Gingerbread Houses

It's been said many times before on this blog, but I love where we live. Even when I think I'd love to someday move to a bigger house, I find the thought of moving away from our great neighbors way too sad. We've been so blessed to find such wonderful families to raise our kids with.

This year, we decided to get together the kids on Lake Road for some gingerbread house fun. Though we planned to do it before Christmas, one of the many viruses our family has passed around this winter caused us to push back the fun until January. We met right before the kids headed back to school, so it was a nice wrap-up to their break.

Here's all the kids starting their fabulous creations.

This girl couldn't believe that I gave her a whole can of frosting with very little supervision...she was the first kid to attempt to just eat the frosting straight off of the knife!

Caleb had fun, but of course his perfectionism got the best of him and he had a couple meltdowns about the fact that his house wasn't quite what he had hoped it would be.

Joel, being the awesome baby that he is, just sat in his chair and watched the fun for over an hour.

Dear Leah,

It happened so quickly this year. You were two and then we blinked and you turned three. Two was still a baby number, but three is so old sounding. You have grown into that number just as most kids do. Your chubby baby legs are now long and thin. You little baby curls have grown into beautiful, long hair. You carry on conversations with us like you're talking to a good friend. You are growing up way.too.fast!

This year has been filled with so much change for you, but you've handled it all so well. At the beginning of the year, your baby brother joined the family. You were so loving and welcoming...sometimes a little too much. Oftentimes our biggest worry everyday was whether Joel would survive all the "love and care" you'd give him. There were times when we'd turn our back for a second and you were trying to pull him out of his swing to hold him, or you'd shove your dirty hands in his face trying to "gently" pat his head and calm his crying. Though there were many moments of worry, we also knew that you meant it all with the purest and kindest of hearts. You are such a little mommy and love caring for others.

Your world also changed when you were dropped off on your first day of preschool back in August. For a little girl who is used to spending (almost) every waking moment with her Mama, we were quite worried with how you'd react to preschool one morning a week. For the first few drop-offs you were fine, but after about a month, you started to rebel. By the second or third week of full on tantrums, we decided that bribery with suckers was the best solution. And it worked. And it's still working. You, though you're clearly not hesitant about leaving us anymore, know that you can still work the system and get yourself a sucker once a week!

The suckers are just once of the many ways in which we know that you are wise beyond your years. You definitely like to "work the system" as we call it. You can still whine, hold your arms up, and say "hold me" to Daddy and he'll pick you up without a second of hesitation. You are known to yell and scream "I can't do it", but then ten seconds later out of sheer determination, you accomplish whatever task you had started. You are fiercely independent and want to do EVERYTHING by yourself. Your token phrase for several months this year was "all by myself". Whatever you were doing from putting on shoes to going to the bathroom to getting dressed, you were so proud when you could tell us that you did it without our help.

You are definitely determined and perhaps our most strong willed child. You know what you like and you know how to get what you want. Disciplining you is a much different challenge than with your older brother. Fortunately, for your sake, having a baby around allows you some wiggle room to get away with a lot more than you should. But, on those occasions when we have picked and chosen our battle (which we have to do with you or else we'd ALWAYS be disciplining) and it comes time to address the issue, you get very upset knowing that you have let Daddy or Mommy down with your behavior. You seem genuinely saddened and need lots of hugs and reassurance to know that despite your bad choices, we still love you to pieces!

And we do. We love you to pieces. You are the kind of kid that is so easy to love. Even though you are a challenge and you rarely give us a moment of rest (we still can't get to you sit for more than 10 minutes at a time and live for those 2+ hour naps you still take), you are the most delightful little girl around! You are incredibly polite, saying please and thank you for everything...even meaningless tasks like helping you brush your teeth earn us a big thank you. You have a smile that lights up a room and eyes that twinkle beneath the most beautifully long eyelashes a girl could wish for. You always want to help around the house (unless of course it has to do with picking up your toys). You sing and dance as you go about your days that are filled with play, play, and more play. And perhaps your most wonderful characteristic is that you already have a love for Jesus and questions galore about the God who created you. You are a perfect example of the children that Jesus taught us about in Mark 10:15-16...

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. 

You are just beginning to understand, but your faith is stronger than most grown adults. We pray that this strong faith and your sweet innocence grow more with each passing year. Happy third birthday little lady, lady bug, Leah Lee....we love you SO much!

