Post-it #131

On Saturday David needed to mow the lawn. Mowing the lawn is one of David's most hated activities ever. He enlisted a little help.

Honestly though, the supervision and constantly helping them push or turn the mower made his job last longer and a lot harder. But I think it may have given David a glimmer of hope for the future. :)

Eighty-Fourth Passage

I took Lydia to the Dr for the first time in about 2 years. My sassy, boisterous, little girl turned into a very docile and shy girl when the doctor came in. It was weird. She just sat on the table with an adorable smile, nodded or shook her head to answer questions, and didn't do things like, take in a deep breath, or count the Dr's fingers.

Lydia is in the 50% for height, 70% for weight. And she's right on track with everything else.

She got some vaccines. When the nurse came in and said something about giving Lydia shots, Lydia was suddenly less cooperative, and wouldn't get up on the table. I think watching Daniel Tiger made her realize what shots were. But when I told her she would get a sucker and a sticker, she happily climbed up on the table. She wasn't interested in Mommy's attempts at distraction; she had no interest in singing the alphabet with me right then. The first shot Lydia didn't give much of a reaction other than to try and see what was happening with her leg. The second shot she gave an angry, "Oowwwwah!" Plenty of attitude behind that. This whole time she was getting reassurances of how brave she was. The third and fourth shots went into the muscle, rather than the fatty tissue, and may have hurt more. She gave more protests to it, like trying to get away and saying, "That really hurts!" "Stop! That hurts bad!"
But then it was over, and she had four Bugs Bunny bandaids, which she thought was really cool, then she got a My Little Pony sticker and a sucker. That made it all worth it to her.
The drive home Lydia told me over and over about how it hurt her legs really bad. Kind of a big deal to her. And even though she is extremely tough, she did a lot of whimpering the next two days about how sore her legs were.

Here's a video of Lydia talking about the event.

Eighty-Fifth Passage

Morgan also went to the Doctor for the first time in a long time. He measured in the 55% for height, and what surprised me greatly was that he was in the 64% for weight. That kid is super skinny, some might even say scrawny. His ribs stick out. Where is all this weight of his? My guess is his head. :)
We talked to the doctor about a possible nut allergy. Morgan had an incidence with cashews earlier this year that made me suspect an allergy. So the doctor suggested we draw some blood to get it tested for food allergies. Morgan was excited to prove his bravery. He had a great attitude about the whole thing.
See how happy he is getting ready for it?

Since he's a kid, they double teamed him. One nurse to poke, the other to hold him still. I held his unoccupied hand and was there so he could look at me. He wasn't allowed to look at his arm. I think he was surprised about the pain though. He never cried, maybe only because he was determined to be tough, but he did talk about how much it hurts. To make things worse, his blood was running very slowly, so it took it's time. We tried asking him about his birthday, what he planned for Halloween, etc. His answers were short and to the point, which is abnormal for him. At one point the nurse asked him to tell her about something, and Morgan just flat out said no, then whined a bit about it hurting. But it was over eventually, and Morgan thought the green bandage was pretty cool. He expected the sucker, and when a sticker wasn't forthcoming, he asked about it, since he thought it was his due. He got a SpiderMan sticker.
We should know the results of the allergy test at the beginning of next week.

Eighty-Third Passage

The older boys started flag football. They have had one game and a few practices. It's been fun to watch. We learned something interesting, too.  We always thought Morgan was kind of a slow runner because William is so much faster. But it turns out that William is the fastest on the team, and Morgan is somewhere around 3rd-5th fastest. Who knew?
Here are some pics from the first week of practice. Morgan just threw the ball to William, who doesn't seem to be paying any attention. But the ball didn't reach him, so that's okay.

The coach tried William in a variety of positions. This picture William was playing quarter back, waiting for the center to hand it off to him.  Morgan was pretty much given the position of receiver. So he's going out for the pass here. Unfortunately, Morgan can't catch. Also unfortunately the QB can't throw.

The first practices were a little chaotic. Kids were tackling each other, ripping the ball from the downed kid, and running around until they were tackled. Essentially, it was Rugby they were playing. I feel like the most basic rules of the game weren't explained very well. We didn't even know how unprepared the boys were for their first game until we watched their first game.
Morgan was receiver, William was on defense. Morgan mostly stood around playing with his mouth guard. William just pulled off as many flags as he could, but ignored the kid with the ball. They lost their first game 6-26.

After the game, we went home and David really explained the game better, told them what they should do in their positions, explained that we don't worry about the flags of anyone who doesn't have the ball, and drew diagrams to drive it home. Then we got out the football and did our own practice.
We're hopeful that the next game will go better.
Go team D & D Printing!  Haha.

Eighty-second Passage

After David carved a cute owl on the end of the cradle

I got a little crazy about baby owl stuff.  Well, crazy for me. Meaning, I bought one outfit with an owl on it, a blanket with an owl on it, this giant pillow that I found online, which, when I saw it I thought it was a medium sized stuffed animal,

and started a pinterest account so I could look up baby owl stuff.

I pinned things like this:

 

And then I pulled out a dusty ol' scrapbooking kit that I got when I was still a teenager and found a few pages of cute and colorful paper. I made my selections and went to work. I'd have liked more options, but didn't want to go shopping for it.

Anyway, here is my finished result. The picture isn't that great, but whatever.

I like the top right the best, then the bottom. I think the colors of the top left are too fallish or dark or something.
But for me, they turned out pretty good.

Eighty-first Passage

It's been a long time since I posted quotes! Enjoy.

Lydia just found a pair of scissors and held them close to her face and said, "never, ever, cut your hair."
At least she listens. But boy does that make me nervous.

