Kidlet Hilarity #2

The kids have been so funny the last few weeks!  They are all growing and changing, and I love spending time with them - they crack me up so much! :)

Natalie is oh so very TWO now. :)  You know the phrase, "terrible twos".  Well, yes, it is a very real thing.  This week we are going back to discipline consistency BOOT CAMP with both Z & Nat to try to take them in hand. :)  You know how you just get a little lazy after a while and things get out of hand...well, that's where we are. :)  Not looking forward to this week, but the results will hopefully be seen in a few days, and I AM looking forward to that. :)

Another new thing with Natalie is that she likes to pick out her own clothes now (like Zachary does).  Her favorite shirt is her purple cupcake shirt that her aunt Anna made for her - it has her name sewn onto it & a cupcake. :)  She says, "Purple cakey!" and hunts for it every morning, but she will pick something else if it's in the wash.  Except anything I suggest.  If I suggest something, it's out. She also loves to wear "deems", which is how she says jeans. :)  And then, unless we're going somewhere in public, she usually picks out a tutu to wear over the jeans. And a necklace. And a hair bow.  Which stays in her hair approximately five minutes on a good day. :)

A few nights ago, she picked out summer jammies (thin pants & long-sleeved shirt, no footies) to wear to bed.  Well, she woke up several times during the night (not sure if it was due to being cold or not, but I wasn't going to test the theory again).  The next night I told her she had to wear fleecie jammies, and she was about to throw a tantrum, so that night she went to bed with her summer cupcake jammies OVER her fleecie jammies, which looked hilarious.  I can pick my battles. :)

She also likes to tell Z's favorite knock knock joke - you know the one - "Knock Knock" "Who's there?" "Boo." "Boo Who?"  "Why are you crying? ha ha ha."  Only, this is how Natalie tells it:  "Knock Knock."  "Who's there?"  "Boo Sad! HA HA HA HA HA!!!" :)

When she prays, it is so precious.  She likes to use prayer time to stall bedtime, so she will say, "God...tee heehee...God...teeheehee..." Then I tell her to be serious and pray because I have to leave, so she says, "God...ummm...Bubba....baby Davey...Mommy...Daddy...Amen!" :)  I love hearing her say 'Baby Davey', it is super cute. :)

She loves to look at books, and is getting better at sitting still to read a few pages in a row lately!  When she sees a boy in a book, she calls him "Bubba" (Zachary), and when she sees a girl, she says "Na-ne!" which is what she calls herself now. :)  One day we were reading a Dr. Seuss book and she was assigning names from our family to all the silly characters on one page. :)

One morning I opened up Natalie's diaper to change her, and I said, "Whew! This is a really stinky one!" Her eyes lit up and she shouted, "Surprise!"  Yes, I guess it was some kind of surprise... :)

Davey is a VERY distractible eater lately - whenever he's laying in my lap eating and the kids are doing ANYTHING, he gets distracted and looks away.  When Nat sees him looking around, she comes over and commands him to "Eat! Eat, baby! Eat!"  It always makes Z & I laugh. :)

Davey is a whole 7 months old now!  He is super smiley most of the time, and just loves rolling & getting around. :)  He is eating baby food like a champ, and really likes those Gerber banana puffs.  If I made the other kids eat puffs, they wouldn't like them, but because they're Davey's, and Z & Nat aren't supposed to eat them, they are constantly asking for them! :)  My favorite nickname for Davey lately is 'dude', I call him that a lot, and I made up a silly song that goes 'doodley, doodley, doodley, doodley' and whenever I sing it, he smiles & giggles, I think it's his favorite. :)  He really likes to hear us sing. :)  When he got his six month shots last week, Zachary and Natalie danced so that he would watch them and not get too upset - and it worked really well!  He cried some but not as much as you would expect!  He is pretty much sleeping through the night now (he usually goes down at 8 & eats between 6 or 7), so I appreciate that. :)

Z & Nat have been playing in the coat closet off of the living room a lot lately - they say it's their little house and they are delighted when I pretend to be a delivery person and deliver books or toys to them. :)  It reminds me of playing in my closet with my sister when we were little, and I think it's so fun! :)

One day when we were playing a game, I asked Z if he could do something, and he matter-of-factly responded, "Yes, I'm awesome at that."  Another day we were doing a counting game for school, and Z is always excited to play games but then he gets bored of the counting games quickly, so after doing a couple cards, I asked him to count one of them, and he said, "My lovely assistant, Mommy, will now count the hippos!"  Too bad that's not how school works...  When he plays games on the iPad, he likes to play the 2-player version - he gets all excited and exclaims, "I won!" every time. When you play 2-player games, you win every time...I didn't tell him he also lost every time... :)

Zachary has randomly been saying "Mommy?" and I say, "Yes?"  and he says, "I love you."  It is so sweet & makes my day! :)  I try to make sure to do it to him every so often, too. :)  One day Nat heard him & said, "Me too love you!" :)

One day we went to a McDonald's playplace, and some of the kids there were speaking Spanish.  From the top of the 3-story play structure, Z yells down to me, "Mom! I can't understand these kids! I think they're speaking another language! I don't think they're from America!"  I sooo hope their parents didn't speak English either.... :)  A few days later, as I was telling this story to my friend, Z was listening & said, "Yeah, they were speaking Sandwich.  I only speak a few words of Sandwich." :)

We were singing a song from the Wiggles (Mr. Knickerbocker) and putting all our own names in it, then singing what that person likes to do - for Davey we said, cry and whine, because he was whiny that day; for Z we said run and play, and something similar for Nat.  Then Z sang the song with my name, so I was curious to see what he would say I liked - he said, "Mommy likes to cook and eat." :)  Half right! :)  And actually I don't really like cooking a ton, but I do really enjoy cooking stuff with the kids- I realized the other day that one of my favorite things to do with the kids is to cook or bake something together. :) Joel usually has to work retreats on Friday nights, and the meals are usually late enough that I don't take the kids, because it is close to their bedtime, so our Friday night tradition has become making an easy, kid-friendly meal together, then eating it on a blanket on the living room floor while we watch a movie or TV show. This week the movie was Robots, which I forgot we had!  It was really cute! :)

On Sunday evenings, the kids eat in the car on the way to church - I usually pack chicken nuggets and a veggie for them on the way there, then they get crackers on the way home.  Baby carrots are so easy, that's what I usually give them, but this week I stuck in broccoli instead (Z loves fresh broccoli!).  When he saw it in his snack cup, he said, "Ooh! Broccoli!  That's great because I usually just stick my carrots in my seat instead of eating them!"  I said, "Honey, you're not supposed to tell me that!"  Like I hadn't noticed... :)

This morning, Z stepped on a sharp toy and hurt his foot.  He asked me to kiss it. "But just a hand kiss", he said.  "Because a mouth kiss on my foot might taste bad." :)

I always enjoy taking time to write these things down and remember how funny they are!  Z & Nat are out on a daddy date this morning, and Davey is sleeping off his cough (STILL coughing, ugh) so I have a few minutes to myself!