Things we did in March besides puzzles

Elizabeth reading to Cynthia on the couch:

Cynthia reading to Elizabeth on the floor:

Elizabeth reading while walking around the house.  She has discovered chapter books, and pretty much read for most of March:

Henry with his afternoon snack all lined up in a neat little row:

I think it runs in the family:

And you know what else runs in the family?  Really awesome dance skills:

Cynthia being cute (for lots of pictures in a row):

She is such a happy, pleasant baby.  We can’t get enough.

Fine dining in the playroom:

Baseball season!

 

Cynthia turned five months old:

Right around this time, she decided to try out scooting, but she went about it in a very confused way.  She would lift herself all the way up on her hands and feet, but this always made her slide backward.  She’d get farther and farther away from the things she was trying to get, and she’d end up scooting backward completely off her blanket.  After a few days of being frustrated, she finally figured it out.

Mom, why isn’t this working?

Henry still takes great naps every day after lunch.  He usually falls asleep pretty quickly, but I guess one day after I put him to bed he was wandering around his room and fell asleep in the corner.  I was pretty shocked when I went to check on him and he wasn’t in his bed, and even more surprised to find him in this position behind the door.

And speaking of being shocked and surprised, here is a little story.  Tristan and Oliver found a real live big fat rat outside in our front yard.  At first I didn’t believe them, but I went out and saw it and they were right.  It gets worse, though.  They were trying to catch it, and it ran away from them and hid under our car.  It actually climbed up into the bottom of our car and was just hanging there for dear life.  I had to leave right then to take Rachel to dance, and I was so nervous getting all the kids in the car because I kept thinking it was going to run out and jump in the car or something scary.  I thought it would jump down as soon as I started the car, but it didn’t.  It hung on to the bottom of the van the whole way to dance and back!  I was so jumpy, and kept imagining little tickle feelings on my feet and think that maybe the rat had found a way to climb up inside our car (I know this isn’t possible, but you try driving with a rat hanging to the bottom of your car, and you will imagine it, too).   Anyway, the rat somehow survived the trip, but then got down from the car and went over to our neighbor’s driveway to die (it actually turned out to be a considerate rat). 

Now, imagine that you are outside on your front porch looking over at the dead rat in your neighbor’s driveway, and you feel something run right by your foot and you look down and a big brown thing is racing through the open door into your house, but so fast that you can’t really see it clearly.  You would think it was another rat, right?  Well, that was the first thought I had, anyway, so I immediately did the only logical thing which was to run screaming into the house and stand up on top of a bench in the kitchen.  And then yell for Oliver to come inside and shut all the doors (so it couldn’t go into any bedrooms like in Lady and the Tramp) and then find whatever had come into the house. 

Rachel actually found the thing first (Mom, there’s something brown with a tail under your desk!), and it turned out to be a giant lizard, which actually was a relief to me.  Not that I wouldn’t have had a heart attack if I had sat down at the desk and put my foot down on a lizard, but I was much more comfortable with the idea of a lizard loose in the house than a rat. 

And anyway, it wasn’t loose in the house for long thanks to this little boy, our resident wild-animal catching expert:

The end. 

Puzzle Master

I was planning on doing a March post, but so many of the pictures from March were of Henry doing puzzles, I decided they should get their own post.

I have never had a two-year old so interested in doing puzzles – he really does love them. 

He’s getting pretty good, too.  After he got bored of his 25-piecers, he decided to try out Lizza’s 48-piece princess ones.  She has a Snow White and an Ariel one, and once he figured them out, he went through a stage where he would just do them over and over and over again.  The impressive thing was that he didn’t even have a picture to look at – he was just figuring them out all on his own and then memorizing which pieces went where.

Most mornings he would come downstairs and head right over to the cupboard where the puzzles were so he could get a few done before breakfast (and this kid loves his breakfast, so if he’s willing to postpone it for puzzles, it shows how obsessed he is). 

He loves to keep things organized.  One of his favorite things is to do a whole bunch of puzzles and then line them all up in a row.

