Mark likes to climb up the steps and then go down the slide head first - superman style! Here is a video. It cuts out before end so I can spot him but you get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOGoVOEksHk

Emily's first semester at Christ Memorial has come to an end. The school puts on a Christmas program the last school day of the year. Caroline and I have been eagerly anticipating the program as Emily has been treating us to impromptu snippets of the performance over the last few weeks. It's clear they have been practicing a lot. A fun game for us is to try and figure out if a song Emily breaks into is one she learned at school or just an original that she is ad libbing.

The performance finally came yesterday and Emily and all her school mates did a fantastic job. Mimi, Grandma and Papa came to watch and Emily was clearly very excited to have so many of her fans in the audience. Papa flew in over night from San Francisco for the performance, landing just hours before the program started. It was awesome that we could all be there to see Emily's first officially sanctioned musical performance. For everyone that we know wanted to be there but couldn't please enjoy the following YouTube videos...

I took Mella and the kids to the soccer fields to play. They always have a great time and then want dinner as soon as we get back home. I was busy feeding the kids and didn't see what Emily had done to Mella until a good 30 minutes later. And then of course I took a minute to take a picture. Poor Mella.

Emily's class had a little Christmas party during school today. All the parents were invited for a Christmas ornament activity, snack and cookie decorating followed by some free time play in the classroom until the day was over. Emily had a big time and Mark enjoyed checking out all the cool classroom toys.

Mark recognizes the words dance and "talk on phone" now and it is really cute to watch him do both. He uses an old iPod of mine as a phone because that's what Emily always uses. Here is a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsqQqnjcMg

Mark can say "momma and dada" but other than that he uses pointing to communicate and uses his ''more' sign to let me know when he wants more food or he will point to a toy and then do his more sign. I guess he thinks the sign means 'give me now'. The more Mark can do the more fun Emily and Mark have together. Here are some pictures of the kids playing this passed week.

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I took the kids to the soccer fields yesterday. Emily had a great time running around as usual, but this time Mark finally found something he loves to do too. Here are some pictures and a video of Mark's own version of running around the fields.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig4RFaaLyhQ