Christmas Season

We didn’t do too much this Christmas season.  We were sick and busy and too lazy to go out of the house all of the time when it was so cold (felt like Ann Arbor too much for my liking).  We went to see the creche exhibit our stake puts on at our ward building.  It was good, except the kids had ZERO interest in being there.  I mean, it’s really like a museum, so I don’t blame them.  We saw a gingerbread competition at the mall. we made a gingerbread village (with 5 tiny little houses).  We saw glimpses of Santa, but never got to seeing him and getting pictures taken.  We went and saw Christmas lights in Belleville at a Catholic parish that were really really nice (and all about the Savior).  We walked through Christmas lights at Tilles park at our own leisure, so we didn’t have to pay and drive through them on another day.  We made Christmas cookies for Andrew’s preschool.  And we made Christmas crafts.  And that’s about it.  But the boys had fun.

Thanksgiving

Finally uploaded pictures and now we can update.

We just stayed home for Thanksgiving.  I didn’t feel up to inviting people over, especially since we only have 3 chairs which isn’t really enough for us.  It would have been nice to go somewhere else, but no one invited us or asked what we were doing, so oh, well.

I was a little lazy (I didn’t make my own rolls – yeah for frozen) and we also lost the gravy packet and since everytime I have made my own gravy it has been a disaster, we had no gravy.  We weren’t going to have a pie since no one is a huge fan, but then Andrew insisted on a pumpkin pie the day before, so I did end up making one.  We also had turkey (which Katsu cooked), homemade stuffing, green bean casserole from scratch (like fresh green beans, mushrooms, and homemade white sauce), mashed potatoes, and fresh cranberry sauce.  It was good.  Of course, the boys mostly only liked the cranberry sauce.  More for me!

Andrew wore special clothes he had from preschool.  And we all watched the Macy’s day parade.  We were going to go to the parade in St Louis but then it was rainy and very cold, so we didn’t feel up to it.  Probably next year.

The next day, the boys were up early, so we did some Black Friday shopping.  That is always Katsu’s favorite – he doesn’t think the deals are very exciting anymore, but he did get an MP3 player for a good price and we got some other Christmas presents, too.

Then, we set up the Christmas tree and other decorations.  Unfortunately, a couple weeks later the boys broke the Christmas tree base and I had had it up to here, so that was the end of the Christmas tree for that year.  We’ll see what we do next year.

Andrew is 3 years, 8 months

Andrew is another month older.   He LOVES preschool.  He missed it SO much over break and then last week, he missed a day because he threw up right before preschool.  I thought maybe he had stomach flu, but I think now he just didn’t like the eggs I made for breakfast.  But then he spent the rest of the week talking about how much he missed preschool and how he can’t wait to go back.  I am glad he likes it since he will probably be starting 5 days a week in the fall (a bit much for my liking, but otherwise, there is no one his age in his class.  Unfortunately, today is a snow day and next Monday is a holiday, so just when he is totally in love with preschool he barely has it.

Andrew is finally starting to get into crafts and draw a little bit more.  He loves to do crafts and drag out the craft supply basket.  I try to encourage him to draw, but he usually likes to punch holes with the hole puncher and then glue things with the glue stick and cut things with scissors.  Then, he likes to paint with an insane amount of paint.  Then, and only then, does he want to color.  He can make circles and his people are starting to look a little bit more like people – circles for heads, maybe some eyes, and sticks for appendages.  He was making a birthday card for his preschool teacher and he drew her male anatomy (I explained she is a girl and doesn’t have one, so we decided it was her zipper) and then he drew her an “enormous elbow – so big!”.  For some reason everything he draws has an enormous elbow.

Andrew is slowly and surely learning some of his letters.  Yeah!  He can probably recognize about 5-7 now and the sounds they make.  We bought him a workbook a long while ago that is PreK, but I decided to wait another year, but he found it and loves doing the worksheets.

Andrew had a first day at primary this week.  He was upset beforehand and a little nervous about going, but he loved it.  His teacher is great and brings them snacks and TONS of toys to play with during class, so I think this a great transition for him.  Now, he keeps asking every day if it is a church day and when does he get to go primary again.  I am pleasantly surprised.

