One More Before the Trip

Before I begin the long recap of our trip, I decided to give Mae's update so it doesn't get lost.  Miss Mae is now 4!  What a difference a year makes.  The speech therapy has made a huge difference over this past year.  We can understand Mae and she is now just working on some pronunciation problems.  Mae started preschool this year once a week and loves going, it helps that her two best friends also attend.  She gets two days a week of therapy so we are pretty busy during the week.  I have signed her up for a pre-tumbling class at the fitness center that starts next week.  I want to have her in dance classes of some sort, but between the money and scheduling nothing seems to work right now.  She would look so cute in a leotard.  She is a nasty picky eater and lives on a diet of go-gurts, eggo waffles, and peanut butter sandwiches.  Mae loves to draw which I'm thrilled about.  Kids art is my favorite so I encourage her stick people in all mediums as much as possible.  As an American girl she loves the Disney Princesses.  Rapunzel and Tiana are usually her favorites.  I really don't have a problem with this princess obsession.  The only thing that bothers me is when clothes or shows refer to girls as princesses as a sassy personality.  I say she can pretend to be a specific princess just not act like a spoiled princess herself.  (A slight aside- I have recently acquired a big dislike of Belle.  Have you listened to the opening lyrics of that movie?  Little town full of little people.  Man what a condescending cow!) Anyway, Mae is such a loving girl.  Hugs and kisses for everyone.  (except Spike.)  She also knows how to work a situation to her advantage by turning up the charm.  Her pretty please is just ridiculously adorable and hard to resist.  Messier then Max, and less obedient, I am a bit worried about how to keep her from becoming a slob.  We have a new job chart that has worked wonders for the last two days, but I worry it won't last long.  I am so glad I have this adorable cutie-pie bubbles.

The Other Entry

 

In August Max turned seven.  I almost can't wrap my head around this.  Last year was all about getting used to him being in school and this year I am in awe that is no longer a little kid.  I think part of the reason this is so odd to me is because he is still such a good kid.  Max is sweet, kind, and super well behaved.  He cleans his room, does his chores, and helps out with this siblings all with minimal asking.  About a month before we went to Disneyworld Max decided he was into Pirates.  I was thrilled by this turn of events.  Score, they just happen to have pirates at Disneyworld!  This made the trip, (post coming soon,)  all the more enjoyable.  A few days ago Jeff pointed out how everyone likes Max, but that Max isn't the kind of kid to have super best friends.  Max will play well with anyone and is pretty easy going about his company.  I quickly pointed out to Jeff how while that was true, it basically described himself.  I'm not sure if that is a learned behavior or genetics.  I love that Max can read.  Its so much fun to have a reader.  He still plays a lot of video games, but he still bounces in place while playing them.  Yesterday afternoon I had to stop him because he was sweating heavily and out of breath.  Max is such and amazing kid that we are lucky to have in our family.

Two for Tuesday

And for a two year old.  Spikey turned two at the end of June.  We took the kids to a large water park in Branson for the big day.  We're not sure if it was the two hour drive, the heat, or the chaos of the park, but Spikey was done after twenty minuets and threw a nice big two year old tantrum.  Jeff was lovely enough to take him and wait in the car for another hour so I could take the other two kids to the wave pool and on a big family slide.  We had just driven two hours and the other kids didn't want to go home.
   For a few months I was a bit worried that he would have the same speech problems as Mae, but I can say now that isn't the case.  He has a much larger vocabulary then Mae had at his age.  He has this funny way of talking where he physically spits out his words like he's almost choking on them.  It makes everything he says sound urgent and aggressive. He has a scary addiction to Diet Coke and is always bogarting my drinks.  We had to move his car seat to the back of the van because when he would see us reaching for our drinks he would whine and fuss til he got some.  He also likes salad which is really weird for a toddler.  He is the spitting image of my dad, which is odd since I never thought I looked much like him myself.  Spike loves all things buses.  He loves watching Max get on the school bus every morning and waves adorably to the bus driver.  He gets excited when he sees different busses around town.  Spike has a dog from build a bear that is his soul mate.  He loves that dog and rubs the tail between two fingers to calm himself.  It is a cute nervous tick.  Sadly his favorite show is the insufferable Super Why!  I hate that show.  Spike has begun to potty train himself.  I really need to bare down and get this thing done, cause he keeps taking off his diaper.  I hope that it will go faster then it did with Max.   He loves Max and they are adorable when they play together.  There isn't much affection between Spike and Mae, but he is always there to get her a bunny when she is in need.  I love my squishy Spike.

