Another ridiculously adorable video of my baby boy singing

Theodore likes to sing along with me when I rock him before bedtime. We usually sing "Praise Him, Praise Him," but one night last week he started singing "Jesus Loves Me" instead. So we sang together, and it was so cute that I had to run and get my phone to take a video!  

Here it is. :-)  Enjoy!

Two-wheelin'

Buttercup has been wanting to ride her bike without training wheels ever since Oliver learned how to do it a year and a half ago. The problem was, she wouldn't let me help her, because she insisted that she could do it by herself.  :-)  Then she would try, but would get frustrated with herself because she couldn't do it without my help, so that was the end of that for a while.  

Then a couple of weeks ago, she decided that she wanted to try again. This time, it worked out a lot better! She listened when I told her what she needed to do, let me help her a little bit, and then she figured out how to do it on her own!

Great job, Tootie! 



  

Our garden!

We have a cute little garden now! Granddaddy gave us some plants and seeds, and Dennis (and Oliver!) built some raised beds for us to plant them in. 

It was a super hot, sunny day while they were working, so I set up the water table to help my big girl and baby boy cool off. :-)

Almost finished!

Taking a swing break from working so hard at the water table. :-)

A few days later, they filled in the beds and finished up the planting.

So nice!!! The empty-looking one in front is where Oliver planted his own squash and corn seeds. :-)

So far, we're been able to keep everything alive. Probably because we've been remembering to water, ha ha. Look at the cute baby watermelon!!

 And baby tomatoes! Yay for gardens!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my sweet hubby! This year I printed some "All About My Dad" pages that I found online and had Oliver and Buttercup fill them out. The results are adorable and hilarious!

Oliver's answers:
My dad's name is Dennis.
He is 33 years old and 6 and 3 in tall.
He has black hair and hazel eyes.
My dad likes to wear polo shirts and his favorite color is blue.
My dad likes to go to the Lego store and his car is a race car.
My dad's favorite sport is swimming and his favorite tv show is creepy ones.
He likes to cook eggs.
His favorite food is spaghetti.
His favorite drink is Sprite and his favorite dessert is cake.
My dad is the best at swimming.
My dad tries really hard to swim good. (Ha ha ha!!)
And he is so special to me because he loves me.

Buttercup's answers:
My dad's name is Daddy.
He is 10 years old and super tall. :-)
He has black hair and blue eyes.
My dad likes to wear clothes and his favorite color is orange. 
My dad likes to go to places, like Safari Champ (HA HA HA!) and his car is a putt-putt.
My dad's favorite sport is running and his favorite tv show is a grown up show.
He likes to cook hot dogs and weenies.
His favorite food is ice cream.
His favorite drink is lemonade and his favorite dessert is cake.
My dad is the best at being a daddy.
My dad tries really hard to help us get down from super high things. (HA HA HA HA HA HA!) and he is so special to me because he's my daddy and because I love him and because he likes eating popcorn. 

I love these!!! This is definitely going to become a new tradition. :-)  

Swim test

At the YMCAs in our area, kids have to stay within an arm's length of their parents until they pass the swim test (25 yards in the lap pool, without touching the bottom or sides of the pool). Buttercup has been ready to take the swim test since she turned 4, but the rule is that kids have to be 5 years old to take it. 

It wasn't such a big deal at first, but over the past 7 months she has grown more confident and capable in the water, and she has really, really, really been wanting to swim with Oliver in the lap pool. I've been taking Theodore and holding him in the lap pool while she swims, but he only wants to be in the shallow water where he can stand up and splash, or wade out until he's shoulder-deep and do his own "swimming."  So when we go swimming, either Buttercup is mad at me because she has to stay in the "baby water" with Theodore and me, or Theodore is mad because I have to take him in the lap pool to be close to Buttercup.

