hunter?

Last week I was at a work conference and this past weekend I went out deer hunting, so in the past two weeks Jana has been a trooper taking care of Drew and Kate on her own a lot. It's a lot of work to take care of the kids on your own! It's good to be home again with my family and to be parenting with Jana.

Both Drew and Kate have been battling colds for the past week, so they've been a little slower and more cuddly than usual. We don't like that they're sick, but we love the cuddling! Kate has been eating away, despite her cold, and she is getting big! All of the sudden she's going through clothes as she outgrows all her outfits. It's fun to watch her progress so rapidly. Kate has officially gotten a second tooth in and now she's got two teeth! I'll see if I can get a picture of her teeth, but it's not easy to get her to show off her mouth.

Kate is on the move! She's pulling herself all over the place and getting very close to official crawling. Drew is very good about not touching things he's not supposed to touch, so we've been looking over the house again with an eye toward toddler safety.

Kate graduated this week to the big bathtub. Jana captured this picture of Kate in the baby tub for the last time. It's a big help for us that now Kate and Drew take their bath at the same time. I'll have to get a picture of the two of them in the tub because it's very cute!

After their bath, Kate and Drew like to sit and relax on the couch before bed. It's fun for us to see them begin to interact more. Drew continues to be a great big brother and bring her toys and coax smiles from her.

Some of you read earlier that I went hunting and thought, "What? Mark is a hunter?" Well, you are correct to question it because it was a totally new experience for me. I'd never been out hunting before this weekend, but I had a great time at deer camp with my brother, my dad, and a family friend, Jim. I didn't see any bucks and didn't fire a shot, but I was armed and ready to take one down! Both mornings when we started out the temperature was in the single digits. Brrrrrrrr!

Kate continues to love standing up and she also likes moving her feet. Rather than standing in one place, she enjoys being "walked" around. Jana holds onto her hands and Kate moves her feet to walk around the living room.

Today Drew and Kate were interacting after lunch and I shot some video of them. It is such a joy to watch the two of them together! At the end of the video Drew starts going in to LICK Kate's head. I'm not sure where he got that idea. While it made Kate giggle like crazy, we felt the need to remind him that it's generally not a good idea to lick people.

noise

Today was a fairly typical afternoon at the Aupperlee house. Kate has been moving all over the place (starting to crawl a little), having a second tooth come in, and making lots of new noises. This video below was an initial attempt at capturing Kate's "growl," a noise that endlessly amusing us. Drew was running around with his police car making noises, and he ended up being the star of this video. His volume has suddenly increased and he can make quite the noises. You will also notice Kate in the background standing away. She can stand for quite a while and has started to make efforts to pull herself up on things. Kate's mobility is rapidly increasing!

In this video I was more successful at capturing the growls that Kate makes. It's such a weird noise coming from a little girl!!

tights

Those of you who know Jana well know that she is a big fan of wearing outfits that are black or charcoal gray. You're much more likely to see Jana in those colors than in anything pink or brightly colored. Therefore, Jana has been on a quest (for her own amusement) to find a couple outfits for Kate that are black or charcoal gray, yet still feminine. Below is one such find. I believe a friend, who Jana enlisted in the cause, helped to locate and purchase this outfit. Kate wears the dark colors well, doesn't she? Underneath this outfit are Kate's first pair of tights! Kate wore this outfit to church last Sunday and Jana handed me the tights to put on as part of getting Kate dressed. I've never put tights on a little girl, so it was amusing for Kate and Jana to watch me struggle to get them onto those chunky little legs. Kate was very tolerant and we eventually got them on successfully!

similarities

Jana and I have lately been noticing the differences between Kate and Drew. For example, their temperaments are different, the places they put on weight are different, and their hair color and eye color is different. Then Jana held up these two pictures side-by-side and we quickly realized that despite their differences, Drew and Kate are clearly siblings! The picture on the left was taken when Drew was about 8 months old and the one on the right is when Kate was about 7 months old.

