Little gamers

While I was in the bathroom on Sunday morning getting ready for church, Ben and I were playing "pictochat". On the Nintendo DS, you can draw and write messages and then send them back and fourth with another DS. Ben loves doing it, and I can easily do it while getting other things done, so I like it too! At one point I leaned out the bathroom door to see what the other kiddos were up to (strangely quiet--can't be good!) and saw this:

Monkey-see, monkey-do, I guess! It was pretty cute. Here's another pic from that morning--I though it was cute they were all wearing blue, but this is the best picture I could get in our rush out the door.

Spic & Span?

Sam loves to wash his hands. He cannot stand to have "stuff" on his fingers. He will not fingerpaint without a paintbrush, and even when he was a baby eating his first birthday cake, he seemed overly worried about all the frosting getting on his hands! We laugh about his obsessive hand-washing often and so I though nothing of it yesterday morning when he said he was off to wash his hands. I did, however, begin to wonder when I noticed he had been gone for 15 minutes or so. When I opened the bathroom door, he had the sink plugged and full of water, soap, and toys (we'll see if that leappad cartridge ever works again!), and everything (including himself) was soaking wet. That was just one of the many beatings endured by our house on account of Sam yesterday. We also had some ants in our front entryway, swarming over some goldfish crumbs (undoubtedly left by Sam), a couple full cups of spilled milk, a room full of hand shredded paper and napkins, mass lego dumpings, two potty accidents, and I'm sure I'm missing something that I've probably blocked out by now. All this on top of his and Cailin's recent penchant to get up around 5:30 AM had me pretty beat by the end of the day! Plus, we're on our fourth day of a heat wave right now with upper 90 degree temps and a downright--and I think the local news weatherman says it best here--soupy mugginess that makes the outdoors unbearable. It really makes you feel like you're suffocating! Perhaps that also had something to do with the small ant invasion. It's supposed to cool down a bit tomorrow, so hopefully we all survive today, then Sam can go back outside where the messes don't matter as much!

Fuzz head

This is what happens when you take your rubber band out of your hair and then take a nap!

More walking

Cailin has been zooming all over the place on two feet--it always amazes me how fast they go from not walking to practically running, dodging obstacles, turning corners and picking things up off the floor all without falling! This video is a few days old, so her skills have improved a lot even since then, but I love how proud she is of herself!

Paperclips

Yesterday sometime after Ben was home from school, I noticed that he had a paperclip attached to his shorts waistband that he was playing with. I asked him why he had a paperclip, and he told me this: He was at school when his shorts fell down, and "everyone saw my underwear"! Lots of kids laughed, including his friend Dylan. The teacher paper clipped his shorts to his underwear to keep them in place. A couple years back I swore that I would only ever buy the kids' pants and shorts with these (best invention EVER!) adjustable waistbands, because they always grow out of their pants lengthwise before even getting close to growing into them width wise. They work soooo well, especially with Ben, who always has his cinched up at least 5 notches on each side. Well, every now and then I come across a great deal I can't pass up, as was the case with these shorts (you'd think he'd be safe in 4T, but no). Guess I learned my lesson! Luckily this happened in Kindergarten, where he seemed relatively unfazed by the whole thing, even laughing as he told me. The thing that was on his mind as he dashed off the bus was the idea he had for what he was planning to buy with his chore money. He was so excited, chattering away about this frog thing his teacher had, teaching them about different body parts. He said she got it at the dollar store, and that's what he wanted to buy. I pictured some sort of rubbery frog toy. I hadn't been to a dollar store since a couple moves ago, so after driving around for a bit, we found one. He was sooo excited to find that this was the right one (we'd warned him we may not find it), when he found this frog! We were laughing--it's a plastic frog with all these plastic organs inside. Can't believe they're learning anatomy already, and that he's so interested (although I'm not so sure we'll ever be able to get the organs back in order in there)!

Spring Fair

Yesterday we went to the Spring Fair at Benjamin's school. The kids had a great time, despite the rain and thunderstorms forcing it inside. It was crowded, loud, hot and muggy! Between the heat and chaos, and not being able to put her new walking skills to use, poor Cailin was not having a very good time. Ben was most excited about receiving his admission bracelet. He was pretty upset to later learn that it was not re-usable!

