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Yesterday we took all three kids out to run some errands in the morning, and then feeling rather adventurous I brought everyone to the grocery store with me in the afternoon. Joseph and Hannah sat in the car attached to the front of the cart and Leah was seated up by me. Those things are hard to maneuver! I must have been having a crazy moment, but it actually wasn't too bad of an experience until the end when everyone was crying for a different reason while trying to load up to go home. Right now everyone is perfectly happy, watching their favorite show on tv (Scooby Do) while I catch up on pictures and the blog and work through putting away the final load of laundry which it feels like Jay and I have been doing all weekend. Jay is out getting two flat tires fixed (crazy...but at least it happened on the weekend and when we were both here) But in between loads and the other stuff I have also found time to start our 2010 photo album, order some more pictures to hang on the wall, and maybe if I'm lucky sometime in 2012 I will find the blog books and photo books that are still missing from the move. (I must have cleverly packed them somewhere and very smartly put the box where no one could possibly find it. Or maybe I'm crazy and I accidentally threw them away.) The kids have caught up on some of their favorite activities today as well....building towers with trio and lego blocks, Hannah doodling on the Doodler, Joseph running Leah around the house in a stroller meant for a doll. Right now Leah is actually walking around the family room telling everyone that it is "Clean Up Time! And at one point I heard phone ringing noises and found Hannah in our bedroom with phone in hand, for which she gave the simple explanation of "I was trying to call Grandma". (at one point there might have been a little craziness with Joseph getting frustrated and throwing fifty books out of his room into the hallway, and the girls may have struggled briefly with listening to me as they repeatedly screwed around with the xbox and stereo, but we're over that now and I'd prefer to talk about funner things). There has been a lot of fun stuff going on at school lately. The girls had two weeks of learning colors, and each day were assigned a different color to dress in. They were the purple experts, and made a poster of all things purple (which is actually one of their favorite colors, as they sometimes refer to themselves as Leah Purple and Hannah Pink. Hannah has also recently started referring to herself as Miss Hannah, so please use proper etiquette when in her presence) Joseph made a drum for one of his homework assignments out of a paint bucket and some glitter fish, and then everyone had a Valentine's Day Party which they all dressed up for, and Joseph celebrated his 100th day of 4K by bringing in 100 cheese balls that he counted out to share with his friends. And he is also signed up for 5 year old Kindergarten at Washington Elementary School! I actually ended up needing to go back to the school with his birth certificate so I brought the kids with me to check things out, and Joseph's first question was "Where are all the toys?" Which makes perfect sense since when you walk into our daycare you navigate through classrooms filled with fun stuff, not long hallways. And since Joseph is starting elementary school (which is crazy!), we're moving the girls to the daycare just a few blocks from our house, where Joseph will meet them after school. We'll see how the transition goes for everyone, but hopefully sometime this fall things will get a bit simpler. Will still be a crazy house full of crazy people and a crazy dog, but it's our kind of crazy!
I have been having lots of fun verbally battling Joseph. I don't recall what he said to me tonight, but I thought it was mean, so I asked him, "Joseph, do you talk to your friends that way?" He responded with "No, because the teachers are there. I don't talk that way in front of teachers. And I don't talk to teachers that way, just moms."
The kids had a lot of fun playing around the house today. Joseph had a friend over, and then after naps he and his sisters had a super fun snack dinner (they took a later nap and didn't wake up until closer to 5) which sounds so much more fun than regular dinner so all were quite happy. Cheese sticks, gold fish, pretzel rods, broccoli, grapes....all the typical super bowl fare. They hung out playing in Joseph's room for a while, and then while we were waiting for the half time show to start they spent a good twenty minutes (which is like forever in terms of attention span) dancing to the weeble wobble song on the weeble wobble tree house. It started out with just Joseph dancing like a robot to the catchy tune, with Hannah joining in, and then by the end Leah was in full blown party mode bouncing all over the place. It was the perfect warm up to preparing for Madonna, which we all enjoyed. (with more dancing around the room of course). Hopefully the girls are now drifting off to sleep, and it's not another one of those nights where you have to stay in their room with them or take bear and bunny away to tire them out with tears. They should be pretty wiped out from weebling, wobbling, and vogueing!
Jay was traveling for work the past two weeks and the looks on the kids faces when he walked in the door last night were priceless. Rosco and I were pretty happy to see him too. (Yes, Joseph frequently spends his days disguised as spiderman. He had taken the mask off to eat dinner.)
