Christmas!

We had a truly magical Christmas this year.

It wasn't anything specific. It was just so peaceful and fun.

Jon and I were afraid that the kids would get into the gifts before we even woke up. So we closed the pocket doors to the library/dining room and posted this sign.

There are advantages to having a child that can read.

The sign worked and we woke up to two VERY excited kids sitting on the couch.

Dominic was so excited he was bouncy.

As I walked in Caitlin gave an excited squeal and said

"Has Santa come?"

Which I found hilarious because her brother has been telling her all month that Santa isn't real and just yesterday she told someone in the store that he was pretend. Guess she just got caught up in the moment.

I didn't wrap their sock monkeys so this picture is of them before opening presents.

Sorry it's so blurry. Guess I was still too sleepy to realize it.

Dominic putting on the Lego watch he's been begging for.

After opening presents we had cinnamon crescents.

I had tried to hang up the stockings and everything I chose to hang them with didn't work. So I put the stockings on top of some books in the library. Out of sight - out of mind. It was about an hour after we'd opened presents that I remembered them. Dominic had asked or told quite a few people that he wanted tape for Christmas. I was thinking about this when I realized that it was still in his stocking.

So we had a second Christmas.

 

Playing with Christmas toys. It's half the fun of being a parent. =)

 The kids are playing PlayStation. I love how relaxed Caitlin looks.

 Christmas lunch was spent with friends. It was a wonderful and relaxing day. I can honestly say that it was the best Christmas ever!

Star Wars

Jon has been wanting to share Star Wars with the kids for quite some time.

So today he showed them the first one.

I'm not sure how Caitlin felt, but she didn't come join me in the library.

Dominic came in after it was done and made this announcement -

"I HAVE to watch the 2nd one very soon! Did you know it's when that boy is all gown up?"

He has now spent the evening talking about Star Wars. Guess Jon made a new convert.

I felt a little strange watching a chick-flick in the library while my kids were watching Star Wars in the living room. But I'm guessing I should get use to it. =)

Christmas Card

We didn't send out Christmas cards this year. And now that I'm getting a ton of them, I'm feeling a little bad. It's not that I'm not thinking of everyone. It's just that I never got around to getting additional pictures made and just didn't have the time to add something else to my list.

So consider this your Christmas card.

 

We are thankful for the friends and family in our lives.

We hope that each and every one of you have a very Merry Christmas.

Coal for Christmas

Caitlin and Dominic are completely different. Jon and I are having to find new ways to deal with Caitlin since the ways we handle/discipline Dominic just don't work for her. Here is an example of how different they are.

Sabbath and Sunday mornings  the kids know that we sleep in and they are allowed up, but can't disturb us. Jon woke up around 8:30 and came into the living room to check on the kids. Dominic was seated at the table coloring.

"Dominic, where is Caitlin?"

"She's under the dining room table."

"Why is she under the table?"

"I don't know."

Jon went into the dining room to find our daughter. She had pushed a chair up to the buffet table and gotten a heavy glass candy dish. She'd then dragged it under the table and was sitting there eating chocolate. She was very carefully unwrapping each piece and putting the wrapper in her toy whistle so we wouldn't find the remains of her chocolate binge. 

Needless to say, she lost some privileges.

Sunday morning Jon gets up and Dominic comes running to him.

"Daddy, the dogs got into the Christmas presents."

Since the dogs are in the garage locked in their cage every night we knew that it wasn't the dogs.

Sure enough, most of the presents had been completely unwrapped. It was a systematic unwrapping. A little girl had gone through and unwrapped everything until she found the gift that she remembered my buying several weeks ago. All other presents, including her other ones, were bypassed.

Dominic admitted that he'd seen the books that he was getting for Christmas. Since I get the kids books every year as one of the presents it wasn't really a big deal.

But Caitlin had found the pony that she remembered, had somehow gotten it out of the hard plastic package and taken the pieces back to her room where she was very quietly playing with them.

I had to let Jon punish her for the second time in two days for fear I would laugh at her. It's not funny, but she's so sneaky. Dominic told us everything and admitted to looking at the books. Caitlin denied everything. Baby girl is seriously starting to scare us!

This is only some of the presents. I forgot to take the picture until I'd wrapped about half of them. But I think you can get the picture.

A New Family Member

We had a new "family member" join us this last week.

I'll be talking about my thoughts on the other blog (since this is supposed to be about the kids). But I thought I'd introduce you to him here at least. =)

Crumbly Hair

Sabbath morning while we were getting ready for church Caitlin came into the bathroom and asked "Mommy, can I have crumply hair just like you?"