The Greatest Primary Talk Ever Given

      I love Mae.  Yesterday was her first talk in Junior Primary.  We were kindly given ample notice, honestly to the point where I was almost expecting a limo to pick her up, (but seriously I do appreciate the effort of our new primary regime.)  I have no idea what the topic was supposed to be cause she's three and rarely says more then two connecting sentences on any topic.  I figured I would go up with her and whisper some platitudes to her; i.e.  I love my family, I love my Father in Heaven, I love Primary.
     Things started off pretty good.  She sat up front swinging her feet and looking adorable in her smocked sundress with fluffy under slip and white patented leather shoes.  When it was her time to talk she hopped up and grabbed the mike.  She was disappointed that I was there to help and told me to sit down.  She then proceeded to talk about how she loved her new necklace.  She said that a couple times and when I tried to get her more on topic she snapped no and pushed me back.  With death grip on the mike, she mentioned her necklace a few more times then branched off on to how she loves her mom.  Yeah!  I thought we were now headed somewhere good.  She followed that up with how she doesn't like her dad right now.  Hmmmmm not sure where that came from.  As far as Jeff and I could think they hadn't had any negative interactions that morning.  I tried to get her to finish up at this point with an amen and she yelled at me again.  At this point things got ugly and I had to pry her away from the podium trying very hard not to break the microphone.  I got her off and hauled her screaming butt out of the room.

 Lessons learned from this talk;  Maybe try some sort of practice next time.  Don't let Mae near a microphone. 

1st Grade

Max started school on the first.  I am so loving year round school.  July was just the right amount of time off.  When Max made it home on the first day he reported that he liked his class and has been happy since then.  I didn't realize how nervous I was for him.  Subconsciously I guess I figured things went so wonderfully last year that it could only go downhill from there.  Kinda sad if you think about it, I would hate to peak at age six.  Regular school starts up this week and so will the regular bus schedule.  Theoretically, Max will get home 10 minuets earlier, but I'm not holding my breath.  Have I ever mentioned how awesome it is that the bus stop is my driveway.  Yeah I love that.  Its not that way for everyone out here, Max just happens to be the only kid on our street on that bus.

 An aside on Max's Mohawk.  Max has my crazy frizzy thick hair.  If left uncut for too long it becomes a nasty white boy afro, but I so dislike the total buzz cut look on kids that we have to settle for a Mohawk.  Its sort of a compromise.

I'm already lazier then last year.  I didn't drop him off on the first day, Jeff did.

 

Interrupted

ha ha ha, just kidding about blogging more.  No seriously, almost the whole family was struck down by a nasty virus last week.  It has been so long since I was sick with something other then a stomach bug or a cold.  We got fever, chills, and just crummy feelings.  Spike, Mae, Jeff and I fell but Max managed to stay immune.  It helped that we have him sleeping downstairs at the moment.  So he'd go to school then we'd send him downstairs away from everyone.  Poor guy got kinda lonely.  We're better now and ready to go. 



Such a sad sickly face.

She was so hot it was a fight to get her to keep clothes on.

journaling

Today's Sunday school lesson was on the importance of journaling, and since this blog is a close as I will ever get to journaling I should probably not abandon it altogether.  So this month I am going to make an actual effort to get back to the blog.  I missed Spike's second birthday for pete's sake.  That's not cool.  So I suppose I'll just start short and not overwhelm myself.  Today I baked with the kids.  Max and Mae love helping me in the kitchen, but I'll admit that I don't like the mess they make and the extra time it takes me to make the food.  But I want to make memories and also allow the kids to learn, so mess time today.