Posts (page 2)
Tonight I came home from work for two very full days of teaching...which was wonderful, exciting and mentally exhausting. It was great to get to use my professional brain!
Emory's Godmother stayed with the kids and will do so until the Institute is over next Friday. The kids have been having a blast, and no one even looks the least bit upset when I leave in the morning. It is so nice to be able to go without leaving behind a crying child! I know I don't have to worry one iota while I'm gone, which is such a relief. Tonight when I got home at 6:00, the kids were already done with dinner and were getting their teeth brushed!!! I had to make Emory's bed before I got to say "hello" because her diaper leaked at naptime. I didn't think it would be a good idea to show up and then immediately disappear again, despite being anxious to see them. It was so fun to hear them laughing and giggling and completely happy during bathtime. When I finally did get to go in and see everyone, I loved the excitement in their voices! It's always good to get a chance to miss each other. :) So we finished up bathing and getting ready for bed and went through our usual bedtime routine.
During our prayers tonight, we all talked about what we are thankful for and then asked God for help with some aspect of life that is hard for us...whatever that may be. Alanna wanted help "being good while Daddy is in Italy;" Aidan wanted help being brave in the dark, and for the first time, Emory spontaneously said her own prayer without a prompt..."Help me be patient and with no hitting." Okay...I won't pretend she hasn't heard this numerous times before...though it's usually me asking for patience. But it was so sweet not to prompt her through it. I just wanted to scoop her up! Aidan was saying what he was thankful for, and for some reason he was feeling the need for a little privacy. He didn't want us to hear what he was praying for...but I could pick out names of people in our family that he was thankful for.
Six days to go...
Anyone who knows Emory knows how expressive she is, and how passionate. I have never caught this on video, but it always makes me laugh. Some people talk with their hands...Emory talks with her arms. I tell ya, whatever she does, she does enthusiastically...taking it to the next level. So as she tells us something, no matter how mundane, she might wave her arm out to the side in a very Vanna White-esque manner, with her hand positioned as if she is presenting something. She reminds me of the cantors at church, when they spread their arms to signal the congregation to sing. Her voice is so expressive too, with so many pitch contours. She could probably tell me the most boring story in the world and make it seem fascinating, or at least hilarious because she gets so excited. Plus, she has facial expressions to match. Drama Girl.
On a side note, Jason returned tonight before taking off for Rome tomorrow. He had been in Dallas attending a conference with a rodeo theme. Apparently, they gave pretty nice cowboy hats to everyone and even had someone on-site to steam them into just the right shape. So Jason popped into our bedroom as I was getting the kids ready for bed, with a silly grin and a black cowboy hat. The kids loved taking turns trying it on! Jason even tried his hand at a mechanical bull. Never would've guessed that. :)
So I'm not sure how much I'll have time to blog the next few weeks, so for those of you who get annoyed when I don't update frequently enough...bear with me. Jason is traveling, and I'm working for the better part of two weeks. Here are some funny snippets from the last week or so:
- Alanna presented me with a Mommy Behavior Chart the other day...apparently I can earn stickers for being a good mommy. Fortunately, I earned 10 stickers right off the bat but none since then...guess I better shape up.
- As I was getting ready the other day, I heard Alanna through the bathroom door saying very firmly, "Emory, Listen to me! It makes me angry when you don't listen to me! Emory!"
- Emory has suddenly become more than willing to talk to anyone who shows interest in speaking to her...or more accurately hearing about her dark red Lightning McQueen or her plate that broke recently.
- Aidan is dying to play soccer after going to my Godson's game several weeks ago. Nearly everyday he has asked if we can play soccer, and he always wants to wear his shirt with a soccer ball on it.
- Emory has transitioned beautifully to her big bed, and she told me today: "I love my big bed!"
Here are some photos of the kids kickin' around with Daddy!
This morning we finally got some time as a family since Jason wasn't working...not that it was a holiday for him, but he took a day off anyway. We packed up and headed off to have a picnic at the flower garden on campus. The kids had so much fun feeding the ducks and geese in the pond area, and there was a particularly feisty goose who took a liking to me. The kids sat nicely on a rock and tossed crumbs and big hunks of bread at, I mean "to," the birds while I fended off this goose who looked me in the eye and stepped closer to me every time I didn't throw bread fast enough. He was well within striking distance, so I made sure to "keep up the pace." :) He did not give up, and he was not afraid. Eventually, Emory hopped down on the ground, and the goose was much too close to her for my comfort. I could just see them...Emory reaching for the goose's neck, him snapping at her arm, and the tussle that would ensue. Once we felt like the geese and ducks had eaten enough...and might be on the burst of exploding, we dragged the kids away. Since we weren't quite out of bread, this idea was not well-received. We had a fun picnic though, and the kids played a little soccer with Jason. They had fun, and then we wandered a little longer. By the time we got back to the car, the kids were tired of walking. Aidan was very upset that we hadn't found any more ducks to throw the remaining bread at (I mean "to.") However, all in all, everyone had lots of fun!
Here are a few pictures...there are more on our flickr page...
