Papa in charge

Reading "game books"

at the dentist.  The dentist gives them sunglasses to put on before they start the cleaning

W in dentist chair

Hiking in the snow globe

Helping each other find stuff

T found something of W's

T placed meow meow in the window to watch us

W with her "treats for the party" on her "plate"

Playing in the tree with mommy.  they were making scarves and fixing the holes by winding up the scarves on the branches of the tree

Mmmmm, pomelo!  Now what do I do with it?

T decorating the house for "my birthday"

W decorating for my b-day. The orange flowers are what was originally in it.  The others are additions

"This baby doesn't want to sleep"

Mama was kind of gone this weekend.  I came a bit earlier than expected and didn't text J when I left so when I walked in the door, he wasn't prepared.  I walked in and heard him say "Uh oh.  That sounds like Mommy."  I heard Dora playing and smelled popcorn recently cooked.  I walked downstairs.  E was in the middle of calming himself down after a bit of a cry, but happy.  He wasn't crying when I walked in, but apparently he had been frustrated about something just previous.  W and T were having a bit of a time suddenly transitioning out of watching TV, but still munching away on popcorn.  J said "everyone is happy!"  True.  Very true.  And apparently E has had his first taste of popcorn.  J wanted E to pick up all the popcorn on the floor.  Grrrrrrr.  T and W love watching it cook.

Papa did a fairly good job keeping everyone happy, including Mama.  He chose to order out pizza for dinner and have leftovers for the next day.  This meant not having to work on cooking or cleaning with three kids around.  Probably a good idea.  The house was messier than what I would have liked but he did work on some life skills with them while I was gone.  I don't mind that!

W went to the dentist and had 9 cavities that need to be filled but a total of 16, just the other 7 don't need fillings.  This all occurred in the past 6 months.  I kid you not.  T?  He had no cavities.  We're trying not to think about the upcoming bill...  Anyway.  That got J to thinking.  He figured out all sorts of strategies.  He is not fond of brushing W's teeth.  Neither am I.  But I just do it anyway.  He figured it out.  He bought her Thomas toothpaste and this weekend they worked on it. After being home  with Papa all weekend, I found W had fairly good technique.  She needs cueing to do it long enough, but at least she is brushing, not chewing.  And she will floss most of the teeth she can see on her own!  Yeah papa!

He also let E cry a bunch so he learned to crawl faster while I was gone.  E hates being alone.  And I hate listening to him cry.  So I haul him around when I start moving around the house a bunch.  J doesn't.  It worked out though.  Today E thought that's what I was going to do, so he didn't cry, but beelined it behind us all day today to keep up with us.  He did pretty well.  J also taught E to stand up in his crib in order to get picked up after nap.  I heard E talking a bit after nap, so I went in to get him and he was up, happy and pretty impressed with himself standing.  T walked in and said "that baby doesn't want to sleep".

We had a fabulous day where everyone was asleep by 10 to 8 pm. Crazy, huh? I walked them up to the "new park"  My mom found a park last time she was here that was within walking distance.  It is a great find for lots of reasons.  It is a destination worth walking all uphill to.  I love the energy they get out walking this far.  They love the park.  Especially today.  Best place ever.  We are going to have to go tomorrow.  The backhoe was operating!!  T's eyes were riveted on it the whole time we were there.  He didn't really want to go home, even though we were all freezing and E's lips were starting to turn blue.  THEN Papa came home to fix a majorly flat tire.  T was in heaven.  After fixing the tire, Papa TOOK OFF THE HITCH!!  T walks around commenting on missing hitches all the time and which cars have them.  Now we have a missing hitch.  Every time I pull out of the driveway this is what I will here.  "MOM!  A missing HITCH!  Papa's truck has a missing hitch."

