Paci Update

After 4 days of not falling asleep at nap time, Miriam finally slept today at nap time for the first time without her beloved pacifier!  Hopefully naps are not gone forever like the paci is...

Weather People

This morning somehow Esther and I got into a conversation about weather reporters.  It went something like this:

E:  Why are the weather people always right about the weather?

Me:  Um, well they're not always right.  Sometimes they say we're going to get a big snowstorm and then we hardly get any snow.  Or they say it's going to rain and then it's sunny.  They just have to make a good guess based on what their computers say.

E:  Well maybe sometimes God changes his mind, so they tell us what he was planning on originally, but then he changes his mind so they're wrong.

Me:  Hmmmm......

How do kids think of this stuff?!

No More Paci Girl!

I really wish I had a picture to go along with post, but I don't... and really this post might be quite boring to most of you, but it's really for our own recollection later...

I've been teasing Miriam lately about throwing her last pacifier away.  I'd say things like, "You don't need that paci anymore; we should just throw it away!"  Then she'd say "NO!" and then we'd laugh.  It was our little joke.  She's been weaned down to only using at naptime and at night for quite a while, but recently she has taken to going into her room for some "quiet time" to look at books and suck on her paci.

Sunday morning this little conversation happened again while getting ready for church.  A little while later she started walking out of her room with the beloved paci so I reminded her that we were leaving for church and she needed to put it away.  She replied, "No, throw paci away!"

At this point I realized that I wasn't sure if I was really ready for this.  I've known that no more paci would probably mean no more naps.  However, I wasn't going to argue with her, so downstairs we went and she promptly threw her paci in the trash.  We all clapped and really played it up with her and told her we were proud of her, etc...

Fastforwad to naptime.  This is when she (and I) really regretted the whole throwing away the paci thing.  She didn't sleep and screamed for quite a while and just seemed heartbroken!  Bedtime was not much better and she woke up several times during the night.

Each night has been better and she's now going to bed happily and sleeping well all night again.  However, she has not napped since Saturday.  Fortunately she's done pretty well and hasn't been too crabby overall.  We're still putting her in her crib every day in hopes that she'll continue to at least have some "quiet time" and maybe fall asleep if she needs to.  Once we get to summer break I'll probably like the freedom of her not needing to nap so that we have more flexibility in our day, but right now Esther, Peter and I really enjoy our quiet reading and game time while she's upstairs!

We're hoping that her next big decision will be to throw away her diapers and potty train herself!

Homemade Playdough

Esther's homework this week was to make homemade playdough (good practice with measuring).  Her teacher recommended a kool-aid recipe, so that's what we decided to try, and it was definitely a success!  It was fun to make, smelled good (grape flavored kool-aid), made a huge batch, and Esther and Peter played with it for a long time!  Peter made a lot of hot dogs and worms.  Esther made handprints, wrote her name in it, and did other more "civilized" things with her dough.  Gotta love the difference between boys and girls!

Here is the recipe for anyone who is interested:

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup salt

2 packages unsweetened kool-aid powdered drink mix

3 tablespoons oil

2 cups boiling water

1. Mix flour, salt, kool-aid and oil until blended

2. Add boiling water, mix with spoon until cool enough to knead

3. Continue kneading until color is blended

4. Store in air tight bag or container in fridge

How to melt a mother's heart

Esther made this after dinner tonight.  No prompting or suggesting... she was just dancing around with Peter and then suddenly told me that she needed to whisper something in my ear.  She told me that she was going to make Peter a special card, but it was a secret.  So precious. 

At bedtime I told her that it was really sweet of her to make that card for Peter.  She said, "I just wanted him to know that I love him!"  Awww....

Would it be bad to whip this out next time they are fighting?

Fun with friends

We had some friends over last night that we haven't seen in a while and it was lots of fun for the kids to play and for the adults to catch up.  One family brought their Wii Rock Band game over, and we had a great time playing that too!  Here are some pictures of the kiddos and their friends:

Kuperus Olympics

Last weekend our kids had their super-fun babysitters Allie and Jeff here for the evening.  They always have a great time with them and love having them babysit.  Peter especially thinks it's really cool to have a "boy" babysitter!

They decided to have their own Olympics.  Esther chose to be team USA, and then Peter had to pick a country, so he picked Calvin.  :)  Here are the events and results:

Mickey Mouse Pancakes and Snow Forts

Laura had to attend a conference today, so I opted to take a vacation day and stay home with the troops.....putting me in charge for the day.

I started the day by bribing them with breakfast out if they got dressed right away....wow did that work. I'd do this daily if I wouldn't go broke. We went to the Real Food Cafe....how can you go wrong with a restaurant where a guy named Frank makes Mickey Mouse pancakes for the kids? And I don't mean small pancakes either, Esther pointed out that the pancake was bigger than her head....and then proceeded to eat almost the whole thing. (Frank uses blueberries for the eyes, a strawberry nose, and orange slice for the mouth - so I get credit for giving the kids fruit today.)

We then proceeded home and got ready to go outside and play in the snow. We began on our snow fort and made some good headway before we had to go run an errand. Daddy had to look at someone's basement for a quote on finishing a room for them. Bribery worked once again to keep the kids in order, and we picked up a movie on the way home (I highly recommend Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs).

After the movie we went out and finished the fort. Actually, Daddy got to build it twice since a certain little boy doesn't understand the meaning of the phrase "don't lean against the wall until we are done". Oh well, twice the fun.

All in all....a good day, with tired kids who are now fighting with each other while I write this....I better go get dinner on the table.

The Challenge

1. I can build a house
2. I can build a fire engine bed
3. I can build a dollhouse
4. I can design a fire alarm system.
5. I can even cook a pretty great pot roast

Today, I decided to see if I could figure out this whole "braiding" thing.
The two year old was pleased.
The 5 year old gave me pointers for next time.......

Life in February

Just some random pictures from the last couple weeks...

Casey put a swing up in the basement--

the kids have been having lots of fun on it!