Thrilled.

Today I stared at both of my kids in wonder at how cute they are.  They are really just remarkably cute.  Evangeline is still standing firm in her opposition to walking.  She is very capable.  She has even taken 5 steps in a row.  One would think such an accomplishment would be a good motivator, but when we try to make her stand up to walk she lifts her feet parallel with the floor in protest.  She is just holding onto baby life as long as she can I guess.  It sure seems walking would be preferred considering how much time we have been spending outside, but that's just me and the laundry machine talking.  Apparently, that is not enough.

I guess she is too busy talking and practicing fine motor skills to be bothered by something as gross (motor) as walking.  The last time I listed out her vocabulary it totaled 25 words.  That seems to be quite a bit for 13 months, at least to me.  This week alone she has learned to say "no" "more" "bye bye" "night night" and "puppy."  It is quite possible she has learned to say more than that, but it's hard to remember all of them.  She enjoys studying how things work and then trying to replicate.  She enjoys coloring with pens and even holds the pen in her hand as an adult would.  It is fascinating to me to see how good she is at these things.  I think Josiah just started doing that last year.

Speaking of Josiah...The other day we were in our office and Josiah pointed to a record on the wall and asked, "Is that a picture of Daddy when he was younger?"  The record was Michael Jackson's Thriller.  I hope this makes you laugh out loud.  If not, perhaps you need a refresher of what Josiah perceives Jonathan may have looked like when he was younger:

Such a strikingly close resemblance, I can tell why he would be so confused.

Yesterday we had a minor emergency.  Josiah was riding his bike around the kitchen (yes, we do that).  Somehow his foot slipped between the pedal and the frame of the bike, and all of a sudden we couldn't figure out how to get it out.  At first Jonathan and I were giggling about the predicament.  It wasn't very funny after quite a bit of WD-40, unsuccessful freedom, and a screaming, panicked child.  It definitely wasn't funny when we realized we were probably going to have to cut him out.  We began cutting the pedal and Josiah declared in the midst of his screaming, "No, stop! Take me back inside...I'll stay in the bike forever!"  We decided to make one more valiant effort with a generous distribution of WD-40.  Somehow that we can't fully recount, we were able to wiggle his foot out without breaking anything, including the skin.  I didn't think he would ride his bike again any time soon, but today he chose to ride to the park and back twice.

It is such a privilege to look into these two bright-eyed faces every day.  New pictures coming soon!