My crazy neighbor tore out most of the plants in her yard.  Now she is planting things.  She came home with this bare root tree that will turn out huge at maturity and decided to put it right under our power lines to the house.  I tried to talk her into where it should really go.  I should have walked farther over so her compromise would have been the right spot.  Sigh.  Now it will grow into our wires, but at least the center of it won't be directly underneath it.  Someone is going to hate her later.  We went out and dug the hole with her a bit so the tree wouldn't die.  W dug a whole bunch.  She had a miniature shovel her size to let W borrow and W went to town.  I was impressed.  She dug her own hole.

W also did a color by number sheet today.  She really, really liked that.  But when I asked her what her favorite part of today was?  Twisting and dipping oreo cookies just like the commercial.   She explained it to me step by step even though I was there for all of that.  Papa taught her and she is absolutely sold.  We did that at the end of FHE.  More on that later.

Today they got out my ribbon bag.  I had no idea how many ribbons I had.  They were "decorating for Mommy's birthday".  They put a ribbon everywhere they could think of.  They were hanging off all doorknobs and off of the banister.  W found some flowers in there and added them to the table centerpiece.  It was a fabulously beautiful and well decorated Mommy's bday.

They made barricades from E.  He isn't allowed in the playroom.  But to be nice to him, they dumped all his toys over the barricade.  Whatever.  He was happy.  He kept up his yowling and growling.  He really likes to shout in glee.  Like shout in glee.  T plugs his ears and yells back. 

E likes to bother W the most.  Probably because she screams the most.  He always pulls up on her chair when she is eating and she throws a fit.  E yells, too, but I think he thinks she is playing.  Or he doesn't care and is just so impressed with himself that he can pull to stand and lower himself without just falling over.

I love to record the sweet things W and T do for each other.  Don't get me wrong.  They are very normal children that like to fight by pushing on each other and screaming.  But it is also interspersed by such kindness that it melts this mommy's heart.

Yesterday W brought T out his mittens without being asked when we went outside.  T and Mommy just ran out the door, but she took her usual long time to get ready.  One of the reasons, she had gotten her and T's mittens.  "Lady was taking care of her gentleman"

"Gentleman takes care of his lady", too.  He got her straw for her smoothie down.  He picked a peach colored straw for her.  He also dragged a bar stool into their room so he could get his own shirt down and hers also to get dressed.  He is also sweet with E.  He said with such concern to E "oh no E!  Be careful!  Your fingers are being pinched!" and he held them out of the way while I buckled E in his seat.  E wanted to play with the buckle, not get in his seat.

Another day he said to me "I thought of helping everyone today!"  He made W's bed, mixed E's food and got Mommy her vitamin.

They had their well child check up this week.  It blows my mind how they don't like shots, but don't seem to be overly concerned about them, either.  Neither one of them cried when the nurses gave the shots.  Wow!  Mommy doesn't even do that!  They were pretty excited about their stickers.  But then they put them on the counter to wash their hands and I forgot to pick them up.  That was definitely a problem.  They are going to check for their race car sticker and Ariel sticker next time E has his appointment.  And.  One thing I'm really excited about is T is 39.8 pounds!!  Thank heavens he is big enough.  I was wondering if he was going to be able to get a booster by the time E needs his car seat in a few months.  I really didn't want to buy E a car seat when there is one to inherit.  Because W is 32 pounds.  Very far away from a booster.

J and I were talking about what kinds of things W and T like.  Mostly because we were watching all the little kid videos of Olympians.  It is rather obvious with W.  Art stuff all the way. There is definite interest in dance and gardening, too. She even tells me she is going to be an artist when she turns 8.

T is a little less obvious.  His likes seem to be more along the lines of normal boy stuff his age.  He seems to prefer tools and mechanics of things.  Possibly cooking.  He loves his apron and wants a chef's hat when he is big enough.  We did an "experiment out of his book where you blind him and they try to figure out what I put in their mouth.  T knew every one the first time I gave it to him.  That was fun.  But he also might like skateboarding.  He rides his bike like a maniac at the ramp park and is fascinated when older boys are there doing tricks.  But don't all boys like that stuff?

