Frosting, Sprinkles, and Syrup...an "Elf" Christmas

I think we must have been channeling "Elf" this week with the amount of frosting and sprinkles we all consumed.  It started with the extra frosting I had bought for our CC cookie decorating party.  Somehow a jar got open and then we had to eat it every day.  On Monday, it started off the normal way, on a cookie.  Josiah actually finished all the vegetables on his plate so he could eat dessert.  (I never thought he'd follow through with eating them all, so lesson learned on that one!)

By Tuesday, the boys put frosting and sprinkles on Fritos.  Josiah made me one and it wasn't half bad.  The saltiness helped cut the super sweet frosting.

The best part of this picture is that the floor was as equally bad as their plate and the table.  I asked Josiah to dustbust up all of the sprinkles.  I watched from afar as he turned the dustbuster on, sat it next to him, and then proceeded to pick up and eat all the sprinkles off of the floor.  Not exactly what I had in mind.  I didn't take a picture because I didn't want to distract him since he was technically cleaning up the floor.  :)

Do you think he licked the sprinkles up from the plate?

On Thursday, Josiah ate his tiny sliver of zucchini so he could have more frosting and sprinkles.  He ate it first on a cookie, but then moved onto Caroline's apple slices on her plate.  Henry covered his zucchini in frosting and sprinkles and announced how great the zucchini tasted.  Caroline got in on the action and ate her apple slices with sprinkles on top.  All I have to say about that is my boys ate zucchini.

Tonight, Josiah made us "patties."  I have no idea where he got the idea of "patties" from, but he's been making us patties all weekend.  Usually it is a mayo & cheese sandwich.  Tonight, however, it was a dessert patty.  He got a wrap out, spread some frosting on it with sprinkles on top, folded it over and voila.  It is tastier than it sounds.

At this point we just need to throw the frosting away.

We also enjoyed a bit of syrup.  The boys wanted to make pancakes that looked like an elf and Rudolph (thank you for the pictures Aunt Kathy).  So we went out and bought blueberries, strawberries, grapes, & bacon.  They ate way more berries than syrup for this meal, so it was a win.  Caroline ate some blueberries as well.  I would give her two at a time and she'd pop them in and say, "more please."  She is speaking in two word sentences more and more.  Caroline also likes to feed herself with a spoon and will push my hand away if I even attempt to help.  She is able to do really well with it most of the time, but if she's distracted there's a lot of food everywhere.  It's a lesson in patience for me.

She provides me with all sorts of lessons in patience.  I have noticed that when Caroline is quiet she has either found my phone and is playing with it, or she has gone to "play" in the boys' dresser.  Her favorite activity of late is to sift through their pajama drawer and mess up all of my nice folded piles.  This may not sound like a big deal, but most days I feel like the only thing clean in the house are the clothes drawers.  And even now they are torn up.  At least the bottom two that she can reach.

Henry provided another lesson in patience with playdoh this week.  They have not played with it much since we have been here, so when Caroline went down for a nap, the boys played with it.  I prefer to play with it neatly, not mixing colors, and picking up all the little pieces as I go along.  Henry...not so much.

He mixed four colors together and squeezed them through the small holes to make a snake.

Can you see the floor?  It was everywhere.

I literally had to just keep walking away from the table to keep calm and realize it is not a big deal in the long term.  Besides playdoh is very easy to dustbust up when it hardens.

Our neighborhood has great Christmas lights.  Today it was 75 out, so after dinner we walked around the block to see the lights and blow up things on people's lawns.  Caroline ran a good portion of it and was very excited to see them.  She'd point at each house and say, "uhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhh uhhhhh."  Earlier in the week we drove around our little neighborhood to see the lights.  Every time I slowed down so the kids could see the lights Henry would say, "Did you run out of gas?"  Every time.  We were two blocks from our house.

Saturday was a big day for the boys.  In the afternoon we went to a small theatre play of "Busy Town."  Busy Town is the one show they watch on t.v. most days, so I wasn't sure how they would do with a play and real live people playing the parts.  They loved it.  It was super low budget and I think most of the audience were family members of the cast (half the cast were kids).  They had homemade cookies and cupcakes for $1 each, so the boys had a snack and a show.  They really enjoyed it and kept asking about other characters that were not in the play, but in the books.  Definitely a good first experience.

