these are a few of my favorite things....

so it's friday morning and we leave for china on sunday at 6:30 a.m. the kids go up to my parent's house tomorrow. have i packed? no. have i done laundry? no. have i finished cleaning the house? no. have i gone shopping for things i want to take? no. have i.....well, you get the picture. so instead of actually doing any of those things, i am drinking coffee and blogging. it sounds like a good plan to me. i'm hoping that while i am writing this, all of the other things will just get magically done. hmmmm.

anyway, i had a realization yesterday that i am going to miss my kids when we are in china. i knew that i would miss them eventually, and that i would be really happy to see them when we get home. but i didn't think it would be hard to leave them. it wasn't hard to leave them when i went to the bahamas. it's never hard to leave them over a weekend. but two weeks? that's a long time. so, i thought i'd write about them today.

(also, just now, hiba started throwing a fit about something completely ridiculous. maybe she senses that it will be hard for me to leave her and is trying to make it easier....)

hiba and matthias are at a really cute stage in life right now. granted, it is also a very annoying stage of life, but really they are cute so much of the time. they're at the point where they can talk to each other, play together, make up games. hiba's not too old for everything she says to be over matthias' head (although i am pretty convinced that most of life is over matthias' head) and he isn't too young for her to just get annoyed and ignore him. this also means lots of fights, lots of yelling at each other, lots of hitting....BUT when they play together, it is so fun to watch. so here are a few of their favorite games.

*dora and swiper. matthias is always swiper, trying to swipe something from hiba. he either gets it successfully and laughs manically as he throws it across the room (which can be dangerous, like if he swipes a stroller) or he is fended off by dora, says "oh maaaan!" (which is actually said "oh maaaaam, because matthias doesn't say "n") and runs down the hall. they do this over and over and over again.

*baby evan. we have some friends who have a baby, named evan, so hiba and matthias like to play baby evan now. actually, i'm pretty sure that matthias thinks that all babies are baby evan. so they'll get blankets and wrap themselves up and lay on the ground/couch/bed and be baby evan. that's the whole game. they love it.

*wheel of fortune. i love this show. i know, that makes me like a 70-year-old woman, but i think it's fun. and it's sort of a life goal to be on it someday. so we watch it a lot, because it teaches letters and counting and involves clapping - which is pretty much a winning combo. so now, hiba and matthias like to play wheel of fortune, or "guessing letters" as they call it. one of them stands by our front window as vanna and the other stands by the couch and guesses letters. there are always letters. except for "r". which they always guess anyway, even though the answer is always "no r. awww.".

*working out. jason and i have been going to the gym pretty regularly lately (well, jason has and i have thought about it a lot.), so hiba and matthias like to "work out" when we are home. jason sometimes leads them in exercises, but sometimes they do it on their own. their favorites are burpies, squats, jumping jacks, lunges, and sprints. hiba can do a pretty good push-up as well. after about 2 of any given exercise, they sit on the floor or couch and say "whew, my legs are very sore from working out".

*cooking. matthias is pretty obsessed with food. real food, fake food, whatever. so they cook in their kitchen a lot. and make me snacks alllllll day. they always tell me what it is. we have some play food and then they'll just make stuff up too. matthias likes to make pizza, cookies, and soup. hiba always tries to bring me peas and carrots. i like matthias' cooking better.

so those are a few favorites around here these days. i'm sure in two weeks it will be completely different. which is good - i mean, that's the way life is supposed to go, right? but i will miss my little pat sajack and vanna white.