Monday, November 30, 2015

Why we don't stress too much about Quinn throwing a tempter tantrum...

Quinn attempted to throw a tantrum over dinner (spaghetti) tonight. He stomped his feet and crossed his arms and made a big pouty face and then dumped his plate over on the table. Then he waited for a reaction. He didn’t get any so he loudly declared he wasn’t eating anything and threw a pinch of sauce on the floor. He didn’t get a reaction again, so he loudly informed us that he had thrown sauce on the floor. Still not getting a reaction he wanted, he marched over to a kitchen counter and threw a dirty washcloth on the floor and stomped on it. That washcloth was his undoing.

I said, “Quinn, that washcloth is dirty and needs to be washed. Could you throw it in the washing machine for me?” He frowned and stomped some more, but took the washcloth to the washing machine.Then he came back and very poutily informed us that he wanted to make the washing machine go, so I asked him to take the kids’ dirty clothes down to the washing machine. He quickly complied, filled the washing machine, then I helped him measure detergent and press the go button. Then he returned to the table, cleaned up his spaghetti and most of the sauce without being asked, and ate his whole dinner.

This, my dear Quinn, is exactly why mommy and daddy don’t worry too much when you have a temper tantrum. You might make a mess and bluster a bit, but you often clean up after yourself when you’re done. :)

(And, yes, we work on teaching appropriate ways of expressing anger and frustration but those moments don't make for a funny story.)

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Hello, Baby Girl!

At long last, we (and you) finally get to meet our new baby!


She was born at 1:45am on November 7th, 2015. She weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces and 21 inches long.



Her name is Kira Elise.

Kira-- from the ancient greek related to "lady" or referencing a position of authority
Elise-- a form of Elizabeth, meaning "my God is my promise/abundance/sufficient"

The name Kira is inspired by the prayer "Kyrie Eleison" ("Lord, have mercy"). (Short version. Long version.) "Kyrie" is the masculine, direct address form of the Greek word "kyrios", which means "Lord." The feminine form is "kyria"--"lady" (link). The name Kira is actually the feminine form of the root word/name that kyrios came from, Cyrus/Kyros (link).

I love learning the origin of names, so digging through all those related words was a lot of fun for me. There are several other languages that have the name Kira in them, too, but we are going with the Greek origins because of the relation of the name to the Kyrie Eleison. In our minds, her name, though it means "lady", will also always been related to the mercy of the Lord.








Welcome to the world, our precious girl. We hope that you will be a lady of mercy and will always find strength in the presence of the Lord's mercy and sufficiency in your life.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Cute Kiddo Questions

This has been running around facebook and I decided to post it here to save it for "all time." I asked Quinn all the questions first, then Aurora later. Quinn is 3.5 years old and Aurora is 6 years old.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
Q: Stop!
A: Aurora!

2. What makes mom happy?
Q: playing and cleaning up
A: Obeying

3. What makes mom sad?
Q: not cleaning up
A: Not obeying

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Q: I don’t know. I don’t clean up, you make me laugh!
A: Jokes

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Q: You raced down your hill with cars. (He’s playing with hotwheels.)
A: Asking questions, ‘cause I don’t really know.

6. How old is your mom?
Q: so old!
A: *shrug* 20?

7. How tall is your mom?
Q: this tall (holding hands apart as far as they go)
A: I don’t know. (Can you guess?) Shorter than daddy! So I’m going to guess about 29...or is that too tall? I’m guessing 28 more of.

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Q: nothing
A: Sew and knit and crochet

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Q: You just...do stuff! You put away clothes and also put away clothes....uh...clean up your room?
A: Look at facebook or make cake or wrap presents

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Q: For something. I don’t know.
A: Uh, making beautiful knitting stuff ‘cause you really like knitting!

11. What is your mom really good at?
Q: Help clean up with me.
A: Getting angry. (*giggle*)

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Q: Not putting these on the right places (playing with blocks)
A: Laughing

13. What does your mom do for a job?
Q: It’s something else. It what you do. It’s putting away shoes.
A: Watch me and Quinn.

