Convictions

Todd got off for MLK Jr Day on Monday.  He was going to take Henry out for some special one-on-one time while I did school with Josiah.  He took him to the movie theater to see Paddington.  However, before they even got out of the car Henry told Todd that he didn't want to see Paddington because he (Paddington) makes bad decisions so he did not want to watch it.  (He had seen the preview for Paddington last summer when they went to see Planes Fire & Rescue.)  Then when they drove back home, Henry says, "Daddy, I didn't like your fun thing."  At least he has convictions.  Meanwhile Josiah had a FIT when he learned what they were doing.  We were going to take him this weekend by himself as a special one-on-one time.  What we've learned is that the boys prefer to do things together.  Parent fail.  And still no one has seen it.

Although we were told that we would need winter coats here, we don't believe it.  This week has been gorgeous and has been in the high 60s/low 70s.  We've gotten to play outside most every day.  Tuesday we played outside a little longer than anticipated when we discovered that we were locked out of our house.  I distinctly remember checking the door to make sure it was unlocked (several times).  However, we do have an unnamed child who likes to go back inside for various reasons by himself/herself without telling anybody.  I am thinking that is how we got locked out.  Fortunately, I had my phone on me and could text Todd to please come save us.  He had convocation that day, so instead of going to that, he came and let us back in.

one of the many faces of Henry

This is a very popular car with all 3

Josiah did well at CC this week.  He wanted to give his presentation on helicopters.  He had taken apart his Lego airplane (the one that took 3.5 hours to build) and rebuilt it as a helicopter (only taking 2 hours to build).  We decided to check out a bunch of books from the library about helicopters and he used one of them during his presentation to describe how they were made.  It went pretty well.  I asked him what he likes best about CC and he said, "art and snack."  Right now they are studying painters for their fine arts and then trying to do a painting in a similar fashion as the artist.  This week was Georgia O'Keefe and Josiah painted a huge rose.  Last week was Norman Rockwell and since his pictures/paintings tell a story, they had to have their painting tell a story as well.  He painted planes flying and putting out fires.  Unfortunately it had rained the night before so there was no playground time.

Caroline got an early birthday present from Grandad & Nana.  A backpack of her very own.  (She is always putting on the boys' backpacks.)  Of course, she loves it and wears it around the house.  When we got ready to go to CC on Friday, she grabbed her backpack and put it on.  It was very cute to see her grab it, but it also sort of ended an era for us.  I cleaned out her diaper bag and put a few diapers in her backpack.  Now we are diaper bag-less.

Her reaction when she first got the backpack

Ready for CC on Friday (her hat was an accessory put on by her, not necessary for weather)

Caroline's prayers have gotten more sophisticated.  Now she says, "I pay. I pay. Uhhhhhh. Daddy. Uhhhhhh. Mommy.  Uhhhhhh. Siah. Uhhhhhhh. DaDa (Henry). Uhhhhhhh. Amen."  Henry likes to tell me during all of her prayers that he can't understand what she's saying.  I just say, "God does.  He understands her."
She also let us know that she no longer needs to wear zipper pajamas.  Todd went to get her after she woke up Saturday morning and she was naked in her crib.  Fortunately she had only gone pee in her diaper, but just the thought of what could have happened is enough to not use those pajamas again!

For some reason last night she didn't want to go to bed and was up until 10pm with me. At first I tried to keep her in bed and just snuggle, but after an hour of her not going to sleep, I gave up and had her come clean up the kitchen with me. She was playing with her stroller, and ended up strapping herself in to it. She used her feet to roll herself around the kitchen.

