Performer; big brother material?

As you know, Allen has become quite fond of singing lately ... "ABCs," "Bushel and a Peck," and his own compositions (by the way, don't forget to enter my give-away). Well, last night we went out to dinner, and Allen sang those first two for a good ten-15 minutes. Loudly enough that other patrons heard. Amusingly enough that he was applauded.

This morning we went to IHOP. He decided to impress the little girl in the booth next to us with the ABCs. Then he broke into one of his own compositions. Loudly enough that other patrons heard. Amusingly enough that at least half the staff came to watch. Rather than the attention embarrassing him, it seemed to fuel him to form more. I'm glad he isn't shy, but at the same time it's sometimes a little much.

Tonight we finally got together with our good friends, the Easley/Stokes family and Allen got to hang out with Cai. We sat down to dinner, and Allen was at his typical spot at the head of the table. He looked around at everyone, opened his arms wide and said, "All these brothers ... all these friends!" It was one of the sweetest things he's ever said.

Based on the picture below, I'm wondering if Allen's ready to be a big brother. What do you think? He looks awfully happy to be interacting with Cai, don'tcha think?

Here's Allen sitting with Anthony.
And some new pics of Cai.

Cai wasn't too fond of Murphy ...

xoxo,

Reading, Smarty Pants, Sweetheart

Now that Daddy is once again gainfully employed, Mommy and Allen are getting back into a routine. Since I've been under the weather lately and it's been colder out, we've been reading a lot of books.

Yesterday, he decided he wanted to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Llama Llama Mad at Mama. We brought them downstairs, and I sat down to read them to him. He had other plans though. He stood and "read" me Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and then decided to read Llama Llama to me as well. Since we already have video of him reading Chicka, I didn't video tape that, but I did get him reading Llama Llama.

It's kind of a long video, and it's not as cute if you aren't familiar with the book, but it's charming nonetheless, and I decided it needed to be posted. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did (and Allen. He spent about an hour yesterday afternoon watching the video. He's so vain).

After he read the books to me, he asked me to read Chicka to him. I read it, and then we looked at the inside back cover, which has all the entire alphabet. I was very impressed to discover that he recognized about 85-90% of the letters. He calls the letter U "umbella" (umbrella) because he has another toy that has "U for Umbrella". What a little smarty pants I have on my hands!

Also, he's been very excited about going in field service lately. He wants to give "people tacts" (tracts) and tell them about "Hovah" (Jehovah). He also announced to us the other night as he got into bed that "Hovah made moon and stars" (and he shook his finger at us for emphasis). I'm so proud of him.

Finally, I was reading an article on Babycenter about teaching your toddler manners, and was impressed to see that Allen is ahead of the curve with this. The article said that by age 4 children can sometimes say "please" and "thank you". I'm so proud to know that Allen says both fairly regularly. In fact, he was ahead of the curve on most of the "manners" that the article discussed.

OK, I'm done bragging for now. Have a fabulous weekend, my friends. I plan to continue my Disney recap and enjoy some Mexican food tomorrow night with my friend T and her beautiful son, Micai. Oh, and we'll be giving people "tacts" tomorrow too!

xoxo,

Where to begin?

I apologize to my loyal readers ... I have been a bad blogger the last few days. We had the CO's visit and company, so it's been a bit hectic. I don't really know where to begin, so I think I will just start with the random "gems" (as I have taken to calling them) from Allen. These are in no particular order ...

• "Noah in the ark" he announced last night at dinner. I don't know why. We were not talking about Noah or about the ark. We were at Saltus restaurant, which is on the water and always causes Allen to think of boats though.
• Exclaims, "We are Penn State!" (even though they lost the Rose Bowl).
• Thursday night he was only disciplined once, and today he was not taken out at all, except to be comforted when he started to cry when our family left the meeting (they had to leave early to get ready for their flights). Way to go Allen!
• Tonight he helped give Micai his bottle. He kept saying, "Cai sit in my yap!"

Obviously, these are not all the "gems" Allen provides us with each day, but these are the ones that I can remember at the moment.

xoxo,

Zebra Says ... Cai Sleeping

Last Tuesday night the Easleys/Stokes came over. Fun was had by all. I actually cooked. I picked a couple Giada recipes in honor of Tisha, because she loves her and I love Tisha :)

But I digress ... anyway we all sat around talking, and that cutie Cai fell fast asleep. Of course I had to snap some pictures. Look how cute he is!!

As you may know, Allen is very good at telling us what various animals "say." We take turns calling out names of animals, and telling each other what they say. Well, the other day, Allen called out "zebra." I was momentarily stumped. But now I've decided this is what a zebra says.

It's a little-known fact that zebras say, "This place is cacka-cackin" (or cracka-lackin). Also notice the lovely terrible-two-scream :)

xoxo,

Important phone calls

Tonight was a phone night for me. I got to talk to two of my favorite people in the whole world. But, that means that my normal blogging time was delayed. So now I'm too tired to post all the things I wanted to talk about ... instead I'm just going to make a list of what I want to blog about tomorrow night: new hair, picture of Cai sleeping, pictures from Kissen's camera, cute Allen sleeping story (think singing), video of what a zebra says, sightseeing tips for Atlanta (seeking, not giving), and any other random cuteness or nightmares that happen in the next 24 hours.