Otherwise, Andrew is just busy playing away.  He is in love with the toys he got for Christmas, especially the train set.  Every time someone asks him about what he got, he will say he got too many presents and he doesn’t need any more toys.  He was so happy that Santa brought him what he asked for.

Andrew is really into his imagination.  No matter how many times I tell him Yamaba (Japanese monster), he does not believe me, because he has seen her.  He sees her all the time and we have to try to attack her to get her to go away.  He mostly sits and plays pretend all the time.

Andrew has watched way too much TV and too many movies this last month I think.  We were talking about things we like and he said “Mommy is a cookie lover.  Seth is a book lover.  And I am a TV lover and a book lover and a dancing lover.”  Sigh.  At least everyone likes books.  We could read for hours every day.

Fun things this month:

- Visiting Grandma and Grandpa and Sarah and Danny and Michael and Meghan.

- Preschool performance

- Visiting Precious Moments Chapel

- Rhema and other Christmas lights

- Dallas Zoo

- Chuck E. Cheese with Grandma and Grandpa

- CHRISTMAS!!!!

- Way too much TV, movies, and eating out!!!

- Fantastic Caverns

- Visiting the Art Museum and the Science Museum.

Update

So everytime I go to update the blog, I realize I have no pictures and they are all in the camera which is in the kids room and they are asleep.  So, maybe tomorrow you’ll get our trip update (short story: We were all sick – there is nothing to see in Oklahoma, so not as exciting as our last drive to Texas).

For now, a picture from the Creche in St Louis.  Kind of cute.  Seth refused to dress up.

Also, Katsu has now achieved his unknown life-time goal of being cited (and in the index!) of a book by a best-selling author.  Ha ha ha.  The book is a bit kooky (of course, so was his first book), but how many people can say that they are in a published book because of their “most important research insight”?  Now, he really is famous.  If you are interested, try google searching “4-hour body” and his name.  

Seth is 18 months

This won't be a long post because we are in Texas right now and I don't have any pictures with me. Poor Seth just came down with a bad fever and croup last night. I swear, he gets croup more than anyone I know. This on top of some tough teething of his molars. Poor kid. I think he is having a fun time here, though. He still prefers if me or Katsu is around all the time or he will cry and try to find us.

Not too much new with Seth this month. He is talking a lot more, but I don't keep track of his words, so I don't know how many. Of course, most of them are just the first syllable, so he is still hard to understand. But he does have quite a bit to say. Between that and his vigorous "yes" head nods, he is pretty easy to understand. He still doesn't say no - how lucky am I that my kids don't learn that word for a LONG time.

Seth is still obsessed with cars, but that is somewhat being overpowered by trains. He LOVES to play with trains at home and it causes lots of fights. THe boys in general seem to be fighting over toys A LOT because they have the exact same interests and want to play with the same toys. Also, Seth wants to be just like Andrew and tries to do everything he does. I think the boys will be excited tomorrow morning!

Seth plays pretty independently, as long as Andrew isn't in the way. He also loves to be read to and is finally beyond board books. He still likes board books, but he can last through several picture books. He loves everything trucks/cars/trains, Richard Scarry, Boynton's Going to Bed book, Eric Carle's from Head to Toe, and Dora books. He even will say "Map" and tries to say "Swiper no swiping". So cute!

Seth is still a huge monkey. He will do everything on all the big kid playgrounds. He loves to play chase. He loves to throw things, especially balls. Katsu is even teaching him to kick - maybe he will be a ball player. He really really loves sticks. His favorite thing is to run away from us or go jumping and sliding off the couch. He is tough and hardly cries and is always covered in cuts and bruises. Sometimes he will be bleeding and won't even sit still long enough for me to figure out where the blood is coming from. So "all boy", whatever that means.

Seth is a sensitive soul. He gets his feelings hurt when we scold him and he runs and hides to calm down (total opposite of Andrew needed to cuddle). He also needs a schedule. He tells us when he is ready for a nap and is very upset if we deviate from the dinner-bath-bed routine.