standing up, strapped in the stroller

Strolling around at o'dark thirty

We've gone to Second Baptist Church the past two Sundays.  It is a little further away than we'd like, but the boys really liked it the first Sunday we went.  So today we got there early enough for us to try both Sunday school & the service.  The boys started off their morning in a big room and they sing and dance in there and do puppets and lots of fun stuff.  Josiah had a good time.  Henry told us that he did not like it and that he cried louder and louder so that we would hear him.  "Did you hear me?" he asked us.  When the other children were singing and dancing around, Henry said he sat on the floor.  When we asked him if he would participate next week, he said matter-of-fact that, no, he was not going to sing and dance.  This kid sticks to his guns.  It helped that Josiah was in there with him, but not enough to get him off the floor.  They both like the classroom time afterwards.
This week, the church had Dr. Ben Carson at the service.  He gave his life story and he was amazing.  He spoke about Joseph and how no matter the circumstances he was in, he always did his best, always made the best of the situation.  We left wanting to work a little (lot) harder at being better parents, spouses, and followers of Jesus.

Does Ca-Co sell Wogs?

Our week started with a Monday morning 6 year old check-up for Josiah.  He freaked out when he learned he would get a shot.  Henry was sitting next to him on the doctor's table and just started to hug him and not let go.  Henry got down for the shot (so the nurse and I could hold Josiah down) and after it was over, Henry says to Josiah, "See, it didn't hurt a lot."  We'll see if Henry's saying the same thing when it's his turn in February!  I do appreciate how well they are able to comfort each other.  Often when one is in trouble at home, the other will go and tell them "it's all right" and comfort them/stay with them.
The shot must have worn Josiah's body out, because he felt "sick" all week (although there were no symptoms).  He and Henry both took naps two days this week!  It is not often that I get all 3 kids sleeping at the same time during the day.

I think the boys got to sleep in our bed more this week than Todd or I

For his presentation at school this week, Josiah spoke about Mt. St. Helens.  He and Henry still love Mt. St. Helens.  He brought in a library book and showed pictures and explained what happened.  It was his best presentation to date.  He got into character voices only a little bit when he was speaking about Harry R. Truman and how he said "Oh phooey" to the news media.  It was so enjoyable.

Friday at CC was also a very nice day so we got to spend a lot of time on the playground after school.  Caroline surprised us with some gymnastic moves.  They have a metal frame play car there and she hung from the metal frame and swung her body back and forth.  It wasn't just a small swing, though, she looked like a gymnast swinging to get to a high bar.  She was shocking quite a few of us adults.  She did take one tumble and cut her lip, but even then she only sat in my lap for 15 seconds before squirming back down to try it again.

Caroline is starting to express her own desires more and more.  She now wants to pick out her own clothes.  Then she wants to put them on herself.  Since she is unable to do this on her own, she will run around in a diaper for half an hour every morning.  This may be a good thing as we might potty train her soon.  We got her a potty that sits on the floor so she can access it much easier than the big toilets.  She sat on it for quite a while tonight as the boys serenaded her in the bathroom.  Josiah on his tin whistle and Henry on the harmonica.  Every 30 seconds, "Did you pee Caroline?"  She also asks to pray every evening, too.  It took us a while to catch on to what she was saying, but she says, "I pay, I pay."  Then she bows her head and says, "uhhhhhhhh" for a really long time and then says "Amen."  My favorite new word of the week from her is "Costco," but it sounds like "Ca-Co."  I don't remember how I figured out what she was saying, but once I said Costco her face lit up and she said, "Mommy Ca-Co."  She is our daughter.  :)

She has really taken a liking to her baby dolls.  She really likes the one that she got at Christmas that has a hard head.  She now has tried to change its (nonexistant) diaper, swaddle it in her blanket, and take her for a ride in her stroller.  One night, as I was snuggling Henry in his bed, I could hear her singing in her bed and then she kissed her baby three times on the head before turning in for the night.

Her baby

She still has to do everything the boys do.  This week they made balloon men.  I left the room for a minute and came back to Caroline drawing a face on her balloon with a marker just as the boys had.

da boys

You can see her smeared green marker on her balloon, pants, and hand.

