Shut the door!

Samuel knows his little sister all too well. This morning, Daryl was helping Samuel onto the potty and I was headed upstairs to get Aliyah up.

Samuel: "Daddy, shut the door all the way in case Mommy gets Aliyah up"

(Aliyah likes to try and get in the bathroom when her brother or sister is on the potty. She likes to try and throw toys into the toilet while they sit and scream "no!" helplessly.)

Kids in Haiti

Haiti has been very heavy on our hearts lately. Daryl and I have talked at length lately about what God is teaching us and about how God is nudging us, ever so slowly, to become more involved again in helping the Haitian people. For us, right now, that doesn't mean moving to Haiti. God is clearly directing us to help in other ways at this time . . . more on that later in another post. Pastor Jeff has been doing a sermon series on the poor and oh. my. goodness. It has been so convicted and so challenging. God is working on my heart in so many ways . . . namely in finances and how we spend our money. And, of course, softening my heart (once again!) towards the people of Haiti.

Even though Daryl and I have talked about Haiti a lot recently, I don't think we've talked about it much in front of the kids. But for the past 3-4 days, Samuel has made sure to pray for the "kids in Haiti" every time that he prays. Last night when he was praying before supper he forgot to pray for the kids in Haiti. He realized it immediately after he was done praying and we all had to fold our hands and close our eyes again so that he could pray for the kids in Haiti. (And then end with "Thank you for Daddy, Mommy, Hope, and Lia. Dear Jesus, Amen" because this is how he needs to end every single prayer that he prays.) Tonight, Hope was praying after supper and he interrupted her during the middle of her prayer to remind her that she needs to pray for the kids in Haiti. I even asked Daryl if he had been reminding or telling Samuel to pray for the kids in Haiti. He said no. I think God is not only working on our hearts, but He is also working on the heart of our 3 year old son.

Aliyah's time out in the naughty chair

Tonight, Aliyah hit me. She was mad because I told her "no" about something (I don't even remember what). We've put her in the "naughty chair" before but it hasn't happened very often. After she hit me tonight, I carried her right to the naughty chair and sat her down on it. I started talking to her about how she had been naughty, hitting is a no-no, we need to be gentle, etc. After every thing I said, the little stinker nodded her head and said "kay", "kay", "kay". Come to think of it, whenever she is in trouble and I reprimand her, I hear that little word coming out of her mouth. That's definitely something that she learned from her brother and sister! This girl is just 16 months old . . . how does she know that that is what she is *supposed* to say when Mommy is getting her in trouble and telling her she was naughty? A few minutes after she got off the chair I again told her not to do something. Right away, she looks at me, nods her head, and says "kay". Whenever I hear her say that, it makes me laugh so hard that I can hardly discipline her!! And we thought Samuel was a stinker . . . I think Aliyah might just have him beat!

Hope's braids

Time to show-off Hope's new hair-do. This is the first time that I've done braids in her hair without elastics at the base of them. It went a lot faster and it is a lot less painful and uncomfortable for her. My only fear is that they won't last as long. Time will tell! She is excited about them and even more excited about shaking her beads! :)

Hope thought Samuel needed his hair done, too!

2011 Holiday Parade

We took the kids to the Holiday Parade this year! It was a beautiful day (50s and sunny!) so we decided to give it a try. So did the rest of the population of Kalamazoo, apparently. It was crazy! But the kids did great and we had so much fun. They sat still for the whole thing - over 1 1/2 hours! Their favorites were probably the marching bands and the big blow-up balloons (rudolph, the gingerbread man, garfield, etc.)

Pure joy on that sweet boy's face. A parade and a candy cane. Could life get much better?

Aliyah was so captivated. She took it all in and would take occasional breaks from her seriousness to dance to the music from the marching bands.

Hope was very quiet and captivated as well. But if you watched her closely you would see her foot tapping to the music or a little smile flicker across her face. She loved the parade - especially the music. But is that any surprise? :)

The kids got candy and books (yes, people in the parade handed out books to encourage reading - how cool is that?) and what did I get? A pumpkin. A lady walking in the parade took it off of her float and gave it to me. Weird? I think so. And really funny too! Merry Christmas to me!

Snow on 11.11.11

The snow stuck around for another day! Samuel was excited to go out and play in it and started asking at about 8:15 already if we could go outside. I think it was almost 10 when we finally made it out there. The snow was perfect for making a snowman so that's just what we did! It tipped over about 30 minutes after we were done making it though. We also had a snowball fight with Daddy (Daryl was home for the day b/c of Veteran's Day)! Today was Aliyah's first time out in the snow. She didn't like it too much. She was afraid to walk in it. When I tried to hold her hand she refused until I took off my mitten. She'll get used to it after awhile! Towards the end of our time outside she was walking around a little bit and even trying to pick things up with her mittens. Hope also isn't a big fan of the snow. She never wants to go outside and play in it (she didn't last year, either) and when she is outside she is constantly asking to go back inside. But Samuel, he LOVES it! He could play out there all day! When the girls were napping this afternoon he went back outside with Daryl and played for another hour or so.

Ouch!!

You have to look kind of close in these pictures . . . but can you see the red ring on her forehead? It's faded a little bit, thankfully! The poor girl was getting off of the trampoline. She had little play cups in each of her hands. She did great sitting on her bum and sliding off the trampoline onto the ground. The trouble came after that. She kept on going and her feet didn't. She fell forward face first and smashed her forehead into one of the cups. Daryl was downstairs with her and tried to give her hugs but she just kept asking for Mommy. Poor girl!! Hopefully by tomorrow it'll be just a bad memory and the red mark will be gone!