A Good Day

Today is Memorial Day, and we ended up having some old friends over for brunch. We met their two kids, hung out, and just generally had a great time. We also just got in from spending almost two hours in the backyard, which might be a record for us in one sitting. We played in theie little kiddie pool and then had hot dogs and sausages with homemade chili and watermelon. Very stereotypical, right? It was a great day, even though Micah REALLY doesn't want to sit in the water. He did, however, want to spend an hour pouring water into a cup. I wish I could be entertained that easily...

First, Alexis. Her fourth birthday party was awesome. We invited her friends over and EVERYONE came, which we didn't expect but was awesome. We scheduled it for 10-11 on a Saturday morning, and basically they all played downstairs int he ball pit and then came upstairs to have some cake after singing happy birthday to her. Jason's favorite moment was when everyone was singing to her, and she was so delighted that she got shy and started hiding her face in her daddy's legs. It was adorable. I made her a butterfly cake and a maardvark cake, which were both a hit, especially the maardvark cake. I am never again, though, making two birthday cakes and decorating them for this girl. We asked people not to bring presents because we're really trying to prevent her from going into overload with presents, but a number of friends made their own cards and brought them to her, which I thought was really, really nice. It was a good time. She also got a free meal at Red Robin, one of her favorite restaurants, and the staff sang to her and brought her ice cream, and she got a free meal at Chick-fil-a and one of the managers came and brought her a little "eat more chicken" cow. Overall, she had a great birthday and got lots of presents from family that she is enjoying a lot.

Alex is recently doing a really great job writing letters, so we've written a few notes to people. I tell her how to spell, and she writes it. She's been dealing in capital letters and I've wanted to move on to lowercase letters soon, and that was affirmed by a friend at church who works as a reading specialist who has to get kids to unlearn writing words in all caps. I know what's on my agenda for this week.

Micah is our boy of despair. If he doesn't get his way, he despairs. If someone takes something from him, he despairs. If he doesn't want to eat, he despairs. (Okay, so I am speaking hyperbolically. Kind of.) He is so happy when he's happy, but when he is sad (and he's teething and had a cold before that), he is miserable. It takes quite a bit of patience, but time outs seem to be helping some.

However, he does know his alphabet. He confuses v for y and z for s, but otherwise he's prety accurate most of the time. It's cool because I can just point at a letter and he says the name instead of me getting him to choose the correct letter. We'll start working on lowercase letters soon, but I'm pretty proud of him for his uppercase letters. He is also trying to count and knows numbers 1-5 pretty well and a few others, but not consistantly yet. He also tries to sing the alphabet song and count, both of which are really cute. He doesn't know colors or shapes yet, but we're working on those. He does, however, know most body parts, which is pretty cool.

Also, about a week and a half ago we switched him to a toddler bed, and he did an AWESOME job. I think he has seen hers and was excited about it, and we've really had very few problems with it. That's really nice in the midst of his other crankiness.

It is now family pie time (where we sit down and eat some pie, exactly what it sounds like), so that's it for now.