Who needs the comic section?

I've always gotten a kick out of what comes out of kids' mouths.  As a young teen, I would journal about the funny conversations I had with the kids I would baby-sit.  I enjoyed reading parenting magazines long before my time, and I would always skip to the back page and read the funny sayings from children section.  Moreover, when I worked at the school, I'd regularly come home with a story or two for Jon about the comical things kids told me.  Now that I have my own, I of course think much of what they say is quite humorous.  It's funny to hear things come out of their little mouths, and it's always 10 times funnier when it's your own.  So...for the memory books, here are some of my favorites as of late...  

*Scott and I were in the kitchen, and Natalie had disappeared into the other room.  Things were awfully quiet, so I hollered, "Natalie, are you getting into trouble?"  (No answer.)  
Scott looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, "OH DEAR!  I don't know what she's doing, but God does."

*I caught Natalie on a step stool trying to close the blinds.  I said, "Natalie, what are you doing?"
She squinted and replied, "I'm just turning off the sunny day."

*My mom brought cute little piggy banks over for the kids.  My dad gave them an equal amount of coins to start their savings.  Shortly after Grandpa & Grandma left, some redistribution of wealth took place.  I walked into the room to see Natalie cheerfully giving her coins to Scott while saying, "Welcome to my piggy store!".  Scott was sheepishly shoving the coins into his piggy bank as Natalie kept handing them over.  He told me that he didn't want them, but she just kept giving them to him.  :) 

*The kids were setting up a "party" in the basement.  (We have these many times a week.)  Natalie ran up to me and announced, "MOMMY! We're going to have a birthday party for you!"  
Scott was annoyed and yelled, "NATALIE!  It was supposed to be a surprise birthday party."
Without missing a beat, Natalie turned to me and declared with even more excitement, "MOMMY!  We are going to have a surprise birthday party for you!"

*I have been working on reading with Scott.  We are using a series which introduces a new letter/concept with each book.  Scott's book this week featured question marks as the new thing to learn.  I called Scott over to the couch to read his story, and he wasn't thrilled.  He huffed over and sat down and said, "Okay, but I'm not going to read the question marks.  They just slow me down."

*The kids are having fun pretending together a lot and often take on different roles.
One day, the kids came up to me and Natalie pointed to Scott, and said, "This is my husband.  Meet him."
Scott laughed and said, "Natalie!  I'm not your husband!"
So then Natalie turned to me and said, "This is my brother.  I'm the husband." 

*I usually take Scott somewhere to get his haircut.  Lately, I've been letting it grow a bit, but he needed a trim around the ears.  I thought that I could probably at least manage that.  I had him sit down in front of me, and we were pretending that he was at the barber shop.  I was asking him questions and making small talk, and he was pretending to be the customer.  He was playing along well, and I was getting the job done until I heard him yelp, "OUCH!  They don't do THAT at Great Clips."  Game over.  Sorry about your ear, son.  I'll leave it to the "professionals" next time.   :/

*I gave Natalie a little gift, and she said, "OH!  Thank you, Mommy.  You are sooooo sweet!"

*Scott came up to me at the computer and asked what I was doing.  I told him I was printing off a learning activity.  He cheerfully said, "Ooooh!  I DO love activities..."  And then he turned to head out of the room and under his breath muttered, "but I don't love learning."  We'll have to work on that.   

*Awhile back my mom made Jon a cake for his birthday.  Scott took one bite and exclaimed, "This is better than the crust on a peanut butter sandwich!"  (He refuses to eat his crust, but we think this was a compliment?!?!)

Simply Kate

I was getting ready to update my blog with recent kid pictures, but then I realized that I had A LOT of Kate pictures alone.  Since I couldn't narrow them down, I decided to just make a Kate post.  After all, it is her 15 week birthday today...something worth celebrating! :)  

 Funny faces...

Guess who just started rolling over?! 

Kate continues to be a sweet, easy-going baby.  She's starting to sleep through the night fairly consistently, has discovered her voice, and is quick to flash a smile.  We love her so much!

Higher Level Math

Jon and I were going to hold signs, but my brain got tired.

The NO GIFT Truce and New Year's Reolutions

 
I have had a few friends ask me what Jon got me for Christmas.  He got me exactly what I wanted and exactly what I got him.  NOTHING.  

