Christmas 2015

Christmas week.  Always a good, albeit crazy time.

We attempted school this week, but only got through one day of it.  The boys requested Todd teach them.  It was tough, but I took the day off.  :)  He got to experience firsthand the joy of seeing what they were capable of doing, as well as the frustration of bad attitudes and complaining.  Caroline and I had a blast hanging out and doing puzzles.

Later the boys wanted to do school with me.  They have given me levels of learning.  A few weeks back I completed my "mom" level.  They do math, science, Japanese, really whatever strikes their fancy that particular day.  I moved on to "dad" level.  Henry wrote out my math work.  He wrote "5=1."  I asked him what he wanted me to do with the problems and he responded, "You have to figure it out."  So, watch out future generations, we have a teacher on our hands.

Josiah had a brief, one-day interest in birds, particularly blue jays.  He read about them and then he and Henry drew them.  I liked their pictures, but once completed their interest in birds waned.


The boys were very pleasantly surprised to have a visit by old friends from Virginia. They were here in Texas visiting family, and dropped by for a couple of hours.  The kids started playing and running, and  screaming, and having fun right away.  It was really nice for them to just get right back into it.  As they were getting ready to leave the adults kept hearing the kids talk about cheese.  For some unknown reason, that only children understand, our boys decided to give the girls slices of cheese as they departed.  The kids saw nothing strange in this.  I heard our boys ask them, "Do you like white cheese or orange cheese?"  The girls answered just as matter-of-factly and ate their cheese.  You just never know what's going to come out of kids' mouths sometimes.

The next morning, the very first words out of Henry's mouth were, "Can we invite Lisa and Sam for Christmas?"  Then we went downstairs and Josiah asked, "Can we Skype with Lisa today?"  I'm glad it was such an enjoyable visit for them.

Playing with the new Suspend game from their friends.

One of Henry's favorite utterances this week was:
Henry, out of the blue, declared very loudly, "Caroline! [pause...] I love you!"
Caroline replied, "I love you!"
Todd thought he'd get in on the action and loudly spoke, "Henry! [pause...] I love you!"
And Henry replied, "Ok."

I took the boys to the Christmas Eve service at church.  Josiah did just fine, as he is used to sitting in big church and usually does so without any issues.  Henry....not so much.  He just would not sit still AT ALL.  When we were standing and singing, he would just sort of hang on my arm, twirl on it, constantly moving his body.  But when we were sitting down he just flopped everywhere.  He fell off the pew over four times.  This falling caused him to crash into the pew in front of him and ultimately on the floor.  The poor, poor older lady in front of him.  At the end of service, we all had real lit candles.  Henry, thank goodness, stood quite still holding his with a big grin on his face.  Even the lady in front of him turned around and grinned at him.  She was probably quite thankful for his stillness, and for not falling and causing her pew to catch on fire.  She introduced herself at the end.  She could have just been a polite lady, or she could have been taking names - mental note to self..do not sit in front of that Henry kid again...

And then Christmas came.  Caroline and I came downstairs to find the boys having already gone though their stockings and eating their Pez.  The big winners were Lego kits, a nerf gun, stroller, periscope, dolls, puzzles.  Everything, really.  One relative (to remain unnamed) gave Josiah a voice changer megaphone.  So, his voice sounds very loud with a sort of static-like or feedback sound mixed in.  He loves it, as do all the children.  We questioned whether this particular relative was angry that we moved to Texas and wanted to punish us by giving our children a megaphone.  :)  Although, in all truthfulness, Todd and I have both had some fun with it.  You can understand the words someone is saying if they keep their mouth an inch away from the mouthpiece.  Of course, the kids just put their mouths right on top of the mouthpiece so nothing is understood, but that doesn't stop them from speaking in long soliloquies.  It also makes really loud beeping sounds.  It's delightful really.  :)  It'll be coming back with us to Virginia this summer.  We want everyone to experience the pleasurable sounds it makes.

Nerf target practice - hard to miss from 6 inches away...

Completed Lego project.

Definitely working on steadier fingers

Henry gets his swamp cop/crook Lego kit with an alligator.

