Eight Little Hands: Lots of Little Things

VIDEOS

Anna was around 6 weeks old in this video. Too cute, right?

Monica's influence 100%. That girl goes around singing The Wizard of Oz and Annie songs ALL DAY. This video was taken while she was at school.

CALDWELL NATURE PRESERVE

Last Sunday Aunt Helen and Uncle Kim helped me take the kids to a local park, Caldwell Nature Preserve. Anytime you go on a "walk" with my kids, go ahead and assume it'll be more like a run. We all had a great time though.

POOR MARY

On Sunday, Brian and the kids worked outside. We have a Mary statue in our front flower garden. Will accidentally decapitated her a few weeks ago. Brian sat the head back on, with the promise of fixing her later. ....It hasn't happened yet.

It wouldn't be complete if Monica didn't kneel down and recite a few quick Hail Mary's. Frequently in warmer weather, we'll catch her praying in front of our Mary statue. Almost every time I leave the house with the kids, she calls goodbye to Mary as we drive away.

GIRL, YOU'VE GOT STYLE

Yesterday I took Monica to Toys 'R Us for what's becoming a tradition: Using her birthday $3 coupon from the store toward one small gift of her choosing. She came home with a Strawberry Shortcake dress-up. This morning I found her bedecked in the dress, her Crocs, a scarf/boa, a wool hat (she calls it her Peg + Cat hat....that's a new PBS Kids show), and her Jasmine crown from Aladdin. My child has STYLE!

After Toys 'R Us we made a quick stop at David's Bridal, one block away, to look into ordering my bridesmaid's dress for Mary's wedding. (I got to take it home with me, yeah!) Monica had fun too. She calls it the Bride Store. Here, she's pretending to be a flower girl:

TRAINS...OR NOT.

Today we visited the Cincinnati Museum Center for its membership day to celebrate the opening of the Duke Energy Holiday Trains. Ironically ---- we never made it to the trains! We enjoyed some of their promotional tables: coloring, fake tattoos, letters to Santa, and a commemorative ornament. Next, Brian and the boys visited Tower A, the old railroad control tower.

The boys threw huge tantrums when he dragged them out of there, and Will seemed magnetized to the down-escalator. So, rather than the trains, we went to the bottom of the escalator: the Children's Museum! Brian took Anna in the stroller over to the elevator, while I oversaw the older three on the escalator. My boys have never stepped onto one solo. Will startled himself by testing it out and WHISK, he was on it! Ben attempted several times, but was apprehensive. So I was on the top step, having to re-step to stay put. Will clung tight to my one arm, while I tried to stay up and grab Ben. Mommy almost did the splits! I finally just grabbed Ben. He and Will rode down sitting on the steps. And then we hit the bottom. Ben was slow to stand up, and he was so close to getting a finger jammed, the security guard actually sensed the problem and ran over to assist. Whew! Who knew an escalator would be such a danger zone for toddlers??

Anyway, we came up from the Children's Museum some time later and both boys were whining, crying messes. We did not even hang around for lunch, but rather made a pit stop at Wendy's on our way home.

THE MIND OF A PRESCHOOLER

Oh yes, and Monica's Santa Letter. This was ADORABLE.

Rather than spell out each word for her, I decided to watch how she worked it all out. She gave me a sentence, and I would feed her each word, watching how she spelled them. If you've never watched a young child work out how to spell words, it's really fascinating. I did write down "Christmas" and "Elizabeth" for her. (Notice how she spelled them, despite my help.)

"New" became "noow." "Clothes" became "clos." Naturally, "been" in her world is "Ben." And the two O's in "good" sit on top of each other now.