Purchases and Hair

Mary went to Target and purchased a treat for me. I told the children that I would share my treat with them for dessert. They asked what it was. I told them it was "sweet deliciousness." They weren't sure what that was, so Grace had to check all the cupboards until she found the Cadbury Mini Eggs.

I shared a few with Grace and Joshua and they loved them. (Who doesn't?) They kept asking for more Mini Eggs while I was feeding Rebecca her yogurt. Caleb got his Mini Eggs after he finished his vegetables and fruit. By this time, Rebecca was done and she saw me open the bag to get some out for Caleb. Rebecca just started begging for some chocolate. She did not know what it was, but she knew everyone else was having it. And if everyone else is eating it, then she should have it too.

I cannot believe that we are already at the stage were we have to try and sneak things past little Rebecca.

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Speaking of purchases, Caleb went to the store and look what ended up in his cart. I wonder how much that cost him.

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On the other hand, Rebecca does not want to make any purchases. She just wants to grab and go. Mary was doing the dishes last night and Rebecca grabbed a spoon. Then she made a break for it. I caught her red-handed.

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We have a couple of new haircuts in our house. Mary cut Joshua's hair this morning. I am not sure that you can see it that well in this picture. His curls remain but the amount of hair has decreased. He is still a handsome little fellow. Grace also sports a new hairdo. She has bangs. To phrase it correctly, Grace cut bangs. Literally. A couple of months ago, Mary heard her doing something in her room. Mary asked what was going on and got a reply of "Nothing." Oddly enough, doing nothing meant that Grace had no bangs (or hair) on one small spot of her hairline the next morning. Grace grew it out for a while and when she was getting her haircut recently she asked for bangs. I guess that Grace is like most kids and eventually experiments with the scissors on their own head.

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And we don't need too many comments about new toupees due to the title of this post.

But if you have a particularly witty one, you can share with the group.

That Scary Time of Year

Did you think that I was going to post about tax time? It is still too early! Actually, I wanted to post some Halloween pictures from last year.

Halloween fell on a Saturday. We had soccer in the morning, chores in the afternoon and trick or treating in the evening. One of the chores was to rake up all the leaves in the front of our home. We took all the leaves from the front and put them in a sunken part of our side yard for leaf jumping. (The first eight pictures documenting the leaves and the crew were taken by our neighbor.)

Many of the kids on the street came over to jump in. Everyone, on your mark! Get Set! Go! (Though you may notice some reticence on the part of certain parties in the group.) But everyone was in the leaves for this picture. Our kids wanted to throw leaves at our neighbor who was taking pictures. Take that! And that! And that! After all the soccer and chores, no one had bothered to make any dinner. So we gathered up the families in the neighborhood and all ordered pizza together. (Grace, Caleb and Joshua are sitting together on the curb eating. The little orange thing in the background is Rebecca the pumpkin.) Then we went trick or treating and got too much candy. The after party was held at the scene of the leaf jumping festivities from earlier in the day.

These next few pictures are our pictures. We did not get great Halloween pictures this year for some reason. But I thought I would post these anyway. This year Grace and Caleb knew exactly what they wanted to be. Joshua kept saying he wanted to be Elmo and was for the ward party. But on Halloween night he waffled and decided to go as a turtle. Here they all are together before trick or treating.

Middle of the Night Post

I did not post on Wednesday night because I went to bed early. (Basketball on Tuesdays can leave you a little tired.) I was hoping to get a nice uninterrupted sleep. A little bit of middle of the night throw up threw a wrench in that plan.

Oh well.

I don't know about your marriage, but ours has a throw up clause in it. Mary doesn't do throw up. So, that means I get to clean up the bed and the room. Mary usually bathes the child.

Hope you had a better night's sleep than we will. (We are going to be worried about how well someone is sleeping and if it will happen again. Things that are not conducive to a good night's sleep.)

Once again, oh well.

Sunday Stories

This Sunday was my turn to teach the Young Men at church. I had forgotten to get chalk and eraser and disappeared for a moment before class to grab it. I came back from the library and I saw one of the boys in the doorway. I said to myself, "Why is he standing guard?" I did not pursue that line of thinking because I was preoccupied by my lesson and the need to teach.

I told myself I should have thought more about it as I was sliding off the broken chair the boys had set up for me.

