Welcome Home, John...

Hannah's piggy fantasy is getting a little out of hand. She has written several books about her three babies and her piggy family, and she and Joshua have now made paper cutouts of the pigs (pictures to come), which even came to church with us today tucked inside a doll carrier. (They were only allowed because I figured the kids would be more reverent if they had their babies there. I was right.)

Early yesterday morning she came to tell me that her husband (the piggies' father) was "home from the military." She talked my ear off about her husband, John Shadrach, and how her name was now Hannah Rae Shadrach, and her baby piggies' full names are Rose Butterfly Shadrach, Tulip Pearl Shadrach, and Daffodil Rae Shadrach. I don't remember what else she said because it was a lot of information to process at 6:30 in the morning, but it was pretty impressive to see her little mind working as she made this up right on the spot.

If I remember I will offer to take their portraits tomorrow so we can get some pictures up here. They are pretty cute piggies, even if I am a biased grandma. :)

Hannah and Parent-Teacher Conferences

Hannah's toothless grin -- she's missing 3 teeth. I think she looks super cute with that huge hole in her mouth.

I don't know what is going on with my computer but I can't seem to type without underlining. No idea how to fix that of course so oh well.

Hannah is getting to be such a big girl. I can't believe she will be 7 next month! She's only ten inches shorter than I am, and although I'm not what you would consider tall...or even average...I kind of always figured she'd be my "little" girl for longer than this! :( But I can't complain too much because she is turning out to be such a great kid. She is so creative and hilarious. Her "thing" lately has been an obsession with her 3 invisible Angry Birds piggies. (She's the only kid I know that likes the pigs better than the birds, but then, she's always rooted for the predator. She used to watch shows about animals and when the wolves are chasing the deer, she cheers for the wolves. She's also been known to describe Winnie-the-Pooh's friend Piglet as "delicious". If nothing else, she has a bright future as a butcher.)

Anyway, she has these three baby pigs, gender neutral but named Rose, Tulip and Daffodil. She takes them everywhere. When she walks to school she holds her hands out in front of her like she's pushing a baby carriage. After school she tells me all about what her piggies did during the day, and she spends the rest of the day bathing, feeding, and changing them, wherever we are. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now probably, making it officially the longest-running "imaginary friend" we've ever had at our house. (The only other one was a boy named Fabric that Hannah had as a friend for a week or so when she was 3.)

(As a side note: I just went upstairs to check on them and Hannah showed me the new "curtain" she hung up around her bed because she is apparently giving birth right now.? She's very imaginative!)

I had a conference with her Mandarin teacher today (who teaches all of Hannah's subjects except English). I love parent-teacher conferences. :) Ms. Wass loves Hannah to death and thinks she is perfect. That's pretty much the only thing I've ever heard from Hannah's teachers. She also said that academically, Hannah is the "advanced of the advanced" and scores 100% on almost everything, including her state benchmark tests. In Mandarin, they were recently tested on instantly recalling 87 characters from throughout the year, and without any review Hannah was able to identify 80 of them. Go Hannah!

Tomorrow we meet with her English teacher, and I'm sure that will be fun too. I talked with her in passing last week and discovered that they have been writing pieces about a hero of theirs and Hannah chose Mommy. :)

Hannah is so sweet and lovey, and always tells me I'm perfect and that she always wants to be with me. (How much longer can I expect that to last? I have a feeling I'd better enjoy it while I can.)

Eli, aka "Lowly"

I meant to update around 1 year, but now is just as good. Eli will be 19 months soon, and he's definitely more exciting now than he was then. :) He definitely likes to do things his own way and on his own timetable. For example, he finally tried clapping his hands at around 13 months old, and even learned how to wave at about 17 months. What an overachiever! :) Hannah and Joshua both spoke in sentences by this time in their lives so this has been a different experience for us. Eli's speech finally started to pick up over Christmas vacation. That's not to say that he was quiet before that; he definitely likes making noise, and spends a lot of time just yelling for the fun of it. The first "conversation" I ever had with him, a month or so ago, was so cute and totally unexpected. It was:

(me) -Say "mommy"!

(Eli)- Why?

(me) - uh...because I said so?

(Eli) - Okay (more like "ogay")

(me) - ...say "mommy"!

(Eli) - Mommy!

One of his favorite activities is running the full length of our house, from front door to back, just yelling. He likes it even better if he thinks you're trying to "get" him and he will get grabbed and tickled.

