spiffy dude

Can you tell how proud he is? Why you ask? This was a day when Jonah woke up early and chose his entire outfit all by himself. His favorite hamburger driving a car shirt, stripey shorts, super tall white socks and his mocks (fake crocs). I love this boy so much. My heart is happy.

lovin' preschool

 We've been slowly but surely working on more preschool. We took a huge break when we moved and it's been really hard to get organized enough to get started. Organize the actual materials, organize the room and get our daily schedule lined up. Huge undertaking! But we finally did it! The boys were really excited. We've been doing our weekly preschool class with our Co-Op but they really missed our daily routine and preschool activities.

Jonah still enjoys reading his BOB books (love Costco!) and Henry is starting to get interested in them. I've been reading the beginner set with him so we should be ready to go for the fall when he can start learning to read.  I found some really great printables to go along with his current set of BOB books. They are really great to introduce and reinforce the words he reads in each book. If you're interested, check out 3 Dinosaurs.

 This was a super cute game I found to teach counting, using a dice and subtracting. They LOVED it!! Seriously. They asked to play it everyday that week. (We do a different letter each week.) It was really simple and we could all play it together or they could each just play with me.

Another huge favorite is the "Poke Page". It's just the letter we are working on, taped to a piece of styrofoam. Then they poke the outline of the letter with a toothpick. Simple, easy and fun. The best way to learn! If you're interested in this puppy, check out Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Fateful Day in January

 I always knew my day would come. The day I had to take one of my kids to Emergency Room. But I was wrong about who would send me there. I always thought Jonah would be my "one." He's a total daredevil and very adventurous. But I underestimated Henry. Clumsiness is much more powerful that adventurous! Yes, Henry is the "one" I will have to watch much more closely.  Poor Hamster! I'm fairly certain he got the clumsiness from me.

So Friday, January 17 was a day like all the rest. The kids were playing and we were planning to go to dinner for a friends birthday party later that evening. The boys came inside and asked me to come out and look at a "dangerous red ant." So I just shoved Dan's flip flops over my socks and went out with Lucy thinking I would only be outside for a few minutes. I saw the dangerous red ant and started heading back in. Henry had grabbed a little car and was really excited to go dig in the dirt with it. He was running over to me when he darted through an area off the path and tripped over a toy. He slammed his head right into the edge of our raised brick patio. I knew it would be bad but was praying it wouldn't be that bad. He immediately started crying and held his head. I set Lucy down and went over to pick him up. I moved his hand and was pretty terrified at what I saw. I saw his skull. Yes, his skull. Not skin over his head - I saw his skull - bone! He had cut his forehead right down the middle all the way down to the bone. And it was gaping wide open. It looked huge. So I grabbed Henry in one arm, grabbed Lucy in the other and ran inside. It was really scary. I took Henry into the bathroom and shoved a towel on it. Of course he was screaming and crying and very scare. Lucy was screaming and crying too. I tried calling Dan. No answer. I tried for what seemed like a million times. No answer. I tried calling a friend down the street - no answer. Seriously. Freaking out. So I called 911. I knew I couldn't drive him to the hospital by myself and I was scared at how deep it was, especially since it was a head wound. Thankfully the dispatcher was really nice and calm. The fire department showed up almost immediately and they were all super nice. I think the entire crew came! It seemed like there were firefighters or paramedics everywhere! They got Henry settled down and decided to transport him in the ambulance. Thankfully one of the firefighters volunteered to stay with Lucy and Jonah while I went with Henry in the ambulance. I was able to get ahold of Dan just as we were pulling out to head for the hospital. Super stressful!!!!

They took him to Childrens Hospital where he was checked out for head trauma. Thankfully he hadn't passed out or displayed any other signs of head trauma. Unfortunately he had eaten some goldfish shortly before he got hurt. So we had to wait four hours before they could stitch him up since we would need to be sedated. What a long day!! He was a total trooper and was such a good boy. Although the entire way in the ambulance he kept yelling for someone to put a bandaide on it. Poor guy. If only that would have fixed it! After four long hours, they sedated him and stitched and glued the entire thing together. What an ordeal! I am so thankful for all the professional and helpful people who took care of us. The firefighters, the paramedics, the police officer who came to stay at the house until Dan got there, all the doctors, nurses and the plastic surgeon who took care of Henry.  We got the bill for the entire thing the other day - $6000!!! Yikes! Thankfully our insurance took care of everything but our deductible.

 About a week after his incident, we baked some brownies and took them over to our local fire department. I don' know if they were the ones who actually responded but we wanted to thank them for all their work and help. They were the nicest guys! They took the boys on a tour of the firehouse and then showed them several of the fire trucks and tanker trucks. They boys were really excited to get into the huge firetrucks!

Safari Park

 Thanks to a very warm winter down here, we were able to do a lot of really fun activities during Dan's time off at Christmas. One of the things we did was go to the Safari Park. It's always so fun to go there and nice change of pace from the zoo.

