5 1/2 Years Old!

Nadia still loves princesses! Some of the Christmas gifts we gave her today were evidence of that such as a Sofia costume and a Disney princess nightgown. This evening I asked her what her favorite Christmas gifts were, and she said some magnetic dress-up dolls, Sofia and Aladdin figurines, Tiana doll, and the Sofia costume. I would never have thought of getting her more magnetic dolls, but she had put some on her wish list, and when Amazon had the Melissa and Doug 50% off sale, I went ahead and got them. I'm glad I did as it was the first thing she mentioned this evening when I asked her what her favorite gifts were! She was really confused about the Tiana doll, as she thought I had bought it for her cousin, Rachel. She was with me when we were at the consignment shop, and I tried to give her the impression it was for Rachel so it would be a surprise when she opened it. It worked!

She still adores her Poland pillow, and she's been sleeping with a Rapunzel doll I got at a yard sale. She changes Rapunzel into a nightgown each night before bed, and she often wears the matching nightgown. I got those at a different yard sale. She still occasionally takes a nap, but the majority of the time she plays in her room while her brothers sleep. She hasn't been listening to books on cd lately. Tonight she is sleeping with the Merida and Cinderella plush dolls she received today, but she told me Rapunzel is who she wants to bring to Maryland tomorrow.

She would play the iPad for hours on end if I let her, but in reality I limit her to 30 minutes a day. Neither child asked me about the iPad today (a rarity) due to new Christmas gifts to play with.

She loves to play games. Her favorites at the moment are Uno and Connect Four. Today we played the two new games the kids got. Her new game is Erudition (a reading game).

The area in which she changed the most over the past six months would be her reading and spelling skills! In that time span she did the entire Level 1 of both spelling and reading. She is currently on step five in the Level 2 spelling book and step 36 of the Level 2 reading book. The latest skill she worked on with reading is the soft "c" sound (ex. "nice"). I got her quite a few easy books for Christmas that she can read herself. It's so exciting to see her really take off with reading!

She still prefers to wear a dress every single day although there are times (such as when she's going outside to play in the snow) that I insist that she wears pants. Her favorite everyday dress right now is a velveteen purple one. She loves her "Sunday" dresses the most of all, and she would love it if I let her wear those throughout the week. I did let her wear one of them tonight for the Christmas Eve Candlelight service. She and her brother both still LOVE to wear costumes all the time. She got two new ones today - Sofia the first an Tinkerbell.

She showed a lot of improvement with her soccer skills this fall. She's also been back in gymnastics.

She would eat a ham and cheese hot pocket for lunch every single day if I let her. Lately she's been having either an English muffin or a bagel for breakfast most days instead of cold cereal, although sometimes she'll ask for Raisin Bran or some other cereal. She likes to have only butter on her English muffin and grape jelly on her bagels. Tomorrow morning the kids are getting small chocolate donuts for a special Christmas breakfast. They are excited! If she doesn't have a hot pocket for lunch, then she has either yogurt, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, or peanut butter crackers. For many months she had a half a banana at lunch each day, but the past few months she's been having either baby carrots or clementines. We've gone through 10 pounds of them lately, and she and I are the only ones eating them!

The last two years Nadia struggled with jealousy during Ian's birthday, but this year she didn't seem to be jealous at all. Yahoo! I was also impressed with what a great job she did when she picked out gifts to "buy" with her AWANA shares. She got Ian a set of Crayola Color Wonder markers and Monsters University coloring pages. Good job, Nadia! She was very proud of the candy cane candle she got me. We burned it at dinner tonight.

She joined the King's Kids choir at our church in October. She sang with them in church two days ago and again tonight at the Candlelight service. I thought I had taken a video of the entire song this evening ("Happy Birthday, Jesus"), but it turns out that I forgot to push the "start" button. I didn't discover that until the very end of the song. Boo hoo! Hopefully I'll succeed the next time they sing.f

The past five and a half years have been filled with MUCH joy and laughter because of this sweet little girl that God gave us. I love her so much! I also am really appreciating how she's becoming more and more of a help to me each day. For example, she loves to go down in the basement and get something for me when I realize we're in need of a jar of peanut butter or something like that. As you can see from the picture above, she's a wonderful big sister to Oliver!

