tucker using power tools

I guess more than the wheels on the bus go round and round.

Christmas

We had a fabulous Christmas in our home with all the grandparents on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, and then we continued the celebration up in Maryland with Austin's sister and her husband. Some of the highlights included a singing Christmas tree hat, a playhut shaped like a bus, and lots of great time with family and friends!

'monia

Tucker enjoyed running around last week and shouting that he had "'monia" (pneumonia). I thought his enthusiasm (and utter lack of understanding of what he was saying) was cute.

Austin on tractor video

I tried to upload this video the other day, but I hadn't exported it from the video program I use, so it was just too large to upload. Now that I've conquered this technology, uploading videos will be no match for me! Or in other words, thanks for your help, Mike. What are big brothers for?

How to Upload Videos for Dummies

I need help. I have spent all day trying to get a video to upload on this blog. The file is really big--about 40 MB (is this a normal size for a 30 second video clip?).

Is there a way to reduce the file size of videos? Is there a reason that my videos are so large?

Any other hints for uploading a video in less than four hours?

I'm sure someone out there is more technologically oriented than I am.