31 December 2013

Some Christmas photos:

 Rose Pink's winter jamas this year.  She loves the feet.

New monsters that have come to live with us.  We all love them very much.

Bobo with the slide whistle from Aunt Amri.  She sent musical instruments ostensibly for him but he doesn't actually get much time with them.

Uncle Chris sent us a paint-your-own train.  Rose Pink came up with the idea of a god train, so we each got to paint our cars for a greek god- our choice which one.  In order in the photo, left to right: Artemis, Hera, Persephone, Poseidon and Hades (painted by Rose Pink, me, Mr. Brown, Rose Pink and Nut Brown).

30 December 2013

This year for Christmas we decided not to give our kids any presents.  It worked out pretty well.  It was a huge load off me, and we still had a great time on Christmas morning opening the gifts from our loving family and friends.  Mr. Brown and I had prepared several family activities for Christmas Day to take up the time usually spent opening presents, but we didn't end up using them.  We played the new games and played with the baby's new musical instruments and painted the wooden train from Uncle Chris.  Also ate a lot of ham.  I love ham.  There was a lot of hanging out around the house and being together.  It was such a nice change to be bored for awhile rather than rushing around to activity after activity.

This is an old photo from first snowfall this year.  See the unhappy baby.  After a couple unlucky adventures outside, he learned to keep his mittens on, and now he has more fun for longer.  Christmas week we got a lot of snow, and the kids and I had a great time outside.  The weekend before it snowed all day on Saturday and part of the day on Sunday.  We shoveled three times before it stopped snowing.  On Saturday Rose Pink and the baby and I walked up to the corner store to buy sour cream (Bobo rode in the sled) and it was a snowy adventure.  I enjoyed it.  I love having the corner store available for emergencies when I don't want to drive, even if we pay dearly for the privilege.

Bobo still loves to cook and loves to be involved in whatever is being made in the kitchen.  Especially he loves it when the KitchenAid comes out because he knows it's going to be sweet and delicious.  He has started using more words (we started talking to him more).  A big one is 'Mama' which he uses for both me and Mr. Brown.  It's a lot harder to leave him in bed crying when I can hear him calling 'MaMA! MaMA!'

He loves music and dancing, and often wanders over to the computer and makes howling noises, which is a request for us to turn on 'What Does The Fox Say?'  He will then boogie down in the living room and try and get everyone else to dance with him.  He has discovered that it's fun to dance when you're taller, and gets up on the piano bench to dance, in the toddler version of dancing on the bar.

He doesn't like baths very much.  He doesn't fight me about them but he rarely wants to stay in very long.  Which is nice, actually.  I borrowed a cue from my friend Heather and trained him to get his hair washed by pouring water over his head.  He fussed the first couple times but now he's resigned and we just get it over with.  Much easier than trying to lay down in the tub and rinse.

There have been a lot of video games over Mr. Brown's Christmas break from school (he finished his first semester with a 4.0 GPA).  We've been playing Deus Ex, Castle Crashers, Starbound and Terraria.  Nut Brown has really been enjoying it.  He also just finished up his latest gymnastics class and got promoted.  Promotion meant being invited to join the 'pre-team' which involves two days a week of two-hour trainings, and we can't support that with our current number of children.  We're trying to get in touch with the coach to see if we can do one day a week instead of two.

Rose Pink was invited to be in a play her friend Cora is putting on for her visiting grandparents.  We've been over to their house twice for rehearsals.  (The play is three pages long.)  Performance is tonight!  Nut Brown is going to be in it as well.

19 December 2013

Bobo put a box of jello in the microwave the other night and Rose Pink quipped, Maybe he thinks it's cook'n'serve.  She is so funny.

We had first massive snowfall this past weekend.  We shoveled twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday.  Rose Pink was in heaven.  She played outside with a bunch of neighbor kids in various arrangements a lot.  Nut Brown went out to help us shovel but didn't really get into snow play.  The baby was so excited to go out - I even have snow pants for him - but he wouldn't keep his mittens on and just cried and cried when his fingers got so cold.  I decided he's not allowed outside in the snow for the rest of the winter.  He won't keep his mittens on but then he's always unpleasantly surprised when he touches the snow and gets upset. 

On Saturday we needed sour cream, so Rose Pink and I put Bobo on a sled and trekked the two blocks to our neighborhood store to buy some.  The roads were horrible, but the walk was not bad.  It snowed all day on Saturday and most of the day on Sunday.  Then we got extra snow - another inch - on Monday night.  We are pretty tired of shoveling.

I'm reading a Nancy Drew book to the kids at night.  Rose Pink is also reading an Oz book to Nut Brown upstairs when they go to bed at night.  Bobo is re-learning to go to sleep in his own bed after a spell of sickness where he slept on us a lot, so Nut Brown is upstairs with Rose Pink and enjoying it.

16 December 2013

This is our baby, eating jam out of the jar with a butter knife.  He badly wants to be taller than he is, but I think he's just about right.  I told him the other day that if he wanted to stay 18 months old for awhile, I was okay with it.  Here are some silly things he's been doing lately:

*when we have a dance party, he climbs up on the piano bench to dance.

*he will hold up his index finger and tell you very seriously, 'wuh'.  Not sure if he means 'one' or 'wait'.

*he's learned how to call for a parent: he says 'ma MA! ma MA!' and expects to see either Mom or Dad in response.  He was sick last week and when he was better he had to relearn going to sleep when we put him in bed, and letting him cry it out was much more traumatic when he was calling 'ma MA! ma MA!' for twenty minutes.

*he goes to nursery and stays the whole time with no tears or fussing.

*he climbs all the way up to the top bunk all by himself.  Fortunately he calls for one of us 'ma MA!' to show us how clever he is once he's up there.  He does NOT know how to climb down. 

*he still loves to cook.  He loves to bake and especially loves licking the beaters.  He likes it when we turn on the oven light so he can see what's in there.  Whenever the timer goes off, there is a thunder of little feet headed for the kitchen to see what new exciting comestible has finished cooking.

*we're getting a little more speech-like noise from him.  He came to me the other day and said, 'sh' because he wanted his shoes on.  He can say 'pop' for the Corn Pops cereal that he likes.  Sometimes he says 'up' but sometimes he doesn't. 

14 December 2014

Our first real snowfall today.  Rose Pink was so excited and luckily had the opportunity to play outside with two different sets of neighbor kids since the rest of us were less enthusiastic than she was.  Mr. Brown and Nut Brown are outside shoveling for the second time today right now, and Nut Brown is dual wielding two snow shovels - always a Ranger. 

4 December 2013

Bobo was up all night last night with a cold, couldn't sleep unless he was snuggled up with me or Mr. Brown, so when he finally went to sleep in his bed at 4:15 am, we decided to sleep as long as we could and were still asleep when Nut Brown woke up.  He used his unsupervised time to 'do nice things' for all of us: he set up a bowl of cereal for Rose Pink with her name attached, filled up Mr. Brown's water bottle for him, and made a sign for a treasured possession of mine that reads 'No playing while the Bobo's awake Mom' - which agrees with the instructions that I gave them for this toy set.  The fascinating bit for me was that he wrote it 'in code' - backwards.  He was very pleased with himself for all his efforts, and it was sweet to see his loving heart.

1 December 2013

Bobo has been learning to go to nursery at church.  I finally found a sub for my Sunday School class and went with him the past three weeks.  I learned that my little guy is very very uncertain in environments that are unfamiliar.  He doesn't like it - it really upsets him and locks him up - when he doesn't know what's supposed to happen.  It does explain why he's so interested in learning how the household works and where things are supposed to go, and why he's always so glad to help.