Christmas Candylane

Yesterday we left our house around 9am to head to Hershey. We drove in two cars and left one car in Lewisburg because I played my flute for a concert at 7:30pm. We arrived at 11:15 and headed to Chocolate World as the Christmas Candylane didn't open until noon. All three kids LOVED the free ride in Chocolate World. In fact all throughout the park Ian kept asking for us to go back and "watch them make Hershey Kisses" again. We almost did it at the very end of the day, but the line was longer at that point, and I was afraid I might not get to the concert in time. My favorite candy that Hershey makes are Rolos, and that's what they were handing out as the free sample at the end of the ride yesterday morning! We also got a picture of the kids with Santa. None of them looked enthused, but at least Oliver wasn't screaming although I guess most people like the screaming baby on Santa's lap picture. A little before noon we got in line to buy our admission tickets, and we spent the next five hours in the park. The first three hours there were hardly any lines. It got much more crowded after that.

The next time we go, we'll have to remember to ride the bigger rides first (ex. the old fashioned cars that adults and kids can ride together) because the line was really long when Paul took the kids on that. The kiddie rides still had pretty short lines even when the crowds picked up so it would be better to save those rides for later. Nadia really enjoyed the big slide and a ride with eagles on it that she rode with Paul, but I think her favorite ride of the day was the pirate ship that I rode twice with her. She laughed hysterically the entire time! She wanted to go a third time in a row, but my stomach couldn't handle that!
She's getting a bit too old to enjoy most of the kiddie rides. Oliver rode one with Nadia and also did the carousel with me. Ian overall probably had the best time because the kiddie rides are still really fun for him. When he woke up yesterday morning the first words out of his mouth were "We're going to Hershey Kiss Park today!". He kept adding the word kiss to the name of the park. So cute! I took Oliver and Ian in to watch one of the shows while Paul took Nadia on a couple of rides. The boys really enjoyed it. Oliver was dancing away while standing on my lap.

The weather was perfect. The highs were in the low 50's, but there was still snow on the ground so it looked very Christmasy even though it was warmer than usual. If I wasn't playing the flute last night, we would have stayed for the 5pm light show, but frankly Paul and I were exhausted after 6 hours in the park. It will be easier once Oliver is a bit older and doesn't need to be carried so much. I think he'll have fun at Knoebels next summer as he said "weeee" when riding the carousel.

This morning the King's Kids sang at church. It was Nadia's first time singing with them in a church service, and they'll be singing a different song on Tuesday night for the Christmas Eve service. I played my flute for the 3pm concert today (a paid gig) and then took Nadia and Ian to a Birthday Party for Jesus at our church at 4pm. I also watched some football, and the Steelers managed to win, which means there's still a tiny chance they could make it to the post season. It was a very busy but very special weekend!

Oliver's Vocabulary

Everyone says that parents take the most pictures and keep the most records on their first child. I think I've taken plenty of pictures of Oliver and Ian. I was very meticulous with Nadia and pretty careful with Ian when it came to making a record of their first words. I have not been doing a good job of recording Oliver's list, but I want to get on track with that. So I am trying to recollect the words we've heard him say thus far. The two he uses the most are dada (sometimes he says Daddy instead) and mama.

1. Dada (or Daddy)
2. Mama
3. Hi
4. Yes
5. book
6. bye bye
7. Pop Pop
8. amen
9. up
10. Yay! (one of the times he said it was when I gave him a pretzel, which cracked me up)
11. uh oh (before knocking down a tower of blocks)
12. Na Na (Nadia)
13. Baby (referring to one of Nadia's dolls)
14. Weee! (said out of the blue when he was riding the carousel today)

First animal sound - quack quack

Thankful Thursday

1. Paul received another invitation for a phone interview yesterday (to take place on January 10th). It's for a three year physical chemistry position in Indiana. So far four of the first sixteen applications have resulted in an interview of some sort, and some of those schools haven't started reviewing the applications yet.

2. We had fun roller skating as a family on Tuesday morning.

3. It's really nice having Paul at home a lot more than usual!

4. I love our reading and spelling curriculum. Nadia loved an activity a couple of weeks ago where she would pick a couple of slips of paper that had different food items on them (ex. liver, coffee, jam, cheese, ham, etc.) and then she was to put them in various places on a paper and read the sentences. She thinks the activity is hysterical because she creates all different kinds of cakes, muffins, sandwiches, and shakes. Ian loves one where there are words written on the back of some paper bones, and if he reads the word correctly he gets to put the "bone" in the mouth (hole) of a paper monster. He loves to feed that monster! I also love that Nadia is now trying to read everything (such as her Bible verses in her AWANA handbook).

