Happy Easter!

We were in Iowa for the past few days and had a lot of fun, as always. I hardly saw Sam as when we're in Iowa, he's just running around and playing with his cousins and grandma the entire time and doesn't have much time for anything else. It's great that he can be so independent and have so much fun with everyone, but I miss the boy a bit. And it's great that overall, the kids and their cousins really get along very well. Matthew was a bit under the weather on Saturday, but did start to feel better later in the day on Saturday just in time for the Easter egg hunt. 

The kids got loads of candy on the Easter egg hunt and after packing up their treats in plastic bags Matthew went and hid his in his room (the walk in closet of my old bedroom). He wanted to make sure that Abby didn't get into it. 

After Sam got up early with Jason this morning, I stayed in bed a bit longer as I was/am suffering from a cold. So a bit after Jason left, I heard Matthew making some noise in his "room". He wasn't crying, and I knew he could get out of his bed if he wanted to and come into the main bedroom, so I wasn't too concerned. I thought maybe he was looking at a book or something. After a few minutes, however, I really wondered what he was doing is his "room" so I went to check on him. He was standing on a chair, with his candy bag on a shelf in front of him, eating Easter candy. I have no idea how much he ate, but apparently Matthew was hungry upon waking and wanted some candy for breakfast. 

Abby was mostly herself, she tended to stay pretty close to me, but did play some with the cousins and grandparents. I always get plenty of face time with Abby when we go to Iowa, but it's only a matter of time before she outgrows that. She got to sit in a tractor for the first time (on my lap) and wasn't quite sure of it, but Grandpa thought he saw a twinkle in her eyes when she grabbed the steering wheel.

Matthew was pretty attached to Jason the whole time. As I mentioned, he really wasn't feeling well, so he needed more attention than usual and he preferred Jason's attention. It seems that whenever Matthew spends more than a weekend with Jason, he ends up shifting his parental preference from mom to dad.  

The kids all remained with us during the Easter service this morning. Sam was quite distraught that he couldn't sit with Grandma Sue, although he was able to sit with her toward the end of the service. Abby and Matthew both were pretty good although Matthew showed signs of erupting at any time and left Jason on edge throughout the service as, of course, Jason was sitting next to Matthew and I was sitting with Abby. I don't think either of us were able to focus on the service too much, but I do know that Christ has risen, and that by His mercy and grace we will rise too.  

Daps

So Abby has been able to say Matthew quite clearly ("Matt-eew") for some time so I knew she probably had a name for Sam too, but I could never tell that she was saying "Sam". Sam is a rather difficult name to pronounce, so about a week ago I started listening to Abby closely when she made exclamations around her brothers to see if her way of saying "Sam" didn't really sound like "Sam". And I found that when I asked her "Who's that?" and pointed to Matthew, she said, "Matt-eeww". And when I asked her "Who's that?" and pointed to Sam, she said,"Daps". Ahhh, now I see. She's said Daps before when pointing at pictures and around her brothers, but I just never associated it with Sam. Now we know who Daps is.

Easter eggs

Our craft for today was to decorate Easter eggs. It was the first time the kids and I had done it and so we are starting a new tradition, one that I enjoyed with my family as a kid. Coloring the eggs went fairly well, and we managed with few spills. The kids' favorite part was putting the stickers on after they dyed the eggs. Abby did not get to participate although she enjoyed grabbing the eggs and the wire "egg remover" device. She didn't even try playing in the colored water which was a relief since I didn't want a big colorful mess on her. Sam is into making serious faces for pictures these days, so that's what he was doing and I was able to get a picture of Matthew without his big open-mouthed smile. 

 

Car show

This afternoon Jason took the boys to a car show. I didn't really want to go, so Abby and I went to the fabric store and Target instead. Abby has turned into quite a good shopper lately and it's nice to get some errands in with just one child rather than all three.

Jason was disappointed by the car show, but I think the boys still had some fun. Here are some pics of the boys enjoying the vehicles. Matthew again put on his big smile.

Now the boys are in two different vehicles, but Matthew has almost the exact same expression. Jason said their favorite vehicle was a big black Dodge truck, but the highlight of the trip was probably riding on the escalator and getting stared/smiled at by the models (apparently there are good looking women modeling with the cars???).

After the show, Jason taught Abby how to say "car show" and she walked around saying it frequently during the rest of the evening. Maybe it will become her new favorite word and replace "no."

