Peter's 3rd birthday

 A little part of me died this morning when I realized my baby is not a baby anymore.  I can't believe Peter is 3.  Three is no longer a baby its a full fledged toddler. Now that he's potty trained (and doing awesome at it!!) and talking like his sister (he has a good vocabulary) and doing all kinds of things by himself  I have to face the facts.  My sweet Peter Pie is growing up. By the way if you ask him what his name is, he will say Peter Pie. He shares a birthday with his adorably cousin Roxy.  Its like they came down from heaven together because they were almost born at the same time.  He also shares a birthday with my wonderful sister Stephanie, she was so kind to share her birthday with these two munchkins.
I remember a time when I was not happy with the impending arrival of this little guy.  I was worried, stressed, tired, stressed, not enjoying my children, stressed.  You get the idea, I was dealing with a certain child that just took so much extra work I was totally burned out by the time we found out there was going to be another one.  I remember saying in my prayers to give me strength and love for this next child. Now I can say I could never live my life without him.  He's so rewarding.  He's my best buddy.  He is such a sweet person.  He lets me cuddle him whenever I want, he's loyal to his siblings, he is just so genuinely good.  Not to mention how smart he is.  He already knows all his letters and the sounds they make.  He can even write some of them.  He's got most of his colors down and now we are working on numbers.  This kid is like his daddy he loves to learn.  His favorite things are anything Toy Story, Tangled, tools, his fingers, his daddy, and of course his woobie.  (I don't have the heart to make him get rid of it yet even though its a year overdue.)
For his birthday this year all he asked for was a Buzz Lightyear rocket ship and a chainsaw.  He has mentioned this REPEATEDLY for over a month. One thing I love about this kid is that he knows what he wants, and he usually never waivers.
When I asked Peter what kind of cake he wanted he said, "the kind you sing happy birthday and then blow it out." I can do that.
So here's to our sweet Peter Pie.  We love you so much.
What I would do with out you I would never know.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY

medievil projects

Why is it that our kids projects become our projects?  I think partly because we don't want them to fail because if they do poorly then it reflects on us. Partly because we feel nostalgic, or because they are doing it wrong and its driving us crazy to see them struggle, and in my case because they nag and whine and cry and get SO frustrated they start breaking things and hurting people.
Now you all know I love a good project, I practically live off of them, however I only like projects that are MY idea.  So in spirit of warding off all things unholy I jumped in to help. 1st thing was the castle.  Ellie had some grand design but it was a little overwhelming so I suggested we scale it down. The painting took f-o-r-e-v-e-r because I painted each little stone.  I had Ellie paint with me but it wasn't quite turning out to her expectations so that painting was left to me.
Next came the sword. I want Ellie to help as much as possible so she was the designer, I was the "super adult vision" (inside joke) and used the dangers as Peter call them.  I thought I would use my new toy and my brothers belt sander to make one bad A#% life sized sword.  Everything was smooth sailing until I tried to make the hilt.  I had to do it 3 times because the wood kept splitting.  I thought I could just tap it on the sword but apparently my skills are not that good.  Oh well the sword got finished and Ellie painted it a nice shiny silver.
Now we move on to the shield.  This turned out to be the easiest of the projects so we whipped it out in no time.  Not super detailed but I let Ellie draw out the shape and design she wanted, we screwed a handle on the back and voila.



Next I get back from my workout Thursday night (after 9pm) When Ellie says she has to have her family tree done by tomorrow.        Since we already had the idea planned out I couldn't deviate and go the easy way.  So I got a poster sized sheet of water color paper where I drew and painted an intricate tree with roots then I told her to fill it all out with the info we gathered earlier.  This should have taken no more than 2 minutes but she had a hard time with the concept of working backwards. We wrapped it up around 11pm that night.  Scott keeps asking when this whole medieval thing is going to be over.  I find myself asking the same thing.

new respect for my Dad

I got a new toy that I totally could have used at least 5 times earlier this week and it would have saved me so much time and effort.  Its a scroll saw.  I really don't know why it took me so long to get one when I obviously needed it.

I have been doing some projects with Ellie and I now have a new found respect for my dad.  My dad is a carpenter.  He would take us to work with him when we were very little,  teaching us what the tools were and how to use them.  Not just the screw drivers and the drills but nailers, sanders, bands saws, planers etc.  I never realized how frustrating it is to teach a kid the proper way to use a tool.  First they have to know what all the parts are called then the proper way to use them.  It took me 20 minutes to teach Ellie how to use a drill.  Explain what the different drill bits were called and how to change them out, then how to hold the drill making sure it was going the right direction.  Something I had definitely taken for granted because I have always known thanks to my dad.  My dad the Master Teacher.  Every time we asked my dad for help on something he would begin by giving us the history of whatever it was, then help us with it. For example I once asked him to show me how to change a tire and he proceeded with giving me the history of the jack and all the different types of jacks.  I remember being annoyed at the history lesson and just wanted to change the dang tire, but now I know so much more and believe it or not that knowledge has come in handy more than once.
So with Ellie we continued on to sanders and files which  needed MORE teaching.  I was getting so frustrated it was making these projects take so much longer than needed, but if I didn't teach her now then when? 
My dad always said if its worth doing its worth doing right, he showed us if we prepare and do the proper steps the project comes out so much better.  This requires a lot of patience!!! So thanks dad for teaching me, teaching me how to use tools, how to build stuff, and more importantly patience.