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As I was teaching, I asked a question to the class. One of the young men answered it in the negative. Then I asked if any of the other boys agreed or disagreed. The same young man that answered the first time decided to reply in the affirmative. After this, I said to the class, "Does anyone else want to waffle or take a stand on this topic?"

One of the other boys said, "Mmm, waffles … waffles … waffle stand … I should have a waffle stand."

You have to love the thought process of the boys on a Fast Sunday.

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Joshua needed my help in the bathroom on Sunday. I was told about this and went to the bathroom to help him out. When I was about 20 feet away from the bathroom, I heard a voice loudly singing "Old MacDonald had a Farm" and saw a couple of adults smiling right outside the bathroom door.

It was wonderful to hear Joshua sing, but I need to teach him to sing more quietly when there is a priesthood class going on about 10 feet away on the other side.

Hot Shot

There was a skills competition this past week for Grace's basketball league. Each girl in the league could chose a competition event. The choices were a dribbling drill, a free throw shooting contest, a shooting drill and a 2-on-2 tournament. Each of the competitions was split so only girls in the same grade level would compete against each other, though there are girls from two grades in the league. Grace was going to do the 2-on-2 tournament but her teammate in her grade was not available. She decided to do the shooting drill, called the hot shot competition. (The hot shot rules are there are five spots to shoot from: three jump shot spots and the two lay-up spots. A lay-up was worth one point and a jumper was worth two points. Most total points wins.) The top two finishers in each grade would get an award at the end of the season awards ceremony.

Now you need to know something about Grace and basketball. She is a good player, but she plays on a team with many older girls. She does not always assert herself and play with confidence in her basketball ability. Some of the older girls have played longer. For some games, she has shot well and played great defense. Other times she has been very deferential. I was interested to see how she would do in the shooting contest, especially since she did not had time to practice leading up to the event. (We had a busy week without a single free night.)

When they gathered for the hot shots competition, there were a couple of girls Grace knew from school. When it was her turn, she went out there and shot well. Mary, Caleb, Joshua, Rebecca and I cheered her on. She ended up in second place. Mary and I were so excited for her. It was great to see her feel more accomplished and gain a little confidence in her basketball skills.

The most interesting part of the experience was what happened on Saturday morning. I got up to go to basketball and Grace informed me that she wanted to go with me. That is not unusual. One of the kids has come with me on many occasions, though it is usually Caleb that wants to go. During the breaks in the game play, we practiced and I could just see how she was gaining confidence in what she could do. She was practicing with a purpose to learn more skills and was really successful at shooting better.

I think some positive feedback can be transformative for children. Grace seemed to find it empowering in this instance.

Or you could believe there are other factors at work. Mary and I went out on Friday night after the skills competition. Grace told our babysitter that she had won an award at the hot shots competition. His response was that it was "in her blood."

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You guys have watched all three of these clips, right? If not, you need to watch.

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I almost forgot the well wishes. Happy International Woman's Day! It was a big holiday when I was in Eastern Europe. In America, we celebrate Mother's day, but it is not the same holiday as a Woman's day in Europe.

The Sabbath

I guess the Sabbath day is a day of rest even for this blog.

Who knew?

Caleb Man

I love Caleb. He is a surprise at every turn. I think I understand him and then he does something that let's me know there is more to learn about him. The ability to do unexpected things is one part of life that makes it so much fun. Life would not be the same if it was too predictable. My life with Caleb is not predictable and I love it.

I also can see a bit of me inside of Caleb. When I hear stories about my life growing up, I can see similar traits in Caleb. Though we have these similarities, he finds ways to express his individuality. I am glad that he is still his own person. The two-edged sword of genetics is that your children are like you whether it is the good or the bad. Fortunately, my less than desirable habits don't always condemn him to do the same thing. Maybe part of the unexpected in Caleb is his ability to live individually, though we share these traits. Here is one story to illustrate how he can surprise me.

Caleb is a good reader. I am not sure how he picked it up, but I am always happy that he can read well. I am not suggesting that he is the best reader in 1st grade, just that he can do it well. Today we were watching our friends' children. The kids were playing well in the basement and then came upstairs. There were not as many activities to do upstairs. Then all of the sudden, I hear someone reading Cinderella. Caleb had asked the younger daughter if she would like to hear a story. She wanted to, so Caleb sat down next to her and read. It certainly wasn't what I expected from Caleb, but it was a really sweet thing for him to do. He could help her stay calm and read something that she would love to hear. Here is a picture of the two of them reading together.

