Night vision

When I said dogs could see in the dark, Danny said "Ollie's eyes are like flashlights so then Ollie can see in the dark."

He also told John "I'm not a puppy, John, don't pet me like a puppy."

Mother's Day 2015

I will likely have to go back and do a catch-up blog post about the things that happened between the last blog and this one, but I wanted to remember the lovely Mother's Day I had today!

Leading up to today, things were crazy around the house because Andy was on call for work and I had injured my knee.  John was making something at school but said he wanted to buy me something too.

So Friday, John and I went to Danny's daycare and had a Mother's Day tea party with him.  I hadn't been able to go last year because Andy and I were in Hawaii.  It was sweet.  Danny made me a little flower vase out of a dixie cup covered in paper, with flowers made from pipe cleaners, buttons and cupcake wrappers.  John also gave me his school present, which was a nice letter to me with an illustration.

Then John made me take him to Target, where he picked out a card for me from Daniel, and a present for me from him and another one from Daniel.  I was not supposed to look in the cart or when I paid for them.

Saturday, we went to the zoo and had two yummy Mexican food meals at Someburros and Si Senor.

This morning I woke up and John offered to make me breakfast in bed.  I told him I would rather eat with the family since they were just starting their breakfast.  He had wrapped his presents all by himself.  Daniel (via John) gave me a card that said, "It's Mother's Day, Mom!  Forget about cleaning!  Forget about laundry!  Forget about chores!  Pretend you're me!"  With it was a small vase of flowers.  John gave me a pinch pot he made at school, which I will use to hold my rings in the kitchen when I'm washing dishes.  He bought me the DVD of Iron Man because he knows I love superheros. 

He also made me two more cards.  He is so cute with his seven-year-old concept of Hallmark sentiments.  One card said "Happy Mother's Day!  See how much I've grown!  But it's not the same with you, but you're always my mother.  Love, John."  It also had an illustration of him before and after.  The second one said (In cursive, all strung together into one long word):  "Fly to the stars on Mother's Day" and had a picture of me flying a spacecraft.

I honestly didn't think Andy would have time to do anything since he was on call.  But he found a moment to buy me a card and a chocolate bar.  :)

We had lunch with Carmen and Wayne and David, and dinner at Mom and Dad's with Robyn's family.  So I got to see all my favorite moms today!

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I will take a moment here and also say some of the great things going on in the last week with the boys.  Since I'm here.  :)

John is almost done with 1st grade.  On his end-of-the-year math test, he scored at higher than a 4th-grade level.  He started the year at 2nd-grade level.  Proud of him!

Daniel is just about potty-trained.  Three weeks in, and we only had one accident all weekend.  For some reason he has trouble around 8:00am and I didn't catch him today.  But we were out all weekend and didn't have any accidents!!!  He is also actually doing some math!  Like, "we need four bananas but we only have two.  How many more do we need?"  "Two!"  He is also recognizing many letters.

Finally, the best thing to hear on Mother's Day weekend is my boys telling each other "You're my best friend."

April funnies

John and his friend are starting a business when they grow up. They will be gardeners and also serve food. The business name is "Weeders and Weiners."

Danny:  I wanna get dis rock for my collection. I wanna show the rock for daddy. 

Today John asked Danny what his favorite book was, and he said "Tawny Scrawny Lion.  My daddy reads it to me.  It's special."  AWWWWW

John had a great time at the school field trip to the aquarium and got Froyo Friday for good school behavior.  He said "This is the best day of my whole life."  He also said something about President Useless Grant, and said that the froyo place is next to the "Taiwan restaurant" (Thai).  He also said he is getting stronger and almost has a six-pack.

Danny was pretty funny too.  I asked him what his favorite ride at Disneyland was and he said very deliberately "The. Carrot. Self."  Oh, the carousel!  I also asked him if he remembered different rides, and when I asked him if he liked the boat ride, he said "Yeah!  We went in the dolphin's mouth!"  (the whale)

Fall 2014

We have had a lot of funny sayings lately!

Andy (on Thanksgiving):  I'm so thankful for you, Johnny.  You are such a great son, you are so sweet and smart, and you were the one who made me a dad.
John (after some thinking):  I'm thankful for fat William Howard Taft.

John's new song:  I want to travel to Antarctica, travel in the dark-tica, travel on a lark-tica!

