Bathtime Woes

I have to get this one down before it escapes me.

Akiko and Moses were taking their bath last night. They'd been in there a while. The water had gone cold. They were done.

When Akiko asked to get out, I told her to wait just a moment because I was in the middle of something, but nearly done.

Then I heard her start singing to the tune of "Frere Jacques:"

I am co-old
I am co-old
Why are they doing-this-to-me?  
Why are they doing-this-to-me?


It made me laugh out loud so I missed the rest of the lyrics she'd made up.

Being five years old must be so hard. *Sigh!*

Happy 3rd Birthday Moses!

Today is Moses' 3rd birthday. I'm going to say this every year, with every child, but seriously, time goes by way too fast.

He was a delightful 2 year old. I really don't know what anyone means when they say, "Watch out for the terrible twos!" Ok, maybe Akiko was pretty hard as a two-year old, but, in her defense, that was also a difficult year for all of us. Moses was an absolute breeze.

I'm excited to see what happens in Moses this next year. He's a super smart kid. He's the kind of kid that watches very carefully before attempting anything himself. That explains why he didn't talk till he was nearly two, but when he did start talking it was in complete sentences. Dang! That was only a year ago?

I was afraid, at first, to have a little boy. When I found out he wasn't going to be a little girl, I was disappointed. You see, before Moses came along, most little boys I'd known were rowdy little bundles of stress. Here's the catch: I wasn't their mother. I wasn't around to see when they were being sweet to their siblings and sharing, or asking politely to be excused from the table. Having a boy is awesome! Besides, someday he'll hold the priesthood. What greater blessing is that? To be the mother of a man worthy to perform and participate in the duties of the priesthood has got to be one of the proudest moments I'll ever know.

Moses is the sweetest little boy I've ever met. He's obedient a lot of times and show concern for others when he senses their distress. He idolizes his sister and adores his brother. We get compliments every week when we pick him up from nursery. Apparently, he's just about the only kid in there who actually volunteers to say prayer.

I love being Moses' mother. I love watching him grow. I love watching him learn. I love getting to know his personality. I love how his personality compliments Akiko's. I love Moses.

Happy Birthday Little Man!!!

Moses impersonating Asher, or is it the other way around?

Halloween

Ahh! Sunday Halloweens. What the heck do you do when you don't live in Utah? Well, for starters, we will be skipping trick-or-treating. We will be handing out candy still, to anyone who comes to our door. We're not Grinches, you know.

That doesn't mean we didn't have fun this weekend, though. We had plenty going on last Friday and my children mistakenly thought yesterday was Halloween. I had some fun activities planned already and they were already warned that we wouldn't be going door-to-door.

So, what did we do, you ask? Well, let's start with Friday, the 29th.

So, Akiko's school has a uniform policy (which I love), but on the last Friday of the month is a free dress day. Convenient for October, isn't it? So, we got up early and dressed Akiko in her costume.

 

What a pretty little kitty!

Then the boys got to put their costumes on so we could go see Akiko at her school's Halloween parade.

Moses as Anpanman!

 

For the record, I did not pose this at all. It's all Moses channeling Anpanman himself. Totally cracked me up!

And here's Asher as a little mouse. His costume cost me only $7.60!

We then headed over to Akiko's school to watch her in the parade.

We had to wait a little while so they could finish getting set up, so here are the pre-parade shots of Akiko with her classmates.

Then the parade started. They went class by class (i.e. the 4th graders, the 2nd graders, etc.), so while we waited for the kindergarteners, Moses and our friend's little boy, J, ran around in the background. They kept making running passes. It was really cute!

I was also able to get an action shot of Moses' Anpanman's cape blowing in the wind and another of him getting ready to fly. (Moses insisted the whole time he was in costume that we refer to him as Anpanman.)

Then it was the kindergarten's turn to walk in the parade. They allowed younger siblings to join if the wanted to. Moses Anpanman was all for it, but then he seemed a little unsure about his decision afterwards.

Then, after all the kids had gone, they allowed staff and any parents that dressed up parade around, too. Since I dressed up, too, I decided I may as well. So, Moses Anpanman got one more go and Asher the mouse got a turn, too.

And here are the boys and me afterwards.

Later that evening, we had the ward party and trunk-or-treat. I was a single mom there for a little bit (Joseph's train was severely delayed) so I wasn't able to take a whole lot of pictures of this event. There were food, games... the usual.

Akiko the Cat caught Asher the Mouse. Anpanman caught a hotdog.

Joseph was finally able to make it! Just in time for another parade.

So, that was our busy Friday. Saturday, we did our tradition of baking and decorating sugar cookies. I kept it simple this year with only one batch and one cookie shape. 

The cookies I did for our Primary class.

The kids' masterpieces. Bet you can't tell which one I did!

Moses dug right in.

After we got the cookie fun cleaned up, it was time to carve jack'o'lanterns.

We let Akiko scoop the seeds out of hers. She was totally grossed out.

 

Sorry, the pictures are a little blurry and her hair fell into her face, but her faces are priceless!

The carved pumpkins.

So, one of the pumpkins we'd picked up had started rotting on the bottom, rendering it uncarveable. We sent Sam to the store to get a replacement. However, trying to find a good carving pumpkin on Halloween Eve is like trying to find the year's most popular toy for your kid on Christmas Eve. He got a really cool pumpkin though. 

It was not a carving pumpkin. It was so hard. We could hardly penetrate it. So, in order to decorate it, I let Moses paint it to death.

And like a true artist, he got paint all over himself. Even on his back!

Today, for Halloween, we're making pumpkin pie from scratch. Yeah, I'm talking about roasting and pureeing the pumpkin myself. And we're gonna do it again for Thanksgiving.

The Halloween festivities were a lot of fun. I really hope that my kids will have fond memories of these years when they're older. I sure have a lot of fun participating with them. I do feel bad that we're not trick-or-treating, but I tried to fill that void. We have the next five years in a row to go on Halloween night. Besides, Akiko is having a blast handing out the candy (she's doing so as I post this).

Why My Next Child Should Be A Girl

So that Akiko can do things like this to her:

But I'm really happy Asher is a little man.

Here are some cute pics of him taken this last week.

That is all.

Hope you enjoyed that!

Next post is all about Halloween!!

Learning Curve

It seems like when Akiko was nearly 3 years old she was getting herself dressed, or at least attempting to. It's hard to say if it's because she's a very independent spirit or maybe because she's a girl who really cares how she looks. Whatever the reason, I rarely have to dress her and hardly ever actually help put clothes on her, tights being about the only exception.

Moses, on the other hand... well, maybe it's because I seem to always be in a rush when I'm dressing him that I just do it because it's faster. When it dawned on me that he was almost 3, I began to wonder if he was capable of getting his clothes on and off. Well, I know he's really good at taking his pants off, but could he put them on? So, one night recently while we were getting ready for bed, I helped him put his shirt on and just handed him his shorts.

"Do you think you can put your shorts on all by yourself?" I asked.

I was met with an enthusiastic affirmation.

Well, I'll let you be the judge on how well he did...

The good ol' through-one-leg-and-upside-down result. I love it. He was so proud.

I really am impressed though. Kids always seem to have the most trouble bringing their pants up over the diaper bulge in the back. Moses got that part alright. Now I just have to teach him which way the pants go.

I love teaching my kids new skills. I love how excited they get when they accomplish something they've been working on. I especially love it when it means it's one less thing that I have to do for them.