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Tommy and Jonah

These two.

Tommy's birthday with Jonah1

They are so different in temperament and talents and birth order, but somehow an introspective firstborn-of-four bookworm and a happy-go-lucky, super-athletic youngest-of-six make such a great pair.

We didn’t do a party for Tommy this year, but he asked if he could just have Jonah over for lunch.  They decorated birthday cakes, played baseball and soccer at the park, then raced their Razors around until we all ended up at the playground, burying the girls in the sand.  Pretty much the best birthday Tommy could ask for.

Tommy's birthday with Jonah2

Tommy's birthday with Jonah3

Janie at 23 Months

hair in her eyes

janie 23 months1

janie 23 months2

janie 23 months3

janie 23 months4

Jane-bug has been hanging out with us for 23 months!  She said her first sentence this week that wasn’t just repeating one of us: “I poopy.”  Yep.  She’s still occasionally interested in the potty, but she hasn’t had success in quite a while, so I’m just concentrating my efforts on her older sister.  Verbally, she’s saying a ton of stuff, though she still prefers to grab my hand, “come!”, and pull me to whatever it is she wants, pointing vigorously.  Just this week, she’s also said, “Eat cancake (eg, pancake)” and “Take bath.”  She likes to participate in family worship (“Jesus Amen” and “Praise Lord”) and watch educational DVDs with the big kids (“watch somping”).  Seriously, she’s fascinated by Ancient Egypt.  (…or maybe just anything on the screen that moves, and she doesn’t know better?)  She loves playing outside, with or without the big kids.  She loves her bike helmet and will put it on any time there’s a chance she might ride a trike, scooter, or razor.  She can climb up onto the big girls’ bikes by herself.

Her hair is slowly getting longer, but I can’t bear to cut it.  I try to pull her hair out of her face every day now, and she’s getting better about leaving elastic bands and clips in it.  She is very attached to her blankie and almost as attached to Tib (“Bib”).  She loves to play in the play kitchen, take Tib for rides in the shopping cart, and help me cook in the real kitchen.  The more mess, the better.  She really prefers sitting in a booster at the actual table to hanging out in her high chair.  I’m just not quite ready to give it up, though!

Janie’s favorite author is definitely Sandra Boynton.  She searches for those board books on our shelves, brings them over, plops down on our laps, and happily reads along.  I recently gave the big kids the job of reading to Janie every day while I work on school stuff with the other one, and they’ve all enjoyed it.  Janie likes playing games with the big kids (Go Away, Monster and Hungry Hungry Hippos) and being part of whatever the rest of us are doing.  She loves to make messes, to the constant despair of her siblings and mommy.

She’s getting teeth #15 and 16, painfully and slowly, but when they’re not bugging her, she’ll stay in bed 7:30-7ish and nap 1-3 or 4ish.  Tib keeps her happy in bed for quite a while on the days when I can’t get to her right away, and she stays active enough the rest of the day that I don’t mind too much if she has some mellow awake crib time.  While a sick or achey Jane-Bug is whiney and pathetic, a well-rested and healthy Jane-Bug is so much fun to have around!

elizabeth reading to Janie

Messy School Days

I’ve been meaning to put up some pictures of the mess that a normal school day produces in this house.  These are from last week, but they’re pretty representative of every day around here…

messy schoolday

Note the disaster on the floor behind Susie--thank you, Janie.

Note the disaster on the floor behind Susie–thank you, Janie.

messy schoolday2

Between school bins, papers, crayons, colored pencils, math manipulatives, cars, ballet slippers, water bottles, and the like, the table is hard to find…

Birthday Cake

birthday cake

Tommy at 8

tommy at 8

tommy at 8 a

tommy at 8 b

It’s Tommy’s 8th birthday!  He’s such a pleasant young man.  He’s clearly inherited his parents’ bookish tendencies, reading anything and everything in sight.  Usually when Derek starts to read something aloud to the kids, Tommy gets impatient and finishes it off on his own before the next evening.  His most recent reads are the Great Brain series, The Hobbit,  and James and the Giant Peach, and he’s constantly rereading the Paddington books and Chronicles of Narnia.  He also loves reading all sorts of nonfiction about outer space.  So glad this kiddo is a bookworm!

