Climbing the slide

Elliot is a huge climber. Which is something Rachel was not. So this is whole new territory for mom and dad. And he can climb fast. The coffee table is no longer safe. So it is no suprise to us that neither is the slide. The main problem is to keep him from climbing up while Rachel is trying to slide down.
As you can also see in this picture Elliot has also taken a shine to sticks (Rachel has always loved sticks). Unlike Rachel, we really have to watch to keep him from whacking things (Rachel just loves conducting an unseen chorus). Tonight, we thought he was going to take out the tail light on a neighbour's car. All I could think of was, "great, not even two years old and already the criminal element is involved." Luckily we know the Youth Criminal Justice Act can't be applied until he is 12 years old. Hopefully no one will lose an eye in the meantime...
Success! Both feet on the slide. Now to make my way up (envision malevolent giggle here...)

On completely different note - how about that haircut?! GI Joe, look out.

The expert sales woman

Here is Rachel in the playhouse. She is trying to sell me something. This is a game we played all last summer and she has picked it up again this year. Basically any window will do to sell out of. She will come up with something to sell (last year, we bought a lot of Shreddies) and then you ask her how much it is (three or four dollars is usually the reply) and then she pretends to give you something, you pretend to take it (and usually eat it) and give her some money. The money pretends to go into her pocket, and the transaction is complete. For about 10 seconds until it is time to sell something else. During the winter, the store was closed for a while because according to Rachel, "the air conditioning was broken."
Today Rachel was selling me something fruit based. But I can't exactly remember because I was trying to keep Elliot from falling off of something at the same time. But who can resist from buying something from someone with such a winning smile?

Spring has sprung (at last!)

Well, the six feet of snow has finally melted. It took a couple of weeks, but we can finally see the ground again. Time to play in the sand box! The kids received some nice sand toys from Nana and Papa Rule and the Easter Bunny that we needed to try out.
Don't let that angelic smile fool you. Rachel thought it would be a fabulous idea to pour an entire shovelful of sand on Elliot's head. Just and experiment you see - to see what would happen. (And in case you ar tempted to try this at home, result was she was booted out of the sandbox for a couple of minutes.)
Elliot really loves to just let the sand pour out of his hands. He has also received two minutes out of the box for throwing sand (a concept he seems to have trouble understanding).
At the end of the day, mom and dad's goal is just to keep more of the sand IN the sandbox than OUT.

Farmer Elliot

This is Elliot with one of his favourite books - which is a picture book about the farm. He loves the pictures with tractors and trucks on them. He is fascinated by anything mechanical, and truck has been one of his first words (and "truck" can mean anything from an actual truck to a car, bicycle, bus etc...)

We are very lucky that both kids seem to love books - Rachel can sit by herself and look at books for quite a while. She has also started to enjoy hearing stories from longer, chapter books. Elliot has started to spend a few minutes a day on his own reading as well. And both of them love to hear stories as well (although not necessarily the same story at the same time, or at the same pace, which can be interesting...).

Princess Rachel

Here is Rachel in the new dress her great Auntie Gloria bought her for Easter. It was warm enough this past weekend that she could wear it to church. As you can see, she is also wearing a matching crown and her dancing shoes (as she calls them).
We pretty much let Rachel wear the dress and crown all day. Some days are just right for being queen of the known universe.

Painting the snow

We became a little tired of the sea of white we had been seeing in the back yard in the last couple of weeks of winter. So we thought we would hurry spring along a bit by painting the snow. We put some food colouring in water in a spray bottle and went out and sprayed the snow.

We picked green because as Rachel pointed out "it would help the grass." Mom's only caveat was that yellow food colouring was not going into the bottle. Although, as Rachel said "dogs might like that..."

Elliot speaks

Elliot has been doing some sign since he was about 13 months old. It has really helped his parents understand what he wants. A really good one to know is the sign for "all done" (pictured here) because if you don't move Elliot out of the high chair quickly enough after the all done sign is given, the next sign will be the food, plate or cup launched into the air and onto the floor.

Elliot's spoken language has really exploded into being in the last couple of weeks. He has really mastered many of the "uck" words - duck, truck, yuck (and no, not THAT one other "uck" word thankfully). Dog and up are also well used these days. He can say something that sounds vaguely like Elliot and Rachel (as well as mama and dada).

We look forward to hearing more.

Book Gnome

Our house has become infested with another new form of fairy - the book gnome. The book gnome will often ask for the same story to be read over and over...and over...again. Cinderella seems to be a favourite of girl book gnomes while books about tractors seem to be a favourite of boy book gnomes. You also have to be careful of boy book gnomes as they also tend to gnaw on books when you aren't looking (sure, they CLAIM to be taking in the information by osmosis...)

As you can see, book gnomes are also known for their highly advanced fashion sense.

Tooth brushing

This is what mornings look like in the Van Ruleduinen house. Lots of sock-putting on, tooth brushing and face washing involved. Rachel is getting to be such a big girl that she can do many of these things for herself now. It is a big help to her parents and helps us get out the door and on with our day much faster.

Tractor Driving at the Farm

Here is Elliot driving a tractor at the experimental farm. You just have to watch that you don't run over the experimental cows...