Apparently Snow = Good Behavior at the Conway house. At least upon it's arrival. Friday morning I awoke fairly early to shovel before the kids were up (though I did hear noises coming from the girl's room), and when they saw all the snow on the ground they were extremely excited and motivated. When I said listen, they listened. When I said stop crying, they stopped. When I asked Joseph to get his shoes and coat on while I scraped off the car, he did. And miracle of miracles, when I dropped them off at daycare, no one had a fit. The girls went straight to their room, and Leah waved "bye bye mommy", and Joseph hung up his coat, waited for me to meet up with him, and went straight to a table to color after giving me a big hug and kiss. (apparently this is "normal" for when Jay drives, but almost never happens when I drive). I then went home to return to the shoveling, in quite a good mood. If having new snow on the ground gets the kids to do that every morning for me, I'll take it every day! (well, at least until march. at that point the snow isn't nearly as exciting anymore). All three of the kids seem to enjoy snowballs and watching for snow from the windows, but Leah it seems does not actually like being in the snow. She would prefer to stand on the sidewalk, laugh, watch, toss a handful of snow or two, while Joseph and Hannah go full throttle running down hills, laying on their backs, falling all over the place. I am pretty sure it is that Leah does not like being cold, and also gets a bit scared. She doesn't think it's funny to fall or to have her mitten fall off. But she loves watching her brother and sister go crazy, so she still has a good time. The snow did not however, turn the girls back into obedient bed timers. I can't figure out what gets them to stay in bed, and what causes them to act like crazy little giggle monsters. One night I actually thought they had gone to bed, and then later when I checked on them found Leah asleep on Hannah's bed (with Hannah, was actually very cute but I was afraid the flash of the camera would wake them up!). Thursday night the girls even went so far as to open their door and stand in the hallway, though that time someone had pooped, and I guess I understand not wanting to sleep in that all night long. So I changed them and then sat in their room for 15 minutes waiting for them to quiet down. Not so bad except that it was about 9pm at that point, which is pretty late at our house. Keeping them up later doesn't seem to help, baths don't do the trick, and when I tried music (that's what they use at school) I found the CD clock unplugged from the wall, in Leah's bed, and the CD on the floor by the door. Again, kind of funny, other than when you are actually in the moment. And I know the subject is snow, so I'll mention that Thursday night when we were in the middle of the snowfall, I couldn't get into our driveway, and after shoveling and making several attempts (while the kids were enjoying Kids Live Radio in the car....favorites include "I think I'm a Bunny", "The Leftover Song", and "Yeah Toast") I decided to go back onto the street and enter our alley from the other end, which worked! Well Joseph remembered this, and Friday on our way home, said "Mom, remember, you need to go to our house the other way so we don't get stuck". What a nice kid!
Joseph Quotes:
"That's ridiculous, you want me to play with underwear?"
"A big present, just what I've been waiting for my whole life!"
"Action fingers!"
"Hey, I need some help with this mission"
"Dad, can we trade hippos? I think yours is hungrier than mine".
Leah Moments:
"Merry Chirstmas! Merry Christmas! (you just had to hear the cute little girl voice to hear how special this was)
Little Leah waited with tears in her eyes next to Santa as he pulled out presents for all the kids on Christmas eve until at long last hers came out of the bottom of his bag. She had such a happy face with ever piece of wrapping paper and tissue that she tore.
Despite our efforts to keep them out of her reach, Leah climbed onto a cooler to get to the back of the table where the plate full of crackers had been placed and then invited her sister to join her.
Hannah Moments:
I told Hannah we were going to a party in the afternoon and she then walked around the house asking everyone "You wanna go to a party?" "You wanna go to a party later?" She was very excited and wanted everyone to join her.
Hannah stood near the food for the first hour or so on Christmas Eve, taking food and bringing one of everything to Leah so that she could cleverly make her way back to the table again for more cheese, cucumbers, crackers, tomatoes, and anything else she could get her hands on.
Mommy GET UP! GET UP! She kept yelling at me at our Chanukah celebration when I tried to sit on the floor downstairs and have her go upstairs to play. She was much happier after having 5 cookies.
A few pictures from the end of fall before the cold set in. Trying to get everyone to look at the camera, let alone smile, is quite the challenge. Though Hannah had no problem turning towards me when I tried to catch her and Leah in action on the piano with Jay. I'm not sure what she thought she was playing or singing, but it must have been something really entertaining.
