Bella, Gabe and Josiah

I told Gabe that he needed to eat super fast if he wanted to watch our baking show. He did not. In fact, he ate very, very slowly until the last three bites. G: Mom, I ate my dinner so fast that time went backwards! You didn’t even see it! Now we went back to baking show time! —— G: You’re my mommy and no bad guys are going to get you! If they do, I’ll say “no badguys! That’s my Mommy!” and if it doesn’t work I’m call the police. M: Okay. But no bad guys are going to get me. G: Okay. But if it does, remember to yell “Help!” And I’ll come. —— I came down and Gabe was reading one of the new books. I said "you know, I was actually going to pull those out one at a time so we could read them." He replied with "I did pull them out one at a time. I pulled out the firetruck book and then I put it away and pulled out the pirate book. I didn't have two books in my hand at one time." I can’t argue with that logic. —— G: Mommy I want to go skiing and I want you and Daddy to

I have so much to catch up on that it’ll probably be multiple posts.... Big day around here. Both boys got to sit in the cart together! It’s a good thing if was going to be bath night anyway... Two of my handsome boys... This one is just too cute... Lucy snuggles... Gabe was sure he needed to buy this for Auntie Cassie. As long as the dishes are dirty, I’m okay with this... Josy had discovered cheerios and he loves them! Gabe decided to try on his Halloween costume from 2.5 years ago and it still fit. I know he’s tiny, but this is a little crazy. She’s pretty cute! This one is pretty cute too! These two have a pretty complicated relationship, but they’re starting to get along better. They’ll figure it out.

After gymnastics yesterday, Gabe asked me if we could go on a coffee date. Since I can’t resist that sweet little, that’s what we did. After he finished his hot chocolate, he asked me if he could go play. I told him we were on a date and we were supposed to talk on a date. He informed me that “we already did that.” Afterwards I was clearing off the table and Josy was sitting in his carseat waiting to go. When I came back he was playing peek-a-boo with the girl at the next table. I didn’t know he could play peek-a-boo...

At school, they will pat this kids on the back until they go to sleep. They start this in the baby room and I think most kids grow out of it eventually, but apparently not all of them do... Gabe sleeps fine at home without being patted, but at school he needs patted. Whatever, if it makes him sleep, I have no complaint. Anyway, today Josy was having a rough day so I went over to snuggle him and see if I could convince him to sleep. On my way in, one of the teachers caught me and said that she’d been patting Gabe the last few days. Today, she was trying to pat him to sleep again and he looked at her and asked if Crystal (one of the other teachers) could pat him instead. She asked him what was wrong with the way she was patting him. He looked at her and said “well, you try your best...” I don’t know what I’m going to do with that kid.

It’s been a hard week over here. I started working at my job 14 years ago. It’s been a great place to work, so great that once you start working there, you never keave. Our staff turnover is crazy low. As of 14 months ago, out of the 10 of us, 6 had been there longer that I had and one more had been there nearly a decade. In the last 14 months, 3 of them have retired, including the director. The process of getting a new director has been complicated and emotional, but we do now have a new one. However, there was been some staff turnover because of that and the last one just left this week. Now suddenly there are three of us that have been there forever. Suddenly I’m an old-timer. The new people are nice and it will all be fine, it’s just that my office had been one of the most stable parts of my life for my entire adulthood and it just all flipped upside down. On Monday I found out that one of my high school kids from when I did youth group at a previous church committeed suicide. I ha

And then Gabe wanted to do it again, but he wanted to answer for himself, so here we go. WITHOUT prompting, ask your child these questions and write EXACTLY what they say.  *What is something I say a lot? I’m hungry Mama *What makes me happy? Watching tv and giving hugs and kisses to my Mommy and Daddy *What makes me sad? You guys giving me spankings  *How tall am I? <holds one hand on his head and one hand on his foot> So tall *What's my favorite thing to do? Play with my yoyo on my bunkbed *What is my favorite food? Raspberries because they’re red *What is my fave thing to drink? Orange juice *If I could go anywhere, where would I go? To Fireland  *Do you think you could live without me? No *What is my favorite TV show? PJ Masks and Blippi and Paw Patrol *What is my favorite music to listen to? PJ Mask music *What is my job? To play *How old am I? 4 *What's my favorite color? Red *How much do you love me? So much! Copy, paste and change my answers and see what your chil