The Busy Town show they watch on t.v. is on the Qubo channel.  I despise the station because of its commercials.  The boys want all the toys they advertise and they can quote the sales pitches verbatim.  Josiah was sitting with Todd the other day and said, "You have no hair on top.  Hair Club can fix that."  Thank you Qubo.  He also wanted to get me beads for my hair as a Christmas gift.  Again Qubo.

We did do our school lessons this week as well.  We are still doing the Civil War.  Josiah painted a picture of a Civil War soldier with a rifle in his hand.

He looks every so much like a Revolutionary War soldier, but still good.

We also made a pictograph of eye color in our family.  We tend to favor blue.  We had to change Grandma's eye color from hazel to green, as well as add Green Lantern and a boy from Josiah's class to our chart just to give ourselves a bit more variety.

This semester we learned all the states and capitals and the last two weeks we've started learning mountain ranges in the U.S.  We started off with the Appalachian Mountains.  Our map has Mt. Mitchell colored red which turned into a discussion as to why that was.  (highest peak in that range)  That turned into a discussion of all the "red" mountains on the map.  We ended up looking up most of them on the computer which turned into a small, but persistent, obsession with Mt. St. Helens.  Let me just say there are a ton of You Tube videos on the eruption (on May 18, 1980 8:32 a.m. in case you're wondering).  We also got a book about Pompeii (unrelated to school) from the library so we have had a lot of discussion about volcanoes, eruptions, ash, rock slides, people not listening to the police and still going close to the mountain, on and on.

Henry's picture - "the man is smiling because he won't leave the mountain and he's going to die."

Josiah's picture

Some more artwork:
Josiah drew big pictures of Caroline & Henry.

Caroline holding her beloved blanket and screaming.
Henry holding a donut and he has his toothbrush at the bottom of his shirt.

Henry drew the Cat in the Hat.

All of these pictures are now decorating our front room. I'm not so sure we'll ever need to buy real artwork for the walls. They will have the house decorated in no time.
And I am including a picture of Josiah's lego helicopter that he made because I had no less than 27 pictures of it as well as a video he had taken when I uploaded my photos.  Clearly he is proud of his work.

Having a late night snack (9 p.m.) with this little girl.

Cookie Decorating & Christmas Concerts

Last Sunday night we were greeted by a Texas snake coming in under our back door.  It was part way in the house when Todd called me over to see if it was a real snake or what (b/c it wasn't moving at the time).  It clearly was a snake as we pushed it back outside with cardboard.  There is no doubt that "fully sealed doors and windows" will be on our list for when we purchase a house.  Eeek!

Our week started off shaky with Todd & Josiah getting the stomach bug on Monday.  Josiah wanted me to spend the day with him on my bed watching TV.  So, every time I left the room he'd say, "Why aren't you taking care of me?"  Every time...  Uh, because I have two other wee ones who are a little too happy to have their run of the place.  Fortunately their sickness was short lived.

By the end of the day Monday, our house was closed on in Virginia.  Henry was pretty sad to hear that.  It's tough for him to hear that someone else will be living there now.  He misses his room there and from what I can tell, he'd prefer not to have bunk beds (even though he has bottom).  So, I think we'll unbunk them when we move again.  Right now there's no room with all 3 in the same room.  We all want a house "with stairs" (two stories).  We're making out our wish lists for the house hunting come spring.

For school, we learned about pioneers heading west to explore.  We read some great books about the wagon trains and so we decided to make covered wagons out of popsicle sticks.  It took much longer than I anticipated, days to complete, mostly because we'd have to do all our gluing when Caroline was sleeping and allow it to dry in between.  I thought the boys would enjoy pulling things around in them, but Josiah played with it only for about 10 minutes.  I don't think Henry ever played with his.  Although, he had to put his up high because Caroline had woken up just as he had finished.  