Well, that all changed this morning! We were at the Y and Oliver and Buttercup wanted to swim in the lap pool. I was near them in the shallow water with Theodore, but was definitely further than an arm's length away from Buttercup. She was swimming halfway down the lane and back, over and over again, and doing fine. The lifeguard asked me if she had on a swim bracelet (indicating that she had passed the swim test), and I said that she wasn't able to take it, because she was still 4. Then I asked if she could go ahead and take the test, since she was obviously doing just fine and not having any trouble keeping herself afloat. The guard watched her a little bit longer and said that if she was close enough to being 5, she could go ahead and take the test. I said she would be 5 in October, and the guard said that was good enough. :-)

So Miss B got to take the swim test this morning, and she rocked it! We are so proud of this big, big girl!!!

Wearing her new swim bracelet!!

Oliver was so excited that he now he has a constant companion for the lap pool and slides!!!

Not related to swimming, but these are pics from this morning -- the kids biked 4 miles while I ran next to them pushing Theodore in the stroller. :-)  They loved biking in their swimsuits!


Showing off their guns! 

First (real) haircut and some kid artwork

Theodore's hair was getting long and shaggy again, so over the weekend we took him to a kids' salon to get his hair cut! This was the first time any of my children have gotten their hair cut anywhere but our yard, ha ha.  :-)  

Theodore was amazingly good for his hair cut! Aunt Anna and I both had our phones out to entertain him (Dora videos on Anna's phone, Theodore's favorite songs playing on my phone), and he did so well. Toward the end I had to give him a lollipop so he would keep his head still while the girl trimmed his hair line, and he was as still as can be while she finished up his hair. What a sweet little guy, I love him so much!

(Once again, sorry for the blurry phone pictures!)

Pre-haircut:

He really liked looking at his robe at first. :-)

Looking at Aunt Anna's phone:

Eating his first lollipop!

Sitting so still, enjoying his candy. :-)  What a sweet, sweet baby!!!

After his haircut was finished and he had eaten all but a tiny piece of his lollipop, I quickly took the rest of his lollipop away while he was distracted with something else. This was the cute face he made when he realized I had taken it away and was asking for it back:  (Strangely enough, he never got mad or anything when I didn't give it back to him!)

Here's something Oliver wrote for me yesterday afternoon. He had gotten into trouble on the way home from the park, and I had put him in time out right when we got home. After his time out, he went in his room and wrote this for me. 

It says, "I love Mom. She is the best Mom I ever had."  He even dated it for me. :-)  

And this is something that my sweet little girl drew this morning for her daddy. I know that Dennis is the person in the middle, and I think Buttercup drew herself

on the left side, but I'm not sure who's on the right. :-)  

She also carefully wrote "I love you" at the top. So sweet!! 

I love my sweet kiddos, they are so special and fun!!!!

Running randomness and cute kid-isms

Currently I'm following a new running training program for the 3M half marathon (in January). I'm going to try my hardest to follow the plan to a T, and so far (3 weeks in) I'm off to a good start. Okay, so I still have a problem with running my long runs too fast, but I've been doing a lot better at making sure I get the quality workouts in and not just doing longer runs instead. Last week I actually did hill repeats (although I should more accurately say "hill" repeats, since there are no real hills in our neighborhood). 

Today was speedwork day for me, and I had planned to go to the track to run my 400 repeats, but as things go, I slept in and had to do sprints on the treadmill instead. I was (am) determined to do this right, so I calculated how fast I needed to run each 400 (1/4 mile on the treadmill), and what speed that would be. I do all of my treadmill runs at 1% incline, so based on that, I would have to run all 7 of the 400s at 10.2 mph. :-O  That's really fast. I wasn't sure I could do it, and since I have a little bit of a cold I decided to cut myself a little slack and aim for 10.0 instead.  I ran the first 4 at 10.0 and actually felt (relatively) comfortable, so I ran the last 3 at 10.1. I really felt like puking on the last two, which makes me think that I did it right. :-)  Yay for God! He is awesome for giving me the ability to do this!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, cute kid stuff!