We did a density experiment with syrup and T really liked that.  He pretty much knew how the oil would be on the water and water on the syrup.  He guessed half of the objects to float on their appropriate liquids.

W doesn't like the coldness.  Oatmeal helps take the morning chill off.  She wasn't too happy when I made smoothie and toast this morning as it was a cold food.  She told me that "normal people eat oatmeal for breakfast".  Hahahahaha!

I also discovered the reason why W has become so compliant for brushing her teeth.  Papa knows.  The thomas toothpaste is a very sweet flavor.  Last night after dinner I was bathing E and she came in and said "can I brush my teeth mom?   Instead of dessert I will brush my teeth with dessert toothpaste."  It must taste fabulous.

We started doing treats with FHE.  Now W wants to do FHE every night, purely for the treats.  I left her with J for the evening and she was already for everyone to do their part and for Papa to be in charge of the treats.  She was very disappointed when J informed her FHE is for Monday nights only.  So sad!

It hasn't really been rainy this winter until about 2 weeks ago.  Just cloudy and cold.  Now the wetness is back.  It is a very good thing considering all the moss was looking pretty sad.  And not much water in all the streams??!!  Unheard of.  I think it must be pretty dry.  There is a desperate deer around here that is eating any new growth, regardless of the type of plant.  I think it must have been looking for sugar water or something.  Now that it is raining, I'm losing fewer plants to that deer.  Or it's because it ate all the new growth.  But now it's been long enough where I am searching out ways to get energy out of T while keeping E warm enough.  E needs to crawl, best done indoors, and T needs some space to move.  So this is how the following story came about.

We went grocery shopping and I got a small cart on purpose so there wasn't room for them to ride.  E was in the seat.  T was steering.  W was looking for products called out on the list.  T wouldn't let me take over his job.  I probably shouldn't have gone shopping on a Friday afternoon, but it was when I went. There were probably a few too many people in the store for us to really navigate like that. But T was determined.  Thank heavens for some reason there were lots of people grandma and grandpa age and they were patient in waiting for T to get his steering under control.  They gave us a very wide berth.  And T seemed to have gotten a minimal amount of energy out.

While we were shopping, T said "Oh.  This isn't on sale."  An older gentlemen stopped shopping and stared at them, then said "You've already trained them to look for things on sale??!!  I wish I had done that!"  He was pretty impressed.  I was impressed too, because they haven't said that to me before either and I didn't know I was training them until he said it, but it was fun to see his face.

We also went hiking.  It started out dry and ended in huge beautiful flakes.  T and W loved it, but we turned around because E was not having a good time of it.  He was probably very cold.  He had a death grip on the umbrella, so that didn't help since it was metal.  When we got home, I put him in his bed and he slept with his hood on face down.  Only way to get his nose warmed up I guess.  For some reason finding exposed roots was absolutely hysterical.  T would find them and W and he would laugh.

Then T and W played road with the scarfs.  They put it over the heater vent and T would open the vent to make a bridge with the scarf and close the vent to make it a flat road again.  Pretty good idea!

W had to go potty right as I was half way through checking out a HUGE stack of library books.  It is right next to the potty entrance, so I told her to go potty herself since I could hear everything.  T decided to go to "keep her company and to help W"  I heard him give her step by step instructions. 

He also is the designated button pusher and machine worker.  He is the one that slides the books through the check in slot.  Aka the "inside flock".  He is the one that scans the books to check out.  And he pushes the button to open the door for us.  No one else.

They are playing shots and doctor a bunch.  Even Hiro got a bunch. Probably busted his buffers.

J likes making obstacle courses for E.  It charms me how he likes to find things E loves to do.

W started making a list of husband qualities.  We were on the topic of husbands (that's another story) and W said she wants to find a papa for her children that is kind, plays flip, and teaches people how to brush teeth well like her papa.  And this is a direct quote "and if he cooks pizza that would be an even better papa".

W and T were playing getting married.  They were cleaning their house and putting on extra eyelashes (using paint brushes with water) to get ready.  Then they switched to giving each other shots.  Unrelated.

