Ugh. I started a post about Adin's birthday, but haven't finished it. However, in a nutshell, Adin turned four and we celebrated and he had fun. More info to come, probably.

Erik is six!

Happy birthday to my sweet Erik! We had all the boys from his class over on Sunday for a party. We intended to have his party at a playground, but weather didn't cooperate. Everyone came but one. Grandma Lois was here to help wrangle boys, which was good, because they were pretty much all completely crazy. It was like having 12 puppies in the house. One great gift related thing happened during the party. Erik's been wanting a Captain America shield that shoots foam disks. Well, he received two, and decided to give one to Adin. So they had lots of fun running around shooting those disks in the yard before the rain started. Although the Kindergarteners were full of energy, they were actually pretty sweet a lot of the time. They kept calling each other "Buddy" and gave each other high fives.

We gave Erik a scooter today, he was pretty excited. He also received a microscope and a light saber! My parents came over for pizza and cake tonight.

Lucky boy.

Tomorrow we get to do it all for Adin. Except not the 12 puppies part.

Online scrapbook

Erik has begun to work on little reports for the themes from school. They are so adorable I want to share them. Last month he made one about Symbols of America.

Today he brought home a booklet about Mexico. For the cover he made a flag of Mexico.

On the first page he colored in the flag and it says La Bandera - The Flag. Los colores de la bandera de Mexico son rojo blanco verde. The colors of the Mexican flag are red, white, green.




I won't be able to get the formatting right for this post, to get the text to line up with the proper picture. Oh well. On the next page he colored a Mapa de Mexico - Map of Mexico. It shows four types of terrain that can be found in Mexico. Voy a la playa y a la jungla. I go to the beach and the jungle. (He didn't pick the desert or mountains.)









Next is La comida - food. El taco - taco, la pina - pineapple, las uvas - grapes, el maiz - corn, el queso - cheese, and el pan - bread.






The next page is Mi maleta - my suitcase. En mi maleta tengo ropa, la gorra la camida. In my suitcase I have clothes, a cap, food. (!)






There was a final page that I couldn't upload. It showed different ways to travel to Mexico, train, bike, boat, plane and car. He chose to travel via el barco, boat.
I'm so proud of him!

First Communion

On Thursday, Adin had instruction in Holy Communion. He's a little young, but our congregation allows children of any age (and any adults who want) to receive communion. Erik started after he turned five last year, so Adin became interested, too. It was so sweet, during his First Communion, Erik was standing on my right and Adin on my left. We each took a cup and waited for the server to come around with the bread. Erik showed Adin how to hold his hand out to receive the bread, and which hand he should use to hold the cup.

drawing

Tonight Joe gave the boys a bath, and Adin was mildly traumatized by some water going in his face, mouth and ear. He was all clean, so Joe got him out of the tub and wrapped him in a towel. I came and brought him to the couch to snuggle. He cried a little for a couple minutes and then like a flipped switch he started to laugh about something. He decided he wanted to draw a picture of himself naked. So he got to work and soon Erik joined him. Erik asked if Adin would be drawing his belly button. "No. Not my belly button and not my penis either." Such modesty. He did end up drawing a giant purple belly button, three eyes, six arms and six legs, enormous ears and hair standing straight up almost as long as his legs. Now that I look at it again, maybe the boy in the drawing has two eyes and a nose. I'd have to ask Adin tomorrow.

The other drawing is one Erik did. I find it hilarious. He drew it as a Get Well card, as far as we can tell. Not sure what the sentiment is. "Get well or you'll end up like this guy" maybe.

As long as I'm writing about Adin, he asked me the other day if I went to Russia while I was pregnant with him. ?!? Nope, I've never been to Russia at anytime. Today he asked where he was when I was a little girl. I said I didn't know. Erik thought Adin was in heaven, but he wasn't sure.

Reading

Adin walks into the room. "I want to read you something. It's from a pretend book. Here it is." he holds out his hands as if he were holding a book. Holds the book up to his face. "This book has a lot of 'ah' words. Here's one: 'tall'. Here's another: 'ball'."

Fast!

Adin and Erik continue to be fascinated by superheroes, but now they are branching out. They read about The Avengers (Capt. America and his friends), and even are inspired by Super Grover 2.0 on Sesame Street. Erik made up his own super hero yesterday (Super E, I think his name was) and Adin is always along for the ride.

This morning they were playing and imagining and Adin was talking about his super alter ego. He said, "He's fast, the fastest, he's flying..." and then paused to think of how fast he could go. Faster than the speed of light? Infinity miles per hour? No, the fastest Adin could think of was... "the SPEED LIMIT!" Clearly, I have a very responsible superhero on my hands!

