Laughing Out Loud

Another laugh thanks to the 3-year-old:

Some Background. Miguel and I are trying very hard to teach our children appropriate uses of words which can be used in a derogatory manner. "Retarded" is one we've often used in slang and we are working hard to break these bad habits. Josh does not hesitate to correct us when we use the word, telling us it's not nice.

Today Josh was watching Little Einsteins. The show uses musical terms, and today used the word, "Retardando"

Josh says, "Das a bad werd"

He's got a great memory, that kid.

Random Pictures

Here is a recent one of Katie, I think she has peanut butter on her face, but I think it's a great picture anyway.



And one of Josh. I think it captures just how much Miguel has managed to corrupt him.

Josh-isms

Just from today:

Miguel is cleaning up after the 3 dogs in the backyard, into an old USPS flat-rate box. Seeing this, Josh asks,
"Are we going to send the box of poop to Grandma in California?"
"No, Josh"
"Why, cause she will be mad?"

After Miguel picks himself up off the floor from laughing so hard, Josh runs back into the house to use the restroom. In an effort to get back outside as quickly as possible, Josh opens the backdoor and Miguel realizes he has nothing on but shoes from the waist down.
"Josh!!! Go put your clothes on before you go outside!"
"Why, cause I will go to Jail?"
Later in the day I asked where Josh got the idea he would go to Jail. I guess Miguel told Josh a few weeks ago he needed to put clothes on when he went outside or the police would take him to jail. I guess he remembered...

I love this age. It's my favorite kid-stage.

Those Bedtime Sillies

Yep, Katie is officially a silly kid. The other night I heard banging. Over and over again, bang, bang, bang. It was too soft and shallow to be josh kicking the wall from his bed, but it was obviously someone kicking something. I checked the kids and Katie was kicking the bed rails.

This is a pretty common position for her in the crib. She usually falls alseep at this angle, even though she is taller than the width of her bed. I've even found her with her leg sticking out between the bars - asleep!

The kids sing songs, especially songs by Taylor Swift or The Killers. Yes, Josh knows a lot of the words, and Katie sings along. You know when it was Katie who chose the song because she always sings the opening theme from Super Why! It's really cute, Josh just joins right in.

One night they were laughing a LOT more than normal, and I was curious what they were doing. When I got in there, here is how I found Katie:

Nope, she's not sitting on her feet. She has her feet dangling between the bars. Sorry it's blurry, I didn't realize when I took the photo in the dark. She was having a great time.

Josh felt left out so I took his picture in his bed too (see above). He LOVES his Star Wars comforter, and he took my Scooby Doo blanket from me a long time ago. He does not sleep without the Scooby Doo blanket. The antics in the evenings after lights out never cease...

Silly Kids

I originally took this video to showcase Katie singing the theme from Super Why. She sings it constantly. Of course, per her norm, she stopped singing it and started singing more nonsensical things once I turned on the video. Instead, listen to Josh. He's talking about the playdoh man he smashed. I didn't notice at the time, but I watched it again and found it to be pretty cute.

Playdoh Time!

These pictures were taken the weekend before Josh's birthday. He loves playing with his playdoh. We love it too. He has such a great time. Katie eats it, which is kinda gross, but she loves to poke her fingers in it. She also will fill some of the little cookie-cutter things with the playdoh, then push it all out. I didn't catch any of that on film though (can you really say, "on film" anymore? This whold digital age stuff is messing with our sayings...).

This picture is the result of my making the coolest little guy with a tall mohawk. Josh kept saying, "It's me, Mama, it's me!" I ran to get the camera to capture his coolness, and this is what I came back to. The results of a 3-yr old "helping:"

Katie sat in her high-chair with us and played a little. Mostly though, she sat and sang her little nonsense songs. I tried to take video of her singing the theme from Super Why! but you can't tell that's what she was singing because, of course, she stopped as I was filming. If you can't tell from the picture, I cut Katie's hair. It started with my giving Josh a haircut, no problems. Then I thought it would be great to cut the stringy baby-hair ends off of Katie's hair, so I barely cut any off. It was uneven, so I had to go back for more. Uneven the other way, so back for more. Needless to say, I won't be cutting her hair again until she can sit still for a decent patch of time (I think Miguel would kill me if I cut her hair again - he wasn't home when I did it).

I did try and make a new little playdoh man, but it just didn't turn out the same. I didn't bother with the mohawk, but Josh still liked him. It was a good day.

Josh's 3rd Birthday

My boy turned 3 yesterday. I took the day off of work and we had a great time. We had a full day, first we took the car to get new tires. We walked over to the store while we waited for the car and Josh got to choose his birthday present. Oh My Gosh. Talk about a kid-in-a-candy-store. He wanted everything (of course!). He finally settled on a new Star Wars action figure set. He was hopping up and down and loving life. By then it was getting to be lunch-time and Josh's next choice was where we ate lunch. He kept saying he wanted McDonald's, and Miguel and I kept laughing. He thought having chicken nuggets, apples and chocolate milk would make the perfect birthday, until I suggested Red Robin and then he wouldn't let go of it. We suggested alternatives, but he'd made up his mind. I thought it was the perfect choice.

I was pretty excited he chose Red Robin because I thought it would be great fun for the staff to sing to him. As soon as we were done eating we started hearing the cheering and clapping of the staff all coming to sing to him. He looked all around trying to see what the fuss was about. When the waitress set a big hot fudge sundae in front of him, his face was priceless. These pictures do NOT do it justice. He was mystified and slightly embarrassed and completly loving the attention. He got a balloon too. He loved every minute of it.

At that point we went home for naps for everyone. The kids were pooped becuase we'd done so much in the morning and they ended up napping late. After they woke up, we went to the store and got cupcakes. He chose "Green ones!" We were all set for a quiet little get-together around the webcam at home in the evening. He knew we'd eat the cupcakes after dinner.

We had Josh's choice again for dinner (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut in squares and triangles, with blackberry jam, bananas and milk). After dinner we grabbed the cupcakes and settled down in front of the webcam so Grandma and Grandpa Felix could help us sing Happy Birthday and watch him get messy and gross from the frosting. I'm a terrible mom, because I didn't even realize I didn't take pictures of him with his candles and cupcake. I was so excited to have Grandparent participation I didn't even consider saving the moment forever in time. At least we got pictures from Red Robin.

After getting quite messy and staying up a little bit too late, he finally went to bed. We will be buying him a big-boy bed very soon and he talks about it all the time. He can't wait to give Katie his crib and share his room with her.

It was a good birthday for my Josh. He had a great day.