Jay asked Joseph today who was in charge and Leah yelled out "Leah's in Charge!". And when Jay asked Joseph what we have for dinner on Thanksgiving along with pumpkin pie Joseph responded with "Casserole". Um good guess but no. He does however understand the concept of being thankful which is more important than the turkey anyway (even though the turkey is quite delicious) Joseph is more of a peanut butter and jelly guy, and recently he has started making his own sandwiches. Unfortunately I think that our school district is "nut free" which means we won't be able to take advantage of this next year. But back to the comedy....Hannah said something quite hillarious today as well, Jay and I can both remember how funny it was and that we cracked up, and that we were in the girl's bedroom, but neither of us can remember what she said. Good thing that on Sunday I remembered to send myself an email with a reminder of some other things to write about on the blog. One of the topics was "Hannah Pink". Hannah has freaked out on several occasions when she has not been granted her wishes for pink. For example when she was forced to wear the dreaded purple mittens instead of the pink gloves. And the other morning when Leah was given the pink shirt and Hannah was left with the "other color". We have had similar crying fits when giving someone else at the dinner table the pink plate instead of Hannah. Needless to say, we have created a monster. I think we started this early on by always having her be the one in pink so that people could remember "Hot Pink Hannah". It can't be genetic, because I sure as hell don't feel the same way about the color. Though I've come to terms with it within the context of having two little ladies and it certainly doesn't bother me to have them wear it. Another funny tidbit about Joseph is that he frequently says "For real?" I suppose that could also come from me but I don't say that nearly as often as I say things like "Dude" and "Are you kidding me?" I took him shopping with me at Kohls last weekend and the funniest thing was that he thought that you could "borrow" toys from the store, so he kept loading up the cart with hot wheels and super hero stuff until it finally sunk in that the store in fact was not like the library and we had to pay for all of our items (and it was not his birthday, and it was not a holiday, and so on and so forth). And now in closing, an explanation for why Leah was able to boldly exclaim that she was "in charge", Leah is the one who repeats just about everything that comes out of your mouth. As you are talking to her she carries on a two way conversation with you by repeating in paraphrases what you have just said, using two or three word statements. It's quite amusing for now, but is really going to get me into some trouble later if she continues to repeat everything that comes out of my mouth.
Joseph:
"I want to stay up early tonight" Clearly he means late. And last night we did in fact give him 30 extra minutes before bedtime.
Hannah:
"No way Mommy" Or No Way, or No Way Leah, and said in quite a serious deep voice with emphasis on the waaaay.
Leah:
"Special Treat?" Repeated over and over with an incredible amount of enthusiasm and a twinkle in her eye, in reference to leftover candy from Halloween.
We had a few enlightening and somewhat humorous comments during parent teacher conferences for the kids last week. No real surprises but apparently our eldest tends to "hide during cleanup time". Every time the teacher walks to one side of the room to give instructions, Joseph walks to the other side. We know he understands cleanup time and where things go, because the teacher hears him giving other kids instructions from across the room telling them where they should put things. He also gets excited and likes to participate and doesn't do well with raising his hand or waiting his turn to talk. (Hmmm.....that sounds vaguely familiar.....I wonder where I've heard that before....) We've been trying to work on not interrupting for a while but I think that will be an ongoing effort over the next few (or ten) years. Amazing how in just a few months though he has made so much progress with art and writing skills. Now when he draws a person you can actually tell it's a person (a big head, eyeballs, mouth, ears, arms, legs...very humpty dumpty-esque) and he's starting to write JOSEPH CONWAY instead of just his first name. He even attempted Dominic the other day on his own, and had a few of the letters correct just from sounding it out. So that was Joseph on Tuesday.....and then we had the girls reviews on Friday. Would you believe that little Leah has turned into little miss type A? She leads the charge....takes her hand off the wall during line time when she thinks no one is looking and then puts it back when the teacher turns around. She tries to get on Joseph's bike every chance she gets and she is quite the climber/adventurer. She knows how to do things but if she's not in the mood to do them then she won't do them (like match colors or some other exercise she knows how to do at school) We're pretty sure that she wakes Hannah up every morning and while she definitely loves her sister (they were apparently giggling and "wrestling" with each other the other day at school, at least that's what they said they were doing when the teacher asked) but apparently she also takes out all of her aggression on her. The comment next to "Plays well with others" for Leah was that she's Mastered it, except as it relates to her sister. She pulls Hannah's hair, hits her, takes toys away from her....but plays very nicely with everyone else in the room. Hannah on the other hand usually only hits when provoked (like when Joseph swats at her first). And Leah has a little thing with eating crayons. Needless to say we don't do as much art at home as we should. Usually ends with a very purple or red tongue. With Hannah the most humorous comment was related to her eating. She's usually done with her food while others around