Old Stories About Grandma

The beauty of a neglected blog is that there are plenty of stories to tell and plenty of pictures to share. Unfortunately, it is difficult to remember all of the stories. I have written down a few of them that I want to share. The first two stories happened in May of last year when my Mom was visiting after Rebecca's birth.

My mom wanted to help us adjust to our new addition. This is not unusual behavior for my mom. If you know my mom, you know that she loves to help people and visit others. It is true of both of my parents. One of their greatest strengths is the way they are willing to fly anywhere to visit or to help others. In particular, it has been amazing to see how much my parents have grown while caring for their parents and in-laws in the later stages of life. They have given us a rich heritage of what it means to serve others, love your family and work tirelessly for those relationships that matter most and will last the longest.

Their willingness to travel and support everyone has led to running joke in our family. Every year around tax time, we ask my parents (and mother especially) if they are eligible to file taxes where their home is because they were there for so few days during the year. The first story illustrates how that joke may have begun:

We went to a store to pick up some things that Mom needed. We went to pay and Mom went first. The cashier asked Mom what was her zip code. Mom looked at her slightly puzzled and pulled out her checkbook so she could read off her zip.

At that point in time, Mom and Dad had lived in their new home for three years. How long do you have to live somewhere before you know your own zip code?

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Another side effect of Mom's travel is that she is quite attached to her cell phone. But it is not just the cell phone because Mom likes to talk on any phone. Most people who talk to my mom would never think to try her home phone number. It is too much of a low probability event to catch them there. Why even bother trying? (For the purposes of full disclosure, I don't even know my parents' home phone number.) Mom's phone habits led to the following story:

Joshua had been watching Grandma carefully after she had arrived. He was trying to figure her out and restart their relationship. On the second day of Grandma's stay, we went out to dinner. On the way to the restaurant, Mom got a couple of calls. After the second call we hear Joshua's two-year old voice from the backseat say, "Grandma need cell phone."

I guess it did not take too long for Joshua to figure out Grandma.

Rebecca and Caleb and Dad

Caleb is good kid. He is a fun kid. He is a boisterous kid. He is a playful kid and he is often a rough and tumble kid. But you should see him with Rebecca. He loves to play with her and make her laugh. A week or so I got out an old car/walker for Rebecca. Rebecca liked to play with it, but did not fall in love with it. Enter Caleb. He put her right on the car so he could push her around the house. They giggled and had tons of fun. Rebecca likes her car a lot more thanks to Caleb.

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The other night there was an event at our local elementary school. I was watching Rebecca away from the main event, close to the entrance. I saw a "bus" friend come into the school. (He has a daughter Grace's age, but I usually interact with him during the daily bus commute.) He took one look at Rebecca and me and said, "You guys have the same haircut." The haircut is a different style for me. I decided that I should go to the buzz cut. I am going bald and I don't want to mess with my hair anyway. So why not make it easy all the way around?

Cook-a-book

Joshua got a new cookbook for his birthday. He calls it his "cook-a-book". (I don't know where he got the extra "a" sound. Though he does live near Boston, and a Boston accent tends to move around "a" and "r" sounds.) At any rate, he loves to help in the kitchen and tonight was his night to cook dinner with Mom. They decided to make stuffed shells together. Joshua started by "reading" his recipe and telling Mom what was in the pictures so they could get everything out that they needed. While the shells were boiling, they got everything ready to stuff them. Joshua got the tomato sauce base ready after mixing the cheese stuffing with Mom. Since the shells were hot and we were in a hurry, Mom stuffed most of the shells while Joshua put them in the pan. Then he added the rest of the tomato sauce and the cheese. In the picture below, the shells are ready to bake. The stuffed shells turned out really well and everyone ate them. (Grace came home from dance class and had six of them. After which, she complimented the little chef.)

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While Joshua and Mary were cooking, I asked Joshua if he was the chef or the sous-chef. I don't think he has ever heard those terms before and I just wanted to see what he was going to say.

