Obsession is when a two year old watches “So Long Farewell” from the Sound of Music on YouTube over and over and over again on any given day and never seems to tire of it.
Obsession is when said two year old will brave disciplinary action from her mother in order to ask to watch it just one more time, even though she knows she is not allowed to ask again after her mom has already said no.
Obsession is when she cracks up laughing every single time she sees Liesel say, “I’d like to stay and taste my first champagne. Yes?” and her father says, “No.” Every. Single. Time.
Obsession is when she know the exact moment Greta will lay her head down on the steps and lays her own head down at the exact same moment and asks her mom to “be my sister, carry me to bed.”
Obsession is when you hear the two-year-old up in her room at 6:30 am, when you know her baby sister is still sleeping, singing, “Adieu Adieu to you and you and you” and the baby wakes up and all your hopes that this last week of sleep training working go down the drain.
Obsession is pretty adorable on a two year old and I am obsessed with trying to get a video of her singing and dancing to her new favorite song. 
We are totally thrilled to announce the birth of our newest niece and one more girl cousin for the girls. Katy-Grace Elizabeth Iverson was born last Sunday (March 1) and is just as sweet as can be. We can’t wait to meet her in person and are just so thankful to God for her life and that she is in our family! Noa has been asking to “hold baby Katy” ever since we heard she was born. I guess she’ll have to wait a few months yet, but until then we’ll just keep talking about her, and praying for her, and imagining what her life must be like with two of our other favorite people: big brother Daniel Josiah and big sister Trinity.
We love you already, sweet girl, and pray for the Lord’s richest and sweetest blessings on your life! Congratulations, Danny, Kimberly, Daniel Josiah, and Trinity on your newest family member!
Birthday Girls: Megumi (March 13, 2008) and Martha (March 8, 2008)
Our baby girl is ONE! I can’t believe it, but I am so incredibly thankful for this precious life and the fun we had (and will continue to have) celebrating her birthday.
Martha’s birthday was yesterday (the 8th) but we decided to have a party with our friends the Hoshinos, because their baby, Megumi, was born only 5 days after Martha. A birthday party shared with a friend is more fun, right? The photos and captions speak for themselves so enjoy!
The Hoshino Family: Kimiyasu and Yukari, Wakana, Yutaka, and Megumi, the birthday girl!
We also had the Dingle family along to celebrate with us. This is Kevin and Titus. Nice smile, Titus. (Titus is our resident "big brother" figure to our girls. He keeps them tough and lavishes his love on them. We are so glad he's our friend.)
Yukari with the babies. Alee is less than 2 months younger than the birthday girls, but she keeps up like the best of us. Such cute little friends.
Kimiyasu, Yutaka, and Megumi
cute kids!
Then it was birthday cake time. The one-year-olds had a Pink Piggy Cake.
Martha loved her first experience of cake and sugar. This was after she originally left it on her tray and ate with just her mouth, no hands. That wasn't getting it into her belly fast enough, so she changed strategy.
Megumi wasn't too sure about the cake at first...
Martha and our favorite Chizuka! (Who has been at every one of our childrens' birthdays so far - that would be 3 birthdays . I hope she's ready start flying to America for the next several years
Friends enjoying cake and each other. What a great way to celebrate birthdays!
After our other friends left, I wanted to have at least one photo of these two best buddies together. I love how much they enjoy each other and it was really fun to see how much Noa enjoyed Martha's birthday celebration. I look forward to many many years of watching these girls celebrate the life of their sister. What a gift they are to each other!
On my walk to school today, I listened to Piper share a 6-minute thought about this question -
What can parents do to keep from having favorites to among their children?
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/104/3552/
Listen
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/3552/Audio/
Podcast
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=262164685
Continue reading about This was good for my (Eric’s) heart today
Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments and e-mails that have come in. There are some great ideas and I hope we will find something that works. I am going to go with trying to cut back on day-time sleep a bit more, since she usually sleeps about 5 hours during the day, between her two naps. That seems like it may be the best solution for us, as I don’t want to take the route of darkening her room or using a noise maker yet. With our lifestyle – lots of traveling, sleeping in strange places, things like that – I really want to keep our gear as minimal as possible and hope that they stay low-maintenance sleepers. However, if some of this other stuff doesn’t work, I may just go there. I am really encouraged by you moms who shared that they just need to learn, and children do. We probably need to tighten up on our strategy and start being more intentional about making this a “training” thing. If nothing else, I was reminded that when we have jet lag going to the states, both girls slept really late in the mornings, so maybe things will change when we move this summer…
So, thank you thank you thank you, for all of your contributions. Of course, more are welcome anytime. This is our first day of our new plan. Speaking of which, I had better get started on dinner if I am going to wake Martha up early from her nap…
this little girl is a monkey for sure!
Ok, I am calling for any and all good ideas on helping children learn to SLEEP IN! I have always been thankful that our girls are great sleepers. They go down to naps and bed at night with barely a sound (unless they are talking or singing to each other) and have always seemed to need a lot of sleep. Noa, until she started sharing a room with her sister would wake up anywhere from 7:30 am to 9am, which was FABULOUS. Martha, on the other hand, ever since we subjected her to jet lag (yes, that was almost six months ago), has been an insanely early riser. We’re talking anywhere from 5:30 to 7 in the morning, usually no later than 6:30. I have tried cutting back on her naps, but then she is just so grumpy and can’t make it through the day happy, and still will wake up just as early the next morning. The problem with her early rising (besides the fact that we don’t think any kids should get up that early – we need that morning time!) is that she wakes up her sister. The only good thing that I can see in this is that they both take super long naps, Martha two super long naps, which is nice. But seriously, I want her to learn how to sleep well at night, and in the wee hours of the morning.
Any suggestions?