14.What is your mom's favorite food?
Q: It’s chinese. It also chinese like mine!
A: You don’t have one! Cookies.

15.What makes you proud of your mom?
Q: Smile!
A: Making yummy food!

16. If your mom were a character, who would she be?
Q: Twilight! (from My Little Pony)
A: A fairy…? Queen Clarion.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Q: help clean up your room
A: We watch the Frozen movie together.

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Q: Good! Being good for a cookie.
A: We both have brown hair.

19. How are you and your mom different?
Q: SO much different!
A: You’re older than me.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Q: So much love me!
A: You protect me.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
Q: So much like daddy!
A: That he does a lot of stuff for you.

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Q: Grocery store!
A: Krispy Kreme

23. How old was your Mom when you were born?
Q: Don’t know. Is you know?
A: Uh, probably...20?

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Winter Hiking!

We went hiking one cool but beautiful afternoon. It was cold enough that there was still ice but it wasn't too cold to be outside.
Icicles!
Ice!
Checking out dripping rocks.
We ended up chasing Quinn most of the hike like this...



Silly kiddos.
More "ice castles" as Aurora called them. :)
The gorgeous gorge that was our destination. I wish this picture could truly capture it. The green moss with the icy river was lovely.
Wil exclaiming, "You shall not pass!" with his massive walking stick. Quinn wanted to keep going, but we knew that we needed to be heading back.
Amazingly, both kids walked or ran almost the entire 3 miles. Quinn had to be carried a bit on the way back because he kept saying, "I stay here!" but once we started playing "run away from daddy", he did much better. Wil would roar at the kids and the kids and I would run down the path screaming until they needed a break, Wil would catch up and we'd do it all over again. It certainly worked well to get us through that last worst half mile to the car.



Quinn went to bed fairly well but Aurora informed me that the hike made her "not tired" and had a rough time going to sleep. Silly kid. Maybe we need to time our physical exertion better...

~Regina

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Bedtime problems with Aurora

I'm getting annoyed, so to keep my humor up, I'm going to record all the things Aurora needs from me before she falls asleep. All begin with her yelling, "Mommy!? MOMMY!!! MOMMYYYYYY!" She is swaddled in her special blanket from my mom, so she doesn't want to get out of bed...this is a GOOD thing. LOL....

1. "Shut my closet door!"

2. A: "How many princesses am I supposed to have?"
Me: "I don't know. We can count them in the morning."
A: "Why?"
Me: "I think you know the answer to that. It's sleepy time."
A: "I think I have 7!"

3. A: "My snack is missing!"
Me: "You lost it because you spit at Daddy."
A: "No I didn't!"
Me: *silence*
A: "I did it because I was trying to get rid of him...I wanted lay down time with you."
Me: "Well, I hope tomorrow you will not spit at anyone. Good night, Aurora."

4. A: "I dropped one of my princesses!"
Me: *I hand it back to her* "Goodnight, Aurora."
A: "Thank you!"
Me: *Walking to the door*
A: "You didn't say 'You're welcome'!"
Me: "You're welcome."
A: "Now say goodnight."
Me: "Goodnight."

5. A: "MOMMY! CAN YOU PLEASE BE QUIET! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP!"
Me: "Daddy is putting away some groceries. He will be quiet soon."
A: "Well, tell Daddy to be quiet because I'm trying to sleep."
Me: "You tell Daddy, he can hear you just fine."
A: "DADDY, CAN YOU BE QUIET?! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP. BE QUIET! DADDY! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP! PLEASE BE QUIET DADDY!"

6. A: *knocking on her door repeatedly* "DADDY! DADDY!"
Me: *opens door and stands there waiting*
A: "Tell Daddy to come in here and say 'sorry' for making noise!"
Me: "It is sleepytime Aurora. Goodnight."
A: "Tell Daddy I still hear buzzing!! Tell him to go bang on the fan!"
Me: "Goodnight, Aurora."

7. A: "Daddy! DADDY!"
Wil: *walks in and waits*
A: "The fan is buzzing! Hit it to make it stop!"
Wil: "The fan is still warming up, give it a few minutes."

