A family that prays together

Danno and I were asked to give the prayers during sacrament meeting on Sunday. Of course during the opening hymn Seth decided he needed to go potty. I quickly husseled him out and got back just as the hymn was ending. Danno had already gone up to the stand and a lady from the ward was sitting with Caleb. Just as she stepped out of the pew Danno started speaking and Caleb flipped out. He ran down the asile crying loudly and calling for his dad. I ran after him but didn't catch up until he reached the front of the chapel. Danno ended his prayer and Caleb was reaching up to him so I lifted him up to Danno. As soon as Danno got him he of course started crying and reaching out for me. The bishopric member thanked our whole family for giving the opening prayer. How embarassing! Danno made sure to get the boys out to the lobby during the closing prayer and luckily they were so happy to leave neither noticed I wasn't following so we didn't have a repeat perforamnce for the closing prayer.

Busted

Seth and Caleb were doing so well at leaving our tree alone and then...

If you give a Seth a waffle

Thursday night we had waffles for dinner. As soon as Seth was done he hopped up and said "I want to take a bath." We thought that request was a little strange but we didn't have any plans that night so it was no big deal to give him a bath a bit early.

The next morning I took the boys to the library. Seth's preschool class is reading books by Laura Numeroff this month so I put a few on hold for us to read at home. As soon as Seth saw If you give a pig a pancake he asked me to read it to him. You can click on the link to see the few first pages. The text is:

"If you give a pig a pancake,
she'll want some syrup to go with it.
You'll give her some of your favourite maple syrup,
and she'll probably get all sticky,
so she'll want to take a bath."

A light bulb went off. It was suddenly clear why Seth wanted to take a bath last night. He wanted to be just like the pig! This is pretty much how I get all of my information about what goes on during preschool. It is good that I can at least get a little peak into what happens during the day. Though I am not sure I want to know the back story to Seth's latest gem, "It's okay to make a mess."

Hey everybody let's decorate the Christmas tree (cue the Ray Coniff Singers "ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh")

The door had hardly closed on our last Thanksgiving guest when I was ready to get out our Christmas tree. I had found it on Craigslist a few weeks earlier and was anxious to see how it looked. Once we finally got it up and all fluffed out it I thought it looked great. There was only one small problem. It is pre-lit with white lights, which I prefer, but Seth wanted "colorful Christmas lights." He said it over and over. In fact just last night as I was taking him to bed he was staring at the tree and sure enough as soon as we got to the top of the stairs he said, "I like colorful Christmas lights". Way to make me feel bad. Our old tree actually has multi-colored lights so I may have to break down and set it up in the loft for him.

On Friday morning we ran way too many errands in the morning so everybody was ready to just hang out at home for the afternoon. I thought it would be a great idea to string popcorn and cranberries to use as a garland for our tree. I put on my Christmas CDs, popped some popcorn and got busy. Seth and Caleb were both pretty intrigued. They couldn't quite figure out what the cranberries were; cherry tomatoes?, grapes?, something to squish with your hands? Seth kept asking about my "shiny thing" (the needle). I actually let him help me string a few of the cranberries. He liked sliding them down the thread. Then Seth started asking me what my list was. At first I thought he meant what I wanted for Christmas but when I answered that way he didn't seem satisfied. Finally I asked it back to him and he told me my list was "five popcorns and one cranberry" He had to come back several times and either ask me again or tell me himself. I strung, and strung and strung all afternoon. At one point I was taking a break and googled how much garland I would need and I found out most recommend between eight and nine feet per foot of tree. My tree is nine feet tall so that would mean I needed between 72 and 81 feet, yikes! I was a little discouraged but I had already spent so much time on this project that I decided to persevere. I am glad I did because it looks pretty nice and it was much cheaper than spending $7.99 a string for the garland at Target that I liked.

For the decorations we decided to steal an idea we got from my mom. When Seth was one we went to my parents house for Christmas. My parents were a little worried about Seth taking the ornaments off (I can't imagine why they would think he might do such a thing) so they had the great idea to hang Mother's cookies on the bottom part of the tree so he could take them off and eat them. We waited til after the kids went to bed and since I was still stringing popcorn (yes it took me that long) Danno tied ribbon on all the cookies. I suggested he put them in a Tupperware container we usually put cookies in after he finished. I forgot about one little detail. Caleb knows exactly what that container is for. As soon as he saw it on the kitchen island the next morning he wanted a cookie. Danno explained that they were for the tree and surprisingly he and Seth accepted that they weren't for eating and were pretty excited to hang them up. Danno told Seth to go wake me up so we could get started. He must have gotten a little distracted on the way upstairs because he burst into my room and shouted "I want to play Star Wars" Once I stumbled out of my room Danno straightened us out and we got started. The front two feet of the tree got very well covered by Seth and Caleb so we had to surreptitiously remove a few and help them reach a bit higher. The boys had a great time.

Our three day decorating project was finally complete. Now I need to get busy and get some presents to put under there.

