Our Sunday Afternoon in Pictures

If you listen very carefully you will hear Primary music playing softly in the background in the following video. We tried. At least they were getting along, right?

Quotable Quotes

Our neighborhood has several pre-school groups that rotate houses. They are organized by age. David is in the group of 3-4 year olds that will all start kindergarten in a year and a half. Here are a couple of quotes from the last time it was at my house.

Ivory: "Hey Guys, come and see what I brought for Shell and Toe"

Lydia (to Alexis): "My name is Lid-DEE-ah"
Alexis: "It's just a really hard name, o.k. Lid-ah-la?"


And, totally unrelated to pre-school but totally related to quotable quotes, last night I heard a dad tell his son while giving him bubble gum, "Don't swallow it, o.k.?" It reminded me of the first time I gave Olivia gum. She was probably 3 or so. Here's how the conversation went.

Me: "Don't swallow your gum, ok?" When you're done, just spit it out in the trash but don't swallow it."

A little while later I noticed that she didn't have her gum in her mouth anymore.

Me: "Where did your gum go? Did you throw it away?"
Liv: "No"
Me: "Did you swallow it?"
Liv: "No"
Me: "Where did it go?"
Liv: "I just put it down my throat."

My tutorial about how to handle gum chewing likely would have been more effective if she actually knew the meaning of the word 'swallow'.

Gotta love kid quotes!

Valentine Fun

Liv's class was encouraged to bring a creative container to collect their valentines. Here is what she came up with (inspired by an idea that Jodi told me about):

Her very own "Valentine Crush" soda. Here is the nutrition label:

Our neighborhood also had a Valentine party for all of the age groups that participate in joy school. They had games, a craft, a valentine coupon for parents, and a table to exchange valentines. David had a lot of fun! (isn't that valentine holder cute? They made it at the party.)
Since Valentine's Day was on a Sunday, we skipped the romantic date and had a fun family Valentine dinner (of pink pancakes, pink milk, pink straws, etc.) complete with party favors. This was my attempt at being festive:
(We don't have any photos of Sean or Warren because Valentine's Day isn't really their thing quite yet...although Warren did insist on buying both boy and girl valentines and he gave the poster that came in the girly valentines to a cute girl in his class. Maybe Valentine's Day will be his thing sooner than I think) Happy Love Day!

This one's in a hurry...

to grow up.

I'm not sure there's any stopping him. The more he can do on his own, the happier he becomes. It always amazes me that each little person comes with a unique little personality. Here is our Brig at 7 months:

I love his eyebrows.

and his eyes.

and his nose.

and his mouth.

and his cheeks.

and his chin.

all of him really, but oh the eyebrows. They make me laugh. They are a little bit crazy and a lot bit expressive.

He got his first tooth just one day shy of 7 months. He is constantly feeling it with his tongue.

He decided he is big enough for stairs (thank goodness for a practice stair)

He has made it all the way up the big stairs (with supervision), but he has not yet mastered coming down. (He did make it all the way down once, too, but not in the way one would have hoped. He was not so much supervised for that one. We had the "Briggy knows how to crawl now so we can't leave him places" talk again so hopefully the next time he comes down the stairs it will be on purpose.)

He has also decided it's time to start pulling himself up with the aid of furniture. He used to get stuck standing up because he couldn't figure out how to get down, but he figured it out. Sometimes the landing is a little rough, but he doesn't stay stuck anymore.

He has also learned how to clap--even if it's still a little spastic, and he loves a good game of peek-a-boo. He has a contagious laugh and love to give (very slobbery) kisses complete with sound effects. We love this little guy. A lot. I often hear, "Can I hold that little boy?" from the kids. One trait he didn't come with so much was a love of sleep. I don't understand it one bit. What's not to love about sleep? We are figuring out how to instill that in him. In the meantime, he is worth the lack of sleep. And then some.

Blue and Gold Banquet

Blue and Gold Banquet is a chance to celebrate the Cub Scouting program. Each boy was supposed to bring a birthday cake (scouting is 100 years old). Sean wanted to do a wolf cake since he is the rank of a Wolf. He did participate slightly in the decorating, but it was a little tricky to frost since it was a cut and paste (with frosting) design. He helped me cut the cake and position it, then he did the eyes, ears and nose after I put the brown frosting down. He was pleased with how it turned out.
This year the banquet was pizza and salad. The boys (and their families) loved it! We are grateful for fabulous scout leaders. They make scouting fun for the boys and keep everything organized so the boys earn lots of awards and progress in a timely manner. They have been great for us first-timers. We have been able to navigate the Cub Scouting waters with relative ease which is a very good thing, because if you've done the math, we will be doing this for A LOT of years!

PPT

As mentioned in an earlier post, this was a birthday party year for Liv. She asked if she could invite her whole school class. My first thought was...um no. I didn't want to be responsible to look after and feed 30 kids and I definitely didn't want to introduce 30 presents into our home when we have been working so hard to de-clutter and organize. Liv's cousin Kamryn mentioned that she should have her party at PPT. Liv had only been there once and it was somewhat intimidating since she was one of the youngest ones there and all the teenagers and college students dominated the place. We looked into it and found out that it could be rented with a minimum of 15 people. Sweet. Olivia made this proposal: What if I invite my whole class (and cousins and a couple of friends) and tell them that instead of bringing presents, they bring $5 toward admission? Perfect. I wondered how the request would be met by other parents (I worried that it was tacky, and then I realized that I didn't care). When we agreed to her proposal she was thrilled! She couldn't sleep that night as she prepared how she would present this invitation to her class (she is so my daughter). That whole week we heard, "I'm so excited for my party" about a hundred times. She made a guest list the morning of the party (and then realized that we neglected to give the invitation to a few...oops), put it on a clip board and took it to the party to check people off as they came. I had no idea how many to expect. I was thrilled that there was a good turn out. I think they had a good time. But don't take my word for it. See for yourselves:

Darin's awesome run: It was a treasure.

The foam pit was super sanitary. It took every muscle to get out of that thing. Baby Briggy loving Lexi. Every time she came near he hung onto her shirt and hugged her. Devon finding out just how bouncy the trampoline is: The whole gang: It was the perfect party. Liv had a blast. All her friends had a blast (except the boy who hit his head on the wall AND lost his watch in the pit). After our time was up we gave each of the kids a donut and a Capri Sun, thanked them for coming and headed home. No clean up. No gathering up the presents and finding a home for them. Just happy (exhausted) kids.