The dreamer

emily has very vivid dreams.

today she came in our room at 7 sharp. she's the human alarm clock. anyway, she got in our bed and started telling dan about a dream she had. i was half-asleep, and half-listening.

"hey dad, i had a dream about bob and larry last night. i dreamed i was cutting them up and was going to cook them. they were yelling..."

the vision i had of her cutting up bob and larry made me laugh out loud. dan was like, yeah, we like to eat our vegetables.

poor bob and larry.

Precious Wecious (weshess) Elliot

how would you spell that?? i took a guess since it's a made up word and all. anyway, that's what i call him, my precious wecious. ethan is my sweet boy and emily is my silly girl. just so y'all know. :)

elliot turned 13 months old yesterday. time flies!! these are good times. he's a sponge, learning lots of new things. his language skills are getting better. he'll copy you if he feels like it, says mama, waves bye and says it too. he shakes his head no as well. i don't think he really knows what he's doing, but it's funny. ethan was a late talker because emily talked for him. i think elliot will be somewhere in the middle.

elliot saying bye and going for the door

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emily and ethan really enjoy him, and he really enjoys being around them. when they are upstairs and he is down, he'll stand at the gate and shake it and yell out for them. it's funny. i've got to get that on video. it's like he's saying -- hey, get down here and play with me! it's fun to see him get excited when he sees them.

when he was 6 months old he learned to crawl. at 7 he learned to crawl up the stairs. yesterday, at 13 months old he tried for the first time to scale the gate. this past christmas my MIL gave a charm with a monkey face on it. little did she know he would turn into one. we joke he learned his monkey skills by listening to curious george in my belly. i had to grab the camera quick, but this is him in the act at 7 months climbing up the stairs!

this was the first time i tried to get him to say bye.

instead, i caught him on camera trying to scale the gate!

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this week his second tooth pushed through. you for get how sharp and white those new teeth are!! i can't wait until he has a mouth full -- then maybe he'll eat some table food!! he's a lot like emily with food texture. he just pushes the least little chunk out of his mouth. he'll eat french fries though. at least we can have a good time when we are out to eat. he'll gum a fry until it's nothing but starch. :) look close and you can see one of his teeth!

before i know it he'll be a true toddler, saying no and doing all the other things toddlers do. i'm not so sad anymore about him being our last. i'm ready now to have fun with three kids who are more portable. about 3 weeks ago i took them all to baton rouge to see their mae mae. it was not so bad. maybe we'll do things like that more often since he's getting older. but i do think it'll be a while before we take another 6 hour trip to BR...

troy, elise, emily and me trying to get him to say, noooo

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i think our family is complete. although today emily asked if she could have a guinea pig, and ethan said he did not want a guinea pig, he wanted a tiny, tiny dog someday, but today he wanted to pet a cat. how tiny of a dog? i thought. doesn't matter -- we are not getting any pets. we've got emily convinced we can't have a bird because birds live in trees and a tree can't fit in our house. so anyway, the human side of our family is complete. :0

Emily knows who's in charge...

friday after supper the kids were in the den while we were watching tv. dan was skimming through the colbert report. it's rare they ever sit down and actually pay attention to anything that's on - but emily sat on the couch and was very interested in the program. she knows quality news, i tell you. anyway, colbert was interviewing carl bernstein about his new book about hilary. it was entitled something like, the woman in charge. emily's eyes got really big and she looked at us and said in no uncertain terms, "oh no, mom. that woman is not in charge - God is in charge". yes, emily, He is. :) ya-hoooo!

btw - she was very serious. it was also very funny, and we did laugh as we told her she was right. ethan got offended and asked why we were laughing. cute kids, gotta love VBS.

YA - HOOO and the like

our church is in the throws of VBS. we do Group's VBS, so this year we are at the Avalanche Ranch. my kids are really getting things out of it - even as preschoolers. if you are not familiar with Group, they have a theme that runs through the day. when they here the theme of the day, they give a hearty, YA-HOOOOO. i was not really aware the preschoolers were being taught to scream the ya-hoo, but i found out about it when the kids and i went to kroger monday. all of a sudden ethan said, hey emily, God is Real!! emily yelled, ya-hoo! i laughed. of course, normally i ask them to refrain from screaming in stores, but hey, what am i gonna say about that one. i'm a site leader on the school aged side. i do the Bible Adventures. monday i was rahab. that was a fun character to play.

the themes are: God is Real, God is with us, God is Strong, God is Awesome and God is in charge. i really like the daily themes. monday emily told me she knew that God left us his spirit, and yesterday she told me God was with her all the time. i don't think dan and i have ever told her about the holy spirit -- we are still in bible story mode, i guess. tomorrow the plan of salvation is presented to the older kids, so if you think about it, pray for our Bible school.

some of our first graders building the jericho wall

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ethan and emily both got to go on stage today. i missed emily's stage debut, but i did get a little shot of ethan. he does not look so happy, but later he sure talked about how much he loved it!

we've got a couple of projects going on. dan is building cabinets to go over the toilets in the bathrooms. evidently a place to put towels was an upgrade in this house. the cabinet space STINKS!! i've made it my mission to paint all the doors, door facings and trim all the same color; bright white. the crazy people who've owned this house in the past have had no taste. every room has different colors, one of them being this crappy linen color. you'd think it would be nice, but it just makes the baseboards look dingy. i was always thinking they needed to be dusted or something. it was driving me crazy. so, i'm going to paint it ALL!! i'm gonna paint the game room in a circus theme. one wall will be a big top...it's gonna be bright up there. but hey, it's a playroom.

elliot got his first haircut last week. it was so sad. the girl REALLY butchered him. he looks like she put a bowl on his head and cut around it. really. i hope it grows back soon.

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look at my short hair!

oh, and this is the first week i'm keeping the kids from down the street. today after Bible school i met another mom with her two kids at mc donalds. getting 5 kids out of the car without getting hit in the parking lot was hard. i can't imagine having that many all the time. i don't think we'll be going many places this summer that requires a long walk through a parking lot. :)

well, that's it - i'm sure after Bible school is over i'll many more tales to tell!