The Dog House, Lots of Help and Brotherly Love

What a morning!! Friday mornings Josh does a cup stacking class at school that starts at 8 am. That means that Josh and Matthew leave for school at the same time which causes mass pandemonium in the morning. This morning was even worse. Matthew was on his regular schedule of eating breakfast, going to the bathroom and taking a shower. He was on the getting out of the shower part when I hear from Josh downstairs, "Moooooom!! Matthew just got out of the shower and didn't wash his bum very well and he's sitting on my bed!" Then I heard Josh tell Matthew, "Get off my bed and use Daniel's bed!" How's that for brotherly love?! Anyway, Daniel heard that and started running downstairs screaming at Matthew to get off his bed. I had to intervene before it got worse. Matthew had to jump back in the shower to finish washing everything and I guess I will be washing sheets today. **Sigh** Anyway, later on in the morning Josh put on Matthew's shoes to wear to school because he couldn't find his own. That didn't turn out very well, either. Good thing for Josh I was around when Matthew discovered Josh wearing Matthew's shoes--otherwise it could have been bad. I was breathing a sigh of relief when Josh and Matthew both left for school all clean and in one piece. However, I did realize once they were gone that this will be my last day of "freedom" because all next week is Spring Break with no school. Ugh! Oh well I have a few ideas for activities to do next week in mind. Hopefully everyone and the weather will be wanting to participate. I can't believe it is Spring Break already!! Lately I have been having lots of help from lots of little hands. Noah has discovered the army crawl and is getting pretty good at it. He also discovered the wipes container and how fun it is to empty it. He has gotten quite good at that, too. Here is Josh helping to put all the wipes back in the container after Noah had emptied them one of his multiple times.Daniel likes to "surprise" me every morning. While I am in the shower he comes to tell me not to come out for a minute because he is going to surprise me. Every morning it is the same surprise--he makes my bed for me. I think it is very sweet. I even love how he attempts to put all the pillows on the bed, too. I love his surprises even if it is the same surprise EVERY morning ;). Daniel also likes to draw the same picture for me every morning. He writes out the name Mom and Dad with a heart by the names to show he loves us. He then hides the picture for me to find every morning. He gets so excited to play the game hot and cold to help me find his surprise picture. I love kids at this age--they are so sweet! Sarah has been working on her mothering skills lately. From changing her stuffed baby's stinky bum with real wipes to trying to feed her baby she loves imitating me. She even tried her hand at feeding Noah yesterday. She got her pretend food in her toy cup with a toy spork and sat down to feed him. I had just finished feeding him and was cleaning up when I noticed what she was doing. I still hadn't wiped off the spilled food on Noah's tray and Sarah though it was gross, but it didn't deter her in trying to feed him. Noah, surprisingly, didn't cry and actually kind of went a long with it. Even if he didn't want to open his mouth Sarah forced the spork in his mouth anyway. Then Sarah would take a few bites herself. Funny girl!! I think Sarah is going to toughen Noah up whether he wants to be tough or not--poor guy!

I put Sarah down for her nap the other day. I went back to check on her later. I love how peaceful and innocent they look when they are asleep. Seeing this it is hard to believe how much mischief they actually get into while they are awake!!

Also kids can be quite sweet. Aaron and I try to have lunch together once a week. We go during school so we only have Sarah, Daniel and Noah with us. We usually go to Cafe Rio where we get salads. The salads there are very big so I usually save half of my salad for Josh to eat for dinner. He loves it. Wednesday Susan, Aaron's sister, came for a visit. Noah was not feeling the best so I stayed home with Noah and Daniel while Aaron took Matthew, Josh and Sarah to dinner at Cafe Rio with him to see Susan. Josh ordered a salad and was sweet enough to think of me. He only ate half his salad and saved the other half for me to eat at home. He was so excited to tell me he had saved half his salad for me. What a sweet guy! It is times like this that make parenting awesome!! Aaron was in the dog house this week. We had a little disagreement (aka argument or fight) earlier in the week and he dug himself into a large hole. I was quite mad. Anyway, he came home from work with some flowers and chocolate yesterday to make up. I don't know if it was the flowers or the chocolate or both, but we are now on speaking terms again. Good thing we don't get in too many fights/arguments/discussions very often!! I am enjoying my chocolate and flowers, though. However, as much as I liked my flowers and chocolate, hopefully it will be another long while before we have our next argument/discussion/fight again.