Money

In the past we have attempted letting our boys earn money - just pennies - to work on math skills and learning how money works. But we gave up because it merely seemed to make them more greedy!

But this year for Christmas we decided to try something new. It was a very pleasant surprise. We let the boys earn dollar coins for extra chores that they did on top of their regular chores. The only stipulation they were given for this money was that it could only be used to buy things for others. That didn't hold back their motivation whatsoever. Our house was clean in December even with all the craziness. They were each able to buy pretty decent gifts for everyone in the family and a birthday gift for a party. Plus they were almost as excited about what they were giving for Christmas as what they received!

I'm not even sure how we came up with the plan, but we're sticking to it during the year to see how it goes!

Merry Belated Christmas!!!!

Santa at the H Family Party

Stockings

I've always wanted to make stockings for my family and this year was the year! I barely got their done in time, but I adore how they turned out!

Arc is Active

Somewhere in the past few weeks Arc figured out that she can control her body enough to roll over! I love this action shot!

The moment she figured out that she has that control, she completely shifted in her interaction with the world! She is into toys and moving all over the place. Her personality is becoming more clear, and the boys are so pleased with her...especially Daddy!

Artwork Glimpses

I'm trying hard to follow my friend RB's example and include "artwork" as a part of our lives.

I love how into symmetry Cpc is.

Cdc:

The Power of Fun

After a fantastic Learning Circle about FUN last month, I felt a strong determination to take advantage of fun opportunities with the kids.

So even though it has finally gotten colder, and there is snow on the ground, we took a few trips to the playground this month when we could squeeze it in. I even encouraged the boys to not worry about getting dirty! It was so worth it! I want to remember that the rest of this winter!

Cundick's

Oh, the Cundick's love to sing to bring on Christmas Eve!

It's a Great Life!

Movember

Pmc cut my hair for the first time. I am very pleased!

Pleased with his turkey from Thanksgiving.

Outings with good friends.

Cdc drew this picture when asked to draw doing himself doing a service for mom. Sweet boy!

Cpc really got into his service chart for Joy School. He wrote "cookies" all on his own - pretty good phonics!

Birthday party for a friend.

Chocolate face!

Cdc

Oh how do I even express my feelings about Cdc these days. He is still kind of in transition between babyhood and preschooler. He wants so much to be a big boy, but he is just not quite ready to give up the benefits of babyhood.

Yet it feels strange to even say that because he's been pretty independent for quite a while now! I mean he potty-trained himself nearly a year ago, he gets himself dressed daily, feeds himself, climbs in his carseat, and the list goes on and on. He doesn't even want us to carry him very often.

On the other hand:

He still needs his bum wiped (tmi?) - although he likes to refer to this as me "checking" his bum because he attempts to wipe himself.

He is so determined to get dressed by himself - yet it takes him a while and he whines through the hard parts like zippers and snaps.

He is capable of feeding himself, yet he doesn't. Therefore he either ends up whining about being alone at the table after we are all done, loses his meal, or cons us into feeding him. This has little to do with liking or not liking the food either, he will eat anything if we feed him!

We recently decided to try turning his carseat rear-facing again like Arc...which he LOVED! Then we realized he has actually outgrown his carseat altogether and had to go buy him a high-back booster. He was, in turn, thrilled about that.

But the overarching theme with Cdc is that he still "needs" us. And much of the time he doesn't know how to handle the conflict of needing us while also being independent! And that is precisely why I absolutely love two-year-olds! And Cdc is my very favorite two-year-old so far. No offense to Cpc (I might have enjoyed it more with him had I been getting a decent amount of sleep though! :)

Decorating his cookie, and wiping his tears with his doggy's ear.

Quote from CPC

When we knelt down tonight for prayer to end family home evening, CPC said "I don't want to say a prayer, I don't want family home evening to be over."

Teaching Tools in our Home

We use these things quite a bit in our home so we better keep a record of them.

The first is a chart that Pmc made based on Plutchik's emotion scales. Look it up if you get a chance, very good for kids to see that emotions are not unrelated, that they can be on a scale of intensity. It has really helped Cpc with his anger -  he doesn't get nearly so upset anymore and tells us when something bothers him. I love that when he is angry we can simply say "bring it down" and he can truly understand. He is so visual that I think most of the time he doesn't truly understand a concept until he can see it...just like his dad. I guess that's why Pmc is the one who comes up with these things. We need to go over the "sad" emotions with Cdc, and a few of the others for that matter!

The second chart is also by Pmc...the boys were getting a little carried away with bossing others around so Pmc created this in a matter of minutes one night for our Family Home Evening lesson. Totally worked.

Last but most important is the magnets Pmc and I made. We use these daily to remind the kids of their routines and give them some choices in daily activities.

Other Cpc News!

I also need to get to a post about Cdc...but here's some things Cpc has been doing, let's see if I can get the order correct. (I am really struggling to get the hang of formatting these posts on my phone, as well as stabilizing photos!)

Cpc loves the fact that I am willing to take pictures of his artwork. I love the fact that I can record his work and progress without having an entire box of papers! He made a book at Joy School and is very into making them at home now.

When he draws people he now draws their tummies!

He and I have been practicing writing lower case letters. He loves to practice a letter and then ride the strider around the house. Since he currently has no training wheels, we took the pedals off too and he loves it!

We had fun this week practicing math skills while we played with blocks. I asked him to build a tower with 12 blocks but only 6 blocks high. He was so excited when I told him I'd take a picture!

