Arrrrgh!

We went to a restaurant for lunch and before we left, the waiter made paper hats for the boys out of menus.

Merry Christmas!

An Early Celebration

We are traveling to see McMoose's family for Christmas, but we wanted to have a "Christmas" of our own before we left town. We have been so busy the past few months that it was wonderful to have an entire day to just be together and enjoy each other. And play with presents, of course! Here are some pictures from our day yesterday. I wish my phone allowed me to caption each photo, but unfortunately, that feature doesn't exist yet. I hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as I have enjoyed mine!

Antics

Here's what Weston has been up to recently...relishing his meals by licking the plates and standing on windows!

Cheesy Math

While eating cheese sticks at lunch...

Luke: I turned my two cheese sticks into four!
Me: Cool! You had two and you divided them in halves to get four.
Luke: Yes. Now I subtracted two of them because I ate them.
Me: So you have two left?
Luke: Yes! And soon, I'm going to subtract these two and then, I'll have zero. Maybe you should get another cheese stick to add to my plate.

Lots To Say

Weston has been communicating a lot recently and I wanted to record some of what he's saying.  Of course, there's the usual "Mama," "Dada," stuff, but here are some of the newer things:

-Clop, clop, heeee: horse. How is his version easier than just saying horse??
-cheep, cheep: bird
-moo: cow
-roarrrr: any other animal/character with a face. There was a picture of a cupcake with a face and he roared at it today.
-Eww: I touched something gross, get it off me RIGHT NOW!!!
-wawa: I'm dying of thirst, woman, get me some water!
-wiwi: swing
-mimi: milk
-Jit: Luke. I have no idea how Luke turned into Jit, but Weston is very proud of himself every time he says it.

He's been putting words together, too...mostly involving "Jit." Jit shoes, Jit socks, bop Jit, that kind of thing. (Yes, he does gleefully announce his intentions to bop his brother.) Every time he comes up with a new word, McMoose, Luke, and I all get excited. This is such a fun stage...even though I know that once he starts talking more, he'll probably follow in his brother's footsteps and debate everything I say.

Letting Go

I had a good opportunity to practice letting go of some control this morning. I was folding laundry when Luke came up to me, watched for a moment, and then asked to fold his own. He has been doing this recently, so I said, "Sure, would you like me to remind you how to fold things?"

"No," he replied, "I have a better way...let me show you."

And so, he did it his way and I did my best not to jump in. End result: oddly folded laundry and a very satisfied three-year-old.

Luke says...

Luke was sick recently and although illness is never a fun thing, it can sometimes be a funny thing. We spent an entire day watching Sesame Street on YouTube (lesson learned from that day: episodes from the 70s and 80s are way more fun than current episodes.) That evening, I told him that it had been a special day and that we only spend all day watching TV if we're sick. The next morning, we had to have this conversation...

Me: are you feeling better today?
Luke: well...I'm a little better and a little bit sick.
Me: really? You sound much better.
Luke: I think I'm sick right now, so we should watch Sesame Street, but after we do that, I bet I'll be feeling better!

Later, he was trying to figure out just how he got sick I'm the first place. I tried to explain germs to him, but he didn't like my explanation. Instead, he countered with the following: "One day, when I was in India, I got an ouchy on my foot because it got a scratch. And then, all the germ-bugs came into my body through the ouchy. And they lived in my foot for a really long time and then, they came up to my nose and turned into boogies." (He doesn't remember our trip to India, but he references it whenever he's trying to win an argument.)

He wanted me to make a sentence using the word "sand" yesterday...

Me: The sand is in the sandbox.
Luke: That's not true. There's no sand in our sandbox yet.
Me: No, not in ours, but there's sand in other sandboxes...like at the park.
Luke: But you said THE sandbox, so that means ours. If you meant the park sandbox, you should have said A sandbox.
Me: I meant THE sandbox at THE park.
Luke: Listen, that's not how it works.

Halloween

I meant to do this about a month ago, but better late and all that jazz, so here are our Halloween pictures.

Luke was very interested in themed costumes this year. At first, he wanted our family to be the Billy Goats Gruff and a troll, but luckily, we were able to dissuade him from that plan. Apparently, McMoose wasn't thrilled about being a troll. So instead, the kids were Thing 1 and Thing 2, of The Cat in the Hat. McMoose and I traded off on being the Cat.

McMoose was crazy busy at work in October, so we made the most of the time we had and it was a very nice Halloween.