Best picture of an ever-moving Caroline with her new stroller, new baby doll, new doctor's kit on the handle, new shirt.  Only problem was she didn't get new pants for Christmas, so she was walking around sans pants.  We'll plan better next year.

That evening, we had a white dinner of pork chops, rice, cauliflower, and white hominy (kids like it), and super delicious homemade applesauce (technically brown, but it's a Rachel Ray recipe - highly recommend!).  We had a white cake and frosting, too.  Todd chose a white meal for two reasons.  One, to have a "white Christmas" Texas-style since we will never have snow here.  The other was to represent Jesus, Himself pure and holy, who wears white in Heaven.

Caroline and I went to play outside on Christmas day.  It was so hot!  It was only the low 80s, but it literally felt like sauna air out there.  It was so humid it felt much, much hotter.  After playing with bubbles, she wanted to take a walk.  By the time she and I found our way home (this is still a newish neighborhood for us), we were red in the face and hot and thirsty!  Of course, as I type this, just two days after Christmas we are supposed to wake up tomorrow and it'll be in the upper 30s!  We just go from summer to winter around here.  No other seasons.

We are excited to have a new couch being delivered this coming week.  We can't wait for a real couch that we can all sit on!

That and we'll enjoy the real winter weather.  It's about time for the kids to wear some long-sleeve shirts!

Making Friends

Ever since we moved to Texas we have wanted the kids to make good friends.  It has been a prayer of ours, and probably will be for many years to come.  Good friends are wonderful.  This week we had the opportunity to make good friends, and some maybe not-so-good friends.

Monday we had our Christmas party with our CC homeschool group.  It was at our director's house and she had a swing set as well as a giant trampoline in her back yard.  My kids were in heaven with the trampoline.  Josiah stayed on it for nearly the entire two and a half hours we were there.  Henry's buddy, Abby, was there, so he played with her a lot.  They were on the trampoline together for quite a while before moving indoors to play.  At one point, Henry was standing in the living room, not moving.  I noticed a baby doll under a blanket at his feet.  I looked at him quizzically and he offered, "She told me to stay here [with the baby]."  Caroline kept announcing that "all my friends are here."  All the kids from her nursery class were there.  She didn't necessarily play with them, but she did enjoy them being in the same vicinity.

Tuesday we went to the Post Office to mail Christmas packages.  I knew the line would be long, so seeing it go all the way to the entry doors was not a shock.  They have a bench by the door that our kids have liked playing on during previous trips there.  This time there were other kids on the bench, but that did not deter our kids from walking over.  The conversation started off with the typical, "How old are you?"  The other two kids were ages 3 & 5.  The next question came from the 5-year old girl, "Do you like Star Wars?"  Then the flood gates opened and all five of them were just chatting away, standing next to each other to compare heights, dancing around.  It was great to have them entertained during the long wait.  After a while I made my kids come back in line with me when I had moved up in line and was too far away from the bench.  The other kids (with an older sibling now) kept walking back and forth talking to my kids.  It was all friendly.  Then on the last walk-by the girl said, "You want to play zombie march?....You walk like a zombie and then they punch you."  Well, actually, no that doesn't sound too fun, thanks.  I did feel sorry for their mother because she finally got up to the window and then obviously did not have the correct thing to mail her package, as she walked away with a form in her hand along with her unmailed package and went to make phone calls on the bench.  All while holding her fourth (very young) child the entire time.  My guess was she was not a very happy camper.

We have been studying a lot about Ancient Greece recently.  I'm learning more about it now than ever before.  I really disliked this subject (mythology, mostly) in school, so I learned only what I needed to know for a test and promptly forgot it all.  No need to crowd a head with all that useless information.  :)  Of course Josiah likes it, as he pretty much likes every history subject we have studied.  This week we learned about the first Olympic Games and decided to have our own competitions.  We started off by making olive wreath crowns for the victor.  I think the boys glimpsed into their future as they both wrote "1st" on their wreaths.  I wrote "2nd" on mine.

 The first competition was a running race.