Birthday Secrets

Adin decided earlier this week that he wanted to give me five balloons for my birthday. I fully support that plan, so Joe took the boys shopping tonight. When they came home, Erik rang the doorbell and came in telling me Adin would be coming in right behind him. Then when Adin came in, he asked me to come in his room with him once he got his boots off. I agreed and then Erik couldn't wait for Adin to get his boots off so Erik dragged me to Adin's room and asked me to cover my ears! I think that's around the time I figured out something was up. So I turned on some music. I heard Adin and Erik talking about when it was time to flick the porch lights off and on. And Erik told me to be sure not to come out of Adin's room until he told me it was safe. Once it was safe, Adin took me by the hand and led me straight to Erik's room and tried to open a drawer. Erik was pretty upset but I told him I hadn't seen anything so any secrets that may be contained in the mysterious drawer are still safe. Watching the kids keep secrets is so fun!

Laundry surprise

When I was moving a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer I found lots of little bits of paper. Intrigued, I was curious what piece of paper had been washed. At the bottom of the washer I found a little notebook the boys like to use when they play police officers.

When that load was dry I was surprised to find about 10 rubber bands and paper clips at the bottom of the dryer. Erik was pretending to be a detective the other day, and I guess now his detective clothes are clean.

Water fight

Tonight, when I sent Erik to change into his pjs, he came out naked, except with a pajama shirt tied around his waist. He had the shirt part hanging in the front so that his buns were exposed. He found it very funny, and was running around for a few minutes. I went in the bathroom to supervise tooth brushing. We have a water bottle on the vanity for rinsing after brushing, and I knew there was water in it. Suddenly, it just came over me to squirt Erik's behind with the water, just as he was spitting out his toothpaste. Fortunately for me, he found it utterly hilarious. He screamed with laughter. So we had a little water fight. I stayed in the bathroom and he went in the hallway. He would dash past the open door and I tried to squirt him with water. Not the best activity for just before bed, but sometimes it's so fun to hear him laugh! I wiped the water off the floor afterward, of course. I figure it's almost like I washed the floor!

A Fistful of Dollars

The kids got valentines in the mail today with a significant amount more than one dollar. Adin's first response was to suggest bringing it with him to church on Sunday! It's so cute how he has no sense of what money could buy. Erik gets it more. We were just at Lakeshore Learning (an educational toy store) and they wanted everything they saw. I told them they could chose what to ask for for birthday presents. I'll probably let them each chose something with this Valentine's money, bring some to church and bank the rest. I'm pretty excited that they are excited about toys that don't involve superheroes!

One dollar

Last weekend I mislaid my Kindle, and for a couple days I looked for it with low intensity, sure it would turn up eventually. I kept telling the boys to keep an eye out for it, and let me know if they see it. Every time I said that, Erik would ask where I saw it last, which cracks me up. By Tues or Wed I was getting more anxious about it, and decided to put out an incentive for them. I told them whoever found it for me would get two dollars. That made quite a difference! Erik started to ask me where I saw it last, then realized he knew the answer, and asked me where the second to last place I saw it was. The three of us looked all over the family room. Then Adin decided to check the basement. On the way, Erik must have looked at the fridge and remembered seeing me put it on top to keep it away from them. He asked if it was up there. I had checked there a few times, but just by patting up there with my hand. This time I got out a chair and looked. Ta da! Erik was very excited about his two dollars, and began to mull over what to do with the money. I decided to give Adin a dollar, since he'd looked hard, as well.

On Friday I was taking Adin to the YMCA, and asked if he wanted to bring his dollar to buy a treat. "No. I want to bring it to church." Aw, how sweet. I wasn't sure if he would still want that today, but he did! He brought it along and when it was offering time, he said, "Let's do this!" He made his parents very proud today.

A fun evening

Joe went to a Timberwolves game tonight, so I was searching for something fun to do with the boys. We ended up making sugar cookies. We didn't really do much baking during the Christmas season. I baked for a cookie exchange, and my cousin Cindy bakes lots of cookies to give us, as does my mom, and Joe's mom. So I figure, why go through all that trouble at a time of year when I already have plenty to do? I love to bake, though, and want the kids to have the experience and memories, so we do some of that in January! A couple years ago we decorated gingerbread houses in January. A couple weeks ago we baked gingerbread cookies and tonight we made sugar cookies. It was very fun, and not stressful at all. As a bonus, I made them with my last pasturized egg, so I was able to snack on the leftover dough after the last pan went in the oven!

Adin has moved from asking non-stop questions, to asking non-sensical questions. Like, he'll ask me if I'm five foot seven, or 30. (He may have the mistaken impression that I'm 30 years old. I may have given him that impression.) So tonight, when he said something about wishing there were M people in the world, I thought he was being silly. (Or a divergent thinker, depending on how generous I feel.) I said, "M is not a number." He said, "But it can stand for a number." I thought, Good grief, is he talking about Roman numerals? I told him that was true but I couldn't remember what number M stands for. He said, "A thousand." We were talking about Roman numerals last week, but I can't believe he remembered.

Adin surprised Joe this morning by piping up with a comment about how the title of a book featured alliteration. He talks like a big kid, but he sure acts like a preschooler when we ask him to put on his coat and boots!

The Wedding March

Last night, I was sitting by Adin as he tried to fall asleep. Out of the blue he said to me in a desperate tone, "I don't know yet who I want to marry!" Plenty of time to decide that, my dear!

