penelope is tha-ree.

penelope had a small birthday party on saturday.  in the true spirit of van voorst birthday parties, it was podunk.  we ordered pizza, and i even coerced my sister into baking the cake so i wouldn't have to.  (penelope requested a 'chocolate sparkle feather cake.'  between the two of us, we really expected a lot out of lauren.  but she totally came through for us.  minus making the cake out of feathers.)




some things to notice in this video:

1.  the one and only candle i could find in the house was a #1 candle leftover from finn's birthday, so that's what was on her cake.

2.  atticus looks bored out of his mind.  when asked if he could be more excited, he answered, 'yeah.'

3.  i made the mistake of allowing penelope to open presents before the whole candle-blowing experience, so she's so absorbed in her new purse full of colored pens that she is pretty apathetic about the rest of the party.

and if there's one thing that can be said about the van voorst children, it's that they have a deep, unending (and sometimes crazed-looking) passion for cake.

happy birthday (recap) to our biggest little girl!

penelope is three!

yesterday was penelope's birthday.  while we didn't do much specifically for it (i was packing all day, plus her party will be this weekend), we did get a chance to do a few little things.  she blew out three candles at breakfast ('when i am three, i blow out three candles.  one candle, two candles, and then three candles.  like that.').  then, after she pooped in the toilet rather than in her diaper (it's still a work in progress), she got three chocolate chips instead of the regular two.  after lunch we ate ice cream with yet another candle in it.

i spent little chunks of the day reflecting on what we've been through and who she is.  she is a spitfire.  she knows what she wants and she's impossible to convince otherwise.  she knows how (and likes) to push your buttons on purpose.  she is a total clown and inherently knows what kind of stuff will get a laugh.  she is in a stage where she loves to pretend to be a baby.  she prefers to color/draw with pens rather than crayons.  she hates getting dirty.  she loves to read.  she speaks jibberish on purpose.

we've been through a lot together - we dealt with my postpartum depression after her birth, which was really hard for both of us, obviously in different ways.  there was that one time she was almost strangulated in her crib overnight.  but those experiences have really led to the unique relationship i have with her, and i'm so grateful god used those things to help me see her and and know her and appreciate her in ways i don't know that i would otherwise.

one of the more surprising parts about becoming a mom is that i find that their birthdays are less about 'them' than i would have assumed - every birthday that rolls around has me reflecting on their birth stories and their uniquenesses and my experience being their mom.  i find i have more to celebrate than just 'another year down,' as it feels when i'm celebrating my own birthdays.  i honestly enjoy their birthdays more than my own for that reason.  anyone else feel this way about their kids' birthdays?

we're having a...

on friday, i had an appointment scheduled with my new midwife.  it was the first time we'd hear the heartbeat, so todd got a little time off work and we took the kids so we could all be there to hear the crazy swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.  we had no idea that the midwife would be all, 'wanna do your ultrasound, like, rightnow?'

not only did we all get to be there for it, but they also did those crazy 4-D ultrasounds, so we got to see the baby's face, not just the holes in her skull that form the face.  (lord love the 2-D ultrasounds, but there are some freaky images that show up.)

so without further ado, meet the newest baby GIRL van voorst, affectionately known to the existing v.v. kids as amelia bedelia.

the kids are still mourning the loss of what could have been a brother.  penelope keeps saying she wants five kids now, so she can have a brother.  it's hard to get her to see that she already has two.  but whatever.  we'll cross that bridge when we get there, sisterfriend. 

as for me, i couldn't be more thrilled that we're having another girl!  so excited for penelope to have a sister (and to get to pull out all those darling pink baby clothes again)!

video vednesday: after the third kid, people stop congratulating you. then they just treat you like you're amish.

four! well, that's one way to live your life.




if you're not bouncing over here from facebook, here's some news you may not have yet heard: we're pregnant again! WHAT?!  pretty soon i'm going to have to look into what causes this.