Alanna made this picture for me yesterday. It started out as a sticker collage, but then she whipped out her pink glitter gel pen that arrived in her Easter basket, and it became a portrait of the two of us. Her drawings have really evolved recently. She's been adding bodies to her faces, and usually she puts little arms and legs. However, today I noticed that I have eyebrows and eyelashes! She put eyebrows on herself as well. (She wrote her name all by herself, too!)
Last weekend we found some plates that they can decorate with special markers. Alanna drew a couple of people on hers and wrote her name. Aidan started out with a heart, but that ended up getting colored over. He wrote names around the edge of his plate as I spelled them out for him: Aidan, Alanna, and Daddy. (Emory and I got the shaft.) He wound up coloring over parts of the names, too, but if you look closely, you can see make them out. Emory colored in the middle of her plate, then she made little scribbles all around the edge as she said the ABCs. Some of the "permanent" markings have come off, and I discovered this morning that you apparently should not cut on those plates. We may have to do it again soon! Oh well...live and learn!
So Emory totally surprised us with moving to the big bed. It has been a seamless transition, and she was not at all the jack-in-the-box I was expecting. I underestimated her again! She loves it and hasn't seemed to have an ounce of difficulty with the change. Yay!
On a side note...I got to go to a Duran Duran concert! It was SO MUCH FUN! I was a huge fan for many years, though I haven't had any idea what they've been up to since the mid-1990's. I had low expectations, especially after some friends told us they saw a horrible show a few years back. I have to say, if Simon Le Bon hadn't had a few pitch breaks here and there, I would've thought it was all pre-recorded. It was actually a great show, and they did a lot more old songs than I expected. (Hungry Like the Wolf, Save a Prayer, A View to a Kill, The Reflex, Planet Earth, Girls on Film, Rio, Ordinary World, Come Undone, Notorious....but not New Moon on Monday, my first D2 song!) I liked some of the new songs, some not so much. I'm so glad I went...plus I got to dance, dance, dance....which I have barely done at all since our wedding reception 6.5 years ago!
Warning: If you are not a Sanderson or a Murray...or have never attended a Sanderson party...you probably won't get this post.
So I mentioned in a previous blog that I was transferring our wedding video from VHS to DVD. Tonight at dinner, Alanna asked me to do "that funny dance." I had no idea what she was talking about at first, but I finally figured out that she was talking about The Rock Lobster. I obliged, briefly...and they thought it was hilarious After their bath, Aidan popped up on the bed and did The Rock Lobster, while watching himself in the mirror...which sent me running for my camera. They were too funny! I popped in our wedding video, so they could hear the music.
They are practicing for a wedding this Fall! (click the image to play the video...)
Tonight is Emory's first night in the big girl bed. We talked it up today, and I think Aidan was more excited about Emory sleeping in a big bed than Emory. She seemed pretty psyched though. After the bed was delivered, I made it up, and she climbed up and laid down, rolled around; she looked pretty pleased with her new bed.
I anticipated that when bedtime rolled around, she'd put up a fuss. Jason took her to bed, and he said she looked pretty excited. We didn't hear a peep from her, and I wondered if she might be quietly entertaining herself with her new found freedom....maybe trying to look at books on the floor or something. I peeked in about 20 minutes after he put her down, and she was sound asleep. She didn't look like she had moved a muscle from when he had walked out. I know she was exhausted from missing her naps yesterday and today, so maybe that helped.
We'll see how the night goes!
This weekend we bought a big girl bed for Emory! Oh my gosh, where has the time gone? I cannot believe we are about to be without a single crib in our home. It is hard to believe just over a year ago we had three cribs, and now we will have none! There are many things that are wonderful about reaching this point...we can go places entirely stroller-free...our children can communicate (most of) their wants and needs...but I just can't help but be sad to see time passing by so fast!
Aidan has been very sensitive..moreso than usual. He saw me with tears in my eyes after taking all the sheets and things out of Emory's crib. His face got so serious, and he looked like he was holding back tears. The same thing happened the other day. I was transferring our wedding video from VHS to DVD, and I stopped to watch a clip of my late grandfather wishing Jason and I a wonderful marriage. I started to cry, and Aidan saw my face and started to cry, too.
Alanna has been really interested in the wedding video, and she has decided she can't wait to marry me when she grows up! :) Somehow, I think she'll change her mind! She loves watching the reception and keeps asking to watch everyone dancing. Toward the end of the video, there is a clip of everyone doing the Hokey Pokey (this was just a funny thing the DJ did after the Murray-Sanderson clan did the Rock Lobster). Anyway, Aidan and Alanna started doing the Hokey Pokey, and Alanna started striking these poses that just cracked me up every time she sang "That's what it's all about!"
This morning we did a grocery store run, and luckily for the kids, there were three kids' shopping carts available! It is hilarious watching them push their carts around. One of the carts is really hard to steer...the wheels barely turn at all. Aidan and Alanna get frustrated with it, but not Emory. I don't know if it's her persistence or brute force that she uses to maneuver that thing around. She's the only one of the three who can handle it! We got to the checkout line with only a few things that weren't on the list...which we caught, thank goodness!
