Wopping the Doy

Our kids always want to be the one to unlock the door any time we get home.  The rule is that they have to be the first to ask, but they can't ask until we've pulled on to our street.  Cason almost always wins.  Lately we have a new competitor though.  Paige and Cason started yelling a few weeks ago right as we turned onto our street, "Mama, can I unlock the door?"  A second later we heard Neely's little voice say "Mama?  Wop a doy?(Lock a door)"  Now she asks it every time she hears them do it.  She'd already talked about "Wopping the doy" when we're playing out front.  She likes me to give her the keys and she stands on her tiptoes and tries to stick them in the lock. 

Yesterday while I was getting Neely ready for her nap, the older two were supposed to be cleaning up their legos.  Instead, they thought they'd be hilarious and get every toy they could carry from the playroom and put them in a pile on top of the legos.  Ha.  So I made them clean it all up.  I wouldn't help them and they kept begging.  They kept whispering, and all of a sudden they both needed to use the restroom at the same time.  I wanted to see what they had planned, so I let them go.  Paige went to our bathroom, and Cason went to the front one.  They both came out a minute later with wet hair and faces, pretending they were pouring sweat from all their hard work I wouldn't even help them with.  Haha. 

I laughed, took a picture of Cason's glistening face, and made them finish the job, even dripping in sweat.

Newest Creature

I'm pretty happy with how he turned out, especially since my first attempt at making a pattern usually has a major screwup, and this one only has a few small things I'll change.  Cason has claimed him.  Too bad he took so long to sew that for him to be worth my time, I'd have to make him so expensive nobody will buy him.  Ha.

Dreams Come True for Cason

Cason pretty much had a dream night last night.  He went on a date to Panda with his daddy.  While they ate, the girls and I went into Walmart to get a few things we needed.  One of which was a booster seat for Cason.  He's big enough now, and I saw one with flames on it that I knew he'd think was awesome.  So when we picked them up at Panda we put it in and he got to ride in the "trunk" with Paige.  SO HAPPY.

A Couple More Neely Videos

Speaking of Neely yelling "I LOVE YOU!" and making kissy noises out the window, here's a little video of how it sounds:

and here's one of her cute voice counting to "Sick":

Birthdays and Brave

Cason wanted to show Grannybob "our cute house" while she was here.  So we went downtown to show her last Thursday.  When we got close I noticed a car parked by it, and then realized the for sale sign was gone and they were moving their belongings in.  To MY house.  Haha.  I guess I can let go now.  I was really quite sad at first though.

Highlights from the last few days:  Skyping with Cassie, who as usual tried to skype-kiss the kids, who run away screaming.  Cason grabbed some painters tape and taped her mouth shut to stop her from kissing him.  Haha.

 

Saturday was full of birthday parties, for all the nieces on my side of the family.  Alex and Faith had a shared party in the mountains for lunch.

Then later for Bayleigh, who turned 6.  She's the one with pigtails, getting her new bike.

The Casons had as much fun together as usual.

There was an arcade.

 

 Paige impressed us with her shooting.

 

BUT....my favorite part of the weekend was the long awaited viewing of Brave!  It came out on Friday, and Paige and I were there for the first showing, plenty early to get good seats.  First of all, as we walked to the car Cason yelled out the window that he loved us "more than chocolate ice cream!"  Then Neely got in the window too and yelled "IWUVOO!"  First time she's said it to me.  :)

Paige wanted to bring her Merida doll and even the horse.  She was really proud when kids would see them and say how cool they were.  Ha.

It was a really good movie for a mom and daughter date, too.  

I don't know if I'm crazy or if Pixar movies get better every time, but this is my new favorite.  We both loved it so much.  So much so, that we went back as a family for the late showing that same night.  We even decided to try it with Neely, figuring if it didn't work out I could take her out since I already saw it.  But she LOVED it, and watched the entire thing without seeming bored once.  She didn't even really get scared of any of the bear scenes, and they're pretty scary a couple of times.  Cason and I were more scared than Neely was.  Haha.  Anyway, I highly recommend it, of course.  Can't wait for it to come out on dvd.

Naming Her Supee Heroes

My little honey loves her "Supeez".  She identifies a ton of them now.  During that phase a month or two ago when she carried that Hero coloring book around with her all day, she would bring it to me to read.  She would tell me a lot of their names, so I decided to grab the camera and record it one time.  So now I'm finally sharing it, weeks later.  Ha. 

If she doesn't know a hero's name, she just makes something up, like "Bant".  Haha.  I love the part when she can't think of one's name and keeps calling him "Hulk", until she finally remembers "Colossus".  She says it like "Colossus!  Coloooossus." like "of course!"
                                       

Don't mind me being a dork in the next one.  I didn't know until I watched this later that she was actually saying "Colossus" when I think she's saying "glasses."  She was looking at the page on the left, while I was looking at the one on the right.  Plus she's just smarter than me, no big deal.  Haha, I like when she says Doctor Doom:  "Docdoom".  She spots the numbers on the last page at the end, and starts talking about letters instead of heroes.  "I, T, O!"  I love her little voice.

Medalist

Paige had closing ceremonies for t-ball on Friday.  I hadn't thought about that, so Paige no longer has her uniform.  She had to go in regular clothes, which I thought she'd be pretty mad about.  She didn't mind at all though.  I also told her she'd probably get a trophy, and they got medals instead.  She wasn't even mad at me about that.  She liked her medal.  Aivree wanted to pose with the big girls too. 

 My mom's in town, visiting us for about a week and a half, so we're just spending time with family.

I've also done a little more sewing.  I made another snail, and a hammerhead shark.

Monster Baby

I've been a big time hermit lately.  More so than usual.  But I'm not gonna lie, that's how I like it best.

