Thunk!

Back in July, I posted about Laura's first night in her toddler bed. It only lasted 4 nights. The first night was perfect. The second night was ok. The third night was a bit worse. And the fourth night, we called it off. She had been in the crib again until last night.

Last night, she slept in the toddler bed. Bedtime was perfect. I tucked her in, left her room, and never heard a sound. The only thing she did before going to sleep was put her arms above her head. When I went in to check on her, I found this:

Tonight is Laura's second night in the toddler bed. Bedtime was perfect. I tucked her in, left her room, and never heard a sound. When I went in to check on her, I heard a THUNK sound. It sounded a little bit like hitting a small head with a wooden door. (Don't worry, I was opening the door slowly.) Not sure how to remedy this THUNK noise, I took the camera to Laura's room so I could stick the camera through the small ways I could open the door and take a picture to assess the situation. This is what I found:

I have considered ending this post now and asking for advice on how you would have handled it. But I can't resist sharing the rest of the story.

After looking at the picture I had taken, I decided to sneak my hand in the door and try to roll Laura over by pushing on her tummy. That didn't work. I decided to roll Laura over by pushing on her tummy while opening the door gently to wake her up just a bit. That didn't work. I decided to roll Laura over not-as-gently while opening the door not-as-gently. That didn't work.

So what was the final solution you ask?

Why, move her back by pushing the door against her face of course.

THUNK.

Lest you be concerned for Laura's safety and well-being, she never noticed any of this. Apparently, she can sleep quite soundly. I finally had her moved back far enough that I could sneak in the door, pick her up, and return her to her toddler bed. Where she will hopefully stay and sleep for the rest of the night.
Silly silly us thinking it was difficult when Evan would go to sleep underneath the toddler bed, and we'd need to extract him to put him back in bed. That was a piece of cake compared to this!

Cuteness maximized

Did you know it's really cute when Kendra, wearing only underwear and a John Deere hat and carrying a dumptruck, goes running to give Daddy a bye hug while yelling, "I'm bringing my dump truck along!"?

Did you know it's even cuter when Laura, wearing only a diaper and carrying a smaller dumptruck, goes running behind her to give Daddy a bye hug while yelling, "I bring truck!"?

Bedtime prayer

Evan: Mommy, can I have Pooh pray?
Mommy: Yes, you can have Pooh pray.
Evan (in his Pooh voice): Dear Jesus, thank you for my brain full of fluff. Amen.

All in a day at preschool

A few stories about Evan from preschool today:

1. Evan was the snack helper today. He woke up at 5:45 this morning, presumably because he was so excited about being snack helper.

2. An e-mail from Evan's teacher: On a side note, he was really cute today. We had an activity where the kids had to guess how many apples would fit in a pot that I had brought. They had to write their names and put a number on a piece of paper and whoever was the closest to the right number got 2 gummy bears. Evan was so bummed that his answer was not right! 17 apples fit in the pot and he guessed "too". But everybody got a gummy bear when we did an activity later so he was okay with that. I had some very interesting guesses. 2 children guessed 50, so Evan wasn't the farthest off!
(I love that he tried to write the word "two" instead of writing a number. I wonder if he wanted to write the word for a different number but "too" was the easiest to spell?)



3. After preschool, I asked Evan how snack went. He didn't say much about it. He had taken 3 colors of apples for an apple tasting party. And he wanted to take chocolate milk and pretzels ("the ones that are faces, that I like to use as a steering wheel") I asked if he liked his pretzels...

Evan: yeah
Me: Did you use them as faces?
Evan: I used it as a steering wheel when no one was watching.
Me: Why when no one was watching?
Evan: I didn't want anyone to pick on me.
Me: Do you think someone would pick on you? I think the other kids would have thought it was fun to use the pretzels as a steering wheel.
Evan (looks at me skeptically)
Me: Do you think Bryce would have liked using his as a steering wheel?
Evan: Yeah
Me: Do you think Samuel would have liked using his as a steering wheel?
Evan, smiling: Yeah!
Me: Has anyone ever picked on you at preschool?
Evan: No, but I didn't want them to pick on me about using my pretzel as a steering wheel.
(This whole conversation made me sad that he's already worried about kids picking on him, even though it's never happened. And I fear I introduced this concept last week when I wouldn't let him wear a ruffly Halloween shirt with a witch on it last week "because I don't want you to be sad if other kids pick on you about it having ruffles". Silly mommy. Tried to protect his feelings and instead introduced the concept of getting them hurt. Sigh...)

4. One of Evan's preschool teachers (there are two) is leaving on a missions trip for a week and will miss all next week of preschool. He had told me earlier today that "next year, Dawn will be gone to Arizona and there will be another teacher at preschool named Myrna". After correcting "next year" to "next week" and "Arizona" to"Jamaica", we had to look up on a map where Jamaica was.

5. Tonight after putting Evan and Kendra to bed, I heard what sounded like Evan crying. I opened the stair door and asked what was wrong. "I'm just making that crying sound because I'm sad that Dawn is going to be gone from preschool for so long."

I love how many things can happen in such a short amount of time at preschool and how much it fits into the rest of his day!