5. I'm not a fan of cold weather, but the kids have been enjoying the snow. By far Nadia has spent the most time it in of the five members of our family, and she's now old enough to get herself into all her snow gear, which is greatly appreciated by me. I am also thankful that Paul has been willing to go out with the kids a few times to play in the snow with them, as it means I can stay in where it's warm.

6. The Steelers won on Sunday night! The ironic thing is that we beat one of the teams with the best records. Why couldn't we play like that more often this season? Oh well. It's just football.

7. I placed an order through Kohl's website a few weeks ago, and one of the two things I bought took a lot longer than expected to arrive. It didn't bother me because it still arrived before Christmas, but I got an email a couple of days ago for $25 off a purchase of any size (in store or online) because the item didn't arrive on time. How nice!

8. Nadia and I really enjoyed the musical Narnia on Sunday. I'm going to have to read the rest of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series to her in 2014!

9. Paul and the kids (especially Nadia) enjoyed the Pirate School show at Bucknell on Saturday.

10. I am glad that our cookies have been turning out nicely! In the past week we've made cut-out sugar cookies, M&M cookies, cut-out gingerbread cookies, and chocolate chip Hershey kiss cookies. We're eating some and giving many away as gifts.

11. The kids have really been enjoying the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. We're flying through them!

12. We're all still healthy! PTL!

13. Paul and Nadia went bowling last Wednesday afternoon, and that's where they are again today. This afternoon is the last bowling session for this co-op so they've also made it their Christmas party with pizza and such.

14. Oliver's afternoon naps have been pretty consistently 60 minutes long, but his morning nap had gotten short again lately (30-45 minutes). Yesterday it was 60 minutes long, and today it was 90 minutes long. WOOHOO!

Birthday Interview

I finally got around to doing Ian's four-year-old birthday interview today. Kids this age are rather predictable in that their answers tend to be focused on what has happened very . For example, Ian very rarely eats Trix cereal. I can say without any hesitation that Cocoa Puffs is his favorite cereal, but  he hasn't had it lately. He happened to have Trix this morning, and I think that's why he said it was his favorite. He actually hasn't been eating cereal lately because he doesn't like having to use a spoon now that I am putting milk in his cereal. Most of the time he has an English muffin or bagel. Goulash is definitely NOT his favorite food, but he saw me cooking that this afternoon for our dinner tonight. I wish he liked it! His favorite foods (not including desserts) would be grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut and butter jelly sandwiches, pizza, waffles, and pancakes. We've also had a lot of snow lately, which is why many of the answers had something to do with snow. I would concur that the Little Critter books are his favorite. I would have guessed that answer correctly. I was thinking he'd say Friendly's was his favorite restaurant, but I wasn't surprised with the McDonald's answer because he loves playing in the play land there. I would say his top three restaurants are Friendly's, Perkins, and McDonald's. I have NO idea why he said the tv makes me happy. The only tv I watch is football, and that hasn't made me very happy this year as both of our teams have done very poorly. I do 100% agree with him though that tickling him makes him laugh! I was actually relieved when he said he didn't know how old I was because another time he told me I was 61 years old! Milk is definitely his favorite drink, his new pirate ship that his grandparents gave him on Sunday is certainly his favorite toy at the moment, and he does love when I give him airplane rides! I was very surprised at his answer of "Peter" regarding his favorite Bible story. I would have guessed he would say either Joshua at Jericho or David and Goliath.  The thing he said made him sad was last night when Daddy took some of his toys in the basement because he wouldn't eat his dinner. My favorite answer by FAR was that Nadia is his best friend. I hope and pray they are close friends for the rest of their lives.

Here is his third birthday interview, and here is Nadia's fourth birthday interview for comparison.

P.S. I really, really wish I had cleaned up the room before I did the video as the toys on the floor are seen in the reflection on the fireplace glass. Oh well. Our house often has the "lived in" look with three kids age five and under spending almost all their time here each day. :)

Roller Skating!

Nadia went to our neighbor's roller skating birthday party in June 2012, and that was when I found out about this roller skating rink located about 15 minutes north of us. I had seen on their website that they had a skate on Tuesday mornings from 10:00-12:30 that was geared for preschoolers. Today was the first time that Ian, Oliver, or Paul went there. Actually our kids were the only preschoolers there. It seems to be geared for senior citizens (retirees) who were enjoying roller skating, playing pool, etc. Ian has been ice skating in Maryland, but this was his first time at a roller skating rink, and it was only Nadia's second time. We lasted for 90 minutes. Paul and I took turns skating with Ian and Nadia while the other parent was with Oliver. We brought Nadia and Ian's skates that I bought a couple of years ago, and Paul and I rented skates. We are glad we went, but the next time we return, we plan on just one parent taking either Nadia or Ian (until Oliver is old enough to roller skate), which would make the outing a lot more affordable. Nadia did a better job than Ian, but both children have a LOT of room for improvement. They haven't used their skates much in our driveway. They both definitely made progress over the time we were there.

