Kangaroo

When I taught Kindermusik they talked about toddlers being like little kangaroos; sometimes they get out and explore on their own but then they want to return to their nice safe pouch. Bubba is definitely in this phase and it is pretty nice. I especially love it when he gets in trouble or I tell him no about something. He runs away crying, but then comes back a minute or so later because he needs someone (me) to make him feel better because someone (also me) broke his little heart. Even when he's mad at me he still loves me.

Yesterday I left to do the last minute shopping. Bubba and Silly were busy playing upstairs and didn't even notice when I left. Bubba noticed a few minutes later and started walking around the house calling for me. When he found Scott instead he said, "Daddy not Mommy." Scott called me while I was out just to tell me that (and to ask about lunch). He asks "where" a lot now too. He used to only ask where his sister is, now he asks about me and Scott too; "where mommy go?" or "where daddy."

He's also learning to be sneaky. He figured out that if he gets out of bed and comes into the family room then we put him right back in bed. But if he leaves his room very quietly, goes into our room and shuts the door, we won't notice for a while. We've found him like this quite a few times.

There happened to be no blankets on our bed, usually he's under the blankets, and on my pillow.

He also loves to snuggle in bed with Cakes and Silly and will sneak in there too, but they rat him out. A few nights ago Silly finally locked the door to keep Bubba out. He tags along when I'm putting Cakes and Silly to bed and snuggles under the blankets with one of them while we sing songs. It's pretty darn cute. Sometimes they fight over him.

And the cutest thing he does? Fist bumps. I don't think he's ever turned one down and sometimes even asks for one out of nowhere. Last week we were driving somewhere and from his carseat he said, "I wan' bump," holding his little bitty fist out.

So even though yesterday he woke up from his nap on the wrong side of the toddler bed and was a super-mega-grouch-basketcase and was super rotten when Scott took him to the store and later had an extremely prolonged, threatening to gag/choke/throw-up super-fit over being told no candy and had to be put back in bed many times until I finally just locked him in his room and ignored him when he woke up in the middle of the night, I love this little guy.

Big Flippin' Deal

Last weekend we were out and about letting the kids do their Christmas shopping for each other. At the mall we saw this trampoline-bungee thing which Cakes decided she wanted to try. She was pretty awesome and had a nice sized crowd watching her. And thanks to my tiny camera that I now carry everywhere, I have a video of it. And thanks to my handy husband, it has been successfully uploaded. My favorite thing about the whole thing was her face - she did quite a few back flips but the whole time she just had this cool, laid-back, this-is-no-big-deal look on her face. She's awesome.

Weather

As anyone who has ever lived in VA (and many other places, I'm sure) can tell you, the weather around here is pretty inconsistent. I've lived here a long time, and I'm used to it. The weathermen around here probably get paid more than the news anchors. Regular TV is repeatedly interrupted just to update you on "the storm's" latest progress; could be rain, snow, nor'easter or hurricane. They all get tons of news time. While on the one hand I'm grateful to these weathermen for helping me figure out what the kids should be wearing, because it might literally be sweaters, hats, coats and gloves today, but t-shirts tomorrow; on the other hand, I wish I heard a lot less about the weather. That being said, here's some of what we've been experiencing around here.



My children actually asked, repeatedly, to be allowed to rake leaves.



Cakes wanted a picture of her leaf throwing.



 Cakes and Silly devised this "zip your jacket over your head" method so they could bury themselves in the leaves without getting dirt in their eyes.

Bubba discovered the joys of throwing leave at our neighbor.



Can you see the other kid?

  




Bubbs mostly liked sitting in the pile.

 Scott spent a whole morning bagging up leaves, but even then we still had quite a pile under this one tree. It's still there, only now it's covered with snow.

Scott took Cakes and Silly to the city parade last Saturday. I stayed home with Bubbs who wasn't feeling too great. He called me at about 8 to tell me it was snowing at the parade. The kids thought it was fake at first, blowing off one of the floats or something, but in the morning we had a little bit of snow to play in.




Cakes and Silly attempted some snow angels in this little dusting of snow last Sunday.

Bubba checked it out on our way out the door to church.



Then we got a little more snow Monday, enough to make snowballs, so now there are a few in the freezer.




Bubbs wouldn't wear his gloves, but he did like taking the snowballs I made and smashing them on the sidewalk.





Even Scott went out for a little while, without a coat, in short sleeves, as usual.

 And tonight, assuming it doesn't rain, we'll be heading to the Triple R Ranch for some more freezing fun. All of the coats, hats and gloves are in the dryer right now; they were pretty filthy from all their outside fun so far, and I'm sure they'll be dirty again after tonight, but I don't mind dirt that comes from having fun.

Tuckered Out

We did our usual drive home for Thanksgiving. We all eat way too much junk, stay up past bedtime, ignore naptime and play really hard the whole time we're there. Which means our drive back always looks like this...

And even after that nice 2 hour snooze in the car, this happens too...

