Pretty Pictures

We were so excited to get our family pictures this week.  Our friend, Ginny, takes them out of the goodness of her heart.  It's her way of blessing her friends and she does it all for free.  Who doesn't want a friend like Ginny?  We were originally scheduled to do it back in Virginia, but Caroline's surgery halted those plans.  It just so happened that Ginny made it out to Texas and did them here.  It was a crazy hot evening, but she got some great shots.  She, of course, did the quintessential family pictures that will make it in the Christmas cards.

We also wanted her to capture the kids personalities.  These are the poses we see on a daily basis, but they'll probably fade away as time goes on (or at least we hope they do).  The fun ones.

A friend of ours had a baby (her fifth!!) that we were able to meet this week.  Before we went over, our kids made her kids lots of drawings, origami creations, lightsabers, and Valentine's, each in their own "goody bag."

It was very sweet because they did it all on their own.  Then when we got there, the mom took a picture of us and when I saw it later, I was struck by Josiah's expression.  This is the same expression that he gave when Caroline was born and he got to meet her.  He loves little ones.  He is so good with babies and small children.

Baby O

Baby Caroline

I had to add this one.  He was so sweet with Caroline.

School went pretty well this week.  Josiah, not a lover of math, told me that he really enjoyed parsing sentences.  He said we were "grammar detectives."  Most of me is really happy that he enjoys it, but a small part of me is slightly scared.  I remember crying every time we had to diagram sentences in elementary school.  I just didn't get it.  We would go to my older brother for help, who did the homework for me, and I'd copy it over in my own handwriting.  Just the thought of diagramming sentences brings a bit of anxiety.  But we do it a lot as CC goes on, so he'll be learning a lot more of it in years to come.  And so will I...

We made it back to the pool this week.  Caroline and Josiah remembered their goggles which made the whole pool experience much nicer.  Caroline, who had never purposefully dipped her head under the water before, suddenly turned into a fish with goggles on.  She started out just dipping her face in the pool so she could see under water, but she immediately figured out how to hold her breath without plugging her nose.  She was under water just as much as she was above it.  There were only three coughing/hacking episodes due to swallowed water, but that was pretty good for the amount of time she went under.  Josiah and Caroline went down the slide a bunch, too.  I was at the bottom to catch them since it was the "deep end" (4'6"), but they were just machines going up and down it.  Henry's still working on desiring to get his face wet, so he had fun hanging on my back and keeping his hair dry.

Josiah had a belt test this weekend.  We were a little concerned on how he would do since he doesn't exactly take the classes seriously.  There are a lot of, "Focus, Josiah." and "Control yourself, Josiah." during the regular classes.  But he really exceeded our expectations during his test.  He did well on his forms, which gave him trouble last time.

He kicked, hit, sparred, did his self-defense moves, and even broke two boards.  Last time he was only able to break the smaller board, so after the second board broke he looked up at us with a big grin on his face.  That sort of broke his concentration, so he wasn't able to break the even fatter third board, but he was still happy with his accomplishment.

Both boys got ice cream that night.  Caroline is holding up her granola bar.  She's been eating a lot of wheat and dairy recently, but it just seems like ice cream may be a killer on her stomach, so we've refrained.

Today was Promotion Sunday at church, so all the kids moved up to their current grade level for their classes.  The church is big enough that they have about four classes for each grade, so I was hopeful that each child would have a friend in their respective classes.  It was an answer to prayer that they did.  And not only that, but their very favorite friends were in each of their classes.  So, it was a good morning.

This evening, the kids took a bath.  This is how it went.
Child A took a bath.
Child A got out of the bath.  (We leave the same bathwater in for all three kids.)
Child B goes to get in the bath.
Child B says, "The tub smells like pee.  [Child A] peed in the tub."
Child B does not want to take a bath in a pee-filled tub.
Todd asks Child A, "Did you pee in the tub?"
Child A, "No!"
Child B, "[Child A] pees in the cups."
Todd, "[Child A], did you pee in the cups?"
Child A, "Well, yeah."
So, we drained the bathwater, took out all the cups, and restarted bath time.
Todd, "[Child A], you know not to pee in the bath tub, right?"
Child A, "Well, yeah."

There is never a dull moment around here.  I'm glad Todd dealt with it because I started cracking up when he admitted to peeing in the cups.  Who does that?!!  And then keeps it saved on the side of the tub for the next bather?!!  And was it the first time?  Of course, not.