 They opened a new exhibit called Lemur Island (or something like that). You have to be a certain age to go in it but you have the chance of encountering an actual lemur. Henry wasn't old enough, but Jonah was. And thankfully Jonah is very adventurous so Dan took him through it. Sadly, the lemurs were all sleeping in their little dens, but Jonah had fun getting close to them. You actually get to go into their enclosure, so there isn't anything preventing them from coming up to you. It's pretty neat. We'll try it again the next time we're there and maybe they will be a bit more active.

 The boys always have fun feeding the ducks. This is much more Henry's speed! One of the ducks actually came up to Henry and took a piece of food from his hand. Sadly Henry was holding it wrong and duck kind of pecked him. But Henry was a good sport and forgave the duck!

 We went into the lorikeet exhibit as well. We actually went in it thinking Lucy would like all the birds, which she did. But Jonah was even more fascinated. He really wanted to feed the birds. So after talking to him to make sure he wouldn't chicken out, I went and bought a cup of the nectar the birds like to eat. Jonah was a total champ! He held the cup out and made a new friend almost instantly. His bird was too funny. It would eat until it was full and back off but if another bird came up or showed interest in the cup, it was zoom back in and suck the nectar down. What a glutton! Anyways, we were really impressed and proud of how brave Jonah was. He was very nervous the birds would peck him, but he didn't let that stop him from having fun!

 If you look closely, you can see the big male lion right behind Jonah!

 My little chickies!!!

Just cute

 I love this sweet girl so much!!!!

 For whatever reason, all the kids have at one point or another, been drawn into the stinky, hairy, disgusting dog bed. Or, on this occasion, ALL of the kids have been drawn in. In their nice clean jammies. Ewww. But equally cute.

 Look how cute she is when she's asleep!

Bed head. Totally cute when  you're like ten months old. Not so cute when you're 37.

MiniGolf

 While we were up north visiting family for Christmas, my mom decided to take the kids for a day of miniature golf. The boys were excited, even though they had no idea what mini-golf was!!! My mom had a co-workers little boy come along too and the boys were really excited to have a new friend. They had so much fun playing mini-golf, eating pizza and playing the arcade games. They still talk about that day and how much fun it was!

 Hole in one!!!

 Jonah had so much fun!

 Three buddies!

The Big Day

 I think Christmas gets better each year. This year, Jonah seemed to get it. He remembered Christmas and was excited for it to come. He was excited for Santa Claus. He believes in Santa Claus. And he definitely had the Christmas spirit! Henry still doesn't quite get it, but I think next year will be different for him.

They were all so cute. Jonah felt it was very important to leave some Christmas cookies and Gatorade for Santa and some carrots and water for the reindeer. So we got them all prepared and set out on Christmas Eve before he went to bed. Previously, Dan had placed a piece of plexiglass in front of the fireplace to keep the draft and wind out. Jonah was very concerned that Santa would not be able to come down the chimney and get in the house if that was in the way. So Dan made sure to remove the plexiglass on Christmas Eve as well. After Jonah inspected everything and was sure Santa could get in, he was ready for bed. I think Christmas felt more real to Jonah since we had a fireplace. On all the cartoons and Christmas movies, Santa comes down the fireplace. So he felt like the "real" Santa would come now that we had a fireplace. So cute!

 Christmas morning, the boys got up and went straight for their stockings. Jonah was AMAZED that Santa had been. He saw Santa's bootprints on the fireplace and saw the stuffed stocking and the eaten cookies and he was so excited. (Gracie was a super good sport about eating the carrots and drinking the reindeer water.) Seeing him so excited made it so much more fun!

 After stockings, we went to check out the tree. This year the only presents under the tree prior to Christmas were presents we bought for other people. There weren't any presents for the kids. So on Christmas morning, the tree was full of presents from Santa! Santa even used a special wrapping paper so the kids knew the presents were from him. They were so excited and couldn't wait to start ripping off paper!

 Lucy had fun ripping off the paper too!

 Very excited for walkie talkies and new cars.

 Sweet girl!

 Jonah asked Santa for the Angry Birds set. Santa searched high and low and was able to get a good deal on Black Friday!

 Henry didn't really ask Santa for anything. He knew Santa would get him something great. And Santa got him a giant remote control Monster Truck!

 LOVE this picture!!!! Lucy got the cutest little Cabbage Patch doll that looks just like her. And it smells like baby powder. Love Cabbage Patch dolls!

 Lucy scaling the mountain of toys!

 Sweet girl and her sweet dolly!

 This was right before bed on Christmas Eve. He is SO CUTE!! Cookies and Gatorade for Santa - carrots and water for reindeer.

December fun

 We met up with some friends at the zoo one night for their Jungle Bells lights display. It was really cold but the kids had a ton of fun. We probably had 25-30 people in our group! We didn't see many animals but we had a lot of fun walking around and hanging out!

 Just a fun trip to Home Depot. The kids LOVE the car shopping carts. Seriously, whoever invented these was brilliant! The boys always ask for the car cart and now Lucy's gotten in on the action. She cries and tries to get to the cart if I try to carry her around. So we have to rotate kids in and out of the cart so everyone gets a chance to steer!

 Daddy's little helper! Dan was working in the boys room and Lucy was very excited to dig through his tool box. Looked like a bunch of new toys to her!