Lauren
May 23, 2012
May 03, 2012
The Girls
The day Aaron came home from the hospital.
A Few Jillian tidbits:
Jillian is a little Momma. She always says to me, "His eyes are open, so I hold him. Deal?"
While playing the same game with Simon she said, "Boo-yah Simon! Boo-yah!" (After finally figuring out how to play and won.)
She is a wild child. She and Simon can destroy the house or at least one entire room in the 15-20 minutes it takes me to feed Aaron and usually it is her idea that she gets Simon to help her execute. Last week the mode of destruction was water...just dumping cup after cup all over the place; this week is has been dumping every toy we own out on the floor or moving furniture around. Yesterday, I thought they were actually playing nicely in her room only to find that they had moved the bunk beds to the middle of the room and had stripped the beds of all blankets and sheets! And when Jillian doesn't get her hair fixed right away, her crazy hair just makes her seem all the more wild, especially when she tilts her head back and shakes her little head just to get the hair out of her face.
Lauren. Oh where do I start with this girl? She is an emotional roller coaster. If she is like this at seven, I fear for the teen years. We have got to work with her on recognizing and handling her emotions better or we are going to be regretting it. She, of course, gets glowing remarks from her teachers on her behavior at school so it is when she is home that she lets it all out. I asked her why she does that and she said, "Cause I don't have to go the principal at home." Well, we have two principals here and we just need to lay down the law in some way, I guess.
She can also be pretty imaginative, so her and Simon can do some pretty funny things together. The picture above was a little finger puppet show they did for me. Lauren took her Polly Pocket dresses and put them on her fingers and drew the faces. For Simon, she cut pants out of paper and taped them to his finger and added the faces. I don't even remember what the puppet show was about but I loved the puppets!
Lauren has a new favorite movie these days...The Princess Bride. She is getting pretty good at quoting it and of course the thing she goes around saying the most is, "Inconceivable!" Love it when the kids get old enough to like things we like.
And that's about it for the girls...
March 21, 2012
March 16, 2012
Five on Friday
Because I haven't been blogging much this week, I got a message yesterday from my sister asking me if I had the baby and just decided not to tell anyone. Unfortunately, that is not the case. No baby yet. I am just a slacker!
1. Yesterday I mentioned finding the kites in the closet. That was in fact a true story. I have been cleaning like crazy, de-cluttering, and reorganizing the last couple of weeks. When I cleaned out the coat closet, I found two kites still in their original packages tucked away on the top shelf, way at the back. I tried to remember when I bought them and I think it was shortly after we moved to NY. Seriously. I think they were for a school lesson that we never ended up doing. I am glad we finally got some use out of them :)
2. For Simon's preschool co-op this week we did some fun things to learn about St. Patrick's Day. Here is Simon showing a couple of them:
3. After all the cleaning and organizing, we are officially ready for the arrival of this little baby. My due date is next Thursday, so I am hoping for him to make an appearance by next weekend sometime. I just washed his coming home outfit and can't wait to put it on him.
4. At school Lauren can earn what they call a "Gotcha" sticker. When they are caught doing something kind or going the extra mile the teachers and staff hand them out. Well, Lauren made a bet with Allen that she could get 20 Gotcha stickers. Her deal was that when she earned that many he would take her out for ice cream. She got her 17th one yesterday and is eagerly awaiting her reward!
5. I have been told by Simon and Lauren that tomorrow to celebrate St. Patrick's Day that we need to wear green, have a leprechaun visit to give us gold coins, make our rainbow layer cake, and have a green meal. I better get on those preparations asap! See what happens when you start traditions...they hold you to them. ;) With the nice weather we are having we might even go to the parade!
Have a great weekend!
