Our Little Helper

Annabel continues to provide us with lots of big emotions -happiness, hilarity, pride - and even frustration at times. Like any toddler, she experiences life with the utmost relish. Oh, wouldn't it be great to have that zest for life, not to mention the energy that goes with it!

Annabel loved the snow this year, and was disappointed when it melted away so quickly. (Our investment in lots of heavy clothes, boots and a snow plow pretty much doomed our chances of having a lot of snow this winter).

On the flip side, she has really enjoyed being able to spend a lot of time outdoors enjoying the mild winter weather. Annabel loves to exercise ("Look Mommy, I'm wunnin'!"),

and she still loves to play in the dirt and collect rocks. In fact, we plan to pay her money for every wheelbarrow full of rocks that she finds. Believe me, in our mountainous soil, there are more than enough to keep her busy for a long time. We had initially thought that we'd give her a penny per rock, but she's become really good and fast at rock-picking, and I'm not sure that we could afford her services for very long!

Lastly, Annabel still loves to be a little helper. She "helps" us clean, set the table, sweep and cook. She really likes to help her Daddy work on the house. As you can see from the photo below, Annabel often prefers to act as supervisor and is very good at inspecting Daddy's work. (The only thing missing is the butt crack!)

She has also taken a liking to helping with Thane. She lets me know when he's had a dirty diaper, loves to help out at bath time and even offers to feed him from time to time. Although she has the best intentions, Annabel's lack of focus on the task at hand often leaves Thane a bit messy and very hungry! As you can see, he's become a bit wary of her bottle-feeding abilities!

Gentle Giant

Thane continues to be such a wonderful little guy. We have been truly blessed to have such a mellow baby. He smiles all of the time and is very social. In fact, he is most content when he is in the same room with the rest of us. When he is around, he prefers to sit up and he often gleefully and very intently adds to the conversation. Below is a photo I took of Thane "talking" a few weeks ago. When he wants to get his point across, he'll often make this look (note the cocked eyebrow) and squeal away at the top of his lungs!


At this age, babies grow so quickly! It's hard to believe that he is over 5 months old. He has grown over 5 inches in that time, and is quickly gaining on Annabel. In the photo below (taken when Thane was 4 1/2 months old and Annabel was 26 months), you can see that he is almost halfway between Annabel's elbow and shoulder. I think that we're going to have a Paul Bunyan on our hands...

Developmentally, Thane is also growing up quickly. He rolls over from his back to front, is starting to teeth (sigh!), can sleep through the night (when he's not teething - BIG SIGH!), and is almost sitting up on his own.

Lastly, Thane seems to like the outdoors as much as Annabel did at his age. That's a good thing, too, because Jordan is already compiling a list of farm chores that Thane will be doing in the not-so-distant future. When asked about violating any child labor laws, Jordan replied that he isn't too worried about getting in trouble as no one would believe that our 5 foot tall "little" boy is only 2!!