...unlike the one where he throws the Magi to their doom in the lava.
I was signing Christmas cards and Jay was busy with Zach doing homework. Ryan seemed to want to be in the middle of something, so I gave him a stack of white paper and crayons and set him up at the table where I was signing cards. He drew a picture of a "Christmas tree with ornaments" and said it was for friend Ben. It was actually a pretty good drawing. I told him we could mail it with the Christmas card I send to Ben's mommy and daddy. [I need to ask Erin if I can borrow it to scan it for his scrapbook. Stupid me I should have thought of that before I put it in the envelope.] I went back to signing cards and Ryan went to work on his next drawing. He handed it to me and said, "This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Mom-mom and Pop-pop." He went to work on his next drawing of a Christmas tree while I labeled the previous one. Then I signed another card. He handed me his next drawing and said "This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Jason."
The cycle repeated...
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for cousin Ben."
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Emily."
Then the best one...
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for the Lord Jesus." [All together now, awwww.]
and then
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Mary."
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Joseph."
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for the angels."
So we decided Jesus could give Mary, Joseph and the angels their drawings and we put them in Jesus's stocking. Jesus has a stocking in our house where we write things that we are going to give Jesus. Things we are going to try to do to be better followers. Zach put his first real one in this year. Up until this year he would say "I'm going to give Him my heart." As in the poem, "What can I give Him poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I'd give Him a lamb, If I were a wise man I'd do my part, What can I give Him? Give Him my heart!" In all fairness it was only one time because I didn't start this tradition until last year. I got the idea from a friend the year before when I asked about the stocking in her house with Jesus written on it.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
3 3 3 3
Ryan is 3 years 3 months 3 weeks and 3 days today. Seemed like a day to note. Happy Christmas Eve!
Friday, December 22, 2006
Walking?
In my Christmas letter I said we wouldn't call the steps Lily is taking walking until she can take more than 6 steps without falling. 6 steps had been her record until today. This morning she took 9 steps and stopped. She didn't fall. She just stopped. So I think I am going to officially call that walking.
It's a little harder for me to judge her starting to walk than it was for Ryan. She took her first steps sooner, but they were sporadic and she mostly crawled. Ryan waited until he was fully 9 months to take his first steps, but he took off walking pretty quickly and didn't look back. Since Lily still does most of her getting around by bear walking and a little bit by old fashioned crawling now. So it's hard for me to judge if she is a full fledged walker. Either way she is growing up fast. Maybe a little too fast!
It's a little harder for me to judge her starting to walk than it was for Ryan. She took her first steps sooner, but they were sporadic and she mostly crawled. Ryan waited until he was fully 9 months to take his first steps, but he took off walking pretty quickly and didn't look back. Since Lily still does most of her getting around by bear walking and a little bit by old fashioned crawling now. So it's hard for me to judge if she is a full fledged walker. Either way she is growing up fast. Maybe a little too fast!
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Newspaper
Ryan was watching a Blue's Clues episode where they make a newspaper of all the happenings in Steve's house. He ran in the kitchen to get his crayons and some white paper. He couldn't find his crayons, so he comes to ask me. Then he says, "I need them to write my newspaper." How great is that?! I love Blue's Clues. It was better with Steve though. I can heard him in there talking about Port Discovery now.
My Thoughts in Bullets
*I really have a hard time believing Christmas is less than a week away. I'm totally not ready.
*I really wish my kids would sleep through the night. Lily still wakes up at least 2 or 3 times a night and Ryan has been waking up crying lately too. This is not an invitation for everyone to tell me what book they read to help them get their kids to sleep. I can't do most of those because Lily shares a room with Ryan and they go to bed around the same time. Besides I don't have time to read a book and I'm too tired!
*Kwaanza- What's that about? I could write a whole post about my distaste for it being taught in every cartoon show with Christmas and Hanukkah. But,ACLU God forbid they even mention Christmas and exclude Kwanza even though the holiday itself is exclusionary. It kind of reminds me of how people bash other people with opinions as being closed minded because they don't agree with their opinion that no one should have an opinion.
**edited to add- I decided to educate myself instead of just going on what I've heard. After reading the Wikipedia article on Kwan*zaa or Kwaanza I think it's even more BS than I did before. No wonder only 1.6% of Americans celebrate it and NO OTHER COUNTRY does.**
* I find it curious that both Ryan and Lily got sick and terribly cranky right after they got the flu shot and no one else in the family is sick at all. Lily is still sick. Go ahead and roll your eyes all you flu shot advocates...I'm thinking of not getting them the second shot.
