Amelia's Red Carpet Award

Megan, Nathaniel and I went to school on Wednesday afternoon to see Amelia receive a Red Carpet Award.  Her teacher nominated her for this award for demonstrating the school's CARES values - Compassion, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy and Self-control. 

For those who don't want to watch the video, the announcer said, "Amelia Johnson consistently shows responsibility by being ready to learn, making good choices, respecting others, and putting forth her best effort.  Well done, Amelia!"

She was very proud of herself for receiving this award, but she told me that she wasn't really surprised, because she knew she was always very well behaved.

These are the same values that students receive Hootie notices for.  On the way home, Amelia mentioned that she had received Hootie notices for all those values except for Assertion.  We talked about things she could do to show assertion, but I couldn't come up with many ideas for a 5 year old.  Any thoughts from you teachers out there?

What the girls have been up to

School was canceled again on Monday and Tuesday for bitterly cold temperatures and windchills, and the girls were thrilled to have more time to play together.  They decided they wanted to paint their own nails.  They chose very light colors like glow-in-the-dark and clear sparkles for their fingernails, thankfully.  But they chose bright pink, blue and purple for their toenails.  Amelia did a pretty good job staying on the nails; Megan, not so much.  I had to use quite a lot of nail polish remover to get the nail polish off their fingers, toes, elbows, wrists, the bottom of their feet, and the floor.  Plus, two of Megan's toes were stuck together with nail polish.  But it was all clean-up-able, and they are so proud that they did it all by themselves.

Amelia talked on the phone to Natalie; apparently Natalie asked her what she was doing in school, and Amelia said "I'm not in school now".  She's very literal. 

There was one day this weekend that was in the low 20s, so the girls decided that was warm enough to play outside.  It was pretty windy (windchill around 5), so they only lasted about 15 minutes.  I made them stay on the back porch where I could watch them from inside; I'm a little paranoid after the creepy guys in the red truck scare we had two weeks ago.  Their favorites?  Eating snow, of course.  And they also enjoyed throwing big armfuls of snow up in the air to make it snow on them.

 

When they came inside, they needed hot chocolate. of course!

Isn't it interesting how different their eyes are?

Nathaniel is two months old!

Nathaniel is still a pretty easy baby, and he's been sleeping really well the last few days. I've been getting him to bed around 6:30 or 7 at night, and he will either wake up around 3am or sleep all the way until 6:30am.  After nursing, he's generally pretty easy to get back to sleep in the middle of the night.

I've seen a big improvement in his daytime sleeping in the last few days, too.  I've been able to lay him down partly awake, and he will sometimes put himself to sleep.  And he took a 3 hour nap yesterday afternoon, and is heading towards a 2 hour nap this morning.  He is much happier when he takes good naps, Megan is happy to have some undivided attention, and my back is happy to be able to put him down for a little bit.

He will sleep in his carseat, too, and one day he even stayed asleep after I brought the carseat inside!

He is smiling a lot now, and holding his head up really well.  We've been able to put him in the Bumbo seat for a short period of time.  He's not so fond of it, but that's because he really likes to be held, and would prefer not to be put down at all.

He was not so thrilled to get a piggyback ride from Daddy:

But he loves to be held upright so he can practice his standing.

He enjoyed all the attention when Mom and Dad came to visit last week.

He loves his sisters, although you can't tell from this photo!  He especially loves when they talk to him and show him his toys.  Megan is especially enthusiastic about giving him hugs and kisses, and Amelia likes to read him books.

We encourage him to do some tummy time, and he is getting better at holding himself up:

But he still likes to roll over as soon as you put him down.  He has rolled over to both sides from tummy to back, but is nowhere near rolling over back to front, thankfully!

"Oh ho!" says Nathaniel with a mischievous glint in his eye.  "You think you'll roll me back over to my tummy again?"

"I think not!" he exclaims.

He tends to look to the right, so the doctor told me that we have to encourage him to look to the left as much as possible, so his head doesn't get any flatter.  He doesn't really like to do that, so I have to hold his head down to the left while pressing his shoulder to the floor to stretch out his neck muscles.  He doesn't like that, either.

 He's just started blowing bubbles:

And you may notice that he is wearing real clothes in these last few photos.  I dressed him in a onesie, pants, and a fleece hoodie specially today, so that I could say he does in fact wear real clothes sometimes.  But now I'm going back to sleepers, because those zippers are so much easier than pulling a onesie over his head (and he's already growing out of this 3 month onesie).  Amelia and Megan picked out the hoodie; it says "Mom's Tiny Monster".  They love the three eyes!

A snowy Saturday

Today is yet another cold and snowy Saturday, one of many cold and snowy days this already very long winter.  So once again, we are stuck inside.  Thankfully, the girls are great at entertaining themselves by playing with all their toys.  And the baby's toys.  And the contents of our recycling bin. 

Here the girls are trying to fit into our baby Bumbo seat:

And Megan decided to try to eat the Happy Apple:

Then Amelia built an ice cream machine.  According to Amelia, the ice cream is stored in the milk bottle on the far right side of the photo, then is blown with a fan up into the horizontal tubes, then travels through the tubes into the clear plastic container, where it is mixed together.  Then it is pumped into the next plastic tube, where it is dispensed into the tin can and poured into the plastic scoop, which is then tipped over into the plastic cup underneath. 

Here Amelia is dispensing ice cream for Megan.

Amelia is explaining what flavors of ice cream she can make, and Megan is eating a strawberry-banana swirl cone:

Nathaniel is wishing that he could eat some ice cream!

Tomorrow is another day...

... thankfully!  Today was not such a good day.  And it's not over yet, as I just heard Nathaniel start screaming again, after I spent the last hour and a half trying to calm him down when he's supposed to be going to bed.

 Look, there's Nathaniel screaming when he was supposed to be napping!

And there's Nathaniel screaming after his soothing, calming bath!

 Well, perhaps he'll calm down and fall asleep whilst snuggled in Mommy's arms?  Nope!

Maybe he'll be happier after he's had his diaper changed?  Wrong again!

Perhaps he'll calm down when he's in his carseat?  Oh, no, guess not!

Well, at least Amelia and Megan had happy days today, right?  NO!  You would be wrong again!

Here's Amelia fussing after I put a band-aid over her mouth as a consequence for talking to me impolitely.  (It was only on for the time it took to change Nathaniel's diaper, and I hope it delivered the message, because she really hated it!)

And here's Megan crying under her bed because she's upset that I "did a mean thing to Amelia" by putting a bandaid over her mouth.

I will adapt a line from Casino Royale and just say, oddly, their feelings mimic my own.