Everyday Stuff - Year-End Edition

Bug!

This is what Cat wanted to as soon as she got home from school, on about her 8th day of school.  
No complaints from me.

J & E like to help in the kitchen, too.

Go Seminoles!

That's MISTER Eliza to you, buster.

Wax on, wax off.

It's so frustrating when you can't fit your entire body in a liner intended for a basket of baby books. 

Happy kids in the car.

Excited to sleep with Thomas and Annie and Clarabel.
(All snug under the Thomas blanket.)

Reading time after school.
I particularly love this because I have vivid memories of climbing the tree in
my front yard to read by myself when I was Cat's age.

Tickle time.

So, one Sunday afternoon I asked Ben to take pictures of me modeling a few items I was planning to teach
people how to make during an upcoming crafting class.  (Did you catch that?)
Anyway, he ended up with lots of funny pictures of the girls modeling and it made me wonder, were
they trying to do what they thought I was doing?  Hmmm...

Hangin' out in the apple tree.

GOOD NEWS: Cat made up a list of ways to cope with frustration instead of having a tantrum
during piano practice or other stress-inducing situations.
BAD NEWS: The first two items on the list are self-inflicted corporal punishment.

"There was NOT enough chocolate frosting on this doughnut." 

She must have been really thirsty.

This is how I found Jack when I went to tell him that quiet time was over.
Well, okay, you can nap if you really want to, Jack.

I laminated a bunch of the leaves we brought home from our
leaf-collecting excursion and asked Cat to put them on the walls in the kitchen.
This is what she came up with.

While Cat and Jack were sound asleep at our hotel during our trip to California over Thanksgiving,
Eliza was diligently taking an inventory of the contents of my purse.

Jack was nervous about driving through the mountains when we were in Yosemite,
so Eliza held his hand.

I have no explanation.

If I remember correctly, Cat chose to sleep in the playroom instead of clean
in the playroom.  Perhaps I didn't speak very clearly when giving instructions?

J & E "reading" with their friend Sadie.

Hmmm.... did something happen here?

12-12-12
I didn't prepare for this so I just scrambled to find things I had in the house.
12 marshmallows, 12 red hots, and 12 chocolate chips for everyone.
Cat's and Ben's went in their backpacks, Jack's and Eliza's were
intended to be a special treat and counting practice, but the bowls were discovered
and the special time disappeared.

So, apparently, when you play with a toy monster truck in the snow,
the cab fills up with snow.  Just FYI.

Oh, shoot.  I left one of Jack's picture on the art string.
Well, I can take care of that.

Cat, enjoying Jack's Christmas gift.

The first evidence of Jack playing with the Christmas gift I spent hours making,
an alphabet made from fleece.  And, yes, he's either giving them a ride in a truck
(which was also a Christmas gift, but it was free) or driving over them with a truck. 

A few more tidbits before I officially wrap up 2012:

• Jack still loves "tuh-nay-dohs"  We found out toward the end of the year that he prefers tomatoes to canned peaches, pizza, doughnuts, and fudge.  The exact exchange for the latter item was, "Jack stop eating the fudge!  If you stop eating fudge, I'll give you some tomatoes."  And... he immediately complied.  He walks around the table looking for tomatoes on people's plates when we've been eating something like salad with dinner.  And when he's upset about something, such as bumping his head, he can easily be consoled with tomatoes.
• Cat and Eliza have been sharing a room for the last few months.  They sleep in the bedroom in the basement, with Cat in a double bed and Eliza in her crib.  Eliza loves sleeping in the crib and has no desire to sleep in anything else.  She gets mad when we refer to the porta-crib as a "baby bed."  Being in the crib doesn't even faze her on the rare occasion that she needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.  She will climb out of the crib, walk up to our room, wake up Ben or me, and have us help her go potty.  It's amazing.  
• The other interesting thing about the sleeping arrangements in that room is that Cat sleeps with at least 3 blankets on, and if she's wearing thin pajamas, then it's more like 8 blankets.  Not kidding.  Eliza?  She sleeps with one.  Every night.  At first, Cat's bed was under the window so we thought maybe she was getting more cold air than Eliza because of that, but even after we rearranged the room and put Eliza's crib by the window, Cat still sleeps with a ton of blankets on and Eliza still sleeps with one.
• Cat and Jack started doing a job each every morning before they eat breakfast.  Cat earns 75 cents for emptying the main part of the dishwasher (with the potential to earn $1 if she does the job without having to be prompted by a parent) and Jack earns 25 cents for putting away the silverware.  It took some time to get this ingrained in our routine, but now they're used to it enough that they don't fight it.  If only we could find something for Eliza to do, because she really wants her own money.
• Cat finally started getting a later bedtime than the younger kids.  She feels special getting to stay up until 8:15 and will get really upset if we try to get her to go to bed any earlier.
• Cat also began doing her own laundry.  At first, she was being punished and had to just fold her own laundry for a few weeks.  But she wasn't taking very good care of her clothes and hadn't learned the lesson she needed to learn, so I extended it so that she was folding her own laundry for a longer period of time.  When the lesson still wasn't learned, I decided she just needed to wash her laundry as well.  So.  I usually still accompany her when she's operating the washer and dryer, but she does it.  And I admit that it's really nice to have only 4 people's laundry to do instead of 5.  (Yes, I know that will change in a few months, haha.)