Snow Day!!!

Yay! Today is a snow day. No school for me. Ryan has to go in two hours late, but at least we get the morning together. The kids went outside for a total of about 30 seconds. They had fun and loved getting bundled up.

My parents offered to take the kids to a cousin's birthday party on Saturday and keep them overnight. Well, I jumped at the opportunity and decided to paint the livingroom while I had the day to myself. It was a tough job with 20 ft. ceilings at the highest point.

I finished the living room using only one gallon! I had purchased two because I was sure it would take two. I used the other gallon to paint Micah's room. They look awesome. The problem now is that the kitchen is painted a different (non-coordinating) color of green and looks awful when you stand in the kitchen and look into the living room. That will have to be my next project.

Siblings

I love that my kids are best friends. Micah just adores his sister and Amelia idolizes him. She wants to do everything he does. This is a picture of them coloring a couple of weeks ago.

Micah has this thing about getting dressed before Amelia does. He has to "win." So he gets really upset if she gets dressed before him. Just now as I was writing this he looked at the picture and said, "Why is Amelia dressed before me?" Currently, they are both coloring because they wanted to be just like the picture.

Oh, and I have one more "Micah moment." Here is a little background... a week or so ago I told Ryan that I love when I have a video to play for one of my classes because I can get my whole room cleaned up in that time and I feel so much better when my room is clean.

On Tuesday I picked them up from the babysitters and as we were driving home, this was our conversation:

Micah: "What did you do today, Mom?" I was flattered by the question.

Me: "Well, I taught some classes, sang some songs, played some instruments..."

Micah: "Did you make the kids watch TV so you could clean your room?"

Me: giggling, "No, I didn't do that today."

So concerned

This morning we were running some errands as a family and first we swung through the bank to deposit a check. As we were stopped at the drive-thru ATM, Micah said, "Dad, you're going to have to teach me how to do that too."

After the bank we went a couple of places and passed the hospital. Micah remembers it as the place where we got Amelia. He often refers to it as the place where the babies live. Here is how the conversation followed:
M: How do the people at the hospital make the babies?
Ryan: They don't make the babies, God does. They just help get the babies out of the mommy's tummies.
M: No, I'm talking about when Amelia was born. Are you talking about when I was born?
Ryan: No, I'm talking about Amelia's hospital.
M: Remember, I looked out the window and I saw the river?
Ryan: Right, that was when we came to the hospital when Amelia was still in Mommy's tummy. Then Grandma came and picked you up. While you were gone, the doctors helped get Amelia out of Mommy's tummy and when Grandma brought you back you got to see her.
M: But how do they make the babies?

An early morning good night kiss

I worked at church until later last night so I didn't get to see the kids before they went to bed. At 3:00AM Micah came into our room and said, "Mom? Good night, I love you (kisses me). See you in the morning."

Meena

Amelia says her name now. She calls herself Meena. We kind of like it. We've never come up with a nickname that we liked, so we've just called her Amelia all along. This might be her new nickname, who knows? How would you spell it, though? Mina? Miena? Mena? Myna? Möna?

A new "mom feeling"

Watching my kids, I've become more aware of how incredibly unique God makes every person... things that are innate to a child. For example, Amelia LOVES her babies. She is constantly feeding, burping and kissing them. About a week ago, she started a new bedtime routine. When we go into her room at night, she has to turn her nightlight on, then she goes over to her baby cradle, lifts her baby out, puts her back in and covers her with a blanket, then leans over and kisses her, then rocks the cradle furiously. After that we do prayers and put her to bed. I didn't teach her to do all that. She has this incredible nurturing quality. Micah, on the other hand is a natural leader. He helps Amelia learn new things and he is so gentle in how he teaches her. He shows her how to do something and then lets her try it herself. My heart melts when I watch them play together. They have this amazing love for each other. I could never have imagined this kind of "mom feeling."

"That was easy!"

This picture accurately describes our experience with banning the binkies. (One of Micah's favorite gifts was the "Easy" button that we got him. He loved pushing it when we went to Staples, and he loves pushing it at home. When you push it it says, "That was easy.") So, the first night she slept great, cried for like 20 seconds and then went back to sleep. The next day she napped fine but put up more of a fight at bed time, but really, after 30-45 minutes she was fine. Last night she didn't wake up at all. When we took Micah's binkie away at 6 months, it wasn't as bad as I expected, but it was horrible compared to this. Micah's first night included 1-2 hours of crying at two different times. The second night had 30 -45 minutes of crying each time he woke, third night a little less and the fourth night he was done. I sure hope potty training has an easy button.

Speechless

Frankly, I'm speechless. This morning we decided that Amelia needs to be done with binkies. So, I cleaned out her crib and all of her hiding places (she drops her binkies in secret places around her crib so she can find them later), and tonight we put her to bed without a binkie. Here's the shocker... she hasn't made a peep! While we were putting her to bed we told her that there were no more binkies and voila! Time will tell, though. We'll be hearing from her in the middle of the night. For now I'm enjoying the unexpected silence.