Recently...

McKenna turned four yesterday.  In the spirit of celebration we allowed her to choose the birthday dinner of her choice.  After attempting to influence her decision, we were left to eat chicken nuggets, mac and cheese (from a box), and carrots.  Real carrots.  She's my girl, for sure.  We like "real carrots" much better than the bagged baby carrots. 

Samuel has been a handful lately.  His latest antics include telling the workers at church that he's "not allowed" to go to the bathroom at church.  This may stem from the fact that a couple weeks ago while in the bathroom at church he unscrewed the soap from underneath the counters.  I heard it was a real mess.  

Anna is loving finding new words to read wherever we go.  She was trying to read the hymnal today but got confused by the hyphens.  She struggled with McKenna's birthday yesterday.  It was hard for her to not be the center of attention.  It's the first time we've ever had to deal with that as parents.  

We got about half our our Christmas decorations up tonight.  Samuel calls them invitations.  We put up lots of invitations.  Oh, and his birthday is in the sanctuary.  Read, January.

Date with Anna

Today was a special day for Anna and I.  We went with her preschool class to a matinee of Snow White at a local dinner theater.  They did a great job of catering to the preschool crowd--juice boxes and rice krispie treats during the show.  It was such a joy to watch Anna's expressions as Snow White sang, the dwarfs paraded right by her table, and then Snow White asked her if she was going the right way ("Am I headed east?").  She was just happy to be there.  And I was just as happy.  We got chinese for lunch.  Anna, of course, out cultured me and used chop sticks.  I also had to run down to school to drop some things off since I missed class this morning.  It was great to run into some people I knew and introduce them to my shy one.   Shy until they pulled out the extra Halloween candy, that is...

Anna's take on it all

Anna asked this morning what a democrat was.  We had a very general discussion about different views of government, that republicans and democrats can be friends and no one is a bad person just because they are democrat or republican.  No policy discussion, no personal opinions.  She asked if I was a democrat.  Just a brief, "No".  She sits a moment and says, "So, democrats want to play and republicans want to work, huh?" 

Measure of a day

"Sam, did you have a good time at Puggles?"

"Yeah.  I didn't even bite anybody!"

Watch out, Mia...

Anna has played soccer for a grand total of 9 weeks and has made marked improvements over the course of the season.  We started the season as parents watching our daughter sit in the corner of the field, unsure this whole "soccer thing".  Since week two it's been more Anna-esque.  She flits and flutters around the field.  She gets the concepts of the game, but she's not aggressive.  Until the last ten seconds of the last quarter of the last game of the season.  At that point, she gets control of the ball, takes it down the field without letting anyone take the ball from her, and scores a goal.  I guess she wanted to make a dramatic statement at the end of the game!

Samuel was a show-stopper, too.  Literally.  During one of the breaks in Anna's game Saumel took off dribbling the ball.  All the way down Anna's field, through the dead space, and into the next field where the U17 coeds were playing.  They had to stop the game because a two year old was dribbling his ball through their field.  I think they laughed.  I couldn't tell because I was laughing too hard as Chris brought him back.  Ahhh, memories!

McKenna is just McKenna.  I love that.  She named her new jaguar stuffed animal "Woofie" after the cat on Princess and the Pauper.  (Anna's is "Seraphina".)  The names they chose suit them well.  

Life is good.

From a different perspective

The way I see life is the way I see it.  Having children makes me see some things from a different view...and I like it.  My current favorite ways to see things differently are through Anna's reading. As a child, I loved to be read to.  I remember story time at the library--the old one in town.  I remember mom reading chapter books to us just as soon as I could sit still (and even when I couldn't).  It's even better, though, to be read to by Anna.  She finished Go, Dog, Go tonight after plowing through for the last two nights.  She was so proud of herself.  She was such a good thinker!  I love to see things differently in regard to being tucked into bed.  I remember loving bedtime as a kid.  Dad carried us up the stairs and tucked us in.  We heard stories about Ragde Namannik and about crazy young boys who carried lit candles through hay tunnels in the barn.  Now I see--I'm the lucky one as a parent.  Samuel still loves to be rocked.  He loves his bed and his bedtime.  He has no idea the joy that his bedtime is for me.  Puzzles and games are another thing that I thought I saw correctly for the last 30 years.  I didn't.  I didn't know the joy of doing them with my daughter.  McKenna is a puzzle girl.  Sometimes because I can't figure her out.  Usually it's because she just loves to put puzzles together.  

I wonder what I'll learn next...

Word of the Day

hannitize /han-eh-tize/ v 1: clean extremities using alcohol based cleanser, contraction of hand and sanitizer 2: the process by which Sean Hannity will potentially "fix" his offspring if child says, "dad, I'm a liberal"

Who knew that this word that my kids made up would be heard on national television?