Leif is FOUR!

We all thought this day would never come! Leif has been saying "it's almost my birthday" since at least August and now he is finally four! He is so proud of it, although so far, when asked, the only difference he is aware of between three and four is that four-year-olds can jump off of rocks at the park that three-year-olds are unable to (we haven't actually tested this theory, but he is pretty sure of it). Leif is pretty happy and proud to tell everyone he meets that he is four and we had several parties to celebrate. We had one with my dad at the beginning of November when he was here visiting (just pizza and cake), one with my mom, stepdad, and sister when we were in Utah the night before his birthday (The Old Spaghetti Factory, presents, and cake), and one with Austin's side of the family on his actual birthday (presents, wrestling with cousins, and the same cake from the night before).

Leif is quite the interesting fellow. He is a little replica of his father with some of his mother mixed in. Leif is stubborn and is very set on having things his way, is always thinking about something or figuring something out, is very clever, loves to watch movies, and is great at memorizing things (particularly rhymes, stories, and movie lines). Leif is really into quoting Peanuts right now and will go around reciting conversations between the characters without any context (it really confuses people who don't know what he's talking about). He thinks he is hilarious and his brother agrees, so it just eggs him on to keep doing it. Leif loves to laugh and is always thinking of something absurd to say or do just to entertain himself or his siblings. Sometimes it irritates me, but most of the time I just have to keep myself from laughing at him so I don't egg him on too. One of the funny things about Leif is that he loves and seeks attention when it's on his own terms (he loved saying his part for our church Primary Program and tries to get up and talk at the microphone whenever he can), but he gets really shy and put out if he's given attention without seeking it (he squirmed and hid every time we sang to him for his birthday parties). Here is the birthday interview I did with him and a few pictures from his party (plus a bonus picture from about a month ago that I just really like of him)

Who is your favorite person? Heidi

What is your favorite color? Green

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Planes Fire and Rescue (this has been his favorite movie since before he turned two)

What is your favorite outfit? Rescue Bots shirt (my sister made this with him a few days ago and he wore it for two days and two nights until I finally made him take it off)

What song do you like the best? Silent Night (this is a recent thing, mostly he loves 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' and sings it to Heidi all the time and even wanted us to sing it instead of Happy Birthday)

What is your favorite cereal? Kix

Who is your best friend? Amanda

What do you want to do when your grow up? Do construction

What is your favorite book? Planes Fire and Rescue (of course- the book version of his favorite movie. He has this book memorized and can 'read' the whole thing)

What are you really good at? Jumping off rocks (this must be what he was referring to when asked what four-year-olds do better than three-year-olds)

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? To Idaho (Great Grandma & Great Grandpa's house-we just got back from here, but its a favorite for both our boys)

What would you buy is you had a lot of money? A paw patrol toy (he just got a bunch of them for his birthday)

What is your favorite dinner? Meat Love (meat loaf)

If you could have a wish, what would it be? Jesus being born

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Mint Chocolate Chip-the green kind

Who do you want to be like? our Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? run to our house

What is your favorite thing to do? Play Planes Fire and Rescue

What are you proud of? my brother

What are you afraid of? Monsters

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Have new babies

How strong is Dad? Really strong

What does Dad do best? Take pictures

What does Mom do best? Exercise

What do you like best about Dad? He's huge

What do you like best about Mom? She stays at home with us

Heidi is a year and a half!

Our little ragamuffin princess is a year and a half old! She is a little busy body that gets into everything and makes you quite aware if you do something she does not agree with. Mostly she yells "Nooooo!" but if she can get into whatever you are doing, she will. Heidi's verbal skills are skyrocketing-I'm sure I find them even more amazing because I only have her brothers to compare them to. I thought Leif was really good at speaking because he was saying full sentences by two, but Heidi has already surpassed him and uses full sentences now. Like I said last month, its mostly "I want this" or "I don't want that" but she does say other things as well. Heidi still loves coloring and throws quite a few tantrums over not being allowed to color or draw whenever the mood strikes her (like at nap time or when its time to change her diaper). I have found her coloring on walls, the floor, and tables a few times and we have to keep reinforcing that only paper is for coloring. Heidi loves dogs and cats. The boys always had a fascination with them, but Heidi really loves them and isn't afraid at all. She loves to hug and pet them whenever she gets the chance and the word "kitty" is probably one of the cutest words to hear her say right now. Here are some photo's of Little Miss that Austin took:

Trick-or-treat!!!

