The Romneys: Other Family Updates

I posted all about Naomi on her birthday post, but I figured it would be good to give updates for the rest of us!

Aleta is 15 months old now. She runs around and climbs on the furniture and can pretty much keep up with Naomi. Her favorite place to sit is on top of the couch, looking out the window. She talks a lot for her age. She is always repeating things that we say and mimicking our sounds. She was hanging out in the kitchen with me tonight while I was cooking dinner, and I was singing along to a song that was on a video game Jacob was playing in the living room (not words, but just singing along with the tune). Every time I stopped singing, Aleta would start making the same sounds I had been making, in a little sing-songy voice. It was cute.

The girls running around and playing with hats...

Aleta says night night, let go, wee!, no, go, stop, mine, yummy, yum, cheese, jump, cup, bubbles, ball, mama, shoes, don't touch, up, sit, cookie, and probably a bunch more words that I can't think of at the moment. She loves reading books and spends a good part of every day looking at books. She also LOVES stuffed animals. Naomi never really got interested in stuffed animals other than her hippo, but Aleta loves them. She will grab & snuggle 2 or 3 of them at a time. She used to hate shoes, and she would scream bloody murder the second I tried putting them on her feet. She would continue to scream and kick until I finally gave up and took them off. Then about 2 weeks ago, she suddenly decided she LOVES shoes and wants to wear them every moment of the day. She will bring me one of my shoes, or one of Jacob's, and cry until I put it on her foot, and then when it falls off a few seconds later, she will bring it back and cry again until I put it on her again. This continues until I get tired of it (which doesn't take long), and then she throws a tantrum. Aleta loves being held and snuggled, and she doesn't go to bed easily unless I snuggle her for a few minutes in the rocking chair. It's nice--Naomi never really liked being held or cuddled. I remember looking forward to Naomi's bottle times before naps & bedtime because it was the only time she would let me hold her for more than a few seconds.

Jacob is still plugging away at school and clinicals. He graduates in May, and we are SO excited for him to finally get his degree! We still aren't sure what we will be doing or where we will be going when he is finished. We are applying to every job we can find, and there's also a really cool Master's program that he applied for and would really like to do. So we will see what happens! (And if you want us to come live by you, find us a nuclear medicine job and we'll make it happen! haha)

Oh, one thing that I forgot to put in Naomi's birthday post. I mentioned that she loves playing games on the wii... in the last few days, she has started yelling "Are you kidding me?!" at the tv periodically while she is playing. I guess she has been listening to Jacob while he plays Call of Duty... he frequently yells that at the tv when things aren't going well for him. I find it pretty funny, but I don't think I want that to become a habit of hers! I also wanted to mention how proud I am of her for how quickly she picks up on good manners and knowing the right way to treat people. She is really good at saying "thank you" (maybe not as good with please, but we will work on that!), and she is always telling Jacob, Aleta, and me to "be nice!" if she thinks we are doing something that isn't nice. She started yelling "shut up!" a couple weeks ago when people were being loud, which I was NOT ok with, so I explained to her that it's nicer to say "quiet, please". She very quickly stopped yelling shut up and started saying, "Quiet, please!" instead. I was so proud! (Well, she actually YELLS it, but at least she switched to the nicer words!)

Before this year, Naomi only got to go out in the snow once, and it was before she even turned 1, so she didn't really play in it. Last year we didn't really get any snow, so I was really excited to take her out in the snow this year! We went out a couple times when we got our last snowstorm. Naomi LOVED it. She wasn't a huge fan of the sled, but she loved making snow angels, building a snowman, and shoveling (no idea why that's fun, but it's cute!). Aleta, on the other hand, HATED it. She screamed and cried the whole time she was outside, so it didn't last too long. She usually loves going outside and tries to escape every time the door is open, but she didn't like the snow at all!

Me & Naomi in the snow!

And here are a few other random photos from things we've been doing lately!

Jacob & I had our Chinese date in February (from our monthly dates that I gave him for his birthday). We ate yummy orange chicken and watched a ridiculous Jackie Chan movie--the Medallion. It was completely ridiculous and silly, but we enjoyed it!