we were genuinely surprised a couple of days before christmas when we took the test and it came back positive, as this is the first time we didn't pencil a kid into the agenda before it happened.  and with everything else that's going on for us right now, i do feel a little overwhelmed from time to time at the prospect of another baby coming so soon, but honestly, it's almost comical at this point how little control we apparently have over our own lives.  so it's (currently) more funny than overwhelming.

while i haven't had a doctor's appointment yet, the internet tells me that my due date is august 17 - our anniversary! - and that i'm a little over eight weeks along.  considering that we have no idea when we'll move, i'm a little unsure of how to go about getting into the routine of prenatal visits - should i start them here and then switch doctors halfway through (and how does that work with global insurance charges)?  right now, i'm thinking i'll just wait a month or two and see where we're at, and if we're still in the area, go ahead and start here.  especially since i'm not overly anxious to be hauling three kids plus my tired, grouchy, bloated preggo self to town at least once a month just so they can check my pee, ask me if i'm still taking prenatals, and send me home.  so we'll see how that all plays out.

anyway.  so there's that crazy bit of news.  is your mind blown?  mine is.

in memory.

my grandpa passed away, somewhat suddenly, on tuesday night.  it's been a rough couple of days.

he came out from south carolina last summer to help us get settled into our current house.  it was the first time he had met the kids, and penelope stole his heart, which is why every.single.picture we have of him from that week also includes her.  she probably could have asked him for a fully-funded college education and he would've been all, sure no probz.  now that i think about it, i wonder why she didn't...

that visit is probably among my favorite memories of him.  that, and this one time that he was visiting us at my mom's, and i had recently become a christian.  he went to drive our car for some reason, and i had some crazy christian music cd BLARING and about gave him a heart attack when he turned the ignition.  he came bolting into the house, asked me to please turn the radio down so he could get in and actually drive, and then he paid me ten bucks for being a christian and told me not to tell lauren.  (about the cash, not the conversion.)  i still laugh out loud about that.

it wasn't official until we partied it out.

like i mentioned last week, atticus' birthday was on wednesday, so on saturday, we had a party for him.  we began the morning by baking his cake, which the kids really enjoyed.  mostly for this reason: 

 

 

the end product: 

the party had a loose construction theme (meaning, this was the cake, the kids wore construction hats, and we used caution tape instead of streamers.  and that's the extent to which paige van voorst throws theme parties.)

the idea for the cake was todd's; the execution was mine.

just like penelope had a special chair to sit in at her birthday party, we also rigged one for atticus (and a bilingual one at that).

we got some hand-me-down toy tools from his cousin, so we just purchased a vintage toy tool box off of etsy and put the tools inside.

penelope did a great job of waiting her turn to open a few gifts of her own.

after opening gifts, we ordered pizza and then did cake and ice cream.  the cake was a hit.

and that was the celebration for atticus' fourth birthday.  i forgot to take down the streamers and balloons overnight, and yesterday when he realized everything was still decorated, he was all, why is my birthday still here? it was a little sad to have to break the news to him that it was simply laziness on my part and it was, anticlimactically, just a regular sunday.

(go here to see atticus' first birthday, second birthday, and third birthday.)

video vednesday: atticus gets born.

happy birthday to my sweet boy atticus!  i can't believe it's been four years since this day:

atticus at 30-something months ("2.5+ years" is equally un-catchy.)

atticus is getting closer and closer to being an official three-year-old.  they tell you that every age is your favorite, and it's so true.  he's like a good cheese - just getting better with age.  also, really stinky.  but that's just the nature of things, i guess.

he LOVES all things vehicular - scooper trucks, trucks 'fixin-a road' (construction), tractors and 'kime-bines,' watching the trash truck 'pickin-uppa trash,' trains, helicopters, airplanes, etc.  he frequently requests to see certain trucks along the road ('mama, wanna see a crane?') and doesn't quite understand that i don't really have control over that.

 we went to 'day out with thomas' when thomas the train came to boone.  needless to say, it was a hit.

