Snowboarding

Despite the flat topography of our back yard, the grading away from the house provides just enough of a slope to allow the kids to try out snowboarding on their sleds. And the path from the house to Jason's backyard is a perfect track for their endeavors. I think real snowboarding might be in our future soon.

Christmas

Well, almost a month after the fact, I'm finally writing about Christmas. We had a great holiday except for traveling down to Iowa which was snowy, slippery, stressful and much longer than it's supposed to be. This is the third bad Christmas travel to Iowa in five years, so we just aren't having good luck with that (other than we've safely arrived every time). Christmas Eve was at Ken and Cheri's and after church (where Abby wasn't the best behaved, but the boys were exceptionally good), we enjoy appetizers and plenty of presents at Grammy and Papa's. We decided to spend the night over there and that was a fun change. Everyone slept pretty well and it was a nice, relaxing way to spend our Christmas Eve and morning.

Then it was the drive to Iowa which I've already mentioned, and Christmas dinner and festivities at Grandpa Duane and Grandma Verna's. This is the first holiday where Abby has been okay with being away from me for a period of time and doesn't throw a fit when someone other than our immediate family tries to talk to her or hold her. How far we've come in the last year. We opened more gifts and had dinner with Grandpa Don and Grandma Sue the next day and with Grandma Sue's side of the family the day after that. It was a whirlwind of Christmas activities, and fortunately it was nice enough for some playing outside in the snow too (although there wasn't too much snow, just enough for riding around on the sled behind the four-wheeler which Matthew loved, but Sam wouldn't try).

Here are a few pictures from our family Christmas at home.

Observations on laundry

Today I did a lot of laundry and I noticed some peculiarities in our laundry which I've had on my radar for awhile. The first peculiarity is that when I'm done doing laundry (and I'm very thorough), Sam has maybe one (or no) pairs of underwear and socks in the clean laundry. The other thing is that Matthew has an inordinate amount of underwear and socks in the clean laundry. I have a few ideas on what is going on. My first idea is that Sam is not changing his underwear at all or very little between launderings (which generally happens every four days or so). The second idea is that Matthew is changing his underwear and socks more frequently than what would generally be considered normal. Another idea is that Sam is changing his underwear, but hiding it somewhere where I'm not finding it on laundry day. Hmmm. Usually his laundry is in plain sight (strewn across his floor), but perhaps he's hiding some of it for some silly reason. Another idea is that Sam is wearing Matthew's underwear which would account for both unusual laundry observations. As of now, I'm not exactly clear on what's going on, although I have a strong inkling it's idea #1 and I need to be a bit more aware of Sam's changing habits.

Tub terrors

Although I have lots of pictures and other things to write about since Christmas just passed, I had to write about our latest events during bathtime. The events mostly pertain to Abby being afraid of the bath, and the source of Abby's fears is Matthew. A few weeks ago the kids all took a bath together. We haven't been doing that much lately since they're getting so big, but we were short on time and I decided they could all go in the big bath (in Jason and my room) together. So they all happily got in, then after a few moments we noticed there was, um, stuff, floating around in the tub. After a few moments, I realized what it was (lets just say that Matthew, while he likes to take care of his own wiping on the toilet, is just not very good at it...) and we all got quickly out of the tub and took showers.

So fast forward to now and Abby is terrified of anything floating in the tub (other than toys). Anything. Hair. A speck of lint. And I mean speck...like the size of a grain of finely ground pepper. She gets in the tub and refuses to sit down, asking and pointing at every little thing in the tub, "What's that?" Then I try to scoop it out with my hands or a washcloth (which is not an easy thing to do), while she becomes increasingly terrified and shakes and starts crying as she says, "It's coming closer!" I try to tell her it's just lint from her feet, but she will not be persuaded that it's anything innocuous and continues to basically freak out when my efforts to remove every little bit of lint fail and they come closer to her. She won't even sit in the tub anymore. She used to love the tub. And now it's just a source of terror. Poor Abby. Oh how she cries and cries until I finally take her out of the tub and we decide to take a shower. By we, I mean that she and I take a shower and she's so distraught that she doesn't want to take one by herself and will only take one with me. (So I do feel that I'm being a little manipulated in the showering thing...but will deal with that later). Fortunately, she also likes showers and doesn't mind getting her face wet, so we shower up and she's happy and more importantly, clean.  I hope this phobia doesn't last long, but for now we're dealing with aborted baths and relying on showers.