Henry has been into the Ninja Turtles more this week.  He's been drawing pictures of them and dressing up as much as he can like them.  He kept coming up to me saying he needed a "wog."  I had no idea what he was talking about.  I finally figured out he was the purple one who carries a staff/long stick.  So I asked him if that's what he meant.  He said, "yes, a wog."  A Log.  That durn "L" sound.

His "wog" even though he's wearing the blue mask at this point.

For his birthday, Josiah got a How to Draw Super Heroes book.  It teaches how you start off with just circles, lines, squares, etc. and build up from that.  He followed the instructions and drew Spiderman.  I was impressed!  He gave it to Todd to hang in his office.

Josiah is 6!

Josiah and Henry got a Batman/The Flash/The Riddler Lego set for Christmas and we wouldn't allow them to put it together until we got back to Texas because it was a decent size kit and we didn't want to risk losing any of the pieces.  I told Josiah we could do it on Monday.  3:30 a.m. Monday morning Josiah wakes up, comes in our room, and says he's ready to make the Lego kit.  I think I got him to stay in bed until 5, but I don't know how much sleep happened during that time.  I have never met such an early bird.  He did make the Batmobile that morning and fortunately it made it through the week without breaking and that was his presentation at CC on Friday.  He can't seem to do a presentation there without getting into character voices.  We practiced all week what 5 points he was going to say about the Batmobile.  He knew it well.  Then when he got up to present, all of a sudden he starts doing voices for Batman and making a whole mini-play out of the presentation.  When I encouraged him to wrap it up, he started the presentation that we practiced.

Henry had a rough start to his week.  On Monday, he did not want to eat the vegetables on his plate at dinner.  Instead of calmly saying, "I would not like to partake of my vegetables this evening," he flipped his plate over, dumping the contents on our table.  Then he grabbed two big handfuls of the vegetables and squeezed the life out of them.  I was not going to stand for that, so he went to bed without dinner that night.  We've never done that before, but there was no way I was backing down with that!  He kept telling us that he was starving.  I told him that if he was truly starving he would have been glad to have vegetables on his plate and eaten them right away to satisfy his grumbling stomach.  He didn't buy it.  And usually he's the kid that eats every meal well.

The past couple of weeks he has also slipped into regression mode.  He all of a sudden does not want to do anything for himself.  He acts like he cannot dress himself, go to any room of the house by himself, go to the bathroom by himself, everything.  It's a bit frustrating (for both of us I'm sure).  One night he fell asleep on the couch, because we got too tired of bringing him back to his bed over and over again.  Here's hoping he snaps out of this phase soon.

Caroline has become quite loving towards everyone.  She now walks around and kisses each of us.  Sometimes she hugs us, too.  She waves at everyone.  We took a walk down the block earlier in the week and as some lawn guys were driving away (with their windows down), she yells, "Bye Bye!" and waves.  They waved back.  We went out for a walk that day because when she woke up in the morning, she started saying the word, "outside" over and over.  When we pass by the playground at the elementary school, she'll point and say, "Weeeee."  (she likes to slide)  Her favorite past time this week has to be using the potty.  She says, "I pee. I pee." a lot.  And while I would love to have her potty-trained early, the idea of starting that now seems tiring.  The end result is great, but the process isn't much fun.  So I take her to the potty.  She sits for 3-5 seconds, hops off, washes her hands, goes to where her diaper is, looks at me and says "I pee" again.  She will go sit on the potty as many times in a row as I let her.  She's yet to do anything, but I'm hoping one of these times she does.  The cycle ends when I get tired of holding her on the potty and being held hostage in the bathroom.  She retaliates by twisting all around so I can't put a diaper on her.  It's a fun time.

We did have a fun family game invented by Josiah.  We opened Caroline's tea set that she got at Christmas.  We had a few tea parties, but the boys know I like my coffee (a lot).  So, Josiah set up a Starbucks drive-thru with our dining room chairs.  I would order at the first window and pick up my drink at the second.  Henry would usually get in my "car" with me so he could get a cake pop (usually the wooden stick of butter from their kitchen).  We did that a lot and it was funny to hear Josiah use the words "grande nonfat caramel latte" or "chai tea latte."