Before we go somewhere, do something or, in general, transition from one thing to another, I have a habit of saying something like, "Who wants to go hiking/outside/to the store/swimming, etc?" and Oliver and Buttercup usually answer, "Me!"  Well, Theodore has picked up on that, and now when I ask those questions, he'll chime in with, "Me!" in his sweet baby voice! Sometimes he'll also respond that way if I say something like, "Let's go get in the car!" ["Me!"] or we can also ask him something like, "Who's a sweet baby boy??" ["Me!"]  Adorable!

Here are some funny things that Buttercup said over the past couple of days:

-- [While flipping through the Carter's catalog] 
   Me:  What are you looking at?
   Buttercup:  I'm looking to see which baby sister I want.

-- [Last night, while I was tucking her in]
   Buttercup: I love you so much, Mama! I want to live with you forever!
  [Five minutes later, after I reminded her to stay in her bed]
   Buttercup: I'm going to steal all of the sound machines, and run away from you and Oliver and never see you again!

-- [This morning, while picking out clothes for school]
   Buttercup: I want to wear my jack-o-lantern shirt and dress up like a pumpkin patch.
   Me: Do you mean dress up like a pumpkin?
   Buttercup: No. I said a PUMPKIN PATCH. You know, where they make the pumpkins?

-- Her prayer at lunch today:
   "Dear Jesus, thank you for this new, great day. And please help us love each other   
   better. And thank you for this beautiful lunch my mom made for me. Amen."





  

More things I want to remember

Summer vacation just started, but it already seems like it's flying by! We're already halfway through with week 2, and in 2 short months I'll have a kindergartner. (Yay for the kids growing up and all, but it's also kind of sad. What are we going to do without our Oliver around all day?)  :-(

Anyway. Here are some of my favorite happenings from the past couple of weeks.  :-) 

-- We were at open gym last week, and a Journey song started playing (it was "Don't Stop Believing," if you were wondering). I happened to turn around and look at Oliver, and he was jumping on one of the trampolines with his eyes closed, mouthing the words and playing air guitar. HA HA!! It was awesome. :-D  

-- We were at a birthday party at a park a couple of weekends ago, and a girl standing near us started calling her brother's name to get his attention. Theodore looked at her and then mimicked her almost perfectly, yelling the same number of syllables with the same inflection. :-)  

-- At Buttercup's first gymnastics lesson, her coach was trying to help her walk backward on a balance beam. Buttercup insisted (LOUDLY) on doing it herself . . . and then she did it! (Without falling off, ha ha.)

-- We were at Barnes & Noble, one of the few places that Oliver will willingly read a book to me. He was steadily working his way through an Elephant & Piggie book, and out of nowhere he looked up at me, and said, "Mom, thank you for teaching me how to read."  :-)  

-- Buttercup calls cow udders "milkers."  We were driving past some cows one day, and Buttercup said (in a sing-song voice), "Mooooom, those cows are showing their milllllkerrrrrs."  HA HA.

      

    

A sweet conversation

Yesterday at naptime, I had just finished reading the kids’ pre-nap stories to them, and they were putting the books away. Oliver saw the book Buttercup had, and he said:

Oliver: That’s mine, you know.
Buttercup: [to me] Is this one Oliver’s?
Me: I bought it for Oliver after he was born, and it was his for a little while, but that’s only because he was the first. Now it belongs to everyone.
B: Was that when I was in your tummy?
M: No, not yet. You were in my tummy later.
B: Oh. [brief pause] Is that when Jesus and God had me?
M: Yes, that’s when Jesus and God had you.
B: Did they hold me?
M: Oh yes, they did. They held you until it was the right time for you to be in my tummy.
B: I like that. I liked that they held me before I was in your tummy. I didn’t kick them.




My sweet girl. I love everything about that conversation, but especially love the thought of Jesus and God holding my babies in their arms before sending them to me. The things we learn from our kids! I love them so much. :-)

May the Fourth be with you, and funny kid stories

Today is Star Wars Day! I had been planning on having a fun Star Wars-themed breakfast, activities, treasure hunt, etc today, but since Buttercup and I are the only ones who like Star Wars these days, I decided to save my brilliant ideas for another day when my awesomeness will be more appreciated. :-) 


(We have watched this video a couple of times today though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcjgJSqSRU&ob=av2e


But I do have some things I wanted to document before I totally lose them with the rest of the important things I keep forgetting.  


