Christmas Program

The Christmas program at church (postponed a week because of weather) was hilarious. Eliana knew every line, every place she was supposed to be, and every dance step. Olivia forgot many things because she was so enamored with having an AUDIENCE. She kept stopping to pose. And then there was Corbin. He was perfect during the rehearsal. Then he got on stage and ... well, you'll see. Enjoy.

Christmas Morning

Snow Days

We had a lovely/horrible week of snow and ice ... the first batch of snow was tons of fun for the kids, but then we had yucky ice, and by the time we got more snow, Steven was so sick and we were struggling so hard to keep the house warm that nobody went out in it the second time, even though the snow was better. But I think the first time was enough!

Playing Games

Today is my "catching up on blogging" day ... so hopefully you'll get lots of glimpses into what this vacation has been for us.

Corbin and I have a breakfast tradition. We have breakfast early (usually cheerios these days) and then after my shower (or after we drop the girls off at school on school days), we make our "second breakfast" of eggs and potatoes. Corbin was a little hungry today, and while I was making the eggs, he devoured all of his potatoes and was asking for more. And he's been asking for more potatoes all morning, even though he ate half of mine with his eggs. He really likes fried potatoes.

While we were making breakfast, the girls were playing UNO Attack! There are a few extra cards with UNO Attack, and Eliana asked me what a certain card was. I told her it meant that you could lay down all of your cards of a certain color. She thinks about it for a minute and then says, "I don't think I want to do that, because then I'd win and it would hurt Olivia's feelings. Olivia, I'll just skip you instead."

A little while later I hear her say, "I think that might be cheating, but we can do it anyways if we want to." and Olivia replies, "Yeah. It is my game, so we can cheat whenever we want!"

They seem to lack a competitiveness sometimes... but in a really good way! After lunch they were playing go fish. Olivia had all her cards laid out on the table, and Eliana says, "Ask me for this one, Olivia, and I'll give it to you!"

Happy Birthday Krystal!

Today is wonderful Aunti Krystal's birthday!! Happy birthday Aunti Krystal! I hope the Phillipines is treating you well on this special day! We miss you very much ... Here are the girls' responses to Aunti Krystal's birthday:

Olivia: "I know just what to get her for her birthday! A belly button pump. It's for doctors. Really, it is! You hook it up to your belly button and POP your belly button pops out!"

Eliana: Happy Berthday Cristl . How old are you terning? I hope you are having fun. I had my dance recitle to day! Me and my sister danced on stag ! My sister danced tow time'S.I danced only once . because I was only scegld for one! I did tap it was cold Slay Ride! and Olivia's dance is cold I'm gitin nuthing for crismus and the other one is cold Havein Fun ! And cobin's dance was cold toy shop he was a Bear! Love Eliana !

Cousins watching Nemo

Corbin's Haircut

Addendum

So check out my sister's response to Olivia!

Olivia's kissing

Olivia got into some trouble today at school. Apparently she's been kissing and hugging too much at school. Specifically her "boyfriend" named Mason. Last time we had a discussion about Mason, she told me, "I can kiss Mason if I want to, Mommy!" ... I decided to let it lie because as far as I knew, this kissing was hypothetical. Mason has been her "boyfriend" since last school year, and she has been constantly telling us that she is going to marry Mason. Since then, the kissing has become less than (more than?) hypothetical. Ms. Dianna stopped me at school today to inform me that she had to talk to Olivia today about it. When I got to school, she and Mason were sitting together hugging and talking. Then I talked to Mason's mom who has determined from Mason that the kissing has happened on at least one other occasion. I felt like I was discussing a teenager. We had a long conversation with Olivia at the dinner table tonight how kissing at school was against school rules and that our family had a rule too: no kissing outside the family. I feel a little bit better since she agreed to follow our family's and school rules ... but I'm still nervous. How can a four-year-old be so enamored of a boy? And what does this bode for teenage years?

Eliana again

Eliana and Corbin have been playing pretend. Corbin wanted his shoes on, and from the other room I heard Eliana telling him, "We're going to take you to the experiment farm to get your shoes on." A moment later they come trotting into the laundry room where I'm folding laundry, and Eliana says, "Experiment farm person, will you put his shoes on? You're the experiment farm person because you have so much more experiments than anyone else. 

