Our House, In The Middle Of Our Street

Here are some house pictures...before and after. It's the main room which was the least nasty to start with as it has wood laminate and so the floor could only be so gross (as compared to carpet). This is the only room the kids were allowed to enter for the first 2-3 weeks before we moved in, the others were that nasty.

In this room we just scrubbed the windows/blinds, mopped 3-4 times and painted the walls (which was done by my lovely MIL and FIL...thank you!). The other rooms had greater transformations with better documentation of the before and during.




View from front door/entry way

The door in the next two pictures in the back door

Boys

Matthias: When I am eight I'm going to chop my head off.
James: That will look so stupid.


Me: Where is somewhere cool you guys want to go? (thinking family vacation wise)
James: Italy.
Matthias: Antarctica!
James: I'm going to start my adventures when I am forty.
Matthias: I am going when I am sixty.
James: I'm going to climb a mountain and
Matthias: I am going to Antarctica.
Me: You guys don't have to wait until you are forty. You can start earlier. What happens when you get older?
James: You get weak. I'm going when I'm thirty. To forty. About ten years.

Hannah Babble

While I was changing her diaper: "anyways I need to go potty."


Hannah: Light! What is that light doing?
Me: Uh, shining on the table?
Hannah: Oh. It shining on the table!


While driving Taylor to the bus stop one morning, "Moon! There is the moon. It is not sleeping."



In other news I have been letting Hannah wear underwear for a couple hours on some mornings when we're just hanging around the house. And if she goes potty in the toilet she gets a chocolate chip.

So on Monday she was actually wearing a diaper, but would ask me to take her to the bathroom occasionally. She stayed dry the entire day except during her nap. Even when we picked James up from school she said she had to go potty and I told her she had to go in her diaper, but she didn't want to so I told her she could hold it until we got home...which is a ten minute drive. She was still dry when we arrived!

Yesterday she did really well, but on Wednesday we are out of the house for 4-5 hours in the morning and had to be at the church for several hours last night. Today she has been dry all day including her nap. I really hope this lasts...forever. Maybe after a week or so I will let her try out some underwear full time. We can only hope I will be so lucky.

James Speak

Matthias: Do adults like Legos?
James: Some. Aunt Teresa loves them about one inch more than me. But I'm going to take over that inch and love them two inches more than her.


Later...(rating people on the Lego building skills scale)
James: You're a 40 (to Matthias), I'm an 89 and Uncle Scott's 90. Dad's 90, no he's 40 down with you, he just builds random stuff.




James brought home his first test yesterday; it was a math test. He got a 10 out of 12, which was a 90...go figure that out. Several of the questions were write in the answer ones. Then there were some multiple choice, which was where the 2 James missed were and to which he said to me, "Then it got hard, you had to fill in all these bubbles." Welcome to the next 16+ years of your life kid.

Hannah Babble

While we were stringing together a bead necklace (Hannah was surprisingly good at and strung all but 3 of the beads with no help) she randomly looked up and said, "Gamma going to my birthday cake." (my mom is coming for Hannah's bday!!)



Tonight Hannah and I went jean shopping (for me) at Rue 21 they have themed dressing rooms and the guy started unlocking the Rock Star room and I said, "Um can we have the Princess room?" Guy: "are you serious?" Me, "uh, yeah." So when I was putting Hannah to bed tonight...

Me: Thanks for going shopping with me, it was fun.
Hannah: We go in Princess room. The little daddy open it for us.



Hannah is starting to tell on the boys, "Matthias pushed me" to which I think, go push him back, that's what James does. I'm not sure how to handle telling...



Hannah is really into saying new, big words. Lately they are 'probably' 'because' and 'definitely'

"Probably that is mine." (to Taylor's headlamp)
"Because I want to brush my teeth"
"I definitely done" (after snack time)
"Because that my necklace"
"I probably have some"

It's really hilarious. Because she probably is the cutest thing ever, no definitely.

Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas. All the normal Christmas Eve happenings. With the addition of putting up the trampoline in 40 degrees, which with a wind, no sun, and being used to 60s-70s was FREEZING. Then I got on gmail video chat with my family and sang Christmas carols and listened to my dad's new song. Which is a tradition I would love to continue. It was so fun to sing with them! But have my kids in bed. =]






Kids tracking Santa's flight...

Setting up the trampoline


With the tramp and singing we didn't get to bed until after midnight, woke up at 4:24 to a fire truck zooming by. The boys were up about 20 minutes later, so not much sleep. Everyone was up a little after 6:30. Gifts were fun this year as we had the kids go one at a time and watch each other. Then we'd build/play with/eat whatever was opened before moving on.


The boys got a movie and tramp from us. We did a treasure hunt with the first clue wrapped up. The boys loved it!



They also got some fun gifts from grandparents (furry frenzy things that scoot around and make noise, Hannah got one too that she is afraid of. and lots of Legos). Between the trampoline and the Legos I've barely seen the boys for days. Seriously, they are either shut in their room so Hannah can't break everything or outside jumping.




Hannah got a baby doll and stroller. Plus I made matching pjs for her baby...I could hardly contain my excitement. She is happy as can be pushing that baby around all day and I am probably even happier watching her.









We did everything really simple this year with only two gifts each for the kids and for us. After receiving everything from our families it ended up being a perfect Christmas. The best gift for me was the branch Taylor chopped off one of our trees for me...if you look really closely at the first picture you can see it behind the treen leaning by the piano with a red bow on it. I'm going to carve a spoon out of it. As soon as I find a sharp enough knife.

I Believe In Santa Claus

We spend a lot of time at our house thinking endlessly about home school, media, natural child birth, ideas, thoughts, traditions. Because I don't want to just do things because that's the way they've always been done or because that is how everyone else is doing them.

So we have long discussions (read as: Taylor listens to Kristi's monologue) to decide what we believe and what we will do. Not that Taylor doesn't have opinions, he just reaches conclusions with a lot less talking than I need.

Earlier this week Hannah made the "boat Santa" statement to which my SIL responded with the comment that her daughter calls Santa Noah. How did Hannah learn about Santa? We have a few Christmas books about Santa and the boys talk about him occasionally (we're not big lap people so no visits for a couple years) so Hannah has learned old guy with a white beard equals excitement. James didn't know much about Santa as an only child at age two.

I've kind of always (as a mother) had bad feelings for Santa Claus. Because naturally I want to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, Christ's birth, and think my children should have an innate desire to do the same. And Santa is the bad guy. Right?

So I started my inner debate about what my stance will be on this issue. Because I like to know what I think about life, the universe and everything.

And last night I came to the conclusions that Santa is not the enemy. He doesn't take away from our focus on Christ. We spend a good portion of our holidays singing hymns, talking about Christ's birth, playing with our toy nativity, reading scriptures, thinking of Christ.

The commercialization of Christmas can be laid at the feet of large corporations, toy companies, advertisement, the media, and our own prosperity and/or greed. Santa isn't the culprit. He's just an exploited image. Traditions surrounding Santa Claus date back hundreds of years and are rich in meaning and culture. Christmas is what we make of it. Santa is who we want him to be. We can focus on the Savior and His gifts to us. And we can still do that while we believe in Santa Claus and are grateful for his gifts to us.

At our house Santa is a kind, happy man who fills our stockings and slips on to the next house. He doesn't leave gifts under our tree. And this works for us. Most of our traditions center around Christ and family. And food. It's a happy, wonderful, glorious time and I don't mind if Santa is a part of it.

Now the pedagogical debate about lying to children is a whole other issue...