Even though he didn't like the covered wagon, Josiah did like gluing the popsicle sticks together to make things.  He ended up making this helicopter using popsicle sticks and cardboard.  It turned out really well and ended up being his presentation at CC this Friday.  It was a rescue/fire helicopter and when the back opened up, he had cotton balls fall out as the water.  

This was our last CC for the semester.  To celebrate they had a cookie decorating & pizza party after school time was over.  The boys had a very good time decorating their cookies and eating an unknown, but far too large, quantity.  The best part of the cookie decorating party was that the whole day exhausted the kids so much that by the time we got home they were all asleep.  And they stayed asleep for about 2 hours.  It was bliss.  :)

This cute little girl loves to copy every thing the boys do.  And I cannot emphasize EVERYTHING enough.  If they run around, she runs.  If they sing or talk a certain way, she copies.  If they eat a certain way, she follows.  When we're outside playing and Josiah sits on the sidewalk, gets back up and runs around, she will do the exact same thing.  It's been a lot of lessons about, "See if you make good decisions, Caroline will too." (and vice versa)  She can now say "no" which is always fun.  She loves applesauce.  For every meal she will go and get herself a spoon; even if she's eating a piece of bread, a spoon is required.  I am very happy that all she can reach so far are the spoons because she can leave a mess in the drawer.  She also likes to count, "2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3..."

We got an explanation for all of her screaming.  I was finally able to see that her two back top molars were pushing their way through.  At least there's an explanation and the screaming isn't as bad when I give her some Tylenol.  :)

Saturday was nice enough to play on the playground.  Caroline thinks she's a 5 year old on the playground, so she requires extra supervision!  

And the best part of the week was the boys' Christmas concert tonight at church.  The boys were so excited.  Josiah wanted to shine his shoes beforehand so that they were nice and shiny for the concert.  Henry followed suit.  Josiah also decided not to wear his suit because he wanted a cupcake afterwards and didn't want to get his suit dirty.

Shining their shoes with baby wipes.

Henry's group went first and sang two songs.  There were five kids and for the most part they stood there slightly frozen, not really singing and not really doing the hand motions.  All except Henry.  He did all the hand motions for his songs and he stole the show.  I was videotaping it and my video kept shaking because I was laughing so hard because he was doing such a good job.  Josiah did really well.  He sang both of his songs, but neglected to do the hand motions.  He told us beforehand that he wasn't going to do them and that he was going to focus on singing.  So we praised him for the singing.  They had a dessert buffet afterwards which is always awesome to give children a bunch of desserts at 7 p.m.  After two spilled drink cups (separately) and Caroline running away twice it was time for us to make our exit.  

Chillaxing and eating a few desserts afterwards

Josiah woke up early Saturday morning and made the Grinch before the others had woken up. He and his 5:30 a.m. wake up calls. When he was younger I thought he'd grow out of it, but he's been waking up in the 5 o'clock hour for almost 6 years now so I'm thinking it is never going to change.

Thanksgiving "Lite" & Trimming the Tree

We started our week with a "fun" object lesson.  Josiah has been telling us for weeks now that he gets nothing, we give him nothing, he never gets anything.  On and on.  So we gave him what he thinks he gets.  Nothing.

In the pictures he doesn't look that upset, but he was quite upset for a good hour after the sheets went up.  Then he was super helpful and nice for the rest of the day.  It was really nice, but I had a much longer object lesson planned.  The sheets stayed up for 5 days.  Of course with little to do he and Henry wrestled a lot which made for a week of more than normal injuries.  At the moment the sheets are down and not much has changed.  So I have another idea for next week (more long term).

Unfortunately, Caroline did share her stomach bug with Henry and me.  Poor Todd finally gets a few days off of work and he's having to do all parenting/adult duties at home.  For Thanksgiving, Todd cooked the whole meal.  He aimed for it to be ready at 3 p.m.  He timed it perfectly and a few minutes after 3 p.m., he, Josiah, and I sat down to eat.
At 3:05 p.m., Henry and Caroline woke up from their naps.
By 3:15 p.m. Josiah, Caroline, and I were done with our food.
By 3:20 p.m., Henry was done.
All his hard work and it was over so quickly.  He did make a tasty meal.  I did ask what we were thankful for and Henry answered, "I'm thankful for Josiah...wait, Batman.................no, Josiah."

