Bookworm

Neely's more into books at this age than her older brother and sister were. By FAR. She spends most of her time reading lately. Or carrying books across the house to get Jess or me to read to her. Her favorite is the farm book she got from Grammy and Grampy for her birthday.
It's even taught her to make several animal sounds: "Meow", "Ba"(for a sheep), and I think she tried to "woof" like a puppy once or twice too. We tried to tell her the cow says moo, but she said "Cow" instead of mooing like one. I hope she'll keep loving books.

We went out to Karl and Barby's on Saturday and had a nice visit.
Except when Paige nearly choked to death on a chip, and Cason started sobbing and wailing during all the commotion. He thought he was losing his sister I think. Speaking of which, thanks to Grammy for helping to save her life. And Dan for comforting Cason while we saved her life.

Caso's quite the sweet hearted boy.
Paige wanted more chips a while later and Cason got a little upset, begging me not to let her eat any, or to make her "only eat one".

Later we took a little trip up the road to Dan and Veronica's. Cason rode in my bike trailer, all cozy.
Neely got her first ride in the hiking backpack.
Other than that we spent our weekend cleaning, eating delicious leftovers, and decorating for Christmas.
We got a real tree for the first time, and Paige picked out a perfect one for us.
Paige set up the little nativity scene and we loved how she made the animals crowd around for a closeup look at baby Jesus.

Ninjas

Our niece Lily broke her arm the other day and is about to have surgery, so say a prayer for her please.

On a happier note, happy birthday to Wam! We love and miss you buddy!

Also happy, we have a sweet, book loving baby over here.
Oh, and some ninjas in pullup masks.

Trophies, Tournaments, and Twilight

Our weekend was nice. We started it off with a softball tournament all day Saturday for me, and also Paige's last soccer game. We played about 10 hours of softball, which I loved, with a break conveniently at the same time as Paige's game. After the game they gave the kids their trophies, and then they had pizza. I watched her receive her highly anticipated trophy with a look of obvious disappointment.
She was expecting a big golden cup I think, or at least a shiny pedestal with a golden soccer player on top, but instead got a ceramic soccer cleat and ball trophy. She was fine with it when we assured her it was in fact a trophy. Ha. She just expected something different, and didn't believe it was a real one.

I went right back to my softball tournament, and it was SO windy and cold, but I had fun. I love tournaments! Then I got home to a clean house and a warm dinner, thanks to my awesome husband. Neely was more than ready for me to nurse her to sleep. Speaking of which, if you normally nurse a baby every 3 or 4 hours, don't suddenly play softball all day without stopping to nurse at least once. TMI? Sorry.

Sunday morning we got family pictures taken, by the photographers from Chris and Sarah's wedding. They were SO nice, and we had fun, although it was pretty windy. Hopefully we'll even get a picture or two with all of us looking at the camera at the same time, but I wouldn't bet on it. Ha.

Paige and Cason are so used to me taking pictures all day every day that they're instantly bored when a camera comes out. They were all being really good, but Paige and Cason seemed to love staring at the ground while smiling. Neely was hilarious, she kept doing the funniest fake smile for the first five minutes, like a pro, looking right at the camera. But then, right around the time the older two started to look up, Neely got bored and started looking around. Ha. I'm sure we got some cute ones in there somewhere though. They all looked cute, that's for sure, and Neely got a new cardigan for the occasion.
Then we went to play our last kickball game of the season, and of course won, which made us the champs. :)

AND I finished off Sunday evening by going to see Breaking Dawn with Veronica, Tyra, Connie and her sister Jeni. And I'm only a little bit embarrassed to admit that. (But I was more than a little embarrassed while watching it, even though I liked it)

Today we spent at Starbucks, getting peppermint hot cocoas, which I'm addicted to now, and then going home and taking another crazy long walk around the neighborhood, where the trees are finally changing color.

Are You Doing Great?

I couldn't remember my sister's address recently, and Paige told me what it was! Haha, her memory is awesome, she's only heard their address once, MANY weeks ago when she wrote them a letter and asked me what address to write on the envelope.

