Typical

Today I presented the children with a mixed plate of both PB&J and PB&Honey sandwiches, and apples. Amy and Hannah ate the apples. I've been wondering if Hannah is eating enough lately. I plan to up my offerings to her, to make sure she is at least getting the chance to eat enough- I suspect it is just one of those light times. And she nurses for ever at night, so maybe she just isn't hungry after consuming a quart of breast milk.

This morning Micah kept postponing breakfast in favor of more Nintendo. After he insisted he wasn't hungry 2 hours after waking up, I insisted that the Nintendo go off for the rest of the day. He was sad for a little while, but then I unintentionally (he over-heard, so I had to explain) opened up a conversation about some kids who died because they didn't eat, drink, or go potty because they just kept playing video games AND THEY DIED. I don't know that this actually happened, I was just repeating details as I was told the story on the phone. Micah was suitably disturbed by this. He told me later that sometimes he stops to eat and go potty. Drinking has never been big on his "to do" lists.

Amy started saying Micah's name early last summer (2011), but it has always come out a little more like "Matter" than MI-cuh. Early last summer (2011) Micah began insisting to Amy that his name is MI-cuh, not MAT-ter. Her pronunciation is improving all the time and Micah reported the other day that Amy said his name!!!!!!  Poor girl finally got some credit.

Hannah's new super power, as of today, is being able to remove her jammies. She has been living in jammies because I just don't like the idea of potting training a baby. It seems like more work than it would be worth. Now that jammies are no longer an obstacle, I guess I will let her exhaust her interest. She sat on the potty 4 or 5 times today, culminating in her last request, to "go po-tty" after I'd been trying for a while to get her to sleep.

"No," I said, as I wrestled her for control of the jammy zipper, "It's time to sleep. All done pottying today." I finally let her sit on it fully clothed. When I sat back down to nurse her, she was stinky. Should have let her remove the diaper, who'd a thunk. . .

She is also started to ask for help, instead of fussing. Today was filled with many cries of "Helpy you! Helpy you!" I quickly determined that she was not asking to help me. Oh well.

Micah and Amy played and played and played. And then I busted out the new dress ups from g-ma Retha, while I was on the phone. Not sure why I don't take many pictures of these things- although, my kids do move fast. Enjoying the italics this evening.

Not sure if I'm coming or going. . .

Scrambled eggs for lunch today. I aspired to something much greater, but never got going well enough to manage muffins. . . the applesauce was done in time for a 'treat' after the scrambled eggs though. What we will have for dinner or bring to potluck tomorrow is beyond me. And I'm very thankful right now that we always stop and buy breakfast on the way to church. It may not be healthy or cost effective, but it is a huge blessing to this mama!

Micah has been busy proving that he is his father's son. He can finally focus enough to follow directions and read well enough to navigate and so, the video game playing has begun! I never realized there were so many skills involved in nintendo: taking turns, following directions, paying attention, timing. . . . blah blah blah. Surprised me, watching Micah get the knack of all these things.

Amy must have had a big developmental leap during Sunday School last week, since she spent the afternoon at Aunty Val's house writing her name and tracing her hand. She read the word sam today. I was impressed. I find my children impressive. But not at potty training. Sadly.

Hannah would like some attention now.

A new huggy Amy

Today Micah and company had Peanut Butter and Jelly bites, and chopped veggies for lunch. The veggies were a hit, the sandwiches, not so much. Apparently smalled is not always better. I have promised bigger sandwiches in the future.

Amy asked me to carry (hold) her and I obliged, commenting on my happiness at having a new huggy girl. "Not a new GIRL, a new huggy AMY, Mom!"

Amy, like her grandparents, does not care for nicknames. I was named Julie, so that no one would call me Julie for short. I see something like that in Amy's future.

Micah read a story on the computer today for school. He tired of it a page or two from the end, but did well over all. We stopped Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons at lesson 75 or so. I set the timer and bribed him with something to do his reading quickly. . . it worked, but seemed very wrong, considering he is 4 and this the only formal learning we are doing. I thought it would be best to back way off and just do fun things to reinforce what he has already learned- his favorite this week is a quizzing game. I pull cards off of our Alphabet/Memory deck and ask questions about what is on the card. Whoever answers correctly first keeps the card. Amy gets a little frustrated, but I'm learning ways to give her an edge each time we play. They were pretty even by the time we quit last night.