Today T told me about 7 times in a row how the garage door broke.  He carefully took the motor off the garage floor, where it has apparently rested in peace, and brought it out in the light so he could explain things to me clearly.  He showed me how the gear used to attach here but now it is broken and all the other parts of the machine that he knew.  The wire went out and "connected to something".  I told him he should spend some time with Papa taking it apart and learning how it worked and should be working.  He is very excited about that idea.  I guess a gene that is being handed down.  Both his papa and grandpa are notorious for taking things apart and have many stories about that love from when they were little.  I have a feeling I will be able to add a few of my own to the family male tree.

Eating a snow goodie before church

T prepping the car for church

Just a cute pic

Pomelo hat and pomelo peephole

just a cute pic

W likes to re decorate a lot.  And carry around her flowers

E playing with his favorite toy.  He spends a lot of time with this thing.  His face is blurry because he was moving his hipsso much from all the excitement

valentine from mom

prepping Valentine dessert

W made houses and pathways to each house for each family member.  The dots are "bicho footprints" like the footprints she made in the snow

Percy and diesel are added to the collection

Have you tried pomelo?  terrible stuff with the skin on, absolutely fabulous completely peeled.  We ate two as a family for dessert the other night.  Apparently it is a Chinese new year tradition.  They had them majorly on sale pretty much anywhere we went shopping.  Costco was full of them, along with yellow and red flowers by the dozen. 

E thinks sheets flapping above him is hysterical.  I was making the beds after washing the sheets and he was laughing hysterically.  It was really cute.  He also is getting his pincer grasp skill.  What?! Already?!  That's how I've felt with all of his milestones.  Opening doors, cruising, smiling, crawling, change of the next size up wardrobes, etc. 

T takes fixing the garage door very seriously.  He isn't a fan of being cold, but he was outside in the garage with Papa for a good hour helping him fix the garage door.  He knew to look for the "number 15 open end wrench".  When he came in from helping he informed me without cueing that "the garage door is beeping and that means it needs more work".  yes.  It is still very broken.  That mommy!

W loves eating snow.  She spent about a half an hour before and after church eating snow.  I taught her to only eat clean snow and good thing.  I think she ate all the clean snow in the yard.

She has a good memory.  I like to list off for them all the errands we are doing.  They don't complain because they know when it ends. I had a lot one day.  I think 6 or 7... anyway.  She remembered them all and I only told her once.

One of the errands was finding valentine paper.  We spotted a craft involving buttons.  She was totally ready to put that craft in the cart.  She loves it.

T loves to make us laugh.  Anything that gets us laughing, he tries again to see if he can get us going again.  So I get asked if babies have necks a bunch because it made me laugh the first time he asked.

We've been growing a bean sprout.  It is getting really tall.  It's very exciting!  Today was a brief break in the weather, so we went outside.  W used sticks and planted them all over the yard.  Tomorrow we are going to check our experiments to see if they grow roots and grow into a cherry or pine tree.  T planted the really big branches that fell off the pines.  E was disinterested.  He was experimenting with gravel.  He can easily get those things in his mouth and he likes practicing his pincer grip on them, but didn't want to crawl off the blanket into them.  Hah!

T "didn't like cleaning off the blanket".  E was getting a whole bunch of dirt on the blanket and he wasn't too excited about it.

W noticed Papa's parking spot was not flat, so they decided to find a steamroller type rock to flatten it out.  They tested out it's steamroller capabilities by rolling the rocks down the driveway.  T picked the boulders and W found some to fit in her palm.

T is "building a garage for papa's truck.  It is right next to Mommy's garage".  This project idea started after he started working on the garage with Papa. 

E LOVES watching his siblings ride their bikes.  We went to the ramp park and he was in the backpack.  When they started riding, he pushed himself up so he could see around me and smiled, fascinated, while they were riding.