Pump it up

Adin's preschool class went to Pump It Up, a place with inflatable slides and bouncers. It looks like he had fun.





























Until he was tired and needed to rest.

Merry Christmas!

The house has been very giggly today. We got a box in the mail yesterday from our friends the Nevens. It had some cool stacking boxes and a "Dodge Tag" game. There are two vests, each with velcro bulls-eyes on the front. Each person gets three soft balls to throw at the other person. Both boys have really enjoyed playing although so far just with me, not each other. Erik, in particular, gets very, very giggly when we play.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So we are on two weeks of break from school, and sometimes the days get long. By the time I'm making dinner, my patience can be quite thin. Yesterday, Erik was bugging, bugging, bugging me in the kitchen, not with anything particularly bad, but the cumulative effect finally drove me over the edge. I pushed him out of the kitchen and scolded him. He started to cry, which annoyed me more, because I first assumed he was crying about not getting to be in the kitchen, pestering me. I asked him in exasperation, "Why are you crying?" He said, "Because you yelled at me! And you hurt me!" Talk about a low point in parenting. However, it gave me the chance to model a sincere apology. I told him I was sorry, it sounded like I scared him and I was sorry I hurt him. It's a fine line, I can't expect him to understand my perception of the nuance of the situation: he had behaved badly and wasn't listening, I was justified in my anger, but not in what I did with my anger. I can only hope that although he couldn't understand it now, someday he will be old enough to parse situations like that. I asked him to forgive me, and he did, but I still felt pretty bad about what I'd done.

Tonight while we were playing, he told me I have a tender and loving heart. I truly feel forgiven and washed clean.

Merry Christmas!

Lest you think it's all Hanukkah, and Festivus around here, we are participating in Advent activities as well. Lots of faith based ones like lighting Advent candles, and secular ones like watching Christmas specials. A couple years ago there was one on TV called "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" and I taped it. We watched it several times that year, and last year as well. The kids were so little and/or sensitive that even Charlie Brown's Christmas Special was too hard for them to watch.

But this year, it all changed. We watched Charlie Brown talk to his friends about Discipline! and respecting their Director! We saw him choose his famously pathetic tree.

I found eight specials on You Tube that I favorited to show the kids. There's our clear favorite so far, Wil Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration. We have the book, "The Berenstain Bear's Christmas Tree" but I found a video for it on YouTube, as well. Can't wait to show them that! One I'm saving for Christmas Eve or Day is two hours of the Yule Log burning in someone's fireplace.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Happy Hanukkah!

Adin's preschool/daycare is learning about different December holidays. Today they talked about Hanukkah and made latkes. Adin wanted to know more, so I went to Shalom Sesame and we watched a couple videos. First, we learned about the first Chanukah with Veronica Monica, then we learned about fixing the temple on Extreme Makeover: Temple Edition. I followed some links to a recipe for oven baked latkes, and we are now at the flipping part of the recipe. I'm sure Adin regrets ever asking, but I'm excited about giving them a try.

Oops, I guess flipping latkes is easier when you remember to oil the pan.

Big Cheese Adin

At Adin's new daycare/preschool they have a kid of the week, called "The Big Cheese". They ask the parents to make a poster board of pictures, fill out a survey, and parents can come in and read a book, bring lunch and/or participate in an activity. This week is Adin's turn. Joe selected some photos, which you can see in the background of the first picture.

This morning, Adin was very reluctant to go to Lenox, and to be the Big Cheese. He told me he wasn't big, he was a little cheese. So we started back pedaling and making a much smaller deal out of it. I got to read the book "The Gingerbread Baby" to the kids, which I loved doing. (The teacher took several pictures of me reading!) Then the class made gingerbread houses by taking empty half pint milk cartons, smearing frosting on them, sticking graham crackers to the frosting, and then attaching candy with more frosting. The teachers allowed Erik to stay and make one. That was quite fun to see the way different kids had different strategies. I related to the girl that hoarded as much candy as she possibly could on her plate!

Afterward, Erik and I played a couple minutes, and then left. Adin desperately wanted to leave with us, so that was hard! An hour later his teacher called to say he didn't really get over us leaving, complained of an ear ache and when she took his temp, it was 100.8! So Erik and I returned to pick up Adin and take him to the clinic, where he was diagnosed with a double ear infection! Poor big cheese.

Fortunately, he was well enough that we made it home for: Erik's first playdate with a school friend! He has a buddy from Kindergarten, and has been begging me for months to invite T over for a playdate. I finally called his mom last week and she said T had been requesting the same thing. So today T came over and they got to play superheroes, draw on magnadoodles, play a board game, and 'reminisce'. It was adorable to see them aggressively hug each other and refer to each other as "best buddy". They often would say to each other, 'remember...' and talk about little inside jokes they had from Kindergarten. T has older brothers so it didn't seem to phase him when Erik got a little over excited. T's mom has said several times that they plan to reciprocate and have Erik over, which I'm excited about.

All in all, it's been quite a day!