Amy loves to do Micah's school. She is about 7 lessons into the book, but I've relaxed it up a lot for her. Sometime we do half the lesson, sometimes a third of it. Basically we stop when she is done. But she is always very excited whenever she see an s, or an m.

Hannah's favorite song is the ABC song. We are trying to teach her to take turns so she can play memory with us, but she isn't buying it. She may have to wait until the end of summer before she can play those games with us.

Wow! What a great God we serve!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy around here. And Micah hasn't had lunch today, unless you count the cheese balls he has munched, but I thought I would steal this moment and share a little about what has been going on with us. And ask you to pray.

1. My cousin Scott died a few weeks ago in a plane crash. He knew Jesus and more people have come to know Jesus since his death. Please pray for his wife and little kids, as well as his Dad. His step-mom is in very poor health and can also use prayer. This has been an extremely hard time for their family.

2. My cousin Naomi had a baby on Sunday. The Lord has just shown himself so strong, and so gracious in the birth of this little one. It pleased him that she be born strong and healthy in spite of spending four weeks in the womb with no amniotic fluid. She was born at 26 weeks 4 days gestation, and squeaked on her way out. She has been on room air with a cpap machine since she was 1 day old. If you feel like doing a little reading about the role of amniotic fluid in developement between 22 and 26 weeks, you will find out what an incredible miracle the safe (and natural) delivery of this little one was! Please pray for baby Hadassah as she continues to grow. She is doing great, but there is a long road ahead of her.

3. Amy is being 'gently' weaned and is about to drive me crazy! Suddenly her need to nurse has escalated to 'constantly.' So far we are only working on night weaning, which is going a little better all the time. I still get visits from a sad little girl around 7 every morning.

4. We are trying to sell our house. It would really help us financially to have little more flexibility and we would like to not be soooo far away from everyone!

We all have grown so much closer to the Lord in the last month, praying for Naomi and Hadassah, then loving on Scott's family in his death. I am so thankful to know Jesus- thankful for his love for us, his death on the cross for our sins, for his resurrection and if we trust him, for ours!

The kids are still growing like weeds, wouldn't you know? Micah is really enjoying Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, except that he doesn't like to read the story in each lesson more than once. So, I think I am going to cut out those extra readings. He now knows enough to be dangerous. We were in Wal-mart recently and he was reading this he saw. He found one word with a lot of letters he doesn't know yet, so he sounded out the parts he did know, "aaaaaaassssssssssssssssss, ASS Mom! ASS!" Oh dear.

Amy has developed an interest in household cleaning and loves to be trusted with big jobs: mopping, cleaning up the movies, and putting the hangers in the clean clothes. She has also started drawing a lot of very detailed people on the magna doodle.  She doesn't typically approve of my drawings, "No, Mooom! That not a dog!" Thanks a lot, kid.

Hannah just woke up and wants to nurse.

HAHAHA, check me out, maybe I'll blog 4 times this year!

I hate typing while I hold babies.

I hold babies a lot.

The end.

Micah started his first bit of 'formal' education last Tuesday. I've decided to take him through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann. We spend 5-8 minutes on it everyday. He complains a lot. It is kind of bizarre. His favorite part is the last section of each lesson which involves writing the 'sounds'. He will happily spend the next 30 minutes writing. I think this must be some kind of indicator of his learning style. Today after snailing through the lesson he sat down to write. He started writing things like m t e and t y e and asking what they spelled. When these didn't turn out to be interesting words he tried on m e and a t for size and was delighted when, upon sounding them out, he discovered them to be real words that he knows! It was really fun. At least I can tell he is learning. I don't think I am actually unhappy with the book. I'm just curious to see how things will continue to go and what sorts of things will pull Micah in more.

Amy is talking a mile a minute now. I guess we all new the day would come, it just seemed like it was a long time coming. We read a book about a little boy who wanted a brother and his parents brought home a sister instead- she latched onto the whole sister idea and has been proudly pointing Hannah out as her sister ever since. Our cat turned back up on our doorstep as well and I was surprised that Amy remembered Sophie, but she has consistantly called her Sophie since her return. I hope Sophie leaves again soon. I was very content not having a pet. Amy started working on our last memory verse. I suspect she did memorize it, but wasn't confident enough to verbalize it without prompting. I'm interested to see if she will fully participate in this one.