We had some friends over Thursday.  We taught them to play duck duck goose.  It took them about 15 tries to get the concept barely.  Then T decided to change it up and call everyone goose.  That was his favorite part!  Everyone chasing him!

T read all of Green Eggs and Ham to me by memory.  It warmed my heart and was so fun to have him read to me!

I love how the weather warmed to 50 degrees.  It feels heavenly.  My mom found a park we can walk to.  I love this idea.  W does not.  I said we were going to that park.  She wanted to take the car because it was too far.  Very true when it is cold.  But once we got going, we had a fabulous time together just enjoying the warmth and break in the downpour.  It was so nice, they even stayed outside for another half an hour after we got home playing instead of complaining of the cold.  It was great.  And T went right to sleep at 8 and didn't hit W the rest of the night.  Aaahhh!  Outside play!

Valentines day was bigger than I expected.  I was trying to keep it simple.  But Papa got a little crazy as usual.  The big kids were excited since school ended on Wednesday.  They were told they were going to have a party.  They kept asking which day was Friday and if it was Friday yet.

When we woke up I told them to look for some surprises.  Aunt b's valentine's were in the bathroom and mine to them were on the kitchen table.  They had their valentines from their teacher they had been saving and the valentines they had prepared for friends, teacher and neighbors.  With all that, W said "hearts, hearts everywhere!!"  W wasn't too happy with T for choosing a shirt that didn't have a heart on it.  I told her he didn't have a heart shirt and maybe a red shirt would do.  And then she wasn't too happy he wanted a blue shirt.  T told W that he wanted a blue heart shirt.  She accepted that answer from him.

W saw a heart decoration craft she wanted to buy at Target.  I made her put it back and got to work thinking of what we had to create the same idea.  For Valentines day, W picked out the buttons and created the craft except for the gluing.  turned out pretty cute and close to what was at target.

T went with Papa to help get the van fixed.  That was my gift for today. Hubby fixing my mistakes.  I took the car to get the oil changed at Jiffy Lube and they stripped the bolt.  Now my car leaks copious amounts of oil all the time.  Kia won't fix and we don't know if Jiffy lube will.  Hopefully.  The manager wasn't there to say yes or no.  Then, when he was gone, the garage door opener finally went kerplunk. I told our neighbor to lift the door and unhook the lines.  Apparently that makes it so you can't get the tension on the wires even.  Oopps.  Mommy!  So the boys worked on that a bunch today.

W wasn't eating dinner even though snack was four hours previous.  She told me she wanted a heart dinner.  So I took the pot roast, potatoes and carrots, cut them up and shaped the bites into concentric hearts on her plate.  Much better.  Then I cut the yellow tomatoes in half and made a heart of those and put the jelly on in a heart shape.  Much better.  She gobbled up dinner. 

Then!  The moment they were waiting for!  The treats!  But wait!  Papa had brought something home.  And this is where it gets to be too much.  He got them a percy and a diesel.  T was so distracted and excited about it he skipped dessert.  Strawberries they had covered in chocolate together.  he could barely stand it. 

This gift came from what I thought was a very good discussion earlier in the week.  Not so. I told J about how W had come up with a plan for how to get Percy.  I told her I would talk to papa about it.  We talked about how much it would take for her to earn a percy or she could paint the wooden train like percy (her own idea) to solve the problem.  He agreed to those.  But then, he didn't stick to it.  When you meet my spoiled rotten kids as teenagers, let it be known it is all papa's fault.  Grrrrr.

joy school starts up again

W made books today.  I have no idea where she gets these ideas.  This is so not me so it absolutely amazes me.  She made counting books.  She drew blueberries and apples in different quantities and then had me write the quantity at the the bottom of the page.  The apples had long stems because they were "really ripe".  T got excited about making books and made Papa lots of scriptures.  Lots of paper with one scribble in the middle, but a very big stack of folded paper.  I see where he is going.  He also took w's first book and called it E's book because it was so small.

T made a try square with his paper and scissors instead of books.