the table are still getting served (Leah is in fact the slowest eater in the class) Hannah has been known to shove fist-fulls of food in her mouth and do a happy dance in her chair when food arrives. She's a pretty happy go lucky, friendly and social girl.... but only around those she sees every day....shy around others. And Hannah's a bit on the emotional side, like her brother, and is prone to tantrums and is brought to tears if you use a sharp tone with her. She's mastered the body parts and her favorite animals are elephants and pigs (her pig noise is an actual snort, which she just demonstrated while watching Shrek when the three little pigs came on the screen). Both girls repeat a lot of what you say but usually in just two word phrases, and Hannah is always very quick to answer questions and be a helper. She just needs reminding if there is more than one instruction to be given. With winter approaching Hannah and Leah have discovered mittens and are in love with them. They get very frustrated if their thumb doesn't go in the right spot and the other day Leah was beside herself because I made her take hers off when she got to her classroom and she wasn't done with them yet. I think towards the end of the week we'll actually be busting out the winter coats for all three kids and I know that the girls will be excited because they already try to put them on along with their boots and prance around in hats every chance they get. (they walk into their closet and take all that fun stuff out and parade around their room) I actually managed to loose one of Joseph's winter coats between last year and this year, but he has others so no immediate concern. Jay is in London this week and I suspect he'll be wearing a coat too. And enjoying some fish and chips or bangers n mash when he's not working. Last night we actually went out to dinner after a quick trip to Lowe's (Gina was home with the kids) and Jay ordered a burger since red meat isn't quite the same in Europe. (Just like clam chowder in WI isn't quite the same as clam chowder in Boston...I went out there for a few days for work and the seafood was quite delicious). Tonight is wine and cheese, along with some drama. Gina and I will be catching up on all the must see tv from the past week after the kids are in bed.
Yesterday we took all three kids out to run some errands in the morning, and then feeling rather adventurous I brought everyone to the grocery store with me in the afternoon. Joseph and Hannah sat in the car attached to the front of the cart and Leah was seated up by me. Those things are hard to maneuver! I must have been having a crazy moment, but it actually wasn't too bad of an experience until the end when everyone was crying for a different reason while trying to load up to go home. Right now everyone is perfectly happy, watching their favorite show on tv (Scooby Do) while I catch up on pictures and the blog and work through putting away the final load of laundry which it feels like Jay and I have been doing all weekend. Jay is out getting two flat tires fixed (crazy...but at least it happened on the weekend and when we were both here) But in between loads and the other stuff I have also found time to start our 2010 photo album, order some more pictures to hang on the wall, and maybe if I'm lucky sometime in 2012 I will find the blog books and photo books that are still missing from the move. (I must have cleverly packed them somewhere and very smartly put the box where no one could possibly find it. Or maybe I'm crazy and I accidentally threw them away.) The kids have caught up on some of their favorite activities today as well....building towers with trio and lego blocks, Hannah doodling on the Doodler, Joseph running Leah around the house in a stroller meant for a doll. Right now Leah is actually walking around the family room telling everyone that it is "Clean Up Time! And at one point I heard phone ringing noises and found Hannah in our bedroom with phone in hand, for which she gave the simple explanation of "I was trying to call Grandma". (at one point there might have been a little craziness with Joseph getting frustrated and throwing fifty books out of his room into the hallway, and the girls may have struggled briefly with listening to me as they repeatedly screwed around with the xbox and stereo, but we're over that now and I'd prefer to talk about funner things). There has been a lot of fun stuff going on at school lately. The girls had two weeks of learning colors, and each day were assigned a different color to dress in. They were the purple experts, and made a poster of all things purple (which is actually one of their favorite colors, as they sometimes refer to themselves as Leah Purple and Hannah Pink. Hannah has also recently started referring to herself as Miss Hannah, so please use proper etiquette when in her presence) Joseph made a drum for one of his homework assignments out of a paint bucket and some glitter fish, and then everyone had a Valentine's Day Party which they all dressed up for, and Joseph celebrated his 100th day of 4K by bringing in 100 cheese balls that he counted out to share with his friends. And he is also signed up for 5 year old Kindergarten at Washington Elementary School! I actually ended up needing to go back to the school with his birth certificate so I brought the kids with me to check things out, and Joseph's first question was "Where are all the toys?" Which makes perfect sense since when you walk into our daycare you navigate through classrooms filled with fun stuff, not long hallways. And since Joseph is starting elementary school (which is crazy!), we're moving the girls to the daycare just a few blocks from our house, where Joseph will meet them after school. We'll see how the transition goes for everyone, but hopefully sometime this fall things will get a bit simpler. Will still be a crazy house full of crazy people and a crazy dog, but it's our kind of crazy!
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