John has lost two teeth and has had two visits from the tooth fairy.  The first time, he wrote to the tooth fairy and asked her to bring him a book instead of money.  He is not quite on board with the tooth fairy though.  He doesn't believe in fairies, but knows that whatever takes the tooth and leaves the book must be small and smart.  His first guess was a tooth rat.  Then, when he saw the pink curly writing on the tooth fairy's first note to him, he thought it might be a tooth flamingo.

Andy: Put on your PJs.
John: Why are so many people using imperative sentences?

John:  Who is the composer of Gangnam Style?

I had the stomach flu and was staying away from the boys before they left for school.  I heard John getting ready to leave and shouted "Bye, John, love you, have a great day at school!"  He shouted back, "Bye, love you!.....Sorry about your throw-up sickness!"

He has been thinking ahead to Christmas because of the store they have at school where the kids can buy presents for their family members.  He worked really hard on it, shopping during the preview day, making a list of what he wanted to buy for each person, keeping track of how much each thing cost so that we could send money and totaling it all up.  Then he said "I hope everyone likes their presents."  I said, "I'm sure they will.  Because you put a lot of time and thought and love into it, and that's what matters."  He said, "I mostly put thought into it.  Because I'm smart."  I replied, "Well, you also have a very tender heart, so you put a lot of love into it too!"

John has a great new business plan.  He will be an architect and design a restaurant called ShrimpRia (because -ria means store in Spanish, like tortilleria) and there will be an elaborate tunnel system whereby the workers can go catch the shrimp in the river at the end of the tunnel.  He loves shrimp.

The song "Santa Baby" came on Pandora and we had quite the discussion about it.  Danny:  "Santa Bay-bee?  Dat's like me!"  Then John listened to a few verses and said "Who's singing this song?"  Me: "A woman is telling Santa what she wants for Christmas."  John:  "Why is she talking to Santa like he's her husband?"  He really understood the flirtatious undertones!

Danny:  I wanna watch Specia-bles.  (Incredibles)

Danny loves to stir drinks while saying "miska miska miska"  (mix-a).

He is really loving Ollie lately, he follows him around, hugging him and saying "I love you, Ollie."  Once, he looked up at me and said "Ollie's my best friend."

He also is really trying hard to use complete sentences.  On Thanksgiving, he worked very hard to come up with every word in this sentence:  "We're going to Grandma...and...Grandpa's...house!"

Mom and Dad: "Bye, Danny, love you!"  Danny: "Bye!  Love you!  Gimme hugs!"

We were asking him to eat a bite of ham and then get a bite of chips.  He was going along with it until we changed it up and asked him to eat two bites of ham for a bite of chips.  He ate one bite, and we said "eat another bite, you need another bite of ham before you get chips."  And he got really frustrated, and opened his eyes wide, stretched out his arms in front of him with jazz hands and screamed "I eat it!  I DID!!!!!"

Daycare newsletter for October/November:  "Daniel is so intelligent.  He knows all his shapes, numbers, and colors.  He loves to play with bubbles and to color.  He is a blast to have in class."

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We have had a very nice fall.  First grade has been SO great for John.  He is loving his work with his gifted teacher, Mr. D.  He and the other two gifted first-graders (Prabav and Josh) are thick as thieves.  In fact, they are not allowed to sit by each other in class because they talk too much.  :)  His teacher is so perfect for him.  Since he is advanced in math, he is allowed to do research and make powerpoint presentations during many of the daily math reviews.  I just love how he has grown up so much this year.  He still loves states, and just took a quiz online identifying state capitols and only missed 6!

Daniel has also grown up a lot this fall.  He moved up to the Twos class at school in October, which means he gets to do a lot of fun activities!  He started music class every other week in Twos, he got to trick-or-treat around the strip mall with his class, and we are looking forward to his Christmas program tomorrow!  He is talking so well and enunciating so clearly!  We did have an assessment done by early intervention through the state, because we were worried about his gross motor skills, but the assessment included developmental, emotional, verbal, and vision assessments.  He aced them all, and charmed all of the therapists.  We were so proud!

Daniel and Ollie

Daniel is loving Ollie a lot lately. We have caught Daniel trying to ride poor Ollie. He also told me "He's handsome."

He also like to boss Ollie around. He tells him "Go to bed!" when we are all around the dinner table. Then if Ollie doesn't go to bed, Daniel says "He's not listening. He's in trouble. He needs time out!"

A great week!

John had a week in which he did a lot of cool things and really overcame some of his shyness.

