Emily loves to practice reading!

I got Emily these BOB Books and she loves that she can just pick them up and read them all by herself! This video is of the first time she picked up this particular book. She was pretty successful!

Grammie and PopPop's Visit

My parents came into town this weekend for a visit. We all had a great time, as always! On Saturday we went to Emily's soccer game and then to see my new niece on 3d/4d ultrasound. What a treat! She's almost ready to arrive :) On Sunday my parents babysat so Dave and I could go out, which we are so appreciative of. Everyone wins in that situation! Monday was a busy day with a morning at Monkey Joes's and then lunch and ice cream, before taking Grammie and PopPop to the airport to head home. As always, Emily cried herself to sleep on the way home from the airport. Grammie is her best friend! Here are some videos and pictures from the weekend.

Lainey's going to need therapy to work through this one...

Tonight we were coming home from church around 8:45pm, like most Wednesday nights. The kids were all tired and crying, so it was pretty hectic. We always unbuckle the girls and let them climb out and walk into the house on their own. Well tonight it didn't work that way....We unbuckled them and thought they were all in the house, so we locked the car doors. About 2 minutes later, after getting Lexi on the potty and while changing Daniel's diaper, I realized that Lainey wasn't accounted for. We started calling for her but she didn't answer. I opened the front door, expecting to see her right there, but could just hear her crying. That's when I caught a glimpse of her in the van, crying at the window. She was hysterical. I've never felt so AWFUL! I tried letting her out but realized the van was locked so I had to walk away to go get the keys, which sent her into even more hysterics. When we finally got her out, she kept repeating "Too dark car. Me cry car. Too dark car. Me cry car. Too dark car. Too dark car. Too dark car. Too dark car." She went on sobbing and repeating this for about 20 minutes until we could finally get her thinking about something happy. My poor, poor Lainey!!!! Now Emily's afraid we're going to forget her in the car. She keeps saying "Please don't lock me in the car." Our poor kids!!!! I think I win the World's Worst Mother award for the day. I'm just thankful it wasn't hot out!

Summer Movie

Doing the happy dance!

Emily is a reader!!! I can't even believe it. I've been homeschooling her for 2 weeks now doing a pre-k program. We're just supposed to be working on letters and sounds now, but since she seemed pretty confident in those I decided to try putting some letters together today, just for fun. So I wrote on the board "C-A-T". She sounded it out beautifully and read "cat". I almost fell over! This continued with word after word. We're just doing short vowels for now but she's doing so well! I pulled out some little books that she had never seen before. She sounded out the words to read the books to me! She is 4 years, 3 months old as of last week. She is so proud of herself, she wanted to "call everyone we know". :-) I'm trying to just enjoy this and not worry about what this means for her future in school (she's supposed to enter kindergarten NEXT year, how boring will that be for her?). Pardon my bragging, but I just think she's an amazing little girl!!! I'm so PROUD of her! She's got me beat now--she can read AND she can cross her eyes :) I can't do both of those things, which she finds hilarious.

Partners in Crime: I love this video of the twins from April 07

Potty Training Twins

I have a host of stories about our adventures potty training the twins, but this is about a time Lainey really surprised me. Lainey is my one who has an aversion to diapers. Should make potty training easier, right? Except when you want her to wear a diaper! We had several weeks there where she was taking off her diaper during the night and just using her crib as a toilet. We tried putting her to bed in onesies (which she easily unsnapped) and backwards sleepers (which she somehow outsmarted as well). During those days before we discovered the beautiful thing called duct tape, we had some very messy mornings. One morning in particular we went in and found Lainey stripped down and her crib all wet. Not only her mattress, but it had run into a puddle on the floor as well. I scolded Lainey and asked her why she did it.....She thought for a while and then said "Doggy peed." My daughter that can barely talk is blaming the dog for her accidents! The blame game starts young!!!

7 months!

Daniel is 7 months old today. He surprised us all today by (finally) eating baby food! He ate a whole jar! For the past 3 months I thought he was destined to live on formula alone :)

Daniel is such a happy, laid back baby. He loves to sleep. When given the chance, he'll sleep 18 hours a day! He likes to nap 3 hours each morning, 3 hours each afternoon, and 12 hours at night. Unfortunately for him (and me!), he we just can't stay home that much or the girls would kill each other. So he has to make do on less sleep. Such is life when you're #4 :) He's such a joy and we are so blessed to have him in our family. None of us could imagine life without him!

Our sweet Lexi

Lexi is our stinker. She gives new meaning to the term "gets into everything". She absolutely has a need to touch everything within her reach. It can be very frustrating when we're in stores! But then Lexi is also so sweet. She has the biggest, happiest eyes of all of our kids. Potty training the twins was a very trying time on all of us, but I'll never forget a moment with Lexi. She had had several accidents and it was only 10am. As I was cleaning up the floor, she stood next to me, put her little hand on my shoulder, and said, "Det do, Mommy" which translates to "Thank you, Mommy". Not many toddlers take the time to thank their mommies for cleaning up their pee!!! What a sweetie!!! She melts my heart :)

I wish I could get inside her head sometimes....

A couple of stories about Emily.....

The other day while we were on the swingset she was telling me "At church I push my friends and my friends push me."
I was thinking "how sweet" and said "Oh, you like the swings?"
Emily's reply: "We don't have swings at church."

hmmm......


Then one morning she was sitting there thinking and said, "I know you said babies are very delicate. But how can we break them? Because yesterday I tried to pull Daniel's head off but it would not come off!"

eeek!

Emily's Story

Emily dictated this story to me recently. I love to see her thought process :) I wrote exactly what she said:

Title: Lion's Den of All

"Once there was a little girl and she loved to ride bikes with her uncle. She prayed to God every time she read her Bible. She knew that God died on the cross because He loved His people that He made. So he died on the cross for the people. He loved the people so much that He just wanted to hug all the people and kiss them and kiss them and kiss them. The people prayed to God every time they saw Him up in heaven. He loved the people so much He just wanted to have them come to heaven. He put them in the bed and the people loved the bed so much they just fighted over it. He loved the people and just wanted to kiss them. He prayed to His Holy Spirit. The people came to the lions den and they read about it all day."