Thanksgiving & Momentous Moments

This was the first Thanksgiving that Josiah was old enough to hear the story of the first Thanksgiving. I got some books from the library and told him the gist of it. We celebrated it this year with my brother Brent and his wife Katie. My parents were in Eastern Washington with other relatives this year. Josiah tried the turkey and even ate some of the sweet potatoe dish that David made, though suspiciously all of the marshmallows were eaten first and much of the orange goop was left behind. He also ate the mashed potatoes, which happen to be a favorite fare of his from way back anyway. Later on, we all played games, which was a lot of fun. My brother is convinced that if you "talk to the dice" that they roll what you want. I think the bouncers down in Vegas would like to check his dice, eh? Needless to say though, we had a great time! Josiah even played "Candyland" with Uncle Brent and Aunt Katie too!

A quick update on Josiah: He has been getting SO much better with his behaviors of late. We have been diligently plugging away with the tried and true methods, and he is understanding more as well and we are finding he is FINALLY adjusting to the change of having two brothers a bit better. It only took a whole year....sheesh! Of course, I will say that and then have a difficult time of it tomorrow, right? Well, difficult or not, I am proud of how far he has come and am thankful that he has been making better choices here at home and out in public. It has been quite a ride thorugh it all though as the parents and David and I have learned a lot. One thing is for sure, your kids can sure bring you to your knees awfully fast when things are going rough! We have also learned not to judge other families with harder to manage children as we know how hard it has been to manage ours. Thank you God for insight!

Daniel literally went from not crawling at all to now a few days later, crawling everywhere and even sitting up from a laying on his stomach position! I am so proud of him and so glad that he caught up so quickly. It goes to show that each child has his/her own time table for things and you just have to be patient. He loves to pull up on things too, but still he is much less risky than his brother Caleb. This little dude has 4 upper teeth and 3 lower and he is showing them off for you here. And as usual, Daniel is hamming it up for the camera! Our little guys have graduated to toddler seats now in the car and Grandma bought them some nice ones for their upcoming birthday. They JUST BARELY all fit in the back of our SUV. Yikes! It was a tight, tight fit, but I managed it. Three toddler seats one after the other back there; quite a bunch!

Yes, our Caleb boy is fearless, which means Mommy never sleeps when he is out and about! David said he left the living room area for a minute to get something in his room today (I was at church with Josiah) and he came back out and Caleb had crawled all the way down the hall to Josiah's room and was batting things about in there. This is a shot of his, "I didn't do it" face. He is pretty good at that already, don't you think? You can see his two front teeth on the bottom if you look close and he has 4 teeth on top (one left to break through) as well. It is so fun to see how mobile these little guys are becoming! It is also funny to watch the twins interact. When I am nursing Daniel, I have Caleb in his carseat on the couch next to me while he drinks his bottle. Daniel usually finishes early and I burp him and put him on the floor to play. No sooner do I do that and Caleb is trying to roll out of his seat (with his bottle only half finished) to go play too. They holler for each other too if one is taken away to be changed or whatnot. I always thought it would be neat to watch twins grow up together and in having my wish, I am very thankful as it is so fun and such a blessing to enjoy!

Outing to Melissa's House

We have been going over to my friend Melissa's house quite a bit these days, as she just moved and I was helping her get organized a bit and unpack. This day however, she wanted us to come over and see how she had finished unpacking the front room. At one point, we did some crafts and then she sat down to read the kids a story about Thanksgiving.

This is a cute shot of Josiah holding Daniel boy. And a little side note on Daniel, yesterday I saw him crawl for the first time! We have determined that our little Daniel boy doesn't like to "work" at things. He would prefer to be carried or given the toys rather than crawl to them. He was moaning and groaning the whole time while he was army crawling to the toys I placed out of his reach, and then when he got there and I said, "Good job," he got this nervous little happy laugh. I am thankful he finally got motivate enough to crawl! Yeah! He has always had really great fine motor skills though, he loves to turn pages in books, press buttons, move things back and forth, clap, tap toys together, etc. However, his large motor skills have been lacking a little, but this catches him up some!

Daniel was attempting to pull up on Isaac and little Katie in the background also has a fun expression as well.

Here miraculously, I got all three babies looking at once! :)

Sweet Awana Moment

David was able to finally come back to help at Awana after a long few weeks working hard on a special project at work! The boys of the group especially enjoyed having a male figure back as you see here! Josiah has his grumpy story face and Grant is hamming it up and David has his "don't take a picture of me" face (so the usual for him). :) I once again used my camera phone, so the quality isn't the greatest. The moment was priceless though!

Fun New Pictures

Daniel standing up biting on the crib rail.

Caleb standing up biting on the crib rail.

