Nighttime Misadventures

No pix, but funny stories from tonight. One for each kiddo.

So, I'm sitting here typing the last post, and I hear Ella crying (she's been down for about an hour). It's one of those sleepy cries that means she just wants a binky. I grab one, walk in, find her face in the dark and stick the binky in place. As I get ready to leave, I pat her on the back and notice she doesn't have a shirt on, which is odd because she was dressed in a sleeper when she went down. Then I pat a little lower and find a bare, wet baby bum. Yup, diapers off, crib is covered in pee, and little baby is falling back asleep, happy with her binky. No, I didn't just leave her there. :) Sally tag teamed with me, and we got her all dressed again. She is quite the sneaky little 18 month old. Ha.

Caleb's happened before going to bed. So, I tell them a bedtime story every night after reading a book and prayers and before a bedtime song or two. Caleb always helps me with the stories, so I usually will stop mid-sentence and let him fill in the blanks so he gets to guide the story a bit and use that run away imagination of his. Ella is a bit too young to care at this point. Usually, Caleb's line goes something like this: "And then there was a DRAGON!!" He loves dragons.

As a preface to this story, I did a two year mission as a 20 year old kid in Germany; I tell him about it occasionally. Tonight's story started like this:

Daddy: Once upon a time there was a little boy named Caleb. And one night Caleb's Daddy knelt by his bed and told him a story about his mission.

Caleb: And Caleb said, "No, let's do a other one."

Ouch! Guess that wasn't what he had in mind for a story tonight. A dragon showed up very soon after that. My kids crack me up.

Other Christmas Traditions

We do family night every week on Monday night (unless I'm on call, in which case we switch nights) which usually consists of eating dinner followed by a lesson, activity and treat. The lesson consists of talking about some aspect of the Gospel or being good or something that will be good for a 3 year old and 18 month old. Let's just say, I'm occasionally good at keeping their attention but most often the lesson usually goes something like this. 

Dad: Caleb and Ella, did you know Jesus loves you?

Caleb: Yeah.

Ella: [runs off giggling and starts playing with a toy or trying to leave the room which causes Mommy to run after her].

Daddy: Jesus wants us all to be nice to each other.

Caleb: [now he runs around the room making wierd noises and starts trying to climb on things and jump off them. Mommy again intervenes.]

Daddy: Caleb, how does Jesus want you to treat Ella?

Caleb: [no response, totally ignoring me]

Daddy: Ella, say Jesus. 

Ella:  Chee!

Daddy: Caleb, say Jesus.

Caleb: [still ignoring Daddy]

Daddy: Okay, time for dessert. :S

At least we're trying. :) The activity after the game usually gets more responses from the crowd and then dessert is always the biggest hit.

The pictures below are some family night activities that happened in December.

Caroling with friends and family at a nearby nursing facility, followed by homemade hot chocolate made by me with my mom's (AKA Grandma Jo's) recipe. Good stuff! Marshmallow's and candy canes made it even that much better. 

This is the most random but cool tradition that Sally came up with this year which I'm sure will last for years to come. She made salt dough ornaments during the day and that night we painted them. It was an awesome night. The lady on the left is a single friend of ours' from church. Caleb and Ella didn't make it to the end of the activity before dessert was required but below you can see some of their budding art talent. 

A few thoughts about Sally. First, it is so cool watching her do crafts with the kids. I think most adults (or maybe it's just me) get an idea in their head as to what a craft is supposed to be or what an activity is supposed to be and then try to force the kids into doing it their way in order to teach them. Not Sally. She throws individual bowls of paints and paintbrushes and ornaments in front of the kids with butcher paper all over the table and sees what happens. She's really good at letting them explore their world and try things out without hampering their creativity. It's really fun. Ella, of course, had to taste the pain right off the bat, but after cleaning that off her tongue things went really well! :) Second, Sally loves trying out new things. She heard recently that salt dough ornaments were a new fad (coming back, I guess, because we definitely had a ton of them on our Christmas tree growing up with our pictures on them and painted by us, too). After scouring some blogs, she came up with a plan and we were all trying out something new that we'd never done before. Maybe the tradition in our family will be doing a bunch of random, crazy things we've never imagined doing every Christmas. I can't remember if she mentioned it, but she also made all the gingerbread houses that we decorated that are posted earlier on this blog. I think that's pretty cool. Of course, I am biased.