They had to start on one side of our yard, run to the other side, and then back again.  Well, Josiah made it to the other side of the yard first at which time he proceeded to race back while Henry, seeing defeat before him, stopped running and walked back with arms and head hung low.

He started crying and walked to the chair on our patio to watch the remaining competitions.

Josiah had a hopping race, javelin throw [Henry excitedly entered this event of stick throwing, only to be shut out by Josiah who surprised us by being a very (consistently) good javelin stick thrower.  Henry went back to his chair.],


long jump,

running long jump, ball throw, and a strength test - he had to break his javelin stick.  He broke it well enough, but the stick was wet, so the bark would not separate and he had a tough time completely separating the two pieces.

The boys wanted to do wrestling as well, but I made them save that competition for inside with Todd.  They wrestle all day long usually, so I'm not sure we needed to do it outside as well.  Since Henry sat out most competitions, Josiah proudly wore his "1st" place crown.  In Ancient Greece, one of the prizes for winning was free food for the rest of your life (not a shabby prize!), so we compromised and had ice cream in lieu of having to feed Josiah for the next 85 years.

In hindsight, I should have done the Olympic Games with Caroline.  We did it during her naptime, but I think it would have helped Henry if he had someone out there whom he could beat in every competition.  Plus, she wouldn't have cared.

Early Friday morning we went back to our CC director's house to help watch her kids while she went out for an appointment.  When I told her we could do this, I completely forgot she had dogs.  She always kept them locked up whenever the whole CC group was over and I never heard them.  Well, she had a very small dog and a very, very large 7-month-old dog that weighs more than their 8-year-old son.  The boys did fine with the small dog, but were quite frightened by the big dog.  (It was scary for them; the dog's face came right up to their faces and he was a playful puppy, albeit a giant one.)  Caroline was deathly afraid of both the small dog and the giant dog.  She kept saying, "I don't like dogs. I don't like dogs."  At one point the big dog, Maverick, was out in the backyard, when the 8-year-old son comes running downstairs saying something like the dog is halfway out.  We go out and the dog has knocked out a piece of the fence and was halfway in and halfway out of the yard.  Fortunately, because it was so big, it got stuck.  So, we (carefully) got the dog back in the yard and swiftly put her back upstairs.  I could not even imagine if that dog had gotten out and I would have had to figure out how to chase after it while watching 6 kids.  Later in the morning, the 8-year-old boy got out his very real rifle to show some older boys who had come over (more CC kids).  He wanted to shoot it.  I asked him to put it away.  So we avoided a runaway dog and a loaded gun all in the short time I was there.  I will probably not volunteer to babysit over there for a while.  Ever since that day, though, Josiah has talked about how he is friends with the gun-toting kid as well as another boy who was there.

Henry went to his Sunday school class very well today since he knew he was going to get a hard puzzle.  We asked him about it this evening and he talked about doing the puzzles and how it was hard, but he did it.  He even helped out another little boy with his puzzle and now calls him friend.  That is a big deal because he said he didn't like going to that class because all the kids already had friends and there weren't any more kids with whom he could be friends.  It would be awesome for him to have a friend and bond over puzzles.

Henry has also surprised me this week with some early reading skills.  When I would read him his school books or library books, he would listen to the words and then try to pick out one or two as I was reading.  He would point to a word and say, "Does this say, 'July'?"  Yes!  "Does this say, 'puppy'?"  Yes!  He's always been correct in his guesses.  I have a feeling he'll start reading earlier than Josiah, if only because he wants to do everything that Josiah does.

Caroline drew a picture and she wanted to hang it on the wall.  So, she got out our painter's tape and put a little on the back of it.  Unfortunately, she didn't wrap the tape to make it double-sided.  She just taped it straight on.  We helped her fix it and wanted a picture of her with it.  She begrudgingly complied on the condition that she got to take a picture of her artwork herself afterwards.

taped-up back

mugshot

We are all happy for Todd to have two weeks off for Christmas break.  We have grand plans to get this house in order.  It is our goal to use our days wisely!

