Attack of the flying scrolls

This Sunday Sophie and Ellie got into a fight about something. Later on, I was doing piano practice with Ellie when a piece of paper rolled up with a rubber band around it. It was a note from Sophie apologizing for what she'd done earlier. I could see Ellie's anger just melt away instantaneously. After piano, Ellie was very busy and every few minutes would call out--"how do you spell.." Later, when I was doing piano with Sophie, these scrolls came flying in one by one--there must have been 20 of them. The first was an apology note from Ellie and the rest were pictures she'd drawn for her. The girls were so giggly and excited--it was really sweet. I caught this picture as Ellie was scurrying down the hal --about to deliver a load o "flying scrolls".


At testimony meeting that day, Sophie asked me if it was OK for her to bear her testimony about flying scrolls. I told her that was fine as long as she could tie it into her testimony about the gospel. She said she wasn't sure what to say about that so she better wait til next time. Our next FHE was about bearing testimonies so I'm curious to see if she will get up.

Ellie

Ellie starts Kindergarten this Fall and I'm really going to miss having her home. She has overcome so many obstacles this year. At the beginning of the year, she looked like Linus from the show Peanuts. More and more she wouldn't take her thumb out of her mouth and would carry her blankie everywhere. It was really affecting her socially because she would prefer to sit out with her thumb rather than interact. She seemed very fragile. I was going to wait til this Summer to start talking about the thumb, but Matt just asked her if she wanted to stop and Ellie said yes. So she agreed to letting us put that bad-tasting nail polish on everyday to help her stop. Motivated also by the bribe of getting a barbie if she stopped, she really worked hard until she was able to give it up. Ever since then, she has been a different person. She seems infinitely confident, her allergies disappeared, and has endless energy.

She is really determined and is working hard in so many areas--reading, rollerblading and she even passed the last level of the typing tutor this week. I need to learn something from her ability to stick to her goals. Of course, maybe if I was offered face painting and tatoos as rewards, I would get something done too.

Messes and haircuts

This week, I cut out a bunch of clip art and made a "Sleep Rules" poster for Mathew. We had one for Sophie and Ellie and it really seemed to work. Mathew seemed to enjoy and understand the discussion. The first night was awesome..he stayed in bed, didn't call out a million times, etc. Day 2 however, I was telling Matt how wonderfully the poster was working...thinking Mathew was asleep.... when we heard little noises coming from the hallway. He had been very busy and had emptied a ton of stuff out of his room and was dragging everything right outside his door (maybe building a fortress?). Anyway, not sure if this photo totally captures the destruction in his path, but you get the idea.

We had a pretty big wind storm mid-week and it blew tons more lemons off of the tress. I spent a few hours sorting them, realizing that most of last week's batch was rotting already. On Friday we tried doing the lemonade stand thing--except I thought more parents would be interested in buying just lemons--to entice the kids, we decided to offer a free tatoo if you bought a dollar worth of lemons.

We live across from the school so we do get quite a bit of foot traffic but the down side is most people have lemons coming out of their ears right now. We did get 4 customers and it was cute to see Ellie be a salesman. She was calling out to everyone that passed by and would often get scared half way through the sentence. Ellie made a really cute sign that said Lemons..you can't tell in the picture, but the S is backwards. Mathew couldn't figure out what was going on. Every time Ellie would yell out "do you want to buy lemons?", Mathew would say, "No Ellie, they don't want any lemons!" ...he was getting so frustrated that she wasn't listening to him. Then Mathew wanted to play with the money and an all-out brawl broke out in public between Ellie and Mathew.

On Saturday, we took Ellie, Sophie and Mathew to get their hair cut. I've always cut Mathew's hair and I was feeling guilty that it looked a little crooked last time, so I thought I'd watch a professional do it to see what I was doing wrong. Mathew was petrified and sat more still that I ever thought possible. I commented that Mathew was being really good for the beautician and she bragged that she was "really good with kids". I had to laugh because, by the look on Mathew's face, I think he thought he was going to die. I didn't try to burst her bubble though.

Anyway, her cut was way more crooked than mine-- and Mathew doesn't even stay still for me-- so I'm just going to do it myself next time.

Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

Every year, I promise myself that we wont waste lemons. This year, I started early and gave anybody who came by buckets of lemons. We picked and gave away many wheelbarrels full of lemons and yet there are hundreds of lemons that are now ripening and falling and there's no way we can use them all. Today I squeezed almost 10 bags of juice. I made lemon munchies and lemonade but those things of course don't make a dent. The kids had fun playing in the wheel barrel and throwing lemons out but of course it wasn't as fun to put them in. Ellie actually loves to cut and squeeze the lemons so she did most of the squeezing.

Spring Break

This week my kids were on Spring Break so I tried to balance going out and doing fun activities with just letting the kids relax and play. Overall, I think it was successful. We started out everyday with our piano/reading routine and then went on an outing and tried to get back by 1pm so Mathew could nap and I let them just do what they wanted until Matt got home/dinner.

Mathew is now really into marching. This is his official marching outfit--well, the princess wand is optional, but he's pulled out my strainer every day this week to use as a hat and we go marching down to the garden banging metal spoons and then there is a corner in the garden where he pretends to catch fish. I have no idea where this idea comes from but he can't live without doing it.









One highlight from this week is the science museum. Here is a picture of sophie using a computer to distort an image of herself...I love the beehive hairdo she gave herself. Below is another fun activity where they make their shadows catch balls somehow. We also watched the IMAX movie and it was a struggle keeping Mathew quiet--he wasn't being bad, he was just excited and kept on yelling the names of the animals he recognized. Since I bought a year pass, I decided to take the kids again later that week but Mathew had caught a bug and ended up throwing up after the planetarium movie so we went home early.




The zoo was packed. I did let the kids do the camel rides which they've been begging for. My pet peve in taking the kids places is that they want to buy everything.

My world with a two year old

Troy discovered his hands the other day...he looks so grown up to me. He's still so mellow and just sits there entertained, soaking in the sights and sounds of the house. At the same time, I know there is a lot going on in that brain of his--I feel like he's trying to communicate when I look in his eyes.

Yesterday Mathew was relentlessly mischievous--don't know what got into him. In a 3 hour period he emptied out a bookshelf with books/cds & was jumping on the pile of cds, emptied 2 bottles of lotion onto the pillows on our bed, Matt caught him with his favorite set of Chinese scriptures in his bed (who knows what the plan was) and then I found Matt's cell phone in the foot of the PJs he was wearing. As they say, kids only want 2 things and that is all of your attention all of the time.

I woke up at 3am this morning to Mathew yelling "who turned off the lights again?". I guess you'd have to be there to know how funny that was--Mathew isn't very articulate so it is surprising when real sentences come out.

I signed up for a Mommy-and-me gymnastics class hoping Mathew would benefit, but so far it's been a debacle. He sits there rolling his eyes and folding his arms like a teenager that's "too cool" for that--I'm just waiting for him to start saying "whatever, Mom". I'll give it a few more classes and then stop if he doesn't improve. We should probably stick to our daily bike/park routine since that works better.

I have returned to having him unload the dishwasher in the morning and have extended the duties from plastic wear to also sorting silverwear. Even though it takes 10 times as long to get it done, it's a great routine. He understands the concept of sorting well although today he insisted that the "babies had to be with their mommies" so I had to settle for having all forks together (big and little) --same with the spoons.

Hard questions to answer

The girls love it when I walk with them holding onto my legs-it reminds me of when I was little, I loved to do that with my Dad. Here is a picture of the view from my perspective. Here is another picture of Mathew hunting for worms.








The kids always surprise me with the things they say and questions they ask..I need to start writing them down.

Sophie was talking about a friend of hers who has become "show-offy" recently. Sophie says that in the beginning she seemed nice but "I guess sometimes I'm not a great judge of character". Then she said it's hard to stop being friends with people after you've spent a lot of time with them--she said you become like "suction cups".

Then Ellie was talking about when Troy was in my tummy and said "Mom, you know how your spirit comes into your body when you come to earth?"
I said "yes, why?"
She said, "if there is no spirit in the baby's body when the baby is in your tummy, how is it moving?". Then we talked about how the spirit comes into the body while the baby is in my tummy. Little does she know how many debates have been had on that topic.

We've really enjoyed watching the girls in tennis this Winter. Sophie can serve now and Matt has convinced Ellie to play as a lefty even though she's right-handed. I guess some of the best players have done that. Ellie is starting to get a little tired of piano while Sophie is getting more into it. Sophie now tells me when it's time to practice and likes to show her friends what she can play when they come over. Also, she has gone to play the piano a few times when she has been "raging mad" at Ellie...she says it calms her down.