A Goulash of Facts and Photos

This post is a bit like our lives at the moment - scattered!  

But, there is hope on the horizon (for our lives at least).  We found a home to rent and will be getting the keys tomorrow.  Next Wednesday our household goods will be delivered and we'll spend the following days unpacking before officially moving in.  Just in time to head off for various highly anticipated Christmas trips and adventures.  We'll work on "settling in" and establishing a new normal sometime in mid-January.

*THANE: Yesterday I took Thane in for his 6-month check-up.  It's the first time he's been well enough in the last month to qualify for a "well-baby" visit, thanks to a long-lingering cold and subsequent ear infection.  He weighed in at 17 lbs. 12 oz., which seemed huge to me until the nurse pointed out it was only the 55th percentile.  He made up for it in his height (28 1/2") which falls in the 95th percentile.  

With the exception of his sleeping habits, he's doing great!  He's fully up on his hands and knees now and is starting to figure out how to coordinate his limbs.  Usually, once he's up on all fours he throws himself forward and ends up doing a belly-flop on the carpet.  Ouch.  He's quite quick with his army-crawling and especially likes to crawl to my backpack, the wipes, or the Duplos container.  Everything goes in his mouth.

The other day Thane was having a tougher-than-usual time sleeping.  He refused to go to sleep and the few times I could actually get him to fall asleep he'd wake back up after just 5 or 10 minutes.  By the end of the day I was beyond frustrated.  At dinner time he grabbed a piece of paper and put it in his mouth.  When I went to grab it out I was stunned to discover a sharp tooth sticking out of his bottom gum.  I know lots of kids get teeth earlier than 6 months, but Aubree got her first tooth at 10 months and Bryce got his at 9 months, so I hadn't even considered the possibility of teething.  The doctor says the other bottom tooth will be in soon and the top two should also be making an appearance soon.  I was glad to have an explanation for the non-sleeping, but I can't say I'm excited about the teeth.

*BRYCE:  Bryce is cracking me up lately.  He's begun singing his prayers.  Since he's at least saying more than "thank thee that I sleep well," I can't complain.  He's also moving more into the imaginative play stage.  He decided that his Duplos container is his "boat" and he pushes and rides it all around the house.  He'll sit on top and rock back and forth saying, "Oh no! I don't want to fall in the ocean!"  He also frequently pretends to be a puppy or a kitty.  When he's in that mode, he won't talk or walk, he'll only crawl and meow/bark. 

We started attending a local LDS homeschool co-op group that meets once a week (they call it SCOOP).  One thing that's nice is that Bryce is able to participate.  It's fun to tell him that he too is "going to school" and he is doing really well with following directions and joining in on the activities, even though he's the youngest in his group.

One of the activities at SCOOP involved cutting with scissors.  Sad to say, but up to that point I hadn't let Bryce use scissors.  So, I sat with him and he spent 30 minutes cutting his paper into tiny pieces of confetti.  Now he often asks if he can "cut!" and with all the confetti he makes, we should have a party.

*AUBREE:  Aubree is also really enjoying SCOOP.  Mostly I think she's just glad to be able to play with kids, since here in our temporary apartment we have limited opportunities to do so.  She spends a lot of her time lately drawing and writing notes.  For example, here's a note she posted on the door to her bedroom:

If you can't tell, it says, "Aubree room on the right.  Do Not Enter if your name is not written on the paper."  Thankfully, the "paper" she's referring to is very generous with regards to who might enter:

She also decided that her room needed some decorations, so she hung up a bunch of her drawings.  This is one of my favorites (I really like the details - apples for eyes, carrot for nose, blueberries for buttons...):

 In preparation for Christmas, Aubree finalized her Wish List.  These ideas are all her own, I only helped with spelling if she asked.

Notice any themes?  I like how often she wrote, "that I do not have to share."

We've also had fun keeping up with Five in a Row and doing Lapbooks.  We spent a week reading A Pair of Red Clogs, about a girl in Japan and had a great time learning about Japan and Japanese culture. 

We even bought almost-sushi (California rolls) and sat on cushions at the coffee table one evening to try and experience a little of Japanese culture.  The kids were not at all fond of the rolls, but at least were willing to try them.  The experience left me wondering a couple things.  1.  What do they do with their babies who are just learning to eat?  2.  How do they keep their two year-olds from jumping up and running off?  Mark thinks that eating at the little table would help with weight control because it's too uncomfortable to sit for long periods of time. 

For Thanksgiving week we read Cranberry Thanksgiving and did lots of great Thanksgiving-related activities.  Again, I was embarrassed to realize how little I actually knew about the Pilgrims and the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving.

Finally, here's a little story that accidently got deleted from the "funnies" post:

We all really enjoyed having Mark home for the long Thanksgiving break and Aubree took extra advantage of having him around by involving him in her make-believe play.  One afternoon she informed him that she was pregnant and that he was her doctor.  She went to all her doctor appointments and finally the blessed time arrived and she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl she named Pearl and Junior.  A little while later I asked Aubree to pick something off the ground for me.  She complied, but stood up complaining, "ouch! that hurts!"  Concerned, I asked, "what's wrong, I didn't know you were hurt."  "Mom!" she retorted, "Remember? I just had twins!"