Quotes and Pigtails

I've been talking to Cason about how he feels. He gets frustrated or mad and just doesn't know what to do. So I've been trying to teach him to tell me what's wrong, like if he's angry or sad or frustrated. Today he told me Paige wouldn't give him a turn at Donkey Kong, and then he balled up his fists at his sides and told me "I...am...REFRIGERATED!!" Haha, I love him. I said "Frustrated?" and he goes "YEAH".

Neely has a few new things she likes to say. She's been greeting Gia first thing in the morning. I carried her to the living room and she saw Gia sleeping on the couch, and said "HI GIA!" But to the untrained ear it would sound like "EYE CHIA!"

She's big on giving hugs lately too. She'll run to me or lean her head against my shoulder and say "UG! UG?!"

This next one was SO cute. The other night, like every Sunday night, the kids got to pick a movie and watch it in our bed. We were all hanging out before putting the movie on, and Caso was getting a little hyper. He did this wild move that ended with him pretending to fall off the bed. It was totally faked, but Neely thought he really fell. She rushed toward him and asked "You 'kay? YOU 'KAY?!!!"

I got this little video of her saying "ug" in the bath the other day, and she even threw in a "too cool", which she LOVES to say but I'd never got it on video before this.

I know people love to do their little girls' hair as soon as it's long enough, but I've personally never been a huge fan of those teeny little pigtails. They of course look cute, because babies always look cute, but for one thing they make them look older. And I want them to look like babies as long as possible. But last night we put Neely's hair in pigtails for the first time, just to see if we could. Her hair still hasn't filled in on the sides completely, it'll probably take about 3 years like Paige's did, so they almost looked like fake pigtails we just attached to her head. Ha. She looked so confused when she looked in the mirror.
But don't expect to see this happening in person for a while. I'm keeping her a baby quite a while longer.

Totoro Livin'

Our MAIN New Years resolution Jess and I made together is to live a Totoro life. That won't make sense to you if you haven't seen the movie, and actually it might not make sense to you even if you have. Jess and I are both weird people, and usually get something different out of things than other people do. That's my favorite thing about him, I can literally only think of about 3 people that I feel like know me very well at all, and only ONE who REALLY understands me-and it's Jess. It's the same way for him. Sometimes it's cool in really serious ways, other times it's cool when it comes to little things-like movies. There will be some tiny little thing that makes me laugh or smile, and I know it's something most people wouldn't think twice about, but I always know Jess will have noticed the same thing I did.

Anyway, back to our Totoro life-basically the movie is just really sweet and calm and peaceful, nothing too exciting in it. So our goal is to try and live a simpler life, and let the simple everyday things make us happy. I think we do a pretty decent job of that at times, but I want to try and focus less on material things, spend less money, and just be more content with my everyday tasks, and focus on how blessed we are. Because MAN are we blessed.

For now we can't buy ourselves a little farm, so we're starting small.

We have our chalk Totoro drawing up to remind us. :)
Jess has been doing a good job of it. He's worked a lot in the front yard, making it look nicer, but also made the kids a cute little play area. He created a little hiding place for them inside the bushes against the front of the house, where they can play and imagine. I would have LOVED it when I was little.

He trimmed away lots of branches, making a clearing inside, and making sure there were no sharp sticks to poke them. He even made a SECOND little hideout in the other bush, with a little passageway to get back and forth between them. SO cool.

They love it in there, and have a box Jess gave them to put little treasures in. He also hung a little jar in there from a piece of yarn for them to put other treasures in.
While he was working on it inside, kind of raking it out smooth, Paige was kneeling next to him and thanked him for making it for them, and told him she loved him. :)

Oh, and one of my little Christmas gifts came in the mail yesterday. I have nothing against those little stickers people put on their cars to represent each member of their family, but I never cared to buy any. UNTIL I found Totoro family stickers on Etsy! Awesome! Nobody will know what the heck it is, but it makes US happy.

So we went to wash the car before putting them on. The kids begged for the rainbow soap.
The bigger two loved it.
Neely was a little scared. But she got through it, and we came home to put up our little Totoro Jess, Totoro Brandi, Totoro Paige, Totoro Cason, and Totoro Neely.
They make me smile every time I go to the back of the car to buckle Paige in. Speaking of which, have I mentioned how Paige tells people she rides in "the trunk"? Haha, that's what she calls our 3rd row. I always wonder what people think.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Cason's slowly becoming more interested in drawing and writing. The other night he drew us this "Spider robot and regular robot":
Don't mind the shadow, just my photography skills at work.

He also did a drawing of Plex, the robot from Yo Gabba Gabba, and it was so cute, he included the little antenna on his head with a ball at the end of it. I'll have to have Jess dig it out of Cason's art box so I can get a picture.

