sweet music to her mama's ears

A. (on the pot): "Mommy! Come see, I made a worm poopoo!"

It is hard to express how happy I am about this new-found ability of A's. The weeks leading up to this have been, um, quite eventful.

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In other news, L. poured everyone's cereal for them yesterday and helped me pour the milk. And that about concludes the report. :)

thank you, Minnie

I would like to take back my harsh and cruel comments about Minnie Mouse.
One of A.'s favorites is about how Minnie and friends are convinced that grown-ups have more fun. Then they try doing the work of a grown-up one day only to discover how exhausting it is. This has apparently inspired L. to take over my work for me tomorrow. She tells me that she will be making breakfast for all of us, for starters.

I look forward to reporting on what will no doubt prove to be a day of perfect serenity and refreshment for myself. Stay tuned.

good reads

BR's favorite book is what he calls, "Ni-nite MOON!" He especially likes the part about oatmeal. You probably missed it, Margaret Wise Brown mistakenly calls it "mush," but he knows she meant oatmeal, so he shouts it out and points every time we get to that part!

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A.: any of the dozen Minnie Mouse books she received for Christmas. Jeremy and I are quite sure that we are getting years off of purgatory for each time we read one of those.
She also likes to read along out loud in "Ni-nite Moon" and drive BR c-r-a-z-y.

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L.: well, she has a variety of favorites. But her favorite things to do while I'm reading is to correct all my mistakes since she can now read along. Which is pretty fun, but not quite as fun as reading it herself. She likes to switch the last word from each line and trade it with the next one, because it would be WAY too boring to read it the correct way. And if there is an uneven number of lines on a page, she just switches around the order of the last two words from the last line. Like this:

When evening came and Henry bed

had to crawl into finally,

he could hardly wait to finish the wait.

He could hardly castle

for more of the weekend fun.

tea party dinner

We are not so good at dainty tea parties (who am I kidding---like I'm going to be able to teach a kid how to do those), but we're good at tea party dinners.
That's when mom needs a break from making those gourmet meals she usually makes (ahem), or the car's been the shop and you haven't been to the grocery store for awhile...

Now, usually, this would mean pancake dinner, or french toast dinner, but these are desperate times. There are neither eggs nor milk in the fridge, so you know its serious.

Tonight's menu: popcorn, veggies & dip, some nuts & dried fruit and cracker sandwiches. And don't forget the tea!
Our favorite is the one Kara introduced us to called "Evening in Missoula." No actual tea in this one, so it's perfect for kids.
According to the package, it does have: chamomile, rosehips, raspberry leaf, lemon grass, papaya leaf, peppermint, spearmint, strawberry leaf, vanilla, passion flower, red clover, star anise, wild cherry bark, lemon peel, wintergreen, lavender. Everything but pure gold. It's delicious.

When it comes to preschoolers, it's all about presentation. Oh, and that candle centerpiece.

BR's favorite part of the meal:

what does A. think about all day? well, we have some clues...

"Mommy, why do some people go and some people come back home and some people stay?"

"Mommy, why do some people call their popcorn 'popcorn'?"

"Mommy, sometimes I like peanuts and sometimes I like raisins."

"Mommy, BR likes to say things like 'happy-doh'!"

"Mommy, I can even see you in the dark" then "Ooh, look at her eyebrows!"

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And here's a good example of the differences between the way L. sees things (extremely logically), and A. (there's a little more mystery...or is it confusion?):

A.: "L. get your magic coat on so we can go out in the rain!"
L.: "Is it magic?"
A.: "I don't think so."
L.: "Well, why did you say it was?"
A.: "Uh, I dunno. I was just pretending."

more indoor fun

Blogger didn't let me upload two videos within the same post, so here is part deux to our rainy day amusement. Actually, it was rainy day #4. And our car has been in the shop for that time, so we were all getting a little stir crazy around these parts. Bet you can't tell.

rainy Memorial Day

Kay, Dave (& Viutus) had us and a bunch of other folks over for an indoor picnic.

earlier in the day, we amused ourselves indoors:

\

In this (silent) video, L. is saying, "we are BEST friends! Now put that on the ba-log, mommy." Then she instructed me on the proper spelling of her name. A. is saying...uh, what is she saying? What is she doing?

This last one is for Billy. This snack was inspired by the leftover filling I had from a fruit & cream cheese tart I made the other day. We dipped this fruit into it and it was really delicious, and um, extra healthy.

genius

Me: "L., your sleeves are all wet, did you get them wet while you were washing your hands?"