Austin is out of town for a work leadership training in Michigan this week, so he missed out on trick-or-treating and my dad came with us instead. I was going to email the pictures to him, but figured since I had to do a blog post eventually, I might as well just put them up here first and he can see them this way. The boys were really excited for Heidi to be a care bear for Halloween even though I had pretty much convinced them to be Max and a wild thing from Where the Wild Things Are (I already have the Max costume). But once they saw Heidi's costume they decided that they also wanted to be care bears and so we got a matching set :) Introducing Lucky Bear, Tender Heart Bear, and Sleepy Bear:

 

Trick-or-treating was extremely exciting at first- the boys ran to every house for about the first 1/2 hour, then they started slowing down a bit, and by the end Leif just wanted to ride in the stroller and get home (Heidi rode the whole way since she is too little to go up everyone's stairs and doesn't eat candy anyway) and Asher ended up knocking on the last few doors by himself (our neighbors that knew he has a brother gave him extra candy for Leif). 

 They were so excited to get home and dump all their candy into a big pile and check out what they got. Heidi was excited to dig through it too and just play with it. She was not happy that I put her to bed soon after getting home, but she sure was tired.

Seventeen Months

Little Miss is seventeen months going on seventeen years. She is still a sweet girl who bring sunshine into our home, but she is getting to be quite the handful! Heidi is such a girl! (even though she loves to imitate her brothers by driving cars around with sound effects) She bats her eyes and gives these funny little feminine glances all the time. She loves clothes and shoes and snuggling stuffed animals. She loves to scream like she is being hurt if she doesn't get what she wants (including getting dressed herself instead of me doing it- which, by the way, she hasn't quite mastered). She says new words everyday and occasionally talks in full sentences, the most common being "I want . . ." or "I don't want . . . ". Even with that vocabulary though, she still prefers to just repeat "No" over and over when you have something she wants or when you are trying to give her something she doesn't want. I have worked with her quite a bit to say "please" instead of just demanding something by repeating "no" or "mommy", and she is getting pretty good at it, even if she needs to be reminded a lot.The boys just taught her the word "cookie" today as we were making/eating pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Heidi is great at repeating words you tell her to say, so the boys get a huge kick out of making her say things (sometimes over and over again). They have also tried to get her to say some pretty silly words and phrases, but of course she can't remember the nonsense, so she doesn't say it. Heidi is an incredibly loving little girl. She loves to snuggle and give kisses and gets pretty concerned if she sees someone crying. So even with the girl drama, we love having her around and wouldn't be sad if she gets a sister in a few months (although a brother would be great too ;)
Here are a few pictures of her playing in the back yard today. She loved that I just let her roam around and do whatever she wanted since I usually follow her around every where or trap her onto the trampoline with her brothers. Some of what I call "girl drama" may just be her exerting her independence, but she definitely does it with some girlish flair!

Fall Festivities

I love Fall! I'm so glad it's finally cooling off and I love all the fun activities that go along with Fall. We had a cousin "sleepover" last weekend (which really only turned into Amanda sleeping over) but we had lots of fun before bedtime. We ate pizza, played Halloween Bingo, made monsters from graham crackers, frosting, marshmallows, and sprinkles, and watched a movie with treats.

I also got my little monsters motivated to rake up leaves when we bought a few of the bags that look like jack-o-lanterns. They were very excited to use the rakes too (we have an adult one and a kid-sized one) although they did more spreading the leaves around than gathering them into one pile. But, I was glad for the help to get all the leaves in the bags. We have many more bagfuls of leaves ahead of us this Autumn, but we got a good start on the front yard and added some decorations for Halloween. 

