Kid-isms

A couple nights ago, Danielle really didn't want to go to bed. Also, lately she's been opposite-ing me to oppose my seniority or to have fun, depending on her mood. So, when she still wasn't staying in her room (which is unacceptable in our home), I changed tactics, and while taking her back, told her "I just love you so much, Danielle," as sweetly as I could given my rising frustration level. She looked at me with a determined face--determined to not go back into her bed--and yelled as loud and stubbornly as she could, "NO, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" Well, then.

We've had incredibly nice weather lately, considering it's June in Arizona. But it's (finally?) getting hotter. And more typical. We were headed into swimming lessons, and Isaac was dragging along, and moaning, "Why is it so hot?" Uh, it's June in Arizona, buddy. Sorry.

Danielle and I painted our toes together, though I didn't cave when she asked if she could paint mine after I did hers. I had received some nail polish that was a weird light pink color for Christmas, and hadn't used it. Then on Sunday when we were wearing church shoes that we could see our toes through, when we were outside, the polish turned to purple! It was amazing. We enjoyed watching it change from pink to purple and back again as we went inside and outside.

Our children pray independently. Given that they're 6, 4, and 2, we get some interesting "ask fors." One night, Danielle really wanted to read "the David book" again, but as it was bedtime and we were doing our bedtime routine and reading another book isn't part of it, the answer was a definite No. As she prayed, she included, "Please bless us read the David book," I think twice. We did read it after her prayer. Maybe my heart was softened. :) When Jeremiah was praying, he asked "Please bless us to go to Old McDonald's," something that is a Sometimes in our family. The next day, John had Jeremiah in the car for 30 minutes, and happened to buy him an ice cream at McDonald's. It wasn't until when he told me what they had done, that we recognized his prayer was answered.

One of the kids' favorite chores (they like to help clean and get things ready, for whatever reason, which I'm grateful for) is washing the door. They all like to be helpers.


John's currently teaching a ridiculously long night class two nights a week, so I have the privilege/opportunity to do bedtime solo. Maybe they think they can get away with more when there's only one of us...it's true. These three kids are wonderful siblings. They love each other so much. I am honored to be their mother.

For Bill

It must be genetic?

I just looked over at my daughter a couple days ago, and lo and behold... this is what I saw. I had offered her string cheese a few minutes before, and she had denied it.

John's Birthday!

We celebrated John's birthday (and, as he reminds us, the eruption of Mount St. Helens) this week. We had yummy chocolate pie, complete with 29 candles, and presents on Monday.

Isaac and I went to buy presents. From me, John received Toss Up! and Make-n-Break. From Isaac, John received a set of Pirate Legos. Isaac's first choice for a present for Daddy (that Daddy would really like) was a Nintendo Wii game, which I seriously considered. However, as we don't have a television or a Wii, I decided that would be a tad more money than I wanted to spend. It was a very very good thought.

Then on Friday, John and I went to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. We really enjoyed our visit! There is currently a "Seriously Funny" exhibit...which was seriously funny. The social porta-potties, the marker-on-drywall, the lumpy sculptures. The grocery family tree. It made a great visit. The photography simply was. We finished our date with a late lunch at Olive Garden.

John also received a trifold with adorable pictures of our kids to take to his office. He's one lucky daddy!

Random Update

Danielle: I went swimming, but I got water in my eyes.

Notice that this is a 10-word sentence. Yesterday when we took the kids swimming, she decided to venture out by herself (yes, with a life jacket on), and was very surprised when she was submerged. She doesn't usually get her entire head wet at once.


Danielle: Do sharks have belly buttons?!?
Jeremiah: No. They have fins.

Well, he's right.


We have family swimming time each night for an hour at our apartment community pools. I prefer when there aren't other people around, but as it's getting hotter, that's happening less frequently. Isaac is like a fish. Literally. He pretends he's a fish going swimming. He just loves the water. He's fairly fearless, which we rein in by taking his swim vest off for a portion of the time we're at the pool. Last night he was jumping and diving in the deep end of the pool (we wouldn't allow the diving without a flotation device, but since he goes about a foot under the water surface before coming back up, we've decided to let him be for right now). I don't know if he's actually seen people dive before, or if he's trying out new ways of jumping in. The day before it was cannonballs...