We ended our week with Josiah's 6th birthday!  It is so hard to believe he is six already.  He choose Froot Loops for breakfast which is always a good way to start the day.  Todd changed them to Groot Loops.  Dinner was pizza because he had a Ninja Turtle cake and the Ninja Turtles like pizza.  We spent the morning at church and we spent 3 1/2 hours in the afternoon making his Lego plane kit that he got.  It was a kit for 8-12 year olds and they weren't kidding.  It is very cool, with gears that move the propellers, but it was a lot of work.  Todd and I took shifts helping him make it.  It is now a toy only he can play with (at least for a while) since Henry got a turn to play with it and unfortunately it had a crash landing (on purpose).  Caroline was happy to play with Josiah's balloons and the bubble wrap from his packages from both sets of grandparents.

The plane

6 already!

Showing her dessert - a dry gluten-free, dairy-free, crumbly cookie.  I really need to start baking for her.

And our crafts of the week.
We did the Peanuts.  Josiah made Snoopy,  Henry did Charlie Brown.  I was commissioned to do Woodstock which I tried to do without taking my scissors off the page - one long cut (kind of like getting all the skin off the apple without breaking it).  Hence the legs are a bit off.

Henry did his Charlie Brown totally on his own.

Henry made Robin of which he was really proud.  He told me what a good job he had done through tears tonight after Caroline ripped it in half.

The yellow part is his cape.

Christmas Travels

We don't do Santa, but Henry was being extra sweet with Caroline before Christmas.  He helped her color and then said, "I like her scribble scrabble."  He didn't even get upset with her coloring on his drawings.  He also enjoyed helping her eat and drink.  He fed her an egg, Kix, and held her milk up to her mouth.  He told her that she was big and strong when she ate her food.

Drink your milk Car-wo-wine.

His days of being sweet with her may be coming to a close as she has become much more opinionated and vocal the past couple of weeks.  She regularly yells, "Go! Go! Move! Move!" and pushes her brothers around (literally).  She held us all hostage at a Chick-fil-a in town.  The boys wanted to try out the playground at the CFA further down the road.  The playground was quite tall and Caroline managed to make her way to the top.  I don't know if she got scared or what, but she sat up there for 45 minutes.  The boys (Josiah mainly) were desperately trying to get her down so they could eat.  I was desperately praying she would get down so I didn't have to climb up there.  Josiah finally dragged her down the slide after much screaming and wrestling from her.  We will not be frequenting that CFA for quite a while.

Henry got his first splinter.  He learned the hard lesson that if you rub your hands against an old wooden fence while you're walking, you get splinters.  They were so tiny I couldn't get them out, but we tried.

Look at that face.  These were tiny splinters.

Josiah's last craft before our travels was making a Mr. Peanut.  When Todd got home from work, he announced he made it all by himself.  Really son?  I slightly remember the sweat shop facilities I was under during the afternoon to cut and tape all the parts just so.  He did play with him for a lot of the afternoon, so that was a win.

We headed east 5 days before Christmas.  Todd and I discovered that when traveling with three small children, the driver's seat is now the most coveted position.  No more snoozing in the passenger's seat enjoying the view and the quiet from pre-kid life.  Now the passenger seat consists of answering 500 questions an hour, getting them snacks every 20 minutes, retrieving fallen toys, and trying to keep Caroline from dropping her blanket on the side next to the door where no one can reach it.  If Josiah spent more time in a car, I think he'd out weigh Henry.  He asked for food constantly.  This trip we made the wise decision to bring a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread.  Blueberries and grapes, too.

We stopped in Alabama for the night and Caroline kept our record going of injuries in a hotel room.  She learned how to climb out of her pack-n-play, climbed up on the bed, tried to dive on top of Josiah, over shot, went over the side of the bed, hit the nightstand table and fell to the floor.  All this in the dark as we had just turned out the light to settle in for the night.  She busted up her nose pretty bad.  We moved the pack-n-play to a different wall.

