Wizard of Oz

Can you tell we just watched the Wizard of Oz?

Ephraim dancing and then hamming it up for the camera. (Please ignore the extremely messy office in the background.)

School Pictures

We got Gabriel's Kindergarten school pictures back today. Not his best smile, but still my super cutie pie!! (grandparents, your copy will be sent in the mail soon.)

We got a new funny person-shaped lamp when we first moved here. Gabriel didn't like it until I turned it into Link (see pic)! Gabriel is telling me he likes it "thiiiis much."

Yesterday Ephraim took all his big boy underwear out of his drawers and started playing with them. He began by just putting them on over his pants. Then they became handcuffs and a hat too. So silly!

Link, Fill Up Your Hearts

We just passed exactly three months since we moved to this new house. Gabriel has been sleeping on his mattress in my bedroom almost all that time. It has been a really hard time for him, so I allowed it. I've been talking to him about moving back (especially now that it is colder, I'd rather he not be on the floor). He said over and over that he hates his room. So I tried redecorating it and things seem to be better.
Since he was Link for Halloween, we decorated his room with a few Zelda things I cut from construction paper.

Gabriel dressed as Link for school. I don't think anyone recognized who he was suppose to be, so he was a little disappointed, but very proud of his shield. Most of the boys were ninjas with a few superheroes of Batman and Ironman. Oh! And I wanted to record that Gabriel now has a second tooth coming in next to the first one (on the bottom). His two bottom baby teeth are wiggly, but he doesn't like pain at all so he doesn't wiggle them.

Meanwhile, Ephraim is a handful at times. I'm hoping it's just a phase exaggerated by his personality, but I feel the need to curb his perfectionism. For example, he was stabbing his noodles with his fork, trying to get as many on there as he could. He had a meltdown when one fell off. He must have been tired. And he normally refuses sauce on his noodles, but the other night I saw him lining up his noodles perfectly in a row (see pic) and then he asked for sauce on them. Weird! Things have to be just right for him. He also insists on doing more himself. (I know that's part of his age, yay.) If these two things don't happen, he breaks into meltdown sobs.

I wanted to take just one picture of what I'm up against every day--blankets, toys, shoes, food crumbs, bowls and wrappers from snacks, books, etc. I'm trying to get the kids to help me clean every evening before bed, but when surprise visitors come in the middle of the day (like a roofer coming to give an estimate on my leaking roof), the house is embarrassing. But hey, now you can see what the living room looks like in our new house. :)

Growing Up

Gabriel still likes playing games on the computer, especially the games at pbskids.org. Here he is teaching his brother. Gabriel is moving the trackball and letting Ephraim click the button when it is time.

Cute Ephraim story:
I'm reading books to him before bed (Gabriel is already in bed). We read his favorites: "Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Do You See What I See, Trucks and Cars." As we finish the cars book, there is a page where you can name the ambulance, race car, snowplow, etc. I point to the first one (a firetruck) and ask him what it is. I don't know if he rolled his eyes, but he paused and said "cement mixer" with a straight face!! So I pointed to the cement mixer right next to it and asked him what that was. He paused and I saw him look all over the page and then say "pusher" (aka snowplow). I started giggling and asked him if he was teasing me and he got the cutest grin! He has got such a sense of humor already!! He loves teasing his mommy! :)

Odds and Ends

Ephraim took a rare nap on Sunday. He looked so sweet, I had to capture it! He is growing up too fast. I am in no rush for his 3rd birthday to come in March!!

I go through so much dental floss! Well, not me. Ephraim has discovered the lovely minty taste of sucking on a whole unwound roll of dental floss. And the fact that I keep it in mommy's bathroom drawer.

I am ready to get through the holidays and make them the best I can. I got in a sudden baking mood and whipped up a few apple turnovers for us the other night. Hit the spot with all this cold rain!

I didn't have any work this week, so the kids have been staying home with me in the afternoons instead of going to my parent's house. Since it was too wet to play outside, we took out the paints. This is Ephraim trying to smile for me--he was concentrating so hard on painting. I love the way his masterpiece turned out: so many colors in deliberate patterns.

Gabriel didn't want to look up either. He painted a sun, green grass and a green mountain. He still delights in destruction so after this photo the painting turned into an abstract manifestation of frustration or something using all the colors. We still had fun.

Picture Day

It was Picture Day at school today so I tried to get Gabriel to practice nice smiles in our front yard this morning. He's such a face-maker! :)

I told Gabriel to give me his "handsome" look and this is what I got.

Ephraim is just adorable!

Brotherly love!

Yay, group shot.

And happy birthday to daddy! Hope your day was great. We can't wait to see you this weekend.

Family Time

This last week we made some great memories. One of the nights, Gabriel looked at our modest stack of boardgames and started pulling some out. We played Phase 10 with Dice. The kids loved rolling all the dice. We learned about sorting and grouping by color or number. Even Ephraim could identify colors!

Gabriel learned that the W meant wild and that he could put the dice in number order.

Gabriel is very proud of our garden and likes to pick the lettuce. He wasn't crazy at first about the dinner I made, but then he wrapped it up in a lettuce leaf and it became a fantastic dinner! This was also one of the few times that I didn't mind that Ephraim copied Gabriel!

Of all the places in the playroom they chose to build their roller coaster train track tonight.... It couldn't have been on the huge floor or train table, it had to be on the treadmill! :)