We had been planning to go ice skating with some other homeschoolers this Friday, but we've decided to wait until January to go ice skating as a family because Nadia and Paul are planning to go bowling on Thursday, and all five of us are planning to go to Hershey Park's Christmas Candylane on Saturday.

Paul has submitted his grades and other assessment data for the semester. Now he's started working on preparing for the new class he'll be teaching in the spring semester. I submitted two more job applications for him today, which puts the current total at seventeen. Once I have his student evaluations for the fall semester, I will submit three more applications for him.

Christmas Cookies!

We started making Christmas cookies last week. First we made chocolate chip cookies that had a Hershey kiss inside, and then on Saturday the kids had fun decorating gingerbread cookies. We made LOTS of cut out cookies, and we also made one large (about 12 inch) gingerbread boy that I took to church on Sunday for the kids in my Sunday School class to enjoy. Today we made a smaller batch of cut out sugar cookies. On Saturday I was impressed that the kids lasted much longer with decorating cookies, as last year I ended up decorating a lot of the cookies myself. Today Ian didn't last as long, partly because he is very fixated on the pirate Lego toy that he got yesterday from his grandparents. What really surprised me was that Ian did a better job than Nadia with decorating the cookies. Nadia was far more prone to dumping large quantities of decorations on a cookie. Ian was very careful and more meticulous with his decorations. We'll be giving plates of cookies to their AWANA leaders on Wednesday night and to their Sunday School teachers on Sunday morning. I tried new recipes, and these were definitely the best gingerbread cookies we've made thus far. The ones we made last year were really tasty but weren't really suitable for using cookie cutters with them. The sugar cookies were also very tasty. I am not a huge fan of sugar cookies, but the almond extract really was a very nice addition.

Oliver was a fussy boy today because his fourth molar broke through the gum. He now has six teeth. Next year he'll be joining in on the fun of decorating Christmas cookies! He's enjoying eating them this year.

Birthday Cake!

Ian turned four years old three days ago, but today was only the second time he ate cake for his birthday, as he didn't eat any his first two birthdays. He wouldn't eat his dinner last night (white chicken chili), and he still refused to eat it at breakfast or lunch today. I think he would have caved a bit earlier if he hadn't eaten so many goldfish crackers at church this morning. Thankfully after he woke up from his nap, he ate his chili for Daddy while Nadia and I were attending a three hour musical (Narnia). Paul's parents came up to join us for pizza and birthday cake, and the kids were thrilled that we were finally using the Monster's Inc. paper plates and cups. Ian made up for skipping a couple of meals by eating one slice of pizza, one sugar cookie, one piece of chocolate birthday cake, and part of a chocolate covered pretzel. Aunt Millie made his cake! I forgot to check our supply of candles and discovered we only had two. OOPS! He didn't seem to care. This was the fewest family members in attendance for any of our children's birthday parties thus far, and I have a feeling that his will always have the fewest attendees in light of the snowy weather that often comes in December (we got 6 inches of snow yesterday). If we move far away next summer, no extended family might be able to attend any of the children's birthday parties. At some point I'll need to find a way to start inviting other kids to their parties, but thus far they haven't noticed. This is one of the (very few) downsides of home schooling.

Oliver had his second testosterone shot today, as his surgery is now only three weeks away. Our neighbor, who is a nurse, gave him the shot, and Oliver didn't cry! It's the first time he's had a shot and didn't cry. He definitely cried on Friday when he had his second dose of the flu shot. What is rather ironic is that their son (Westyn) who is a few weeks younger than Oliver also has hypospadias. This condition effects 1 in 125 boys in the United States, and in our two houses (we live across from each other) all three of our sons (they have one boy and one girl) were born with hypospadias. Their son might need as many as three surgeries to complete his repair. Oliver will need one or two surgeries. I can't wait until it's over.

Pirate School!

