Grossness and Messiness

Girls are stereotypically clean and neat.  Clara breaks this stereotype.  First, we have her bathroom habits.  She feels wiping, flushing, and washing her hands are optional.  They aren't.  Every time she forgets, as she's exiting the bathroom we'll ask her about it, and she'll often say, "Oops!  Sorry!"  But we don't think she's sorry, and half the time we don't think she actually forgot.  She just doesn't like to do it.  Gross.  So we send her back in to complete all the tasks.  She also likes to eat her own boogers.  That's disgusting.  Aside from the gross things, there's the messiness.  She has a fair amount of books on the bookshelf in her room.  She has a few toys in there too.  And she has a chest of drawers which holds her clothes.  Almost every day, either she or we will clean her room so there's nothing on the floor.  But a day later, it looks like this.  There's stuff everywhere.  Because she likes to stay up for awhile at night before going to sleep, she often reads or plays.  Apparently this involves a lot of trial and error on what book or toy works best, because so many things end up on her floor.  There is often multiple clothing items as well.  If we don't make her clean it the next day, you'd like to think she'd just be put off by the mess and do something about it.  Nope.  It's no problem to her.  She's happy in her little pig sty.

The Wishbone

When I was carving the turkey on Thanksgiving, I came across the wishbone.  I hadn't really thought about it in previous years, for some reason.  But this year Meghan suggested I find it and then do with it what people do: break it (after making wishes, of course).  So I harvested it, and found that it was too soft and bendable., so I saved it for a couple days to dry.  I had explained to Joshua what it was, and when he heard it was something to break, he was very excited.  So today he asked me if it was dry, and I checked it, and it was.  So we made our wishes (well, I can't vouch for him), and then broke it.  He got the bigger part, so his wish came true, I suppose.  I will definitely try to remember to do this next year, because it's free fun with the purchase of a turkey.

Clara is Four!

On Tuesday, Clara turned four. She is getting to be such a big girl. She is such an artist and loves creating and also performing. She prefers creative freedom and loves to draw, but she doesn't really prefer to color.. She loves to sing and dance, especially with an audience. It's actually really hard to photograph her because she is constantly dancing around and just hates standing still. She is our night owl and frequently stays up quite late in her room, reading and playing. She chose to try ballet recently and is so far really enjoying it. She is our first kid who is completely potty-trained even at night and pretty much just decided one day she wasn't wearing a diaper at night anymore and then she never did again.  That determination is very typical for her. When she wants to do something, she usually just learns it. She was the first kid who learned to swing on her own for that same reason. She loves swinging and biking and has really well-defined calves in the summer because she is a biking fiend. For Joshua, three was his hardest age, but for Clara, I think it may be four. She has gotten even more opinionated lately, and that is something we are working on. She will tell me things like, "It's SIMPLE! I am not combing my hair". In fact she is combing her hair because basic hygiene is mandatory in our family.  Or after she has been told what her only option (for food or an activity, etc.) is, and if it's not the one she wanted, she'll growl, "I already told you!  That's NOT my favorite!"  She remains on the tiny side, but is still somewhat taller than Hannah. She is 37.75 in tall and weighs about 27 lbs.

Slumber Party

The kids generally love being together and often ask to have a "sleepover", which means they get to be in the same room. We don't often allow this because they don't sleep that well when they are all together. But we allowed it today since it's a holiday weekend and also they don't have to get up early tomorrow. My original plan was to have the girls in sleeping bags on the floor, but Hannah flat out refused to consider sleeping on the floor. So she slept in Joshua's bed with him. Clara was happy on the floor...

...for awhile. Clara is a girl who has pretty rigid sleep requirements and was getting really irritated that the other kids were being loud and unruly. So after about 45 minutes or so she said, "I'm tired and I want to sleep in my bed". So she did. Hannah and Joshua eventually fell asleep and slept in his room until morning. The kids are already asking to have another sleepover so I told them they could do one the day after Christmas. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was Thanksgiving. We had a really nice holiday at home.

 Jason and Joshua cut the turkey. Well Joshua watched, but considered himself an important part of the process and enjoyed it immensely. We also watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special (the pilgrim one, not the other one that is considerably less good).

