Happy Fourth Birthday, Christian!

Christian's Pic in the School Newsletter

It has been a while since we've seen a pic of Christian in his school's newsletter, and so we were excited today to see he was in TWO pictures this time.

I love the face he's amking when his hand is in the pumpkin! :)

Christian's 2011 Birthday Card for Sprout

Our little guy's fourth birthday is tomorrow - I can hardly believe it!

This year's Sprout card is similar to last year's card, in that "Calliou" is the "theme" (the card must feature a character from "Sprout").   I selected this same theme again because Calliou is a four year old kiddo, and the theme song (which is on the front of the card) works nicely for Christian.

I was down to the wire on getting this card in by the deadline.   If I was successful, the card will hopefully air on Sprout sometime tomorrow!  And if it does, hopefully I can record it and post the video online, like last year.

front of card



Inside of card

Happy Halloween!

As always, Christian makes me laugh!

For two weeks preceding Halloween, Christian would say - out of the blue - "I don't want to go trick or treating."

As the big day approached, I told Christian he was going to be a train engineer for Halloween.  Since he loves trains, he seemed pretty okay with the idea.

So we got him dressed last night and took him to the part for pictures.  Initially he refused to wear his hat and bandana, saying, "I don't want to be an engineer!!"    But eventually he warmed up to the idea.

Two houses down from ours, several neighbors had gathered to hand out candy.  I carried Christian over there - crying and protesting - with the hopes that he'd get inspired to do a little trick-or-treating.   He was really hesitatn at first, but when he was given three big handfuls of candy, he got very excited, "I GOT CANDY!!!"

He told everybody, "I'm a costume!"   Oh, it was so funny ... he thought he was a COSTUME!   I reminded him he was a train engineer.  So then he'd say, "I'm a costume!  I'm a train engineer!"

I went back home to hand out candy, and Christian and Jonathan went trick-or-treating for a few minutes.   When they returned, Christian was VERY excited to dump out all his goodies - it was so cute.

Wordless Wednesday - October 26, 2011

Three Years in Pumpkin Pics

This year marks our third year of going to the local Pumpkin Patch ... and that makes the event an annual tradition.  

I present to you three consecutive years of Christian picking a pumpkin.   How cute!

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

2009

2010

2011

Pumpkin Patch 2011

More Pumpkin Patch 2011

(click to enlarge)

Muffin Monday - October 17, 2011

One of the best places to have "Muffin Monday" is Barnes and Noble.  Here's why:

1. It's always nice and cool
2. It's clean
3. There's a bathroom
4. There's food and drinks
5. Christian is entertained the entire time
6. We adults can grab something of interest to look at, too.
7. Christian no longer gets upset that we don't buy him something every time. WHEW!
8. And ... he no longer gets upset when we tell him it's time to leave.  DOUBLE WHEW!

Dancin' Dancin!

We paid a visit to Best Buy today, and Christian discovered the Xbox Kinect and the "Just Dance" game they had on the TV and started dancing all over the place.  He was so energetic and so happy!

Funny thing is, we have the "Just Dance" game at home on our Wii.  It's been a few months since we tried it with him, and back then, he wasn't interested.

Time to break out the game again.  I think he'd LOVE it now!

Wordless Wednesday - October 12, 2011

We Found More Trains!

In case ya'll didn't know, Christian LOVES trains.  And happily, we found a new train place in Phoenix to take Christian to.

Waiting with Papa for the train to arrive.

 Getting on board!

Anxiety starts to kick in when Christian sees Mommy won't be coming along for the ride. 

Christian decided the train wasn't for him.

Papa still wanted to ride the train, so Christian and I ventured off to the model train exhibit.

Papa returned from his exciting train ride (which broke down along the ride,

so I'm glad Christian didn't go after all.  It was a hot day).   We went outside to look at a larger model train.

We gave Christian a few minutes of doing that and then told him it was time to go.

WHOOOO LAWDY!   The fit Christian had ... unbelievable!

Papa's awesome solution?   On-site time out for three minutes.  

It worked ... Christian sat there and calmed down.

Tuesday Giggles

Christian just cracks me up these days.  Whenever he says something funny, I try to remember it so I can share with ya''ll ... and I'm typically unsuccessful.

Here are a couple of funny statements from the past 24 hours:

Yesterday, I was getting Christian undressed and was trying to get him to help out.   I said, "Take off your underwear, please."  He replied in a very whiny voice, "No, you do it."   I said, "Christian, please take off your underwear like a big boy."   His reply, in that same very whiny voice, "I'm not a big boy ... I"m a little girl."  I guess that was the best excuse he could come up with to not get undressed.

This morning, I walked into his room and said, "Good morning!"   He cheerfully replied, "Good morning, mother dear!"

Mother dear?   Ha ha!  Haven't heard that one before!

Auntie Liz Comes a Calling

Today Jonathan departed for a week in Southern California.   Happily, Auntie Liz stopped by to keep us company.  Thanks, Auntie!

Happy Fall!

Happy First Day of Fall!  (that is for those of you not living in the Phoenix area).

Happy "The Temps Are No Longer 110+!"  (that is for those of you living in the Phoenix area - though, today is supposed to reach 107 - mighty close to 110!).

Still super hot here, but the overnight temps have gone down significantly (mid to upper 70s, as opposed to upper 80s/low 90s), so its not as not in the mornings.