I tried to curl her hair, but it's so fine that it didn't hold. But it was enough to make her happy.

Crumply hair.

Later Jon was putting on her clothes and her black shoes wouldn't fit. So Jon put her brown boots on her. It was those or her Dora shoes. Apparently her feet grew last night. I heard Caitlin getting upset because her boots didn't match her dress. Somehow my 3 yr old has grasped a concept my 5 yr old still can't figure out. I convinced her (several times) that it was okay sometimes not to match and that no one would notice.

 

See! Her brown boots don't look THAT bad with her black tights. And if they do - don't tell Caitlin. =)

So I guess it's off to the store this week to find some more clothes for my kids. Sigh! If they'd stop growing just for a second it would be a huge help. Seriously! 

Chapsticks

I'm sitting here at the computer listening to my children play in Dominic's room.

"Please hand me the chapsticks." (We ate at a Thai restaurant last night. They are reenacting that even though they didn't use chopsticks.)

"Don't you mean chop sticks, Dominic?"

"Oh yeah mom! Chapsticks! Please hand me the chapsticks Caitlin."

I give up.

I sat down to post several things about the kids. But I keep getting distracted listening to them. I'm not sure what's up and I'm completely NOT complaining. But they have been so good today. They've only gotten in a couple of fights. I'm reviewing a book and thought I'd test something I'd read on them. So the last time they started to argue I had Caitlin stand and Dominic kneel (he's had another growth spurt) and touch noses. Then they had to work out what the problem was by talking. It didn't last five seconds before Caitlin threw her arms around Dominic's neck and they both started laughing. They never worked out what they were arguing about, but at least they were happy. They haven't gotten into trouble since. It's a refreshing change and I'm very thankful for it.

They'd been so good that I promised them hot chocolate with candy canes after lunch.

As I expected, Dominic downed his in seconds and loved it. Caitlin sipped hers and asked to be excused from the table. Silly kids!

h

I know that I certainly enjoyed it. The phone rang right as I put my peppermint stick into my hot chocolate. It was a lengthy call that I couldn't drink while taking care of. When I returned I found my peppermint had completely melted, leaving me with a minty hot chocolate. It was heavenly!

3 Year Old Pics

The difference in one year was astounding. Last year the photographer, flash and pretty much anything not mom freaked Caitlin out. So the only usable picture that we have is one that you can see a part of my sweater because I'm holding her. At least she was smiling.

But this year my little girl decided to be a model. She posed, she strutted, she made faces and she pranced around like she owned the place. It was comical and a huge relief. At least it was nice until I went to chose which picture to get and sat in agony forever. So I finally just purchased the cd with everything on it.
Now I just have to decide how much to bore bless you with.

This picture is SO Caitlin. I love, love, love her laugh.

She's been watching her brother pose for silly faces. So she wanted to do a silly face picture as well.

Silly girl!

My beautiful little lady.

Cheese.

This is the picture that the studio asked to put on their wall.
So Caitlin is a true model. =)

It was a very fun session. Jon and I are really enjoying watching her grow up.

Love you girly!

Text from school

Yesterday I received a text from Dominic's teacher. Here's what it said -
"On Wed. the K students read books in the morning. Today Dominic chose to read the Bible. He just read Psalm 25:16 all by himself to me! I thought you would want to know."

Psalm 25:16
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.


She  was right. I am soooo proud of my son.

Christmas Parade

It FINALLY happened. The Christmas parade was rescheduled twice due to weather. But despite the chilly weather and cloudy skies we finally had our parade. Dominic was so excited.

The kids did really well. There were close to 100 entrants and our little school made it into the 9 pictures chosen. It was the opposite side from Dominic, but I'm just excited that we made it into the paper.

I don't have very many pictures. I'm very glad that I took pictures of his costume before the parade. He wouldn't be still for a second because he was so excited. It had been raining earlier and so the ground was soggy. Pretty soon the bottom part of my his pants was also soaked.  

 Sitting on the float.

 The float. The world was pretty cool. The kids stood up and held candles.
They sang Come Light My World.

It was cold, but fun.

Static

Caitlin was having a moment and was rolling all over the floor and the couch in a bout of self pity. When she got up her hair was standing on end. In this very pitiful little voice she said -

"Mommy, my hair is all stadegy."

Random bits

I have several photos that wouldn't take an entire blog post so thought I'd throw them all together in one.

Jon was concerned because our puppies weren't growing a winter coat. So we decided they could come inside during the evenings if they stayed in one spot. Then at night we'll still put them to bed in the workshop like we've been doing. They love this new development.

