Practicing Up for the Big Birthday

Here is Jake and his best friend and birthday twin, Anderson. Today we cooked play dough after lunch and they have been very busy making things with their imaginations. The favorite thing of the day seems to be their own birthday cakes with tons of candles. Then we had to sing to Jake then Anderson then Jake then Anderson again and again and again and again. And a few dozen more times. It's been a fun afternoon.

The Sucker I Didn't Earn

"I love you mom but sometimes I'm tempted to choose another way." That's what jake just said to me as we were driving to the elephant park.

Somehow Jacob got his hands on a dum dum sucker two days ago. He carried it around in the wrapper for a bit. Eventually he says to me, "Mommy I'm going to keep this sucker and hold it. And when you do something really good to me you can earn it."

Try as I might there was nothing quite good enough that I tried doing to earn it. He reminded me often of the challenge. This morning he remembered nice and early. Panicked, he asked where were his pants. He retrieved his yesterday's pants from the laundry bag and fished the sucker out of the pocket. Then, once again, he reminded me of my goal to do something "so super nice to me" that would merit this precious sucker.

When we got in the can to go this morning I got to sit by him. He shlwed me the sucker and clutched it in his cute chubby fingers as we rode. Then he said, "Actually, I changed my mind. The wrapper is coming off this one. I'm just going to eat it. He ripped the wrapper off and stuck it in his mouth. All I could do was giggle. Giving away a sucker was just too hard for this cute little three year old despite how much his little heart wanted to give it away.

A few minutes later in the car he threw a little salt in the wound. "If you want to know how the sucker tastes, it tastes GOOD."

Lovely Tropical Mold

We took the car seat out while our visitors were here and left it by the front door. This is what happened in about seven days. It's absolutely covered with mold. It is so hard to keep things clean here.

Bali: Night One

We got to our hotel after 11pm. Maddie was in full melt down after bring woke up to disembark the airplane then again after the hour ride to the hotel. The kids did fantastic on the plane. Well, as far as I could tell. I got Ashlyn to the side. Brian had jake one row ahead of grandparents with Ben and Maddie.

This place rocks. There are no other guests and its fancy. We get the run of the whole villa. It's fancy but Indonesian outdoorsy. As in the showers are kinda outside. Grandma Zufelt is gearing up for her shower and checking the curtains to stretch and pull them as big as she can. No worries. It's big enough. Just barely but enough.

Maddie has had her dreams fulfilled. She's sleeping on a bed with a fancy, flowing canopy suspended over her bed with a big hoop. Never mind that it's a mosquito net with an actual purpose in our open air accommodations. She's pretty stoked to close herself in the bed and drift into dreamland a few minutes past midnight.

Jacob loved that they made him fresh pineapple juice and did the happy dance to prove it.

Ben really thought this place was amazing for at least 15 minutes. Then he started realizing what all the rustic-mess meant. He told me, "I really like this place. I just with it was more like our house and not so much like camping.

Ashlyn is happily sleeping in a pack n play with the mosquito net I happened to toss in the suitcase. Those little things God puts in our heads can really help, even if they help someone some other time.

Brian found fireflies in the rice paddy fields the we over look from our own pool. This vacation is going to be awesome!

Now it's well past bedtime. I've given up finding Vietnam visa info for the night at least. The frogs are chirping and the jungle is humming with night life. Time to sleep.

Rainy Season

It's coming into rainy season again. This is the rain storm we walked home in on Friday. I went to the school thirty minutes early to take pumpkin cookies made from the class scarecrow pumpkin head. I thought they'd get a kick out of eating their friends head. Anyway it was cloudy but not bad and I was distracted so didn't bring an umbrella. We were soaked when we got home. Maddie took her socks off and before she even wrung them out the were dripping. The rain can be AMAZING here and turns the streets and sidewalks into flowing rivers. Just watch this video for proof!

Didn't Quite Make It

Ashlyn woke up at 5:30 to eat again. I brought my phone and was studying the lesson I have to deliver today and pondering over issues with kids. I sat rocking her for a while beyond when she finished eating. Enjoying her purity and squishy cute body curled onto me with perfect love and trust. I have not yet let her down or hurt her as is inevitable in the future to come. It's nice to be perfect somewhere when your other parts of life shout questions about how your doing things loudly in your face. I digress. It's been a deep thinking morning.

This post is really about Jacob. So I headed back to my bed 45 minutes later and saw this little guy. Now sure if he actually used the toilet and how long he's been sleeping in the bathroom on the floor. I guess he was just too tired to either climb up on the toilet or maybe just to go back to bed after he was done. I love this three year old!

Going Short

Maddie always wants to go get a haircut when the boys do. Today she decided to go a little beyond a simple trim after she got settled into the chair and she went chin length!

Stand Up

Just pulled up all by herself to play! Can't figure out how to reach the toys on the other side though. Still working on side stepping and balance so we don't pull the whole table over on ourselves. Her other exciting thing? Blowing raspberries. All day long. Just when we got rid of the slobber bib it may have to make a reappearance. Silly girl slobbers too much again. Maybe it's just her version of air conditioning to keep her shirt continuously soaked.

He finally gave up when we went to cook dinner and the tent was finally empty of six year old girls and quiet for 5 minutes. Poor boy is still fighting to get over his case of Delhi Belly. He's exhausted and has been crying over everything all afternoon but I couldn't snuggle or hold him because there was no where to put baby girl down. He did good at plowing through and sucking it up.

Poor Maddie Mae. We went camping today.

She forgot the conditions of where we were going. Then she got mad. "Can't I just pee in the grass?" she asked. No ma'am. You cannot just pee in the grass at Cub Scout camp.

Standard Price

What's the going rate at your house? You know, for everything. From the dinner plate to curtains to kitchen tables and living room windows. At my house it is $500. I tried $100 but at a certain point Ben decided that the $100 threshold was within reason and he could calculate how many weeks of allowance it would take to reach it. It was more than a week but still calculate-able. So everything I own that i don't want my kid to break costs $500. The kids and friends were just playing in our tent and I threw out the "Do you have $500?" threat/question. Ten minutes later I hear one girl ask her brother if he wants to pay $500. Hearing it out of her mouth made me realize how wildly ridiculous I must sound. Still it's kinda funny and gets my point across. I think everything will remain at $500.

How Many Kids Does It Take...

to clean up the oatmeal flakes all over the back wet kitchen? Three. I tried to distribute them evenly across three tasks in different rooms so there was no fighting but the allure of a broom and dustpan sucked them all to the back of the house. So far they are all getting along in that tiny, tiny space collecting the flakes into their dustpans.