Finally!

I know we're in serious need of an update, so I took some pictures of the kids...

Jack is getting smarter every day. He is consistently increasing his vocabulary and he's starting to correct past pronunciation errors. Thankfully "chip" is no longer "b****" :) Jack's favorite song is the alphabet song. He LOVES superheroes and fighting and monsters. He doesn't like dinner, but loves any kind of "nacks", whether it be almonds, raisins, chips, or fruit snacks. When Jack asks "why", he's actually to the point where he listens and understands, usually, the answer he's given. He loves going anywhere outside our apartment, especially swimming. I love this little guy!

Daisy is energetic and independent. She loves to do things by herself which means she is learning a lot because of her persistence. She can almost dress herself without help, but sometimes that means her shirt is on inside-out and upside-down. Daisy loves taking care of her "baby" which could be any toy she happens to have at the moment. Most often it is her CareBear, Sunny Bear. Daisy makes some hilarious faces. If you happen to know the face that my mom makes when she's being a grinch, Daisy has already mastered that one! She makes me laugh and I love getting her smiling and laughing. She's a handful of independence, but I love this little sweetie!

Calvin is happy almost all the time. He LOVES his siblings and if I need to find him, I only need look where the other kids are. Calvin is crawling like crazy now. He's always underfoot. He loves the vacuum more than any kid I've ever known. I turn it on and he comes cruising from wherever he is in the house to chase after the vacuum. Calvin is allergic to eggs, so I'm on an egg-free diet. Not my favorite, but if I cheat he gets a rash. His shirt in this picture says "my mommy is exhausted" which is almost always true because he doesn't sleep through the night yet. 2-3 times a night I'm up with him. And if the other kids make their appearances then I could find myself waking up 8 or 9 times in a night of 7 hours. I'm looking forward to more sleep soon. Calvin is a momma's boy and is such a sweet little guy. I love my little buddy!

  

They're best friends!

Touched Up Pictures

I'm using picmonkey to touch up my pictures now. They look so much better without red eye.

Tool Belt

Remember Mr. Saggy Pants?

Problem solved!

Learning

Michael uses our bedroom to study in and consequently there are five huge whiteboards on the walls with notes and drawings of different anatomy, physiology, etc. Today I was in my bedroom with Jack and he pointed to one of the pictures depicting the majority of the muscles of the face.

He said, "Look, Mom. Those are muscles." I was taken by surprise and asked, "Did Daddy tell you that?" He said, "yes." It had to have been at least 24 hours since Michael had told Jack about the muscles and was probably a lot longer than that. What a good memory he is developing, my little Jack.

Another fun thing about Jack lately has been nap-time. Jack doesn't nap anymore. I used to be disappointed in this because that meant my nap-time disappeared, but now I just look forward to that quiet time. Jack knows that once Daisy goes down for a nap that he's got a choice. He can either play with his toys or he can help me clean. What does this 3-year-old love doing? Cleaning the bathroom! I don't know where he got that from. But my bathrooms haven't been this clean in years. Sometimes I can convince him that we need to clean a different part of the house, but usually we end up cleaning at least a small part of the bathroom every day. As soon as Daisy goes down for her nap, he runs to the drawer and pulls out two washcloths (one for me and one for him). He also likes to help me take out the trash. I give him the small bags from the bathrooms and I take out the kitchen garbage. He has gotten really good at chucking the bags up into the dumpster.

Not only do we clean during nap-time, but we have also started doing more educational activities. We have been playing with an apple math mat

and doing a lot of coloring and number games. Today was the first time he counted from 1-10 correctly. It's always been 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9...and sometimes 10. But today he did it right multiple times. I think it's a combination of a little song I made up that counts to 11 (sung to the tune of "Welcome Christmas" from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas") and the book "Ten Apples Up On Top" by Dr. Suess.

He is also obsessed with drawing lately. He drew his first self portrait.

I think it looks great! It's actually a profile. His nose juts out to the left. You can also see his arms and legs coming off his head. And I drew the hair for him...

I sure love my Jack!

Side-By-Side

So, I thought I'd do a side-by-side of all three kiddos at about the same age. Here they are at around 3-4 months old:

Calvin

Daisy

Jack

What do you think? Siblings? I think sooooo....

Calvin's Blessing and More

So, I know it's been a long time, but here's some pictures and a few updates from our lives:

Calvin was blessed in church on Jack's 3rd birthday.

What a cutie.

Yummy food. The ugly cake was a major fail in our new diet (which seems to change almost weekly).

Jack had a Spiderman themed party.

The big 3

He was spoiled with presents. Here he is with his ThunderCats sword and claw.

Daisy is still a delight. She charms everyone who sees her.

I caught Jack playing with his tools the other morning. I think he needs a tool belt.

He's got saggy pants.

Jack is learning how to take pictures. Sometimes he actually takes a picture of what he's trying to get.

We built cardboard box airplanes.

And Calvin is full of smiles. Here he is charming the ladies already.

Visit From Grandma Petty

For 10 days in December (including Christmas), Grandma Petty came to visit us from Texas. We LOVED having her here! The kids were spoiled (including the tutu pictured above) and loved on the entire 10 days. They read stories, played games, talked, hugged, and loved.

On the evening that we decorated the tree, Grandma played He-Man with Jack. Jack was He-Man and Grandma was Cringer/Battle Cat. I think Daisy got to be He-Man for a while, too...this was before Jack discovered She-Ra :)

(Oh, how I laughed...)

And just a few more pictures with Grandma. We sure do miss her and look forward to her visiting us again soon, hopefully with Grandpa Petty next time.