We Love Aunt Claire

After finishing Charlie & the Chocolate Factory last weekend, Josiah spent all of Monday acting out scenes from the book.  He dressed up as Willy Wonka (basically he wore Caroline's purple jacket since Willy Wonka wore purple).  Henry was Charlie.  I was Grandpa Joe.  Henry and I would be invited into the chocolate factory and then after winding through the house, we'd make it to the big open area where everything was edible with the chocolate river.  Caroline, not understanding how this whole acting thing works, kept stepping into the chocolate river.  So, then I'd switch from Grandpa Joe to Augustus Gloop's mom and pretend Caroline was Augustus going up the pipe.  She was more fun to play than Grandpa Joe anyway.  At least I got to work on my fake German accent.

I spent the first two thirds of Tuesday answering the endless loop of the following questions, "When is Aunt Claire going to get here?" and "Is Aunt Claire here?"  and "Cwaire, Cwaire" (with pointing out the window).  In the weekend that she was gone, Caroline somehow switched from calling her Momma to calling her Cwaire, which is much cuter anyway (and slightly less confusing).  We got to take her out to Hippo Ice for dessert.  They puree fruits/chocolate/coffee, freeze them in huge blocks, and then put them under a shave ice machine and shave off the fruit/coffee/chocolate.  Todd, Claire, and I really enjoy it.  Caroline wouldn't touch it, Henry ate a bunch and then said he didn't like it, and Josiah barely ate any because he didn't like the texture.  Too "fluffy."

We got to spend time at the park before Claire had to leave on Wednesday afternoon.  It was a beautiful day and I thought it would make a lovely picture.  This was the best we got.  Apparently the kids didn't understand that it was a beautiful day and the potential existed to make a lovely picture.

The weather here really has been beautiful lately.  Low 80s most days and the mosquitoes haven't come back yet.  I've made the kids walk to the library twice this week just to take advantage of it.  Although, really, they don't walk much of it at all.  All 3 of them climb onto some part of the stroller and I push 100 pounds of children to the library and back.  Really, I don't mind it, though, because if they walk then the walk itself can be incredibly slow.

Claire helped the boys start their circular globe puzzle, but had to leave before it was finished.  After finishing it, I took a picture to show her and as soon as the photo had been taken, Henry accidentally let go of the puzzle globe, and we all watched it roll off the table and crash to the floor.  Only half of it fell apart; I enjoyed putting it back together so we could show Todd when he got home.  Thank you Ms. Kathryn for the puzzle.  It was a lot of fun putting it together.  I'll be on the hunt for more 3D puzzles in the future.

From the moment Claire left on Wednesday, the kids have been talking about when she's going to come back.  We're on that endless loop now.  Josiah and Henry both said they are going to move to Boston when they grow up so they can be closer to her.

Josiah is still doing an amazing job with his Awana verses.  This past Wednesday, he said 5 verses.  He is flying through this book in a few months rather than a year, he is so motivated.  He is also learning the hard lesson of delayed gratification.  He has earned quite a few patches and jewels at this point, but they do not have all of them in stock at the church, so he hasn't received any as of yet.  It is a very difficult lesson to learn because he LOVES his Awana vests and the bling that decorates them.

Josiah is also working on his Memory Master for his CC work.  The kids have the opportunity to test to see if they have memorized everything from the entire year's lessons.  Josiah, being that it is his first year, has definitely not memorized everything, but he is working on doing just his history sentences.  It is good practice for him to have to say them all in front of his parents (individually), his CC tutor, as well as the CC director.  He pretty much knows them except he forgets a couple of dates on some of them.

Hopefully Josiah will find all of his memory work fulfilling, because on the way to the store with him yesterday he said, "You make our life so difficult."  That's always a blessing to hear.  Upon further inquiry, he is upset that I am making him and Henry buy a new umbrella to replace the one they decimated.  Really, I am asking for $2.50 each to buy a $5 umbrella.  Although, Josiah's on the hook for a new grabber as well since he destroyed that.  He kept hitting it on the driveway and I warned him to stop and that he'd break it.  He did not heed my warnings and now it's broken.  He seems to not mind buying that since he can get a fancy one that lights up.

