Lunch Maker

Jaed loves taking lunch to school. He tells me what he wants in it and then stands by me as I make it and put it in his bag that I have written his name on. Well, this weekend (Saturday) we headed downstairs for breakfast and there was a bulky lunch bag sitting on the table. I looked closer and I saw that Jaed had written his name on the bag and as I investigated the inside I found a triple bread sandwich, pudding, crackers, banana, fruit snack, juice, and cookies. I questioned Jaed about it and he said he got up early this morning to make his own lunch. He was so proud that he made a triple bread sandwich like his dad makes and that he filled his lunch bag with other great stuff. I explained to him that it was Saturday so he wouldn't be going to school and he had a huge frown on his face until I told him he could eat his own lunch at lunchtime. I did tell him that we needed to take a few things out because it was too much food, so he ended up with his sandwich, banana, crackers and cookies for his lunch and told his sisters a couple of different times that he made it all by himself.

Getting Ready to Move!!

Kaia is doing so many new things lately. I feel bad that I haven't talked about her much. She's interacting with her siblings more, she's eating food, getting quite a little attitude and she is very much a momma's girl. Kaia and I go everywhere together, pretty much and when I'm not with her I miss her so much. She truly is a delight in our family. She's the first one the kids ask for when they get up in the morning and she's the last one they hug and kiss at night. Here's some things she's doing already at 6 1/2 months old:

Kaia has been sitting up really well for almost a month now. She can't quite get in a sitting position on her own but she'll stay sitting up forever as long as there are toys in front of her.





















Kaia has been getting on her hands and knees for several weeks and does a lot of rocking while she's up there. One of these days she's going to lunge forward and see that she can get somewhere.















Kaia has learned to pull herself up on her knees when she's seating up in her bed. Several mornings now I've set her up and then tried to catch a few more minutes of sleep but I always hear her talking and it sounds like she is right in my face so I open my eyes and sure enough, her she's on her knees, leaning over trying to grab my face.

Bullies

Jaedon has finished his first real week of Kindergarten and seems to really love it. He has made lots of friends but talks about two particular boys in his class. Last night, we were talking about his school and we asked him if he plays with these two boys at recess. He told us that one of them tries to push him down and kick him. I was so sad and mad at the same time. Thayne asked him what he does when they do that and he said he doesn't do anything. Now this time last year, we would have been told that Jaed was hitting another child but something has changed in him. A part of me almost wants him to be that same Jaed that fights back, but I know that's not the appropriate response to teach him. We told him to tell the boy to not push or kick him but who knows if that will get him anywhere. I did decided that if it happens again I will be sending a note to his teacher explaining what Jaed has told us and let her know that we are concerned.
It's amazing to me that a child can survive school with any kind of self esteem at all. I want to shelter my children from this kind of hatefulness but I can't. They have to go through and survive on top of the hill but have to do it without being hateful themselves. I don't even know how to teach them that without making a wimp out of them. Man, sometimes parenthood is harder than I want it to be.
The sad thing about this is that it doesn't just stop when they're kids. Even as adults you run into bullies and cliques. As my son deals with a bully, I"m dealing with cliques. I never thought that at my age I would have to deal with the feelings of "not fitting in" or not being "picked" to join a group of friends going somewhere. It hurts my heart to think that these feelings and actions are not out grown, and that my kids will have to deal with them when they're grown as well. Fortunately for Jaed, I think the female gender is ten times worse when it comes to cliques. My poor daughters.....I see a lot of tears in my future (theirs and mine!).
I hope that as I continue to mature (it's a long process for me) that I can always remember how I felt when I was left out and not invited to things so that I don't do that to others. It's mean, uncalled for and ruthless. The saying "why can't we all get along" isn't so funny right now. Where is the Christ-like attitude we should all be striving for? I know I need to find it at times!

Who's feeding who?

We have a rule in our house that when you turn 4 you have to feed yourself. It's not like we feed them all the time but before they are four, if they ask for help, we're obliged to help them. Well, last night, Indi was saying, over and over, "I need help! I need help!". I was feeding Kaia and Thayne was getting drinks for the all the kids so no one was rushing to her side to help her.......except Josie. I don't know if it was because she was tired of Indi repeating herself or if she wanted to be the "big sister" and help out, but whatever it was, she came to Indi's rescue. Josie fed her until there was nothing on her plate and Indi gobbled it all down without a word. Maybe we should let her do it more often :).