• He finished the school read-a-thon and earned some prizes, including a limo ride with the principal to McDonalds to have ice cream.  His class read the most minutes in the whole school!
• He got to dress as Jack from the Magic Tree House books for the last day of the read-a-thon.
• He tested for his next belt in karate and earned his white-orange belt.
• He started to really enjoy the new church we are trying out, and went to Sunday School by himself without being anxious and shy for the first time.
• Later that night, he went back to church and started a class called "The Art of Faith", where he will learn about the church history and building, and sketch a building on the church campus and then do an oil painting of it.
• He is working on his timeline with an event from every year: 0 - My cousin Bailey was born, 1 - I went to Rocky Point, 2 - I started going to see my mom in her shows, 3 - I went to Seattle for the first time, 4 - My baby brother was born, 5 - I had a very nice Easter with my cousins, 6 - I went to Chicago.  He picked the events himself, and is writing and coloring a picture for each event on a full-size blank paper. 
• He ASKED to compete in a karate tournament being held by his school's two locations.  Because each competitor gets a medal.  :)  Still!
• At Someburros, he colored a picture, and then went up to Nacho (their donkey mascot character) and gave it to him.  Nacho made a gesture like "For me???"  and then John came running back so proud of himself.
• Also he has decided he doesn't believe in the Tooth Fairy.  Because nothing can fly except God and angels and maybe the Holy Spirit.  So it has to be something small and smart that comes in and takes the tooth.  At first he thought it was a Tooth Rat, then he decided it was more likely a Tooth Dog or Tooth Monkey.  He's totally serious. 
• He also informed me that his plan is to be an author, then a governor, then the president. But you can't just decide to be president, people have to vote for you. So he will just have to keep hoping.
• He wanted to know if World War III had happened yet.  When I told him no, he told me he had a feeling he was going to be in it.  He thinks it will be Israel, Egypt and China against America, Canada, and Chile.

Daniel also had a great week:

• At dinner one night, he sat in a booster and kept leaning forward and back, saying, "Back!  Forth!  Back!  Forth!"  Then he used his straw to stir his milk and kept saying "Mixing!  I'm mixing it!"  Except it sounded like misking.  He was also extremely polite, saying, "More milk, please thank you!"  and "Here french fry, Daddy!  Thank you you're welcome"
• A game we like to play is this:  Me:  "Do you like cookies?"  D: "i LIKE cookies!"  "Do you like cake?"  "i LIKE cake!"  on and on.  He will repeat whatever I say, claiming to like it.  It's so funny.  Oh, until he finally says "Stop.  Stop talking."
• He had a great time asking Uncle Dave to read to him during the Packers game.  
• He loves church too because of the nursery.  Between the playhouse and the play school bus, he could probably just stay there forever.  They even changed his diaper for us!  When we took John back for his art class, Danny recognized where we were:  "CHURCH!!!!" and Andy had to get him out of the car and let him play on the playground, because he was NOT ABOUT to be left in the car while I dropped John off instead of playing at church!
• On the way to school, I said "Daniel, we're going to school now for snack.  Don't fall asleep, no sleeping."  And he said "NO!!  No sleeping!!!" very indignantly, like how dare I suggest that he might fall asleep when it wasn't time for sleeping.  Like he has never fallen asleep in the car on the way to school, oh, every day!  
• He will be moving up to 2s as soon as the next one in there moves up to 3s.  He is next in line, but it takes longer for 2s to move up to 3s because they have to be potty trained.  His teacher said he is totally ready, and he is the only one in the class that knows all his shapes and most of his colors.
• This morning, I said two, he said three, I said four, he said five, I said six, he said seven, I said eight, he said nine, I said ten, he said BLAST OFF!!  When I picked him up from school, I said "what did you have for lunch?" and he actually responded "I had sammich."  Sure enough, he did! 
• He had a great time meeting Nacho the burro, which at first he thought was a "wabbit."
   

John's plans for the future

John is planning to adopt three kids (because he doesn't want to get married because love is yucky.)  The oldest boy will be named Leonardo, the next boy will be named Thomas. For the girl's name, he wanted to name her after a state, so after some discussion, decided on Virginia.

Also, he stuck his toes (in flip flops) into a puddle and declared, "My toes are skinny dipping!"  He doesn't really know what skinny dipping is; he thinks it's just swimming. He heard it on the kids' special "So You Want To Be President", in which a president went skinny dipping and a reporter caught him and sat on his clothes until he gave an interview.