Successes

I threw some stuff away today.

I tried a new recipe for dinner.

Paul asked for more dinner.

Emma ate her chicken and some of the vegetables.

No screaming - the sound of Paul playing well with the twins.

Paul took his nap today.

The twins took their nap today.

Mom's not frustrated - still using my calm, I'm on your side voice.

Wow, all these things going right and the night's not even over yet. Yes!

Tricky -Tricky

My mom was helping Jason take in some of his uniform shirts. She decided to play a trick on him.

Like Brother, Like Sister

So Paul has an interesting system for going to the bathroom on the toilet. He climbs up on the left and moves his feet around the back of him while holding onto the front to get into the sitting position. He just isn't quite tall enough to stand on his own or practiced enough to use a stool. We'll get there. I guess I don't care how he does it as long as he gets it in the toilet and he doesn't fall in. We'll apparently Claire was watching. Take a look!





I have found her this way several times. She goes in, lifts the lid, and then climbs up. I'm surprised she doesn't fall in. Our silly Claire!

Paul and the Internet

And so it begins.

Paul has learned to play games on the computer.
He absolutely loves it.

A Celebration

We had a dinner in honor of all the grandkids on my side. (I swear it's something that Sherri Dew spoke about in a meeting when I was present. Only I can't remember the particulars for sure. Anyway, that is where I got the idea.) We held it at my mom's in the basement. I wanted it to be a nice dinner where we celebrate who they really are and give them yet another opportunity to remember. I came up with the theme DIVINE: you are children of the most high back in October and we just waited until after all the holidays to have it in January. Well, coincidentally, or not, the sharing time in the Friend used a scripture - Psalms 82:6 - "all of you are children of the most high."

My sister-in-law made these really nice invitations and sent them out to all the kids so they were personally invited. They wore their church clothes and I gave them just a little message before we began about who they are and how they should act. It was really quick because they were excited to get on to the meal. My mom and Cherice made french toast - the kids' absolute favorite - and then we had ice cream with toppings for dessert. Their place cards had their full names on them with the meanings. They really liked reading those and sharing them all around. We decorated with lamps, greenery, and white Christmas lights. The mood was really nice and peaceful.

This is what the kids saw as they went down the stairs. I wanted them to see a picture of themselves that night, but it will also stay up all year. Every time they go downstairs to play they'll see this and be reminded again how special we think they are. And of course, we just had to use vinyl.

Here's the banquet table,
set for the royal feast.

Emma kept calling it a prince and princess dinner.

The honorable guests

I hope to make this a tradition at the beginning of each year to start it off right.

Praise the Wind

I have to say something about the blessed wind we've had the last couple of days. I'm not usually a big fan of wind. We lived in Ellensburg for three years and endured its lots and lots of wind. I do not like wind. However, I dislike snow even more. I'm grateful for the wind of late because it has blown away the huge piles of snow out in front of our house. No more snow. Hooray!

Our Little Scowler

 

Claire has really perfected her scowling skills. When someone bumps her or takes her toys, she scowls. When she doesn't get what she wants, she scowls. If you look at her, she scowls. I think she knows what she's doing too because if we mimic her long enough and then laugh, she does too. It's really quite fun!

Birthday cake and danles

Today is Paul's Birthday! Happy third birthday! Paul was so excited yesterday to make his cake and frost it that he was cranky and crying when I told him we had to wait. He kept saying he wanted to put the danles on his birthday cake. It took me several times until I realized that he meant candles.

That's my attempt at a Tom Train cake

We had Emma's fifth birthday on December 19th. Happy Fifth birthday! We had some friends over for a butterfly party. We decorated butterflies with glitter and then ate butterfly sugar cookies. Yippee!

Josie Gentry, Hayley Beus, Emma

After dinner, Emma and Paul played with
one of Emma's gifts - Moonsand!

Cards, sleepy heads, and plenty of food

Happy New Year! I went to Mattawa yesterday and celebrated the bringing in of the new year with my mom and dad, sisters and brother and his family. We had way too much food. It seems like when I was younger we could have eaten all that food, but not this time. We had plenty of leftovers. Emma and Paul were excited to play and stay up as late as they wanted. Paul almost made it, but succumbed to sleep on the couch. Emma made it, but she was bored and sleepy there for the last half hour. My dad bailed early, and my brother crashed on the couch. We girls played cards. That's all I wanted to do. We played games called Garbage, Hand and Foot, Golf and Pyramid Golf. It was most cozy and fun.