Today's plans changed several times. For weeks the plan had been for Paul to take the kids to Lowe's for a 9:00 workshop to make a train and then to Bucknell for David Engel's Pirate School at 1pm. Paul's family was going to come to our house for pizza and birthday cake at 4pm. We had to cancel their registration for Lowe's when Paul found out he had a basketball coach meeting this morning, and we moved Ian's birthday party to tomorrow when we heard how many inches of snow we were supposed to get today (Paul's family live an hour away from us). Paul showed up at 11am for the basketball meeting only to find out that it had been moved up to earlier this morning due to the snow. We didn't get the message. Nadia will be one of five kids on her basketball team - the Leopards. She'll be the only girl on her team. The K-2nd grade teams play three on three on a half-court. Paul is going to hold his practices on Friday nights. The only thing that happened as planned was that Paul did take the kids to see the Pirate School show.

This morning while Oliver was napping and I was mopping the kitchen floor, I looked over and saw that Nadia was reading a book to Ian. I had to grab the camera and snap a picture of that priceless memory. Nadia was so proud that she could read to her brother, and Ian was enjoying the book. I get books from a public library every Thursday night, and yesterday Nadia picked up a library book I hadn't read her yet and started reading it herself. Once I realized what a great job she was doing, I ran and got the camcorder and recorded the rest of the story (see above). It is SO exciting watching Nadia and Ian learn to read. Paul and I both love to read. I recently read John Grisham's newest book and am currently reading Karen Kingsbury's newest book. We both hope that all three of our kids are lifelong readers! All three of them enjoy being read to that is for certain. :)

Last night we took the kids to see Santa. Last year was the first time we did this because I'm not a big Santa fan. I decided though that we encourage the kids to have their picture taken with Curious George, Cinderella, or Cookie Monster and having their picture taken with Santa is no different than that. Last year I got a great picture with all three of them, but this year Oliver is in the "terrified of Santa" phase. In hind sight, I should have taken a picture of him screaming on Santa's lap as plenty of parents have taken pictures like that, but I am not accustomed to taking pics of my kids when they're screaming. It's free to visit this Santa in our town (unlike the small fortune they charge at the mall), and they gave the kids each a candycane, a plastic Christmas cup, coloring pages, and one free toy. Ian picked a little matchbox car, and Nadia picked a Disney princess figurine. Amazingly they had one she didn't already own (Tiana)! They were VERY happy that we visited Santa. The next two videos I want to take are Ian's birthday interview and one of Nadia doing her addition flash cards. Our plans for tomorrow include Sunday School, church, me taking Nadia to see the musical Narnia while Paul watches football at home, and Ian's birthday party. We shall see if those plans change or not. I'm sure the kids will be playing in the snow later today as it's really coming down!

42-48 months old times two!

Nadia 3 1/2 years old (December 2011)

1. Although Ian has come a long way, Nadia was still FAR more outgoing and social than Ian is.
2. Nadia definitely had a favorite color (pink). Ian doesn't seem to have a favorite color yet.

3. They both dressed up in costumes All The Time.

4. They both were sleeping 11 hours at night. Nadia gave up her 2-3 hour afternoon nap during this time span. Ian still usually takes a nap that is on average one hour long.

5. Nadia was playing board games like Zingo. Ian doesn't have the maturity yet for that.

6. Both kids could identify all the letters of the alphabet (upper and lower case) and identify at least one sound each letter makes. Ian is also reading short vowel words (plus a few sight words like "the"). I worked with Nadia to help her learn her letters. I didn't work with Ian on them.




Ian 3 1/2 years old (June 2013)

7. They both loved to be read to, tickled, and hugged!

8. Nadia was far more schedule oriented than Ian is.

9. They both preferred to drink milk all day long.

10. They both could do a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle independently before they turned four.

11. Nadia often spoke of herself in the third person. Ian has never done that.

12. Ian RUNS a lot more than Nadia did at this age.

13. Nadia was enjoying ballet lessons and gymnastics class. Both of them enjoyed Cubbies.

14. Nadia wasn't crazy about vegetables (needed raisins with them), but she would feed herself just about everything else and finish in a very reasonable time frame. Ian is a MUCH pickier and MUCH slower eater. They both liked pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches at this age.

Nadia 4 years old (6/24/2012)

15. Ian weighed 35 pounds this morning with his clothes on at the doctor's office, which puts him at the 42nd percentile for weight. He gained 3 pounds and grew 3 inches over the past 12 months. He's 39 inches tall, which puts him at the 22nd percentile for height. Nadia's 4 year appointment was delayed 4 months because of my bed rest and Oliver's NICU stay. At that appointment she weighed 40 pounds and was 40 inches tall.

16. Nadia was very attached to her Poland pillow. Ian doesn't have a lovey.

Ian 4 years old (12/13/13)