Primary program

Jumping into leaves after running down the hill.  Then flinging them in the air.

Then raking the pile up again.  We also did this during learning box school

Cute E

E just makes me laugh when I see him pulling this wagon around

big kids balancing on the rock

E loves to say cones and stack them

Sometimes I find E in his "boat" when I can't hear him.  He is the one that said boat

E put the dog in the wagon and gave him a ride around the driveway

I love this pic because E is working so hard with his friend Thai.  Thai is already 5.  E loves to follow Thai around and do just what he is doing and Thai loves it.  They were working on drilling holes in the yard

 

The big kids were in their first primary program ever.  I was so enthralled!  Had a blast watching them.  Since I was watching the kids I realized the younger ones wiggle in their seats more, but are generally pretty good and the older ones don't wiggle as much, but whisper and make faces a bunch since they have done it lots before and are kind of done with the whole thing, so everyone is evenly irreverent.  But it seems so much more reverent to me because the noise isn't next to me any more. 

Anyway, the big kids knew the words to the songs and remembered their parts even though they hadn't ever practiced.  They were gone during the practices.  The leaders didn't know it, but T told them.  One of the sisters started helping him but he leaned way away from her and said "I know my part and can do it myself!"  Right in front of the microphone.  And he did!   He said it clearly, evenly and into the microphone without getting too close with the biggest smile on his face.  It was a surprise to me because at home he didn't want to practice much and would say it really fast and loud to get it over with. 

W remembered hers but stood too far away from the microphone so no one understood her.

And of course there is always one funny event, if not many. The kid that got everyone laughing was saying his part and somehow started saying "and then I will be able to grow up and marry a beautiful girl that knows how to cook"  then he pauses, looks out into the audience, and gets this silly almost apologetic look on his face, laughs, and says "my dad wrote THAT part".  He is 9.  Everyone was dying.

I thought having just E during all of church would be easy, but E was super grumpy and noisy.  Not so mom!!  It 's ok.  He ended up sleeping during all of YW, so it worked out for the best for me anyway. 

W decided to show me how she can count to 100.  What?!  I don't think I taught her that.  Something she must have figured out with all the pattern stuff in preschool with numbers. 

Preschool is also doing this thing with sight words, something all the other mothers that have kids in kindergarden know about.  But both T and W are remembering them and when I point them out in books we read, they know them. 

W also is getting the concept of spelling.  She asks me how to write a word and can do all the letters, even asking me if they are lower case or upper case.

Nothing earth shattering but it still amazes me that my children get these milestones seemingly suddenly and without help.

E is doing it too with talking and copying.  J and I keep asking each other if T and W talked this much, and especially this early.  We don't think so.  We are guessing it is because E has a constant stream of conversation between two, and sometimes three, people all day long.  It never ever stops.  So he gets lots of practice listening and mimicking.

He says all sorts of words.  Nothing anyone outside the family can understand for sure, but just lots of words and corrects himself in pronunciation.  Book, shoe, sock, more, food, no, bye, side, poop, done   It is getting more and more clear every day and he continues to express himself well with emphatic no's by shaking his head and yeses with sounds of supreme contentment, like when he sees his fuzzy.

It looks so cute to me how he carries his huge fuzzy down the hall to W's room in the morning to wake her up.  He is always excited to see her.  T he can see as soon as he wakes up, but it always surprised and happy to see W.

I love how he picks out his favorite books (animal or train books) and brings them to us, then settles himself down into our laps for reading it at least 5 times in a row.  He never did this before being at grandma's for two weeks.  I got a good picture of him very intently studying the pages of a train book while Papa read to him.

Another fun skill T and W have is that when we face time with my parents, T holds conversations with them without any help from me.  He now has a bond.  W continues to ignore people unless it is convienent for her to talk, so I don't see it as much as I do with T.  E smiles pretty big when he sees my parents on face time.  And then promptly pushes that bright red huge END button and hangs up.  Whoever invented face time doesn't have kids. 

I was still really struggling with jet lag this week, even though it has been over 7days of being back, my anticipated end time of this body craziness.  It is a huge struggle to stay awake.  T and W have made games out of keeping me awake and I tell them to help me out.  Ridiculous.

So I haven't done much else other than teach pre school and keep food coming for the kids this week purely for lack of energy.  I don't want to be driving around during any sleepy times either.  But the benefit has been that I have mostly watched the kiddos play.  And they are so cute.

E is just being cute.  I have thought many times of getting out the video camera and just videoing him, but then I look at the situation and it would be a very boring video of him just being a kid.  Why would someone have hours of video of a kid repetitively running up and down a hill with his preschool friends?  Or pulling a pull toy turtle behind him?  Or pulling a wagon around the yard and picking up balls and cones and saying the words?  No reason except mommy is in love. 

T is a bit jealous of this toddler love I think. He has been trying to get my attention more even though we do mommy time each day.  Poor T.  He just doesn't remember when I did the same thing to him when he was this age.  Fascinated by just watching all the miraculous things he can do all by himself.

I get a huge kick out of E carrying this huge blanket down the hall in the morning to wake up W.  Or saying "no no!"  to himself when he isn't doing something quite right.   Or saying poop!  and then giving his diaper a tap to tell me he just filled his pants. Or watch him stack blocks.  Or see him drag the kitchen play toys box over to me again so I can open it and he can scatter everything around.  He also watched the neighbor's gardener for quite a spell today.

T and W have also been amazingly good and so fun to be around.  All the leaves are down and pine needle season is just about over, so I am finally cleaning up the debris.  T figured out how to use the snow shovel and dump the leaves into the wheelbarrow.  He helped me with it for an hour.  It was a huge help.  Then we would run the wheelbarrow back to the compost pile where the wheelbarrow would "go potty" and run back.  E walked up and down all those hills and uneven surfaces right along with them.  Then we celebrated and jumped in a huge leaf pile over and over.  They played raining leaves and burying the toys.  E jumped too, although his feet don't leave the ground yet.

T pushed E in a "train" (box) around the house for about a half hour today.  T was so very cute, gentle and thoughtful about it.  He went slow enough for E, not playing too wild.  E would whoo, whoo like a train whistle intermitantly.  One time E was crying and T said "Oh! you need fuzzy?" and found a turn around spot to go get E's fuzzy for him.  T also got him laughing really hard by throwing the baby wipes into the train over and over.  I'm not sure what was so funny, but it was.

The stuff they practiced saying for the program sunk in.  That is good, because that is the point of the program.  But it came in a funny way how I know this.

W was crying a bunch and getting impatient one day lots.  So T informed her that she needed to say her lines again to "help her remember to be kind"  Her part was "I use my body to be kind and follow Jesus's example.  When E cries or is sad, I go get his big fuzzy.  This helps my mommy to be kind"  Then he quoted his part just to help her out.

They are soooo excited for Thanksgiving and Grandma to come for it.  T kept asking when she was goining to get there.  He kept asking where her plane was and said " I bet grandma can't wait to be here because she I can't wait for her to be here.