On a side note, the children, all of them, behaved wonderfully during church this morning. There was no one in the nursery, so we took Abby into church with us and she and the boys were stellar.

Abby at midnight

Abby got croup again, for the third time in 6 months. Of course it didn't really come on until midnight so we had no warning until her barky cough and crying woke me up. She didn't have a fever or anything else and otherwise has been herself, but she just has a bad cough and was very upset about it last night. The thing with croup is that when a child gets upset, their breathing gets more and more labored, so the best way to take care of them is to help them calm down so their breathing gets back to somewhat normal.

So anyway, after Abby had an episode of croup last night I picked her up and rocked her a bit to help her calm down. She did calm down quickly and we cuddled for awhile so I could make sure she was good and calmed down. Unfortunately, when she calmed down with her breathing and coughing, she also got excited about midnight with Mommy. She would lay her head down on my shoulder, then sit back and stare at me. I tried not to look or pretend to sleep, so as to not encourage her but let her know it was sleeping time, but I just had to look some. And whenever I did, she would have this huge smile on her face and she just started at me. Then she'd put her head on my shoulder again, then sit up and stare at me and so on. After awhile she tired of just looking at me and started stroking my hair (something she's never done before). Then she decided to nuzzle noses with me and she'd lean in, rub her nose against mine and squeal with delight.

And I was really delighted too, despite myself and the late hour. But as I realized that she was enjoying this playtime too much and should really be sleeping (as I should have been doing as well), it was time to put her to bed. Now the conundrum with this is that you obviously don't want her to get upset as then she could have another episode of her croup cough and breathing (which can sometimes land a child in the ER as we know from experience with Sam and Matthew). So the question is, can I put her back in her bed without too much of a fuss? The answer last night was "no". I told Abby it was time for night night and she said "NO". No surprise there, that's her favorite word. But I reiterated that it was bedtime, sang to her and put her in her crib, but she immediately stood up and started screaming. I picked her up, rocked her a bit and she started playing again. Now I wasn't so delighted, it was nearly 1AM and I hadn't hardly gotten any sleep.

It was time for the last trick in my bag. I told Abby that I was going to put her in her crib and if she fussed Daddy was coming to her. I thought she preferred time with me to time with Jason and would calm down better and go back to sleep better. So I put her in her crib and left her room and she started screaming. So then Jason went in to see her and got her calmed down in about 10 minutes. Better than my hour of effort had done. The magic of the Daddy.

What did we do today?

Hmmm...our morning was filled up with a Bible study today, so our at-home festivities didn't begin until later in the day. But when we got around to it, we...

...Put together puzzles. Matthew does puzzles every day. He gets them out after breakfast and works on them periodically throughout the day. The table (and floor) is usually covered with puzzles from about 8AM until 5PM when the kids have to pick up and set the table for dinner time.

...Did the chicken dance. Sam has a little ramp toy that has two chickens on wheels that roll down the ramp and it plays this hoe down music with chickens bawking in the background. So he dances around when it plays the music and does his version of a chicken dance. He's quite serious about his dancing.

...Got stickers in the mail from Grammy and Papa. In the top picture, Matthew's expression is what happens when you tell him to smile. Picture taking is going to be fun for awhile around here until he's out of that stage. And Abby adorns herself with her stickers whenever she gets her hands on them. She puts ALL of them on her shirt (and occasionally on other people's clothing), and I mean all of them. You should see what she looks like when she gets a pack of like 50 stickers. Quite lovely.

Just another day at the Kirchhoff's.

And winter continues...

So we got 8 (or so) inches of snow over the past day and a half. Jason is very sick of snow these days, but I don't have too much of a problem with it, although I am looking forward to spring. Anyway despite the snow it's been in the upper 20s, so the kids and I played outside this afternoon. Abby still refuses to wear boots (she screams when I put them on her), but her shoes provide a lot of coverage, so she wore them. She actually wore snowpants today which was a first. She wasn't too excited about it and walked and bent over with little cries of disapproval initially, but she got over it and enjoyed herself. Her favorite activity was attempting to run into the street as I chased her and caught her and brought her back by the house. The boys had fun shoveling the driveway and the yard although they didn't make too much progress. We also got out the wagon (actually, it was Abby's idea as she climbed in the wagon in the garage while the boys and I were shoveling) and walked down the street with it while Sam rode his bike as the street was fairly clear of snow. Sam also enjoyed mastering the pile of snow at the end of the driveway by the mailbox. Another fun afternoon at the Kirchhoff's.