Her: "No, I think it's from licking them."

sometimes...

...I can hear the girls laughing maniacally from the other room.

"Ha HA HA HAHA HAA!!"

things I don't notice while I am checking my email:

the milk dribbling happening right behind me!

What a pro. He managed to spit it all over the table and simultaneously soak through his shirt and pants. Are there awards for this kind of thing?

what's that you say?

It's been warm so we've pulled out the kiddie pool. It has provided some opportunities for spiritual reflection.

A: "Mommy, is Jesus still in my heart while I'm wearing my bathing suit?"

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L. didn't want to miss a teaching opportunity. Inspired by the cereal box during breakfast, she decided to give A. (who doesn't even know her alphabet entirely) a reading lesson.

L.(pointing): "Try to read: 'High in Fiber' right here."

kit

We had Kit all to ourselves for five days. It was fabulous.

We didn't make it up to the mountains to search for spring flowers. We skipped ahead to summer and had a water fight and lots of lemonade.

easy to please

This is an easy way to make fruit salad even more exciting than it already is for a four year-old: serve it in a fruit "cup" by using the empty halves of an orange. Voila! Instant happiness.

zoning out while watching "Curious George"

there's a lot of soft kissable skin around here. If anyone's feeling an urge to squeeze a kiddo, just pop by sometime.

(i was just going to post one of these, but after seeing how L.'s expression was captured in this series, I couldn't resist.)

pure sweetness

In addition to the word "no," BR has a few other great loves.


Ba-ket-boh, of course. He has ba-ket-boh radar, apparently. He looked through all the books in the house and found every picture of one and will go around showing everyone who will pay attention. "Mommy, 'ook! A ba-ket-boh!" If you can't see it right away, he will point helpfully: "right hee-oh!"
I tried to recycle the newspaper a few days ago and he chased after me, "Mama! No! Ba-ket-bo!" Sure enough, there was a picture of some basketball players and their "Ba-ket-bo HOOP!"


And of course, between all the bickering, he remembers how much he loves his big sisters. Especially L. He just follows her around and will do pretty much anything she says. I was getting ready for a jog the other day and his bottom lip started to quiver. I said, "L., Riceball is sad that I'm going on a run, could you play with him and try to make him happy, please?"
"Ok. I guess I could draw him some pictures or something. Come on, BR, let's go!"
He immediately stopped crying and trotted after her. I found pictures later of...you guessed it! Ba-ket-bohs!

spring?

About ten days ago we went for a little "hike" (=very slow walk) in the mountains. I thought there would be wildflowers in bloom. We saw three, exactly three.


But the kids didn't mind, because we found a stream to get soaked in and also this "Eeyore house," as L. called it:

We'll try again to find spring this week. Kit will come along since she is visiting for five days. (woohoo!)

thinking of you, Grandpa

see our colorful dinner? don't you wish you could have enjoyed it with us?
see L.'s face? doesn't she wish she didn't have to eat this?

enjoying the tea set from Gramom

hey, it's finally legit for A. to wear this shirt! (hopefully...fingers crossed...)

enjoying the 4ft doll from Bill...

Our neighbor brought this by the other day for the kids. You can't really tell in this picture, but this monstrosity is bigger than L.

Now I'm rivaling JenF. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, a 4ft-tall Easter bunny is pretty hard to beat...

warning: this one is about poo

Rejoice with us, for A. has finally gone poo on the potty.
At age 3 years and 2 months of age, A. was still making no progress toward becoming potty-trained (for #2). She was just terrified of the pot and I had run out of ideas. Finally, enough was enough and I decided it was better to give her fair warning that the night-time diapers were going away, forever. So we had a dramatic 10-day build-up and finally it was time.
Today marks Day 6 of poo-training and there had been zero progress (but a plenty of crying and wailing during which I wondered if my tactics qualified as torture--you would have thought so from her reaction). And then this evening: absolute victory! We were all ecstatic and her cheerleading crew (L & BR) were thrilled that we would get the promised ice-cream cones to celebrate this victory with proper fanfare. I also decided to reward her with a sticker. How about the letter "A", for her name?
L.: "And a P for poo!"

when I grow up...

What do you want to be when you grow up, L?
A cowgirl.

How about you, A.?
A unicorn-rider.

BR?
U-corn!