Christmas 2012

Just in time for Christmas, we all got our health back. There are still some sniffles here and there and a few nasty sounding coughs, but the fevers are gone, the house was scrubbed from top to bottom, and the celebrating began. Here's how our Christmas 2012 looked:

We FINALLY got to get together for the traditional Lamont family cookie decorating day. It was so much fun to have the little kids together to play and decorate. The adults also had a good time. We learned that cousin Kate is an amazing cookie decorator, cousin Brandi has never eaten gingerbread before, and baby Avery is the most adorable thing you've ever seen!

We also got to enjoy a visit from Grandpa and Grandma Sturm the weekend before Christmas. The kids had tons of fun opening up and playing with all their new stuff!

We got all dressed up and headed to church on Christmas Eve.

And followed up church with a yummy dinner at Grandpa and Grandma Lamont's house.

We came home and put out the cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. The kids slept soundly and in the morning we read the Christmas story from our Advent book. Shortly after that, the kids ran downstairs to open their gifts from Santa and Daddy and Mommy. We then had breakfast with Grandpa, Grandma, and TiTi, followed by more present opening.

We spent the morning hanging out and playing with our new stuff and then got ready to head out to Indiana for Christmas with the Lamont family. The kids had a great time with their cousins and even got a visit from Santa (which Leah DID NOT like). We ate a delicious dinner, had way too many desserts, opened our grab bag gifts, and headed home very ready for bed!

We are so thankful to have had the chance to celebrate. It was a close call this year with the flu bug hitting us at the last minute, but praise God for good health and the ability to make such special memories this Christmas!

11 Months

It's just so hard to believe that our baby is one month away from hitting a year old! As with all of our kids, the second half of the first year goes SO much faster than the first half. I really try to cherish these baby moments because they are the last ones we'll (hopefully) have. Joel is still such a wonderfully easy baby and is incredibly lovable. He has the most animated expressions and babbles a ton. He also has the world's most adorable curly, baby hair!

EATING: Joel still takes 4 bottles a day, but doesn't seem to prefer getting his calories through formula. He is much more interested in eating food! Joel likes eating little bits of whatever we are eating. He doesn't seem to like feeding himself much, so we still have to use a spoon to give him food. We also still try to sneak in a a jar of baby food at lunch and dinner so that we can make sure he's getting enough fruits and veggies. He really doesn't like eating fruits and veggies as finger foods, so mushed up and on a spoon is how we do it! He's played around with sippy cups, but doesn't seem to have the hang of it yet. He's going to have one more month to figure it out though, because we plan to make the switch as soon as he hits a year!

SLEEPING: His sleeping schedule is still great! He goes down around 7:30 or 8 at night and sleeps until 7:30 or 8 in the morning. He takes his first nap around 9:30 and his second nap around 1:30. His naps vary from a little over an hour to 2+ hours in length. He knows what it means when you ask, "Do you want to go night-night?", because he'll pop his thumb in his mouth and rest his head right on your shoulder. He is still having some moments of what appears to be separation anxiety because he will cry every once in awhile when you put him to bed. We started to notice it only happening at night and not naps, which made us realize he might just be afraid in the dark. Sure enough, we started putting his nightlight on at bedtime and that seemed to do the trick!

MILESTONES: Joel is getting much more interested in walking, but doesn't seem to have the confidence to try on his own just yet. He loves to walk behind toys that can be pushed and gets so into it that when he pushes to a point where he can't go any further (a wall, couch, table, etc.) he screams and cries. He's still crawling all over the place and loves to crawl up the stairs, which keeps us very busy with all the sets of stairs we have in this house! Other than that, there  isn't much new going on in Joel's world.  

All We Want for Christmas...

IS TO BE HEALTHY!!!!

It was December 12, and my neighbor came to pick up her daughter, whom I had watched for the day. We chatted about how her final days before Christmas break (she's a teacher) were going and she mentioned that so many of her kids were out sick. I knocked on wood and said, "I'm so glad my three have managed to stay healthy for about a month now". I should've never.EVER.said that!

Fast forward about 2 hours and Caleb was happily running and playing. He ran upstairs to the bathroom, I heard the flush, and then he came down to tell me that he had just thrown up. Though I was shocked, I didn't think much of it because he continued to run and play. Plus, if you know Caleb, you know he has been known to throw up even without any sickness in sight. The kid has a very strange stomach I guess!

After another hour or so, I decided it would be safe to leave Tyler with the kids so that I could head to Bible study. Thinking that Caleb's throwing up was just a fluke, I drove off to the peace and quiet of my weekly adult interaction. As we neared the end of the evening, I noticed I had a text message on my phone. Poor Tyler was home dealing with a tired baby, busy 2 year old, and a kid who had just thrown up all over the bathroom (right after his bath, of course). At that moment, my heart sank and I knew we were done. Hello sickness. Nice to see you again!