March 07, 2012
February 14, 2012
Happy Valentine's Day
Aunt Jenny sent the kids all a little Valentine tattoo. Lauren ran upstairs to put hers on with Ethan and when she came back downstairs, I saw that she put it not on her hand or arm, but on her cheek! When I told her they don't immediately wash off she kind of freaked out and got a little embarrassed (hence the watery eyes). I wanted to laugh but I knew that would just hurt her feelings. Man, her placement just cracked me up! She left it on all afternoon but decided she didn't want to wear it to school on her face so she scrubbed it off last night.
Happy Valentine's Day! We love you all!
February 10, 2012
Lauren's story
This paper came home yesterday in Lauren's folder. It made me laugh.
Ok, so in case you can't read first grade inventive spelling, here is the translation:
"Once there was a germ. His name was Phil. He lived in a planet called planet Booger. And one day he turned colors. That meant he was sick. But he was a germ, germs don't get sick. The next day he was better. That was weird. The end!"
Seriously though, I think us talking about germs around here lately is maybe where she got her ideas. In the last week we have had discussions about getting pink eye and not touching faces, washing hands at school before lunch because there is a stomach virus going around the school, covering mouths when coughing because we don't want to get a cold, too. 'Tis the season for sickness and first grade papers about germs!?!
January 27, 2012
Five on Friday
1. I haven't taken a single picture this week. And so I haven't blogged because a post is always better with a picture, right?
2. Simon got pink eye this week and despite my efforts to contain it to just him, Lauren got it yesterday. I thought I was getting it yesterday as well but I think it may just have been some sympathy eye itching or something weird like that. This is the first time I have had to deal with pink eye in my years of parenting. I have realized three things: It's gross. It's expensive to treat with the prescription eye drops. And my hands are dry and starting to crack form the constant hand washing.
3.A couple of weeks ago I was in charge of a youth activity at church. I decided to do a night of Minute To Win-It games. It was a huge success and the youth really loved it. The night before the activity, I let the kids play one of the games for FHE. You had to start with a cookie on your forehead and then using only the muscles in your face move it into your mouth within a minute. None of us were able to do it one minute but after some practice Allen, Ethan, and Lauren all accomplished the task. (One of the youth leaders did it in 23 seconds on his first try.)
4. The biggest news around here is that Jillian is now potty-trained! Yay! I will only have one in diapers!! She has by far been my easiest one to train and also my youngest. She is doing awesome and this little girl will do anything for some Bruster's ice cream. All my other rewards didn't seem to phase her but once I said, "Bruster's," she was in. I hope I did it early enough that she won't regress too much when the baby arrives in a couple of months. Jillian has had some major changes the last couple of months..no binki, a big girl bed, and now potty-trained. She is a champ!
5. The kids don't have school today due to teacher in-service so I am off to find ways to entertain them here at home since I can't take the pink eye-d ones out anywhere. It's rainy and cold so maybe it is a just good day to watch movies, read, and make some cookies. We shall see...
Enjoy the weekend!
January 20, 2012
Sledding
Last weekend we finally got our first significant amount of snow. It was just enough to go sledding. Since the weekend was busy, I took the kids on Monday because they were out of school for MLK day. We had so much fun! We broke two of our sleds hitting the "moguls" the kids built and we stayed out way, way longer than I ever expected.
Simon did an amazing job this year. He would go down all by himself, get up at the bottom of the hill and yell, "That was AWESOME!" and climb right back up the hill to do it all over again. I was so surprised!
The first run down that Jillian had resulted in a lot of snow in her face (see Wordless Wednesday photo) and it took her a little while to want to try it again. And once she decided she do it again, she would only go down with Ethan and loved it every time.
I was glad we got in a sledding day because by Tuesday the snow had melted! Hopefully we will get more snow soon so we can try out snow-shoeing at the local nature park. It's just been a crazy mild winter here.
January 19, 2012
Toothless
Lauren finally lost her first tooth over the weekend! She was determined to get this tooth out before she goes to the dentist next week. Her permanent tooth was already coming up behind it so she didn't want the dentist to have to pull it. She was twisting and wiggly-ing it and finally got it really loose but then was so scared to pull it out but once Allen got it out she started screaming and jumping up and down with excitement.