he loves watching thomas the train and 'beegee-teels' (veggie tales).  we don't watch a whole lot of tv, but i definitely take advantage of thomas DVDs when i need to fold laundry, and it's nice to have a VCR in the van for longer trips.  if i try to put in sesame street (or something equally old and therefore found on video cassette) he'll tell me, 'no, mom.  wanna watcha coo-cumba.'  (on a positive note, all the veggie tales-watching has made him positively disposed to the idea of vegetables.)

pretending cucumbers from our garden were scooper trucks. 

he is basically fully potty trained, although i still put him in a diaper overnight.  even though he wakes up dry most mornings, i like the extra insurance :).  he will pee with me in the room, but will not poop with company.  i say that's fair.  if i come back in before he's completely done, he says, 'i still POOPIN' with a wild and desperate look on his face.  his favorite pair of undies are a nasty pair i got for free at a garage sale that have another kid's skid marks in them.  but you can't control who - or what - you love, i guess.

he's starting to get a little bossy.  unfortunately, he gets it from me.  must be an oldest-child thing.  many days i have to redirect more 'sissa, NO!'s than i can count.  it gets a bit tiring.

finally understanding the concept of head-in-the-hole photo ops.

he loves reading, and we've begun being more purposeful in spending longer amounts of time reading, and reading quality books.  i use the sonlight pre-k list for recommendations for good books, and we've been going to the library every couple of weeks before children's church (D6) to get a new stash.

in addition, we've started reading the Jesus Storybook Bible at breakfast, and working on memorizing a few verses from D6 and from My ABC Bible Verses.  we haven't done any official preschool stuff, nor am i good about sitting down and purposefully teaching him letters and numbers.  ABC bible verses are a good way to get me in the habit of at least exposing him to the official names of letters (although, he already knows a lot of them somehow and loves the fareway sign because it's super exciting to see two A's in the same word).

he also has memorized some bible facts:



who made you? god.
how many gods are there?
what is god's name? jesus.
where does jesus live? heaven.
where did jesus go? to the cross.
why did he go to the cross? for our sin.
what did he say on the cross? it is finished.
who was the first man? adam.
what did john the baptist say? repent.
to whom did god give the ten commandments? moses.
who built the ark? noah (only he says, 'noahnoah built-a ark' because there's a song that says that)
to whom did god give the promise? abraham.
who was the brave queen? esther.  (this one is taking a while to stick.)

i love hearing him pray, and he frequently asks us to pray with him.

his favorite song is 'stories' by go fish.  he is A.DOR.A.BLE when he sings it.  i hope i can get it on video at some point.  plus, he has all of these awesome dance moves that he breaks out, including what can best be described as an all-out floor pose.

he hates having a stuffy nose, and has a hard time sleeping when it's stuffed up.  the other day he said, 'i no wanna have a sick nose.'  i feel you, buddy.

getting slowly smothered to death by a constrictor.  fun times.

that's all i can think of for now, although since he's two, there are plenty of things i'm sure i'm leaving out since basically every second of the day is wildly entertaining or absolutely infuriating.  but that's what this season of life is all about, and to be honest, i'm really enjoying it.  the terrible two's haven't been too bad to me.

p'nut at seventeen months

i realize i have gotten really bad at remembering to post updates about the kids.  those angelic little faces are, after all, the only reason why i have all this time to sit around and blog in the first place.  did they not exist, i would be a working chump like everybody else.  instead, i get to sit here eating spaghetti bake and blogging during naptime, so the least i can do to thank my kids for this opportunity is acknowledge every once in a while that they exist.

first up: penelope.

she will be 17 months on the thursday, and it's weird to think that she's almost exactly the same age - to the day - that atticus was when we welcomed her into our family.  she still seems so little to me, but now she is about to be come a big sister!  i can't believe it.

she typically wakes up between 7:30 and 8:00 (although i think she'd sleep later if she and atticus didn't share a room), and the first thing she does when she gets downstairs is to grab a book and head to the fridge to whine for her 'ma.' (milk.)  milk in hand, she camps out by the book basket until it's time to eat.  and the kid can eat.  the other morning she ate FIVE EGGS by herself, stole some off my plate, and cried when i told her she couldn't have any more because i didn't want to clean up egg puke.