In my last post I mentioned that Kate is sitting up and rolling all over the place, but I forgot to mention that she also has a tooth! It's a sharp little tooth, as Jana has found out (ouch!), but Kate has done very well with the teething. We wondered why she seemed a little more fussy than normal and when we felt in her mouth, we realized it was because she was getting a tooth!

new foods

What has Kate been eating lately? Well, we're in the process of getting her on a big girl eating schedule with three solid meals a day in addition to her breast milk, so Jana has been working hard at expanding Kate's range of meals. Pictured below are Jana's efforts to get Kate started on yogurt. As you can tell, it's not a huge hit yet. Kate likes it all right only if it's mixed in with other food. Last week was Halloween, and both Drew and Kate got dressed up for daycare. It was so much fun to see all the kids in their Halloween costumes at daycare (especially because the oldest kids are 3 years old). In the evening, we went to Jeremy and Kristin's house for trick or treating. Kate was pretty excited about her hand-me-down frog suit that Drew wore two years ago. She made for a pretty cute little frog!

Kate has been wearing a suit like this a lot when we're outside, so she was quite comfortable in it. We got a kick out of what she was wearing underneath her suit . . . just a diaper!

Kristin dressed up as a pirate and she grabbed Drew and Kate for a picture. It is not an easy thing to get both kids looking in the general direction of the camera!

In this picture, we got three of us looking at the camera and that includes BOTH kids! Unfortunately, Jana decided to look at the other camera being used for pictures. Doh!

Here is Drew in action. He did a great job going from house to house and getting his candy. He was a little shy at first about saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you," but as the night went on he did better. After hitting several houses (and getting handfuls of candy from each person) he asked Jana to carry his pumpkin for him because "it is getting very heavy, Mama."

Drew stood out very nicely with the reflective patches on his fireman outfit. We had a hard time finding a costume that he liked, but when we saw the fireman costume, we knew we had a winner. Drew LOVES everything related to firefighting!

Also last weekend, my dad, brother, and I went to the MSU football game. Before the game, as is MSU tradition, we did a little tailgating. My mom, Jana, Drew and Kate joined us for tailgating. Kate proudly showed off who she was rooting for!

It was my mom's first tailgate, and we had a good time eating lots of food and checking out the other setups that people had for tailgating. It's quite impressive to see all the equipment everyone brings and to see all the Spartan apparel!

Todd has been quite adept at avoiding photographs lately, but we got him here when he had a turn holding Kate.

Drew was his usual active self and he ran all over the place. My mom has been knitting away and both Drew and Kate sported new Spartan green and white hats. I don't know if I've posted a picture before of Drew in his winter coat, but you can see his new coat. We think he looks much older than two years old while running around in this coat!

Drew had lots of fun over by this tree with his puppy. There was a nice field by us and Drew made great use of it for running around.

Drew found two sticks and spent quite a while banging on the tree "doing a project." He loves to help around the house and now he uses his imagination to do things like projects on his own. Lately, Drew has been setting down a blanket on the floor and inviting me to sit next to him. He then goes into pretend mode and drives us to Home Depot. We get out of the car together and walk around the living room looking at tools. We then get back in the car, drive past the fire station on the way home, and get out of the car at home. ALL of that is Drew's idea and he goes into pretty incredible detail. Obviously, Drew is paying attention to what we do with him!!

Kate has been progressing rapidly in terms of her physical movements. She can sit up now for extended periods of time without assistance, she's starting rolling to get things, and she's even made some small movement toward crawling. We're not encouraging her mobility too much because it's nice to have her in one place! She's also been standing up holding on to things for extending periods of time, although not pulling herself up yet (thank goodness).

Drew thought Kate needed some toys, so he brought over some toys for Kate to play with. Jana and I like how interactive Kate is becoming, but Drew really enjoys interacting with her. He's our go-to guy when it comes to coaxing a smile from her.

I'm not sure if this is the best picture to see it, but I realized that I haven't posted a recent picture of myself with a beard. After my latest surgery I decided to grow a beard for a while, and I've been thoroughly enjoying not shaving! As you can tell from Kate's face, she's still getting plenty to eat :) We love her cute chubbiness.