 Then we enjoyed a yummy meal, though Hannah apparently finds Christine a bit suspicious. 

 Hannah can be somewhat emotional. She needed some consoling during the meal.

The kids really enjoyed having Christine over to play. I think Christine went home tired. We had a nice day and are thankful for all we have.

Hayden Bacole's Party

Last month the kids were invited to Hayden's birthday party, who is the daughter of Halie's friend Alaina.  They know her, because often when Halie would take the kids places, she would meet up with Alaina and her daughters.  Hayden's middle name is Nicole, and she is often referred to by her first and middle name, but Joshua mis-heard it once as Bacole, so he always refers to her as Hayden Bacole, which is cute.  "Are we going to go to Hayden Bacole's birthday party today?" It was a pirate-themed party, and they kids started by getting to decorate their own treasure chests, and then going for a treasure hunt in the back yard.

The kids ate cupcakes and played in their big back yard, including towing each other around on the wagon, or sometimes I would tow them around, or sometimes they just liked pulling around the wagon even when it was empty.  Before we left, Halie had the pleasure of getting dogpiled by every kid who was still there.  It was a fun party, and the kids all liked celebrating with their friend "Hayden Bacole".

Happy Birthday Clara!

Today Clara turned four years old. We didn't have school today so I let her pick what she wanted to do and she decided she just wanted to stay at home and play. So that's what we did. 

In the evening, we kicked off festivities with her chosen dinner of pizza. She seems to have totally outgrown her lactose intolerance so she can now eat dairy like cheese with no problem. Pizza is one of her favorites. And she likes dipping breadsticks in ketchup. You can see in this picture, she got a new necklace for her birthday. This was her favorite gift and she wore it all night. It is her first 'real necklace' that cost more than $3 and is a "C" for Clara.

Besides her necklace, she got several other things that she was excited about.

I let her choose her birthday theme and she chose giraffes. She mentioned this repeatedly and never wavered, so I did that. It was kind of odd since she actually doesn't seem to love giraffes generally and this is not a normal theme. I had a really hard time finding appropriate decor and toppers for the cake. It was not my finest work, but she told me it was the best cake ever, so that's all that matters.

Happy birthday Clara! We hope all your wishes for the year come true.

Dinner with David and Elle

Earlier this month Meghan and I went to dinner with David and Elle.  We are so busy that we rarely have time out, and since we've only really been able to see our newest sister-in-law at family events where there are a lot of other people with not a lot of time to talk to everyone, we wanted to be able to have some dedicated time with just her and David.  We went to North in Leawood and had a great dinner.  But more importantly, we had time to talk.  It was a really great evening out with good food and people and a chance to get to know Elle better.

Clara's Fire Tree

Our neighborhood has trees planted in front of most yards by the street.  I haven't paid attention to the whole subdivision, but on our street, our tree is always the last one to change color.  It's also the last one to lose its leaves.  But before the leaves fall off, they turn to a blazing orange.  It looks like it's on fire.  I love that tree because it's the last one on the street to have leaves, and it looks awesome.  But I also love it because it reminds me of something.  In 2011 Mark and Barb were at our house for Thanksgiving, and we posed for a family picture in front of that tree, when it happened to be at its brightest color.  It was later that day, that we received the call that there was a baby girl available for us to adopt who was born that day.  We said yes, and soon we had our little Clara.  The tree is only at its brightest for maybe a week or so each year, but every time I see it when it looks like that, I'm reminded of our beautiful little girl and the great story of how she came to be our daughter.

A Cold Kid Learning to Swim

We did swimming lessons for Joshua last year before our trip to Florida, and they were really useful in giving him some initial confidence.  Meghan took him to lessons this summer at the Olathe Community Center, and we are doing another set now, also at the OCC, that I'm primarily taking him to, unless I'm out of town.  Here he is in the locker room getting ready to go to his lesson.

The downside of a swimming lesson class is there will always be a lot more students than teachers, so there's a lot of time with each kid sitting around waiting for his or her turn.  Joshua is always cold when he goes swimming, probably because he has no body fat, and for some reason he doesn't like to wait all the way in the water, like most of the other kids, and instead stands up on the ledge in the pool.  Here he is being cold, and also getting some one-on-one attention from one of the teachers.