she's a pickier eater than atticus was and is; she isn't big into crackers, bread, or really carbs in general (with the exception of pancakes and spaghetti); she's tolerant of vegetables when she's in a generous mood; and she'll eat fruit if driven to the brink of starvation.  not a meat eater.  what does she eat without being coerced, then, you ask?  eggs.  cheese.  milk.  yogurt.  i think she's begging by her preferences to move to a homestead...hmm. 

her favorite activity is reading.  i think all kids love reading at this age, but she spends most of the day pulling all the books out of the book basket and looking at them until atticus steals them.  her favorite book is 'ba ba' (brown bear, brown bear), but her favorite author/illustrator is sandra boynton.  what a weird thing to say about a 17-month-old (their favorite author/illustrator is...).  todd even discovered the other day that she has mastered the concept of 'i spy' and can identify all the items in the 'i spy' board book we own.

like her mama, she will read whatever she can get her hands on  - even thomas.

she started talking way earlier than atticus did, and she's capable of saying way more than she typically shows off - her vocabulary includes quite a few words, but her most commonly used words are 'ma' (milk), 'muh' (more), 'duh' (done), and our very favorite 'yah.'  we hear 'yah' about 20 times an hour.  did you notice the rest of the words are food-related? no surprise.

she can also say 'mama,' 'dada,' 'buh buh' (brother), 'puh' (puppy), 'tah' (cat), 'no,' 'bye bye,' 'ball,' 'buh' (book), 'shoes,' 'this,' 'that,' 'baby,' and probably several more that either i can't remember or haven't identified yet as being actual words.  (please tell me i'm not the only mother who recognizes a word as being an actual word months after my kid started saying it.)  it's funny - at this age, atticus could only say 'mama,' 'dada,' 'puppy,' and 'baby.'

she LOVES wearing shoes and will request to change shoes multiple times a day.  she likes putting on headbands and hats and brushing her hair.  she loves carrying around dirty laundry, particularly socks and atticus' underwear, so we have to keep an eye on her around the hamper. (yesterday i found her pushing a baby stroller full of dirty socks around the house.)  she's starting to realize she's capable of refusing to do what i ask her to do, and i can always tell she's being willfully disobedient when she stares at me and blinks her eyes really hard.  she loves giving kisses and hugs, and patting atticus on the back.  she's already more strong-willed than atticus, and we probably see more temper tantrums from her on a weekly basis than from him (anyone who knows atticus will not be surprised by this).

in all, i've found raising a girl to be similar to raising a boy in a lot of regards, but in other ways it's funny to see how innate the differences are.  even though she spends her time playing with cars and trains, watching thomas the tank engine, and waiting for the garbage truck to come, her interests are definitely more feminine than atticus'.  she likes brushing my hair and bringing me my own shoes to put on my feet - i think she's trying to get me to buck up and start developing more feminine interests like hers.  recently i wore my hair down for the first time in a long time, and she just kept staring at me and smiling and playing with it.  atticus would never have done anything like that.  he probably would have just pulled it and gone on his merry way.

though she's more feminine than atticus, she's also more brave, and apparently fascinated by this tarantula.  did NOT get that from me.

and i will end this very long post with her dental report because, as you know if you get our annual christmas newsletter, dental news is a very big deal in our house.  sis currently has four front teeth on top, four front teeth on bottom, all her molars, and is working on teething a few more in between.  (it has been a long two months of nonstop teething, and it doesn't look like it will let up any time soon.)

so that's 17-month-old sis in a really big nutshell.

video vednesday: do you hear that?

that friends, is the heartbeat of the tiniest van voorst, scheduled to literally burst forth in a blaze of guts and glory on march 3, 2012.  (we are nearly 15 weeks knocked up now!  i told you i'm awesome at keeping secrets.)

you've been forewarned: the van voorsts are about to be five strong and you don't stand a chance. 

penelope at nine months

penelope is now nine (and a half, but who's counting?) months old and deserves a little update as a reward for her stellar performance at this age.

