Morning time

Jonathan and Phoebe wake up first. I hear Phoebe up first and she's usually yelling at "Diego" to get up and make a rainbow or something weird like that. They get up and play and have a good ole' time until I'll allow them out of their room. Elizabeth eventually gets woken up by their noise. She stays in a bed a little while. Then will make her way to the couch and sit for a while snuggled in the corner. Then will come to the table for breakfast. She may sit there for 10 minutes before eating it though.

Sleeping Innocence

Phillip and I check on the kids every night before we go to bed. They are so adorable when they're sleeping.




This one of Elizabeth was taken 4 years ago, but it's the only one I could find of her sleeping.

Crazy Kids!

The kids are having fun with some costume stuff that was given to us. They look hilarious! Especially Jonathan in the coke bottle glasses. He really looks cross-eyed!

Phillip's Birthday

The kids helped me make his favorite birthday cake: Boston Cream Pie. Crazy messy, but good for them.


Friends from Fleming Island side came over, and it was so much fun!


We do not have a coffee maker (used to in Iowa, but got rid of it because we used it maybe once a year, and I didn't like the way my coffee tasted), so Phillip picked up a container of coffee from Starbucks. It was really good, and I'm still drinking what's left in the mornings. Caffeine is my new morning friend!


For Phillip's birthday, I got a shirt that he bought for me; he received Starbucks gift card and iTunes gift certificate; and I got Pampered Chef stuff! (a joke from one of his sermons) I enjoyed his birthday very much.

The Girls

Elizabeth went to the dentist this past week. I was worried about how her new teeth were coming in. They looked like the overlapped her old teeth and I was afraid her mouth wouldn't have enough room for all her new teeth. Well, she did wonderfully at the dentist, and he said not to worry. Her mouth just needs to grow. She may need a spacer when she's 9 or 10 and she may need braces, but he wasn't for certain. (At least I like to think he wasn't certain.) It was probably from her taking a pacifier as a baby. That made me pull Phoebe off the pacifier when we got home. She's doing well with that; she's not drooling as much as she used to.




Elizabeth was going to make the kids' supper one night. But it took her so long to make Jonathan's peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that she told Phoebe she could make her own sandwich. And Phoebe happily obliged! It ended up being torn bread rolled up with a little bit of peanut butter on it. But I think she ate it.

Ramblings

No new pictures to post.

Scratch that, I just found new pictures. I'll download them and get them posted next. So I'll just ramble a little right now since I'm bored. Phillip is away. He's going to pick up a missionary from the airport and won't be back home till late tonight. So he's not gone for a long while, but I'm still bored.

Phoebe has been calling Jonathan "Diego" ever since she's gotten into Dora. I don't think she even calls him "Jonathan" anymore. He doesn't mind. He comes running. :-) He does a good job taking care of Phoebe. They often play together while Liz and I do school or Liz is outside playing. Phoebe's been a handful. The other day she was sitting on the floor coloring on paper with an ink pen. I was doing laundry and watching her. The next thing I knew, there was a puddle of potty under her, and she stood up and kind of looked at it like, "What just happened here?". So I carried her arms-length away from my body and put her in the tub. I cleaned up the puddle and went to wash her off. It turned out that she still had the ink pen in her hand and was happily drawing little circles and lines on the tub. So I cleaned her up and then had to clean the tub with a Magic Eraser. Then I finally got back to the laundry. Like Phillip said, "Phoebe seems to be more two than the other two were when they were two."

Jonathan (or Diego) is wanting to do everything Elizabeth can do. He wanted to write the words "Thank You" because Elizabeth was writing those words in a letter. He wrote a wonderful T and H, but then he couldn't do an A. He got very upset and threw a fit. I think he's going to be a perfectionist. If he can't do it, he wants me to do it. He's embarrassed by kisses and will wipe them off. He drinks and eats a ton already. I'm glad though. I like to see my kids eat. Especially since Elizabeth doesn't eat hardly anything. Except pizza; she loves that.

Elizabeth is growing up. She's reading so much more than she used to. A month or two ago, she read the first chapter of Genesis from my Bible for her dad. She has a hard time getting to sleep at night. It's 9:46 pm, and she just got up to tell me the night light is bothering her. But she loves to sleep in. I have to almost drag her out of bed at 8:00 in the morning so we can have breakfast and start school. You would think she'd be tired at night, but that's not how she works.

Well, I guess I'll get these pictures downloaded and then uploaded and then posted.

Papa Pants

I need to get a picture of this, but it's a funny moment to share:

Anytime I get Jonathan dressed, I end up pulling his stretchy pants high up on his tummy. He laughs and says, "No, I don't want Papa pants! I want to play with my belly button!"

Okay, so I know you shouldn't encourage bad behavior.....

well, it wasn't necessarily bad behavior. Phoebe just got a little messy and I had to take a picture of it. She has chocolate all over her mouth and it has also been smeared all over her tummy. (We make her take her shirt off during meals because of her messiness.) She's so cute all the time! Even when she's got a rebellious attitude. It's hard not to laugh at her. But we know that to excuse her behavior would be ruinous for her in the long run. So we try our best to discipline when needed and encourage cute behavior when she's in a good and obedient mood.

Book Feast II

We are starting Year 2 of Ambleside Online this coming week. We lengthened Year 1 out for a year and a half and we'll try to lengthen Year 2 out for a year and a half. And then we'll be right on schedule for Year 3.

I love receiving the books I order from Amazon. I kept them all in a stack on the kitchen counter until they all arrived, and then I took them out to look at them. New books are exciting!

Another project

I worked on two more hats and two more scarves for a friend over the holidays. Nice to have something to keep my hands busy!