One of Neely's new favorite games is to sit up on the window sill and play peekaboo.

I went to the trouble(and it WAS surprisingly hard) to find almond butter that hadn't been made on equipment shared with peanut products, so that I could finally introduce Paige to the joy of a peanut(well, almond) butter and jelly sandwich, and she refused to try it for months.  I kept buying it anyway, because it's one of my favorite things to eat, and at least I could have it without worrying about getting peanut on the counters or my hands or wherever Paige might come into contact with it.  But yesterday she finally tried a bite, once I promised she could spit it out if it was gross.  Surprise, surprise, she liked it.

She also wanted to sew a baby monster, and we finally got around to it yesterday.  She did really well.  I sewed the button on for her, and cut out the shapes, but she did pretty much all the sewing, other than the last little section after we stuffed him.  

 

We even made him a diaper she can change.  :)

She had piano this morning, so we walked her there.

Then we came home and the other two played out front until it was time to go pick her up.  Neely got out of her stroller and sat right down on the wall, looking at her orange crayon, which she calls her "Coyor". She kept peeking at me out of the corner of her eye, trying to look melancholy.  

She didn't fool me, but Cason felt bad for her.  He brought her the Super Why toy, to make her feel better. 

 

She took him and said "Thank you!  Happy day, Supee Why!"

I finished my snailee friend.  He turned out pretty much like I wanted him to, although I'll probably make a couple of small changes.

A Day in the Life of a Dinosaur

I usually sew when there's a certain thing I want, but either can't find it or can't afford it.  It's not so much the ACT of sewing I like, but the feeling of HAVING MADE it myself.  In other words, it's the result, not the process I like.  At least when it comes to things I sew using the machine.  I do actually like to sew by hand.  Too bad I don't know how.  Not really.   So I've decided to try and learn, finally.  Ha.  Like I said, most things I sew because it's something I want or need, OR could sell, like nursing covers.  The one thing I really love to MAKE (not just after I'm finished, but I actually like the process) is little stuffed creatures.  If I was to open an Etsy shop, that's what I would like to sell.  So I'm going to try and do it, finally.  I started trying to make a pattern for a snail yesterday.  I made those little ones for the kids a couple of years ago, but wanted to make these in more natural colors and more three dimensional so they'd stand up on their own.  So I started making a new pattern, and got to work.  Neely sat in front of me, with her post-nap hair and her Buzz Lightyear wings, watching a movie while I was sewing.

 

 I tried to use the sewing machine once, for the shell.  Something was wrong with my machine, it will only sew backyards.  So this is as far as I got.  But I like how his body is turning out.

The other two kids played so well all day.  They told me once that they were making the dollhouse into a house for a dinosaur.  When Jess came home he told me to come see what they'd been doing.  The dollhouse is in the playroom, but they had set up a workspace in the living room for the little skeleton to go to work during the day.  It's so cute.

Then he'd head home for a bath...

...and dinner.

The Casons, Sleepy Times, and SHOOO-EEEE!

The other day we went up to the Hualapais, with my dad and Trudi and Coco, Tyra, Matt, his new wife Tiffany, and their kids Bailey and Cason.  That's right, Cason has a new cousin named Cason.  It helps that they call him Case and we call our boy Caso.

The girl, Bailey, is about to turn 6 and she and Paige get along SO well.  And "the Casons" as Paige calls them, are perfectly compatible too.  Cason has only ever met like ONE boy who was within a year of his age, and this Cason is definitely the first who liked to play the way OUR Cason does.  They both love robots and superheroes.  They ran around the playground in the mountains, saying they were "Spidermans".  They're instant best friends.  They all have so much fun together and don't fight at all, at least so far.  It's pretty awesome.  I failed to get pictures while we were in the mountains though.  :(  On the drive home Tyra gave Neely some of her bracelets to wear and I had her take a few pictures of Neely feeling pretty.  These are the only pictures I got of the day.

 Jess came home sick yesterday, and slept for several hours.  While he was sleeping, I went out back with Neely.  It was so quiet and peaceful, I just sat on the porch swing watching her slowly stir her "soup" with an unsharpened pencil.

 

She was so content, quietly "cooking", for quite a while.  Then she switched gears, taking a pillow from the porch swing, and a blanket, and going to have "Sleepy Times" as she tells me in the video.  I also like the part when she tells me "No, Yeah, YEP!"   That's a frequent answer lately, to most of my questions.

 

ONE more video, from first thing this morning.  After breakfast we went out front for a while.  Cason saw a bird, and started yelling "SHOO!"  (We told them to shoo away birds, when we first planted the grass out there, and they still think they need to scare away any birds that land in our yard.  Ha.)  Neely ran out and started yelling "SHOOOO-EEE!", trying to make her voice all deep and scary.  She's so funny.

Not To Be

I've pretty much accepted that our house isn't meant to be ours.(YET)

Chuck came over to look at our current house and talk about things we could do that would help when we're ready to sell it.  The kids were so excited Scary Chuckie was coming over.  Ha.  They kept sneaking up and attacking him while he was talking to us.  Eventually Cason snuck out dressed as a ninja, and soon after, Paige did too.

 Chuck kept checking whether Gia was suddenly going to attack him for beating up the kids.  She didn't look overly concerned though.

 

Chuck took us to see "our cute house" as Cason calls it.  

 

We've done a lot of creepy peeking through the windows, so it was awesome to actually go inside.  

 

Chuck made fun of me for taking this picture:

We went down in the basement, where I got the heebie jeebies, which made it slightly easier to accept that I can't have the house yet.  The kids loved it though.  They went down a second time, and Scary Chuckie was doing a scary ghoulish moan through the floor to scare them.  I took his picture of course.