I've registered the boys for swimming lessons, which will start in a couple more weeks. I'm hoping that Isaac will take to them...like a fish...and that Jeremiah will voluntarily dunk his head under the water.

I registered myself for a tennis class. :)

I just finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Isaac, and he absolutely loved it. It helped that there were some pictures, but he loved the story and requested more. We're currently reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Prince Caspian, and Mummies in the Morning. I think we need to finish up the last of those today so we aren't reading so many books at the same time--it didn't happen quite on purpose.

Jeremiah had a fever last night, and came to find me. I laid him on our couch, and then he told me a story about a shark, and putting a worm on it's nose. It was very cute. He doesn't often just keep talking, and I adore it when he does.

Jeremiah's school had Water Day a few days ago, and he did not want to wear a shirt with his swim trunks. He was confused to have a shirt and swim trunks--he doesn't wear a shirt in the water, and he doesn't wear swim trunks to school. It was quite an issue. But seeing inflatable water slides made all the difference and he had fun. :)

Dragon Naturally Speaking

dear intrepid readers,

So I got a new toy at work. It's pretty interesting, it's Dragon NaturallySpeaking, speech recognition software for the PC. So the idea is that if I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm trying to compose an e-mail, I can simply speak into my software and it types for me. Unfortunately the reason I need Dragon NaturallySpeaking to type is that my writing tends to be a little convoluted and not necessarily the easy to understand or straight forward ( and it takes me forever to write these things because I way over think it). So, these possible potential hopeful solution is that I can speak into the software and then my writing is easier to understand and makes more sense and ends up not being so dense. It definitely makes typing fun! I had to try Captains log start eight (i.e. StarDate) 286 -- three but unfortunately the software doesn't seem to recognize StarDate so it doesn't end up being as cool as I'd hoped.

the other cool thing you can do with it is a dictate keyboard keys to press and it will type for you, so for example alt tab or control F or things like that can be run with my voice. But I would really like to do is have it jump directly to a location on a webpage after I say text, right now they are are a few more steps than just that so all work on streamlining it. In any case, I definitely remember as a child seeing the captain of the Battlestar Galactica and Capt. Jean-Luc Picard speaking into their typing computers and thinking wow the future is going to be so cool. It's here and it kind of is.

Interpretive Seuss

Per request of a certain grandmother, here are reading videos. First, Isaac. About halfway through the video, John comes home, and Isaac starts singing the book, for those who aren't incredibly interested in watching 10 minutes of interpretive Dr. Seuss. He does get very expressive in just about everything he does.





Danielle was jealous of Isaac being the center of attention, so here are a few videos of her. Reading a book, and singing "The Family is of God," the song we learned in Primary (and therefore was the most demanded song for our evening family scripture-song-and-prayer) in March. And of her and Isaac singing a song from one of our scripture movies--Isaac liked it a lot, so we had to learn it. (The following three videos are relatively short... 30 to 90 seconds, approximation. And Danielle's been dressing herself in her favorite clothes, and doesn't care what matches or coordinates.)










Jeremiah loves books. I find him reading to himself more than the other kids do. He's quite expressive. I know that a huge part of enjoying him reading is simply to listen to him keep talking, instead of just a few words as needed.




Earlier today (unrelated) Jeremiah found a can of soda and wanted me to open it for him. We don't usually have soda around, and I was pretending I didn't know what he wanted, so he used the words he knew the best he could, and ended up asking me something like "Pull... Go down... Drink soda! Yay!" with the biggest grin, so excited. If I could have gotten that on video... So sweet and pure.

Summer.

I feel like summer is here already. Jeremiah has 4 more weeks of school, but it is now in the triple digits, and there isn't a time to open up the apartment and cool it off and air it out with a nice breeze. I was seriously tempted to meander through the sprinklers after we dropped Jeremiah off at school, but as I was on the brink of deciding to, they turned off. The A/C is on all day and all night. We'll be getting fans and a few years supply worth of popsicles. And our swimsuits on as soon as it's safe to. I'm not even tempted to bake goodies any more. Really, to use the oven at all. We'll be having crockpot baked potatoes tonight, to see how they compare to oven and microwave baked potatoes. Mostly, just...blech.