Winter fun

We've been enjoying the cold and snow lately, and when we haven't been able to go outside much we've been enjoying making cookies. I gave each kid a batch of cookie dough to cut out cookies and the boys really did a good job. Abby mostly pushed her cookie cutters in lightly and repeatedly, not quite making a thorough cut, but she did do a thorough job of eating a lot of dough. In fact, she threw a fit of all fits when I took the dough away and told her she couldn't eat anymore. I had never seen her throw a fit like that, it was extensive and very loud. I have since experienced another fit when I made cookies again a few days later and limited her consumption of cookie dough. That girl really likes dough. 

Waking up

The kids all have their own distinct ways of waking up. Sam, almost every day, comes into Jason and my room at 6:30. That's when his clock turns yellow. I have no idea how long he's up prior to that time; occasionally when I get up before that time and peek in on him, he's already awake and other times he's not. Anyway, he comes in at 6:30 and sometimes he excitedly says, "This is your morning wake up call!" Other times he comes over to my side of the bed and asks to get in and cuddle for awhile. Other times he goes into the bathroom or closet if Jason is in one of those places getting ready. Regardless, Sam is a morning kid. He's happy, wide-awake and in a good mood. Unfortunately, I don't always greet him with such enthusiasm as I'm not quite so excited at 6:30 in the morning. But he's a good sport.

Matthew wakes up a little differently from Sam. While he used to get up really early, he now gets up a bit after Sam. And he's generally not as chipper as Sam either. Matthew is a slow-to-warm-up kid. He takes his time easing into new situations and getting comfortable with new people and he eases into his day as well. And don't you dare approach him in the morning before he's had an appropriate warm-up time which means that he has had plenty of time to lay in bed, sucking on the tags on his blanket for awhile and he will get up when he's ready. Often Matthew screams and hollers in the morning for Mommy or Daddy to come see him as he waking up and I've tried in the past to send Sam in to tell Matthew that he can come into our room. To which Matthew responds with a tirade of angry words for his brother. Sam doesn't go in to see Matthew in the morning anymore. Once Matthew has his warm-up, he's a chipper, quickly dressed kid and ready to go, but before then, you'd best stay away until your summoned.

Abby is much more gentle in her waking up. She generally doesn't make a peep in the mornings and the only way I know she's awake is that I can hear her bed creaking as she's rolling around. When I do go in to get her (anytime between 7 and 7:30), she usually greets me (or Jason) with a quiet, "Hi Mommy" or "Hi Daddy". Sometimes you'll get a gentle "Get me out." It's a simple command and is obeyed quickly. Other times, Sam wants to go in to "get Abby up" and he goes into her room and gets her riled up for the day. On those days, Abby usually ends up holding onto the side of her crib and excitedly jumping up and down as Sam is jumping up and down next to her bed (sometimes Matthew goes in to greet Abby too and they all have a jumping and hollering wake up).

 And I wake up, usually by Sam (occasionally by Jason when he gets up to get ready for work), at 6:30.

One week ago...

One week ago we had a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Sam was ecstatic. At 6:30 in the morning. So was Matthew. They came into our room full of joy at the white covering on the ground (which melted by the end of the week). When Abby woke up shortly after them, they showed her the snow and she then held up her nearest stuffed animals and dolls to the window and said "Look, Sheepie, snow!" or "Look, Baby, snow!"

After a bit of celebration indoors Sam declared, "I'm going outside now," and the boys went downstairs to get on their boots, coats, hats and mittens. I was still in my PJs and was about to tell Abby that she was going to stay inside with me, but her excitement about the snow got the best of me and I took her down and got her wrapped up in boots, hat, mittens, and coat. Then I bundled up a bit and went outside too. It was 6:50AM. 

The kids had a snowball fight with one of our neighbors and we were out for about 15 minutes before I got too cold and told them it was time to go in for breakfast. Later in the afternoon we were outside again, this time for a long time, building snowmen and throwing snowballs and just running around. Abby does quite well with her boots on and seems to enjoy the snow and wintry outdoors just as much as the boys. Here are some pictures of our afternoon a week ago, the snow is gone, but it will be back again soon.