personal stats:

weighs in at:  14 lb, 15oz; 1st percentile
towers over other babies (and some cats) at: 27.5 inches; 32nd percentile
can dominate her opponents with: three teeth and the promise of one more


she has recently become mobile and is perfectly content to continue 'scooting' everywhere - meaning, it's not really a crawl so much as a bumpy kind of slither that's happening.  and she's figured out that slithering not only gets you closer to objects, but you can do it just for fun, so she likes to scoot laps around the kitchen table. which means i have to be extra diligent about sweeping the kitchen floor when atticus is done eating.  she also likes to dry-swim her way over to the dishwasher so she can talk to her reflection in the door.

she dropped her third nap three or four weeks ago and is now napping once in the morning (9:30-11) and once in the afternoon (1-3:30).  we put both kids to bed at 7:30 and she typically wakes up around 7:15.

she's still mainly formula fed; i don't really push baby foods at all so we really haven't done much with that, but she eats chunks of bananas, cooked carrots, avocados, etc. by herself, and can feed herself crackers, etc.  she even may have figured out how to use a sippy cup the other night, but we're not sure.  on the occasions that i do feed her from a spoon, it's frequently just mashed up or soft stuff the rest of us are already eating: plain yogurt, applesauce, guacamole, etc.  this way, too, we discovered that she loves el azteca's refried beans.  but who can blame her?

when she gets tired or upset, she likes to rub and pull on her left ear.  if she gets really tired or upset, she pulls on both ears.  when i lay her down to sleep, the first thing she does is to rub the fuzzy side of her blanket all over her face. her favorite things to chew on are matchbox cars (safe, i know) and baby spoons.  she has massive separation anxiety right now, so church nursery is hard for her.

so is finding clothing that fits.  she is six or nine months long and three months around, so her clothes are always either too short or falling off her butt.  but she's my daughter, so that's kind of to be expected, i guess.

and finally, EVERYTHING atticus does is hilarious in her book.  she loves to watch him, and he likes playing with her (for the most part), and our biggest problem is usually that he's hugging her entirely too tight or that he's laying on top of her and smothering her.  he likes that she can crawl now because he can pretend that she's playing sister murph.  (murph = cat at our house.)

so that's that!  she's growing growing, albeit slowly, and i'm SHOCKED that we're mere months away from her turning one.  crazy.

two years and too sweet.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ATTICUS!!!!

i can't believe i'm a two-year-old's mom...i swear i'm still cool at this age, although when you're old enough to read this i'll probably be wearing some kind of denim pantsuit and saying "eh" at the end of every sentence.  you know, after the real person inside of me dies and i'm just a mom. 

anyway, i could just gobble you up.  you're the sweetest two-year-old i've ever laid eyes on, bar none.  here's just a smattering of the things i love about you:

*i love how innocently you say 'no' right now.  it really hasn't occurred to you yet to use this word to be defiant, you're just straight-to-the-point with it.  (ex., should we change your pants? no.)

*i love how much you love your sister.  you love making funny faces at her and dancing with her and kissing her and helping me take care of her.
 

*i love how you love tractors and trucks and trains (and all things that go), but you've also recently adopted a 'baby' that you rock, read to, feed, bathe, and put to bed.  you're so gentle - you're going to make a great daddy someday!

*i love that you love to pretend - sometimes you're an animal, sometimes a baby, sometimes an onion.  and i love how, regardless of whatever character you're being, all you do is crawl around on all fours making noise and eating imaginary treats out of my hand.  (uncanny onion impression, by the way.)

*i love how you like to see what i'm cooking, and to watch, and to help stir.  i love that you insist on having the oven light on so you can keep an eye on things.  i love that you pretend to cook eggs, cheese, noodles and soup.

*i love when you're a stinker and steal penelope's nuk and toys for your own intents and purposes.  but i don't let on how much i love it because, let's face it, it's kind of naughty.

*i love that when we try to teach you catechism and ask who made you, hoping you'll say 'god', you say 'mama.'