This is a little girl who has two older brothers. Ninja turtle mask and castle Lego set.

It is hard to believe that Easter is next week already.  Hopefully next week will go better than last night when Caroline joined us at midnight and proceeded to revisit her dinner from midnight to 2:45 a.m.  She woke up this morning asking to eat and drink right away as if she had not just had this horrible night.  Then during the day today Josiah has been moaning that he doesn't feel well.  We couldn't tell if it was a ploy to get me to let him watch TV (that he had gotten taken away) or if he really didn't feel well.  When he didn't eat his Papa John's pizza tonight, we knew he really didn't feel well and an hour later he had a fever of 102.9.  I'm praying his is a fever only and not another night of a stomach bug.  He already told me he won't be able to do school for a few days.  He has amazing insight into the future.  At least we'll be able to finish our Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book.

Rodeo time

Caroline started her week off with some accomplishments.  She had her 2-year check-up at the doctor's office and the nurse asked me to undress her down to her diaper.  In my attempt at compliance, Caroline decided to totally freak out and scream bloody murder about undressing.  I was highly unprepared for this reaction and couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of it all.  So, I undressed her with feet and arms going every direction.  We took her to the scale and she yelled, "NO!" when asked to step on it.  (I've desired to do that myself at the doctor's office.)  So, I tried to sit her on the baby scale.  She somehow got the disposable paper barrier out from under her and threw it across the room while yelling, "NO!"  We did get a height and weight, but I'm not putting any money on the accuracy of them.  She calmed down by the time the doctors came in and was fine for them (one was doing his residency) thank goodness.

Another accomplishment was that she got a new trash bag ready for the trash can while I took the full bag outside.

She has also decided that she needs to go pee before bath time much like the boys do.  She runs to her potty and sits for a while and runs back to the tub.  Yet, on Tuesday, Todd was waiting for her to "pee" and he heard the little music go off on her potty...twice.  So she actually peed on her potty for the first time totally on her own.  It is the only time it has happened, but it would be nice if the third child potty-trained herself.  We could totally go for that.

She has also started to be very generous with her food.  When she gets her food, she will either walk around the table giving a piece of it to each boy, or she will hold the piece of food out in her hand and say, "Siah? Siah?  Renry? Renry? Uhhhhh. Uhhhhhh."  For her to share her marshmallows is pretty big.  She is quite the fan of "mar-marls."

The rest of our week revolved around Aunt Claire, all the kids' favorite person.  We picked her up from the airport on Wednesday.  Caroline gave her the furrowed brow "I-have-not-warmed-up-to-you-yet-so-don't-look-at-me" look the entire ride back to our house.  And this was no small furrowed brow.  It was as deeply furrowed as she could make it.  An hour later, Aunt Claire was Caroline's new best friend.  Caroline quickly dubbed her, "Momma."  (I am "Mommy" to distinguish.)

We had to bring Claire to the rodeo, so that's how we spent our Wednesday afternoon.  We knew it was big, but really had no idea just how big.  Both boys insisted on holding Claire's hand while walking from the car to the rodeo.  There were many puddles on the sidewalk to navigate around, but neither boy was willing to let go of her hand to make the navigation easier.  :)

The slightly long walk to the rodeo.