Henry, a Mighty Big Fan of Josiah (and Abby)

The boys broke out the pastels this week.  Josiah found them on a high shelf, and since he can read now, he knew what they were right away.  They loved the pastels.  They loved that if they messed up with one of the colors on their picture, they could go right back over it to "erase" the mistake.  I was cleaning up in the kitchen, but could hear their conversations as they were using them.  In between all the words of commendation, I kept hearing Henry break his and saying, "Whoops, the red broke."  "Whoops, I broke the black one."  Of the 12 pastel colors we had, I think he broke 9 of them.  Much like a crayon, though, it doesn't really matter if they're broken.  They still worked.  Henry first worked on a picture of a rainbow.  Sweet, simple.

Meanwhile, Josiah was working on a grass/sky/tree/sun/rosebush/bunny scene.

Henry's next picture was eerily similar to Josiah's.  Henry loves his older brother.

It was clear that the boys have a lot of love for each other, but it became even more clear this week. Henry was invited to the birthday party of one of his classmates, Abby.  Henry was very excited to go and talked about Abby a lot this week.  He picked out a Texas longhorn Christmas tree ornament because he knew she would like it.

He drew two pictures for her, wrote a card for her, and cut out a heart with a picture of a horse in it that he had written, "HENRY, ABBY, HORSE"  He wrapped her gift (she got more than the super cool ornament).  He was geared up to go.  Then Saturday morning came, we got in the car, and as he and I drove to Abby's house he started crying.  Really crying, with big tears coming down his face.  I asked him what was wrong, "It's just not the same without Josiah.  There's nothing to do [in the car], there's nothing to see."  He was so upset to be by himself.  He loves Josiah, and he enjoys his company so much.

Once we got to Abby's house, though, he turned into goofy boy.  He was making us all laugh - just enough goofiness that it was still funny.  And then the party games began.  It started off well.  They had to pin the Snoopy on the doghouse and Henry crushed all his opponents in that.  He got to pick a prize from their prize bucket.  He picked Snoopy bandaids.  (Smart choice for our household.)  Next game they had to guess how many nickels were in a container that they could hold and shake.  These were the guesses from the kids:  100, 10, 30, 20, and then Henry said, confidently and with his finger in the air, "Two Hundred and Thirty-One!"  There were 6 nickels in the jar.  After this game, he lost all the subsequent 6+ games and his goofiness turned into defeat and tears.  After one particular game of a Charlie Brown-style ring toss, he missed all his rings and fell face first on the floor and wouldn't move.  He turned into floppy boy, so I held him in my lap.  The game after that was a game of chance in which they picked numbers out of a jar and you just hoped they picked your number.  His number didn't get called and he just started quietly crying.  At this point, the host noticed and had her husband continue picking numbers until Henry's was called.  Fortunately, after that game, they kids sat down to eat.  Henry was back in his element.  (Note to self.  8+ games is way too many for a 4 year old, especially if he's losing.)

Henry as Charlie Brown

The entire way home from Abby's party, Henry kept talking about her.  We have to invite her over to our house and play all the same games again.  Over and over again, we have to have her over.  Then in the evening as we were getting ready for bed, Henry says, "I miss her.  I love her."

Josiah spent Saturday evening at church with Todd for their Christmas concert.  He really enjoyed it, but told us that he slept through parts of it.  It didn't start until 7pm, a half hour before his bedtime.  He told Todd that he liked to do things just the two of them.  He liked spending time together.

Sunday morning, Henry started to put up a fuss about going to his class at church.  Our typical Sunday struggle with him.  So, this week we let him stay in Big Church with us, if he would willingly go to his Sunday school class afterwards so Todd and I could go to ours.  He agreed, but I believe he lived to regret his Big Church decision.  By the second song in the service, he was already looking bored and chatting and saying he was tired, etc.  Then a little further into service, the kids were dismissed for children's church, so Josiah went to that.  You have to be in first grade at least to attend, so Henry stayed behind.  I looked down at him and he was crying to see Josiah go.  He loves his brother!  I held him some, Todd held him some, He drew pictures, and then said, "I want to go to my class."  :)  He hesitated when we got to the door of his class, but he went in willingly.  When Todd picked him up, his teacher mentioned to Todd that she was going to get harder puzzles for him to do next week since he was so good at puzzles.  Henry's looking forward to that, so here's hoping next week goes easier.