First up, something funny that happened at the creek last week, after Oliver, Buttercup, and I caught tadpoles. Buttercup got bored after we caught the second round of tadpoles, so she, Theodore and I went to the playground and left Oliver at the creek. There was an overweight boy about 10 years old swinging by himself, and some not-very-nice 7 or 8 year old girls, picking on the boy. (Their moms weren't paying any attention to their behavior, and the boy wasn't my own kid, but what do you do? I didn't say anything to the girls, but I still feel like I should have.) 


After a minute or so, the boy wandered off in the direction of the creek, and I could see him talking to Oliver. Over the next hour, I checked on them every once in a while, but they were having a good old time catching tadpoles and minnows, getting dirty, and just being boys.  When it was time to go home to get ready for dinner, Buttercup, Theodore and I headed back to the creek to collect Oliver. He and his new friend excitedly showed us what they had caught, talked about what they had done, showed me how dirty their shoes were, etc. They were laughing and acting like big, tough boys. 


Then I saw something black on Oliver's arm, and realized it was a tadpole. I said, "Hey, Oliver, you have a tadpole on your arm," and I was reaching for it to brush it off. He looked down, then started screaming like a little girl while frantically wiping his arm to get rid of it, HA HA HA!!!  Oh, I laughed so hard, it was hilarious. Buttercup, the other boy, and I were just dying, we were laughing so hard. I wish I had that on video. He was even jumping up and down while he was screaming. It was so funny!


The next funny thing is something that Buttercup did after lunch one day last week. Every once in a while during a meal, she'll get out of her chair and walk over to me for a hug. On this particular day, she had yogurt or hummus on her arm when she came over to me, and ended up smearing it all over my shirt.  I gave her a big squeeze and said (kind of sarcastically), "Thank you for wiping your food on my shirt."  She looked up at my face, patted my cheek very softly, and said, "You're welcome, Mommy. I love you."  


HA HA HA HA! My sweet, crazy girl.  :-)  

Oliver's aquarium

A couple of weeks ago, Oliver decided to build a Lego aquarium. He worked on it for about an hour the first day, then another hour or so the following day. He announced that he was done, and asked me to come look at it.

Confession here -- sometimes Oliver's Lego creations all kind of look the same to me. (Is that terrible?) I'm proud of him, and I tell him so. I'm glad that he loves Legos so much, and I love watching him work, but . . . to me they usually look like the same kind of thing. A long, flat building or a long boat, or a big police station with all of the same kinds of stuff in it. (He is totally awesome though! I love how his mind works!)

So at first, I saw this and I said, "Yay!! It looks great!" without really looking at it.

And then I got closer and saw all of the detail that he'd put into his aquarium.

One side is two levels, with a parking garage underneath and animal tanks above:

This is one of my favorite details -- a long walkway leading from the parking garage to the admissions window:

Here's the attendant sitting at his desk, waiting for customers:

Inside, past the walkway, is the animal research control center, where marine biologists observe the animals. (At first glance, I thought this was a kitchen, ha ha.)

Oliver also used the windows from his airport to make a shark tank:

And there's also a sea snake exhibit, with a chicken for the snake to eat. :-)

He also made a security desk with a security camera, a small fish tank, a touch pool, and a gift shop. :-)

Pretty cool!

It's not always easy

Oliver has a preschool classmate who is also in his Sunday school class. Seems like they would be really good friends, right? Well, no. The problem is that Oliver's best friend in preschool doesn't really like the other little boy. From what I understand, they've never really played together, so it's more likely a lack of communication that is getting in the way of a friendship. Whatever the reason, because Oliver's best friend doesn't like the other little boy, that means that Oliver doesn't play with the other little boy at preschool, or at Sunday school, either.