There was a huge carnival area right when we walked in.  Josiah tried to get us to spend time there, but I pushed forward and said I wanted to see animals.  We were there for hours and only managed to see a small corner of the livestock show and a tiny portion of the Kids' area (with it's own little kid carnival).  In the livestock show we went into a petting zoo enclosure.  It was a fairly small enclosure with a lot of people as well as pigs, llamas, donkeys, ducks, goats, sheep, chickens, kangaroos, and a cow (which was sleeping smack in the middle).  Josiah and Claire loved it.  Henry was laughing nervously the whole time.  He kept jumping away from the pigs (which were tiny in comparison to the other animals), but loved the deer.  He is scared of big dogs, so I was pretty impressed with him going in and doing as well as he did.  I think he wanted to be with Claire more than anything.  He even got a hair brush out of the bucket and brushed a few animals.  Both he and Josiah said on a nearly constant basis, "I love you Aunt Claire."  or "Aunt Claire?" "Yes," she'd say. "I love you."

Henry feeding ducks and chickens

Josiah with a goat

One funny llama was very wise and followed Claire to the food dispenser.  Claire put her quarter in, turned the dial, and the llama had his mouth at the ready to catch all the food from the machine.  It got 50 cents worth of food and then followed Claire around for a while nudging her for more.

Her llama eating from the dispenser.

Llama looking for more food

Josiah's favorite part of the rodeo, in his opinion, was the snow cone he got on the way out.  Caroline got a taste of the snow cone and became a quick fan.  Claire and Josiah were both very generous with giving her spoonfuls of theirs.  We ended our rodeo day with a high-pitched scream from Henry while at our car.  He had gotten his fingers caught in the car door.  He says he did it to himself, but we didn't witness it.  Three fingers had deep indentations on them and they looked bad.  He cried a good bit, but in the car on the way home he was easily distracted by looking at pictures on my phone, so we were certain they weren't broken.  Poor kid.  He seems very accident-prone lately.

Back at the house, Henry only wanted Claire to give him a bath, dress him, brush his teeth, read to him, and snuggle with him in his bed.  So, Todd and I graciously stepped aside and allowed her to do all of these things. :)  We even got to go out to dinner by ourselves the following night which we hadn't done in 9 months.  It was a treat for us to have her visit, but that's partly because she was doing all the work with the kids.

Friday, Claire drove to CC in her own car because she had to make her way up to Dallas for a conference.  Caroline was super upset the whole way to CC.  "Momma, Momma" she shouted.  Then in her absence this weekend, Caroline has pointed out of our front window and said, "Momma."  Fortunately, Momma is coming back for another day and a half next week before heading home again.  These are going to be some heartbroken kids when we drop her off at the airport.

Over the weekend, Todd started reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory to Josiah.  Josiah enjoyed it so much that they finished it in two days and watched the movie of it while we ate dinner tonight.  I love that we can read chapter books to him now and Todd does a great job of reading those to him.  We finished Pippi Longstocking last week.    

So that was our week.
One last picture of this cute kid.

Helicopters, Batcopters, & Stars

Our week started out really well with the kids deciding they needed to clean the house on Monday.  They used a lot of baby wipes cleaning all sorts of furniture, windows, shoes, etc., and who was I to stop such progress.  Henry got a paper at church last Sunday which had 7 stars on it.  If he engaged in serving others each day of the week, he could color in a star a day (and receive some sort of prize for it at church).  That prompted a lot of serving at the beginning of the week.  Josiah capitalized on it and had Henry serve him. Henry got him markers, got his milk for him, threw trash away for him.  Then Josiah would say, "Good job Henry, now go color another star."

A cleaning frenzy - all our shoes are now clean

They also had a moment of not such great getting along.  Mid-week they got a package from Grandma & Grandpa with a police officer costume and a pirate costume in it.  Josiah immediately picked the police officer costume and had me call him Officer Cockrell for a few days.  However, I have since confiscated the handcuffs due to "improper play" (not for the reason below) and they may never get those back.  One day, Josiah was dressed as the cop again and Henry pretended to be The Penguin from Batman.  He held a closed umbrella and Josiah tried to arrest him and stick him in jail.  After a while, Josiah wanted to switch characters.  Henry did not.  Josiah saw it wise to grab the umbrella from Henry.  Henry did not appreciate that, and in the fighting they totally destroyed the umbrella.  Now neither is very happy that they will be forced to buy a new umbrella the next time they earn or are given money.