She finished her third huge coloring page today.  She likes to slowly work on a page a little each day.  She also has been working on organizing anything that has color in rainbow patterns.  The play dough containers are placed in rainbow, the crayon boxes are organized by color and then the box is organized by rainbow pattern.  I didn't notice and accidentally put it out of order.  Oops.

W asked me so nicely the other day about this plan she had.  She says to me: " Mom.  I have a plan.  How about we go to Target tomorrow and see how much money Percy is.  Then we can check to see if we have enough money and get Percy.  How about that plan, Mom.  We can do that tomorrow.  What do you think?"  So now the asking of stuff begins.  I so just want to give it to her purely for the cuteness and sweetness of the tone of voice.  But I think I need to think of a way for her to earn it or sell some of her toys.

I don't know why I buy toys other than trains.  So dumb of me.  They usually somehow get played with as trains.  Thomas is real.  Today they tipped the easel on it's side to make it a train.  They used their take apart train to make "tracks" (deep lines) in the carpet.  T made a track that had a perpendicular turn.  Then he got concerned about how the "train" was going to make the turn.  It was too sharp of a turn for the vehicle to fit.  He was very concerned about it.  He kept asking W how that was going to work.  She kept saying "I don't know" like I-don't-know-nor-do-I-care-so-you-figure-it-out. tone of voice.  T also made a garage and was trying to figure out how to turn the vehicle and get the garage door up.

He was concerned about that because I might have broke our garage door.  Ok.  I did.  I was trying to fix it by pulled too hard and it came off the line.  Oops.  T has been very helpful trying to fix it by pushing the button and checking to see if E is staying in the living room not crying for me.  He did a great job pushing the button for us.

E is getting very skilled at crawling.  And he is down to one nap.  He just randomly did this Sunday.  It has been three days and has only had one nap in the middle of the day without grumpiness or waking up early or at night.  Weird.  That was the easiest nap transition ever!  I guess I shouldn't hold my breath since it has only been three days.  His papa also gave him his baby treats from christmas and amazingly he has his pincer grasp starting.  It won't be too long until he has that skill down.  Either he is picking up these skills faster and younger or I'm just so enjoying him being a baby that I feel like he is growing up too fast.

E's top teeth came in Feb 5th.  He also totally muscles himself into a pulling position, but then cries because he's not sure how to get down except totally falling over.

I haven't been clogging for some time due to nap schedule and such, but today I gave it a go.  I wasn't too excited about him flopping around on the floor, so I brought the play pen.  Turned out to be a great idea.  I usually let them ride their bikes around, but I can't get them because the garage door is still very broken.  Instead of riding around to get energy out, they pushed E around.  Everyone thought that was hysterically fun.  Works for me!  T and W also were being very cute and pulling each other around using the baby rings I got out for E.

After clogging, T and W wanted to dance with me.  I was just up there having fun, but one of the other kids, three years old, barely, totally showed me up on the dances.  He put his song on and started the moves.  And he is amazingly good.  Whatever.  I'll just follow him when I dance.

Go olympians!  I love watching!  When do the curling events start?! While watching the snow boarders, we saw a guy at the top of the jumping mountain thing knitting of all things.  Really??! You are so bored you knit while on TV??!!  Random

T asked me today "do babies have necks?"  At first I answered yes, but then started laughing pretty hard.  It's a very valid question.

We tried going to the park today.  That should have been a no go.  I put all sorts of clothes on them. It was really sunny, so that means very cold.  Even with snow pants, we only lasted a half hour outside.  Silly me going to all that effort.

We started with joy school again this week.  We have been learning about trees.  I've had an absolute blast with it.  I told the other moms I couldn't get excited about the joy school curriculum, so I made up the stuff based on a theme of my own creating.  We read books about trees, played snacky squirrel, a huge hit.  We wrote names, practiced reading tree on the board, writing their names on their dot to dots, putting ripped paper on trees according to the tree (summer, spring, etc), singing songs about trees, finding tree parts in the yard, freezing leaves, playing hide and seek outside, eating leaves for snack, talking about animals that live in trees, etc.  It was so, so fun!  I'm glad we are doing joy school again.