But he is having fun, and he's also learning.  In this class they're actually working on swimming strokes (in his intro class last year they mostly just worked on being comfortable in the water).  Here the main teacher is explaining the next thing they're going to do, and then you can see Joshua as he's practicing one of his strokes.

A Hunger Games Date Night

Usually for our date nights, we just figure out on the fly what we want to do.  It's almost always dinner out and maybe drinks and usually ice cream.  But this date night was different, as Meghan had decided a couple months ago that we would go see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, knowing it would be released by now.   Meghan had read all the books and seen all the movies so far. I had read all the books, but I hadn't seen any of the movies.  So Meghan had asked me to see the first three movies prior to our date night, so we could go see the fourth one together.  I did so in the past couple weeks, so this afternoon we went to the theater to see the movie.  It was really good.  There's not a lot of action in the first half of the book, so Mockingjay Part 1 was a little slower.  But the second half of the book is loaded with action, so I knew the movie would be good, and it was.  Afterward we ate dinner at Granite City and then went to get ice cream at Sylas & Maddy's, which was a change from our normal ice cream routine, but was very good.

The Man in the Suit

A few months ago when I was still at my previous job, one of the sales district managers (with whom I have a great relationship) mentioned that he thought my suit was too big and baggy.  I went to a men's clothier, and the guy there confirmed it was very ill-fitting.  He asked it I had lost a lot of weight recently.  I hadn't, as I've been roughly the same weight since high school, but that just proved that when I originally bought the suit, it wasn't sized well.  They calculated the cost to alter it, and it was well on the way the cost of a new suit, so I decided to just buy a new one that fit well.  Today was my first meeting since my suit was ready, so I got to wear it for the first time, and I'm really happy with it.

Art, Not Crafts

One thing that probably shouldn't surprise me, but does, about my kids is how much they like open-ended projects and how they comparatively dislike projects with detailed instructions. Because of this, they are way more into art than crafts. Today we got out the paints and they loved it. They also later had a lot of fun with the dried paint brushes, using them as toys.

In the Cold November Rain

It has been kind of rainy lately. Clara had no interest in going out, but Joshua and, surprisingly, Hannah decided to go out and play and jump in puddles. They had a pretty good time for awhile. Then Hannah jumped in a deep puddle and got water in her boots and was pretty much done. But before that, she hung in there and I was proud of her for being a little tougher than usual.

Our Walmart-Wearing Fashionista

All my kids started fall with enough clothes to wear for the cooler weather. For Hannah this hasn't gone well. Firstly, she has grown a bit so a few of the items we had, particularly stuff from last year, are now too short. Which is fine because kids grow and I expect that. But the main problems are her preferences and stubbornness. Firstly, I have multiple pairs of jeans in her size that are super cute and fashionable and are in great condition. Unfortunately she refuses to wear denim. This is not great because Clara wore her size last year and Clara has to have jeans because she is so thin that other pants won't stay up. And now I can't reuse any of Clara's clothes because Hannah won't wear jeans. So that's annoying. However, knowing that Hannah isn't a denim fan, I also bought her several cute outfits with leggings. Unfortunately she also won't wear most of these because she doesn't like the color or style. It's quite frustrating. She feels strongly enough about it that she literally will choose not to go somewhere fun or not to eat dinner or whatever over wearing clothes she hates (and there is no middle ground. She either loves or hates clothing). So I am buying her a few outfits in the size up from Walmart. Normally I am not a big fan of Walmart's clothes because I don't feel they wear well, but this is a good way for her to pick out her own clothes. She has really strong opinions on every thing we see.  So apparently, for her, picking them out is key. I am only about 70% in predicting what she will like. I also think Walmart is a good option for her because when she is at home, she wears jammies 90% of the time. Pretty much her first question after getting home is , "Can I change into my jammies?". So she is not really hard on her clothes like my other kids are. This is her in a Hannah-approved Walmart outfit. And Chicken, who is always well-dressed due to her clothes being sewn on.