Sorry to bore you with my list, but otherwise how am I supposed to remember everything I want to tell ya'll?

xoxo,




P.S. Photo courtesy of my ridiculously awesome niece Aubrey (thanks sweetie).

Awesome Day for Philly Teams

We are celebrating in the Craig household this evening ... not only did the Eagles beat the Falcons (27-14), but the Phillies won game 3 of the World Series (10-2). We were speculating with our fellow Philadelphians about what will happen tomorrow night if the Phillies win the World Series in Philadelphia. We're thinking that all h-e-double-hockey-sticks will break loose :)

Anyway, I wish I had pictures of the Peanut with baby Cai tonight, but unfortunately I was holding both of them most of the time, so I couldn't. He was very sweet with him though. He was very concerned when Cai starting crying. "Cai's cying ... you OK?" He hugged him, gave him his binky, and kept asking if he was OK. He also showed him his various Cars toys. And he called Cai's Pop-pop "Steeb" or "Steben" instead of Steven.

Despite the fact that he had no nap today, he was really well behaved. The rest of the afternoon at the shop was uneventful. Tisha, Tasha, and Nyomi came to take him home, but he refused to go so he stayed with Mommy (I think he was worried that I couldn't handle all the people on my own).

He herded some more people into the shop, and then danced for them. It was all very cute and sweet. And then he did very well tonight with Steeben, Tasha, Sis-Ny (aka Sister Ny as Nyomi likes to be called), and Cai. He even kissed and hugged everyone goodnight and went right upstairs with Mommy and Daddy without one single complaint. Sometimes he's just so angelic ...

XOXO,

Payer Pease

I'm proud to be able to blog that today was a meeting with absolutely no taking Allen out (except when he leaned back and cracked his head on the corner of the arm of the chair). He did not need to be disciplined once! We have not had a meeting with such good behavior in some time now, so Mommy and Daddy were extremely proud of him!

Brother Marconi ("Coni") was wrapping up the Watchtower, and he said that the speaker would give the closing prayer. Allen said, "payer?" And I whispered, "Yes, after we sing the song." Well, when he heard the music, he started to cry, and he said, "Payer pease!" I thought that was so sweet until I realized that he knew the meeting was over after the prayer, and that's why he wanted it. As soon as we said, Amen (and before Allen said it), Allen said, "Cars pease. We go now?"

At lunch, he overheard me telling Nana that Nyomi was bringing mac and cheese for dinner. So he started yelling (and yes, I mean yelling) "Mac and cheese pease! Mac and cheese pease!" We were at a Mexican restaurant for lunch, so mac and cheese wasn't really an option, but he did devour the quesadilla that we gave him.

It's Sunday, so that means that it's Eagles day, and it also means that the Easleys/Stokes came over. Once again they provided dinner (fried chicken, mac and cheese, cornbread with blueberries, macaroni salad, collard greens). Once again it was delicious. And once again, I was extremely happy because I didn't have to cook (we did, however, provide beer and wine). It also means that "Baby Cai" was here.

Allen stood at the door when they arrived. "Baby Cai! Baby Cai!" he said. Unfortunately, Baby Cai was sleeping, so Allen very sweetly went off and played by himself (I have to say that he was so good all evening playing by himself with his cars). When "Baby Cai" woke up, Allen asked to "care" him. So we went over to the sofa so he could hold him. Allen stroked his hair and kissed him. It was so sweet I could have cried. Sadly, I have no pictures of this because I was sitting with them (to make sure Allen didn't drop him), and Daddy was totally engrossed in the game.

I did get some other cute shots of Micai though. There were probably 16 or 17 fabulous shots of the cutie, but I will only post my two favorites tonight.

I wish ya'll could have seen Micai at the meeting today. Boy was he dressed to kill! He had on a vest, a red tie, and a madras plaid blazer. He was so unbelievably cute. His mommy got a picture of him all dressed up, so if she sends it to me I'll post it. He was ridiculously handsome!

As I mentioned earlier, Allen was such a little trooper this evening, letting Daddy watch the game and Mommy gab with the girls. But at one point, he came to me and said, "Mommy change." So I took him upstairs, and indeed he had a dirty diaper. And it had irritated his skin. So we put "ceem" on it, and we gave him some Motrin, and we took him downstairs in his jammies. And again, he was such a good sport, playing by himself, until he started fidgeting and told daddy, "Change pease." Poor baby ... but as long as he got some "ceem" he was good to go.

We took the camera upstairs to bed with us, and took some pictures of the new photos adorning his room. Here are a couple shots of Mommy's "creativity" (Aunt Kissy requested that I post these):

That's the extent of my lame attempt at being all cute and scrapbook-y and creative. Anyway, we snapped a couple shots of the bedtime routine as well (there was a picture of a crying baby in the book Allen was "reading"; he said "Amy cying. Amy cying." All babies are "baby Amy" at the moment).

Mommy and Allen snuggle (you will notice a picture where Allen has "Mommy hair.") while Daddy reads (one book of his choice, and then a "Bible Book" story).

That's all for tonight, folks. Love and miss those of you I know. Those first time readers out there, let me know who you are, so I can love you too! XOXO.