Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve my cousin Peyton and her husband Keith and their boys Scott and Ryan came over to see everyone while they were all here. Keith was Santa, bringing in a huge bag of toys for all the kids. Several sets of these Hulk Hands were a favorite among the stash. The kids had a blast with a little early Christmas fun and they all love Keith and Peyton because they make such a fuss over them. We then headed to the White Tanks for a hike with the whole gang. This was Day 6, which of course ended with a great dinner by Bob and lots of gift wrapping and stocking stuffing (my family's tradition is that we each put an item that cost $1 or less in everyone else's stockings, so the stuffing is very much a group effort and gives everyone an opportunity to give something to everyone since we rotate who we exchange gifts with among families). Not sure that made sense, but we've done it that way forever.

The Training Wheels Come Off

We were playing at the greenbelt next to our house with all the cousins and took Bailey's training wheels off to see if she could do it. Sure enough, she could.

And not to be out done by his sister, Jack wanted to try too. Actually, he just really liked his cousin Porter's motorcycle bike. He did pretty darn good for his first time (especially since he was just 3 years and 2 months old).

Our cousin Easton learned too at the same time. It was a group effort, with everyone picking up fallen riders and getting them started again. We had lots of fun with the whole group over at the park as my little house didn't fit 8 adults and 13 kids very well.

One of the down falls of growing up in a family so close in age with your siblings... you don't even get your own post when you learn how to ride a bike! Bailey thinks it's so cool that they did it together. It is one of the things we wanted though, when we decided to have our kids close, to have them all doing the same things at the same time. Really, we've taught 3 kids to ride a bike in 11 months. Now if we can just get all 4 potty trained...

Build-A-Bear

Jack was still using a passy at bed time, so on his birthday we took him to Build-A-Bear and let him pick out an animal to put his passy in. We met some people at the park who had done this and thought it sounded like a good way to break the habit. He chose this black lab puppy.

Matt was afraid he'd lose it at this point when he had to actually put the passy in the dog, but he was so excited to put it in there.

Watching him get stuffed.

Giving him a bath.

Showing off the finished product.

Jack named him Black Jack and helped make the birth certificate. The box is almost the best part. There's nothing quite like walking through the mall with one of these when your brother and sisters don't have one!

And he hasn't missed his passy at all. If I'd known it was going to be that easy I would have done it a little sooner. But he doesn't get excited about getting in bed like he used to.

JACK

While we were driving the other day I was talking to the kids about taking care of their teeth, as I had just had a root canal. I was telling them that taking care of them now would really save us a lot of money later. Jack pipes up from the back and suggests that "with all the money we could save we could buy a pontoon boat." Here's a kid who has had a few too many trips to Cabellas with his dad!

And another thought on Jack...

He loves his dad and always wants Matt to help him in stead of me. We were at a party at some friends' house the other night and Jack wanted Matt (mostly because I was making him have a time out). After the time out, I was trying to be a nice mom and offered to get Jack a brownie. He accepted and then Matt admitted he had already given him 3 or 4 (no wonder Matt's the favorite). Just before bed I was feeling bad that Jack always wants Matt and not me, but at 1:30 in the morning when Jack came in our room yelling "Dad!" and then puked the stinkiest chocolate puke all over Matt and his side of the bed, I wasn't feeling so bad that I wasn't his favorite!

Most Important Lesson

I walked into the kitchen the other day and found this. I'm glad that Jack has picked up on how important it is to not double dip! If only he could learn to ask first...
We'll teach him that next, now that the basics are out of the way.

Jack

Since I had posted that dorky picture of Jack in the Tinkerbell costume needing a haircut so bad, I thought I'd better post a cute "after" picture. I finally cut Jack's hair the other day and he's looking a lot better. He was really proud afterward and wanted his picture taken (almost as much as when he had the Tink costume on).

Tink

This is what happens when Nate falls asleep and Jack and Bay have quiet time together.

Third January Milestone

The 3rd January Milestone was an accomplishment of Jack's. He has definitely been our craziest (by far). Part of what makes Jack so hard to keep us with is his short attention span. The strangest thing about him is that he never would watch TV. I'm not even talking about sitting for an hour at a time, I mean, he had never even looked up at a TV and noticed something was on. He just didn't care about TV at all. A few months ago he noticed a dog on TV and has occasionally noticed other things like that here and there, but this month Jack has actually started watching TV!!! I can't tell you what a wonderful thing it has been. We're not talking about me plopping him down in front of the TV for hours on end, but the fact that he has requested to watch a movie (only Shrek- which he calls "Outside" as it's one of the lines from the movie) and will watch for 5 minutes at a time... it's a wonderful thing. Also this month there have been other changes with Jack. He has never been one to play with toys for more than 30 seconds. He'd rather get in to something. But this month he has played with his trains (which Nate and Bay picked out for him at Christmas) throughout the day for weeks. We also moved a big car track out to the living room and he has played with it constantly! We are so happy to have Jack playing instead of pouring out laundry detergent, pulling everything off shelves, unfolding laundry piles, spraying windex in his eyes, and emptying cereal boxes. Maybe some day I will even be able to shower after Jack wakes up... but not yet!