Tommy will patiently read to his little sisters or set up dolls or girl legos for them or even help them get their dolls dressed, but he is definitely a boy’s boy.  He spends a lot of time practicing ground balls in the driveway and drawing pictures, comics, and story illustrations, mostly featuring sports figures and his own invented superheroes.  He says that his current ambition is to be a comic book illustrator/writer.

And now that Derek is home and I have internet again, here are a few pictures from today!

Uncle Matthew makes sure he gets masculine presents that shoot things, to Tommy's great delight!

Uncle Matthew makes sure he gets masculine presents that shoot things, to Tommy’s great delight!

The girls got him balls to replace all the ones he's lost over the neighbor's fence.

The girls got him balls to replace all the ones he’s lost over the neighbor’s fence.

In addition to the traditional EIGHT books (one for each year!), we got him his very own Bible.  Elizabeth was impressed.

In addition to the traditional EIGHT books (one for each year!), we got him his very own Bible. Elizabeth was impressed.

Teething is the pits.

We’re having internet issues…but I will try to get Tommy’s birthday posts up this week!

In the meantime, Jane-Bug is cutting four teeth and is miserable.  Even holding her doesn’t always help.  Poor Bug!

needy Janie

3 Ballerinas

My computer unexpectedly just let me upload my camera card this afternoon!  Here’s a scene from a few days ago, when all three girls decided they needed to be ballerinas.  School went “Do something–dance–do something–dance…”

3 ballerinas (2)

3 ballerinas

My mom’s weekend away

balboa island

This weekend, Derek took charge of the kids (and massive cleaning) while I drove down to Orange County with Christina (aka Noa’s mom) for a Sally Clarkson Mom Heart conference.  The conference itself was meh.  It wasn’t really about motherhood, and we all could tell that Sally was kindof worn out.  She’s such a Godly woman, and I’m really enjoying her books (where there aren’t as many half hour plugs for her kids’ products), but I don’t think I need to spend so much money to hear her in person again.  I loved guest speaker Heidi St. John, who I’ve read but not heard in person before.  I’m actually now considering going to the local homeschool convention this summer to hear her again.  And to spend more time with the awesome homeschool moms from this weekend.  Pj graciously invited a few of us to spend the night at her parents’ beach house on Balboa Island.  It was a total B&B experience, and her dad even gave us a boat ride around the harbor before dropping us off on for dinner.  We felt so spoiled!  And at the conference, we filled the (way too many) breaks by talking, talking, talking.  Brainstorming chore charts (pictures to follow), read-aloud books for Ancient history cycle, spelling programs, teaching our girls to be each other’s best friends, ways to encourage our husbands, books to read (they had a GREAT book room at the conference), field trips to plan, easy dinners, ways to occupy toddlers during schooltime, etc, etc.  I so appreciate the wisdom of the more veteran moms and the enthusiasm of the new-to-homeschooling moms.  I’m so glad I got to go.

And coming home to a super clean house was amazing.  Amazing.  Got to write it here and remind myself next time I’m frustrated with Derek for something stupid that doesn’t matter.=)  The house (and our bedroom) were clean, clean, clean.  My husband is amazing.

Apprentice Dishwasher

Janie has been getting into SO much trouble during schooltime lately!  Tearing things apart, making messes, breaking things.  Argh!  This morning, she poured about half of the dishsoap all over my clean dishes in the drying rack.  So I rinsed them all off again and let her go to town with an actual dirty bowl.  She’s been playing in the sink for over five minutes now!

dishwasher

Pink Dress Redux

Susie has been obsessed with her ballerina dress since Janie was a baby.  She’s worn it at least once a week since then (though I admit that sometimes I purposefully didn’t wash it for a few days at a time to give my eyes a break).  And it had seen better days, so Derek begged me to just throw it away already.  I did today, but after a total meltdown about the loss of her beloved dress, decided to give her Elizabeth’s old one (which has also seen better days but has way less staining and only a few seams coming apart).  Q is so happy to have another one to wear to bits!  Sorry I don’t have a picture of her looking up, but this was the only picture my stupid computer would let me pull off the camera.

pink dress

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