I felt bad for him just doing princess puzzles all the time, so I found him this 60-piece state puzzle at the dollar store.

After he learned that one, he wanted to try a more advanced one.  I had one that I actually bought a long time ago when Tristan was a little kid – it has 84 pieces and is recommended for ages 7 and up.  Henry had seen Lizza do it, and wanted to try.  I kept telling him it was probably too tricky (I should have known that would only make him more interested).  The first few times he did it, I helped him put the edges together, and then he figured out where all the states went.  After his first few times, though, he memorized where all the pieces went, and he didn’t need any help after that.  It quickly became one of his favorites. 

Here’s a video of him working on it.  My favorite parts are when he says “ya know?” (he ends lots of his sentences that way these days) and also how at the end of the clip he says “you little freak” to one of the puzzle pieces that wasn’t cooperating with him.  (I'm sure I have his older siblings to thank for that.)

A few weeks ago Lizza brought down this 100-piece dinosaur puzzle from our game closet.  She was just sure Henry would love it, but I thought it might be too big for him, and was worried he’d get frustrated if he couldn’t do it.  I guess I should stop being surprised when he proves me wrong.

Also, some funny puzzle-related Henry stories:

1.  I love when my kids learn grown-up sounding phrases, and then surprise me by using them at the right time.  A few months ago Henry was working on his wooden state puzzle on the kitchen floor.  It was after dinner and I was trying to sweep, so I kept telling him to hurry so I wouldn’t sweep up his puzzle.  After I had finished sweeping everywhere else, I started pretending to sweep up some of his pieces, just to tease him, like “oh, no!  I’m sweeping up Virginia – you better hurry and put it in!”  He did not think this was very funny, and didn’t appreciate me rushing him along.  He started scowling as he hurried to rescue some of the states from the broom.  He then shook his head and muttered to himself, “This is a joke!!”  Like he just couldn’t believe how ridiculous I was being.  The funniest is that for sure he learned that phrase from Daniel.  I just hadn’t ever heard him say it before.

2.  The other day Henry was working on some puzzles in the kitchen.  He kept accidentally dropping pieces on the floor, and for some reason he had decided that Daniel should be the one to pick them up for him.  I think Daniel picked up a few, but then he went in the other room.  The next time Henry dropped a piece, he yelled in to Daniel, “Hey, Dad!  I dropped a piece!”

Daniel wasn’t really paying attention, and he called back “Nice!”  (thinking that maybe Henry was just needing some sort of validation for finishing the puzzle). 

I was out in the kitchen with Henry, and saw him get a really disgusted/perplexed “whatever, Dad” look on his face.  He then yelled back to Daniel, “No, Dad!  I DROPPED a piece.  Don’t say “NICE” when I DROP a piece.  Just GET the piece, okay?”

Haha.  We love our little puzzle master.  Ya know?

February

February pictures!  Hooray! 

But first two funny Rachel quotes (I just found these written down on a notecard from a few months ago).

1.  Rachel (after watching me clean up the kitchen after dinner):  "Mom, it's funny, because sometimes it seems like you are actually our maid.  And we're all the kings and queens.  Because, I mean, all your life - well, at least since you've been a grown-up - all you do is clean and clean and clean.  And I mean ALL you do. . . Except when you go on dates.  And movie nights.  So I guess it's not that bad."

2.  Rachel (after saying something that she thought was particularly clever):  Mom, it's weird, because I've noticed that as people get older they usually get funnier and funnier! 

Me:  What do you mean?

Rachel:  Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but I am actually starting to be REALLY funny!

Daniel:  Yeah, funny looking you mean! (he had just walked into the room and couldn't resist)

Rachel (without missing a beat):  I've been funny looking all my life!!

(big pause)

Rachel (maybe reconsidering what she just said):  Well, cute looking is more like it.

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And now February pictures. . . .