Eliana also got her report card today. She's "above instruction level" in reading and "at instruction level" in writing and mathematics. She scored "4" and "+" on everything on the whole report card except "Conventions (capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar)" which she scored a "3" .... [If you read the last blog, you might have got that idea] When I told her how proud I was of her and gave her an overview of the card, she said, "so I'm doing good in everything except periods and capitols and spelling and stuff??" I thought it was kinda funny how she summarized it ... as though there's anything she's doing badly at. And then she proceeded to explain to me how multiplication works. Did you learn multiplication in first grade?? I sure don't remember doing that!

 

Eliana's Journal Entry

11-27-2008, November

Thursday, we are going to my Grandma's house for thanksgiveing and we are spenting the night there. Olivia is going to woch the moovy of tinkerbell there. Me Eli I whent strat in the house and played it was really fun.

11-28-2008 Day after thanksgiveing. Olivia stabed me with a pen and it pealed my scin and it made a pen marck and it hert really bad my sister did it on perpis.

Paybacks

So, I have been having great sympathy for my parents lately. Eliana is reading chapter books, and she REALLY gets into them. Last night she was reading on the couch before and after dinner, and every time I said something to her, I had to repeat it three times before she responded, sometimes threatening to take her book away. (I know, my mom is smiling right now) At dinner, she barely participated in the conversation, and as soon as she had eaten the bare minimum requirement, she left the table to go back to her book. We had to call her back three times before she came to clear her place, and I eventually had to confiscate her book before she would do an acceptable job. Then she stomped and stormed her way through the job. Steven finally told her she couldn't have her book back until she changed her attitude. He modified that to her smiling. And after a twenty minute battle of wills between the two of them and a number of tears on her part, she finally managed a smile to earn her book back. We're such harsh taskmasters. It brought back some uncomfortable memories of being on the other side of this situation. So all I have to say is, yes Mom, this is paybacks!

What do campsite, earwax, and doorknob have in common?

Eliana has been learning about compound words at school. At dinner tonight, she was explaining to us what a compound word was: two words that are put together to make one word. We asked for an example ... and she promptly told us, "Thanksgiving!" Impressed, we began a discussion of other compound words: backyard, butterfly, catfish, into, campsite, hairbrush, sweatshirt, basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, schoolhouse, icebox, doorknob, dishwasher, birthday, wallpaper, earwax, eyelid, lipstick, bookshelf .... and there were many, many more, most of which Eliana came up with on her own. 

As we're coming up with all these compound words (and plenty that aren't) Olivia was trying to help. She came up with lipstick (which was actually pretty impressive), and then she pipes up, "How about stay-in-your-boundaries?"

Bedtime Prayers

At bedtime, we pray with the kids every night. Each family member gets a chance to pray, and if one of the kids doesn't want to pray, we always tell them, "you can pray for two people." For Eliana, this isn't usually an issue ... she wants to pray for everyone we know. Olivia, on the other hand, usually prays for herself and mommy ... since that qualifies as two people. Corbin has been taking a turn ever since he was old enough to understand that it's something he can participate in. The caveat of this is that often we don't understand what he's saying. So we chuckle at what he says and move on. Lately he's been praying a lot for "Mommy, Daddy, Pee-po ...." and we have no idea what "Pee-po" is, but it's cute, and he's very sincere. Until tonight, when it just clicked. We remind Olivia almost every night that she can pray for two people. And so Corbin prays, "Mommy, Daddy, too pee-po ..."

Like WHO?

Corbin is in this stage of everything being very negative. His favorite answer is "no!" His comments are all presented as dire and upsetting, even the ones he's excited about, like the "po-ise car!" And if he's talking and you're not listening, he's yelling at you to pay attention to him. So in the car today, he's yelling because I'm talking to Eliana and not him, and I sighed and said, "Corbin, you're impossible." Eliana asked what that meant. I replied that it's kinda frustrating how everything he says is complaining or yelling. And Eliana replies, "Oh. Kinda like Sharpay!"

Sick

My sweet Eliana is very sick today. I think the saddest part is that she's so brave about it. Fever, headache, runny nose, cough, with some barf thrown in there during the night. I think the barf is cause she gets too much phlegm in her little tummy.

So after I dropped Olivia off at school today, we went to the grocery store because the only thing she wanted to eat was strawberries. How could I resist that? While we were there she also decided she wanted yogurt and chicken noodle soup. She sat in the cart, wrapped in a blanket, giving her sick-voiced little comments and questions. So pray that she gets better, 'cause she makes me feel so sad! Even right now she's curled up on the couch reading to Corbin because she felt bad that I was refusing to read to him while I was on the computer. I know, I'm a mean mom. And she's very sweet.

On the positive, today is my first prenatal! We get to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I'm just praying there's only one!

