Big Big House

Forgot to load this with the last post. Here's a little clip of the kids dancing to "Big House" (Kellen's second favorite song to "Puff the Magic Dragon" ... Thanks Granddad H!! ;) )

Play Date

Yay! Cailey spent the morning with us and made the day just fly by! The kids played so well together and we were very busy. They played guitar and drums, traced themselves on large sheets of paper and then decorated them, baked chocolate chip cookies (I was so impressed that Cailey can carefully crack an egg - no shells in the batter!), played "mall," danced to loud music in the living room, ate lunch, played in the playhouse outside and had lawnmower races up and down the hill. I can tell this afternoon that Kellen and Addie are worn out from all the fun. And I'm happy to have a big container of fresh chocolate chip cookies to occasionally swipe from! ;)

Little bakers in the kitchen - showing off what they made!

Taking care of Ellary - she was very wiggly!

Growing Pains

Poor Kellen. I think he's in the middle of a growth spurt, and we've woken up twice in the middle of the night lately to him just screaming in pain. He's had a charlie horse in one of his legs, and it takes us about half an hour to walk it out, massage it out and straighten it out. We've been reading that leg cramps are common in growing boys, and I can totally feel for him as I had terrible leg cramps when I was pregnant with Ellary. The weird thing is, BOTH times this has happened, I woke up the next morning with a very sore calf muscle myself. Geof says Kellen and I must be very connected and I'm having sympathy pains for him. :) So now Kellen gets his legs massaged before bed time, and if I can get to the store, we'll add a banana to his getting ready for bed routine. Hopefully he'll take a little break from growing and get some relief from the cramps.

A Cool Drink of Water

Here's a funny little video of EB drinking from a glass. Geof was holding her during dinner and she grabbed for his water glass and started drinking from it. Kellen and Addie thought it was really funny. Today, every time I was holding both her and a cup, she grabbed for my cup and wanted to drink out of it. A new found skill. :)

Bowling

Kellen's been saying he wants to go bowling for his big 5th birthday, but he's never been bowling. We weren't sure if he'd really like doing that, so tonight we decided to take them bowling. Geof, Kellen and Addie had a good time playing one game while I bounced a very fussy baby and tried to grab a few pictures! Addie was hysterical and definitely wins the prize for the world's slowest bowls. At one point her ball just stopped half-way down the lane and Geof had to knock it with another ball to clear things out. It was just so comical watching the painfully slow progression of her ball toward the pins, and once it got there the pins usually just stopped the ball instead of the ball knocking them over!

OK, notice that Addie has released the ball, and yet it is just 2 inches from the starting line. After about 10 minutes it reached the pins... :)

Addie was the queen of follow-through. She stayed frozen with her arms up after each release. Kellen was good at just hurling it down the lane.

Kellen seemed really lit up about the whole thing, but he has announced that he does NOT want to have a bowling party because it would be just too crowded there. So we'll have to come up with something else.

Hoos Gotten to Kellen?

This morning, Addie and Laura went off to a movie together and Kellen and I prepared for the important UVa-Virginia Tech match-up at noon. Shortly before kick-off, Kellen came down and announced to me that he wanted Tech to win. Although I have been a lifelong UVa fan (this is Geof typing), Laura's dad and two brothers all went to Tech, so Kellen has gotten his fair share of indoctrination from their end. I told him that was great and suggested he make himself a Tech sign.

A few minutes later he arrived back in the living room and, without a word, taped the pictured sign to the wall by the TV. He hadn't asked me for any help and looked extremely pleased with himself. He added the element in the bottom right somewhere during the first half. It's the UVa logo with a "don't sign" through it. I don't know where this kid comes up with this stuff. I got to hear "Go Hokies" sporadically from my nearly-5 year old this afternoon as I endured a disappointing (to me, anyway) UVa loss.

Oh well, we'll get him back during basketball season ... game on, Kellen!!!

Special Delivery

We've been getting lots of boxes delivered to the house in the last couple weeks thanks to early Christmas planning and doing our Christmas shopping online. Last night Geof brought me this adorable little package...