Most of these were in rapid succession but there were a few breaks where, if I listened closely, I could hear her talking to herself. :)

The great thing is that this is actually an improvement. We've been working for ages to get her to simply stay in her room at bedtime and she has, finally, started controlling her impulse to dash out of the room and giggle maniacally about disobeying us while running in circles around our furniture... We want to encourage her to stay in her room, so contrary to popular parenting opinion, we do not ignore her but try to respond quickly to reinforce her staying in her room. :)

~Regina

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Snow Day!

It started snowing at about 9am this morning. I wasn't expecting it to last long, so I got the kids ready to go play. They were incredibly excited!

 Snow angels!



We went back in when we got too cold--it was 20 degrees, after all! But after warming up, the kids begged to go back out, so we did. We went on a walk and found an empty church parking lot to play in.


Walking home with a stick!
After lunch, we went out again, this time with the sled. I pulled the kids back into our neighborhood and got my exercise for the day!

Then, of course, Quinn had to have a turn!


After the sled ride, the kids went into the back yard to play, where they stayed for probably 45 minutes. I lured them back in with hot tea because they were looking cold. Quinn's cheeks get so rosy when he's cold. :) (Sorry about the fuzziness in the middle of the picture--a snowflake got on the lens and was still drying.)

We'd love for the snow to stick around for a few days but around here that doesn't normally happen. At least we got a nice day with what eventually became about an inch of snow. It was fun to watch it pile up!

~Regina

Monday, January 27, 2014

Kiddo stories this week

Quinn has named his time out timer "my tick-tick." He exclaims, "NO my tick tick!" when he's being taken to time out. When the timer rings, he has started covering his eyes or his ears because I always say something about the reason he was in time out before releasing him. Today, he covered his eyes and then, when I squatted down to wait for him to be ready to talk, he leaned forward and blew his nose in my face...good thing he doesn't have a cold! Crazy kid.
Quinn is obsessed with opening our windows...even when it's below freezing...

Aurora's philosophical questions one night at bedtime:
Why do people have to get older?
How can we keep squirrels from getting into bird seed?! (said in an exasperated voice)
She's got to take every detail in!

Quinn is "counting" the people around the table...
Quinn: Do, wee, do! Wee, do, wee!
Me: Try this--1, 2, 3!
Q: Do, wee, do!
Me: 1, 2, 3!
Q: Do, wee, do!
Wil: 1, 2, 3!
Q: Do, wee, do!
Yes, I took your cup and, no, I'm not going to look at you.

It was almost bedtime for Aurora, Quinn was already asleep, and Aurora was supposed to be sitting quietly looking at books. Instead she was jabbering away, talking to me and Wil, who were both double-checking a couple things on our computers...
Aurora: Daddy, why is it doing that? What are you doing? How can you make it do that? (Rapid barrage of more various questions related to "why" and "how.")
Me: Aurora, Daddy is very focused on fixing a bug for his work. He can't think and talk to you at the same time.
Aurora, glancing at what I was typing: Are you thinking, too, Mommy?
Me: Yes, I can't talk to you and think about what I'm typing at the same time.
Aurora, after another series of questions which got very little response: Why am I the only one not thinking here?!
Someone turned 5 this week!

Quinn has discovered that spinning makes the world move strangely. He likes to spin, try to stand still, and point at things that are funny. When it settles down he asks, "Is all done? What hap?" (happened) Then he exclaims, "Moe-wa! Moe-wa!" (more) and spins more. After a few spins, he starts trying to chase the moving things, which is simply hilarious.
Quinn really, really enjoys his food sometimes. SO GOOD!

A conversation with Quinn just before dawn. He was pulling back his curtains to look outside...
Q: What dat? What dat?
Me, sleepily: It's the night time sky. It's still sleepy time.
Q: O-way.
He wanders away but then goes back and looks out again.
Q: What dat? What dat?
Me, going to look: Oh! That's the moon. It shines when it's sleepy time.
Q: Moooonuh? It moooonuh?
Me: Yes, the moon. It's part of sleepy time. Come lay down.
Q, coming back to bed: Moooonuh. It up high. Moooonuh.

~Regina