We got our Christmas cards in the mail finally. Henry was eager to sign them, which was awesome.  He even fancied up his letters in some cards which was hilarious. We spent one evening driving around the neighborhoods looking at lights.  There are a lot of houses around here that are decorated, which made the driving fun.

Josiah has been leaving me notes lately.  If I am doing some one-on-one school work with Henry, I will come out to the kitchen to find a note that says, "Sorry Mommy.  I went to play legos.  love, Josiah"  It is neat to see him writing on his own now.  The note actually said, "sorry mommy I wnit to Loege love Josiah."

We learned about Theseus and the Minotaur this week.  As part of that story we built a labyrinth out of Lego for Theseus to go find the Minotaur.  Henry helped out a lot with this.  Josiah, not so much.  Mazes were hard to create out of Lego!  At least, it was not something that we could whip out quickly.  It required thought.  Henry enjoyed moving the Minotaur around and "finding" it as his Lego Theseus went through the maze.  And, you may wonder, why do we learn Greek Mythology at ages 4 and 6.  With the Classical education model we use, we go through cycles.  This year is the Ancients.  We study all about Ancient History and read abbreviated stories about the real or mythological characters in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, etc.  Then when they encounter these same characters later in their education, they are less intimidating (ideally).

We also had a very messy math lesson.  Josiah had to use peanuts in their shells.  We counted by tens and twos.  We shelled them and counted the nuts inside.  Before all of this, I asked the boys to just observe the nuts and tell me everything they could possibly tell me about them.  Then I asked them what they thought was inside the nuts.  Josiah proudly declared, "Peanut butter!"  Henry said, "Almonds!  Wait, no, what's that other one.....Cashews!"  Yep.  Shockingly we found peanuts inside.

Henry licking his salty hand.

 This is how many nights end for us.  Caroline likes to get out of bed and make beds in other areas of the house.  It's what she does.

Back to Full-Time Parenting

Well, we're back to full-time parenting this week.  We had a great visit with Grandad & Nana and were very sad to see them go.

They allowed me to leave the house for several hours just about EVERY day.  Todd and I got to go out on our own.  Plus, the kids were on their better behavior for most of the visit.  It was great.  Not only that, but they helped our kids learn how to ride bikes.  Henry is getting better every day with his bike.  Now, he can push off on the ground several times to get momentum before putting his feet on the pedals and get himself going.  He can go the distance of the side of our house.  It is very cute because when he gets a good length of pedaling in and finally stops (crashes), he'll get off his bike and pump his fists up in the sky.  One day, Josiah was being particularly encouraging to Henry.  Every time their bikes passed each other, Josiah would say, "Good job, Henry."  "You're doing it."  "Nice riding."  etc.  It is always so nice to hear your kids speak so kindly to each other.  It helps to make up for the times when they are not so nice to each other.  Later that same day, a very tired, unreasonable, and tantrum-throwing Josiah clocked Henry in the forehead with the bathroom door knob.

Henry wants to know when he can ride his bike with his handles backwards.

The boys were sweet with each other on our school field trip.  We visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Sugar Land.  It is an off-shoot of the big museum downtown.  It was actually quite a small museum - two floors and you could stand in the middle and easily see from one end to the other.  Downstairs the boys got to see frogs on one side and geodes on the other.  Upstairs was a bit more interactive - they had hands-on things like weights & levers, learning about waves, centripetal force, sound waves, etc.  The boys liked the whisper box the best.  It was a ~6 foot diameter parabolic dish (How's that for fancy? - Todd gave me that term).  Like the parabolic microphone things they have on the sidelines at football games.  The dish had a small metal circle sticking out from the center connected to three metal arms extending to the edges of the dish.  The boys had to whisper into the small circle and the person at the other dish on the other side of the room could hear them.  It worked amazingly well.  The whispers were quite clear.  The boys were saying things like, "I love you Henry." and "You're the best."  Then another CC child came along and stood next to Henry and whispered, "You're weird."  Henry laughed and repeated it.  Thank you, older child, for teaching my kid to be rude.

