Everyday Stuff - Jan/Feb 2014 Edition

The first Sunday of 2014 meant:
Eliza's first day of Primary, Cat's first day of Senior Primary,
and... Jack had to go to Church.  (Not his favorite thing to do.)

Eliza has been practicing writing like Cat and Jack.
Check out her connect-the-dots letters.

I think if we'd known that getting a couch from IKEA meant getting two GIANT boxes,
we might have considered getting one sooner??  The kids immediately put them together
to make a playhouse big enough for several children.  And it actually stayed very well in tact,
in our living room, for several weeks.  One set of siblings who came over to play while it was up
liked it so much that their mother went out and bought a cardboard play house for her kids.
(Only theirs was a lot smaller.  I should have told her that all she had to do was buy a couch.)

The kids even slept in it one night.
All three of them, quite comfortably.

Poor Luke.

(It's hard to tell, but in the picture on the right, he's crying.)

You have to wear a cowperson hat when you watch
Shirley Temple in "Susannah of the Mounties."

I don't remember what was happening in this picture.  But it's still cute, right?

 

Crazy Hair Day at school

When Cat's friend hung out with us one Saturday, the girls set up
a spa in the master bathroom.  They were kind enough to let Eliza in on the fun too.

In our Primary, the kids get to put a penny in a jar if they share a good deed they
did for someone that week.  Our conversation went something like this...
Eliza: I'm going to do the dishes for you.  So I can talk about it in Primary.
Me: That's great, Eliza!  Thank you!  Let me help you.  We'll do it together.
Eliza: No.  I have to do it myself.
Me: Okay, that's fine.  (Pause.)  So... do you think you'd like to help out with the dishes again tomorrow?
Eliza: Well, I can only put ONE penny in the jar, Mom.

Eliza was excited to help with the decorations for my birthday.

My Birthday Bash: VIPs ONLY.

All of the kids in Jack's class were asked to bring 100 treats
to share on the 100th day of school.  Our original plan was for Jack
to bring 100 cherry tomatoes to share, since they are his favorite thing
in the entire world, but we thought that the other kids probably wouldn't
be too excited about that (as we saw last year), so he counted
100 Goldfish to share instead.

100 Stickers on his headband and 100 Fruit Loops on his necklace.
Just two of the activities Jack completed at home because he ended
up being sick on the 100th day of school.  :-(

Eliza loves loves loves to color, and Jack has gotten into it more lately also.
Here he's coloring Hot Wheels pages I printed from the internet so that he can
tape them all over the walls in his bedroom.

Just hangin' out in the birthday wreath.

When Jack or Eliza wake up too early in the morning, they like to fall back
asleep on this blue chair in our family room.  Sometimes they both wake up
early and get really upset if the other one has already claimed the blue chair.

Jack used his job money to buy a set of Hot Wheels cars and some track pieces.
He was doing LOTS of races so I thought he needed some flags (paper taped to pencils).

"Mom!  Watch this race!  Who do you want to win?  Can you make a video???"
(This is repeated about 7,000 times a day.)

One Saturday night the big kids were taking a bath in our bathroom and Luke was in the
family room with Ben and me.  When he heard the water running and the fun they were
having, he laboriously crawled down the hall, through our room, and into the bathroom.
This is how I found him: just sitting down, watching as the big kids had all the fun.

Cute Kitchen Helper

Jack was obsessed with sharks for a few weeks and when this shark hat project
caught his eye, he was determined to make one for himself.

Scary Sharks!

Double Selfie

Poor Luke.  Again.
(Notice Jack in the background...)

 

Sometimes Jack uses tomatoes as counting items while completing his math homework.

And sometimes he sneaks a couple of cucumbers
and hides under the bar to eat them.

 

There is nothing I don't love about these pictures.

Luke finally made it into the cardboard house,
with access to all of the toys the kids had been hiding in there.

Not sure...?

 

Eliza loved this leaf she found and was really excited to paint it.
Unfortunately, it didn't last very long once it was painted.

Matchy Matchy Monkeys

Caught sleeping on the blue chair again...

Jack loves to be carried.  It's not unusual for him to walk over to Ben
or me and ask us to carry him back to where he had just been.
On this night, he walked up to me and asked me to carry him.  "Where?" I asked.
"Hmmmm," he said, as he looked around, scanning the family room.  Then he looked
up at me.   "Just hold me."  I laughed and laughed, and Ben came right over,
scooped Jack up, and held him.