*i love when you lay down, face down, on the floor and cry until you can't remember why you're mad.

*i love that you like to watch yo gabba gabba sometimes, but you call it 'wuhwuhwuh.'

*i love when you stand on your tippy toes and rummage through the tiny opening in the silverware drawer that the child lock allows, trying to get baby spoons to play with.

*i love when we catch you doing something you know you shouldn't be doing and you flash a smile and just say, "hi!" all casual-like.

*i LOVE your dance moves! you can raise the roof, shake your booty, and play the air guitar like nobody's business.

*i love it when you say "epic" and even do the flame with your fingers.

*i love that when you're fighting sleep, you kick your crib and tell yourself jokes - which are apparently also hysterically funny.  maybe you should start a blog.

*i love when you 'exercise' with daddy and do push-ups, leg-lifts and crunches.

*i love that you like to wear your old man hat to the grocery store.

*i love that you don't like me to touch the shopping cart...and haven't yet figured out that i'm actually the one making it go.

*i love that you peek out behind the baby shade in the car and make faces at the people sitting next to us at the stop light.

*i love when you sing "oooooo" - and "heyyyyyyyy" from 'hey soul sister.'

*i love that, when daddy chases you around the kitchen, you run around the table saying, 'oh no! oh no!"

*i love that your favorite foods are muhnuhs and noos and peeta (bananas and noodles and pizza).

*i love that you're suffering posttraumatic stress from falling out of your booster seat and hitting your chin, so you point to your chin multiple times a day and say, "owww. seat. fall."  even though that happened like two months ago.

*i love that you call yourself  'a-TEE' and penelope 'puh-PEE.'

*i love that you hate having your teeth brushed. but how, if i call them your 'PUPPY teeth,' you're more than happy to let me brush them because that's what puppies do.


*i love that 'airplane,' 'elephant,' and 'amen' all sound the same - ah-PEE.

*i love that the second you get out of your crib in the morning, you run over to penelope's crib to say good morning.

*i love that you could stare at pictures of toys in catalogs for hours on end and don't realize that you're missing out on actually HAVING the toys - just looking at the pictures is enough for you right now.


i love you so much and i'm so thankful i get to be your mama!!!!

penelope at six months

so, since penelope will be seven months old in like a week and a half, i figured i'd get a quick post in on how she's doing.

she's still as chill as ever, and a GREAT sleeper (although daylight savings has really thrown her for a loop).  she usually wakes up around 7 or 7:30 and takes a one-hour nap in the morning.  then after lunch she takes a four- to four-and-a-half-hour nap (yes, really) until dinner time.  then she goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps through until the next morning.  i am not kidding.  her threshold for being awake is two hours-ish, but even that's pushing it.

while she's awake, she loves playing with atticus' toys, chewing on her feet, and playing in the exersaucer.  unfortunately, she's also highly aware of other people's food at this point so she's been eating some solids.  (i was really hoping to wait on most of that until she could "self-feed".)  she is also really aware of other people's presence, and is starting into her 'separation anxiety' phase.  she has laughed a few times and has recently discovered that there are ears on the sides of her head - and won't stop messing with them!  she has two tiny teeth (but don't let them fool you - they work well even though they're tiny.)

i worry about her a lot.  she's really tiny.  at her six-month appointment, she weighed 12 pounds 10 oz (1st percentile) and was 26 inches long (61st percentile).  also, her head is in like the 70th percentile, so she's like a lollipop.  (a cute lollipop, but a lollipop nonetheless.)  she's able to sit in the bumbo or stand in the exersaucer for a while, but then her head gets so heavy that she can't hold it up anymore.  she gives up on tummy time after only a few seconds, and pathetically just lets her face fall into the carpet and cries. 

i spend a lot of time second-guessing myself.  even though she doesn't act hungry or anything, i still worry she's not getting enough or growing fast enough.  and i know that all kids are different, but when i see other babies her age hitting milestones that she seems a long way from reaching, i struggle against thinking that i'm doing something wrong. 