Josiah made the scared face all on his own.

Henry was bored downstairs, so he took a rest.

Josiah lifting 50 lbs.

Josiah trying to light up all the light bulbs (it was VERY hard to get all 6 lit)

Since Josiah got up super early every day Grandad & Nana were here (including an impressive 4:00 a.m. on the last day they were here), we put a clock in his room with paper over the minutes, so all he can see was the hour.  He has to stay in bed until he sees the 6 (unless nature calls, of course).  The first morning, he came in our room about 4 times before the 6, but since then he's gotten better.

To keep the kids busy and distracted from Grandad & Nana going home, we put up our Christmas tree.  The kids and Todd put the ornaments on and the kids have been breaking, on average, one ornament per day since then.  Today we had one shatter, not even salvageable with glue.  The boys each drew one side of our star.  Henry chose a solid yellow for his side.  Josiah chose words for his.

It was Henry's turn to put the star on the top of the tree.  Todd did his best to hold him up (check out his face), but Henry wasn't exactly hurrying to get it on and Todd's muscles gave out.  So, Todd ended up finishing the job himself.

Playing with the nativity scene has also been a favorite past time.  Caroline actually plays with it - Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, angel, etc.  The boys get their cars and transformers and play with it like it's a hide out from whatever villan is after their character.  They launch the donkey off the roof with the car launcher.

We also made some soft pretzels (sorry Nana, but they weren't that good). The boys impressed me with their skills of rolling their dough into snakes and then forming them into pretzels.  I demonstrated it only once, and Henry just blew through all of his dough balls, forming little perfect pretzels.  They looked much better than they tasted.  Probably because the package expired in July, but the boys still liked them.

A few other pictures from our week:

Watching bacon cook.  Always a favorite pastime:

Drinking milk while wearing chemistry goggles.

Outtake from our Christmas picture.  Caroline is holding her bum saying, "That's just my gas."  Of course, this was the best picture of the boys smiling.

The boys ended the week well.  At church we had a pizza party for a family for whom our class had bought Christmas presents (single mom trying to get out on her own again).  They had a bouncy house right there next to our tables.  The boys did really well in it.  Towards the close of the party, we looked at the rules on the bounce house.  No kids under 3 allowed (broke it).  Only 4 kids in it at a time (definitely broke it).  400 lbs max in it (most likely broke it).  I would say there were 10 to 15 kids in it at any one time.  Miraculously, no major injuries.  :)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week and there was a lot of focus on food.  It has been my hope that Grandad and Nana do not leave our house having lost weight due to the meals they have been served.  Every few days we try to go to a restaurant so that they get some good food in them that can sustain through the next couple days of "homemade meals."  I had noticed that our Thanksgiving meal was really good and as I was telling my mom who had cooked what, I realized I had only done a little prep work, no actual cooking.  Todd cooked a good turkey.

Cooking turkey.

Sweet turkey.

Crazy turkey.

Grrr.  I eat my turkey.

Caroline has survived on turkey/chicken and sweet potatoes for a good 4 days straight.  We took Grandad & Nana to Sweet Tomatoes which Caroline aptly calls Sweet Potatoes.  She ate three there.  Three sweet potatoes.  She's only 2 years old.  That, and all the chicken from their chicken noodle soup.  On Thanksgiving, she ate another entire sweet potato and every day since she's had one along with leftover turkey.  For dinner last night she had an entire (good sized) sweet potato, turkey, cashews, an applesauce pouch, half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and ice cream.