Also awesome? She was getting tired of standing still while my mom cut her hair the other day, so she recited the alphabet backwards to entertain herself. She only messed up once, by saying M before N, and immediately realized it and corrected herself. She's brilliant, even if I do say so myself. Ha.

Last night they stayed over with Grannybob. Cason called us around 11 and wanted to come home, so Jess went and got him. Paige made it all night, and when I called to check on her this morning she asked to talk to Cason. He was eating breakfast and I gave him the phone. He goes "Hi Paige. Are you doing great?" It was SO cute. About three seconds later he said "Bye, wuv you."

I wuv THEM.

Walking With My Bebes

Today may have been my favorite weekday staying home with the kids, to date. People ask me sometimes if I like being a stay-at-home mom, and I LOVE it, but I sometimes feel bad because I'm not that good at it. I'm just not very good at motivating myself. I'm also a person of extremes, not very balanced. So some days I actually do a decent job getting the house clean and making meals and all of that, but then I'm sad at the end of the day because I didn't play with the kids like I want to. Other days I spend every minute playing with them, or reading to them, or doing crafts, and the house is destroyed at the end of the day. But I'm always much happier on those days, because I know I was a better mom, even if I am stressed by our pig pen of a house. Today was one of those, but for some reason we had so much fun I'm not even bothered by the huge mess.

We had breakfast and got ready for the day. Then we almost immediately started our craft of the day, toilet-paper roll pilgrims and indians. They loved it. We also made a little Mayflower for them to sail to America in, and some paper food for their Thanksgiving meal, so Paige could do a little show for Jess as soon as he came home from work. So cute.
We played outside, and after lunch we decided to go for a bike ride/walk.

We got a few things we needed to drop off at Veronica's and Paige's friend Maysen's house. Paige was super proud that she could carry them in her bike basket.
Cason got ready.
Neely grabbed the necessities, a couple of toothbrushes.
And we left.
We dropped them off,
and then just kept riding/walking.
They wanted to go up and down all the streets a couple of times, so we did.
It was so nice, and I was so happy. Cason collected leaves as he walked, and said a couple of times "Mama, it's a wonderful day!" He's like his daddy, always aware of simple things like nice weather or a pretty sunset. Such a good boy.
We had the cutest and funniest talks. One was all about how some day they would probably get married and have kids. Cason was especially excited that he will be a daddy. He told me all about how he'll get "so mad and mad and mad when they won't eat their dinner", and then he'd not "let them eat cereal for a snack".

We took a couple of breaks when they were tired, because it turned into about a 45 minute ride/walk.
We did have one unhappy moment, when Cason tried to catch up to Paige, who'd gone ahead of us. He couldn't catch up so he yelled for her, and she didn't immediately stop. So he had a breakdown, sobbing facedown on the sidewalk.
It didn't last long. By the time I caught up to him he'd noticed something interesting in his puddle of tears. Ha.
Neely has still been saying "Hi" a lot, and she leaned forward in her seat and yelled "HI!" to two older men who were talking in a front yard. They laughed and told her "Hi!" Pretty soon she fell asleep in her stroller and we headed home. When she woke up we played in the backyard, and she wanted to ride on the scooter.
Then they had a bath, and were in their pajamas by 5:15 pm. Haha!

Turkeys, Doctor Thumb, Hair Cuts, and New Words

Sometimes it's so hard to come up with a simple title. Especially with my crazy topic hopping posts.

We started the Thanksgiving crafts today. Cason actually participated the whole way through! We made little thumb-print turkeys like we saw on Pinterest.
Speaking of thumbs, we also drew faces on our thumbs last night, and played. Cason loved it. This was the doctor. His face made Paige laugh hysterically.
When it was time for bed we went to wash all the marker off our fingers and when I washed Cason's he wailed: "NOOO, not my talking friend that has an eye patch!" Ha. apparently one of his fingers was a pirate.