Papa got them a color wheel.  It is referred to around here often.  T informed me that on the ipad that yellow and black make brown, not yellow, red and blue like the color wheel says.  I had to explain there are more ways than one to make brown.

We went to the beach and then that night it snowed.  It was a really bad day to go to the beach.  The wind was piercing and freezing.  I even had them in their snow pants, but it didn't matter.  They walked down to the water and just stared.  Not about to play in the sand.  Really bad idea, mom.  So we took quick pics and left!  Just as we had made observations of the daffodils growing in our yard that spring is coming.  That's ok.  There is always a snow to freeze the flowers.  At least they are not blooming yet.  W tells anyone that listens that spring is on the way.  That means that she will soon be able to run outside barefoot and eat watermelon.

I've also been trying to explain to her why we buy the produce we do.  I usually get stuff in season because it isn't as expensive.  A guest brought us strawberries, something she always want, but I'm not ever very excited to buy tasteless strawberries for a high price.  I think W picks up on it more than I realize because she informed our guest that "strawberries are ripe in the spring".  Our guest said she wasn't sure if W wanted any because they weren't good enough, but my smart guest said they probably were growing in an area that is warmer like spring and they would taste ok. W agreed because she pretty much ate almost all of them.

E loves, loves, loves to pull himself up to stand.  He can do it best on his toy table top thing.  As soon as I put him on the floor, he beelines it over to his toy and pulls himself up.  He keeps trying on other pieces of furniture, but it just is too hard still.

W and T wanted to dance like I do after clogging.  We danced on the stage.  Before that though, W informed me that we could stay home and dance because we have dancing shoes, dancing wood (the masonite sheet I have behind the piano), but we don't have music.  But then she corrected herself and said we do have music because E could play it on his table.  True and very creative, W!

waaay too cold

Telling us about all the hitches and missing hitches he is seeing on the passing cars

W's first mini book.  2 apples and 5 blueberries

T's "try square"

Consulting the color wheel while in the mail truck

W's book creations

rub a dub dub three kids in a tub

W's finished pics

I think this is the first time she's done her name with me just telling her the letters, not seeing them.  She was still frustrated with it because "it isn't good"  Too much like me

"pantalones!"  She bit off the bottom of the bell pepper so she could stick her fingers through and make pants for her fingers

Dedo with shorts on now because it is spring and warmer now

territories defined

chef cooking

floating market in Thailand

floating market wares

THE papaya salad

protest site campsite

protest site

protestors

udon flowers near a temple

carp at thai chinese cultural center

what's with the duck??  we don't know either

budda in the roots

Always needs to be in the upright position

headband for t made by W

painstaking care of copying the rainbow on the play dough box

A blue watch.  This pic is for Grandma, since I made fun of her that she still owns and wears a watch.  All three kids are fascinated by it

Startled look.  He was very surprised that his face got wet when he leaned into the stream of water

E is really starting to pick up speed.  He can cross the room in about 2 minutes.  We can see him coming and move stuff in time, though.  I still forget sometimes that he can follow me.  He tries to crawl on his toes so it slows him down a bit.  He could probably crawl faster, but he doesn't like the rug burn he gets on his knees and shins.  If I put pants on, he stops trying.  He also doesn't like hardware floors.

So this is where W and T set up shop.  They are now playing in the hall and in the kitchen where E is not to excited to follow them.  They also play on top of the desk I moved into their playroom to avoid E.  T always says "this toy is too small for E" even if it isn't.  This means T doesn't want E to touch it. 

The desk has holes to allow cords to go inside of it to stay out of sight.  T and W thought it was great fun to put their toys in it.  Until they discovered one of the holes doesn't allow for access again until Papa comes home.  T was very, very sad when W put his meow meow down the hole.  He kept talking about how sad that was for him at dinner to Papa.