*I was supposed to get my very hard to find special sized envelopes for my Christmas cards yesterday. Of course since I am already running late they didn't come. Note to self- Next time you design your own card check out envelope sizes first to be sure you can get them. Envelopes seem to come in all kinds of sizes for companies that make cards, but try to find boxes of odd size envelopes- HA!
*I saw a commercial for salsa yesterday. They advertised salsa AND con queso. In case you didn't take Spanish salsa CON queso means salsa WITH cheese. You would think there would be some kind of check that a national commercial didn't sound stupid.
*I've e-mailed and called(twice) the preschool I want to look at for Ryan starting two weeks ago and still have not heard anything. It's the school I've found most recommended by parents who had kids there. I'm thinking of not sending him to preschool. Maybe this is a sign. The only reason I really want him to go is so he doesn't have to go from no school at all to full day kindergarten.
*I didn't realize how annoyed and confrontational I was feeling until I got a few bullet points in to this post. Hmm...perhaps not a good day to be getting ready for Christmas.
*I wrapped most of the kids gifts this weekend and finally made a list on paper of each one for each kid. Here is what I discovered...Trying to be fair is much easier when you only have two kids to keep tabs on. Ryan is SUPER easy to shop for. He has opinions and loves certain things. I love that about him. I had to restrain myself from buying more for him and he still ended up with the most stuff(though it worked out with Zach's stuff because his is more expensive). Lily was left in the dust. Poor girl. I guess because I got lots of the stuff for Ryan that I would want for her too and it's still in good shape. Now I have to go out and get a few more presents for her.
*IPods really are cool.
edited to note:
*Blogger spell check sucks! It doesn't even include Blogger or blog! It also keep poping up
behind my current window so I have to go find it.
*I called the preschool again and said that I have called 3 times and would like a call back.
*I really wish my kids would sleep through the night. Lily still wakes up at least 2 or 3 times a night and Ryan has been waking up crying lately too. This is not an invitation for everyone to tell me what book they read to help them get their kids to sleep. I can't do most of those because Lily shares a room with Ryan and they go to bed around the same time. Besides I don't have time to read a book and I'm too tired!
*Kwaanza- What's that about? I could write a whole post about my distaste for it being taught in every cartoon show with Christmas and Hanukkah. But,
**edited to add- I decided to educate myself instead of just going on what I've heard. After reading the Wikipedia article on Kwan*zaa or Kwaanza I think it's even more BS than I did before. No wonder only 1.6% of Americans celebrate it and NO OTHER COUNTRY does.**
* I find it curious that both Ryan and Lily got sick and terribly cranky right after they got the flu shot and no one else in the family is sick at all. Lily is still sick. Go ahead and roll your eyes all you flu shot advocates...I'm thinking of not getting them the second shot.
*I was supposed to get my very hard to find special sized envelopes for my Christmas cards yesterday. Of course since I am already running late they didn't come. Note to self- Next time you design your own card check out envelope sizes first to be sure you can get them. Envelopes seem to come in all kinds of sizes for companies that make cards, but try to find boxes of odd size envelopes- HA!
*I saw a commercial for salsa yesterday. They advertised salsa AND con queso. In case you didn't take Spanish salsa CON queso means salsa WITH cheese. You would think there would be some kind of check that a national commercial didn't sound stupid.
*I've e-mailed and called(twice) the preschool I want to look at for Ryan starting two weeks ago and still have not heard anything. It's the school I've found most recommended by parents who had kids there. I'm thinking of not sending him to preschool. Maybe this is a sign. The only reason I really want him to go is so he doesn't have to go from no school at all to full day kindergarten.
*I didn't realize how annoyed and confrontational I was feeling until I got a few bullet points in to this post. Hmm...perhaps not a good day to be getting ready for Christmas.
*I wrapped most of the kids gifts this weekend and finally made a list on paper of each one for each kid. Here is what I discovered...Trying to be fair is much easier when you only have two kids to keep tabs on. Ryan is SUPER easy to shop for. He has opinions and loves certain things. I love that about him. I had to restrain myself from buying more for him and he still ended up with the most stuff(though it worked out with Zach's stuff because his is more expensive). Lily was left in the dust. Poor girl. I guess because I got lots of the stuff for Ryan that I would want for her too and it's still in good shape. Now I have to go out and get a few more presents for her.
*IPods really are cool.
edited to note:
*Blogger spell check sucks! It doesn't even include Blogger or blog! It also keep poping up
behind my current window so I have to go find it.
*I called the preschool again and said that I have called 3 times and would like a call back.