fire

The kids really wanted to build a fire in the backyard today.  They cleaned out the fire pit and stacked a bunch of sticks in it then came to ask us if we could build a fire.  I looked at Scott and said "that's your territory."  Now I know how to build a fire.  I have built thousands of fires.  Growing up we had a real wood burning fireplace that was our main source of heat for the winter.  Whoever was the first person awake had the responsibility of making the fire.  Same goes to the first person who came home on a cold day, needless to say my fire making skills are excellent!  However when it comes to our kids I feel like Scott should be the one to supervise and teach all fire making skills.

He went out there a little begrudgingly at first, then thought what a great learning opportunity, plus a great way to clean up all those branches that fall off our willow tree.  I came out after everything was started and moving along.  Peter would pick up a tiny stick and ask if he could throw it in the fire.  "Yes Peter, that's okay to put in."  He would pick up another tiny stick and ask the same question.  This went on over and over again.  I thought about getting annoyed and then realized it was a good thing he was asking about everything he wanted to put in the fire, it would keep him safe.

After all the lawn was cleaned up of debris we asked the kids about ways they can put out a fire.  Water of course was the first answer, then there was a pause, a long pause.  So we gave them some suggestions.  The one they thought was the funniest was what my brothers call the "boy scout fire extinguisher."  Pee on it.  Of course as soon as I said the word pee they all lost it.  What is it with boys and potty words?  After they calmed down a little I ask matter-of-factly "Well do you want to try it out?  William pee on the fire."  Enough said, it was like I told them they just won the lottery.  Brennen didn't even hesitate.  He was not going to take any chances of me backing out.  I asked our newest potty trainer if he wanted to pee on the fire.  A resounding YES followed by a fit of giggles came from the little rascal.  When I helped him with his pants he was laughing SO hard he almost couldn't breathe.  Who knew peeing on a fire was so funny?

Kids descriptives

I love the way that kids minds work.  Sometimes they are very logical.  Most of the time they say things relative to what they know making for some interesting conversations.  For example,  William mentioned that after a large snow fall, the snow looked like Dutch Babies. (sometimes known as German pancakes) what a creative way to look at things.
Today at lunch I was talking to Brennen about preschool.  He was telling me that he met his friends dad.  Then he went on to describe him, "he has hair in the back that looks like a slide". . . I let my brain work on that for a minute.  What would hair that looks like a slide look like?  I finally deduced that he has a little longer hair that curls up in the back.  THAT would look like a slide I guess.  He went on. . ."his hair on the top is a little cool like mine but not as cool as mine."  
What does that mean to a 4 year-old?  I think it meant that he had some curly hair on top but not as much as Brennen's. The conversation went on but I could only follow some of it because he was so distracted his subject matter would change from one thing to another without notice, but the conversation as a whole was really quite interesting. I find myself marveling at the way a child's brain works. If only all life was that simple.

Geek of the Week

Here they are at it again.  Can I just say "Go White Boys, Go White Boys!"  This is the type of Geek behavior I live with. (I secretly LOVE IT!!)

potty training #4

Well I did it.  I potty trained my last kid. Let me tell you it was soooooo much easier than the last time I did this.  I decided I needed to potty train Peter before he turned 3 so with his birthday a week and a half away, I bit the bullet and just did it.  I was hesitant.  Very hesitant,  I was so traumatized by the last kid that I just kept dragging my feet.  I had nothing planned out, no miraculous tricks, I didn't have the energy for it. I just put the boy in underwear, talked about it, and set my timer for every 15 minutes. Basically I went into this thing half heartedly. I did give him a gummy for every successful trip tot the potty.  Brennen saw this and wanted in on the action.  He would go to the potty and said, "Hey I peed, where's my gummy?"  I had to explain that it doesn't work that way for him anymore, but if he wanted to do an extra chore I would be happy to give him a gummy.  This seemed to be fine with him as long as he got a gummy too.

 2 hours later and Peter was still dry with 4 successful trips to the potty I thought 'hey, this one might not be so bad."  He didn't fight me, he didn't have any accidents out of spite (A couple of my others did just so they could control the situation.)  This last one was such a dream.  So we made it through the whole first day with only 3 accidents and 2 of them were my fault. Day 2 came and I had to make a decision, do I keep this up or am I too busy to deal with this today?  I decided to go with it.  Success again!! This time only 2 accidents for the whole day.  Day 3 he had to be babysat so Scott and I could go to our Tax appointment. I was a little worried to pass the buck onto my sister who was watching 2 of my kids plus her 3 little ones.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about this little guy is a pro.  With all newly trained potty goers there are some cleanups to be expected, but I am hopeful.  I was so proud of Peter that I let him have his potty training reward a little early.  He couldn't have been happier with his new weed whacker.  If only they could all be this easy.