Third, Sally is actually a really good artist herself. It fits with what I just said about her. About 6 months before Ella was born she decided to pick up her art skills again, and she found a community education class for water color painting. She got all the supplies and started painting all of a sudden. She was good, too! I love the spontaneity in which she lives her life. It keeps things exciting for me and her but more importantly for the kids. They have an awesome mommy. :)

Christmas Party

So, our congregation at church does a family Christmas party each year, and this year, I got asked to head it up. To put it in perspective, each Sunday we go to church with about 80-100 adults and about 150 kids under the age of 12. Crazy! The Christmas party is awesome but also a bit time consuming to organize. Thankfully, it went great. I actually really enjoy putting together stuff for big groups of people. Instead of getting stressed, I get kind of excited. This one went great. I got put in charge about 2 weeks before it was supposed to happen, so the whole thing was a bit thrown together. Despite that, our little Nativity play and reading of Luke 2 was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. Mostly because Caleb and Ella got to got out on stage as little sheep with a ton of cotton swabs pasted on paper ears and tails. The effect was actually pretty sweet! Sally is quite creative when it comes to things like that. The kids love doing crafts with her because of it. The funny part came at the end of the party after Santa had come and gone, and Caleb was sitting in Santa's chair and a friend of ours came up and let me know he had an accident all over the chair (and his cotton swab tail). Oops! The poor kid has been doing really good with potty training but in the excitement of the party both he and we (Sally and I) had forgotten to take a bathroom break. Thankfully someone had a couch cleaner at home and took the cushion with them and got it back for Church the next day. Good times. The picture below is of us eating dinner at the party. 

Dec 2011

Joe's Catch Up Post

So, I have not done my fair share of blogging recently (or ever), so I've been thinking I should do some catching up. Be prepared. :)

It's amazing to me how easy it can be to entertain kids if you simply give them your time and attention. These two love playing in the car. Attention is definitely needed in the car, though. :) I asked Ella if she was ready to drive the other day and she nodded "yes" quite solemnly. Funny girl. 18 months going on 16 years. We're really in for quite the ride with her. Oh, and while I'm talking about her, check out her new hair-do!

We dropped her off at a friend's house with Caleb the other day (their daughter is biracial, too, and has hair just like Ella's) and when we got back we found her looking cuter than we left her. She loved playing with the little curls on top of her head. :)

Caleb loves forts and books. The new favorite past time is pulling down ALL of the books at once and then sitting in the middle of them and looking at them. It is amazingly quiet when he goes at it. It's awesome! I love seeing my boy read. He can't really read yet, but he still loves books.

My two favorite times of day with the kids are when they wake up (on the days I'm lucky enough to be at home) and when I come home from work. In the morning, they're both snuggly and sweet. Caleb has started curling into a ball as I hold him and saying things like, "Ohh, Daddy, your warm!" He says warm like "arm" with a "w" in front. I love it. When I get home there's just a lot of screaming and cheering and running around. It's like a surprise party every day. Dad's have it good. It's like you're a celebrity everyday when you arrive. Little Ella just starts babbling and telling me about everything and grabbing my hand to have me follow her. I'm in love with my kids. I couldn't be happier...except with one more. :)

Caleb and Ella love taking my iphone and playing with it. The other day I think Caleb had opened every app on there. He is very entertained by it all. Sally also found a way to keep him entertained (above). The phone has cameras on both sides so you can actually look at yourself as you take pictures. The quality isn't quite as good, but both Caleb and Ella LOVE seeing themselves real time. You'd think a mirror would be just as cool, but somehow the phone is way better. Probably because if they break it, it's WAY more expensive to replace. Gotta love how kids gravitate towards things that are expensive to replace.