You see, we tried to exchange gifts the first few years of marriage.  Jon got me some high quality hiking boots the first year so that I could do some serious hiking with him.  I wore them once and realized that I didn't like hiking in them any more than I liked hiking in my Nike's.  If a path requires more than tennis shoes, then I really don't need to be on it.  I have no desire to step in mud, climb steep terrain, or maneuver on slippery rocks.  And so, the wonderful boots sit in the top of my closet just waiting for me to have a change of heart.  The next year, he got me a heater since he knew that I always seem to be freezing during the winter months.  Good thought, but this was not your average heater.  It was a huge, yellow, industrial strength heater that about blew me away when turned on.  He was happy to tell me that he got a great deal on it since he bought the close-out floor model from a local hardware store.  No refunds on that one!  I recall being with a group of ritzy ladies at work after Christmas break that year, and they were all showing off their new jewelry & gadgets that they had received from their hubbies.  I was frantically trying to think of how I could glamorously describe my construction site heater to them, but thankfully the topic changed before it got to me! :) 

Now, to be fair, I have had a few doozies myself.  The first year, part of my gift to Jon was a brilliant red t-shirt with MARINES written across the chest in bright yellow letters.  He could almost glow in the dark!  Apparently, I should have gone with olive drab.  Jon didn't have any bright red long sleeved t-shirts in his closet for a reason.  Looking back, I guess it did look more like something a kindergartner would wear instead of a grown man.  Another gift to him one year was a thoughtfully compiled music CD with songs for him (us!) to listen to while on road trips.  He made it through that one once.  Now, come on Jon, what's not to like about Twila Paris and Point of Grace?

So...that is why we are content to just exchange a hug and a "Merry Christmas, Darling" from now on.   HA!:)  Oh how different we are and oh how we love each other! :)

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Each year I make and break New Year's resolutions.  Despite my failure rate, I always enjoy making new goals and aiming to do better.  Here are some of the things we are striving to do in 2013...

*Eat more meals at home starting with Jumpstart January- no restaurants at all for a full month (stupid Donatos!)
*Search for and incorporate God's promises for prayer requests
*Organize and thoroughly clean each area of the house (Started with kitchen cabinets on Day 1.  As usual, I had plenty of help.)

Scott:
*Create and stick to a daily schedule with more purposeful teaching & learning
*Scott jumped on the resolution bandwagon and declared that his goal was "to not play very much anymore and to help you more"  ...EEK!

Natalie:
*Take away Natalie's pacifier for real this time (Complete.  Such torture watching Kate suck on her binky though)
*To finally potty train (She's doing her best to make this process as "fun" as possible....AHHH!)

Kate:
*To sleep through the night (She's done this once, so we know it's in her.)  Oh...if all of my resolutions were as easy as Kate's!

Christmas Recap

We had fun celebrating the birth of our Savior and spending time with family.  Here are a few pics from Christmas morning...

The kids were excited about the simplest of gifts and made Christmas a lot of fun.  Here they are with their new engines.  I couldn't help but think of the time I convinced my brother to ask for a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas while I was wrapping Natalie's new train.  She was happy to receive it, but I think it's spent more time in the hands of her older brother ever since Christmas morning!  

 

 We also surprised Natalie with a little pink step stool for Christmas.  (More as a gift to me so I don't have to always go downstairs to turn on the lights for her.)  I didn't think this was a very exciting gift, but Natalie kept saying, "I always wanted a pink step stool!" and said it was her favorite gift.  Go figure.

 

On Christmas Eve, Scott sang "Joy to the World" and "Joy to the Christmas Tree" (a Scott original) to our family at my parents' house.  He had been planning this for weeks, but we were pleasantly surprised when he actually followed through and sang for the crowd.  

 

It was certainly a very merry Christmas! (Although I must admit that I was so happy to take down the tree on the 26th.  The daily rearrangement of bulbs and ornaments was a constant temptation for a couple of little people in our house.  Since then, we've moved on to new battles such as not playing the "Band in a Box" toy over sleeping Kate's head.  What was I thinking when I bought that anyway?!)

Milk does a body good...

3 weeks

 9 weeks

Her dress is becoming a little more risque!  In a few more weeks, it will not be approved by the Cedarville dress code. 

Loving Locomotives

The day Scott had been waiting for finally arrived!  Jon's mom and grandma took us to a very special train exhibit downtown.  Scott was standing in front of the displays saying, "Take my picture with this one."  He didn't have to tell me twice! :) 

Scott even had an outfit planned for this day (a train shirt, of course).  

 

Thank you, Grammy, for a fun time!