Christian and Jonathan were able to get out and play outside the other day - finally.   And despite not being able to ride his tricycle since May, Christian took off today peddling ALL BY HIMSELF!    At last!!

Muffin Monday - September 19, 2011

This week's Muffin Monday had an unexpected surpirse!  Christian ate a chicken sandwich!

What's the big deal, you ask?   

Christian is a VERY picky eater and rarely tries anything new.   He'll eat chicken by itself.  He'll eat bread by itself ... but the only "sandwich" he'll eat is PB&J. 

Today, Jonathan bought hima mini chicken sandwich from Chic-fil-A, hoping that Christian would eat some chicken and some bread ... when lo and behold, Christian ate the two together as a sandwich.

Yep, little things like that get us VERY excited around here!   Progress is progress!! :)

Puppy Love

I remember being nervous about how Bella would react to having a baby in the house when Christian was born.   Happily, she's never given us reason to worry in the nearly four years that Christian has been with us.

Our "two kids" actually get along quite nicely!  He likes to call her up on our bed, says "Hi, Bella!" to her when he comes into his room, and likes to throw her toys for her to chase.   

He laid down next to Bella today and told her, "Lick me!"   She's not a licky kind of dog, but she oblighed and gave Christian a few licks ... and he loved it!  "Bella's licking me!!" he squealed.



Thunder and Motorcycles

Christian has always been a bit afraid of loud noises, though in recent months it appeared that fear my have subsided so it wasn't something I've thought too much about lately.

When I picked him up from school on Friday, he rushed to the door and said, "I want to go home!!"  His teacher explained that there had been a couple of loud claps of thunder and it really scared him.  When she'd try to explain thunder to the class, Christian would tell her, "No, stop!!"

One the drive home, I asked him if he wanted me to tell him about thunder, and he agreed.  I said,

"Well, sometimes when its cloudy,
and lightening strikes
The thunder roars.
Its just a sound way up high in the sky,
and thunder cannot hurt you."

He had me repeat the explanation over and over again and by the time we got home, he'd pretty much memorized it.  (Kinda funny, because when he recites the explanation, he starts off with a big "Well," just the way I did.)

I put him down for his nap, as usual, and he was VERY upset when I left the room.  I tried explaining that I'd be down the hall in my office, as always.   But he was just too freaked out by the thunder.  So I stayed in his room with him and while he was content with met here, I finally had to give up on nap time for that day.  He just wasn't going to fall asleep.

Yesterday when I picked him up from school, the same thing happened:  he rushed over to me, "I want to go home."   His teacher told me that a very loud motorcycle had gone past the school and the noise scared Christian.

I explained motorcycles to him and put him down for a nap.  He seemed to be okay, but when I left the room and took Bella outside to the backyard, I came inside to find Christian crying hysterically because I was gone.  Eventually, I was able to convince him to take a nap.

But then ... after he woke up, a storm rolled in with LOTS of wind and thunder.  As it started, I turned on a noisy fan, and turned up the volume on the TV to help drown out the thunder.  Alas, none of it worked and he was keenly aware of the thunder - and scared.

Unfortunately, even before these newest noise issues, Christian has been having a hard time sleeping at night.   For several months, Jonathan has been sitting outside Christina's door right after he says goodnight to him and just does stuff on his computer.   For the past few nights, Christian continues to call out, "I'll be right here!" (just a direct repeat of what Jonathan tells him as he leaves the room each night).  And he calls it out over and over again, checking to make sure Jonathan is still there.

Also recently, Christian wakes up crying out for me at all hours of the night.  Might be 11:30am, might be 4:30am.  Might be twice a night.   Just depends.   We've always shut Christian's door after he falls asleep and we figured that maybe he would wake up and get upset that his door was shut.  So we started leaving it open and that seemed to do the trick - he slept through the night.

But alas, with Christian being scared over these loud noises in the past few days, he's started waking up again..  Last night, Jonathan didn't come to bed until 11:30am because Christian could not fall asleep.   And then I was up twice throughout the night when Christian would call out to me frantically.

So we're handling it the best we can.  It is not a case of being defiant about going to bed, or that he's just wanting to get up and play.   I think Christian is genuinely frightened by something and his fear of loud noises isn't helping.

And how do you rationalize with a three year old that the noises from thunder and motorcycles cannot hurt you.   He tells me over and over, "Thunder cannot hurt you.  I'm not scared of thunder."

But, indeed, he is.   My poor lil' guy!

Muffin Monday with Mommy - September 12, 2011

Jonathan had to work today, so I was in charge of Muffin Monday.

I thought a visit to a nearby library would excite Christian, given his love of books.  His interest got no further than the library lobby, which had an enitre display case devoted to Thomas the Tank Engine.  Christian was absolutely amazed!   I was able to coax him into the library itself, but his true interest was in that display case, so we didn't really get much library action afterall.

Afterwards, we were driving around looking for a place for breakfast to make the day a true "Muffin Monday."   Christian just about busted out of his car seat when he saw Barnes and Noble - perhaps one of his all-time favorite places to be.   I bought him a scone at the cafe there, but he was too excited about the books to actually sit and eat.  So he'd break off pieces for ME to eat to speed the process along.  "You all done, Mommy?" he lept asking me.

We weren't on a a particualr timeframe, so we stayed at B&N for quite some time ... and Christian really had a nice time.   A successful Muffin Monday! :)