I saw this on Facebook and thought it would be funny to ask Gabe... WITHOUT prompting, ask your child these questions and write EXACTLY what they say.  *What is something I say a lot? Eat your breakfast! *What makes me happy? Giving hugs and kisses *What makes me sad? Not making beautiful pictures  *How tall am I? So tall *What's my favorite thing to do? Do all your work *What is my favorite food? Breakfast *What is my fave thing to drink? Water and soda *If I could go anywhere, where would I go? Um, to Englas *Do you think you could live without me? No *What is my favorite TV show? Star Wars *What is my favorite music to listen to? Christmas music *What is my job? To work *How old am I? How old are you? I can’t say. *What's my favorite color? Pink *How much do you love me? So much! Copy, paste and change my answers and see what your child says!

Josy finally got his last Christmas present. Uncle Matt and Auntie Rachael sent him a present that was supposed to show up a day or so after Gabe’s present. However, it was sent to Gram and Gramps’ house and apparently it was delayed, so it didn’t show up until after they’d already left for a month. Then, to make things more interesting, the mailman put it on the doorstep. Normally this would be fine, however the ravens found it and decided to attack it. The neighbor actually found the package in the middle of the parking lot being eaten by ravens. She rescued the box and left a note for my parents. Gram finally showed up this week and managed to get the box and deliver it to Josy. Luckily he’s little and didn’t mind that it was so late. Regardless off the condition of the box, Josy was pretty excited. Gabe, being the good big brother that he is, decided that he wanted to play with it too. His way of playing, though, was to make Josy chase it. We finally informed him that was not a fun

8 months old and these pictures are getting harder and harder to take... He is still a happy little guy, who just goes with the flow, even when fighting with double ear infections or Hand Foot and Mouth (luckily those weren’t at the same time...). He figured out how to sit and this morning he started doing a legit all-fours crawl, rather than the belly bounce crawl that he has been doing. Luckily he is still slow, because this one is definitely going to be into everything very soon... His favorite new activity is chasing Lucy and luckily he hasn’t discovered her claws yet. She also hasn’t discovered his crazy pinchy grip yet, which is good. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be pretty... He’s also decided that he doesn’t want to go to sleep in my arms anymore and will only sleep if you lay him down in bed. While part of me is glad that it wasn’t a fight to get him to sleep in a bed, the other part of me is super sad that he doesn’t sleep in my arms anymore.

We have a new addition to the family: Lucy. Pat and I have always said that the moment there is a hint of a mouse problem we’re getting another cat. We didn’t have a single mouse problem as long as Max lived in the other house, but the moment he left, they moved in. Neither of us want to have that fight again. A few weeks ago we could hear a mouse chewing through the walls to try and get in, so we found a lady on facebook that day whose cat just had kittens and now we have Lucy. Interestingly enough, we never heard from that mouse after that first day... She’s been here a week now. We hadn’t told any of the kids, so it was a complete surprise. We FaceTimed with Bella and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen her that excited about anything ever. Gabe was super excited and then asked for a puppy also. Um, no. I can only handle so many babies at once. And Josy thinks she’s great and tries to chase her everywhere. Right now he’s a very slow crawler, but Lucy may change that. She’s giving him a

Gabe and I made cookies today. He’s actually a pretty good helper these days and he’s super enthusiastic, which makes it even more fun. Anyway, I gave him the job of sifting the flour, which he took very seriously and did a great job. But as I explained how to do it, I suddenly thought back to a blog post that I wrote when Gabe was a baby, about making cookies and teaching Bella to sift the flour using my Grandma’s sifter. Parenting is so weird. I’m doing the exact same thing, except that years have passed and now my baby is the one I’m teaching to make cookies. And in a few years, I’ll teach Josy how to sift the flour. And once again, I’ll wish that Grandma was here to make cookies with my kids too. Same cookies, same sifter, probably the same apron, just a different kid. And now he’s running laps around the stool because apparently he ate too much cookie dough...