Sweet little Caleb boy peeking over the rail.

Sweet little Daniel boy standing at the rail.

The brothers looking out over their crib rails together. I find that with the cribs situated this way that sometime they position their heads to be nearby each other, it is really cute!

Oh Sweet Josiah

This picture about sums it up for Josiah these days! In other words, he sticks his tongue out a most anything that isn't "his" idea. I am thinking that this is his way of controlling his world and being so routine-minded, he feels more in control when he chooses what to do and how to do it. However, as we all well know, life doesn't let us all have our own way at every turn. Soooo, that being said, I have been TRYING and I emphasize trying to create situations that force him to do things differently from time to time. This usually brings on a power struggle and or some crying tantrum, but I am hoping that it will pay off. He really struggles with change, so much so that at church whenever there is a new thing (such as the little ones going up to sing for church like last Sunday) to do, he really loses it. This last Sunday, I spent pretty much all my time working with him because he just couldn't handle the changes himself apparently. Incidentally, the main problem on Sunday we found out was that he was really tired. I know this because 5 minutes after we got in the car, he was asleep AND we were able to transfer him to his bed (which never really works much anymore) and he slept for 2 1/2 hours!! He woke up at 4:45am that morning, so I should have guessed he would have issues at church.

So I am not complaining about him mind you, but this is the struggle we are facing with him right now and I would love to have some prayers sent our way about how to manage this the right way. We have been given lots of "advice" of well-meaning folk that really just don't understand his bent and think we can just train it away in a week or something. However, the methods suggested don't seem to last. He really is very unique and I am still learning how to best manage him without breaking his spirit.

Here is a little story to illuminate a bit about what he is like. So we went to my friend Melissa's house today. She has three kids (Hailey, Isaac, & baby Katie). Josiah and Isaac are buds and play together really well now even though Isaac is 6 and Josiah is 3. Melissa just moved to a new house and in the bathroom upstairs, there is an old laundry chute that goes all the way down to the basement, where another man is living (the basement has a separate entrance). So naturally, the laundry chute is not something they can use being that another person occupies the basement. Isaac had been told not to throw things down there and apparently that has already been an issue for Melissa, but that is beside the point. Isaac again threw something down "the hole" as it is called and Hailey (7 years old) came down to tell us. Josiah came down promptly afterward and kept repeating, "Isaac threw something down the hole," and kept asking questions about "the hole." Isaac tried to explain to Josiah that a man lived down there and we think that Josiah was scared thinking that a man would come up or be stuck in "the hole." He was SO obsessed with this "hole" that it was all he could talk about this evening and here is one of the many conversations I had with himabout this lovely "hole":

Me: What was your favorite part about today?
Josiah: The hole.
Me: (laughing hysterically for a while) The hole? That was your favorite part?
Josiah: Yeah, there was a hole in Missa's bathroom. We don't have a hole in our bathroom.

Then later we were talking about people who work.

Josiah: Where is work?
Me: There are lots of places where people work. People work at McDonalds, the mall, Safeway, Walmart, the toy store...
Josiah: And the gym?
Me: Yes, and people work at the gym too.
Josiah: Do they have a hole in their bathroom?
Me: (laughing hysterically once again) No, they don't.

Again later when it was time to pray before bed.

Me: OK Josiah it is time to pray.
Josiah: Dear Jesus, thank you for day and for the hole...A---men.

And so...as you can see, my son is rather obsessed when he latches on to some concept. I forgot to add that in order for him to stop bothering me about "the man" who lives in "the hole," I had to draw a picture of Melissa's house to show him that "the man" had a place to live and wasn't stuck in "the hole" and drew a picture of the clothes going down the chute. He seemed to relax and be less concerned after I did that.

Awwww...sweet oldest pumpkinhead! My prayer is that God will help me understand you and help you become a strong leader and use that determined mindset for the things of the Lord!!

Learning to Stand

Our little boys just LOVE to stand now! They can't stand for long, but Daniel especially just tries and tries and tries to pull up whenever he gets near this table or something else that would support his efforts. A funny tidbit about Caleb was that the other day there was a bottle that he already drank that was in the side pocket of his bag and he crawled over to it and pulled it out and started to try and drink it. It was of course empty, but that was apparently my not so subtle hint that I needed to make him a bottle! I took Daniel to the doctor recently since he has had a cold for over a month now. The doctor FINALLY gave him some antibiotics for what I am sure was a sinus infection. Hopefully soon, he will get over the runny nose and congestion problems! I am not sure if Caleb has the same thing or not, but his appetite seems to be a bit low and some other things that make me think he may have one also, but for now we will assume he is OK and will get over it on his own. He doesn't have the runny nose issues like Daniel, so perhaps he doesn't have the same thing.