Henry Speak

Henry looked at the pile of things I was packing up today, grabbed the dvd player headphones, swiftly place them over his ears and said: "Houston, we're ready to launch."

Winds were high last night when we went to bed and around 4 am the winds got even stronger, thunder was added and ice pellets were streaming against our windows so loudly that Joe and I awoke with a jolt. I jumped up and went into the hallway just in time to meet Henry coming out of his room. "Is this an earthquake?" he asked.

"I'm just having a sugar cookie." Henry said this as though getting a cookie out of the Tupperware, getting the frosting Tupperware out of the fridge, removing the lid, pulling a chair over to the stove, opening the microwave and starting it by himself for 10 seconds to warm the frosting up enough to spread it was completely appropriate.

Ian Speak

At breakfast this morning:
"Mom, I want to have Frosted Mini Wheats while my waffles cool...for my appetizer."



In the bath last night:
"I'm just going to take the cold water from over here and splash it to the warm water over there and I'm making the water tepid!"

As he played yesterday:
"Mom, I'm not coming over to give you something really special, I'm just stopping by to say hi."

(I of course told him that was something special and made him promise to always stop by and say hi, even when he's a firefighter.)

Monday Night Project

Henry's turn:



You know a Dad is serious about teaching his sons how to maintain and improve a house when he's willing to hold them up in the air (they weigh over 30 lbs!) to screw in brackets...while he's balancing on the side of a bathtub.

Ian's turn:

The finished product:



It is increasingly a source of amusement to us the things our nearly 4 year olds notice, think about and care about. The boys noticed after we moved that I didn't put a little trash can in their bathroom and they have remained kind of hung up on that point. Then about a month ago Ian asked during a bath if their tub would turn into a shower when they grew up like Mommy and Daddy's did. (We have a shower without a tub.) I said "It's a shower now! Look up on the wall- that's a shower head." They shower 90% of the time now so they had never even noticed the shower head in their bathroom! He was shocked. When I told him all we needed to do was hang a curtain and they could shower in it, he told his brother with such excitement you would have thought we were all going to Disney World. And so it was that today, with much ceremony and enthusiasm, we went to Target and picked out a shower curtain and a little trash can for the boys' bathroom. They aren't babies, after all. They need these things. They're growing up. Sniff, sniff. Speaking of sniffles, they also requested a Kleenex box (had to have something to throw away, I guess). Isn't it funny how important these items were to them, how mature it makes them feel?

The Gifts!

Christmas Eve, after Santa delivered:


Christmas morning:










This gift was from Mommy & Daddy. A dress-up trunk full of costumes collected at Halloween Day sales since the Dukes were babies, all size 4-6!



Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!

I love all the greetings and well wishes exchanged during this season. This year I have a new card holder that lets me look at most of our cards with just a glance. It has been a wonderful way to dress up some unused wall space and a bright spot in my view from the kitchen! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

I love preschool.

The boys made gifts for me. Surprise gifts. Surprise gifts wrapped in paper they painted beautifully themselves. Sniff, sniff.


Surprise gifts wrapped in paper they painted beautifully themselves with ornaments attached! My heart exploded. They each wanted me to open theirs alone in their rooms with them. So sweet.

Here's Henry's:



Yep, an unrecognizable picture of himself in a purple heart, pink triangle, one shell frame painted navy blue because that's my favorite color! I love that he remembered that and I love it more than he thought about it!

They also made gingerbread houses, which was less of a surprise because I helped their class make them, but I still love looking at them on our table every day as part of our Christmas decorations!


Here's Ian's:


'Tis the season, and I love it!

Entertainment

Can you guess what this is a picture of?












Did you get it right?

Paint by Number

These images hang on the walls of Joe's Grandma's room at her nursing home. They really are paint by number and were done by Grandpa Farthing's cousin and her husband. I like them because they are so bright and unique. I've never seen anything like them!

More St. Louis

Rudolph greeted us at The Botanical Gardens. And then we saw him about 12 more times!


I think the boys were a little braver every time we ran into him!


The train display was beautiful.


It was right up Ian's alley, for sure.


