September

I have been neglecting our favorite soldier, so it's time to catch up with some pictures and stories.

Little brother and his cousin - they are not cute.  Except a lot.

Big brother, his blanky and his ginky.  We decided last week to get rid of the beloved ginky.  We tried this when he turned 3, with disastrous results.  He simply did not sleep for about 2 weeks.  We finally decided that he was clearly not ready and gave it back to him.  He has progressed a lot further in the last year, so we gave it another shot.  So much better this time.  The first couple nights were a little rough, but we got through thanks to some melatonin.  He still occasionally asks for the ginky, but he is doing amazingly well without it.  The potty training is regressing a little, as I expected.  With this sweet boy, we have learned that we have to follow his lead and his pace.  Just because the progress is slow does not mean there is no progress, so we are just being patient.  There's part of me that wants to push it, because if he isn't trained by next fall, we will not be starting kindergarten.  The other part of me feels like that is SO not a big deal.  Funny, but with big sister I was pretty strict about doing all the stuff the "experts" say should be done by a certain age.  With each one I've relaxed more.  Now my attitude has gravitated more to "Will this affect the kind of person he will eventually become?  Like make him an axe murderer?  No?  Good.  We'll keep doing what works for us, thanks."  We have faith that God will help us know when he's ready for kindergarten, and even if he does potty train by next fall, he still may not be ready.  He is doing so well with numbers and letters.  Now that he can communicate more, it is obvious that this boy is as intelligent as I always knew him to be.  But his maturity level is definitely a little behind his peers because of the whole communication/speech delay.  So we'll just have to see how that all plays out!  In the meantime, he is loving both preschools.  We carpool to the regular preschool with 4 other friends and it is the most hilarious thing - 5 four-year-olds in my backseat.  It is the best entertainment!  Big brother loves his friends, and I love that he is interacting with children who don't ask "What's wrong with him?"  They accept and love and play with him.  That makes my heart happy.  When this sweet little guy had his beginning of school blessing from his Dad, we were both so overcome.  We both felt the Spirit reminding us how very special and beautiful this little spirit is.  How we love our big boy!

More little brother - he's gotten really into coloring lately.  He loves to tell me he drew his ABC's just like big brother!  It's still just scribbles, but I love that he has learned his alphabet from his big brother.

He likes to climb.  We have a picture of little sister doing this same thing in the other closet...

The kids are getting to see more of their cousin Kylie, and they love it!  Big brother asks me on Mondays if it's time to go get  her for dinner again.  That probably has everything to do with the fact that she lets him brush her hair, his favorite thing in the world.

Hey look, our trip to the zoo!  That's a monkey in the background. 

We went to Gardner Village to see the witches before the girls went back on track.  Little sister was very nervous.  She has never really liked the witches.  This year, after seeing 2 or 3 I think we convinced her that they were just silly and she had fun.  The highlight, of course, was our trip into the candy store.  Yum!

We went camping with Grandpa out at the dunes.  The kids had a blast!

Mommy and Big sister, Grandpa and big brother.

Playing Uno with Grandpa

Love these boys!  Here's funny story time - We all slept in the trailer together.  Grandpa snores.  In fact, family legend goes that while sleeping in a cabin in Idaho, my sister Sunny woke up our sister Shaye because she thought she heard a bear in the cabin.  Shaye told her to shut up because it was just Dad and he'd kill them worse than a bear if they woke him up. So as we were all falling asleep, Grandpa started snoring.  The girls also kept climbing down and crawling over Grandpa to get to the bathroom.  So Grandpa would wake up and stop snoring.  On and off all night, YAY!  Anyway, around 6am, little brother woke up.  I put him in my sleeping bag hoping to get him back to sleep.  When Grandpa resumed his snoring, little brother sat right up, gasped and said "Mom!  It's polar bear!"  I laughed and tried to shush him.  He then proceeded to copy the growling noise and exclaim again, "Grrrr.  See, it's polar bear!!!"  Husband and I were both laughing.  We could not stop.  This boy was absolutely convinced that the polar bear from the zoo was in our trailer!  And since his parents were laughing at him, he kept growling and saying it was a polar bear.  Grandpa got a kick out of this when he woke up and we told him.  Funny boy.

Husband's Dad grows giant pumpkins every year.  This year he got 6 that were all pretty close to this size.  The kids loved this one, so it now sits in our front garden. 

I love that this little boy is still tiny enough that he can pretty much sit straight up under my bed.  He loves to hide here.

In other children news, Big sister was excited to get back to school so she could do math.  Yup.  She LOVES doing math.  She's the one that groans when the teacher says they're done with math and it's time to move on.  She is good in every subject, but math is her favorite.  Cutie.

And a few little-sisterisms need to be written down for posterity:

LS - Mom, let's curl my hair.
Me - Okay, we can do that.
LS - And then you'll have to lock me in my tower 'cuz I'll be so beautiful.
Me - Oy.

Me: That's so nice of big brother to give you a hug. He loves you!
LS: (in a DUH, mom tone of voice) Well, of course he does!
Me: You should love him back.
LS: (slightly more irritated now) We should love everyone. That's what it said on the news.

As we were getting the girls ready for picture day 

Me: Is that what you want to wear?
LS: Yes.
Me: That is a good choice, you will look very cute.
LS: Yes, the cameraman will fall in love with me because I am so beautiful.
Me: (Palm to forehead) We are in trouble with you, aren't we.
LS: Yep.