I had told Caroline that I was going to make an apple cake that she would be able to eat (gluten free).  She talked about it a lot and was excited that it was going to be made.  I made it today and as it was cooling, she kept saying that it was her apple cake.  I made it for her.  She was going to eat it.  Everyone knew about her apple cake.  At dinner, I brought her plate to her and her first words were, "Where's my apple cake?"  She finally got it for dessert.  At first she was only interested in cutting it up.  She tried it, ate some, ate a bit more, and announced she did not like apple cake.  In fact, it was so bad that she said that she didn't even like apples anymore.  Apples.  Something she eats on a daily basis.  She's through.

Henry has spent his dinners falling apart.  He is still wanting to get up too early in the mornings to spend time with Grandad and Nana which means his evenings are torturous for him and everyone in his path.  He loses all self control and his floppy body slumps down his chair and he doesn't want to eat and he doesn't want to listen.  One night he had a 5:45 p.m. bedtime.  We need to reinstitute nap time for him if he wakes before 7:00 a.m.

The kids have loved getting out almost every day to ride bikes.  Josiah is now a biking master.  He likes to ride fast, take turns quickly, and hit the brakes even more quickly.  He now has tricks while he rides like trying to wave, standing up on the pedals, and turning quickly at the corners of the sidewalk.  Grandad & Todd were kind enough to put on a new back tire for him.  The other one was thread bare.  The way Josiah likes to hit his brakes, I should set a timer for this tire's lifespan.

Since he was riding so well, Todd and I thought we would get Henry started.  So, Todd took off the training wheels of our really small bike.  Our intention was just to get him sitting on it and walk the bike around with his feet on the ground just to get a feel for how to balance it.  At first he pretty much refused to try it.  Once he finally got on the bike, he kept trying to put his feet on the pedals, thus not understanding the skill we were trying to have him master.  I went inside for some reason while Todd stayed out with Grandad and worked with him.  Lo and behold, he started to understand and do better.  The next day, Grandad & Nana took him back out and he was doing even better.  So, now we may very soon have two bike riders on our hands.

Actually, make that three bike riders.  I swear Caroline couldn't even reach the pedals of the tricycle just a couple of weeks ago and this week, she was determined to teach herself how to ride it.  I say teach herself because if we tried to help her, she would yell, "No! Don't touch me! Don't touch it [the bike]! I do it!"  First, she learned how to ride the big wheel.  She got the pedal part down, but the steering was a problem.  Then she tried the tricycle and after a few days she's gotten really good on that, too.  Maybe all those sweet potatoes are giving her just the energy she needs to pedal these bikes along.

She barely reaches the pedals.

She puts on her own shoes and socks...

Saturday morning the kids wanted to play with playdoh.  We no longer had any, so I thought I could just make some and all would be well.  I had done it before and it turned out well, easy to use, pliable, playdoh consistency.  Well, I read the directions, mixed the ingredients, but what I did not do was time the cooking process.  It became clear that my playdoh was not cooked long enough and was too sticky.  Henry and Caroline still wanted to play with it, so I gave them a little flour each to make it less sticky.  A little flour, a little more flour, a little more flour, a little more flour.  Pretty soon, they were no longer playing with playdoh, but a dough ball.  Henry pretended he was a baker and he talked and talked about it.  He told Nana that he was making all sorts of desserts.  When he was asked how much he charged for his wares, he said "whatever money you have" and then amended it to say that anyone who did not have money could still eat for free.  Then he said he would have 1300 or 13000 coats available to hand out if someone came and didn't have a coat.  They played like this for a long time.  It was very, very messy, but sweet all the same.

It needs just a little more flour. (food coloring on her forehead)

Caroline has been praying some great prayers at night.  Sometimes they're short and sweet, and sometimes they are looooooong.  She likes to count during them and sort of give God a running commentary of her day.  This evening she told God that she didn't have her car (matchbox car) and that she asked me where her car was and I didn't know and so she didn't have her car.  Praying it up to heaven.  One of my favorites was the other night when she looked around the room and said, "I love Henry & Josiah & Daddy & Mommy & Grandaddy & Nana & TV & Batman & Robin."

It turned cold in Houston this weekend.  We finally turned the heat on for more than a day and we got our warmer jackets out.

This sweet girl has been a Daddy's girl all week.  (We find we take our best photographs at the Costco food court.)