Aye, matey.

Officer Cockrell

Josiah announced that he was going to to name his children after restaurants.  "Which restaurants?" I asked him.  "McDonald, Hardee, and Wal," he said.  (Walmart)  God bless the girl he marries.  Todd and I always gave each other veto power on any name we did not like.  I think his wife is going to have to institute that rule as well.

Caroline has surprised me a lot this week.  She sat down and did puzzles much better than I was aware she knew how.  She likes her name puzzle the best and can recognize a "C" anywhere.  One evening I was talking to Todd about how hard it has been to get her to eat vegetables (besides broccoli and sweet potatoes).  She ate all vegetables as pureed baby food, but not so much the real thing.  Then as I was talking to him, she was eating the raw cabbage off of my plate.  The next day she took a bite of a baby carrot, chewed it up, and then spit it back out on her plate.  But she used to not even touch them, so that's a step in the right direction.  She also got her first "manicure."  I painted the nails on her right hand and she was fascinated by it.  I won't paint her left hand just yet because she sucks that thumb all the time.

Hard to see it, but her fingers are painted

Caroline also got her first lesson in getting things stuck in her hair.  She and Henry were in their time-out squares for some infraction.  She picked some of her time-out square tape off of the ground (blue painter's tape).  When her time-out was over, she came over to me and had tape stuck to her rear as well as in her hair.  I could have probably gotten it out of her hair if she cooperated a little more than she did.  But she just kept saying, "Ow." and pulling away from me.  So I cut it out.  It isn't noticeable at all - I keep trying to figure out where I cut it and can't tell myself.

This weekend we went back to the local trail and walked to the park/playground again.  I noticed Josiah on the seesaw with a little girl and I went over to eavesdrop on their conversation.  It was pretty cute.  They asked each others ages and how many times they had been to that park.  Josiah offered up that he was from Hampton.  Then she left abruptly when her sister called her.

Saturday morning we went to Hobby Lobby, a craft store, to see about getting pinewood derby cars for the boys to make and decorate.  They each picked out one car, although they found about 100 items each that they wanted in the future.  Josiah colored his as a Batman car.  Henry likes green, so his car was the same.  After the making and decorating, there hasn't been a lot of playing with them so maybe this week we can make a ramp and race them.  That is the original intention of them anyway.

sanding them down

coloring their cars (see the bat symbol on Josiah's)

Todd has finished the nights with the kids with helicopter rides.  He puts each one on his shoulders and "flies" them around our house all the while making quick turns and fun engine noises.  The kids love it.  He gives them two rides each although for them they would prefer if the rides were never ending.  

Blurry picture, but you can see the joy on Josiah's face during his "lift-off"

Henry used his birthday money (before the umbrella incident) to buy a new Batcopter.  I think we now have the Batmobile, the Batcopter, and some sort of underwater Batman thing (I can't remember the name).  3 Batman Lego men.  I think we are set, although I'm sure the boys will see another kit someday and just have to have that one as well.

Josiah drew the Lego Ninjago characters as new decoration for his bed.

Henry drew Mickey Mouse, a Ninjago scene, a window so he could look outside, and a picture of him and Caroline.

This coming week is very exciting for the kids because my sister comes and they get to take her to the rodeo.  It should be a good time!

And one last picture of the kids - they insisted I take a picture of them at dinner and it turned out pretty well.

Henry has orange marker all over himself.  Just another day around here.

Caroline is 2!

Caroline turned 2 this weekend!  When she woke up in the morning, she was excited to see that the gifts were actually for her.  She has gone through a lot of birthdays recently and watched a lot of gift opening.  She knew just what to do despite the boys sitting "at the ready" to help her out with unwrapping.

Her new smartphone.