Eli is super cute little guy, full of personality and life and mischief. He LOVES having his picture taken and will bring the camera, smile until it flashes, and then ask to see "Lowly" (how he usually pronounces his name -- it varies between Lowly, Lola, and Low-lie). He has become such a snuggly and affectionate little boy, loving to give hugs and kisses, especially to Joshua. It is so fun to see these adorable brothers together. Joshua loves and admires Eli and his antics, and Eli loves to see Joshie and Hannah enjoying and laughing at him. One of his favorite things to do is make faces while we're sitting at the table. His favorites are a big grin with his eyes shut super tight, or doing this seizure-like shaking with his arms outstretched, eyes open super-wide and his mouth stretched wide. He is such a clown.

Eli's favorite things are taking baths, Elmo, being outside, Elmo, being outside, Elmo, and being outside. Once he gets outside, he will take off and RUN. We sometimes call him Trotsky because a steady trot seems to be his only speed. He even walks all the way to school to pick up Hannah. (I didn't have Joshua do that til he was 3, and even then I felt guilty!) He is much more trouble than the others were at this age too. If we have the baby gate down and he gets into the kitchen, he automatically goes straight to the thing that has the most potential for disaster -- straight to the cupboard to drop a glass lid on the floor (yes, it shattered. Into dust.), in the other cupboard to spray hydrogen peroxide everywhere, or reaching up on the counter to pull down a new bottle of maple syrup. If there's a bathtub full of water, all the books go in; and sometimes a rubber duck gets a bath in the toilet.

My favorite thing about Eli is his dancing and singing. Even though he couldn't talk, he started singing months ago, and somehow you could actually identify which songs he sang. He of course sings Elmo's Song, and a couple of others from those videos, and a couple of Frankie Valli songs. He's a pretty good and enthusiastic little singer. I need to get it on videotape. He also gets REALLY excited about dancing, and is always tapping/stomping rhythmically on the floor, twirling around, or bouncing, especially when he hears music or sees someone dancing on a movie (usually an Elmo movie). I all of a sudden broke into a frantic tap dance for him today and his face LIT UP like a Christmas tree. He was SO excited by it! It was so funny! Seth said later that he thought Eli was going to explode into stars and happy faces.

Eli is definitely a bundle of joy when he's not whining (which is still his preferred method of communication) or eating so much he throws up. (He must have some kind of eating disorder, because he really does not seem able to identify when he's had enough to eat. We have to stop him at every meal. For awhile he was regularly throwing up after eating. For breakfast today, we stopped him after a banana, 3 clementine oranges, and four pancakes with berries and whipped cream. Of course that didn't stop him from begging for the food on our plates.) Love love LOVE that cute little overeater!

Santa's helper...

I give up on trying to update with photos every time. My goal this year is to write on the blog more often just because it's the only kind of journaling I really do and I want to remember the events and moments of family life...amusing and otherwise...

Hannah has such a funny imagination. It comes so effortlessly for her. She is constantly drawing and writing books and all of her pictures and stories have these hilarious little touches in them that make them so unique. When she draws a picture of her family, it's not just people standing there; it's Mommy walking holding Eli, Hannah and Joshie following her with their arms extended straight out in front of them like mummies, and Daddy walking after them looking confused and with a question mark over his head. When she explains the picture, she says Daddy looks like that because he's wondering why H&J are holding their arms out like that. So random! And Eli is looking out from the picture saying "goo" and Mommy is saying "silly baby!"

Anyway, Hannah's latest creative piece from school was pretty funny. In English class, they were given cutouts of Santa's legs sticking out of a chimney, and they were supposed to write what they would do if Santa was stuck in the chimney. (As a side note, I saw several of these hung up in the hallway at school, and they all said they would get Santa a ladder or tell his reindeer to help him out.) Hannah's said: "If Santa was stuck in my chimney I would jump on his bottom!"

Too Long! and A Night at the Emmys

Wow. This is really sad. Eli is fifteen months old next week (oops...tomorrow! No wonder it takes me so long to get around to posting, I have no sense of time!) and I still haven't even updated his one year stuff. Oh well, he's definitely more exciting now than he was at 12 months anyway, but that will have to wait another day or two still.

This post is just to give you all the video of our tango performance at the regional Emmy's back in June. We aren't preofessional by any means, but I was proud of us, I think we did pretty well. There are some pics of our rehearsal/show prep too, just to give you an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nataspsw#p/u/1/eAVNIx1fT8E

Seasons of life

I feel so thankful today for all of the roles I get to play in my life. Today, for the first time in probably 11 years, I had my first performance as a dancer (as part of the Tango with Colette performance group). I was gone for most of the day, and it was SO much fun...getting all dressed up, having a photo shoot, you know...especially as we prepare for our performance at the Emmys in a few weeks...so neat. I loved it.