I have to brag on this little guy for just a bit.  Henry is a super sweet kid.  He is generous, funny, and sweet.  He will share pretty much whatever food he is eating.  When we play "Go Fish" he cheers when others get matches even when it means taking cards away from his hand.  He has a nice disposition.  He can still be as stubborn and head strong as any 3 year old, but he's super sweet. And, whenever Josiah is using the restroom for an extended period of time, he'll call Henry in to tell him a story.

Since we were stuck at home all week so we could stay close to our restroom facilities, we decided to put up our Christmas tree on Friday.  We failed our "patience test" of putting up the tree with 3 young kids who want to help with every detail.  However, once the tree was put together all the kids hung the ornaments.  It only took a couple of hours before Caroline let us know that even the "safe" ornaments need to be put up high.  So the top half of our tree is decorated and we have a few stragglers on the bottom for Caroline's pleasure.  The boys and I started to make a paper chain so they could see how many days until Christmas.  However, as we were making it, Henry asked if we could put the "garlic" around the tree and showed me what he meant.  He wanted garland.  So each boy made a really long chain and we decorated the top half again.

We did take advantage of one Black Friday sale.  After our sticker shock of paying full price for shoes last week, I wised up and bought all the kids summer shoes on Friday.  Now we pray I picked the right size.

And a funny story from Caroline.  Todd went to the store to get Gatorade and other provisions.  When he got home, Caroline is yelling "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" over and over again.  I'm trying to shush her to be quieter.  Todd acknowledges her and she says to him, "Shhhh." because Henry's asleep.  I guess the "Shhhhh" negated all the yelling out of "Daddy."

Hopefully next week will be much more exciting since we're all on the mend now.

We Have a Lot to Work On...

Caroline had a huge break through this week.  She has finally mastered the sippy cup with a stopper in it.  I actually thought she'd never master it and we'd just move onto regular cups with her.  She liked her baby sippy cups with the very soft mouthpieces (that had all been chewed through since they've gone through all the kids).  She didn't "get" the ones with the hard mouthpieces, until this week.  Then, the next day she figured out how to drink from straws as she successfully drank both her brothers' drinks (fortunately it was water).  She now insists on picking out which sippy cup from which she would like to drink each day.  Mostly it is a gender neutral ABC123 cup or an animals cup, but if she spies the Lightning McQueen cups in the back she'll ask for that one.

She has enjoyed doing the name puzzles and can actually get a few pieces in the "Josiah" puzzle.  Although she needs help with the "Henry" & "Caroline" puzzles.  She is also putting more words together.  This evening Josiah went to the restroom and Caroline followed after him saying, " 'Siah, Whereareyou?"  She is definitely saying, "Where are you?" but it comes out as one word, and yet it is still distinctly "where are you?"  I think she's heard enough games of hide-and-seek to pick up on this phrase.  We play a lot of hide and seek around here.  I thought it would help the boys learn to count better as I make them count to 20 each time.  Josiah has a strong dislike for the number 15 as well as all the 30s.  He goes from twenty-nine to twenty-ten (I correct him and say "thirty") to forty.  Sigh.  At least we are aware of what we need to work on here.

Josiah started the week with an experiment.  He wanted to freeze a bowl of Cheerios and milk and then observe it throughout the week.  So we did.  He took it out on Day 2 and observed it was frozen.  Day 3 it was frozen and Day 5 it was frozen.  Clearly he has a future in cryogenics.  That reminds me to take it out of the freezer now so that we can get our bowl back.

Josiah finally lost his front tooth.  I think Todd and I are happier that he lost it than he was.  We are thrilled to know that his fingers will no longer be in his mouth constantly wiggling the loose tooth.  We don't do the tooth fairy, but we do have an owl that has a note inside that says, "Whoooooo lost a tooth?  Here's a gift."  with a few coins inside.  He was quite worried that I wouldn't find it because it was still packed up.  Fortunately it was in a box that was from my early packing days which was labeled with a fair amount of detail.  (Towards the end of packing I would just write "garage" on most boxes and I told Todd when we got here that we really needed to open the "garage" boxes because they have a lot of random things in them.)

