Precious Babies, Precious Times

Why hello blog land!  I have missed you as I went back to work, and well, life happens!!  I hope my "followers," friends, family and church family will come back to reading this after I have taken nearly a month off!  A sweet lady at church on Sunday said to me, "Oh, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your blog."  And at the same time, we both said something to the effect of "You/I haven't written anything for awhile!!"  So, here you are dear, an updated blog post! 

If you didn't know, my kids are so so so so so stinkin cute!!   I think I have the cutest and sweetest and sometimes orneriest kids in the world.  My friend Shonda also thinks she has the cutest kids and they are pretty cute, but.....  Anyway, she has a post about this gift of blind love for our kids, and I think she's right.  My kids make me laugh so hard, but yet sometimes cry so hard too. Actually, it seems every emotion that I have for these tiny people are hard core, giant emotions that take up my whole being.  I sit in awe as they grow and learn, as they interact with each other and friends, and as I watch them study a bug, a toy, the water, whatever, to figure out how it works.  I see Jenna's gifts and Cale's gifts and how different they are.  Jenna, so strong-willed, so tough and rough, but so sweet, kind and caring too.  Cale, with his quick wit and humor, has strong emotions and a giant heart that he wears on his sleeve.  And of course, he is wound around Jenna's tiny finger too!  Just to prove how precious my babies are, here are some precious things they have been doing and saying lately....

Cale, oh my, he is learning so much in school.  I am so proud of him. He has his first spelling test today.  We worked on his little words yesterday over and over again, even though he had them from the start.  Its a hard list: a, and, of, to, the.  Isn't that sweet?  He is playing with sounds and figuring out how to spell words.  One day last week, we were talking about how to spell zoo.  He said, "Mrs. Holtgraver (his teacher) spells zoo Z-O-O!  She adds two O's!  Isn't that funny?"  He says this as if Mrs. Holtgraver is not spelling correctly, and he is shocked and appalled that she would do something so incredibly silly as to add TWO O's to the word zoo.  After I was done laughing, inside of course, I explained to him Silly Crazy Mrs. Holtgraver was correct, zoo is z-o-o.  "Hmmmm...."  was about the only response to that. Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. He had to write a sentence for the giant word "a" and his sentence was "A horse cooperates with me."  Yes, he chose "cooperates" on his own.  So, he is saying all the sounds and writing them down. He came up with something like "koopras" for cooperates which I thought was pretty darn good for a kindergartener. Then he looks at it and says, "That's not right, there's 2 o's together like zoo!  That says koo!"  So smart I tell you!   

And his sister Jenna, she's smart too. She's learning some cause and effect!  Little Climber that she is, she climbed up on the bar stools yesterday and promptly toppled over with the big, tall chair landing on top of her.  (Sadly she has not learned that if she climbs on the chairs, then she will fall and get hurt).  She got a pretty good sized knot on her forehead, left of center so I didn't freak out, and she cried quite awhile, which she usually does not (see earlier comment about being tough and rough).  Later, we are in her room. I am the Clean Sweep host this time, going through all her blankets, towels, toys, and other baby paraphanalia. Being the hoarder collector pack rat sentimental one, it is hard for me to clear stuff out. Regardless, I cleared out 2 trash bags, a box and a couple of big baby toys she's outgrown.  (Yes, there is a point, it's coming right here...)  In all of this cleaning her helmet from post-surgery was on the floor.  Well, Jenna fell off another toy and hurt the BACK of her head. After she recovered from this injury, she got up and saw her helmet laying on the floor.  And it was like a light switched on in her head and ON went her helmet!  It was too small (I can remember when we got it thinking it was so so so so giant!), and she ran around with that thing on for quite awhile. Cale thought it a great idea to test it's strength and started knocking on her head.  REALLY BUB?  She's not a football player!

Miss Jenna, wearing her too small helmet and loving every minute of it!  (Sorry for the fuzzy picture, dang phone!)

Of course I have many more stories of these precious people, but I have bored entertained you long enough, so you'll have to wait for another day!