Hannah is my cuddly little baby bug. And she is walking! Just a little these days, 8 or 10 steps is about her max. Today she woke up a little from her 2.5 hour nap and self-soothed herself back to sleep by sucking her big toe. I got pictures. She also had her first tomato sauce today. I missed those pictures, but it was glorious, I assure you.

Well, this was nice, lets do it again sometime.

What is wasted time, anyway?

I've wanted to get on here and type away for a while now, but I don't particularly care for typing with one hand. Today I have a held my baby for hours and hours and hours and now she is happy on the floor. I should be cleaning the kitchen and making dinner, but I'm just going to do this instead. I don't keep a journal or diary and this blog is supposed to fill that gap- and it hasn't been for a while now. So, without further ado:

"Uh. . . Me help Mommy!" -Amy today when she saw me clearing the table and loading the dishwasher. As I finished with the dishes on hte counter she brought me all hte ones from the table and then threw away that trash that was there and ate the string cheese Micah didn't finish.

"Mom, what spells my name?"

"M"

"I got that one"

"I, it's the one like a one with a circle above it."

"I got that one too"

"oh, C"

"I already have that. What's next?"

He didn't have the rest, but I was pretty proud of him, even though he actually was writing HACIM. : ) He is very excited about letters right now, so we are siezing the moment and going with it. M, C and this week A are the only ones he consistantly recognizes, but I think it's a good start. We also started learning about senses the other day when a TV show mantioned the sense of touch. It's nice to have him bring me these questions, instead of me trying to figure out what we need to learning now. . .

He just found a tree outside that is like a 1.

I guess I should blog more often. There's no way I can cover all the things from the last few months right now. Micah had pbj and carrot sticks, and Amy had a tuna sandwich for lunch. I wonder what picture I have handy. . .

Uh, where's Hannah?

Oh, there she is. . .

‘aLicious!

Micah’s new description of most foods. At least when the fancy strikes him. Like his lunch today which was supposed to be a deconstructed ham and cheese sandwich, until he asked for peanut butter and jelly on the bread. After that it was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with ham and cheese on the side. And I think it might apply to the many money saving opportunities at www.Shutterfly.com. First I will say I have used both Snapfish and Shutterfly. I think the quality of their products is comparable, but in ‘ease of use’ Shutterfly comes out far ahead of their competition. In so many areas their products are just easier to customize than Snapfish’s and don’t even get me started on changing the font! (If you have received a Snapfish gift from me, I chose that font because it is Snapfish’s default and either you can’t change all the pages at once like you can at Shutterfly, or I just can’t figure out how. FAIL.)

Back to money saving. My last post, the memory book I did at Shutterfly for 2009, got me a $25 gift certificate to use at Shutterfly! And you can get one too, i fyou have a project at shutterfly simply go to it, and then 'share' and it will pop up instructions. Oh, I thought of another way that Shutterfly is better than Snapfish- you can use multiple coupon codes on a single order. At Snapfish you can only use one. I intend to combine my gift certificate with a good sale to get my 2010 memory book for free/ super cheap. By the way, if you scrapbook and don’t have a stockpile, making photo books online is thousands of times cheaper and way easier. Of course, if you do it because you enjoy the craftiness of it, by all means, keep on with what you are doing!

This post is inspired by Shutterfly’s Christmas Cards, and the 50 I will get for free when I am done! So far I like this one, but I am holding out for better pictures:

Good Blessings Religious Christmas 5x7 folded card

Personalize the christmas season with Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Or how about this one with the matching thank you’s?

Joyous And Blessed Religious Christmas Card

Create modern Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Joyous And Blessed Holiday Thank You 3x5 folded card

Shop 100s of holiday cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

I also have been pondering Michael’s Christmas present. What do you think of this?

Blank Project Mouse Pad

Create personalized greeting cards and invitations by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

It’s only $7.99!


Finally if anyone out there wants to get me a present, I would totally go for something like this:

Blank Project Canvas Print

Create personalized greeting cards and invitations by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Except these are (while reasonably priced) really expensive!

Thanks for humoring me with all my getting my own free stuff posts! I guess a give-away would be more entertaining. Maybe I 'll send you a card. : )

2009

Click here to view this photo book larger

Where is my mind?