Henry and Caroline with an "I'm 2" sign

Then we spent the rest of the morning at the Children's Museum of Houston.  It was a lot of fun and slightly overstimulating (at least for me!).  The kids seemed to want to try everything, but not long enough to actually learn about what they were trying.  I think it'll take a few trips for them to slow down and truly visit the exhibits.  One thing they all liked was a big outdoor area of the museum.  They have a huge water area; essentially canals with locks or waves or some way to manipulate the flow of water.  They liked that a lot, but it will be even better when it is warmer out (so wet clothes aren't so cold).  Josiah got to walk in one of those huge balls.  It was probably only 20 seconds inside of it, but he loved it.  Too bad they capped the age at 16 or I would have jumped in there.  Henry did really well on the rock wall.

Back home, I had to get started on her cake.  She's never had cake before with all her food sensitivities, so I was happy to find a website that allows you to put in your allergies and it limits the recipes to those that don't contain your allergens.  I chose an orange cake for her mostly because it was a cake (and there were not a lot of cakes in the dessert area) and because it had 6 ingredients (almond flour, baking soda, salt, 2 oranges, honey, & eggs).  It was a new way to bake because I had to first boil the oranges for 1.5 hours, then stick them (whole) in a food processor.  Then add the other ingredients to the food processor (this got quite messy), then bake it.  After baking, it had to sit for 2 hours.  So, all that and we were ready to eat her cake.  We gave her a slice and she took a bite or two and then threw it back into the cake pan.  Todd fished it out and gave it back to her. She again tossed it back in.  Not a fan.  Henry liked it, asked for seconds, ate half of his second piece and said he didn't like it either.  Josiah didn't like it.  Todd and I thought it was pretty good.  Good thing it was a small cake!

She was a fan of her candles though.

Now that she is two, she seems to think she has to act like a two-year-old right away.  I think she said, "NO!" every time Todd and I asked her to do something today.  In fact, I think she said "no" just because she wanted to, all day long.  She has started biting her brothers again and she has been hitting them over the head with her new toys as well.  So she is getting a lot of lessons in consequences to behavior.  She got a toy camera from Grandma & Grandpa that she likes a lot.  However, instead of taking pictures the normal way, she takes a lot of selfies.  We don't even do that around here, so I think she may just be confused on how to hold the camera properly.       

The boys on the other hand have been battling it out with each other all week.  At the beginning of the week, I overheard Henry ask Josiah if he wanted to have a pee war while they were peeing.  Of course Josiah said, "yes." Fortunately I was there to nix it, but who knows how many battles are going on like this.  Then to annoy each other, they each have been singing the history song from our CC work that the other one doesn't like.  So Henry sung about Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders all week to bug Josiah and Josiah sung about the Continental Congress all week to annoy Henry.  Henry kept coming to me asking the "number" for Theodore Roosevelt (1898) so he knew how to start the song.  Todd and I have been smiling at their history battle.  I have a feeling they are going to know these two history facts for the rest of their lives.  

On Friday, after CC, Josiah asked if we could stop to get a doughnut.  The thing is, if we do something like that once, they remember it for all of time and eternity and will ask to do it every time we go to CC.  However, since I found a Dunkin Donuts very close to our CC group, I decided to stop and get him one (and me a coffee...since we were going anyway).  Henry was not able to get a doughnut because he refused to get in his car seat when we left CC and he has become a bit more defiant lately so I was not going to budge with him.  Anyway, Henry fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep while I brought him in the house.  Josiah ate his doughnut and then showed me the one small bite he had left for Henry.  It was seriously one bite of his doughnut left, but I praised him for sharing.  Then when Henry woke up, Josiah gave him the doughnut piece and Henry said, "Thanks Josiah, you're the best brother ever."  It was nice to see both sharing and gratitude from them.  Gratitude is our theme for March.  (February's was "Say Hi, Look in the Eye." so the kids look at people in the eye when saying hello.)  Each theme is born out of what is clearly lacking in our every day life.

And we did make it to the library story time this week to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday.  