Halloween pics

On Twins

I think I would die if we found out we were having twins. But Olivia asked me the other day if maybe we would have two babies, one boy and one girl ... Olivia likes everyone to be happy.  I said, not having really considered the idea, "Oh, I hope not!" After a little pause (where she was obviously thinking), Olivia says, "So if we have twins, will we sell one?"

On boys and girls and new babies

We were discussing whether our new baby was going to be a girl or a boy. Olivia has waffled a little bit about whether or not she wants a sister or brother, but mostly lands on "Corbin needs a brother." So yesterday, she gets all teary and says, "I want to be the baby girl. I don't want to have a girl baby because then that will be the baby girl and I want to be it!" We all make sympathetic sounds and stuff, and then Eliana says, "Well, I want a girl!" And so then we're discussing how many people want boys and how many want girls. We determined that Olivia wants a boy, Eliana wants a girl, Mommy and Daddy don't care, but it's extremely difficult to figure out what Corbin wants. If you ask him straight out, he says girl. But if you ask him if he wants a girl like Avery or a boy like Jack, he says, "Yike Dack!" So Eliana decides he doesn't count 'cause he wants both. So she and Olivia are tied. And I said, "But I still think you're outnumbered ... more people want boys than girls." And so she demands to know who ... Aunti Jenn, Grandma Cooper, Grandma Wages, Grandpa Wages, Aunti Krystal ... so she huffs a little bit and says, "They are off the chart! They don't get to pick. Just US!"

On being Tinkerbell

Today, on the way to preschool, Olivia was discoursing on how she behaves as Tinkerbell. She told Corbin, "I am Tinkerbell and you are a dirt fairy."

Later on, Eliana asked Olivia for some of her paper, and she refused. As Eliana stomped out of the room to find her own, Olivia said, "I didn't give her any because she didn't call me Tink." Corbin was listening seriously to the conversation and sat up and said, "gi me kee, Tink?" (translated: Give me a kiss, Tink") ... Which was hilarious that he was following the conversation and also amazing because he doesn't usually put that many words together!

She also spent most of the day in a ballet costume and wings ... and dressed Corbin up to match!

Final Camping Trip

So, we went camping again. (Yes, that's right ... the THIRD time this month). Fortunately, it's the last one of the summer. I was pretty burnt out by the time we got home. It was the church camping trip, but pretty much it was the young families of the church. That means that there were sixteen kids, the oldest being 6 years old. It was nutty. And fun. But really really nutty.

My favorite quote of the weekend was by a little girl named Bekkah, who is five years old and my shadow all weekend. She said, "When I grow up, I think I'm going to be a princess." This from the girl who told me, "My mommy told me that mermaids aren't real." That was after my girls and I were discussing whether or not mermaids lived in the beautiful pools along the river.

However, the all-time funniest story goes to Corbin: On the way down, the kids were eating chips in the car, and Corbin got chip crumbs all over himself and his carseat. (you're shocked, right?) So they start itching him, and he starts yelling at us from the back seat: "Ladybug! Ladybug! Ladybug bite me!! Ladybug bite me!!" As you can imagine, Steven and I are totally mystified. We explained that there were no ladybugs in the car and that ladybugs don't bite, but he was having none of it. He's getting himself more and more hysterical because he's convinced that ladybugs are in his car seat and biting him. We finally had to pull over, get him out, show him the crumbs, clean everything up, and explain that there were NO LADYBUGS!! All weekend, anything that itched or hurt was ladybugs biting him. We think that with all the camping talk about bug bites (from mosquitos, except that no one ever says mosquitos), he's made the translation to ladybugs.

He IS pretty obsessed with biting right now, though. He is petrified of dogs biting him, even though he's never experienced a mean dog, but he won't leave grandma's cat alone even though he's been bitten by Sorah more than once. And he's obsessed with riding horses (he calls them all "Neigh") but always wants to know if horses bite. And every other animal or bug, he has to know if they bite. And then he wants to hear it again. And again. And then 20 minutes later he needs you to tell him again.

For all the activity, busyness, and mess, two years old is a REALLY fun age!

More camping stuff

If you're interested in more camping pics, check out my fabulous sis' blog at www.twopeasandapod.blogspot.com .... it's also in my favorite places links!

Beach Trip

We had a fantastically amazing camping trip to the beach this last weekend. We stayed at Rock Creek Campground between Yachats and Florence. It was really great, but I'm too tired to actually blog, so here's some photos.