Ramen noodles. Top Ramen. Oriental flavored. Or as Micah requested, "Not those spicy noodles, and not spaghetti, the other one noodles. No, not those. Oh, Oh! Those blue square noodles! Yes! Those! Yay!!!" He ate all his noodles.

Micah has mastered his agc's, next time won't you sing with him?

It snowed last night. Micah was very excited when he saw it and immediately asked his dad for presents. It seems he has not forgotten Christmas.

Micah received a quilt in the mail from his great-aunt Joann. He was very pleased with his new puzzle floor thing. (he thought it was a rug).

If your following the potty training saga:

Micah went 3 days accident free and is back to about an accident a day now. Amy has not yet pottied in the toilet that I no of, but she sits on it a lot. Hannah fills her diapers happily. Constantly. I think she has been permanently poopy today.

Not much. . .

I'm not sure I could fairly say that Micah ate 'lunch' today. He did eat at least two cups of dry cereal in the period of time before and after I sat him down to lunch, but he did not eat much of what I put in front of him. I put salad in front of him, I put it in front of Amy too and she inhaled almost all of hers in about 5 minutes.

Aunty Val was over about a week ago and took some pictures, which I put on facebook, but I was thinking there are some people who love us, but don't love facebook, so here you go. I hear Hannah. I may not get this finished before she sends me to bed. Kids can be so bossy.

Micah went all day today in dry underwear. I know he has done this before, but it has been such a LOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time. I know he knows how, but he is just so unmotivated. As he keeps explaining to me, "Mom, I go potty in the toilet A LOT. I did lots of times yesterday." He doesn't seem real thrilled when I tell him that its just a big part of life. And really, a rather important part. So this morning I told him if he ended the day with dry underwear (the same ones he started with) he could have popsicle. I discovered as the day drew to a close that this has multiple advantages. Not only did he consistantly go potty when he needed to, without me making him go at certain times, he ALSO wanted to go to bed early. Heh. Someday I am going to have to figure out how to parent without bribery. ugh.

Amy is talking more! Praise the Lord! It might also be that I am listening better. Or perhaps I have learned her language. Anyway, tonight her new word was "Yummy". Michael brought home a small watermelon that she wanted to eat, and it was indeed yummy. Earlier this week she learned "Me" whihc has also been popular with her since them. Amy is also being potty trained. officially. I think. maybe. She is very excited, as she has wanted to be potty trained for about 3 months now, but it just wasn't a good time. Now seems like a good time though. We started today, so we are nowhere, but still. Her favorite part is washing her hands and she sings "Jesus loves me" while she does it. She says mama mama mama maaaa ma ma etc. but keeps the tune better than I do. Probably. I can't really tell, actually.

Hannah is huge! Not really, but I had forgotten how 'big' they get right around 6 weeks. I had to put away all her NB clothes already. And her alert times are much more interesting now. She bats at toys and talks to them and looks all around and smiles at us- not as much as Amy, but on par with Micah at this age, I think. I'm getting quite fond of her. It's too bad they grow so fast. . . people should always be able to have a baby on hand.

I read Psalm 128 the other day. Gives you a little of God's perspective on children. How can we as a Church (much less a country) have drifted so far from this?

Here are our blessings:

Micah learns to draw faces. . .

Today Micah and Amy had spaghetti and grapes for lunch. Amy had parmesan cheese on her grapes. Micah preferred his cheese on his spaghetti. Hannah decided to nap during lunch, so I got to eat too. I had short ribs and spaghetti.

Micah practiced his art today. I am very impressed with his new talent- smiley faces. I just wish he drew them on something less . . . permanent. Like the magna-doodle.

Introducing Hannah LaVelle

9/9/10

12:27am

7lbs 19inches

A Sandwich of his own design. . .

I really should have taken a picture of it. The sandwich, I mean, which is what Micah had for lunch today. It involved two pieces of bread, some sweet pickles and some cheese. He had a rolled up piece of lunch meat on the side. And an apple.

Here's some of what we have been up to:

Eating dinner. Amy has such lovely table manners.

Playing with play-dough and drawing frogs. I thought that was a good enough frog to save forever. Or at least for a while. I mean, it seems to have all the right things (eyes, nose, mouth) in the right places, plus hands and arms. I didn't ask Micah about it though, I was pleased with my own interpretation and didn't want to find out that those are really it's boobies and bum-bum and who knows what else. . .