At CC this week the kids were allowed to dress up like Pilgrims or any historical figure.  Josiah, of course, wanted to participate.  Henry, not so much, despite Josiah's encouragement.  We spent the afternoon before figuring out what he could wear and we went from a Pilgrim to George Washington.  It's sort of the best we could do and he was happy.  Then he "wrote" a George Washington poem and rolled it up like a scroll and put it in his jacket.  He stood up like he was giving a presentation and "read" his poem to us.  After his presentation was over, Caroline got up, stood where he was standing, and proceeded to lift her shirt over her head and smack her belly.  She has become quite proficient at pulling her shirt over her head.  This only started to become a frequent thing with the introduction of long sleeved shirts.  I have no idea why.

This would be the dress rehearsal when he was still happy

Sweet baby Caroline...

Friday morning, Josiah wakes up and wants to dress up immediately.  At 8:30 we are getting ready to go and I notice Caroline had been very quiet all morning.  She is standing next to me in the bathroom as I brush my teeth and I hear a "splash" on the ground.  Up came her breakfast of avocado.  Still in the nice diced cubes.  So there went CC for the day.  Josiah was less than empathetic towards her, yelling at her for messing up his day as she is throwing up for the second and third time.  Again, at least we are aware of what we need to work on around here...  I have to say, I was sort of disappointed that we didn't go either because Josiah and I had practiced his presentation a lot this week.  He was bringing in a lego creation and we had gone through the five things he was going to say about it (without elaborating or going off on tangents).  He had it down.  I'm just hoping he wants to do the same presentation when we meet again.

She was sick all weekend - first it went out one end, then the other.  I fed her lots of rice, rice Chex, fake Cheerios, applesauce, and liquids today.  We're really hoping she didn't share it with the rest of us.

Henry has made a friend at CC.  We had a family join us around week 5 and they have 3 kids (5, 3, & 1 like us).  Their Liam is in the nursery with Henry and they seem to have hit it off.  Today Henry asked if we could call Liam because he wanted to talk to his friend.  He then rattled off his phone number which was about 22 digits long.  I'm glad he has a friend (and from what the nursery workers said, it seems mutual).

This evening Henry drew a picture of our family.  He included George Washington as well.  George has made quite a come back this week.

J, George, H, T, E, & C

Saturday, we went to a real Stride Rite store to finally purchase winter shoes (e.g. not sandals) for Josiah & Caroline.  I had real sticker shock as we always went to a Stride Rite Outlet store before.  The price of their shoes is outrageous!  But all the kids have wide feet so we can't just get any brand of shoes.  Even tiny Josiah, in "less than the 5% for everything" has wide feet.  He got shoes with laces so he can learn how to tie them.  Caroline hopped and ran all over the (very small) store with her new shoes on.  She loves them.  Josiah says he can run faster as well.

I tried to get a picture of J & C with their new shoes when some kid from Siberia snuck in.  Here's hoping Caroline doesn't get her fashion sense from her brothers (as much as she clearly admires them).  

Finally, it is the week before Thanksgiving and we took a walk in nice 80 degree weather today.  As much as we miss Virginia, I'll admit that was pretty nice.

We hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving next week.

Thankful Trees, Trains, & Tinkertoys

This week we started our "thankful tree" for the month of November.  We're a little late in starting, but since we add 5 leaves to it daily, we'll still have plenty of "thanks" on it.  Initially we gathered sticks to put in a vase and hang our leaves from the sticks.  But then I remembered Caroline and decided that was a very bad idea.  So, I drew a tree on a poster board and we tape our leaves to that.  For the first day, I asked the boys what Caroline was thankful for and they said she was thankful for 2 big brothers.  :)  For her other days, I have chosen the things for which she is thankful:  her thumb, her blanket, her shoes, & her cookies.  Speaking of cookies, she can now say "cookie" quite well.  In fact, she says it morning, noon, and night and all times in between.  She loves her cookies.  I think we're going to have to have a cookie fast after this batch is eaten.