T, W and Mommy are very glad to have Papa home to play wild with T and W.  They get worn out and love to play all these flips and wild games with him.

W worked on her Barbie coloring book for about an hour today.  She got out her 96 color crayon set with all the shades of pinks, reds and purples.  She put it on the easel tray, clipped in her picture and went to town.  With two of them.  Then when she was done, she put them up on the fridge and replaced her other works. 

T really wanted to pretend her easel was a mail truck.  So he kept moving it around the house while she was working on her project.  I thought it was so cute how they played this so nicely.  T would tell her when he wanted to move his mail truck, or W would ask him to move it to another place with more light.

They also put their bus and dump truck on "cement blocks" with their toys to work on it.  In the hall of course where E couldn't disrupt the fixing.  And they made cakes with their sneaky snacky squirrel logs, acorns and letters.

T has started pointing out flat bed trucks and hitches on cars when we drive around town.  The flat beds because of his toys and the hitches because Papa's truck has a hitch.

Papa brought home three flashlights.  Well, more like rapid fire strobe lights.  Two have Hello Kitty heads and one is an angry bird head.  T called it E's "angry chicken" one.  I laughed and W asked why so I told her it says angry bird on the box.  The next morning I asked where E's angry chicken was (he really loves to chew it), W told me in not so uncertain terms that is an angry bird, not an angry chicken because that is what it says on the box.  She has an amazing memory for what I teach her.  Watch out, Mom.

There are cute things they do on a regular basis.  W usually gets us a paper towel and divides it into three pieces for all of us at the table every time she needs one.  T usually likes to mix up E's food and feed it to him.  E takes it from him better than from me.

I'm trying to figure out how to raise a boy.  I'm sure I'll be scratching my head for much of my life, but today seemed successful.  I didn't feel like going outside and soaking all of us, so we played balloon bash.  I hit T with a helium partially deflated balloon and he hit back laughing for about a half hour.  Then we threw soft items such as stuffed animals and pillows at each other over the couch for another half hour.  He seemed to feel so, so much better and did much better the rest of the afternoon after hitting objects in an appropriate manner.  But W just sat and watched and didn't get why this was so fun.  Then she was needy the rest of the afternoon because I had ignored her all that time.  Heaven forbid.

Some more random T sentences that are often repeated: "Look!  I can walk on my nails!" and he is walking on his tip toes.  "James is at Target.  Gordon is at Target.  Fiery Flynn was at Target but Papa got the last one".  He has Thomas and Fiery Flynn in his train collection and knows where the rest are.  I think he got this from a discussion we had once of where those particular Thomas and Fiery Flynn came from.  W will say that they came from either Walmart or Target.

They were playing panda.  W was mommy panda and T was papa panda.  T said, "Where is baby panda?  It has to pop out of your tummy, mommy panda."  So W played along, put the stuffed animal against her belly button and then brought it away from her stomach saying "Pop out of the tummy baby panda!"

I now have to read books word for word.  We are in the books memorized stage.  I'm going to have to randomly skip words if I want to ever shorten book reading before bed again and not have them catch me.  W "read" the very hungry caterpillar book to me the other day.  And they read Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat to each other.  It was cute to hear them read to each other. 

T likes to make "funny faces" with Meow Meow.  He squishes her face in until it is all distorted then pretend talks  to E. It makes us all laugh, including T.

W went to town making rainbows "just like on the box" the play dough came in.  That means she used all the colors.  And of course play dough never stays on the table top.  I was sweeping up the floor later and she exclaimed in such a excited voice: "Oh Mom!  Your pile is so BEAUTIFUL!"  referring to my dust pile.

My favorite part of today was playing indoor snowball fight with the sheets.  I wadded up the sheets and T would run by as I threw the sheet at him.  Then it would go "splat" and flatten out on him or W and they would laugh hysterically.

E really likes to talk.  Loudly.  He also likes yelling.  He is pretty happy about it all, but T and W don't like his loudness so much.  But then we all love him when he sucks his fingers and snuggles up