Christmas

The kids had a great Christmas with Grammy, Grandpa T, and Grandma Maxine visiting. They got spoiled as usual and had lots of fun. They have spent the week having a great time playing with their toys. They are sleeping in their sleeping bags, selling ice cream, drawing pictures, reading books, and crashing race cars. Christmas is grea with kids in the house.

Climbing

Well, Cole finally discovered he could climb out of his crib. He was napping today while the babysitter was here and she was outside with Makaila and her kids. She came inside for some reason to hear Cole crying. She went to look in on him and he was standing beside his bed crying because he fell when he climbed out. We've thought Cole had the ability to climb out for a few months now, but we weren't about to tell him. After our trip to AZ we might be forced to go bed shopping!

Waiting for Christmas

Makaila was so cute the week before Christmas. Two nights before Christmas she tells me that she won't think about THAT and points to the other room where the tree is as she's going to bed. She says that she finally got some sleep last night because she didn't think about it {meaning Christmas I guess}. I told her to think about spaghetti instead.

Snow?

A few weeks ago we got snow. It was great. Last time it snowed was over a year ago so it was like the first time for Cole. We ran out real quick and let him feel it and got some pictures. He doesn't own a hat or mittens. The kid doesn't like to zip up a coat for that matter.That night when we talked about it with Chad, his comment was "hands cold".

Christmas musings

We are in the Christmas spirit around here, I just haven't been in the blogging spirit. The kids saw Santa at a Christmas party and heard him tell stories at the mall. We got out all the decorations and the tree up and lit. We've had a little trouble with the house lighting this year, but this will just have to do until we throw these lights away and get new ones for next year. The kids are really into it all. They're putting up the numbers on the advent calendar and are excited to get to see both sides of the family this year (although not Cassie and Leah, the Seefurths will be in Seattle). I've attended a kid's party, Chad's work party and mine is tomorrow. We sent off our shoebox gift for a little girl in some unknown country. I've even done 85% of my Christmas shopping. I don't understand how the month of December can always seem so short. I was peacefully enjoying my Thanksgiving when next thing I know I'm worried because my Christmas cards still haven't arrived for me to address. We are trying our best to put more influence on it being Jesus' birthday this year. But it's hard. It's hard not to want to show your family you love them by buying them great gifts. It's hard not to feel like you need to give your neighbors some cleaverly decorated cookie package and increase your spending on tins and cute gift bags. It's hard to do the things that you want to be a memory, but not just have memories of non-stop things. Yesterday we spent some time working on what will become gifts from the kids to family members. And I would say it was mostly successful. But sometimes it's hard not to get frustrated that they are so excited they can't be patient to listen to directions or irritated that there are scraps all over your newly mopped floors. I love my kids and I hope when they look back at Christmas they can think of the cookie baking and tree decorating and not remember the mommy getting irritated because at age 5 and 2 their excitement of the season makes them get out of control. Hmmm. This really wasn't where I was going when I started this blog. I'll sign off now.

Minor setback

So here I am just 2 days ago bragging at how great my son is at using the potty and then came our worst day ever. . . 5 accidents (and 2 of them BM). Nice. The only positive is that they took place at home and they were split up between our babysitter, myself, and Chad to clean things up. I guess we just took too many steps foward with out that necessary step back!

Safari

Here's the kids playing safari. They went to a birthday party with a safari theme and got these cool hats and binoculars. Good times.

Pee Pee Poo Poo Party

Yes, you read the title correctly. Pee-pee poo-poo Party. I am blaming our friends the Miars for that one. They started the party in celebration of potty training being accomplished. For some strange reason we continued their tradition. Here we are going to Chuck E. Cheese (not exactly a parent's first choice) to celebrate Cole. He just did awesome with potty training and he deserved some celebration.

talking

Cole's verbal skills are improving, but one still has to have an idea what he is talking about to understand completely. He doesn't pronounce most of his consenents very well. So if I have no clue where he's coming from, it can be frustrating for both of us. The other day I got him up from a nap. He was asking me "where's the circle and the square?". Since his "circle" sounds like "hirhle" which is very close to purple, I was trying to figure out what purple chair he was talking about. And out of no where he was asking me for the book Arthur's Thanksgiving. But again, if you don't know what topic he's on "Arur's Ank-ining" can be a mistery.

He sings the whole alphabet, knows all the colors now and tries really hard to keep up with his sister when she sings the songs about her alpha friends from school. He is quite a singer. He's all over the classics. "Twinkle, twinkle", "Jesus Loves Me", "Wheels on the Bus", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Old MacDonald". And for that matter, every time we drive by McDonald's he says, "There's Old MacDonald". That does seem to be tricky for kids.

He also have started asking why. "Why eating quesadilla?", "Why time for breakfast?", "why wear jacket?", "Why going potty?". I should be glad that his brain is trying to figure things out. I should.