Henry would like you to know he drew the sky and Josiah would like you to know he drew the flowers

The boys came home from their Music & More at church on Wednesday with goodies.  Henry had a music CD with his two songs on it that he has to learn for the children's Christmas concert.  We've put the music on and Henry definitely knows the words and hand motions.  He even knows the teacher's directions for the kids because for one song, towards the end, he'll say, "ok, get louder now."  I am really hoping he does all the singing and hand motions when he's at the concert.  We are definitely taking a video!

This afternoon the boys and I went to church to participate in their "Thanksgiving Express."  Basically they got to decorate a box to look like a train.  They had a wrapping station (colored paper to wrap their box), then wheel station, light/license plate station, decoration station (where they wrote what they're thankful for as well as stickers and markers), and a snack station.  All the kids walked around the gym making one long train (with license plates on every car apparently).  The boys really enjoyed it.  Then they watched a Veggie Tales video about being thankful.  Although, given the age range of the children there (Josiah was an older kid in this crowd), 10 minutes into the video, nearly all the kids had gotten up and were running in a huge circle around the gym.  Not one parent attempted to stop them.  I think everyone was thrilled they were getting all their energy out before going home for the evening.

Henry working on his decorations

Todd did a "save" for Caroline at church, too.  Upon dropping her off in her room, she started to cry.  As he was walking away, he heard the lady say to Caroline, "It's ok, would you like some goldfish?"  Noooooooo!!!!  He walked back and kindly said she couldn't eat those foods and we had brought her own snacks.  The idea finally came to me this week to buy stickers that we can put on her wherever we go that indicate her allergies (or in her case, "sensitivities").  On amazon, I found cute (big) stickers that say, "Please do not feed me.  I have allergies."

For school this week, we learned about the underground railroad and slavery.  I wasn't sure if Josiah could understand the concept of slavery, but he asked a lot of questions and seemed to have a decent understanding (for a 5 year old).  We had some really good books from the library that he liked.  We read a book about the patchwork quilt system to help slaves escape the south and he requested we read that a lot.  Also, he has learned to read quite a few words by now and one way we review them (without being boring) is by forming sentences.  We each take turns making sentences and he loves to make funny sentences.  Fortunately we learn a few articles along with our families each week, so we have enough words to make proper sentences.

Henry surprised us during prayer time this week.  We always read the Bible and pray before bed and we give the boys both opportunities to pray if they'd like.  Usually they do as long as they get to pray first.  When Henry prayed, he prayed for "the black man, the white man, and the red man."  Todd and I looked at each other strangely wondering where he got this until we realized he was looking at the color clothing people were wearing.

This week I finished reading the Duggar book written by the four oldest daughters.  I read it hoping to pick up some parenting tips and they really had a lot of good information in it.  One thing their parents do is the Obedience Game.  So we gave it a try.  We had the kids line up and then say something like, "Josiah, I want you to run around the ottoman 3 times, touch the front door, give me five and go back to your spot."  He has to say, "Yes, ma'am/sir, I'd be happy to."  So, they are doing fun things, but we're getting them to respond respectfully and with a good attitude.  We seem to struggle with attitudes around here.  I think not a day goes by that I don't question, "What am I doing wrong?"  At least they really like the game.  Caroline likes it, too, and will sometimes follow our directions, but sometimes she'll just spin in circles over and over again.

Caroline ran out of her soy milk on Monday, so we went early in the morning to Walmart (which has the economy size Organic, non-carrageenan Soy Milk - we buy 5 at a time).  They already have all their Christmas stuff out, including candy.  The boys were very happy to get their very first Pez dispensers.  The store is not very far from our house and Henry had finished his candy before we arrived home.  He's not one to savor things.  During school one day, Henry occupied himself by drawing a picture of the Pez dispensers.