We've got some extra kids this week and in their honor, we are havinga new blog. Will it ever be updated again after they leave? I don't know, but if you want to look at it: http://www.sticksfordinner.blogspot.com

Argh, formatting on blogspot could drive a person batty. Good thing I DON'T CARE. Thank you. We are going to go make dinner now.

Easing in. . . .

I seem to have lost my blogging motivation somewhere, along with all my energy and general physical good feelings. Since I seem to have picked the energy back up somewhere along the way, I guess it might be time to ease back into sharing Micah's lunch, too. Besides I don't write anything else down and if I don't do this, I will forget all these things.

Today Micah had halibut, beans, and rice for lunch, along with a few bites of salmon. Amy had the same thing, but twice as much. As usual.

Micah has been a gold mine of quotations lately:

"I not selfish, I Micah. Selfish swim in water."

"Amy a big boy too, Mom!"

"Big boys not like diapers, big boys like jammies!" (and apparently cannot remember the word 'underwear')

"Noah said, "Hi, Jesus! Let's go on the boat!""

'

"One, two, three, Jesus me. One, two, Jesus me. . ." (More honest perhaps than the original 123 Jesus loves me, 12 Jesus loves you.)

"Amy! Shut down!!!" (I don't know where he has heard shut up a lot, I haven't noticed Michael and I using it in this context at all. . . at least he's heard it little enough that people shouldn't easily recognize it while we are teaching him not to say it.)

"Maybe lay Amy down on this table like in that picture, Mom?" (After she nursed to sleep last night)

Chicken and Peas and Fries

Today Micah had macaroni and cheese for lunch. At dinner he looked across the table at me and said, "Thank you, Juwie." If he has a little sister he wants to name her Amy, Angel, Jesus or God. We don't really have a girl name picked, so I've been asking him. I don't think we'll go with any of those, though. He usually says sister if we give him a choice, but since we told him we would name his brother Noah he's been more and more excited about that idea.

Amy's walking around everywhere, she realized yesterday that she can push the little shopping cart we have, so she's been pushing it all around. Today she learned to steer it.

Micah has gotten into puzzles recently. We did a lot of 24 piece puzzles at Grandma and Grandpa Veal's Sunday and I forgot to eat while we were doing them, so now puzzles make me feel nauseated.

He was playing with the cats ear for a while tonight and then he noticed she has another so he announced he was "gonna go check it out" as he moved to the other side of her.

He pets Amy's hair when she is sad.

He hasn't nursed in about 4 weeks. He hasn't asked in about 3 days. Well, except when Amy was nursing and he said, "Micah drink that?"

35. The number of times he said "I'm a big boy!" today.

15. the highest number he can count to.

0. the number of times he has gone poopy in the toilet.

Alright, I need to eat and go to bed.

Awwwww

Amy and Daisy sleeping after the Family Christmas party Friday night.

Happiness in a small package.

Showing off her short shorts before they become too short.

Christmas pictures

Today Micah had. . . candy? surely not. . . lets see, oranges? Well. . . . hmmm. . . . I'm sure he ate something healthy. Well, if candy produces such cuteness, bring it on.

This morning I was sitting on the couch watching Up for the 80th time with Micah and he looked at me and said, "You sad?" and I said, "Yes." and he said, "Up make you sad?" and I said, "Yes." and said, "Micah kiss you face." and then he did. :)

Later we were at the store and he cried and cried and cried, (he slept on the way there, but had to wake up and his mom wouldn't carry him while pushing the cart). After about 20 minutes of wailing through the store we went to the toy aisle where he calmed down and started to like some of the toys. I told him we were there looking for a present for Amy so she could open something Christmas morning (poor child). He told me about some trucks he liked and he petted an elephant than I also petted (making it trumpet at him), he jumped, then smiled. We walked all around and then he said, "Found it Mom!" "Oh, found what?" "Found Amy's present!" I looked where he was pointing and saw the cutest little baby dolls! "Amy present, Mom!"

On the way home I told Micah, "I love you so much bug." "Love you too much, Mom!" he replied.

And this is what I found when I stopped writing to check on the kiddos. Apparently Micah couldn't hold out on Amy any longer and shared his chocolate with her. "Sorry Mom, sorry." he assurred me. I found her under the card table smacking away on a twix.

If you are worried about his lunch, rest assured he ate 1/4 of a silver salmon for dinner. Almost as much as his sister.