November 30-December 7

Gretchen has a name for herself: Kiki.  We're not quite sure how she came up with that (perhaps because we call her Gretchy?), but that's her name.  Mommy, Daddy, Lolly, and Kiki.  In addition to providing a name for herself, Gretchen has picked up the words boot, other foot, bed, hungry, silly, bark, eat, up, and down.

Olivia has begun covering her hands with her mouth as she laughs at something that she thinks is particularly funny.  I'm not sure where she picked this up, but it always makes me laugh, too.  Gretchen thinks this is a great trick, so now we sit at the dining room table and try to finish meals while both of them snicker into their hands.

Gretchen is in a copycat stage.  If Olivia is doing it, it must be fabulous.  The most obvious place that this happens is the table, as Gretchen is still perfectly content to play by herself.  Anything Olivia says or does at the table, though, is fair game and is generally repeated at top volume by Gretchen.  Olivia tries to use this to her advantage by saying things like, "I think Gretchen said 'cake'" and hoping that Gretchen will pick up the refrain.

The other day, Olivia sang "Five Little Speckled Frogs" in its entirety.  She even counted down correctly.  This would not be unusual, except for one tiny detail: I've never sung that song before.  I have no idea where she heard it to begin with, let alone enough times to have it memorized.

I have stacked the perfect Candy Land deck.  Competitive until the end, it allows the younger player to get all the picture cards (in order!) with just enough colored squares in between to facilitate color and number recognition without inspiring boredom in either party.  ...Until the third or fourth time through, when the adult knows how it's all going to play out.  :)

Steph and I met at the old house on Saturday and painted, touched up, and staged everything.  I think it looks better, and Bryan and I are hopeful that the extra touch will help it sell more quickly when we do finally get around to listing it.  (Yes, you read that right... Our old house is still not listed even though we've been moved out for three months.)

The running was short-lived.  :(  When I went to run on Monday, I only made it five minutes before having severe stomach pain.  I assume it's just a ligament thing, but have put the running on hold until I can double check and get recommendations for a solution.  I have already resigned myself to the solution of "don't run until Hippo is born."

Pictures:

Gretchen plays with the foot massager at Grandma and Grandpa's:

We played Pretty Pretty Princess.  Bryan wouldn't let me take a picture of him in all his finery:

Alison provided some pictures from the Michigan visit last weekend.  I'm awarding her 10 points for promptness.  Siblings, get on the ball!*

*To be fair, Jacob took pictures of our family with his camera rather than his phone and tells me they're edited and up on his site.  I will give him 8 points, since it's not his fault I haven't retrieved them yet.  It DID take him until Saturday, which is why he got docked a little.