As I was clipping Morgan's toenails, he said: sometimes I put boogers on my toenails. That was one right there.
Me: what?! Morgan, that's disgusting. Why would you do that?
Morgan: well, I have no where else to put them.
William: yuhhuh, you could put them on your clothes; that's what I do. 

Lydia: knock knock
Me: who's there?
Lydia: tutu!
Me: tutu who?
Lydia: because.

Morgan has a neighborhood friend his age. He was playing here. This was their conversation.
Joey: how did you know that?
Morgan: I just read it.
Joey: you can read?!
Morgan: yeah.
Joey: are you a scientist??

Lydia put a tutu on to dance. Then she turned and tried to see her bum. She said, "my butt! I can't find my butt!" as she frantically tried to lift all the ruffles of her tutu.

We were at Walmart. A very large man was in the aisle with us. Lydia saw him and waited until he was nice and close. Then she pointed at him and said, "oooh, a big one!" and because I was trying not to draw attention to it or her, she felt I didn't hear so repeated louder, "look mommy, a big one!" face palm.

William: why does it smell like bad breath over here?
Owen: because Morgan. He was farting so the bad breath went into him and me.

Owen: Do you know where tomorrow is? It's a state. It's where the moon is.

Morgan: Mommy, I made up a joke! Who is afraid to read?
Me: Umm...frogs.
Morgan: Nope, Barack Obama! It's a joke! A funny lie.

Morgan: whenever you see a baby you should look on its back to see if it's a devil baby, a good baby, or a normal baby.
Me: what?!
Morgan: oh, did you hear that? I looked it up in a magazine with Owen. He calls it devil baby magazine.

Morgan: "when I grow up if I get a wife, I wanna work away lots at a work building so she won't have to hear all of my loudness."

Owen just pointed at a Mexican man and said with a chuckle, "Look at that brown boy. He looks like a gardener."

Morgan breaks open his fortune cookie to read it aloud. "You will always be tortured by good friends." 

I think he confused the word "surrounded" with "tortured".

William: "what's that wood in the road?"
David: "it's probably just something that fell out of the back of a pickup or something."
Morgan: "are they littering the world?"
David: "sounds like someone has been listening to too much propaganda."

Eightieth Passage

Here our are first day of school photos. 

Morgan 1st/2nd grade

 William 1st/2nd grade

 Owen preschool/kindergarten

 Lydia preschool

 She's learning how to use a pencil and control it better. She does pretty good too.

 Working hard on determining sentence context.

 Reviewing the letter A.

The first day was a little rocky. Morgan had a timeout even before the opening prayer. William and Owen both had a meltdown or two. I think things will settle down a bit though once we get back into the routine of school again. Last year the first few days were hard as well.  Weeks, actually. I hope things settle down quicker this time. 

Post-it #130

Morgan got to help David weld the extension on the trailer. David is awesome like that, and now Morgan can be too.

Post-it #129

Since she's three now, Lydia can do her own hair. Haha. 

Post-it #128

It's a good day when your kid is old enough to make their own sandwich. Especially when they are so happy to do it, and offer to make one for little sister, too. 

Post-it #127

We've canned recently.
We did 24 pints of corn in the pressure cooker. We also froze 25 pounds.

We also canned 30 quarts of peaches. I like having all of this!

Seventy-Ninth Passage

Lydia turned three on Labor Day! She got spoiled rotten to the extent that her room isn't large enough to fit all her new toys.
Here are some pictures of the party. She's all in dress up clothes, which she got for her birthday, which she loves.
Sorry so many pictures are blurry. It makes me not too happy.

She got to pick a cake mix and frosting and decorations. Look how pink and girly. Our tongues were stained bright pink for hours after eating this frosting.

This is a cute video that got cut short because my phone ran out of storage. Eventually David pulled one candle out of the cake at a time and held it up to her and she blew them out.

She had so much fun on her birthday.

It's my tradition to measure the height of my kids on their birthday's and half birthdays. Sometimes I have forgotten, or haven't had the growth charts up. Like on Lydia's second birthday. But I measured her on her half birthday and her third birthday. In those six months she grew two inches.

At three, Lydia is a princess/diva/tom boy.  She is starting to say some funny things, and always makes me laugh. She still has the lung capacity of a dolphin, which aids in her all too happy to scream loudly voice. On any given day Lydia will likely end up with a tutu on over her pants. The better for dancing. She also loves to sing made up songs. Certainly an entertainer.
Lydia is a joy, and I'm happy to have her in our family.

Post-it #126

David had his 28th birthday last week. This was a particularly important birthday for him, since he' been threatening to die at age 27 for years now. This birthday proved him wrong.

For his birthday, we had no kids. We had a nice date-type weekend, complete with fondue, Home Depot, welding, and a birthday dinner with his parents. 

Here are some pictures of the day. Kinda blurry. 

Happy birthday, David! We love you!

Post-it #125

The other day I was in my bedroom. I believe I was writing a semi-lengthy text to David. Lydia and Morgan were hanging out in the room and around. I wasn't paying close attention to Lydie. Then I heard her from the bathroom, "Mommy, I lulla you." Which is her way of saying I love you. This clued me in to some possible mischief. I looked over at Lydia and saw her standing in my bathroom like this:

She's always fascinated by my makeup and application. Apparently she found an opportunity to use the skills she'd observed, but she also knew she shouldn't be playing with my mascara, so tried to butter me up with a declaration of love.

Post-it #124

Here are some pictures of when Lydia thinks she's being cute or clever, so she says, "Mommy, take a picture of me!"