bapa's boots!

my mom had a HUGE amount of apples she wanted to make into applesauce, and on saturday we went over to help out. kelvin and dad cut and hauled wood while the kids and i stayed in with mom and the apples.

they were oh-so-excited to see bapa walk in... can't you tell, from cole's little acrobatic move?

in normal cole-fashion, a few apples were well-washed.
last time we did this, cole spent hours (literally. HOURS.) at the sink playing in the water with a few apples and various utensils. i learned quickly to strip him down first!

being in the nude (almost), the poor little guy was forced to fend for himself when it came to clothing. for him the obvious choice was bapa's boots!

or maybe sawah's shirt? they didn't really "go", so it was one or the other.

in the end, he wound up with the same outfit he'd had on in the first place...

and then it was on to the next thing: coloring with auntie sawah!!

madi helped herself to a crayon too... of course, the first thing she had to do was taste it.

that inspired a flashback- total deja vu!

rewind to 17 months ago...

yup- i thought it looked familiar too!

looking through all those photos of cole at nine months made me laugh and cry (a little; what happened to my baby who made the funny squishy-face?!)

i couldn't help it- seeing such a tiny person in a tub made me giggle. and grab the camera.

rub-a-dub-dub, teeny person in a tub!!

we have some madi-developments! she's been saying "mama-ma-ma" in response to us saying it first, but last night, as she was crawling around just before bedtime, she made her way to where i was sitting, grabbed my pj pants and said "mama". she's also been saying "hiiiiiii" at increasingly appropriate times, like when sarah walked into the house last night. she's also started taking some steps while hanging on to my fingers. the whole standing/walking thing is slow going for her, since she doesn't have the freedom that cole did. rather, she's impeded by the constant threat of a toddler attack. eh, once she's REALLY on the move, he big brother better watch his back!

oh, and for cole? well, he's able to repeat every single letter of the alphabet. until a few days ago, i hadn't done much with him with letters, nothing that would really 'stick', so i was flabbergasted when, while singing the alphabet song to him late last week, he repeated every single letter along with me. not only that, he'll point at letters and attempt to identify it. sometimes he's right on, most times not so much.

oh, my babies are growing SO fast...