Random updates...

We are having such a great time watching Joel and Grace grow. Grace seems so big to us lately. She is constantly talking...she loves to try and feed herself (she's always snatching the spoon out of my hands)...she has this crazy army crawl that she does around the house and she's getting pretty fast...and she loves playing/annoying her big brother. The most exciting thing that has happened of late is that she now says "mama" and "dada." She loves it when her daddy gets home from work. She gives him the backwards wave and says "dada! dada!"

For the record, I AM claiming "mama" as her first word! Especially since Joel wouldn't say mom until well after he was a year old and had already mastered 10-15 more important words such as dad, ball and sock!

Here is a short video of the kids playing together in the living room today...

Curt celebrated his 30th Birthday this weekend with family and friends. I have to say that my man is even better looking at thirty than he was at twenty-nine! We had a really great time with everyone! Friday night was spent playing games with Curt's family and Saturday was a fun night out with our friends. (I think that Michigan State beating Michigan this weekend put Curt in an even better frame of mind to face the big 3-0!)
My sister Cate drove up from Chicago to hang out with Joel and Grace this weekend. They LOVED having her here. Joel wanted her to move into our basement! We hope she comes to visit again soon!

I went to the dentist this morning with BOTH children in tow. That was interesting. It's difficult to direct a two-year-old when you have someone cleaning your teeth. At one point, two dental hygenists were in the room trying to calm down Grace (who was in a panic because Joel-while trying to be a helper-was cramming five fruit puffs in her mouth all at once). Once they took Grace out of the room to calm her down, Joel walked over and started pressing any buttons he saw which shut down their computer system. The good news is...no cavities. So, hopefully, they will have no memories of the DeBoer family six months from now when I go back for my next cleaning...by myself!

So...recently, a friend of mine posted her baby picture and was comparing it to her daughter's picture. They are twins! Anyway, it inspired me to go back to Curt's and my babybooks and see if there are similarities (thanks for the idea, Lis!). I think it's pretty safe to say that at this point...Joel is taking after me and Gracie is taking after her daddy. What do you all think?

Other than that...I'm excited to take Joel and Grace trick-or-treathing this week, but I'm more than ready for Halloween to get over with. Why? Well, I'm just itching to bring out the Christmas music!

I know. I have a problem. I like to celebrate Christmas from November 1-January 1. What can I say? It must be a generational issue because I just talked to my sister, Colleen, today and she has already downloaded her iPod with all her Christmas tunes!! I love it!

I'll leave you with a few more cute pics of the kids...I hope everyone is having a SPECtacular week!

**As a side note...I did recently add music to the blog. If you would prefer NOT to hear the music when you view the blog or if you want to turn the music down while viewing videos...just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the volume setting in the black music box player!