He had his last week of sports. On our way home he said "I'm so glad that sports is over." So I asked if he liked it (which I had really thought he did), to which he responded "yes, but I want to do something else now." He is pretty excited for swimming lessons next week. But he also really wants to get back to horse riding!

I'm A Little Turkey

Family Photos!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Arc

Little Arc is likely the most social baby I have ever met. I just adore my little princess and the joy she brings to our family on a daily basis. Her happiness is so contagious, and she is ALWAYS happy. She always has a very clear reason for crying when she does cry, which is quite rare. She HATES having a wet diaper (which I currently attribute to the cloth diapers - which we are still happy with!) and will let you know when she has one. That, hunger, tiredness and loneliness are the only things that she ever cries about. Now I understand why some moms say they can tell just by their babies cries what they need - this is clear for Arc. But now I no longer feel deficient that I couldn't alwaya tell with Cdc, and pretty much never knew with Cpc. Not to say I didn't have some intuition and instinct....but I can see how some moms can have a baby like Arc and think that you can always tell what a baby needs or why they're crying.

Arc is long and skinny, just like the boys were. She just had her checkup this morning, and she's following the same curve as the boys. Everyone says she is so petite - and they are right when it comes to weight! She also is keeping her girlish looks, she just has such feminine features! She is holding strong with her good sleep habits, only waking once at night to feed, and taking great naps. I think I've finally let go of my fears that her sleep would digress like Cpc's did! Until the past couple weeks she's had a very difficult time sleeping anywhere other than her bed...which was a blessing and a curse with two other little kids and errands to run! But she has learned to sleep in her carseat and in my arms in public now!

Arc seems to be hanging onto her long, dark hair - except for her bald spot on back. She has learned to enjoy tummy-time, but it just wasn't in time to avoid that hair loss! She likes to bite her lower lip, which creates an irresistible gummy-grin. She has learned to grab onto toys, and likes to sit and play with them in the booster chair at mealtimes with us. She still only rolls over on accident, but she is determined to stand on her feet at all times. She is starting to lose her interest in doing "the trick" because she has learned to bounce her knees and prefers the johnny-jump-up.

I still can't get over how she seems to innately know that she is more like me than daddy, and we therefore have a strong connection. She has also developed some stranger anxiety already, and needs to see me to be happy while someone else is holding her. She also knows her brothers very individually and responds to each of them with a different but consistent smile. She LOVES her brothers! Speaking of, their quiet time is over - so it's back to work for me!

Friends

We have been making a big effort lately to be more social. We have really enjoyed it too, and so have our kids! We have made lots of friends in our neighborhood, and feel so much more connected when we go to church. But we have also done better at getting together with those we've always been friends with! Cpc and Cdc were thrilled when they got to go play with RN this week. And even though the dads decided it was too cold to take the kiddos with them on a fishing adventure, they had a blast. Plus, HN and I got in some great conversation to boot!

Cpc SPD

Sometimes when I get a little depressed, or if I'm not feeling so confident in my mothering, I start thinking ''maybe I really did make up the whole SPD thing .'' It's usually around that time that Cpc will do something very striking that reminds me just how real the things we've been through are.

I'd like to say I can think of these things as ''tender mercies of the Lord," but most of the time they are things that kind of break our hearts as parents.

This time around Cpc started nibbling two of his fingers when he needed some "input." And he literally didn't stop until we noticed it like this. And it looked even worse in person! I love this kid. We need something besides his lips and fingers for him to chew on.

Getting there.....

Cpc: I maked it. I maked a plate with a smiley face and the sun is bright. And the sunshine. And I love it. You will love it. I know you will.

Cdc: It was good, the things that we did for Joy School. I like being at Joy School.
















Cpc: I feel good and joy, like Joy School at basketball. We have a new basketball, we got it from Big 5, daddy took us to get it.











Cdc: We were clipping my nails. You were doing the thing down and up, down and up.





















Cpc: It's of me reading Arc Gingerbread man. I felt happy. I read it to her because I like to, it was so fun.



This is from the fun date Pmc and I went on last week - my cousin invited us to this "app release party." Look up the app if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. It's called "kid chateroo!" It's an awesome app where you it gives you fun questions to ask your kids and you can record them as well! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Unfortunately it is not yet available on Android.


Arc has learned to love her baths again. She went through a funny spell where every time we put her in the water she started screaming. But we pushed through and she gets a kick out if it now - quite literally.

Like I said both Pmc and I got new phones - Samsung Galaxy S3. Our camera was dying, and so were both of our phones and the iPod touch. So we decided to combine all of the above. So far it is making blogging easier. But I have yet to figure out the formatting on blog posts. We'll get there. Sorry for the entire randomness of things! I have SO MUCH to update on Arc - and I need to do it before it all disappears from my memory! Will do - will do!

Musings by Cpc

All my dreams are bad, so I plan to never have one again.

Final catchup - back on track!

The kids LOVED halloween, were totally into it!
PMC and I got new phones. We are trying out blogging on the phones. We are liking letting the boys tell us about the pictures for the blog posts. We especially like this voice feature where it reads our voices. So I will let them tell you themselves how they liked Halloween.
Cpc:  Halloween great so hot he needs to know not Larry it's so funny not Larry. Love you.
Cdc: haha love you
I guess that wasn't so Halloween E oh well. Hope your's was great.