A First For Us

Um, it looks like we may have a thumb-sucker on our hands! This has never happened to us before. I am not quite sure what to do!!  I’m inclined to try to encourage her toward her cork and discourage the thumb… but she’s just so darn cute…

“Wocks”

My daughter loves her “wocks” (rocks). It started many many months ago. Maybe you could say in Africa there wasn’t much to play with besides sand and rocks but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Just partially true. They were kind of everywhere and always free for the taking. We’d often have to stand by the gate and wait for her to dig through the sand so she could find the perfect “wittle wock” to bring in the compound. We could have tried to stop her, but frankly, it usually wasn’t worth the fight.
Do you know my daughter? ;)
Anyway.



We found a collection of rocks stashed inside an oatmeal can.



She’d go looking for the perfect rocks when we would visit the tea lady…



…and then display them on the table (and want to take them home).



She’d dig for them at church and carry them around in her shirt.



She’d collect them during her Daddy’s football (soccer) game and put them in an old bottle (which was also scavenged).



When we returned to the States, we discovered several rocks hidden in the dresser drawer.



Recently she dug in rocks outside of church.



And here is a collection that showed up on our coffee table.

We often find her looking for the perfect rock outside the building we live in and find rocks stashed in the pockets of her school backpack and in her coat pockets. Or in the washing machine. Oops.
Dear girl. Dear sweet silly girl. I love her. And rocks are pretty harmless, eh?

Whew!

Weaving and bobbing the crowds in with an oversized cart, two preschoolers, a baby in her carrier and lots of groceries through Costco= My exercise for the day.

Whew!

But let me be clear… don’t let this mislead you to think that I will not sleep at night unless I’ve done something for exercise.  I wish it were the case but it is FAAAAR from the truth. But I did buy double spinach… so that is good, right?

:)

Quote of the Day

The other day I showed this old photo to my kiddos. It’s Mike with his sister, several (okay… MANY) years ago.

“Kids… who is this?”

H glanced at it and said “I don’t know.”

A minute later… “Wait. Let me see it again.”

Looking hard: “Is it Daddy… with a wig on?!”

Bahahahaha!

Lessons

Start ‘em young, that’s what we believe around here!

Our ‘lil A has already had quite a few lessons from her big brother and sister. She gets read to regularly by her big sibs.

I just love this.

He CAN actually read to her!

N makes sure she can see the pictures.

This day she got a lesson about the globe from H and some little friends.

And this day she had a special trip on an ‘airplane’ that was created just for her. Don’t worry, I was right close by and she didn’t perch there for long…

I think they’ll be really excited when she can actually interact with them in a more meaningful way. She is mostly stares with some smiles mixed in at this point and they still enjoy her so much!

An Experiment

During the packing up process our things were obviously being sold, given away or were in a big messy pile of things we wanted to bring home with us. Naturally, this meant that all the kids’ toys and books were no longer in the house for them to play with.  This was an experiment in toylessness and it was AMAZING.

For the most part the only thing around for the kids to play with up in our home were a bunch of boxes that I had saved (for gift wrapping, organizing, etc) that Mike had always made fun of me for keeping…

Well, touché Mikey, cause these kids played with these boxes for hours for several days in a row. They were SO stinkin’ happy! This one instance they were building a tall tower and had so much fun.

Better Late Than Never

I recently posted just one picture of us at Christmastime. I always meant to post more cute ones of the kiddos, but never did. But now I am.

Better late than never, eh?

There’s a bunch of them. I liked them all and didn’t feel like editing…

(Kissing the baby in my belly… they have ALWAYS doted on their baby from the very start!)