16 Months

Little Heidi Rose is 16 months old! Its crazy to think that this is the age Asher was when Leif was born. Its even crazier to think that Heidi won't be much older when she becomes a big sister. Although I'm pretty sure she has no idea the surprise she is going to get in 3 months, she likes to pat my belly and say "baby" especially if the boys are patting it and talking to the new baby. She is pretty verbal and I've tried to explain to her using one of her dolls, but I think she doesn't really get it. She is so sweet and even-tempered though that I'm sure she won't be jealous.
Heidi's favorite activities lately include opening and closing cabinets and doors. She especially likes opening the under-sink kitchen cabinet where we keep the garbage can, opening the lid, and putting trash in, then closing the lid and closing the cabinet. Its obvious that she is very proud when she does this. She also has an attraction to toilets and toilet cleaning brushes, so we have to watch her carefully to keep her out of bathrooms.
Heidi loves shoes and clothes still. I find everyone's shoes scattered all over the house along with clothes that she has scavenged from dirty clothes hampers. She usually tries to put the shoes or clothes on herself for awhile before discarding them in whatever room she happens to be in. I've tried to remedy things a bit by starting a kids' shoe basket by the back door for the kids to keep all their shoes in. Its helped a little, but she hasn't gotten the idea of putting shoes back in there yet, although I'm sure she will soon since she likes to help clean up. 
Heidi has become smitten with a really soft muslin blanket that Austin bought for her a few months ago. Throughout the day she goes into her room, pulls it out of her crib and drags it around the house intermittently putting it over her head to walk around or wrapping it around herself to roll on the ground. Austin thinks we need to buy another one for her because it looks like she is going to wear it out with all the love and she is so attached to it already, but I thought just buying the one was too expensive, so we'll have to have a good discussion about it. She is also pretty attached to two bunnies that we keep in her crib- one that I bought for her before she was born in the high hopes that I would get a girl someday and one that Austin bought for her on his last business trip (she got a really nice ballerina bunny stuffed animal while her brothers got Russian chocolates- notice a trend of Austin spoiling his daughter? ;) She doesn't drag these around as much as her blanket, but I've had to have the boys do a search several times before nap or bedtime to find her beloved sleeping articles.
Heidi also loves to color and is very often tempted to go sit in her little purple chair at the kids table. We usually keep the markers out of her reach, but sometimes she gets them when the boys have them out.I'm really impressed with her fine motor skills, but I think the boys just didn't develop as quickly because they are boys. 
Heidi is getting a couple molars and finally getting one more front tooth. She loves to get into the freezer whenever I have it open and get out an icey to chew on for a bit. (Or she just gets ice cubes out to play with :)
Here are a few pictures of her from today. She looks very serious in all of them because she was quite involved in what she was doing and didn't want to be distracted for photos. 

Asher's First Day of Kindergarten

Asher had his first day of school today! I think I was more nervous about it than he was and I admit I cried a tiny bit as we left the classroom (where he couldn't see me) but I got over it pretty quick and Asher had a great day by his report when I picked him up. Austin and I both dropped him off this morning. I think he felt special for us to both be there and he loves his backpack and lunchbox.

Here he is at his seat. They were supposed to write their name and draw a picture of his first day of school, but he seemed so overwhelmed that I'm not sure he ever got around to it. When I picked him up this afternoon, he told me all about sitting at the rug listening to "The Three Billy Goats Gruff", having two recesses (by far his favorite part), having snack and lunch, going to music and art, and being friends with everyone (even if he doesn't remember any names). Its pretty typical for Asher to be friends with everyone, so I didn't worry about this part at all. I also didn't worry about him listening to his teacher, I just thought he might have a hard time sitting still for so long. But he seems to have liked it and says he is excited to go back on Thursday.