We have since spent the past week dealing with throw up, runny noses, bad sleeping, high fevers (Leah's reached over 105), and lots of crabbiness! The worst part of it all is that both of us got hit with it as well. There is really nothing more challenging than caring for 3 sick kids when all you want to do is lay in bed all day and get better yourself! We've had to cancel making gingerbread houses with the neighborhood kids, breakfast with Santa, Lamont family cookie decorating, and a couple days of preschool to boot.

On the bright side, we've done nothing by stay in our jammies for days on end. The nightly bathtime/bedtime routine is much easier when fevers are too high for baths and there's no need to change out of pajamas you've been wearing all day. I haven't cooked a meal in days because nobody wants to eat. And we're all getting to spend extra time snuggling and enjoying the beauty of sitting on the couch with nothing but the Christmas tree lights to brighten the room. It's definitely the most wonderful time of the year, but this wasn't what we had in mind for a fun Christmas season....better luck next year, I guess!

10 Months

Though this picture doesn't quite show the happiest baby in the world (which Joel usually is), it does pretty much sum up the past month of his life. We've battled some major teething issues along with two nasty colds/coughs. He, Mommy, and Daddy have felt like zombies at times because of the lack of sleep we've been getting!

EATING: Joel still takes 4 bottles a day...each are about 6 ounces. He still struggles to take down an entire bottle because he's just too interested in the chaos around him. He's eating baby food still (mostly because it is convenient and assures me that he's at least getting some good nutrition throughout the day). Every so often, he gets tastes of what we're having. He really seems to like grilled cheese, mac n cheese, black and kidney beans, bananas, and pasta. He doesn't like to feed himself, but prefers to be fed off of a fork or spoon. I guess he prefers to not make a huge mess, which works out in our favor when it's time to clean him and the highchair!

SLEEPING: His sleeping schedule is still fantastic! He goes down around 7:30 or 8 at night and sleeps until 7:30 or 8 in the morning. He takes his first nap around 9:30 and his second nap around 1:30. His naps vary from a little over an hour to 2+ hours in length. With the teething/colds, we've had some rough patches where he's been up for several hours in the middle of the night. Mommy feels bad and will hold him and rock, but Daddy thinks he should toughen up and cry a bit. It's a hard call because we don't want bad habits to form, but we also know that he is out of sorts with his teeth coming in. He's also started to show signs of separation anxiety when he's put to sleep because as soon as he gets laid down, he'll start to cry as if he doesn't want to be left alone. We're hoping this is also just a result of his "sickness" and not a new habit that will be tough to break.

MILESTONES: Joel is still crawling all over the place. He's interested in so much of what is going on around him and loves to explore. He's not too sure about trying to cruise or hold hands with someone to walk (he just kind of stands there and looks confused). Joel's also started to finally wave bye-bye. He seems so proud of himself when he does it! Along with new motor milestones, he's added 4 teeth to the top. These ones have been pretty rough coming in and hopefully it will only get better and easier with the next teeth!

Thanksgiving Feasts

I could probably write a list of a thousand reasons why we are so thankful to have found Kids & Company Preschool for our children. This is Caleb's second year in the program and Leah is in the youngest class this year, which only meets once a week. From the short amount of time that we've been part of this preschool, we have loved so much about what they do to nurture, love, and educate our kids. Caleb grew so much last year in so many ways and is continuing to be impacted by his experiences this year. Leah is becoming much more brave about being dropped off and spending time away from familiar faces for a few hours. She is following directions better, listening more, and has an improved attention span.

One of the best parts of the preschool is how much effort they put into making experiences memorable for the kids. Every year, they go above and beyond to put on a Thanksgiving feast for each class. I got the pleasure of being there for Caleb's class party before the feast. The kids played games, made corn muffins, sang songs, and had a blast celebrating together. While some moms hung out with the kids, other moms worked like crazy in the kitchen to prepare a delicious meal. Caleb managed to chow down and eat several helpings of food before the yummy ice cream with chocolate syrup for dessert. Leah's class celebrated as well, but parents could only join in for the feast at the end (they know that if we come sooner, kids will just cling to Mommy instead of participating). Leah did a great job of staying in her seat and eating her meal. I fully expected her to be the child that couldn't sit still, wouldn't eat anything but the ice cream, and would spill half of her food on the floor. I was pleasantly surprised by how well she did!