Speaking of Yo Gabba Gabba, look at how cute Neely is while watching it.
This morning the ice cream truck drove by. They've never bought ice cream from the truck before, and Paige thinks it's the coolest ever, so Jess finally made her dream come true. They were so excited, and Cason even got an Iron Man ice cream.
But my favorite thing lately is that for several days now Paige has spent the majority of each day pretending to be Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service. That's one of our VERY favorite movies, JUST below My Neighbor Totoro. And Up of course. Kiki is a witch (but a cute nice one who doesn't do any magic other than fly around on her broom with her talking cat) who moves to a new city to do her year of training to become a full fledged witch. She starts a delivery service to support herself. So Paige has been "flying" all over the house on her broom with her stuffed cat, making deliveries for us. She also has business cards she had me make for her, and a little notebook and pen so we can sign the receipt every time. I must have signed my name 100 times in the last few days.
Here she is experimenting with different ways to attach her basket. :)

Grand Theft Bicycle

So far my little goal to spend time outside every day has been really easy! And we pretty much spend hours out there instead of just 15 minutes.

Yesterday we started in the backyard, where Paige made Gia wear her medal. Ha.
But then they wanted to play on the swingset, and I realized it's become a lot of work now that Neely's wanting to walk all over while the big kids are swinging. She kept wanting to walk right in front of them while they're swinging, so I convinced them to move to the driveway and ride bikes.
Neely got pushed around in her stroller, watching them ride.
Gia prefers the backyard, or at least for us to be IN the front yard with her.The older two pretended to steal each other's bikes and scooters. Cason climbed onto Paige's bike, which is a LOT bigger than his, and I came over to help, but he immediately started riding it around no problem. I bought the bike that was recommended for 6-8 year olds, and it took Paige a little getting used to, but Caso must be a natural, because he was cruising around on it at 3 years old. Ha. With Paige in hot pursuit.
It of course ended in his first REAL crash, with scraped knees and everything. He took it like a man.
Neely watched it all go down.
Mostly with amusement once I'd helped him up and taken his tough guy picture.
Later, Cason found "a piece of rainbow"
and Neely did a pretty cool dance while snacking on a tortilla.

Love Letters and Pranks

Jess stayed home sick yesterday, and I took Neely to the doctor. Thankfully she didn't have strep throat, which I was starting to worry about.

Paige was feeling all better, and spent her day playing all alone inside the puppet tent from Aunt Mollie...
...and writing little love notes on sticky pads she stuck all over the house for the recipients to find.
Neely still wasn't quite herself, but was playing some more. Like with one of her recent favorite toys-the Little People barn. She noticed me taking her picture so I got a profile shot of the "cheese" smile.
She's starting to do funny little things like Paige did at her age, like trying to balance her toys in strange places.
The boy played his first prank yesterday.
I walked into the living room and Cason said "Mama, take a drink of your water." For some reason I didn't notice it was weird for him to want ME to drink up, so I grabbed the glass. RIGHT before I took a swig, he threw his arms up to the side in a kind of "taDA" gesture and goes "There's a rock in it! HAPPY NEW YEAR!" I said "Oh MAN!" and he goes "It was a joke. That was awesome." Haha. Paige heard him and goes "Is it May 1st?" Haha, they're so funny. She knows about April Fools, but apparently forgot which month it's in.

Leaf Girl

This illness is being ridiculous. I thought we were pretty much over it and then suddenly Neely and Cason, who both seemed to have been sick and gotten better, are sick again. They get a fever, it goes away, it comes back. Lame. In the last 2 days there were 3 times that Neely has coughed so hard while trying to nurse, she ended up puking all over both of us.

But Paige seems to REALLY be better now. And Cason and Neely still feel well enough to be up and playing. One of my New Years resolutions is to spend at LEAST 15 minutes outside every day this year. We're always happiest outside, but sometimes too lazy to get out there to begin with. If I tell myself to at least get out there, I think we'll probably end up spending a lot more than 15 minutes. So far, we've stuck to it, even though we're sick. The fresh air feels so nice after a week-long quarantine, especially since it was close to 70 degrees today. We emerged from our cave like a bunch of troglodytes, blinking in the brightness of the sun. Ha.
Cason insisted on bringing his robot bedspread.
And we had a mini berry muffin picnic.
Paige saw a little girl and her brother, and she introduced herself. She found out the girl's name was Abbie. So when she walked by again, all the kids (and Gia) had to talk to her. Neely kept standing on her tiptoes and yelling "HI!"
Then they played "Leaf Girl". Paige was the leaf girl who lived inside the bushes, and was helping Cason find his lost ball.

Happy New Year

Well, we've spent pretty much the entire 2nd half of Jess's vacation at home, all of us getting sick one at a time. Spent our days the way Gia always does, only she does it without feeling crappy.
Jess felt fine up until yesterday though, so he's been quite productive. He and Neely seem a little sicker today, but the other kids seem to finally be starting to improve.
My mom moved to North Dakota this morning. I'm just assuming she'll hate it and come home in a couple weeks, that way I don't get too sad. We had a going away dinner last night. Since the kids were sick I went and Jess stayed home with them.
I guess they napped while I was gone, and woke up right before I got home around 10. So all three kids were actually up at midnight.

We had a pretty wild time when the clock struck 12, as usual.