Disclaimer - yes I took these pictures while I was driving! No one was injured. :-)

Big Talker

Bubba has bee jabbering away lately. I was feeling quite proud of this, and then I realized that the vast majority of his sentences start with "I want..."

I wan' some
I wan' one
I wan' canny (candy)
I wan' cackoo (cracker)
I wan' chocit (chocolate)
I wan' jacket
I wan' wa'er (water)

I could go on for a good long time. He really likes washing his hands too. Any time he gets messy he says "han's" and heads for the bathroom stepstool. He even asks for soap. The only bad part is, he would just stand there with his hands under the running water all day if I let him - not an experiment I'm willing to try.

He definitely thinks he's a big boy. Last week he suddenly started refusing to sit in his high chair, which is typically at the end of the table. I tried moving him to the side, next to me, and that has put an end to his fits so far. I guess he wanted to feel more included. He and Silly try to help me cook whenever they catch me starting something, which is my main reason for wanting a certain something. Currently they both just move barstools all around the kitchen to help them get into whatever they want. Maybe if I get that certain something the barstools will magically disappear...they will definitely disappear if we ever move.

He says cute things like "I do" when he wants to help with something, but he also says not so nice things like "'top it!" and "go 'way." I think he's trying to say "help me" but its hard to distinguish from "happy."

Last week he kept saying "happy to" in this little sing-song voice and I thought maybe he was trying to sing the happy birthday song. He said  it several times over a few days. Then Scott and I were talking and one of us said birthday and Bubbs immediately started singing "happy to." I don't know where he even heard the happy birthday song, because nobody sang it to me, but several times now someone has said birthday and he starts singing "happy to." I'm trying to get him to sing Jingle Bells. I think it's working, but at this stage I think I'm the only person that would translate his sounds into "jingle bell, jingle all the way."

And lastly, this is what happens when a) I leave him unattended with a bowl of yogurt and b) pull his yogurt covered shirt up over his head.

Zombies

So, Silly is now obsessed with zombies, thanks to his dad. He can tell you all about them, and in fact he told my in-laws everything he knows while we were out celebrating my birthday. A few weeks ago he wanted to know how you make a zombie, so Scott found some YouTube videos showing the makeup process of turning a regular person into a zombie. He says, "The only good zombie is a dead zombie" and "the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot it in the head" and "zombies only eat brains." Yesterday he started singing "Who let the zombies out?" to the tune of Who Let the Dogs Out. I called Scott to tell him what his son was singing. His response - "That's awesome!" Tuesday before Thanksgiving Joy School was at our house and the kids were making paper plate turkeys. He and the other little boy gave their turkeys yellow and orange eyes so they'd look like zombies! And now he keeps asking for a Nerf gun, and quotes the Nerf slogan, "It's Nerf or nothing." I'm pretty sure he thinks that's their name, not their slogan. I don't intend to have any guns in the house any time soon though. Or zombies for that matter.

Museum of Science and Industry

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We spent a good six hours in the Museum of Science and Industry when we were in Chicago, and could have stayed longer or gone back again we liked it so much. Maybe now I'll finally get around to blogging about the rest of our Chicago trip since I only covered Nauvoo before.

Halloween Week

We celebrated Halloween just about every day last week. First we tried out an idea from Family Fun; we made spooky eyeballs using ping-pong balls, flameless luminaries and permanent markers.

Wednesday night we had our church Trunk-or-Treat. Cakes made at least 4 laps around the parking lot because the kids just keep going around until everyone is out of candy.

Silly got plenty of use out of his costume this year; he wore it Wednesday night for Trunk or Treat, Thursday for part of Joy School, Friday for preschool, Saturday for the Zoo Boo and Sunday for the real thing.

My mom came up Friday afternoon and we kept busy all day Saturday with Silly's last soccer game, lunch at Jason's Deli, home to change the kids into their costumes and then to the Zoo Boo. The zoo was pretty crowded and they charge extra for everything at their special events now, but it seems to me they really need to or it would be completely out of control. The crowds are worth it to see all the animals playing with and eating their pumpkins.



Cakes and Silly on the termite mound



Bubbs hadn't figured out the whole candy thing yet.





After our zoo fun mom and I carved the two little pumpkins.



My pumpkin with ping-pong ball eyes



Mom's pumpkin with a spider Silly made in preschool. Scott's contribution was sticking the potato head parts in the white pumpkin



Silly the Park Ranger. He came home from trick or treating and complained that people kept calling him a junior park ranger, I had to explain that's what his vest says.

Cakes the cat. She kills me with her poses. Every time I took a picture of her in this costume she kinda puckered her lips, I guess that was her cat face.

And Bubba the Austrian wearing my oldest brother's Austrian socks, younger sister's Austrian coat and Silly's Austrian outfit. Best comments: that's not a costume, those are real clothes!; and Are you from The Sound of Music?

Raiding his loot

He did finally figure out the whole candy connection. Next year he'll master saying "trick or treat!"

