Benjamin Says...

"One finger on belly, one finger in mouf."  (He still sucks a finger and rubs his belly when he's tired or needs to cope.)

Jonathan's Eagle

You might have to click on the picture and zoom in to get the full effect of this one.  This is a Lego eagle Jonathan built one afternoon...all original, with no help.  The wings are on ball joints, and the beak is hinged.  I can only imagine what else is rattling around in that amazing brain of his.

When She Chooses

This is what we get when the four-year-old chooses the nail polish colors.  (Don't judge the quality of the polishing...this was done by an amateur, not a professional!)

Spiky Fish

I got Grace up from her "nap" one day, and she told me that she had drawn this picture of a fish.  It had spikes all over it, and it has a belly button to be connected to its baby.

At the Dentist (March 8 and 19)

Here are some pictures of the kids at the dentist.  This was supposed to be a checkup for Grace and Jonathan, but it also turned out to be a follow up for Grace's nose dive that cracked her top front teeth.  Benjamin came, too.  I'm sure you can just imagine how fun this was for me, ha!

Fun in the waiting room!

Even though there are TVs in the ceiling, Jonathan had been given a book at school that day, so his nose is buried in the book.  (He got the book as a reward for having a bunch of AR points, and the reward book is an abridged Gulliver's Travels.)

Grace is totally enamored by the TV.  This one would watch all day if I let her.  Which I don't.

Benjamin tried hard to be good.  Which is hard when you just want to touch every dental instrument you see.

I gave him a box of raisins, which is a special-treat type snack my kids love for occasions like this.  And, of course, the good folks at the dental office scolded me for giving him raisins since they are very sticky and will give him cavities and I need to brush his teeth immediately.  Sigh.  With eight years' worth of kids teeth and no cavities, I think maybe I deserve a teensy bit of credit for doing what I can to take care of their teeth.  I mean, I'm not giving them soda or candy or sending them to bed with cups of apple juice...anyway, I didn't think of any good replies in the moment, of course.  I reassured them that I would be careful with my kids' teeth.

Thankfully, Grace's teeth appear to be hanging in there with only superficial damage, no sign of damage to the permanent teeth, no abscesses, no change in color, etc.  And Jonathan has no cavities.  Victory!

However, a mere eleven days after this checkup, Jonathan had yet another tooth event, which I described here.  His follow-up appointment is later this week.  We hope and pray that no root canal awaits us.  Keeping my kids' teeth intact is challenging, raisins or no raisins.

Easter!

Easter, the most special day of the year...celebrating the day that Jesus rose again...for everyone.  Why do we bother to dress up?  Because it's a day worth celebrating!  Here are some pictures of the kids.  I would guess that for every pretty-good picture, I took five duds.  I don't post the duds, though, so I hope everyone enjoys these.  Getting pictures of the kids is almost an olympic event for me.  Jonathan is cold in these pictures, which is why he's kind of curled up.  Still, they're pretty cute.

OK, this was an outtake, but it was so funny, I just had to share it.  I crack up every time I see it.  Not that I don't have compassion on Grace.  Hopefully I'm not the only one who thinks it's funny.

And, a family snapshot taken with the timer.  I set the timer and then jumped in to the picture, of course.

Here I am with my sweetheart.  I think Jonathan took this one for us.

I hope everyone had a joyous Easter!

Preparing for Easter

Easter was a month ago!  Time to blog about it!

Even though Easter is the most joyous day of the year, and the most important to us, it sometimes gets a big lost in the busyness of springtime.  Here are some things we did while we were getting ready to celebrate...

I'm happy to say that we were invited to an Easter celebration on Sunday afternoon, and I got to bring fruit!  I didn't have to cook!  Now that I have a trifle dish (which was very inexpensive and a fun way to serve food!) I thought I should make the rainbow fruit salad that would have been great for Grace's birthday party, only I didn't have time at that point to cut up a bunch of fruit.

I wasn't feeling "into" coloring eggs this year.  They're not really that significant or meaningful, but the tradition is fun, so Jeff persuaded me to do it with the kids.  Here they are in their pajamas, being their goofy selves.

By the way, I did try baking the eggs in the oven to boil them.  (I am terrible at boiling eggs - I always forget about them.)  It worked, and it was easy, but they were hard to peel.  I would do it again!

Jeff plays his trumpet in church once or twice a year (he plays his guitar all the time) and the kids love to listen to him practice.  Here we are hanging out in his office while he practices.  I was tired, obviously, and Jonathan was hamming it up for some camera self-portraits.

And Benjamin is a little ham all the time, whether there's a camera or not.

Of course, my little dancer had to make up some moves to the trumpeting.  She loves dancing around.

The main preparation that we found meaningful this year was reading out of the Jesus Storybook Bible.  I read one story at breakfast each day from the story of Jesus' life, so that by Good Friday we were reading about his death on the cross, and by Easter we were reading about God raising him from the dead and what happened afterwards.  If you are not familiar with the Jesus Storybook Bible, I highly recommend it for adults and kids alike.  It really helped us keep our minds set on what we were celebrating, which is certainly worth celebrating every day of the year!

A Treehouse for Benjamin

Jonathan built this hinged, openable treehouse "for Benjamin" - really for the Lego version of Benjamin.  Here are some of the highlights.

The front entrance and view of the roof, with the house still folded

Back view of the house, with a ladder to get up on the roof.  The roof holds a walkie-talkie and telescope for Benjamin.  No girls are allowed.

Here's Jonathan giving Benjamin a piggy-back ride on the roof.

This is the inside, opened up - from left to right - bed, barrel, macaroni and cheese, fireplace

And the front view of the house opened up, with lots of plants (most of this description was what Jonathan wanted me to write.)

Pooh Corner

We recently took the kids to a play based on the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne.  They both really enjoyed it, and afterwards, all the characters were available for pictures.  (It's pretty amazing that you can get play tickets for about the same price as a movie...but with so much more of a meaningful experience.)  I, uncharacteristically, did not bring the camera, so Jeff took some pictures on his phone.  And, in one more example of the ways our kids are totally different, Grace wanted to pose with almost every character, and Jonathan didn't want to be in any picture...as you can see.

Jonathan, however, was interested in the details of Owl's costume, so he wanted a picture that would allow to examine it up close...without actually talking to the owl, of course.

And here's one more of Grace.

It's fun that Grace is beginning to be old enough to enjoy this kind of thing along with Jonathan...and us.  It won't be too long before Benjamin can join us, too.

Pictures Jonathan Took

Jonathan's class recently went to the zoo, and he was so excited to go!  He brought his camera that Aunt Corinne and Uncle Todd gave to him, and these are a few of the pictures he took.

This is my favorite one.

Jonathan asked to take Benjamin's picture after breakfast, and of course, Benjamin posed for the brother he adores.  It goes to show, you don't need a big, fancy camera to take a great picture.

And yes, this is me, with wet hair, getting ready to brush kids' teeth before the trek to school.

Here are the animal pictures.

Jonathan took three really cute pictures of classmates.  I took them off of the post at the last minute because I don't have any of the parents' permission to post their kids' faces publicly here.  So, just take my word for it - he had a fun day and so did his classmates!