Jaely learns to ride her bike

It only took a few tries and jaely was riding off into the sunset!  Literally. After watching her on her balance bike I knew she could do it. So I took her to the park and no lie within 4 attempts she was doing it on her own. We moved to the pavement where she took off before I was ready to let go!  And then my favorite part. I witnessed her determination tonight. I don't think I've witnessed first hand any child concentrating so hard and be so determined to do anything as she was with starting up all on her own without help. I didn't even have to say to her, "you do it". Or "keep trying". She tried and tried and tried and got it and tried and tried and tried and got it again. And then my very close second favorite part....  How proud she was of herself!!!!  Wow!  "Mom I can't believe I can ride a bike". "I'm 4 and I can ride a bike by myself!" I have one amazing talented little girl. Love her. So proud of her. 

Dinner By Jaely

Jaely made dinner tonight starting with a fruit salad. Oranges peeled by Jacob. 

This is going to be the BEST salad ever as she piled on as many croutons and leaves. 

And finally presenting dinner by Jaely. She even lead prayer: Dear God, Thank you so much for my mommy and daddy and my brothers Jacob and James and for my dog and thank you for being inside me. That makes me not cry. And thank you for my entire house.

Sleeping In

Rarely do I get to sleep in. Today I went back to bed after josh took the kids to school. Usually if I make this decision I'm choosing to deal with the consequences of whatever jaely decided to get into/draw on/ eat while I'm sleeping. Today she crawled back in bed with me. I woke to this.

Best day ever :). 

Broke both bones on his arm!

Jacob leaped off a platform for a bar, missed, fell, broke his fall with his left hand and... 

X-rays are in!  

Going into surgery.

Post surgery photos:

Santa 2013

I missed the first two seconds of the the conversation but jaely starts off by telling Santa she wants a "bow tie that spins..."

This girl always surprises me.

Me: Come on Jaely. It's time to go see Santa. 

Jaely:  is he real

Me:  yes of course

Jaely: does he walk?

Me: yes

Jaely: yessss! I knew it!

Me: what are you going to ask Santa for?

Jaely: a bow tie that spins around in circles 

James in Regards to the Taste of Coffee

It's not ice cream good, but it's not asparagus bad. 

Crushing Creativity

I'll too often we crush our kids creativity.  I'm guilty of crushing mine. Just today my daughter wanted to bake a cake, so she pulled together any ingredients she could find.  Strawberry milk, leftover from Starbucks, water, donuts, and bread. It wasn't until she wanted and egg that she can ask for help.  I rushed out into the kitchen with soap all of my hands from cleaning the bathtub and this is what I found.

I freaked out and grab the bowl to dump it as soon as possible so that it wouldn't be spilled and then I'd have another mess to clean.  Then I became overwhelmed with the sense of guilt because I feared I crushed my daughter's sense creativity. I apologized immediately. Then we decided to bake a pretend cake made out of donuts. Candles and all!  She was so excited it was the first thing she told the boys when we picked them up from school.