Fixing things is always the theme of our St. Louis visit. Maybe this is because we always break something when we're there?!!


Cookie time with Grandma at the kitchen table.


Thank you for a fun visit, Grandma and Grandpa Farthing!

St. Louis Christmas

We drove to St. Louis this weekend to celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Farthing.


The boys were in great spirits, despite pulling their usual travel trick of barely eating anything. Why will they only eat at home?!!!


The chain hoist, or hoist yift as Ian calls it, was again a popular activity.



Ian learned a lot about machines I don't even know how to describe!


One of the best parts about going out of town is definitely all the hours we get to spend with Daddy in a row. Nothing beats that.


This Mickey is the size of a small child and Henry was thrilled to get it as a Christmas gift. (He graciously let Ian have a turn to sit with Mickey.) He sits up so well that he watches movies with us at home.


Grandma snuggles are definitely as popular as the chain hoist!


New on the agenda this trip was lava rock collecting.


We had a fun time at the Botanical Gardens and the boys didn't seem to mind the cold one bit. Music, a train display, a wandering costumed Rudolph, tram rides and house tours...this was a great idea, Grandma!

Henry Speak

[After one single bite of apple sauce and a nibble of Tyson chicken nugget.]

Henry: "There! I'm ready for cookies, Mom!"

Me: "You need to eat grow food before you put cookies in your belly, Henry. Do you know what happened to Jake?"

Henry: "What?!"

Me: "He ate too many treats without putting enough grow food in his stomach first and he threw up."

Henry: "Mom. Is he still alive?"




Me: "HENRY! What did you do to Ian's tower?!"

Henry: "I demolished it."

Me: "WHY?!"

Henry: "I thought he was done."



Me: "Do you know where Daddy is tonight?"

Henry: "Where?"

Me: "He's in Kansas City, helping Dr. Kelley."

Henry: "Fix a patient?!!"



Henry: "Not all ice is slippery."

Me: "Ice is almost always slippery."

Henry: "Not the ice at the outside ice skating rink we went to in Colorado."

Me: "That's true, it had some snow covering it."

Henry: "That's right, Mom! You are exactly right! Forget it! I'll tell you the name of that place. It's ice vomit skate place."

Me: "Vomit?! Do you know what vomit means?"

Henry: "No, tell me."

Me: "Throw-up. It means to throw up."

Henry: "Oh..."


[Out of nowhere and unrelated to anything.]

Henry: "I got straight A's on all my tests!"



Ian: "Why do we have to have gas caps, Mom?"
Me: "So gas fumes don't escape from gas tanks."
Henry: "Well, Ian, according to my research, gas fumes can turn into fire that's yellow and yellow flames can turn into smoke that's black. So that's why."
Ian: "Oh. Do you have a research, Henry?"
Henry: "Yes. I do."

Wreath

Thank you, Hobby Lobby, for your huge sales that allowed me to purchase a wreath big enough to fit my new, gigantic front door.

Photo by Henry

I can't believe this isn't what most of my pictures look like as it's so often my view!

Cookie Rolling

It's always better with a helper,


and with sound effects,


and with the camera.

Three

I love three year olds.

Before 6:35 this morning, the boys had asked such specific and probing questions that I found myself in the middle of explaining what a cognate is as I buttered their waffles.

They are fascinated by the concept of other languages right now and I know about five words in several different languages. You would think that measly number would significantly limit how much time we can spend on this topic, but the combination of their unrelenting ability to formulate questions and the fact that I never seem to be at a loss for words, well, it leads us down some interesting roads. LONG and interesting roads.

The beauty of three year olds, though, is that as the language line of questioning led to me naming foreign countries and then trying to explain where those countries are, I said Europe. Henry said "EUROPE???? It rhymes with syrup??!!!" Hysterical laughter ensued and ended, as it usually does, with someone legitimately falling out of their chair. The intellect/humor quotient dichotomy of preschoolers slays me.

Parenting is, by far, the funniest thing Joe and I have ever done.

Adorable: adj \ə-ˈdȯr-ə-bəl\

1: worthy of being adored

2: extremely charming

3: Leah Simone