Fall Fest with my family

My family lived in Michigan until I was about 6. One thing I remember doing there was going to a cider mill every fall. I can still picture the big mill with the cider pouring out. It was the only time we ever got to eat caramel apples and I remember looking at all the different kinds. And there were donuts, which I'm fairly certain were the only donuts we ate all year.

My mom was trying to figure out a weekend where a bunch of us could go apple picking and visit a cider mill, but it wasn't working out with all the various schedules and she couldn't find a cider mill that was "Michigan" enough so she created her own back yard fall festival for us. The weather was gorgeous and we all had lots of fun.

We bobbed for apples, filled buckets with acorns to earn a pumpkin from Mamie's pumpkin patch, ate donuts, caramel apples, chocolate apples, chili, and cooked hotdogs, s'mores and scones over Papop's firepit. Of course we drank lots of cider too, which Silly really liked.

Cakes positioning the apples just right; she eventually got brave enough to bob for one

Bubbs decided it was more fun to take the apples out then toss them back in to make a big splash. He eventually soaked himself.

Silly had so much fun that he bobbed all the other apples out of the tub once everyone had a turn.

Thanks Mom!

Smoothie Baby

This boy LOVES smoothies. He first tried one right at 12 months. He'd never tried a straw before, but he figured it out pretty quick and after that we couldn't get the smoothie away from him until he got a brain freeze.

This morning we had about 15 minutes to kill between dropping Silly off at school and waiting for a store to open and there happened to be a smoothie place nearby so I decided to indulge. There was another lady in the store and we chatted a bit. I mentioned that Bubba loves smoothies; she said she buys them for her kids but then they don't drink them. She was pretty impressed when she saw him sucking away.

Here's where the smoothie ended up after visiting the store -

And here's how he felt about his conquest -

Secrets

Shortly before school started Cakes and Silly were having a conversation about secrets. He was trying really hard to come up with something he had done that she didn't know. It didn't work. Then he tried whispering things to me or Scott, but like most 4yo he's not very good at whispering.

Then about two weeks into school I was driving him home from preschool one afternoon when he said, "Mommy, you don't know what I do at school" in a ha-ha, so there kind of voice. I told him he was right, I only know what he tells me. I happened to be stopped at a red light so I looked at him in the rearview mirror and saw this look of realization spread over his face that he now has his own little world and lots and lots of secrets that no one knows but him. He was thrilled to figure that out. He doesn't tell me much about school. The first few days I heard a lot about "the whiny boy" because he whined and cried the entire first day of school. Other than that I hear reports of what new or different toys his teacher got out that day. One day last week he played with yellow playdough; the teacher let the kids mix some red in it and he was amazed that it turned orange. He explained the entire thing to me and later to Scott.

Matching

This picture scares me a bit. Who is that big kid? I inadvertently bought her some "skinny jeans" last week and she was thrilled. I had no idea they were skinny. I didn't know to check for that. I'm only in the habit of checking to make sure the zipper is longer than 2". Gummy bought her this dress that came with a matching outfit for her doll. She loves her doll, and I'm so glad. She dressed the doll after church and wanted a picture to show Gummy.

So far she really likes her piano lessons. Most of the time she even practices without a whole lot of fuss. She really likes it when one of her songs has a duet part for the teacher, because then I can play with her. For now they are within my skill range, but I'm sure it won't last, at least not without me sneaking in some practices of my own while she's at school.

Another sign she's growing up - she practices her part for the Primary Sacrament Meeting presentation without all the panic and fear of the previous three years. I think part of it is the need to show-up her little brother. He'll be in it for the first time and I'm pretty sure he'll just march right up to the microphone and say his one little line without giving it a second thought. A big sister can't have that, now can she?

Soccer Boy

Silly has been playing soccer for a few weeks now. He really likes it, but he seems to think he's only allowed to kick the ball when someone specifically instructs him. He runs up and down the field the whole time and he's always really close to the ball, sometimes the only one close to the ball, but he just stops and watches it or keeps on running with the pack.

Pumpkin Patch

The boys and I went to the pumpkin patch with Silly's preschool class. It was pretty fun, and a really pretty day. Silly took control of my camera a few times and actually took a lot of really good pictures.

Bubba kept working his way back to the driver's seat

They had a Chincoteague ponies



Even saw a newborn pony, if you can see him through the fence.



Silly took this picture. I guess he's my official photographer now.

Of course he insisted on a picture in front of the tractor and didn't really care about the animals.



His picture of his pumpkin (inside the tee-pee).



Some grown up that doesn't know there are things you shouldn't say in front of small children said, "Don't get too close to the goats, they might try to eat your clothes." So Silly had a complete meltdown, freakout when a goat approached him.

Bubbs saying "Hi goats" to the little ones hiding under there.

Other than the goat trauma we had lots of fun. Silly picked out a white pumpkin for Bubbs and Daddy and Cakes are going to have a pumpkin patch date sometime this week to get some big ones.