We have had a round of grandparents coming to visit lately.  Grandma Donna came up and gave Joshua a plastic necklace that he likes to wear.  Grandma Arlene brought a dress that she wore as a baby to take a picture of Lydia in it.  This weekend, Grandpa Charlie and Leesa came to visit for lunch.

Joshua has been talking more and more.  The other night in a tired stupor he wished a good bye to everything he saw.  "Good bye door.  Good bye wall.  Good bye bed.  Good bye stairs.  Good bye sink.  Good bye light.  Good bye couch.  Good bye cats."  Time for him to go to sleep!

Here is a recent video of them together:

Her stats:

On a side note, Joshua has been singing by himself lately.  He'll sing 'Deep and Wide', 'My bonny...' and last night he sang what he calls the B-I-B-L-E song.  

It should go like this:

        the B-I-B-L-E, yes that's the book for me, I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.

What he sings:

Funny kids.

However, we've been having a good time outside of the illness.  Joshua has begun building with Legos which he concentrates on very intently.  He says I build 'towers' and he puts each color together into a solid rectangle.  He's also been sledding a couple times this month.  We go to the hill at Leonard and Lafeyette which is a very large, rolling hill with a fence by the road.  We started at the bottom (small) hill and I was bored with that.  So, we went half way up the big hill and Joshua said, "That is fun" when we got to the bottom.  We've been back and have since ridden the whole way down like a big boy.  At one point I showed him that we could see the hospital from the hill.  When we got to the bottom, he stood up and walked away.  I asked him to follow me up the hill but he kept walking away.  I asked if he wanted to sit in the sled to go back up.  No again.  I asked where he was going and he said, "Going to mommy's work."

Lydia has been growing.  It seems like she is 4 feet long now.  She is making some gurgling sounds and squealing frequently.  When Debi or I come home and greet her she smiles and almost wiggles out of your arms in excitement.  We're sleeping fairly regularly now with minor interruptions happening a few times a week.  She's also been bouncing pretty good in the jumperoo.

More new photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kb8uwa

We left Grandma Arlene's house and went to Greencrest Manor (B&B) in Battle Creek for Grandma Donna's 60th birthday party.  Joshua again said, "nice," in reference to the library.  The place was decorated beyond its usual for Christmas time.  We began setting up snacks, beverages and a camera to capture the 'surprise'.  Joshua was following his cousin Rosie around most of the evening.  He was on his best behavior not touching the Christmas tree.  We had a teaching moment before anyone else arrived so I could talk to him about the fires in the fireplaces.  He did a good job with that.  Lydia spent some time with Grandma Arlene while we were both occupied with friends that we haven't seen in years.  It was wonderful to greet people at a mansion and introduce them to my young family.  The party went well and we were all very tired when we left.  The kids did a good job sleeping on the way home and sleeping in (until almost 9am today!)

On Saturday Joshua got up first and Lydia was still asleep.  The boys got to have a little time together so we spent it preparing pancakes and sausage.  Just as I was about to pour the pancakes in the pan, Lydia woke up.  We ended up eating together; the three of us.  Joshua was testing the limits of Daddy's control most of the day seeing what he could get away with.  Lydia took a 2.5 hour nap in the morning and another good one in the afternoon which I am told is uncommon.

Sunday we all got up together (earlier that I had planned) and Josh and I had breakfast after Lydia.  We had a couple leftover pancakes, sausage and eggs.  Joshua did a good job and cleaned his plate.  Then, we all got ready and went to church.  We got to church with everyone clean, dressed and put together: on time!  It was tough getting everyone there but worse coming home.  Lydia had a tough time taking a bottle at church so she wasn't terribly chipper to get in her seat.  I had the diaper bag, the carseat (with Lydia) and held Joshua's hand when his Sunday school teacher handed me some of his 'artwork'.  It was an 11x17" piece of paper with a hand print of shaving cream on it.  "Careful, It's still wet."  Thank you.  I needed one more thing.

We had a good weekend.  I actually got most of my list accomplished and had an opportunity to stop and relax a bit.

Since we've gotten over that, Joshua got conjunctivitis and it presented itself while he was at the sitter's house.  (Of course) it spread to his other eye within a day and ended up needing eye drops.  Josh did a great job taking his medicine laying on Debi's lap at first but later taking them sitting in his seat and looking up for the drops.  Lydia ended up looking like she had a touch of the same condition but never picked up the prescription since she got over it within a couple days.

As Joshua was dealing with the eye drops, he was at the sitter when I picked him up with a cough.  The sitter said he had been coughing for about an hour and couldn't tell why.  We came home and Joshua was out of sorts.  We had a little dinner while watching a video but he wasn't eating.  When Debi got home she recognized his condition as an allergic reaction.  After looking him over while putting his pajamas on she took him to the emergency room.  He was fidgety due to his itchiness but greeted everyone he encountered.  He got a steroid to reduce his swelling and some benadryl to cool the itch.  When he got home he was very tired.

Everyone's healthy now and things are back to normal.

Last night, after his bath, Joshua had an accident and urinated on the floor in his room.  I exclaimed "No, Joshua!"  To which he replied, "No water on floor."  Then he said the punchline of the evening, "Keep in penis."