Joshua looked at me and said, "I am the sous-chef. Mom is the king chef."

And there you have it.

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I took this picture of Rebecca eating dinner tonight. You may not be able to tell, but she has stuffed about 10 small pieces of apple into her mouth. Her cheeks our stuffed with food. We have never had a child take to "people food" like Rebecca. She is highly insulted when you offer her baby food and will only eat what everyone else is eating. This started about a month or two ago. There is no way we will go through the baby food in our cupboard at this point.

Basketball

If you have ever met me, you probably know that I like basketball. Okay, that is not really true. I love basketball. It is my favorite sport, my favorite way to get exercise, and one activity that I really love. I try and play basketball twice a week. Mary is kind enough to support my addiction. But lately, basketball has taken over our lives and our Saturdays in particular. I play pick-up most Saturday mornings. Caleb has a game most Saturday mornings. Grace has a game most Saturday afternoons. And I help coach both of their teams. So you can imagine that we are doing a lot of hooping most Saturdays.

I thought I would share some pictures of Grace playing. (We need to take some pictures of Caleb playing and post them.) A friend of ours from Grace's team took these pictures. Good basketball always starts out with playing proper defense. Grace likes to shoot the ball from outside. Grace can really move up and down the court. Here is a picture of the coaches. The one in the center is the head coach. I am an assistant as is the gentleman in the red shirt. We have a lot of fun coaching together. I am not sure what I was thinking in this picture. My guess is that I am about to tell Caleb to stop bouncing the ball while the game is being played. I like this picture because if you look in the background you can see that even the littlest fans make it out to the game to cheer on Grace. Go Grace!

I Have a Blog!!

Did you know that I have a blog? I don't ever post to it. My mom complains that I never post pictures. Well, she is right. I don't post pictures. So I am going to make an attempt at rectifying the situation. Here are a couple of pictures from February. Joshua got a new Elmo suit for his birthday. Here he is wearing the Elmo suit, our family birthday hat, and holding his new cookbook from grandma.Rebecca loves her blanket. Two of my favorite ladies. Caleb likes to get his hands on the camera. Here is a Valentine's Day self-portrait. Grace also created a Valentine's Day self-portrait. I left the image the way she wanted it. She turned the camera upside down to take the picture.

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To honor the end of the Olympics yesterday and all things Canadian, this was posted while listening to this song.

Going Hungry on Christmas Day

Joshua got a polar bear Pez for Christmas. Mary filled it up with candy for him. Joshua quickly ate all the candy. Then he came back to Mary and said, "Momma, my polar bear is starving!"

Now you can't have a starving polar bear at Christmas, can you?

Oh Boy...

Caleb has a really interesting personality. He is bound to do things that make you laugh and others that will make you try really hard not to laugh. Here are some recent examples:

• About a month ago, we took the kids to see the BC women's soccer team play. They were playing UNC, the top-ranked team in the country at the time, and we thought it would be a good game. (BC was ranked 6th at the time.) We got to the game and it was starting to get dark. They had floodlights in the parking lot to provide some extra light. (The lights were about 10-12 tall and the base looked like a standard generator.) As we were walking up to the first set of lights, Caleb took one look at the floodlights in the sky and screams, "Aaaggghhhh! It's the ghost light!" and runs off.
• For his birthday, Caleb got a remote control tarantula. His teacher has told the kids that they can bring in a toy from home. We did not know that he had chosen to bring in his tarantula to school earlier this week. (Fortunately, he did not bring in the remote controller.) He put the spider on the floor by some of the kids in his class. Needless to say, that did not last very long. Soon enough, his teacher asked him to put the tarantula back in his bag.
• Today, Caleb and I were doing chores together. We were cleaning the bathroom and out of nowhere he looks at me and says, "Father, it's dirty." Which is not all that funny except for the fact that he said it with a British accent. Where did he even hear a British accent?
• Yesterday, Mary and Caleb were looking for shirts at Old Navy. Caleb asked Mary which exit she wanted to use on the way out. Mary said that she did not care. Caleb asked if they could go out from the one they did not use on the way in. Mary did not think much of it and said sure. Mary paid for the shirts and she was not keeping too close of an eye on Caleb. She looked up and did not immediately see him, so she figured he had gone out the exit they had talked about. She walked to the exit past the front display and did not notice the extra mannequin standing there. Mary turned around to take a last look in the store and noticed that Caleb was standing still pretending to be one of the mannequins.

