Wednesday night was the AWANA Grand Prix at church. The girls worked hard painting their cars and were so excited to race them.
Painting their cars
Molly holding “The Car of Many Colors”
Sage holding “Over the Rainbow”
On your marks, get set, go!
Why is it that someone always has to be sad? As I sit here in silence (except for the sound of the dryer in the background), I wonder about this. Yes there are times, when they are all happy and playing well and then total chaos erupts and everyone is hysterical. If I would have had the video camera with me the other day, I would have taken a video to show you what I mean. Although I’m sure you can picture it! Hmmmmm . . . the life of a Mom (and Dad – don’t want to leave Tom out) of 3 kids. . .
Lately things have been crazy quite often. I feel like all I do is discipline, cook and clean. It’s just a phase, right? The girls have started to take on more responsibility around the house in hopes that this feeling they have of entitlement and that mom and dad are slaves, will go away. I have been wondering what I did to encourage this behavior and all I could come up with is that I do too much for them. So, now they each have a few small jobs and they mark them off on their sticker chart. It seems to be going well so far and our house is staying picked up with less work from me. We’ll see if we can keep it up.
Fortunately, today has been a relatively calm day. The girls had a visit to the dentist, which went very well, and spent quite a bit of time creating “food” with play dough this morning. Nap time is about over and we’ll pick up Sage from the bus stop.
The quietness of the house has now turned to kissing sounds coming from Ashley’s bedroom (waking up and kissing her bear I’m guessing) and tantrum-like screaming from Molly’s room – the sound of her waking up without a binkie. (That transition went well, but the waking up part still needs to be worked on. I’m not sure what to do about it, so I’m hoping it will just fix itself soon!)
Well, Sage missed school for the first time today . . . home sick with the stomach flu. I’m glad we made it this far into the year without having to miss, but she was pretty disappointed to not be getting on the bus with her friends. (She’ll also be out for 2 days in March for a little get-a-way to The Great Wolf Lodge, but I’m sure she’ll be excited about that!) She’s doing well and keeping food down, so it looks like the same fast bug that Molly had on Wednesday (and other kindergartners had at school). Hopefully the bug will stay away from the rest of us!
Praying for a quiet night . . .
On Saturday, we had Molly’s birthday party at Armondo’s (the restaurant Tom is the Chef at). The restaurant is closed for lunch on the weekends, so we had the whole place to ourselves. The girls each decorated their own chef hat and apron and then were able to make their own pizzas in the kitchen! (The adults were able to make their own pizzas too, which was very fun for us as well!!) We played a few games, ate our pizza and salad and Molly opened her presents. She tells everyone she sees about her party, even the nice couple in the elevator at the mall on Saturday afternoon. I guess that means she really enjoyed herself!
Chef Tom, Chef Molly and Jennifer
Not the greatest picture, but the only one of all of us
Molly creating her pizza
Tom, Ella and Sage
I’m such an amazing cook, I can even make a pizza while holding a squirming 17 month old!
Amie, Crystal, Emily, William and Ashley enjoying their pizzas
Molly always wants to sit up at the counter by the pizza oven when we eat there, but I always have to say no because I can’t put a high chair up there with Ashley. So this was finally the time and all the kids loved it!
Opening presents
For Sage’s birthday in November, she asked to go horseback riding. So Grandma and Grandpa gave her some money to do that. Here are a few pictures from her horseback riding lesson yesterday (which she absolutely loved!)
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