Tossing Around the Purple Pigskin

Joshua has been extra excited about football lately, both in watching it and in playing it.  Meghan and I certainly have concerns about him actually playing it at an organized level, and we'll figure out for sure what we'll do with that later, but for now his desire to play mostly consists of throwing the ball back and forth.  He has a very polite way of asking things, so today he said, "Hey Dad.  Would you mind if you could come out in the back yard and play some football with me?"  Well, there's no way I can turn that down.  One of the great joys of fatherhood is playing sports with your children, especially father/son activities, so I was probably just as excited as he was.  We went in the back yard and threw around my K-State football (it's a size smaller than regulation, so it's easier for him to throw) for awhile, and it was great.  And he's always been a great thrower, even when he was a baby chucking toys around the living room.  He can actually throw a spiral to me most of the time, and after I told him what a spiral was and why it was an accomplishment, now he gets excited every time he throws one, "Hey Dad!  I threw another spiral!"  Times like these are the best.

Battling Baxter Stockman

The kids have limited time each day on their Kindles, so they do a pretty good job of playing or watching their favorites.  While the girls mostly watch shows on theirs, Joshua's favorite thing for awhile now has been to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run.  Once of the bad guys in the TMNT world is Baxter Stockman, and he's featured in this game as a boss that you have to beat.  Joshua has progressively gotten better at the game, and although it took him quite a few times, he finally beat Baxter,  The first time he did it, he ran over to me, "Dad!  Dad!  I beat Baxter Stockman!!!" And every time he says his name, he emphasizes the "man" part of his name as if it were "Baxter Stock Man", which is cute.  Now he beats Baxter fairly regularly, and when he gets to that point in the game, he yells out in a pretend angry and determined voice, "I'll get you Baxter Stockman!"

Using My Tools to Cut the Grass

One of Joshua's most frequent requests this summer has been "Daddy, can I use some of your tools to cut the grass?"  He used to just use his toy saw, but he has seen me use my tools for other things, and he wanted to use them to cut the grass.  Initially I didn't let him use anything sharp, so he would spend a lot of time using pliers to rip small clumps of grass out.  But later in the summer I felt he was responsible enough and let him use a small hacksaw I have.  He's done really well with it. and he's had a lot of fun.  He was creating piles of grass, so I gave him one of my old buckets, and that made him even happier, because he could saw some grass and then throw it in the bucket.  Anytime I'm outside or in the garage he asks if he can use some of my tools to cut the grass, and if I say yes, he asks if he can use my saw,   While it's not enough to actually contribute to the mowing process, it's also not so concentrated that it butchers the yard.  So it's harmless and he has a lot of fun.

I am a Chaise Lounge

Tonight I was lying down on the floor playing with Hannah, and Clara spotted an opportunity.  She noticed that the contour of my body while I was lying on my stomach looked comfortable, so she plopped down right on top of me with her hands behind her head, relaxing.  Fortunately she weighs nothing (and her lack of pants helped even more, I suppose), so it didn't really bother me at all.  I kept playing with Hannah, and she kept relaxing.  It worked for everyone.

Veterans Day Playdate

Today was a school holiday due to Veterans Day. Evan is a boy in Joshua's class who we really like, but we have almost completely opposite schedules so it is very hard to schedule anything together. So we took advantage of the holiday and had a play date. It was kind of rainy so we met at Kaw Prairie (our church). We played at the play area for awhile and then went into the gym. Joshua and Evan mostly looked like this since they love "playing football" (some football, but a lot of wrestling).

The girls and Evan's younger brother, Ryan, also got in on the action. We had a fun day and I definitely want to keep the gym in mind for the future as the weather gets colder.

Sharing with Chicken

Hannah and I get to spend a lot of time together alone on Mondays and Wednesdays because the other kids are in preschool. Because it's so much easier to run errands with only one kid and because Hannah loves running errands, we often go to the grocery store. She gets a treat many of the times we go, which means she is a little bit spoiled, but I am okay with that. Usually we go home and she watches a Dora and then eats her treat. It is super cute, because she always brings Chicken Baby over to wherever she is and then gives her one bite for every bite she takes.

Tending to the Flowers

When they kids are over at Ron and Mom's house, they sometimes have the kids help with small tasks around the house. While they are probably usually only of marginal help, they are almost always excited to provide their assistance. Recently Ron needed to water his flowers, and Joshua and Clara were happy to jump in and help him out.