It is all funny and so Caleb, but I wonder where it comes from?

Issues with Clothing

Most people have an interesting relationship with their clothes. Some people don't care enough about the clothes they wear. (That was me in the 7th grade. I wore the same old, ripped sweatshirt at school every day for a large part of the year. It mortified my mom, so I had to keep the sweatshirt in my locker. That way she did not know that I was wearing it all the time. But I always had a different set of clean clothes underneath my sweatshirt, so I never understood what was such a big deal.) Some people are always buying clothes. Others always want to buy clothes. And some people fall in love with one special outfit. That would describe my Joshua.

This summer, all he wanted to wear was his "Big Bird" outfit. This outfit consists of shorts and a t-shirt. If either part of the outfit was in his drawer, he would put it on. If it was on the floor or in the dirty clothes, he would put it on. If he found it somewhere in the basement by the laundry, he would put it on. He loves that outfit. He did not need to wear both the shirt and the shorts at the same time. Either one would work. But the weather has gotten colder here and we had to take away the Big Bird outfit. So he had to find an outfit to wear this fall and winter. Mary and I were worried that this would be difficult because he really loves shorts and is not a fan of pants. Unexpectedly, he fell in love with a pair of green corduroy pants.

Of course, he wears them every day. Already we have resorted to hiding them in the washing machine because he can't see them when they are in there.

So if you meet a redhead talking about his "green quarter boys," then I would guess you met Joshua.

An Island Getaway

We promised the children that we would take them out to the Boston Harbor Islands. We had hoped to do it before school started, but we were rained out on the weekend we had planned to go. (The remnants of a tropical storm were in the area and we decided we should not go out on a boat.) We ended up going on Labor Day. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

Our journey began on the T. The children love to ride the buses and subway. Here is a picture of Joshua and Caleb with Mary putting stuff in the stroller. We got off downtown and caught the boat out to the harbor islands. (Mary reserved the tickets online. It was good decision since the line was quite long when we arrived there.) Grace and Caleb liked to be out on the deck. Joshua joined them for a couple of minutes. They were all quite windblown, but enjoyed it. While the rest were out and about, Dad and Rebecca sat inside for the most part. It was just too windy for Rebecca. Joshua did not like the wind as much as the others, so he came inside and decided to eat. Our first stop was King George's Island. There is an old fort that was built by the French in the early 1800's. It has been used in a number of different wars, but it not in use now. The kids decided to help protect the island. The kids had a great time exploring the fort. They even climbed up in one of the old lookouts. We also got a good look at the Boston lighthouse. It is not visible from the shore. After we explored King George's Island, we took an inter-island boat to Spectacle Island. After the children had looked for shells on the beach, Mary took this picture of Joshua. If you cannot hear Joshua saying "Cheese" when this picture was taken, then you need to get to know him better. Caleb wanted to try out the lifeguard's chair. He thought it was great that he could climb up there and sit. (I think the weekend before Labor day is the last weekend with the lifeguards on duty.) We took a walk around Spectacle Island and got a picture of the whole crew with Boston in the background. Mary took some pictures of Grace and Caleb that turned out really well. After that, we caught the boat back to Boston. We took the T back to our car and drove home. It had been such a busy day, that Joshua was dead tired by the time we got home. But it was a fun day that we will all remember!

Rebecca Update

I have had a tough time keeping up with the blogging. We will have to see if I can make a bit of a comeback. We will start simple and give you an update on Rebecca. She is doing really well. She loves her momma, likes to eat, sleeps pretty well, and is good natured about being taken to all of the other events her siblings are involved in. Here is a recent picture of her. She loves candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach to smile and giggle. (Caleb is really good at making her laugh.) She loves to try to throw herself out of any chair or swing you put her in. (I don't understand why she just won't sit back and enjoy sitting in a chair once in a while. Maybe she is just ready to get going.) Her favorite thing to do is to be in her onesie in the evenings and chew on her toes. She can even do it when she is dressed!

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This post was created while listening to "Fireflies" by Owl City. Oliver pointed this song out to be a month ago and I really like it. I even heard it on Sirius radio when I took a business trip.