I know you're all wondering if my kids ever wear clothes and I'll admit, when we're at home clothes come off (except panties and underwear). Once we are in the house and the door closes, the clothes come off. Usually it's Indi who has her clothes off first. At least. I never have to worry about them spilling anything on their clothes at dinner time :).















I have decided to make my own baby food this time and so far so good. Last night, Kaia had carrots and loved them. She takes after her sister, Indi, and seems to enjoy anything we put in front of her.

Matching

I think the bets part about having girls is being able to do their hair and dress them up. It's like having my own live dolls. I LOVE IT!! The last time my sister came to visit us she brought these matching dresses that the girls are wearing. I love them!

Could they get any cuter? Time will tell!!!




















Handsome Jaed stands in his snazzy suit (Thayne said it looks like his pajamas) in the middle of three beautiful princesses!

Cleaning.....hate it!!!

So Thayne has been home a week now and the house has gone down the drain. I love having him home but my routine gets thrown out the window. I would much rather play games, rest and have fun with him then clean and do laundry. Well, the house got so bad that we had to spend most of our Saturday cleaning the kids were not happy with it. We got tons of new complaints that we haven't heard from them before. I should say, Jaed and Josie did all the complaining. Indi was our little 'happy helper' the entire time. Sometimes she started to play with the stuff we were going to clean but we just had to reminder her what her job was and she got back on track.
Here are some complaints we heard threw out the day:

Jaed: (dragging himself around with his shoulders forward and head down most of the day. He was miserable.)

"This is going to take all day" (with arms thrown up in the air)
"We can't have fun if we clean" (about to cry)
"I think I"ll go stay in my room the whole day" (he was quickly told this was a family activity)
"Let's just do this room and then do the rest later" (I'm sure he heard that from his dad)
"Can't we just be done now!" (as he falls to the floor)
"The girls aren't helping so I'm not going to help!"

Josie:

"I'm just a little girl!" (after she was told she was a big girl and could help)
"This is so boring"
"Don't put those toys away, I"m playing with them!" (she was playing with them the day before)
"This is too much for me!"
"I need to rest"
"This doesn't make me happy!"

Indi: (she sang a lot while she helped.)

"I a good helper"
"I doing my job!"
"We almost done!"
"Put the toys in there right buckets, don't just throw them in there!" (she was telling Josie this while we were cleaning her room)
"I helping, I get a treat!" (no treat was ever mentioned)
"This is fun!"

All new Josie

Josie started preschool last week and she was so excited. The morning of the first day she came running into our room at about 6:00 and yelled "I going to school today". Both Thayne and I told her it was going to happen right then so she needed to go back to her room because we were still sleeping and it wasn't time to get up. She didn't argue, she just hopped back to her room and played (I guess :) ). After we dropped Jaed off at school we all went into Josie's school to wish her a great day. She has the same exact teacher she had last year and when Josie saw her she went right over to her and hugged her. It was nice not to have to worry about Josie getting use to her new class and teacher, because they were the same as year before. There are even kids in her class that were there last year as well. It's just so nice not to have to worry about her.....well...until she starts her other preschool after Labor Day. Two days a week she'll be attending her speech therapy preschool and two days a week she'll be in a normal preschool. I wanted her to be in a normal preschool so she could work on more academic stuff and socialize more. I really hope it works.
So, back to her first day.....I was holding Kaia so I handed Thayne the camera and asked him to take a couple of pictures of Josie and this is what he came up with:


Here's Josie with her arm to the side, but we don't know why. I think she thought it was a pose....




















I wouldn't call this a 'first day of school' picture but oh well....




















I told Thayne that next time I hand him the camera to take some pictures of the kids, he's suppose to tell me that I don't like the kind of pictures he takes :).