Henry holding Cynthia (a rare moment, not usually allowed - see 3rd picture):

Eating breakfast by candlelight (and flashlight).  The power had gone out one morning right before school, which was very exciting to everyone.  We continued to get ready and eat breakfast, just so the kids would be all ready to go when it came back on.  We lit some candles and handed out flashlights.  Henry insisted on holding a flashlight and shining it on every bite.

Henry didn't let the power outage keep him from getting some puzzle time in. 

After about 15 minutes, the sun started to come up so I just opened up the windows in the kitchen, and there was plently of light.  Elizabeth continued to use her flashlight for a few hours, though, because everything is more fun with a flashlight when you are four.

It always makes me happy to see my kids playing together and being best friends (not that they don't have their fair share of arguments - I just don't have any pictures of that).

Rachel and Lizza playing the Leapster together:

Tristan and Oliver using the computer together (Tristan wanted to build stuff on Lego.com, and Oliver wanted to draw a picture of Ironman, so they figured out a way to have both up at the same time):

Lizza and Henry pretending something together.

Rachel and Lizza reading books together while riding scooters/striders.

Cynthia just being cute in my bed. 

Henry jumping off the couch.  When I told him he couldn't jump off the couch anymore he told me he needed to because he was Batman, not Henry.  He then said "Mom, don't talk to me or say that I can't when I jump off the couch again, okay?"  That's his new thing whenever he's planning on disobeying - "mom, when I do it again don't say that I can't do that."  He thinks it's a pretty simple solution.

Decorating cookies for Valentine's Day.

I didn't feel like buying 75 valentines for my kids to take to school just so they could get thrown away, so I decided to make cookies for them to take instead.  The kids loved helping me decorate them and were super excited to take them to school.  (and thanks, Audra, for teaching us about the royal icing - it's so fun!)

Cynthia being cute on Valentine's Day:

Henry posing by a big puzzle.  He must have remembered that I took a picture of Lizza by her big puzzle, because as soon as he finished he laid down next to it and requested a picture.

When he's not doing puzzles, he also has fun drawing pictures.  Usually he just draws straight lines and calls them snakes or sticks, but once in awhile he gets brave and calls his scribbles whatever he wants them to be without worrying that it might not look exactly right.

Here is a video clip of him drawing "not a bomb, but a bomb hill" (whatever that is).  My favorite part is at :34 when he stands up all excited and says proudly "There it is! The bomb hill!  I drawed the bomb hill!"  Also when he gets distracted in the middle because he heard the Star Wars music come on so he thinks he might need to stop drawing and hurry and get his Darth Vader stuff on.   

Cynthia at four months old.  Isn't that about the cutest doll ever?  A lady in our ward made it for her.  They are about the same size right now.

Oliver did a research project at school about bald eagles.  He had to make a 3D project, and decided to make an eagle habitat out of legos.  It was awesome.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but that is a little bald eagle in a nest in a tree and it has a fish in its mouth.

Speaking of Oliver, he is crazy when it comes to animals.  Now that it is getting warmer here, he takes forever getting home from school, because he always stops off at the creek to catch things.  The other day I was upstairs when the kids got home, and Rachel burst in the door yelling, "Mom, Ollie caught a huge scary thing!"  The next thing I heard was Ollie running in to the kitchen, and then a few seconds later yelling, "Mom!  It has eggs!  It's laying its eggs everywhere!!"  You are right if you think this was a very alarming thing to hear.  I raced downstairs (skipping steps, even), to see what was laying eggs all over my kitchen.  It was a giant crawfish, which Oliver had luckily gotten into a bowl of water before all of the hundreds of eggs attached to it started hatching.  You could actually see all of the little crawfish swimming out.  It was fascinating and terrifying at the same time.  And if you are squeamish you might want to close your eyes for the picture:

I still can't believe he picked that thing up and carried it all the way home from the creek. 

In cuter news, Rachel started soccer this spring.  She was so excited about it.  The minute we got home from the store with her soccer cleats, ball, etc., she was out in the backyard practicing with Tristan.  Neither of them know what they're doing, but oh, well. 

That's it for February.