The Birthdays via Photo

Corbin's Birthday on Friday, July 25th. I can't believe he's actually two years old! While he was trying on his new clothes, including his light up Diego shoes that he LOVES, Olivia said, "You look hottie! That's a fancy word for bespecially cute!"





The Big Birthday Bash on Saturday, July 26th to celebrate both Corbin's birthday and Eliana's birthday. Somehow, I didn't get a single picture of Eliana opening presents. I can't even believe it. Corbin's favorite, hands down, were the tools from grandpa. Big surprise. Eliana's Aunti Jenn and Aunti Care were having a contest to see whose birthday present was Eliana's favorite. So when Aunti Jenn asked Eliana which was her favorite present, she started listing them all, and finally said, "I just like them all!"





My birthday cake masterpieces. Eliana's was a white cake with white chocolate raspberry cream cheese filling, and Corbin's was a banana chocolate chip with chocolate hazelnut cream cheese filling. I know. You're so impressed. And it was my first time. This is where you say, "OOOOh! AAAAAh!"








Olivia was well able to entertain herself and anyone who cared to be entertained during the party. Olivia actually got a couple of presents too, one of which was a bug puzzle. When someone pointed out to her that it was a puzzle about bugs, she excitedly said, "Yes! I'm a bug expert, you know!"







Grandpa Harland got out his metal detector after the party. I think my kids will be "detecting" and "digging" for weeks now. Olivia was using a plastic golf club for detecting, and Corbin was using some of his new tools to dig in the grass. After finding a couple of pennies, Eliana said, "Just tell me if you find the silver money, that's the only kind I want!"

Fancy Date

On Sunday, we took Eliana and Olivia to Michael's Landing in Corvallis for a "Fancy Nancy" date. For those of you who do not know about Fancy Nancy, she is a little girl who is very fancy but her family is not, so she teaches her family how to be fancy and they all dress up like movie stars and go out to dinner. The girls have been asking for a long time to do it, and so we finally did. Steven and I let the girls pick out their own outfits and ours, and we did hair, makeup, and of course, accessories.

The girls were absolutely hilarious during the date. On the way there, we had this conversation about what kind of food there is to eat there. We discussed that it was a fancy restaurant, so they could probably get anything they could think of. Olivia said, "I want french fries!" I asked Eliana what the fanciest food she could think of was, and she said "Parfaits ... that's french for ice cream sundaes." She asked me what the fanciest food I could think of was, and I told her, "Escargot ... that's french for snails." The girls thought that I was kidding, and when I finally convinced them that I was serious, they were horrified and curious. Eliana wanted to know how I ate the shell.

Then, during the drive, there was this hilarious conversation about fairies:

Olivia: "My pet fairy gave me powers, but not fairy powers, restaurant power. Tinkerbell is the only one who shares her power with me. She's the very nicest fairy ... you have to see her, Mommy. It's hard to see her, you have to pray to her to see her.

Eliana: "So you can't see Tinkerbell so you might accidently step on her? If she's so small, how can you see her?"

Olivia: "She gave me that power too!"


At the restaurant, we walked in the door, and the two hostesses were trying so hard not to laugh at our dressed up little girls. Eliana asked to sit outside (although we convinced her to sit inside because outside was yucky seating) and Olivia announced that she would like french fries.

When the waitress asked what we wanted to drink, Olivia said, "Hot chocolate please!" And Eliana asked politely if they had root beer. When the root beer came, it was Henry Wienhards in a bottle, so she got the bottle and a glass of ice. She picked up the glass of ice and said, "This doesn't look like root beer to me!" When we explained to her that she poured the root beer into the glass of ice, her eyes got really big. She spent the rest of the meal pouring little bits into her glass and then refilling it.

Then there was the wonderment of an appetizer! When it came, Eliana said, "You know, this isn't even our dinner!" And Olivia said, "It's our appertizement BEFORE our dinner!"

Eliana ordered fish and chips, and Olivia ordered chicken strips and, of course, french fries. Eliana was disgusted that they served something that looked like ranch but wasn't with her fish (it was tarter sauce).

While we were waiting for our food, Olivia told Eliana, "I'm daddy's lucky child." And Eliana, ever the logical child replied, "You know, we're ALL lucky." And Olivia says, "Yes. But I'm daddy's luckiest." There's this long pause, and then Eliana says disdainfully, "Olivia, that's rude."

Then we ordered a mud pie for us all to share at the end. It was a wonderful evening.

I think the highlight for the girls was going down to the landing and throwing rocks in the river. They thought it was so interesting how dress-up shoes aren't made for walking on the rocks.