When I came home, I was just in time to put Joshua to bed. After he was all tucked in with his teddy bears, I laid down on the floor next to his bed and held his hand as he fell asleep. His bears are always covering his face and all I could see was the cute outline of his dark, fuzzy hair, and feel his sweet, pudgy little hand twitching around my fingers as he fell into a deep sleep.

After Joshie was asleep, I came downstairs and snuggled Eli in my arms while he drank his bottle, and we listened to Seth read "Ramona the Pest" with Hannah on the couch next to us. Then we got those two bedded down (everyone by 6 p.m....fantastic!) and my wonderful husband gathered food for our dinner and sat with me to eat and watch a movie and just snuggle. The house is a little messy, and we're up a little late, but the range of experiences I had and roles I was able to fulfill today just amazes me.

Between church callings (EQP for Seth, RS teacher for me), marriage, three kids, and tango (working and dancing), I feel like I am super busy and exhausted most of the time. In the Church we always talk about "seasons" of our lives, which I've usually taken to mean that people should do only one thing at a time (be a mom, go to work, volunteer, do family history...those sorts of things), but I am constantly amazed -- and SO thankful -- that this "season" of my life includes more, and oddly enough these various roles seem necessary to keep each other balanced: dancing helps keep me sane by keeping my own personal identity while being a full-time mother, which also helps me to find joy in being a mother; at the same time, being a wife and mother helps keep me grounded and focused throughout my involvement in the Tango world...which is good cuz I think I'm really going to enjoy the excitement and flashiness of dancing on t.v. :)

In addition to this, I am SO SO SO incredibly blessed to have such a fantastic husband who is SO trusting and supportive of me in all of this. Throughout this busy-ness we have to work together more than we ever have in our married life and we are closer and more thoughtful of each other because of it. I just depend on him and love him so much. I couldn't do anything that I do without him, and of course I wouldn't even have the opportunities I do have without the Lord. And that gratitude is what drives me to support Seth in his calling and fulfill my own, even without a lot of "spare time", because I realize that all of these roles are gifts from the Lord and I don't want to take them for granted or let Him down. And so we come full circle! I'm so thankful for the Lord's hand in my life. I couldn't have planned it half as well myself.

Hannah

Hannah has been pretty funny lately. She is obsessed with Rapunzel and long hair. She uses everything from blankets to measuring tapes tied around her head to imitate long hair. In fact I went to pick her up from her after-school aerobic dance class on Monday and I saw her out there dancing with her skirt on her head (don't worry, she had been wearing pants under the skirt). When they were choosing partners for the last part of class and an older girl skittered away from her to partner with someone else, I suddenly realized...WE HAVE THE WEIRD KID! Ahhh! :) Nah, it's fine, she has lots of friends in her kindergarten class. Maybe the kids just have to know her to appreciate her imagination. I'm glad she's comfortable with herself and not bothered by their reactions. She's so funny.

A funny story: In my family growing up, we liked to scare each other. All.The.Time. We got it from my dad. I think it's stress-relieving for him. Well, I kind of miss that, because although Seth has a great sense of humor (see previous post), he's not much for surprising people.

Anyway, one day last week or so, Hannah woke up on the WRONG side of the bed. She was SO grumpy I'm not sure she even slept IN a bed. Super crabby girl. Usually Seth walks her to school, then heads off to work, but he wasn't quite ready this particular day, and I wanted Hannah OUT of the house so I didn't bother waiting for him, I took her myself. Most of the way there, she was walking (stomping) yards ahead of me on the sidewalk, turning around every few seconds to give me dirty looks and growl at me. After awhile, a bicycle came up behind me and I thought, Oh this will be funny, it's going to scare Hannah to death! Sure enough, as it rode by her she jumped a mile and turned around to look at me, panicked. But she saw me laughing, and snarled at me "It's NOT funny! STOP LAUGHING!" And continued on her march.

So then I decided to have a little fun myself. I sneaked up behind her on the sidewalk, grabbed her around the shoulders and growled. Of course she jumped and yelled as I stood there laughing, but -- believe it or not -- she began to laugh, said "You scared me! That was fun!" and held my hand the rest of the way to school, happy as a clam! As we were walking back home that afternoon, she said, "Remember when I was grumpy this morning, and you scared me and then I was happy?!"

I'm so glad I finally figured out what to do when my kids are moody. This could make life a lot more enjoyable!