Weather Fool's Day

In our house, April Fool's Day is still going on. Only with Laura, but she's doing her April Fool's Day jokes, where she says "Happy birthday" instead of "April Fool's Day", several times a day. (And they still make me laugh, which may be why she's still doing it.)

First thing this morning, Laura was standing on my lap looking out the window behind me.

Laura: The sun is in my eyes.
Mommy: Yeah, it's a sunny day, isn't it?
Laura: No. It's a snow day.
Mommy: It's a snow day? Do you see snow out there?
Laura: Yeah. There's snow on the cars.
Mommy: There's snow on the cars?
Laura: Noooo, there's .... there's snow on your head! Happy birthday!

"charlie horse" is so vague

Last night, Evan couldn't sleep. He was up several times and for a long time. That's very unusual for him. He's a good sleeper. Unless something hurts. Like his throat, or his foot, or his head, or his leg. When something hurts during the night, he will come wake me up and ask me if Daddy can check his foot/head/leg and adjust it. Last night it was his leg. Or, more specifically, his knee. He had been awake a couple of times already. Finally he came into our room.

Evan: Mommy...
Mommy: What, Bub? What's wrong?
Evan: My knee hurts. Can Daddy check it for me?
Mommy: Sure. Daddio, Evan's knee hurts. Will you adjust it for him? He's on the floor on my side of the bed.
Daddy: Sure. [deep breathing...]
Mommy: Sweetie. Will you please check Evan's leg for him? He's saying his knee hurts and he wants Daddy to check it.
Daddy: Sure. Where is he? Up in bed?
Mommy: No. He's on the floor on my side of the bed.
Daddy: Oh, ok. [Daddy gets up, checks Evan's leg which does indeed need adjusted, adjusts him, and tucks Evan in to the couch where he wants to lay for a while.]

It was a couple more hours before Evan felt better enough to go back to bed. I assumed there was something other than his leg bothering him. Like, possibly the bad storms we'd been having right before bedtime and the fact that we didn't have power when he went to bed. But he said it was just his leg. This morning, I asked again.

Mommy: Evan, you were up a lot last night. That's very unusual for you. What was wrong?
Evan: My leg hurt.
Mommy: Was it just your leg? Or were you scared or did you have a bad dream or something?
Evan: No. It was just my leg. It felt like there was a monkey dancing in it and it kept hitting it's head on the inside of my leg.

Well, I guess that is much more specific than just saying "I had a charlie horse."

Where else

Chad (trying to put Laura's socks on her at bedtime): Laura, where did Mommy get these socks?
Laura: The mailbox.

Tuckered out

A while back, when I posted about Kendra falling asleep for the night at 4:51, I neglected to post a picture of what I found at 5:33 when I looked over at the loveseat where Evan and Laura were sitting watching a Veggie Tales DVD.

Laura, however, was not allowed to go to sleep for the night at 5:33.

"Guess the color" birthday post

Kendra recently turned 4.
She has a favorite color.
Here are a few pictures from her birthday.
See if you can guess the favorite color of this 4-year-old ...

Did you guess pink? You're very close. The actual favorite color is "dark pink"!

As a cute side story, in the 5th picture, you'll see Kendra looking intently through the book attached to her new popbeads. In the foreground, you'll see a box of catfish nuggets. My mom put the popbeads in the catfish nuggets box to wrap them. When Kendra unwrapped the box, someone said, "ooh! fish nuggets!" Kendra promptly threw the box (no, really, she chucked it) aside and went on to a different present. It took more than a bit of convincing by more than one person to get her to believe there was a non-fish-nugget present in the box. (Once she dared to open the box, she was quite excited by the popbeads.)

As a non-pink ending to her birthday, this is where I found Kendra after her party was over. In her jammies, on our bed, snuggling her daddy for all she was worth.

Preparation: the cake

In preparation for Kendra's birthday party with my family, we made her cake. (I know, I'm very big on preparations. That was about the extent of the preparing; just making the cake.) Kendra and Laura helped make the cake the day before Kendra's birthday while Evan was in preschool. Mostly they helped like this:

And occasionally Laura would look to Kendra for some pointers

so they could quickly go back to this

and this.

Birthdays are so yum!

They also helped decorate the cake. They helped by standing on the stepstool beside me. Kendra watched quietly. Laura held my left arm. I decorated the cake and said things like, "Laura, please let go of my arm. ... Laura, please don't hold on to my arm. ... Laura, you've got to let go of my arm." To which Laura replied, "I holding your elbow." It's a good thing I'm right-handed and that we didn't have anything else to get ready for the party.