SKILLS: Kendall (age 2) holds a pen/pencil/crayon perfectly and it's the cutest thing you ever did see. This is especially great considering I am having daily fights with Andrew about how to hold a pencil correctly.
READING: Lately, Rachel has really been enjoying reading. It makes me especially happy because I have never been an avid reader. When Grandma Nancy was here, I let her sleep in Grandma's room and Rachel snuck a book in (without Grandma realizing it). When I went in to check on her, she was laying down sneakily reading to the faint light of Grandma's kindle on the other side of the room. It totally cracked me up!
ENTREPRENEUR: Rachel took $4 to the school store to buy a school t-shirt. When she came out to the car after school, she had a dragon keychain (she already has one at home and Andrew desperately wants his own) and some pencils in her hand. Rachel handed Andrew the dragon (knowing he had a $5 bill at home) and said, "Andrew, you can have this dragon, but you have to give me your $5." I stepped in because I knew the dragon had only cost her $3. After a lengthy conversation, this is what happened. The shirt she wanted wasn't $4 like she thought, but actually $5. Since she only had $4 and wanted to buy something, she decided she would buy the $3 dragon for Andrew and sell it to him for $5, so that she could use that to buy herself the shirt the next week. She spent her last dollar on random pencils/junk. I asked her why she thought that she could sell a toy to her brother for more money than she bought it for, and her response was, "Mom, it doesn't matter what I bought it for and I can sell it for whatever I want." Andrew did not have to buy it from her for $5, and our next family home evening was on money management. :)
BEARS: One day, Brandon had to discipline Andrew for whatever reason and sent him up to his room. On the way up the stairs, Andrew was yelling at Brandon, "Dad, I don't like the Cubs anymore! I don't like the Bears! I don't like BYU either!" Andrew really showed dad!! ha ha
LADIES FIRST: We've been teaching Andrew all about "ladies first" and although, he doesn't completely get the WHY behind ladies go first, he has tried it a few time and it melts my heart. One day, we were going out the garage door to the car, and Andrew slid his body out of the way and against the wall and said, "Ladies first, mamma."
GIRL VS. BOY: We ran into someone at Costco who I knew. She had her 18 year old daughter with her and she had recently got a pixie haircut. She had on a cut-off & tight workout shirt and Andrew said, "Look mom, it's a boy with boo boos." Yes he did. I high-tailed it out of there as fast as I could. I have no idea if or what they heard, I just bolted. Seriously embarrassing. And Rachel always distinguished gender by accessories, makeup and clothes - of course, Andrew distinguished gender by the boobs.
PICTURE DAY: Andrew - like always - has been waking up at 6am or earlier. He is my alarm clock, and I never have to set one. For whatever reason, one morning, he curled up in bed with me and went back to sleep (MIRACLE!). We slept until 7:25am - so nice, except that was PICTURE DAY and it was my turn to car pool. Less than 5 minutes later and the door knocked with the neighborhood kids ready to go. Here's the rest of the story by timeline:
7:30 - email Rachel's teacher telling her we'd be a few minutes late and what time is class picture??
7:32 - kids in the car (us in our pajamas) and take the neighborhood kids to school, which starts at 7:45
7:50 - back at home - start rushing to get Rachel ready for the day and semi-fed
8:00 - check email and her teacher said that class picture was at 8:15!!! Aaaahhh!!
8:05 - back in the car headed back to school
8:13 - frantically run Rachel into school (in pj's and no bra) to track down her class and we caught up to them in line to get class pictures
FRONT ROW SEATS: We got pretty good seats for the primary program - near the front and on the side. This is no small feat considering the craziness that goes down on the Primary Program day. Then the Primary President came up to us - "We actually have 'special'/reserved seats for your family today." This would have usually been nice, except that they needed us to sit right behind Andrew to help him behave during the program. So we got front row seats with another family who has an "active" child. Special treatment - perhaps. Don't be jealous - it's because Andrew can get pretty silly with his friends!!
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| Kendall's pencil holding skills in action! |
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| Phoenix Temple Open House this month |