The calmness of this scene doesn't happen all that often. I love seeing my family all chillaxed watching a movie. We just recently started family movie night on Fridays featuring classics like Cinderella, Peter Pan, Cars 2 (it was more of an epic failure for our family, though. Ella requested Baby Einstein on the laptop 5 minutes in and Caleb ditched it for "Meet the Robinsons" after 30 min. Oh well.), Tangled, etc, etc. Name a cartoon and I'm sure we'll hit it. Caleb loves movies. Sally is pretty amazing at limiting him to one per day lately. She even does occasional "No movie" weeks to detox from the mindlessness of staring at the TV. That's a hard one, though, because it requires A LOT more effort on her part, and pretty much no breaks while I'm gone (which can be a lot is I'm still a resident in training).

 Fall 2004

 Spring 2005

Fall 2004

Have I mentioned how amazing Sally is? She is. I like this blog better than other ones we've done because I feel like I need to go back in time a bit and fill in who we are since you've never met us. One of the things that I loved most about Sally when we met was how kind she was to me. It sounds kind of funny, but I don't think I'd ever met someone who was so nice to me. After having dated a few other people in my life and then meeting Sally, I realized that I was a pretty sensitive guy and that I needed someone who would be truly kind and understanding. Sally made me feel like I could open up my heart completely, and she would still love and accept me. On top of it, she still believes in me and encourages me to be better. None of this "I love you just how you are; never change" nonsense. She sees me for the best I can be. It has made me a truly better person. You know what the most amazing part of realizing that she was the kindest person I have ever met back 7 years ago is? After those 7 years, she has lived up to that realization. I am one lucky man. 

Sally LOVES the ocean. She has pretty much set the ultimatum that we must be within a half day drive from the beach wherever we settle down for good. I'm good with that, too. We love family beach trips. We've started at least biannual beach trips, now, and hopefully we'll increase that to more frequent or at least longer trips in years to come. The best part of the beach...hmm, I don't know if there is a best part. Sally just loves it all. We bring our kites and half beach tent and lunches in a cooler and boogie boards and shovels/buckets for sand castles. Sally is always a bit embarassed because she thinks I look like a hobo hauling all this stuff from the car to the edge of the water. I really do look like a hobo, too. I love it. :) Maybe the best part is just being in a beautiful, relaxing place with my favorite people in the world. Yup, that pretty much sums it up. I love the ride home, too, when the kids crash in their car seats and Sally and I sit and drive and hold hands, chatting about this and that and future beach trips and how great life is. Actually, the last ride home was pretty much the opposite of that peaceful seen because Ella had an eczema flare and was miserable. Poor girl. Thankfully it's under control now. But usually, the drive home is great. :)

My girls are CUTE!! This is one good looking picture of the two of them. This sub place was awesome. It's over by my brother's house where the kids had spent the morning. Talk about problematic at lunch time, though. See the fountain drink machine in the corner? It's this new and improved thing that has about 160 different drink flavors. It's crazy! But also awesome. You can guess about how much lunch Caleb and Ella had there. They basically just drank soda for the hour we were there. You're only a kid once, I guess. :)

Doggie

Cadee, our cute lab-mix doggie, is getting a new home tonight. We enjoyed her for the past 8 weeks or so--she is super-smart, cute, energetic, and sweet, but she just seemed so bored here, poor thing. Our kids are just not ready yet to play with her in the way that she needs. And then there was the dog hair. I've tried to keep up with it, but it has just gotten worse--Our next attempt at a pet will be a non-shedding dog! :)

I am glad we had her--each time we've had a pet, we have learned something new about ourselves and about pets. And Joe and I both like the idea of having a dog--a buddy for the kids to play with and love, when they get a little older.

When I told the kids this morning that Cadee would be leaving tonight, Ella didn't understand or care (she just turned 18 months :), but Caleb got sad for a few minutes and just sat on my lap. He seems to already be over it, but I'm sure there will be a few sad moments in the next several days. I am glad that the kids liked having her around so much--all the more motivation to find the right kind of pet for us someday!

A couple random pics of the doggie--

Ella enjoying a movie while hanging out with Cadee

Thanksgiving Day, we went to the park while waiting for the turkey to cook

Eating ice cream cones for family night--Cadee loves to be wherever we are :)