Say Cheese

I took Caleb to Target to get professional pictures this week. Getting my boys to sit still and cooperate for pictures is always a challenging task. We thought perhaps if we just took Caleb in by himself and went in the morning when he is usually in a better mood and things are a little more calm at the studios we would have better luck. At first it looked like it was going to be a complete disaster. He was crying and reaching out for me to hold him. Everything the photographer did to try to cheer him up seemed to make things worse and even the very special treat of fruit snacks wasn't helping. Then the photographer brought out the train. Caleb cheered right up as he whacked the engine over and over. After that he happily giggled as the photographer played with him and shot away. We actually got quite a few cute pictures. What a relief.

Let it snow

I got Seth a pair of snow bibs off of Craig's List (have I mentioned that I loooooove Craig's List?) last week and just a couple of days later we got to test them out. As I guessed, Seth loved them. He had a great time rolling all over our yard. I did learn one downside though; getting a four year old in and out of snow bibs a dozen times in a single day gets old fast.














Caleb was the smart one. He got dressed in his snowsuit, approached the door, felt the rush of freezing cold air and requested his snowsuit be removed at once so he could stay inside where it is nice and warm.

Don't say the "H" word

Today's was the fall party at Seth's preschool. It started out with a bang. Just as I was reaching out to open the door to Seth's classroom the fire alarm went off. It turned out to be kind of nice though because it was like having a little mini costume parade. All the other classes are having their parties tomorrow so they were pretty excited to see the little ones all dressed up. Once we got everyone back inside the party was pretty simple. They played a game of pin the stem on the pumpkin then had snacks. They had all sorts of good stuff; marshmallows, Oreos, smarties, potato chips and apple juice. Caleb loved it. One day when I was a little girl my teacher asked our class what our dad's did at work. I told her my dad ate pie. I guess there was one too many birthday parties at work that month. I am afraid now that Caleb probably thinks Seth goes to preschool and eats fun stuff. He already really, really wants to stay every time I drop Seth off. There are so many fun things there. Fun toys, fun puzzles, cool posters on the wall and a little table just his size with markers to color with and now we add to this mix the possiblity that he may be missing out on delicious snacks. I am sure drop off on Tuesday will be a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Two years ago today I dropped off Seth at a friend's house thinking I would be back pretty quickly from my routine 38 week prenatal check up. Instead Caleb decided to give us all a scare and I got my first ride in an ambulance so he could be born that day. Thank goodness for good friends!

Now he is no longer my baby but my cute little boy who loves to laugh, jump, dance and imitate his big brother. We had a pretty low key birthday. We invited our neighbors over for ice cream cake and games and then we went to Chic-Fil-A for dinner. Caleb has finally figured out how to get up the play structure so he had a great time. No sooner was he off the slide then up he went again over and over and over.

If at first you don't suceed

My frozen butter cream transfer didn't transfer too well. I really like this method though so hopefully I can work out the kinks. It was pretty easy to do and I like all the possibilities it offers.

Before Transfer

After Transfer

Hey is for horses...

and two year old boys. This is Caleb's new favorite word. Any time Seth takes away a toy or we don't give him exactly what he wants or we try to hold his hand in a parking lot or something is not quite right in his 2 year old world we hear "Hey, Hey, Hey".

Seth's Hat

It is starting to get cold out so I sent Seth to preschool with a hat. During recess he kept pulling it over his eyes. No big deal except that he would then try to continue climbing the playground equipment. His teacher warned him to keep his hat on right or they would have to take it away. Seth lost his hat.

Swimming and Reading

Today was Seth's last day of swimming lessons for this session. I bought him some goggles a few weeks ago and now instead of spending the time he is supposed to be patiently waiting at the edge of the pool for his turn spinning in circles with his head tilted back he puts his head under the water and wiggles around. He is getting better about keeping at least one hand on the edge but he still had a few episodes where he floats away from the wall and freaks out the lifeguard on duty. Despite this, he actually passed all the skills for Pike and was passed up to Eel. I am very proud of him. I think we will skip the next session but we'll try out his new class in a month or two.

Seth is so tired after swimming lessons we always have to go straight home. It has totally ruined my master plan to throw the boys into child watch after lessons and go work out but what can you do? Once I am home it is so hard to get Seth to leave we end up wasting away the rest of the day. I wanted to make chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight but I forgot to get tortillas and once again I didn't make the effort to get the boys into their car seats so I could buy some. On the positive side I did finish "The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday" by Alexander McCall Smith. I don't know why I feel the need to keep reading series that I don't enjoy much. For some reason I just can't resist. The worst was this summer when I read all 29 "The Cat Who..." mystery books by Lilian Jackson Bruan. The first ones were fun but they went downhill fast and the last few were simply terrible. Yet I read every single one. Next on my list is "The Diamond of Darkhold" by Jeanne DuPrau. Yet another book in a series I am not thrilled with. Why? Why? Why?

Curious George Decorates a Cake

Thanks to cakecentral.com I now have a frozen curious george waiting in my freezer to apply to Caleb's birthday cake. I used a method called frozen buttercream transfer. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can succesfully transfer him. Here is the picture I stole from pbskids.org to use as my base. As expected mine only has a passing resemblance.

Speaking of freezing, last night was the first snow of the season. Who wants to place bets for when I wuss out and stop walking Seth to school?