Fun things for Seth this month:
-Christmas light displays (in Belleville and Rhema in Oklahom
-Seeing Santa at the mall (from afar ... we never quite got to visiting him this year)
-Last times at "zoo school"
-Transportation museum
-First trip to the zoo all by himself (i.e. without mommy)
-Creche exhibit (Seth LOVES looking for baby Jesus)
-Precious Moments chapel in Missouri
-GRANDMA AND GRANDPA's!

A Flowchart: Should I send you a Christmas Card

Made by Katsu, recommended for everyone.

Andrew's preschool Christmas presentation

Andrew's preschool presentation

Andrew is another month older

I’m not sure what to post about this month.  Nothing very exciting in the last month.  Andrew is pretty much doing the same things as last month.  He seems to kind of be in an onery sort of mood, in general.  More fits than usual – I had almost forgot about those, but now he has fits regularly.  Little ones, though, so he recovers quickly. 

He doesn’t like to play with toys much anymore, or at least not ours.  He much prefers to turn the house into some sort of jungle gym (drives me nuts!) or play pretend, sort of things.  I think he would like some sort of boy Barbie sort of toy – like how my brother had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kind, but I’m not quite sure what to get him.  I feel like he just mopes around the house half the day when we aren’t reading and he isn’t constructing something.  I feel like he keeps getting into trouble.  I think he is probably lonely too and really needs to hang out with other kids, but I am just a total loss about what to do about that. 

Otherwise … let’s see.  Andrew still says funny things all the time.  Still obsessed with when/who he will marry and when he will die.  He also compulsively asks “What’s your name?”, all the time.  Drives me nuts.  He still likes to talk with all kinds of pretend words, too, which similarly drives me nuts.  He is such a talker and has a huge vocab, though.  I can never believe the words he will say – I have no idea where he learns them.

Andrew is sweet with Seth when they aren’t beating up on each other.  He likes to say how they are going to be dancers when they grow up because they like to hold hands.  I am not sure the exact logic, but its cute.

He is really really looking forward to going to Texas for Christmas and talks about his relatives ALL the time.  He wants to call and talk on Skype with them all the time.  It’s cute, I wish that we had some sort of family that lived closer.  Or heck, even friends.  Oh, well.

Fun things this month:

- Thanksgiving, just us.  Andrew kept talking about how he didn’t like pie all month, but then a couple days before he said he wanted pie, so I decided to make one.  Which, of course, he didn’t eat.  The boys mostly just wanted to eat cranberry sauce.

- Black Friday shopping – which Andrew did not enjoy.  Oh, well.

- Walking through the Christmas lights at Tilles Park.

- Seeing the Christmas lights at Belleville.

- Seeing the Transportation museum for the first time.  It was fun to climb on trains and see how they work, just like Thomas.

- Visiting the zoo.

- Play dates with a little boy in the ward.  They love to play trains together.

- Fireworks watching from our apartment for Clayton’s winter festival.

- Seeing the creche at the ward building.  Andrew and Seth were pretty much NOT impressed with this at all.  By the end, they were totally acting out, so we left.  Andrew liked dressing up for the creche picture.

Funny Things

Andrew says so many things, but this is pretty part and parcel for how Andrew is lately ...

Andrew: Mom - I missed you so much today. I was going to call you but there wasn't a phone .
Me: Why did you miss me so much?
Andrew: Because I love you very much. And I love Peyton very much. And she loves me very much.

Ha ha ha ... when do cooties start? Seriously, this boy is intense. For his girl with the little hair bow.

Seth is 17 month old! (a week ago…)