Go Texan Day

Poor Henry had a rough start to his week with four shots at his doctor's appointment.  It is always more interesting to go to the doctor now because we go as a foursome to every appointment.  When I declined the hearing test for Henry (due to insurance not covering it), I mentioned that I knew he could hear just fine.  Josiah piped up that, yes, Henry yells a lot.  True as well.  We also enjoyed (?) dissecting his birthday cake each day.  We could not cut off squares of cake starting from a corner and working our way up/over.  On the first day, Henry wanted to eat the clown's head - smack in the middle of the cake.  Since it was his birthday, I carefully cut it out.  The next day he wanted to eat the clown's hat.  Josiah wanted the clown's leg the first day and his other leg the second day.  From there Henry moved on to the clown's green balloon, while Josiah wanted part of Henry's name.  The "EN" to be specific.  Needless to say, the cake was butchered and Todd and I are both happy to have the temptation out of the house.

Henry chose the placement of the candles.

Henry chose green for himself, purple for Caroline, blue for Todd & I, and red for Josiah.  

Josiah lost another tooth this week.  Technically, Henry pulled out another one of his teeth.  I believe this is the third tooth Henry has pulled out.  It was barely hanging on, but Josiah didn't have it in himself to pull hard enough.  So, he called Henry over to pull it out and Henry walked over and plucked it right out of his mouth.  He now has four gaps in his teeth and only one more loose tooth at this point.  His tiny mouth is going to have permanent teeth on top of each other - there is no room for these teeth to grow in.

Josiah had drive-in movie night at Awana this week.  The kids each make a car (at home) using a box and decorating it however they want.  Last year, he made a Doc Hudson box car and it turned out pretty cute.  This year, he wanted to make a fire truck out of the box, but we only had a small amount of red construction paper left.  So, he decided to use pink and purple paper (of which we have an abundance).  He did it all himself and added tires, a front end, a walkie talkie, and even used stamps to decorate it (ink stamps).  I cut out a few windows.  It was very much a car "created by a child."  When we got to Awana that evening, I walked him into the big room and saw the other cars.  These looked professionally done.  They had a batman car, an ice cream truck, and so many others that were AMAZING.  They were painted and cut out to look exactly like what they were.  It was a stark contrast to Josiah's pink and purple fire truck.  So, it was to my amazement that when I went to pick him up that night, he had won an award for his car - the Cubbies Choice Award.  They had the Cubbies (younger kids 4-5 yrs old) walk through the room and pick out their favorite car.  Josiah's got picked.  :)  His prize was a movie theater sized box of Swedish Fish that he had picked out of the pile because they were red.

The Cubbies Choice fire truck.

On Thursday, Henry received his birthday package from Grandad and Nana and he had a very good time opening it up.  Caroline again tried on his new underwear to make sure it fit.  Even Josiah had a gift in there - a red bow tie.  He was very, very excited to get that.  Immediately he wanted to wear it to CC on Friday.  And so he did.

For his presentation, he chose to present Henry's new ninja turtle action figure.  Then half way through his presentation he said it was my birthday and we should sing.  I nixed it at that point.  Then at the end of his presentation he said, "Ok, everybody, let's all sing Happy Birthday to my mommy."  And so they did.  To his delight.  His card to me this year had a cup of coffee on the front.  On the inside it had a big heart with Josiah on the left, me on the right, and a cup of coffee in the middle.  I do like my coffee.

It was Go Texan Day today.  At church, everyone wore their western gear (except my kids because they got their boots all muddy at CC on Friday and I have yet to clean them).  We sang very fun, twangy Gospel songs in the service.  The boys each went home with a sheriff's badge and a color-your-own bandana.  We don't have fabric markers here, so we pretty much can't wash these since we used our Crayolas on them.

Henry coloring his bandana which he called his "rug."

He wanted to make sure I got the bandana AND the badge.

Our art projects this week were minions.  The boys watched Despicable Me 2 from the library and made minions all week.  They like my laminator as much as I do and after doing some art projects they want to laminate them to keep them for all of time.