The boys eagerly awaiting their turn in the first bouncy house.This activity is right up Sam's alley--we're always having to stop him from jumping (onto things, off of things, etc)!They boys were relatively quick climbing up the slide (and way too quick going down for a picture)--you can see Ben at the top, having a hard time deciding which side to slide down. They also had some bouncy obsticle course thingies, but Sam was too small to be able to compete with Ben. Here's a video of the bouncing!

Some Updates

We've been so busy here, so much going on! I'll start with Ben. He still has almost 3 weeks of school left. They end so late, but I'm glad for it. He's going to be so bored when it's over! A couple weeks ago, Jason took the boys to get their haircuts. The next morning when they got up, Ben started laughing at Sammy, saying "Hahaha! Sam looks funny! His hair is so little!" I reminded him that they both got haircuts last evening and to go look in the mirror at himself. He was pretty surprised. He had completely forgotten! A couple days ago, Ben was talking about when he grows up and gets married. He was asking if he would ever see us again. I assured him that we would--we'd be the "grandma & grandpa", and we'd visit each other. I guess he was still pretty worried about it, because he took a picture of a family picture we have on the wall so he "will remember you guys when I move out and get married".

Sam has made some great strides. His potty training is pretty much complete. His money jar will soon be full, at which point we'll take him to the store to "redeem" it for a prize, and that will be that (hopefully). He's been saying some pretty funny things lately. He's so dramatic. While we were in the room waiting for the doctor at Cailin's appointment, I was playing I Spy with him. When I said I spied something green, he sighed a loud sigh and said, "You've got to be kidding me!" A few days later, I ran to the bathroom (I have to get up suddenly and zoom in to lock the door before anyone follows me!). Soon after, I saw and heard the doorknob turning. I asked what he wanted, and Sam stomped off saying, "I don't believe it!" He loves to look for the letters "S" and "B" and declares anything with a B to be Ben's and anything with an S to be Sam's, even if it means handing over his own toys to Ben.

Cailin has also been making great strides--literally. She likes to walk all over. The record so far that we've counted is 20 steps in a row before falling. She just looks so tiny walking along. She's pretty proud--always clapping and cheering herself on. She loves to play with the Little People house she got for her birthday--she even makes the people "walk" and "talk". Her and Sam tend to fight over it, though. He likes to insert himself between her and the house at every opportunity, and she's starting to stand up for herself more and more! She also likes to play with cars--and thanks to her big brothers, knows how to make some excellent car sound effects. We've been trying to "fatten" her up, but I'm not sure it's working. She's beginning to be a picky eater. She is drinking whole milk better, though. As of today, she is off of mommy's milk--I wasn't in a big hurry because she's so small, but I'm just tapped out! I guess Ben wanted to help fatten her up, too. Today I heard some things going on in the kitchen. Ben was saying, "here ya go, Cailin", then "I'll just get a wipie" then, "you can just eat the rest to clean it up". I went in to see this: Cailin was sitting on the floor and Ben had gotten into the pantry and gotten a jello cup, and had been feeding it to Cailin. It was all over her and the floor--Cailin had a baby wipe, and was mopping up the floor with it!

We've been busy, as well. On Memorial Day Jason mowed and trimmed (maybe that doesn't sound like much, but it's a big job and takes forever!) while I hacked up our hugely overgrown hedge, which actually turned out fairly well. I took Jason's advice to "just make a rectangle". It took forever and my forearms were sore for several days (not to mention the clippers were damaged by some of the bigger branches), but we can now access our front hose. We went to 2 BBQs over Memorial Day weekend, and Ben declared it to be the "best time I ever had". We also recently found and went to a new optometrist to get some more contact lenses. He was quite the hands-on eye doctor. Usually they tell you to take out your contacts half way through the exam. Well, this guy was standing facing away from me talking, then suddenly spun around and stuck his (huge) fingers into my eye, fished out my contact lens and put it into a case. I was sitting there in a mild state of shock when he did the same to the other eye. Then, when he got the new pair out, he inserted them too. It was so weird. I asked Jason and he got the same full service treatment. After this optical assault, I walked out with a different brand of contacts that this doctor "prefers". Of course I'm regretting it, and planning to call and get my good 'ole acuvues back. Well, once again, this post has taken me all day, so I'd better post it before something else pulls me away from the computer!