We changed the location of our server recently. This message is really a test, but it is good to let people know that just in case there are problems accessing our blog, the problem is on our end! Everything should be running fine very soon!

I unwrapped Elisabeth’s little “newborn” doll this weekend and Benjamin just loves it. Today, he placed her up to my chest and said, “Mommy will feed her”. Then, he made her switch sides. THEN, he put her up to HIS chest. I wish my camera was handy. I’ll get him to do it again ’cause OMG, it was sooo funny! What’s so funny is that he never tried to feed her with the bottle that came with her.

I haven’t updated on Benjamin and Elisabeth for quite some time, so this will be a pish-posh blog about them both.

Elisabeth is getting so big. She loves to stand holding on to the couch or the bench in the kitchen so that she can see what everyone else is doing. She loves to crawl into Benjamin’s room to play with him. We’ve also noticed that she’s “talking” quite a bit these days. She babbles all of the time, but will also mimic us. She says, “uh oh” and “wee!”. If you say, “HI!”, she enthusiastically waves and says, “HI” right back! She has been eating some non-baby food lately, such as cut up bites of banana, squash, corn bread, stuffing, green beans, and lots more. She LOVES to feed herself and I love that I will soon be finished buying baby food! My favorite thing that she does now is play chase. We’ll tell her that we’re going to “get” her, and she starts crawling away super-fast and laughs like crazy. She loves to stand on her brother’s bed and tries crawling onto it when we’re after her too. She’ll also crawl away laughing if she has something that she’s not supposed to, like a piece of paper or a matchbox car. Just today, she made her first attempt at stairs and succeeded! She made it about half way up to the top before she pooped out and Mommy rescued her. It’s so hard to believe that she’s over 9 months old and will be walking before we know it. She’s already trying to stand up in the middle of the floor by herself. I expect that she’ll do like her grandma did and stand up and start walking one day! Elisabeth is also very bright – even if I do say-so myself! When we ask her where our nose is, she promptly tries to rip it off. Ouch! When reading books, she can point out the sun. Can you tell that we’re proud?

Benjamin is also full of surprises these days. About three weeks ago we successfully moved him into a toddler bed. He’s such a big boy and goes right to sleep. The first few mornings, we would find him playing with his new train in the living room, but after finding his door wide open one morning, we put a safety cap on his doorknob so that he can’t open it anymore. There’s no telling what he was doing in the middle of the night all by himself! He definitely loves being a big brother. He always tell me, “Mommy will go in the living room,” when Elisabeth is in his room with him. I’ll peek in on them and they’re just sitting next to each other playing away. I love it! Poor Benjamin has to have all of his non-baby-proof toys put away while she’s in there. While the age of two has come with a substantial amount of stubbornness, it has also brought about a boy with quite the personality. His new favorite thing to do it be silly. We ask, “what does the dog say?” His answer? “Oink oink oink!!!”, followed by uncontrolled giggling and laughing. His other new game is to get your (or his) nose. He “eats” it and puts it into my (or whoever’s playing) mouth. One day I pretended to spit out his nose and said “yuck, it’s grisly” so of course that’s what he does too. However, he actually picks it up when he spits it out. I told him that he forgot to once and he hurried to get it so that, “sister can’t get it”. I laughed so hard! We had an allergist appointment today and they gave us an allergy symptom diary to fill out until his next appointment. We’re hoping that he’s just getting the symptoms with colds and viruses and it’s not something more permanent.

Barring any unusual circumstances, I promise to be more diligent in the future! Thanks for checking in with us!

Sunday night, tornados ripped through The Ozarks. There were many tornado reports relayed to the National Weather Service. One came dangerously close to Marguerite’s mom & dad and grandpa & grandma’s house. The closest damage was only a few hundred yards away, at the most. This tornado was an F2 (winds 113-157 MPH). We took some pictures today that can be found In The Gallery. If you want to see the tornado tracks that day, Take a look at the Springfield National Weather Service. The tornado these pictures are from is the one in the upper left corner, going through Vernon, Cedar, and St. Clair counties. Whew!