Today Paige got a haircut. She's been telling me for a while that she wants shorter hair. I had no problem with that, but wanted to be sure she really wanted it first. Since she's stuck to her guns so long I let her get it cut today, by Grannybob.
The little lady was impressing us with her soccer dribbling skills during Paige's practice today.
She also said two new words this afternoon. The first was tickle. I was tickling her, and I always say "tickle tickle" while I do it. Today she said it back to me, clearly. She did it again tonight for Jess to hear.

The second was when we got home from Paige's soccer practice, and I opened the door to get her out of her seat. As soon as the door opened she smiled and waved, and said in her cute girly voice: "HIIII!" Paige was so excited, and told Jess how "Neely said 'hi' and it was SO cute!" A couple hours later Jess ran to the store and I gave the kids their bath. We were in the living room getting them lotioned up and their pajamas on, when he got home and walked in the front door. Neely said "Hi!" and walked over to him.

I realized I forgot to include her 12 month weight and length when I did her birthday post. I like to include that stuff, in case our house ever burns down or something and we lose the baby books. Then I'll have it all recorded somewhere else. So...she is now 24 lbs and 31 inches long.

BFFs

Last night Jess and I were going to watch Captain America, and we let the kids watch a movie in our bed. They'd slept in a lot that morning, so the plan was that when our movie was over we'd cuddle up and watch one together, and just let them sleep with us. But when ours ended we found them like this:
Paige had set up a cozy spot in a laundry basket, and fell asleep in there.

Cason's suddenly starting to sit down and draw with us, at least for a few minutes at a time. The other day he drew a "swirly potty" for each member of the family. Ha.
Neely has a couple of new interests. She suddenly likes some of her toys that she's been ignoring before now.
She also wants to draw all of a sudden.
Paige had a first too. I taught her to sew the other night. She sewed two squares of felt together, and was really proud.

She's also still being artistic lately. She wrote a story about a King and Queen, and did this cute drawing to go with it.
She also had a soccer game today, and scored a goal or two again. There's already only one more game in the season.

Paige has been riding her bike a lot, and getting better and better. Today we went on a family ride/walk.
Cason rode his bike, but it's really quite a bit too small for him, so he gets tired of it pretty quickly.
We came home and made our first ever batch of homemade cinnamon rolls.
They were delicioso.
Cason was hilarious all day today. Just being so funny, with his faces and everything he said and did. Tonight we went to Hastings, to rent a couple movies and find something for a certain little boy who will turn a year old soon, and Cason heard some song come on and was dancing his way through the store, in front of us. He didn't even think we were watching, he just felt happy and liked the song apparently. I turned around to make sure Jess had noticed and he said he thinks today was Cason's funniest and cutest day ever. Paige loves him lately too. The other day he came over to me and told me "Mama, Paige wrote for me that I'm her best friend forever." This was the note:

Reading with Caso

Tonight Paige fell asleep first while I read to them. I moved closer to Cason so he could see the book better, and he decided HE was going to read. He was reading a book about the 5 Silly Monkeys jumping on the bed, and I asked him if he wanted me to sing to him. He goes "No thanks, wif(that's how he says 'if') you sing to me I will fall asleep and not read." Ha, he's on to me.

Then he kept reading, and on one page he noticed one monkey eating what looked like a hot dog. He goes "But that herndog(he seems to have mixed hotdog and corn dog into one word-'herndog') doesn't have any bread. That's too bad." His sad tone was so cute.

THEN as he turned a page he said "Ha, you can't see their faces anymore. That's funny, right?" I love that, he checks with us all, lately. Especially Paige. He'll check on whether something's funny, or he'll say something like "We're not hungry for lunch! Right Paige?!" Ha. Such a cute boy.

A Couple of Recent Quotes

Paige today: "'Ominous' means you're scared cuz you're walking all alone." Then she smiled proudly at me, and added: "You know how I knew that? PBS Kids doc org."

Cason, at Neely's party, when we pulled out an especially pretty package for her to open: "Oh, that one is absowutewy cute!"

Rapunzel

Paige drew this picture of Rapunzel with her pet chameleon yesterday. Awesome.