We're still working on eating more non-baby food with the trio.  Even though Anna has been slower at accepting new things, she started learning to hold some foods like grilled cheese up to her mouth and then bite off a smaller piece.  She started this last weekend all by herself.  It isn't anything we really tried to show her.  Jonathan and Lydia don't really do that.  Jonathan and Lydia seem to like small slices of apples and other fruit, but Anna usually just plays with it.  We tried some tomato soup with them one night (leftovers from Mommy's lunch), and were surprised that Anna was the only one interested in even trying it.  And she actually liked it.

Daddy thinks (but not completely certain) that Lydia counted from 2 - 5 for the first time today.  In one of the books she was looking through, there were several bubbles on the page.  She pointed to them one-at-a-time, and it sounded like she said "two", "three", "four", "five".  Of course she did not repeat it since then.  One of the books they like asks them questions about "how many things does this animal or that animal have" and there is a flap on the opposite page that hides the answer and a picture of the items.  Daddy will first say the answer when they open the flap, and then count from one up to the number while pointing at the objects. 

None of the kids used to seem too interested in books until about a month ago.  Trying to read to them used to be difficult because someone always wanted to just flip the pages back and forth without really listening.  In the last month, that has changed.  Lydia is really interested to the point that she'd be happy if you did nothing but read to her all day long.  And once you start, Anna and/or Jonathan will come over to look at the book too.  If we leave the room to take care of dishes or fix them a meal, they will grab a book and flip through them themselves.  Through books we bought or received as gifts, we have plenty to keep them occupied. 

When Mommy was off last weekend, we planned to go out as a family on Saturday for a little bit.  So we had the kids shoes and coats on and the diaper bag filled with supplies.  Daddy went out to start up the Explorer, move the car, and get the mail.  Well, the Explorer refused to start.  The started sounded fine, but there did not seem to be enough juice coming from the battery.  The battery was new back in the fall, so it didn't seem to make sense.  Needless to say, we had to cancel our day out.  On Sunday we pushed the Explorer out of the garage and jumped it with the car.  Once running, the dashboard message center complained about the 4x4 system.  When the dealership checked it out, the electronic 4x4 controller had failed, causing a short in the system that drained the battery.