Bible stories with Laura / Pie crust for Evan

For bedtime, Laura and I head upstairs to Evan and Kendra's room with them. Evan and Kendra (and lately Laura) each choose a Bible story for me to read. We all lay on our backs in Evan and Kendra's bed, with Laura laying on my tummy. I read the Bible stories, turn off the lamp, pray, and sing a song (or 3) for each of them. Then Laura and I head back down to put her to bed.

Tonight, Laura quickly picked a Bible story board book about Zaccheus.

Mommy: Do you want Zaccheus tonight?
Laura: Zaccheus. Come DOWN!
-----
The following is a side story, completely unrelated to above story.

At supper tonight, the following conversation occured.

Evan: In the morning, I want soft pie crust sitting on the table at my spot waiting for me when I get up.
Mommy, chuckling: You do? We don't have any pie dough right now though.
Evan: That's why you need to make some.
Mommy: But Mommy doesn't make pie crust. Daddy does. ... And Daddy won't be home until after you're in bed tonight, so I don't think he'll be making pie crust.

Exactly what inspires a boy to ask for fresh pie dough to be waiting on the table for him first thing in the morning? Other than the doughy, yummy goodness of course...

Farming with Darrell

My brother called today and asked if Evan wanted to ride along in the combine to harvest beans this afternoon. The answer, of course, was yes.

But the girls heard me ask Evan, so they wanted to ride along too. Not willing, or safely able, to have 3 small children in the combine, Darrell accommodated us and took me and the girls for a one-pass ride first.

After our turn, it was the guys' turn. Evan wanted Daddy to ride along with him. The plan had been for Chad to ride along for one pass, then we'd all (except Evan) head home while Evan stayed in the combine. Evan, however, had other plans. After his one pass with Daddy, he decided he'd rather go home and wait to harvest another day when Darrell's doing corn. Today was the first time Evan and I (and the girls) had been in the combine for beans. I didn't enjoy it as much as doing corn either.

Despite the lack of excitement over soybean harvesting, we did have fun learning stuff from Grandpa.

I'm not sure what Evan learned (I was in the combine when Chad took the picture above). But I learned that you can eat soybeans and that my dad thinks they're good. I learned that I was indifferent to the soybeans as they didn't have much flavor. I learned that Laura thinks soybeans are a great snack. And I learned that Laura won't nap with her cheeks still full of soybeans an hour later.

Photo catch up

It's time for a photo catch-up post here. And I think I hear Chad in brushing his teeth for bed (I'm writing this late on Sunday night), so I'll try to be quick!

This is Laura in one of her innumerable Mommy-finds-me-irresistable poses:

3 tubs of yogurt + 3 spoons = 3 happy kids
(No, I don't normally buy this expensive yogurt. But it was on sale, and I had coupons. So it ended up cheaper per ounce than the big tubs I normally buy.)

The kids giving each other a triple-decker ride. It started with Evan on the bottom. But by the time I had the camera, it was Kendra's turn to be on the bottom. I'm not really sure what's going on with Evan in this picture:

Angelo, a neighbor boy, has been coming over to our house a couple of afternoon/evenings a week after he's done with homework. He "babysits" the kids while I work. I put "babysits" in quotes since I'm actually in our house sitting in the same room as all of them, but Angelo does keep them quite busy so they let me work in (relative) peace. I sometimes have problems concentrating on working instead of watching them and laughing! Here is Angelo making up stories for Evan and Kendra:

The girls were playing in the squishy tote (tote that holds "squishy" toys, such as dolls and stuffed animals) the other day. I couldn't decide which picture to post since I like Laura in the first one:

and Kendra in the second:

On Thursday night, Chad made an apple pie.

 A really big apple pie.

On Friday morning, I opened toilet paper.

Really small toilet paper.

Travel-sized toilet paper.

Thus ends our photo post for today.
(Cue musical ending.)

Laura's first video game

Laura got to play her very first video game last week. She seems to have mastered the "duh" face of video game playing quite well.

And she picked up on the lazy aspect of gaming quite quickly also, as this is a picture of her demanding her sippy cup off the dining room table.

Pumpkin farm field trip

Last Tuesday, Evan's preschool class went on a field trip to a pumpkin farm. Last year, I went with Evan. This year, Chad got to go with him, and they even got to take a school bus this year instead of parents' vans.

Here is a picture of the group:

Here are Evan and his preschool friend Bryce watching other kids jump on a big orange bouncy thing (very technical name, I know):

Evan said his favorite part of the field trip was riding in a wheelbarrow with Ashton while Daddy pushed it. Here is a picture of him riding the teeter totter with Ashton, but he said it went too high so it wasn't fun. And there was some kind of a description about this being a seesaw, not a teeter totter because teeter totters don't have wheels and see saws do. Or maybe it was the other way around. I didn't really follow since I didn't know seesaws or teeter totters either one (I thought they were the same thing) had wheels. Maybe Chad can comment and give some clarification on this (hint, hint).

I think the best part of Evan's day was getting to spend it with Daddy. When they got home, I wasn't back from town with the girls so Chad and Evan got to have lunch together. Chad made Evan his very own McDaddy's Cheeseburger, complete with a wrapper. That's one great daddy -- and one happy little guy!