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| Rootbeer tasting (GBA) |
at least a few times every day, I think to myself, "MAN, are my kids great!". I am blown away by how much they have grown up and some days how far they have to grow up. A few favorite things I want to remember:
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| We love root beer! (me and B) |
We read at least a couple of books every night before bed. The boys like to be the one who sits in the middle of us when we are reading the book they chose, so it usually ends up being a merry-go-round in between books. For some reason Brady has recently decided that he prefers for the door to their room to be closed while we read the books. So if he hasn't done it before we start a book, he will get up and close the door to their room quietly and then sit back down in his spot. Sometimes, when it is the other parent's turn to read, one of us will lay their head down on the floor listening. Brady has done this since he was 3, but it seems more poignant to me now. He will get up quietly in the middle of the book, go and get his puppy and then put it under our head as we are laying in the ground. It is so thoughtful and touching. Brady also regularly asks for time to snuggle after dinner, which i just love, especially after being gone at work all day. within a few minutes of he and I snuggling under the quilt, Gavin and Aidan are usually right there on top of us too. Some times they will say "let's hide from dad!" and we will all get under this quilt on the couch while Curt is cleaning up from dinner and act like we aren't there. Of course, Curt plays along and "goes looking" for us, which then we will go and hide under their bunk beds until Curt will come and find us and grab them out from under the beds.
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| Gavin - the note (that Brady wrote) says it all! |
Gavin has really started to get into playing tricks on us. So, he will say something like, "The basement is REALLY dirty, mom. You should come and see it!" and then he will drag us downstairs, all the while we are saying, "oh! A dirty basement?! I guess we are going to have to clean it up if you made it too dirty!" and then as we turn the corner, "Oh! It's so clean! You tricked me!" And he will giggle wildly. He has also recently taught himself to pour half gallon containers of his most FAVORITE thing - Almond Milk. I swear he could drink a half gallon all to himself if we would let him. Anyway, he is very proud of himself. He is also our "Trouble" boy - he LOVES playing the game Trouble that they got for their birthday and he is pretty good at it too! He is working strategy for which piece he wants to move on a roll and finding ways to get less upset when he doesn't win or if the rolls don't go his way right away. It's actually really fun. Whenever he rolls a "1" (which means he can't move, but we can get one out of "home") he says "I am so GENEROUS!" which makes me giggle every time. He also lost his second tooth on Feb 8. Aaaaannnnd promptly swallowed it. The night before he says his tooth is loose for the first time (well, he has been telling us they are loose since he lost his first one in Nov., but they never are) and the thing was holding on by a THREAD. Then at dinner the next night he had been messing with it a ton and all of a sudden he goes "(gasp!) It's gone." and points in his mouth. We had hoped it might be in his milk, so I poured it through a strainer, no luck. He was so upset because he wanted to SEE IT, and he was a little worried about the tooth fairy, but he didn't cry for a few minutes. His brothers were SOOOO kind to him, trying to make him feel better, and when he was too upset to write the tooth fairy note, Brady offered to do it for him, so all he had to do was sign his name. Too sweet. :)
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| Aidan - How you doin'? |
Aidan has developed some good friendships at school. Curt was co-oping in their class when they were playing reverse musical chairs (they take a chair away, but no kids are out and they have to sit on people's laps) so he got to see first hand how lovely dovey Aidan is with a lot of the girls. He said when one little girl who Aidan says "is HILARIOUS!" sat on Aidan's lap, he reached right around and hugged her from behind. He did this to several other kids too who were like "what is this kid doing?!" but she would just laugh and giggle with him. Aidan has also been particularly generous with his compliments for me and my cooking lately. The other day he had drawn something and cut it out and set it on the table. When I asked him to tell me about it he says "It's a trophy!" and I say, "Oh I see that. What's it for?" and he says "For you, for being the best cook in the whole world!" How awesome is that kid? :) Aidan loves playing Wild Kratts and Angry Birds Star Wars (well they all do), so much so we had to put a moratorium on dinner time talk about the Angry Birds Star Wars games, we had heard ENOUGH! At least when the boys talk about Wild Kratts they are always sharing interesting information about wildlife and animals! I am amazed at their capacity for memory with things like this! Aidan also says to me last weekend, "Mom, is summer EVER going to come? I don't feel like it will EVER be summer." and then it snowed 3 more inches. Me too kid, me too. :)
The other day the boys had asked Curt and I to come down and see the cool thing they had built. They had run ahead and were SUPER quiet as we turned the corner to our basement. They had built a fort with spaces to shoot guns in between the cardboard bricks and all three were hiding behind this wall and had their storm trooper laser guns pointed through the spaces right at us. So of course when they started shooting at us, we had some dramatic death and dying scenes for them and they eventually piled on top of the two of us. MAN, I love those kids.
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| BGA - Sledding at West HS |
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| Kings of the mountain! |
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| Silver fox! |
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| Gavin's sweet snowman! |
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| Aidan made a snowman - finally warm enough to play outside! |
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| Brady's winter friend! |
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| Driving a car at the Auto Museum in Coralville - AAAOOOGAH! (AGB) |