then i worry that worrying about her makes me seem like some kind of helicopter mother who has no inherent instincts regarding her child, and honestly, i feel like that a lot of the time. 

anyway, i don't really know why i got all emotional there at the end - i wish i could chalk it up to being drunk or something, because that seems to be a valid excuse for all kinds of things, especially if you model your life after celebrities like i do.  and anyway, i don't really know what i'm even looking for - advice, encouragement, truth, i don't know. 

so...thanks for bearing with me.  i promise i'll be funnier next time.  in the meantime, have another look at my beautiful daughter:

with her grandpa tony

she was a lamb for halloween 

introducing...

we've decided on a name for baby girl vv. we'd like to introduce you to...

penelope page!

we really liked the name penelope, which means "faithful." in the odyssy, odysseus' wife is named penelope. odysseus gets called to fight in the trojan war, goes MIA, and is gone for 20 years. in the meantime, everyone assumes he's dead so a bunch of guys start to try to court penelope, but she believes he's still alive, so she says that once she's done weaving a burial shroud, she'll consider remarriage. but every night, she undoes the weaving she did during the day to buy some time for odysseus to come back. 20 years later, odysseus does come back, disguised as a beggar to see if she's been faithful (and obviously finds that she has). cool story, cool name.



we chose the middle name page because it's a family name, which will probably seem obvious to anyone who knows that my name is paige. however, what you might not know is that my mom's maiden name was page and i was named after her side of the family. i love the idea of naming our kids after our family, and i thought it was neat that there will be four living generations of "pages"! also, it doesn't hurt that we'll share a name...that's cool to me! plus, it means "servant," so her whole name will mean "faithful servant," which is definitely something we pray she'll fulfill.



so there you have it! penelope page vv. (just don't call her p.p.)

you should have to show your I.D. to eat chinese food.

on friday, we went out to eat at the local chinese buffet. it's usually hard to go to a sit-down place with atticus in tow, but i figured since you get your food right away and atticus could try a bunch of different things (since i didn't know what he'd prefer) for free, it was worth a shot.

he was not a fan of the rice or the seasoned green beans. he could not get enough of the mushrooms and mandarin oranges. he fell somewhere in the middle on the chicken. i also forgot to bring his sippy cup, but he figured out right away how to drink from a straw, so that catastrophe was averted!

after a while, he started to act kind of, for lack of a better descriptive word, drunk. he would babble nonstop for a while, followed by a crazy dance (getting rice and soy sauce all through his hair), followed by a short head slump down into his chest, followed by a new burst of energy and a laugh, then a shriek, then it would start all over again. it was SO FUNNY, but it really made me wonder what the heck is in the food there....i'm not sure i want to know.

i, on the other hand, could not get enough of the CLAMS they had! they've never had them before, but i have been craving seafood - specifically, clams and oysters - NONSTOP, so it was like a little christmas miracle straight from heaven to see them under the sneeze guard...right next to the crab legs....mmmm.

and on a little sidenote while we're talking about food, atticus still isn't saying actual words, but all of his official "communication" has to do with food. he has been signing "more" for a while now, and about 10 minutes ago he signed "all done" for the first time! also, whenever you say any of the trigger "food" words ("eat," "snack," etc.) or start to prepare food, he'll go, "MMMMMMMM!!"

post two! introducing....

we had our ultrasound! meet the tiniest van voorst...

...doesn't she swallow amniotic fluid like a true lady?

re: thanksgiving.

thanksgiving was a smashing success this year. i made most of the food beforehand, and it all turned out swell, and i even took the time to set the table and try to make the buffet look nice. my parents and sister came up for the day and we all hung out, ate too much and watched football. and my stepdoug fell asleep. all in all, a good day.

atticus cuddling with yaya karen

on sunday, our little family went down to my mom's for the day and did it up in style with stepdoug's daughters.

atticus developing an affinity for the baby jesus from his little people nativity set.

...and rediscovering his fascination with my mom's cats. lauren looks cartoonishly sad in the background.

our first all-three-of-us picture since atticus was two months old.