5

This cute little brown-haired, brown-eyed, smiling, bouncing baby girl is now 5! How did that happen?

We had a grand old day celebrating, and I think we were successful. What else can beat--
*balloons carpeting the family room when you wake up

*favorite breakfast served
*Dad working at home for the day
*lunch at Burger King--plus the actual off-the-menu kids' meal! No value chicken nuggets today!
*afternoon with a mom, brother, and a friend at Bouncing Bears, and then happy hour Sonic slushes
*playing outside with friends
*favorite dinner
*pink cake with Disney princesses on it
*presents!--including a Rapunzel doll, zhu zhu pet, and roller skates!

Wow, what more could a birthday girl need?

Happy 5th Birthday, Anna! Bring on the next year!

Me!

Mommy (to David): What's your name?

David: (no reply)

Mommy: Are you Anna?

David: No!

Mommy: Are you Mommy?

David: No

Mommy: Are you Daddy?

David: No

Mommy: Then who are you?

David: Me! (pointing to himself with a huge grin)

Yes, yes you are, cute little guy. I sure do love my little "me"!

What is it

that possesses cute little toddlers like this

to stick random stuff up their noses?
A very distraught David came up to me yesterday saying, "Owie, hurt!" That's when I found the small sponge paintbrush missing its tip.

After a quick peek up the offended nostril proved unfruitful, we resorted to more desperate measures, complete with mommy pinning the boy and daddy using a little pen-light to aid in a more thorough examination. Lo and behold, there WAS in fact something dark stuck way up in there. A very unpleasant procedure followed--including more pinning, attempted kicking and much screaming (I swear it was David, not me...), banishment of the ever-growing-wide-eyed big sister, and long-skinny-tweezers-removal-of-the-ugly-squished-piece-of-sponge-paint-brush.
We're all a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and a lot bit grossed out. And David keeps walking around repeating his lesson-learned-the-hard-way: "Nose, owie." Points to nostril, "No, up nose." That's right, cute little guy, remember that one.

What's with these 2 1/2 year-olds anyway? I think we've done this before--a little deja vous...
I guess we're 2 for 2 now.

"Thomas Hour"

a.k.a. "Witching Hour" for the kids. You know the time of day? Anywhere from 5:00-7:00 pm, depending on when Dad makes it home from work. You've given your all for the whole day, crossing things off your to-do list, feeding and changing the kids, playing and enjoying each others' company for at least a good portion of the day.But no matter how good a day it's been (or bad, because of course some days have very little of only good), there comes a time at the end of every day where we all start to go a little crazy. Or a lot crazy. The 5 pm itch, which quickly elevates to a pull-my-hair-out-if-you-whine-at-me-one-more-time-and-you'd-better-wait-til-your-dad-gets-home-and-no-you-may-not-have-one-more-cookie-because-it's-almost-time-for-dinner kind of nuts, if you will.
Our new solution? Thank you, Youtube Thomas the Tank Engine video clips! It is fast becoming a favorite time of the day. See those happy faces? There's no beating that at 6:05 while waiting for Dad to make it home. Even better is the fact that 4-year-old Anna can navigate the "recommended videos" with a mouse on her own, so they can watch clip after clip without my help. Makes that last 30 minutes much more blissful all around, and Dad gets greeted by happy smiles when he comes home. So how do you spend your "witching hour"? Do you have a brilliant bribe, err activity, that helps you through that last stretch of the day?

Already?

Is it really the end of May already? Wow, time is flying too quickly again and I've been neglecting my little blog here again. Just had to squeeze in one quick blog post so my blog archives show I posted at least ONCE this month! I'm pathetic, I know.

So I will say, Happy May! And leave you with a picture to show you we are well, life is good, and 2-year-old David is still having fun learning to undress to his diaper every time I turn around. Isn't it nice that some things never change? Sleep is calling, so I'll see you in June.

First Talk in Primary!

Anna got to give her very first talk in Primary at church 2 weeks ago. A quite considerable milestone when contrasted with the Primary Program last fall where she snuggled into her teacher's lap and hid her face from everyone. We decided to take advantage of the Easter season while preparing her little talk. She loved opening all of the little eggs and showing her little items in them. Anna did a great job, nerves and all, and said every word at the microphone, despite waiting for the requisite "Mommy Prompts" on each line. Oh well, I'll take it!

Proud mother that I am, I made her give her talk again sans the unneeded "Mommy Prompts" (possibly 3 or 4 times until we got the video acceptable...) at home for the camera and posterity's sake. Here is her sweet little Easter testimony.

"At Easter time you see pretty flowers.

At Easter time you fill your Easter baskets.

At Easter time you eat yummy candy.

At Easter time you paint Easter eggs.

At Easter time you think about Jesus and the empty tomb.

He was resurrected. I know He died for us.

I know He lives and loves us.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Swings!

We got lucky enough to find a swingset for our backyard a couple weeks ago! Being the kind, patient, ever-supportive husband and father he is, Dan got roped into driving to take down the swingset from someone's yard and bring it home to our yard and reassemble it for us. Thank you, freecycle. And thank you, random kind stranger-getting-rid-of-a-swingset. And thank you, Dan, for doing the work. The kids thank you. And I thank you for the freedom given me to send them out back to swing while I'm cooking, cleaning, or just in need of a kid-less moment. Swingsets are heaven!

For your enjoyment--this little video clip from earlier this evening had Anna and David giggling incessantly for the longest time while repeatedly watching: