Update the Cuteness

I want to talk about my kids because I haven't done so for a while.

Violet has lost her first tooth. She wiggled and wiggled it for days and days and wouldn't let anyone pull it out. Finally, it came out mid-wiggle when she was lying in bed late one night.

The pronunciation of her "s" sounds has been compromised, and it is adorable. I never knew what delight I would find in the lisp of a six-year-old.

Luke recently cut some more hair. This time just his own, so it wasn't as big of a deal. It motivated me to finally give him a haircut, as his mane was getting rather long and shaggy. The haircut I gave him helped a little, but you can now see a bald spot on the top of his head where he snipped it himself. Luckily his hair style recovers quickly from mishaps like that.

A couple days ago Luke was in a really grumpy mood. He'd been mopey and whiny all day and he kept bickering and fighting with Violet. Finally, while he was lying on the floor and moaning, I turned to him and said, "Luke, what is wrong? Are you feeling sick?" His eyes filled with tears and he nodded his head. I scooped him up from the floor, offering all my motherly sympathies, and then he continued: "I'm sick of Violet!"

Ivy has been slowly learning new words, and when I say slowly, I mean slowly. She is definitely taking her time learning to talk (19 months and only like 20 words), but somehow she communicates all her needs (most of the time) anyway. She gets cups out and points to the water dispenser when she wants a drink; she points to the fridge when she is hungry (and grunts), she grabs her diaper when she needs to be changed (and sometimes she'll say, "poop!"). These are the words she says:

Momma
Dadda
duck
cow
poop
"ba" for bath
yes
no
nose
toe
hi
all done
ow
wow
honk
"wa-wa" for water (although she rarely says this--thus the pointing)
animal
apple
bubble
"tuck" for stuck

She also does a few animal sounds: moo, quack, meow, and woof. Her favorite animal sound to say is "quack," and if we ask her to say an animal sound that she doesn't know, she always uses "quack!" as her guess. She loves to sit right next to Violet whenever we're practicing piano, and Ivy "practices" right along with her. She is very good at going to bed, but still not the best at staying asleep. There are always a few nights a week where we get up at least once or twice in the night to her cries. And her normal wake-up-for-the-day time seems to be stuck at 5:30 am. We try to make her stay in bed until 6:30 but it rarely works :). What usually happens is I grab her and try to snuggle with her in our bed. And then she keeps poking us and giggling and kicking off the covers and then stands up and jumps up and down right in between our pillows.

She has started to "say" the prayer along with whoever is actually saying the prayer, and tonight it sounded like this:

"Uah, ahn om QUACK, anuh mo ahn, QUACK, om doh bahna um ah, QUACK." I'm guessing that she was saying that she's grateful for ducks that quack :).

I of course love these three kids to pieces.

This is what happens when they offer to wash dishes for me.

Not much washing is going on. Besides their hands.

Shooting pom-poms with our Popsicle stick catapults we made for homeschool one day

Our static hair-do of the day