Oh, we got Josie's haircut a couple of days before school started. She loves it. She was not a big fan of her long hair. She would get mad if her hair was in her face and whine to me to put it up so it wouldn't be in her face. Now she won't have that problem, but I sure miss it!

School begins!

Jaed was chosen to be apart of a program, called Jump Start, at his school where he was able to start Kindergarten two weeks before the normal date. He was accepted in the full day kindergarten but for the first two weeks of this program he went for only half a day only. I think he was chosen because I told one of the kindergarten teachers that he could be a challenge and I was worried how he would do in a new school. WELL...to our wonderful surprise the two weeks went wonderful. The teachers told me that he did what he was told and listened perfectly. The only minor complaint was that he got a little crazy when he was excited. Thayne and I are so happy and proud of Jaed. We were constantly praising him for his great behavior and attitude at school. Now he has a couple of days off and then he starts the "real" kindergarten.


Here's Jaed in front of his new school. I thought I might be sad to see him go because this means he's growing up but I was actually very excited for him.



















Jaed went right to his seat and sat down when we got to his room. He was thrilled to show me everything in his classroom and even told him some of the rules.



















Here is a picture of Jaed taken last year at about this time. Notice how much he has changed. He's gotten taller and his face has thinned out so much. He's not our little chunky boy anymore.

Kaia's sunday best

I found the cutest outfit for Kaia and I thought I would share it with ya'll. She is growing up so fast. Can you believe she's six months old already? The older she gets the more interaction her siblings want to have with her. Josie and Indi get their hair pulled by Kaia quite often if they get to close to her. They start whining , "Mommy, Kaia is pulling my hair", and I always say, "Kaia, we don't pull hair. That's not making a good choice." while and untangle her fingers out of their hair. On time Josie responded, "Yeah, Kaia...we have to make good choices so Jesus is happy!".


Kaia and Daddy right before we head out the door for church.

Is she a monkey?

We were all grocery shopping and Kaia was crying for food, so I gave her a bottle and she instantly grabbed on to it with her hands. After picking out somethings to put in the cart I checked on her again and this is what I saw:




















She stayed like that until her bottle was done. We had several on lookers as we went throughout the store.

Family Golfing

Thayne and I decided to take the kids golfing a couple of weekends ago. They were so excited even know Jaed was the only one that had an idea what golfing was. Jaed tried to explain it to the girls but all he had to say was that you hit a ball with a stick and the girls were jumping and screaming with excitement. It was a VERY hot day but they still ended with smiles on their faces while Thayne and I were thinking, "Thank goodness it's over and let's get these kids in the car where they're strapped down!" It was a little hard to keep them all on the same hole most of the time. Josie always liked the hole that was across the way and Indi liked to hang out at the hole we just finished. Jaed did everything he could to get his ball in the hole first (taking turn hitting our golf balls was not an option for him). To Jaed, it was the first person to get their ball in the hole that won. I do have to say that I don't think I ever saw him pick up his ball and put it in the hole like his sisters did. He always made sure he used his golf club even if it took him 20 hits.

Here's Jaed getting ready to hit his ball in his ball in the hole. He was not happy that I made him stop for a picture. He was pretty nervous that his sisters might get their ball in first.



















Josie was caught in the act. Here she is getting ready to drop her ball in the hole. She completely ignored her brother yelling at her that she had to hit the ball in not pick it up.




















Indi did a mixture of hitting her ball in the hole and picking it up. If she didn't get it in with the golf club before me or Thayne got are ball in she was fine but if Thayne and I were getting close to getting our ball in the hole she would hurry and grab her ball and drop in the hole, yelling, "I DID IT, I DID IT!"




















Kaia was along for the ride and didn't seem to mind it at all. It was a little hard for me to hit the ball with her hanging in front of me but we did okay.



















There was no casual golfing for Thayne. He was the only one who counted how many times he hit the ball at every hole and cheered for himself if he got par. Here he is aiming very carefully, with his golfing face on, and ready to get a hole in one (funny thing is, is that I was the one that got the hole in one. He said he did at a later hole, but I never saw it :) ).



















Notice the red faces and the tired looks on everyone's face. After we were all done, I asked them if they had a good time and it was a unanimous "YEAH!".