Amanda’s trying to finish a stocking that she is cross-stitching for Seth, so I am writing this post instead. I think her cross-stitching gets more intense and complex every time. She’s been cross-stitching since I met her, and for the last 3 or 4 of these it’s been way beyond a “normal” cross-stitch hobby. I tried one of them like 5 years ago. I spent like 2 hours to get like two inch square or something, and that was for a single color (that cross-stitch is probably buried in basement unfinished somewhere). Hers has like 128 colors and I don’t know, like 200000 stitches or something? You know, like this one hanging in our living room has Jesus tending sheep and stuff. There are trees in the background, and I think the leaves from a tree growing next to where Jesus is sitting has like 7 different colors, and then like the leaves in the trees that are further away in a background has additional 7 different colors and stuff. I am not exaggerating.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about Seth, which is appropriate because this stocking has it being prepared for a long time, I mean like two years. And she doesn’t like work on it few days and leaves it and then comes back several weeks later. She has been most consistent and works on it frequently, like probably few hours every few days. Except for last two months because Andrew told her that the “stocking will not be ready for Christmas, mommy”, so it’s like a competition now and she works on it basically every day. She works on her dissertation every day except Sunday, but every minute she isn’t working on it (codes running, watching our tv show, me giving kids a bath, etc.) she is working on her cross-stitch. Sunday is her marathon day because that’s the only time she can legitimately take a break from her research. So in last two months she spent like 5% of her existence on this stocking. It might be ready, we have three weeks left. I won’t be surprised if she cross-stitches on the way down driving to Texas.

I have to like think hard on how much Seth has grown since a month ago, because a month ago was like Halloween, and I don’t live everyday thinking, “okay it has been a month since the last month of XXday, now what in our lives has changed?” I do have a webpage for when Seth was 16 months old, but I am just too lazy to check what has changed about him since, so I am just going to tell you what he’s been up to, and what he has accomplished IMO. In traditional bullet points,

- Seth won’t stop asking us to read books. The first thing he does when I walk in the front door is to smile, then he grabs the nearest book and goes “baaaa!!” He wants me to put him on my lap and then read on and on and on. Today, I came home at 5:45p and then we read 7 books between then and the dinner at 6:05p. He wants books read within the first few minutes after he wakes up. He loves the library and knows when we drive by and yells if we don’t stop by. And bigger the book, the better it is. We have several books that are like 200 pages long and has like 10 different stories in it. He loves them. It’s also amazing that he can carry them, because he is like 22lbs and these books are at least 5lbs. He is pretty strong. Yesterday he got the blue encyclopedia out and wanted us to read it to him.

- Speaking of being able to carry, the dude is tough. The other day Amanda was working out with weights, and Seth was copying her with the same weight Amanda was working out with. It was 3lbs, but he was like taking steps with Amanda, going along with her workout video. He already does summersaults and constantly climbs and jumps off the couch (on the front AND back side!) I don’t think Amanda has posted on this, but Friday morning I take kids, and often I take them to the park. About four months ago I found out that Seth can climb ladders. He climbs the normal ladder, but he also climbs one of those hanging rope ladders that swings as you try to pull yourself up. And the thing was like 7 feet tall and he did it without being helped. He has no fear because he basically thinks he can do everything Andrew can. Andrew didn’t know how to climb a ladder until he was like 2 and half year old. He is often found carrying (not just pushing but actually lifting it up) wagons for his blocks and cans of soup in both of his hands. He also pushes adult chairs.

- Trucks. Fire trucks. Dump trucks. Tractors. Cars. Taxis. Bus. Bikes. Planes. Mail trucks. He would say “Woooooo~~!!” as he runs and points at any of them and says “FIRE TRUUCK!!” and then we have to correct him that it’s (often) not a fire truck, and it’s one of the things mentioned above. He loves them all.

- We mentioned that he dressed as a red dragon for the Halloween in other posts, but he loves making sounds to pretend that he is scared at things since. Everytime we walk to the area we did trick or treating, he goes “AAAAHHH!!!” and pretend like he is scared. Every time he looks at anything that remotely resembles ghosts or spiders or Halloween decorations (including Christmas decorations at the stores), he goes “AAAHH!!!”.

- He does this low pitch “GRRRRR!! sound” when he seems dragons/lions/tigers/alligators/hippos, etc. The pitch is low, you would think it wasn’t coming from him. It’s identical to MY low pitch sound, and I have no idea how he makes them because his voice is pretty high pitch. He seems to enjoy making this sound and does it often when reading books. Like Andrew, Seth excels in finding these animals and cars in anything that comes to our eyesight. You open a page, and half a second later he growls and then another two seconds later you find a small gorilla drawn on a t-shirt a boy (out of like 40) that’s on the page.

- He eats a lot now. He is still somewhat picky, but he eats x4~5 to what he used to before.

I am tired of typing incoherent sentences so I am going to stop here. I am too tired to revise.