So long, 2008

Good-bye, 2008! Thank you for bringing us a pet cat and many fun new memories of our kids. And now it's time for you to move on and bring us what we hope will be a much better year!

And now for Christmas....

The tree is up (though my 22-month-old has already knocked it over once, and the cat tries every day...). The cards have been sent. The gifts are pretty much all bought (I hope!). Nothing is wrapped. The house is a mess. The food for Christmas dinner has not been purchased. Hmm...let's hope we make it!

Best part of the holiday season so far? Listening to my toddler's glee as he shouts, "Missmas!!" (His way of saying Christmas, a word he thinks only refers to Christmas trees. But just wait until he sees what happens on Christmas!)

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Wow, I haven't written in a while, huh? We have been busy, busy, busy. The older boys have been off school all week, and this morning we went bowling at 9:30 am! Tomorrow they want to have a day to celebrate our cat, but I expect to be busy getting ready for Thanksgiving.

We're not going anywhere for the holiday this year--it will just be the 5 of us at home. We're getting a pre-cooked turkey from the grocery store that we just have to heat up for a few hours. Of course we'll also have several sides and desserts.

We've had a very hard year...actually, a very hard 5 years. But we still have a lot to be thankful for, like our health, and still having a roof over our heads for the moment, and these 3 wacky & wonderful boys! I had the boys help me make a poster with turkeys on it, and we wrote things we were thankful for on the feathers. We still plan to add some more things before the big day!

My trick-or-treaters

This Halloween, my 10-year-old was Indiana Jones. I couldn't find a dark jacket for him, but I think he looked pretty good.

My 7-year-old was Prince Caspian...or basically, a knight:

My 21-month-old was Pooh:

They all had a blast trick-or-treating and got way too much candy!

Meanwhile, our cat would like everyone to know she is NOT amused to wear a chicken hat!

Toddler skills

I was sharing this with some mom friends and thought I should post it here, too. They were asking what our toddlers could do right now, and here are a few things my 19-month-old is up to...

I was impressed last night when he dumped out some goldfish crackers on the living room floor and then went into the kitchen, pulled a chair over to the counter, climbed up and got the Dustbuster down and brought it into the living room to clean up the mess!

But today he unfortunately used the same skills to get a permanent marker down from a kitchen cabinet and draw all over himself and the countertop! (We still haven't gotten it all off his face or hands!) We normally keep the chairs up on the table to stop him from climbing on them.

He can follow simple commands now and is very good about throwing things in the trash when we are done with them! (Too bad he also throws away things we need!)

He can open a straw wrapper and sometimes even put the straw into a juice box or juice bag! (Usually he is not supposed to...he just grabs his brothers' drinks and makes off with them! But they could not manage those straws by themselves until age 3 or 4!)

He can climb almost anything! He can also jump off the floor with both feet, and is a crazy amazing dancer. He is starting to walk down the stairs the normal way, only holding onto the wall slightly--scares me!

He can also identify SpongeBob ("Ba!") even from across a store... (blush).

He makes a cute "Shh" sound with his finger up to his mouth (but likes to scream first and then Shh himself!), and can imitate all kinds of noises, like the noise of the printer and the noise of the vacuum cleaner! He can also do an adorable fake sneeze on command.

He has a magic power over computers so that just barely touching them, he can turn them off or close programs or open new windows or even change major settings! ;)

He is pretty much a daredevil with great large motor skills, but not many words yet. Though one of his newest words, which sounds like "ga ga," is actually his attempt to say "en garde!" (He picked this up from foam swordfights with his brother!)

He also thinks it's hilarious to lick people, or to spit into his hand and rub it on people! He is such a boy! But he's so, so cute, and will occasionally give us huge hugs and even more occasionally give us real kisses, and it melts me.

School time!

All three boys started school this past week! I have a 2nd grader, a 4th grader, and then one in Mother's Day Out 2 mornings a week!

We're only sending the little one because his brother was in the same program at the same age with the same teacher, and we loved her, and I'm thrilled to report he likes it! He's never done well in the church nursery, just cries or has to be held, but both mornings he went to MDO, he stopped crying within minutes, played, had fun, and then wasn't eager to leave at the end! Amazingly, he also did well in the church nursery this week, after the two days of MDO. He is always in a great mood afterwards and babbling like a little chatterbox, so I think it's going to be good for him. (And it really is like a preschool, despite being for 1-year-olds...they do art projects, learn songs & fingerplays on the themes of the week, have storytime & some structured playtime, etc.) It was really nice to have a few hours to get things done, too.

10 years!

I've been a mom for 10 years now! And survived my oldest son's 10th birthday. We took him and 2 friends to play indoor mini-golf and arcade games. And, since he wasn't having a huge party, we decided to get him the gift he wanted most in all of the world, a Nintendo DS. He was thrilled. Jumped up and down, and has thanked us profusely several times for giving him such a good birthday and gift! He is a very sweet kid, and I'm glad to have known him the past 10 years.

Quick update

Since I last posted, my older boys finished a week of science camp, then a week of VBS, and now they are free for the next 2 weeks, and then school starts! My little one will be starting "school," too, a Mother's Day Out program 2 mornings a week. I also had a birthday since I last posted...and in a week, my oldest turns 10! Where has the time gone?!

Our week so far

My baby turned 18 months old yesterday and learned to jump off the ground with both feet in the evening! My other kids didn't learn that until around 2. This one keeps going, and going, and going... We took him to the children's museum during the day, and at night we had a mini half-birthday celebration for him with cookies he didn't care for and popsicles he definitely did.

The very happy half-birthday boy:


Meanwhile, the older boys finished a 4-day art camp yesterday at an ice rink. I went ice skating with them on Wednesday. Very fun!

Blurry pic of me on ice, taken by my 7-year-old:


Tonight we're trying a "Parents' Night Out" again tonight for all 3 boys. Last time we tried one, we were called to pick up the baby because he wouldn't stop crying. This was the first week he's ever played in the church nursery instead of crying or sleeping the whole time--still cried a lot, but played in the middle--so maybe it'll work, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high!

Oh yeah, and our computer broke this week! It says it cannot find the operating system--yikes. That's the family computer. I still have this laptop, so my husband is going to remove the hard drive from the other computer and hook it up to this laptop to see if the data is still accessible. I sure hope so, because it has our whole lives on it...photos, documents, etc., going back about 13 years!

Advice for new parents

Something they don't tell you when you're expecting...

1) Stock up on crazy hats.

2) Stock up on shoeboxes.

Seriously, between preschool, school, camps, etc., we've probably had 6 or 8 Crazy Hat Days to contend with in my 10 years of parenting, and I expect them to continue for a while. And even if you homeschool...kids like crazy hats. Storybook character outfits also come in handy.

And I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to send a shoebox for something or other. Every time I'm tempted to throw one out, I have to remind myself that one of these days, one of my kids is going to tell me he has to have a shoebox tomorrow! And probably a decorated one at that!