And one story that was funny for us.  Henry asked about a toy that he hasn't seen since we've been here.  He kept saying that Max and Charlie gave it to him and Josiah.  Josiah said it was a rocket.  It was also an airplane.  We were totally confused, so Henry said he'd draw a picture for us:

Yep, that's the picture.  Then he said it was a cart.  That was my clue.  Tinkertoys.  I always made them a cart out of Tinkertoys.  But we got them as a door prize at MOPS, not from their cousins.  And they didn't make it here.  I threw them away because most of the pieces were so torn up and broken.

And here's Todd pretending to be a gorilla and getting the kids while in their fort.  (We were in the process of getting ready for church which is why Josiah is dressed up and Henry is half undressed.)

Caroline making the gorilla face with Todd

Picture Day

I was a little nervous to write a blog post this week because when I went to upload my photos from the camera, there were only 10 on it.  That is sort of how I chronicle my week, so 10 pictures was a dismal turnout.  Usually there are 60-90 photos per week (including about 20 that are the boys taking blurry pictures of walls, ceilings, and toes).  So, this may be a short one.

Caroline can now say, "Go" and "thank you."  Todd has never heard her say "thank you" yet, so he's suspicious about that one, but the boys and I heard it one day.  It was very clear, but it hasn't been repeated since.  She has gotten fairly good at saying, "go."  She usually says it to tell me to "go and get her something, like a cookie."

Josiah has done really well with his reading.  I think the light bulb went off when we started the different families (-ap, -an, -ad, -at, etc.).  It is neat to hear him sound out words because he desires to know what the word says, not because we're pushing him to sound it out.  He got some free reading material in the mail recently, too.  Being in a rental, we get all sorts of mail for many different people.  This past week we got 3 Lego Club magazines, so we gave one to each of the boys.  Then we went to Sam's Club and the best part was they read the magazines the whole time, oblivious to the many toy aisles and with it the begging us for everything they see.  Score.

Every meal, every snack, every time Josiah eats even the smallest bit of food, he requests that I read him a book.  He likes to eat and read.  While I love that he wants books read to him and I often oblige, I'll be glad when he can start reading books to me!

For his CC presentation this week, he did another movie.  This one was of Pete the Cat and he drew different colored shoes on him for each page.  He sang a song, "I love my white shoes." to go with it.  It turned out cute.  Then this evening Henry pinched his inner thigh on the toilet seat (he really hurt it) and he requested that Josiah show him the Pete the Cat movie he made, so Josiah did the movie for him.  Josiah also read him the Peter Pan book, so it was nice to see Josiah attempt to cheer him up and for Henry to want Josiah to cheer him up.

At school this week, the director took pictures of all the kids and their class.  She went in the nursery and tried to take pictures of the little kids as well.  Caroline did not want to smile for her.  Henry has been wearing his Mickey Mouse sweatshirt for the past week.  It was a gift for Caroline, but he really loves it.  He says that people will think he's Mickey Mouse, but he's really not because he doesn't have yellow shoes.  As if that were the only reason.  Yellow shoes.

Mickey

Josiah's class & his tutor - 7 boys and a girl

One game we play fairly often is, "Who am I?"  Basically we can be anyone, but we usually use Bible characters, super heroes, or animals.  We say, "I am a (wo)man."  "I am in the Old Testament." and on and on until they guess who I am.  The other day, Josiah and Henry were in the back seat playing the game just the two of them.  They were cracking each other up because they could easily guess each other's person.  The best was when Henry said, "I'm a racoon...with a gun."  That would be Rocket Racoon.  The other easy one is, "I am a tree." Groot!

I had a good Thursday evening, as I went to a Ladies Night Out with some ladies at church.  We had a 5 Favorite Things party.  We each brought 5 of our favorite things and we'd leave with 5 different favorite things from the other ladies.  It was a lot of fun and they have a really fun group of ladies.  I even figured my way home in the dark which was even better since I was in a new (to me) part of town.

And cute photos of Henry taking a nap. He still naps 1-2 days a week. He could probably fall asleep every day if we let him, but that would make for pretty miserable evenings since he doesn't want to go to sleep at his regular time when he naps. Interestingly, both naps this week involved Waldo. A book and a puzzle.