 Caitlin wanted to see what her hair bow looked like. I haven't finished the mirror in my bedroom so it's leaning up against the wall. I sent her in the bedroom and when I followed her to see what was taking so long I found this.

 Dominic's school is in the Cookeville parade. It's been cancelled twice now, but they sang the song for church this last week. Those kids are precious.

 This is Dominic's Thailand outfit. It actually looks close to the picture I have, except he should be wearing a t-shirt. But it's freezing cold and I didn't want to make new pants so I used my capri yoga pants. They probably don't use leis in Thailand, but I had to do something to differentiate this from USA clothes.

 This past Sunday we brought all of the Christmas decor into the house and set up the tree. 

It's so much fun to do this with the kids. The ornaments are all clumped in one place, the tree skirt is lumpy and the tree is often crooked. But they have so much fun and they love it!

 All finished. Unless mom decides to even out the ornaments. =)

I have all of presents purchased and almost all of the stocking stuffers. Now I just need to find a time when they are not here or asleep to wrap everything.

Parent/Teacher Conference

 I was looking for another post and found this draft from October. Apparently I was more sick than I thought because not only did I forget to post it, but it was so full of spelling and grammar errors that I cringed. =) So it's a bit late, but here is Dominic's report card post.

We had our first parent/teacher conference this last week. I'm going to admit I was a bit fearful of what we would hear. I think the world of little man. But reality is - he isn't always obedient and can be disruptive and wild. So I expected to hear cute/funny stories, but not great things about his listening skills.
The skills were graded with an I for independently achieving things, P for progressing and a NT for needs more time to work on a skill. (the definitions are in my words)
I wasn't feeling well, but wanted to hear what his teacher had to say.So my memory might not be the greatest about some of the definitions, etc.
There were 45 things that he was graded on. He had all Ps and Is and no NTs. I'm sad to say I was surprised. 15 of the 45 were I. I thought I was going to pop with pride. This isn't to say that she didn't mention things he needs to work on, but the report was great.
I was so worried and stressed trying to decide whether to send him to school this year and this just confirmed again that God helped us make the right decision.
His teacher also told us that instead of playing with the other Kindergartners he's choosing to do the 1st and 2nd grade phonics with them. So he's really improving on his reading skills.
I know he's smart and my mommy pride is there. But I'm even more proud that he's doing so well at listening, obeying, and being respectful.

Sabbath school

I took quite a few pictures in Sabbath school this last week. It was partially because they were going to celebrate Caitlin's birthday and so I had the camera. But it was also because this is her last month in the Beginner's class. In January a new quarter starts and she moves up to Kindergarten. It's a bit hard for me to imagine that I won't have to go into class with her every other week. Jon and I take turns so that one of us can attend the adult class every other week. It's been nice taking turns, but now we'll actually be able to sit in class together. We are super excited about it, don't get me wrong. But a small part of me is so sad to see my little baby growing up so quickly. It helps that I know she'll love it in K with Dominic.

 

Caitlin was very fascinated with this plastic angel.

 

 At the manger.

 Caitlin has the best teachers. Not sure if I'd be willing to lay on the floor. =)

 In "heaven".

 Caitlin was in love with the gorillas.

So thankful for the teachers who spend so much time in preparation for teaching my child.

Happy Birthday Caitlin!

My little girl turned 3 years old today!

I'm so very, very proud of her. She's growing up into such a beautiful little girl and Jon and I keep looking at her and wondering how we got so lucky.

A couple of days ago I asked her where she wanted to eat for her birthday.

The first thing she said was "a princess restaurant".

When I told her that wasn't available she said Bellacino's (a pizza place).

So we went on Saturday night since Dominic was supposed to be in a parade tonight. (Unfortunately, it has been rescheduled due to rain.) 

At church they sang to her, let her blow out candles and gave her a book. It took her several tries before she blew the candles out. Girl needs to work on her blowing out candles skills. =)

This is how old she is. =)

Then yesterday she mentioned that she wanted to eat at Burger King. Since we had invited over some friends for supper we told her we would go today at lunch.

She had requested a purple princess cake. I've now made two fondant cakes and felt like this would be fairly easy. But for some reason I had the hardest time with the fondant. It tasted 10x better this time, but it was completely unworkable. I became so frustrated with it that I was about to give up. Even Jon took a couple of turns. I finally got it to work enough that I just dumped it on the cake and figured she'd never notice.

 Trying to blow out more candles.

 Opening her presents.

 She had some helpers. =)

 

 My sweet little girl is goofy, cuddly, fun and adorable.

I'm so thankful that God gave us to her.

 Speaking of goofy!

 Happy Birthday Caitlin!

With her "Dora dolly" that we gave her for her birthday.