I think that's wrong. It's dumb when it happens in middle school, but it's even dumber when it happens in preschool.

I knew this was going on and I felt that it wasn't right and that I needed to talk to Oliver about it. It's a small issue now, but can lead to bigger and bigger issues later on. But he's only five years old, and I wasn't sure what to say or how to say it in a way that wouldn't be confusing or giving him too much information . . . I wanted him to be receptive and not start to tune me out as he's so apt to do sometimes. ;-)

I was praying about it a couple of weeks ago, and God tapped me on the shoulder and gave me the words to say. And when I talked to Oliver, I was able to get my point across simply and help him see his classmate's need for a friend. Oliver was pumped up about being a good friend to the other boy, and decided that he was going to play with him during Sunday school, and also try to invite him to be on his team at preschool.

Sunday school went well, and Oliver and the other boy played together. Then, after preschool a couple of days later, Oliver told me that he tried to get the other boy on his team, but his best friend didn't want to include him. Oliver said he tried to change his best friend's mind, but his friend still didn't like the other boy and Oliver kind of gave up on trying.

I was torn between requesting again that Oliver make the right choice, versus forgetting about it. It seems like such a big issue for a five year old! They should only be worrying about which color marker to use, or which socks to wear -- simple things. Then God spoke to me once again and reminded me that His ways are not always easy, but they are the best ways. That it's more important for Oliver to show His love by being a friend to a child who needs a friend than for Oliver to turn his back and let that child feel left out. God gave me the words to say again, and I talked to Oliver, and once again he was receptive and more than willing to try to be a friend to that boy.

The following week (last week), Oliver's best friend was not at preschool, so Oliver had the chance to invite the other boy on his team again. Their teacher said that the other boy was so happy to be included, and he and Oliver played together very well, along with another of Oliver's good friends. That was great news!

Then yesterday morning, the kids and I got to school a little bit early. When we walked in the building, the other boy was already there, and he jumped up to tell Oliver hi. The boys started talking and then ran off to the classroom together. Oliver's best friend showed up a couple of minutes later, and he told Oliver hi, but ignored the other boy. Right then, Oliver told his best friend that they needed to invite the other boy on their team, and that if they didn't let him on the team, Oliver was going to start his own team with the other boy on it. His best friend looked kind of puzzled, like he was going to say no, but after a minute he shrugged and said it would be okay. (Yay!)

When I picked Oliver up from school, I asked him how things went during recess and play time. He said that everyone played together just fine with no problems at all that day, and also on the next school day.

I am so proud of my big boy. Such hard lessons to learn at such a young age! It might not be such a big deal to Oliver, but I'm proud of him for taking the time to be considerate and make playtime easier for his classmate. I don't like that he has to deal with this so early, but I'm thankful for a loving God who is there to help me and my hubby find the right way to talk to our son and help him grow into the considerate, kind man that I pray he will become!

Oliver's tree house

Oliver has become obsessed with tree houses lately. He wants to look for them in other people's yards, he wants to build one in our yard, wants to live in one when he's an adult, etc. So I suggested that he design one and build it in our backyard.

He came up with this blueprint (he needed some assistance spelling "tree house" because of those tricky Es):


Later on, he went outside to build it by himself while I was busy inside with the baby. I heard lots of banging and yelling and went to go check on him. He had all of the big sticks and pipes leaning against the tree, and he was sitting -- very squished -- under them. It was kind of like a house, except that it kept falling down on him every time he moved (hence the yelling).

Then he filled his wheelbarrow with dirt and stuck one end of the sticks and pipes in the dirt for support, then rested the other end against the tree. It worked better, because he had more room, but the sticks and pipes kept falling down.

So then, he came up with the idea to lay the pipes and sticks across the wheelbarrow and Home Depot bucket, so they wouldn't fall down on top of him. Pretty smart, I think! :-)




While Oliver was working on his tree house, Buttercup was playing with Moon Sand and playing on the playscape while singing made-up songs to herself. Here she is with her almost constant snot-mustache, ha ha. I love her! :-)