Her poor nose.  It's still red even now 3 weeks later.

The kids were super excited to see Nana & Grandad again.  They learned how to tell time while waiting for 10:00 a.m. to get to pick from Nana's treasure bag.  They helped Nana frost and sprinkle a cake that they had bought here in Texas just so they could bring it and make it with her.  Henry noticed that their Christmas tree didn't have a star on top, so he generously made them one.  Josiah picked his favorite Nutcracker from Nana's collection.  One night, instead of going to sleep, he returned to the living room with a picture he had drawn from memory of his nutcracker.  He did this at least twice.  His attention to detail was pretty amazing.

frosting the cake and licking their spatulas

Henry's colorful star.  That is not our Savior in the middle, but Henry.

Henry is one fun kid on Christmas morning.  He shows such appreciation.  The first gift he opened was a Thor electric toothbrush.  "Oh, it's what I always wanted!" as he jumps up and down excited.  Josiah got his favorite gift of "Redwood" (red helicopter from Planes Fire & Rescue that he's renamed).  Caroline loved her stroller.  She may play with dolls now that she has something in which to push them.

Chowing down on a gluten-free, dairy-free Christmas cookie at 5:30 a.m.  She was a happy camper.

When you get clothes for Christmas, you must try them on right away.

Christmas afternoon we drove up to Great Grandma's house and saw lots of aunts, uncles, and siblings.  It was so nice to see everyone again.  Grandma & Grandpa came up a couple days later and Josiah fell in love with their dog, Scooter.  The dog was incredibly docile with him, as Josiah kept petting him and loving on him for a long time.  Josiah talked a mile a minute about his love for Scooter.  He announced that he was going to go live with him (and my parents) and send us pictures of he and Scooter playing frisbee in the park.  He said he'd come back and live with us when he grew up.  When asked at what age "grown up" would be, he said 50.    Meanwhile, Henry was huddled up on my lap quite scared.  Caroline wasn't too sure.  She was curious, but I think more scared than curious.

Driving back to Hampton, Henry broke our hearts.  We heard him quietly crying in the back seat and when asked why he was sad, he said,  "I miss Aunt Cwaire and Great Grandma."  He cried this way for a good half hour.  It was so sad, but it's also good he had such a good visit with them.  We took them to a playground each day, but the day Aunt Claire came, both boys couldn't wait to show her everything.  He has a good aunt and a good Great Grandma.

We made sure we were back in Hampton by Sunday morning so Josiah could go see all his friends at Bethel.  He confidently said that everyone would be glad to see him again.  It was nice to see friends again.  Sometimes it seems like we haven't been gone long, and other times it does.
Some of those friends were very kind to open their house later in the week to host a mini-birthday party for Josiah.  He really wanted a party, but we don't know too many people in Texas yet, so we compromised by having a small party in Virginia.  The boys were very happy to play with friends again.  They have so many dress up clothes.  Henry put on a Woody outfit and another child may have dressed up as a princess, but we have no photographic evidence.

It was sad to leave family and friends again.  Josiah dramatically says, "Will we never see them again?" whenever we say goodbye.  There were tears shed.  It is good we have so many people to love and miss.

Heading back to Texas, we stopped in Alabama for the night.  Josiah kept our record going with hotel injuries this time.  He stood up in the bath tub, hitting his side on the faucet on the way up.  It didn't seem that bad when it happened, but it bruised up and looked like it hurt (as Josiah told me it did).  We were hoping to get a continental breakfast before heading out on the road again, but all three kids independently woke up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning.  Breakfast started at 7:00 a.m.  There was no way we were waiting that long for breakfast, so we hit the road and made it back home by 6:30 p.m.  I put the kids immediately in the bath tub after all the gross bathrooms we had entered on the road.  It was nice to sleep in our beds again.