Nak Olympics

With the end of the Olympics, we thought it would be important to recap what happened at the Nak Olympics.

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Vivian loves to shovel and requests to do so every time she gets out of the car.  Kara recently asked her if she was Vivian and she replied, "No, Pippy."  She says a lot of 2 and 3-word phrases lately, with high frequencies of "need it," "want it," and "have it."

Nina continues her love for music and literal translations, and she recently scoffed at the fact that Paul would ask someone to feed him when he's 64.  She also thought Sara Bareilles was confusing with lyrics like, "say what you want to say, and let the words fall out," because if your words fell out, then you wouldn't be saying anything.

Vivian has even gotten in on the singing action, mostly shouting the "heys" and "ohs."  When running around in her box car at Barb's, she'll occasionally give a Drive My Car line of: "beep-beep yeah!"

Ringoooooo

Nina has taken to loving one of our favorite things… The Beatles.  She requests their music, their videos, and even likes to play Beatles Rock Band on the Wii.  She takes their lyrics pretty literally so finds humor in a lot of lines we normally overlook like, "why are they singing about a baby driving a car?" and "why do they need so much help?" and "why does John say 'hold me'?  The Beatles are too big for someone to hold them."  She thinks Ringo is the funniest and attributes any funny lyrics to him. It was wonderful timing and a cool experience to see the Grammy's tribute to the Beatles and watch it live with Nina.  She enjoyed seeing a few other singers she knew, and sang along with Paul and Ringo as they performed.

Which leads us to another list of funny words Vivian now says: "RINGOOOOO!"  Hearing drums, or Nina talking about the Beatles, and she'll shout it out.  She also says finger, hippo, Babar, and shabby in funny ways.  She says "knock knock" and when asked who's there, she usually replies, "Nana."  The joke ends there.  :)  She has also started saying "her tur" whenever she thinks it's her turn for something (usually food).  Lastly, whenever she leaves a place, she will yell, "byeeee, see yaaa."

Family Day at a Rec Center

Potato-head glasses     -----     Sheriff Woody

Tracing Pip's hand         ------       Drawing Olympic Rings

Why do we live in a place where the air hurts our face?

We've been stuck in this freezing land for what feels like a year.  Luckily we had a weekend getaway to a hotel for Grandpa's birthday and Nina has her weekly swimming lessons.  Other than that, we've been playing, reading, building, jumping, kicking, throwing toys, taking pictures of ourselves, and watching movies from the library.  Vivian is saying all sorts humorous words like shrug, couchlot (chocolate), hockey, and more we can't remember.

Get better-better

Today marks day 12 of sickness in our house and we've had 4 (maybe 5) different illnesses roll through.  Combine that with the winter weather, and Kara's three busiest work weeks of the calendar year, and it makes for a challenging stretch.  Hopefully we're on the upswing now and the littlest one will emerge healthy in the next 24 hours.  We know we're not alone, so to all of you fighting germ bugs, we shout as Nina does, "get better-better!"

This unfortunate change in our routine has gotten in the way of our recent picture-taking and merry-making.  The girls have bookended the illnesses, so in their week of health, they were dying to leave the house of germs and so here's what we've got:

Another half year

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The girls turn one and a half and three and a half this week.  They've grown a lot in 6 months yet they consistently make us smile.  They usually play well together and are willing to help one another.  When Vivian finds Nina's bun-bun, she will often bring it to her shouting "Na, bunny, hop hop."  Yesterday, Nina helped her little sis by bringing her toys and her blankie when Vivian was crying on time-out.  

Vivian is pretty coordinated, loves repeating whatever you say, and has the go-to response of "ohh-kaaay."  She loves to color, read the first two pages of books, play puppy, and find her "sitter" (sister).  We're happiest that she's finally started sleeping at least 8 hours a night.

Nina is a responsible big sister and occasionally the fun police.  She watches Pip and makes sure she's not up to anything that could possibly considered trouble.  Nina also likes to write letters, color and read books.  She has a good imagination and likes to make up stories and games.  Some involve new puppies at the store that you take for a walk and then she starts running in the puddles.  The puppy is usually named Sierra or Alicia.  She continues to tell us about dragons and bad guys changing their attitudes.

 

Happy New Year!

The Naks hope you enjoyed 2013 as much as we did!  We tried to pack some fun into our last days of vacation with trips to the zoo, MOA, and children's museum.  We made New Year's crowns and blew up balloons and the girls had a great time.

With the incoming weather of doom, we tried to get out while the getting was good.  Nina asks everyday "when will it be summer?" and tells us how much she doesn't like snow.  A trip to the Walker art center made for a nice escape that involved some various projects and games.  Nina made a theater set with curtains, seating, and an interesting story involving a jaguar and a couple getting married in a rainy cave.

 

She likes drawing smiley faces and has added the smile to every picture in her Hello Kitty book that is at least 50 pages.  Every night she picks out her outfit for the next day and lays it out for herself.  Some combos have been pretty interesting.