Sarah-Bearah

I love watching my children's unique personalities unfold and take flight and want to share a few of my observations about our Sarah Bear. Sarah is the trickster of the family. She loves to pull a good gag from saying things like, "Mommy, the most beautiful butterfly ever is right above your head!" to telling me she isn't dressed yet because she was too busy playing and then immediately popping out of her room fully clothed. It always ends with her saying, "Tricked ya!" In fact she is so into this that I've come to expect what she says to be a trick before I'll buy it as truth. She says she doesn't do this with her teacher and friends and I'm OK with it as long as it stays at home. On the other side of things she is also our sympathetic soul. She is the first one to run and get Jonah's blue raggies when he is in need of comfort. She says things like, "I feel so bad for Aidan" when he is sick and she is the one that frequently prays, "Jesus, please take good care of Papa Terry in Heaven." She worries a lot about who she'll marry (she's hoping for Drew Moreno-a friend from Houston) and what she'll be when she grows up-switching between a softball player, an artist and a fairy princess on a regular basis. She's smart and picks new things up quickly. The other day we were driving to school noticing the beautiful fall colors on the trees. When we passed one that had lost all it's leaves already, out of the blue she says, "That tree is dormant." I then asked her where she heard that and what dormant means. She said her teacher mentioned it on the playground one day and then Sarah gave me the definition perfectly.

Here's one more funny story about Sarah. Back in September Grandma Peggy came to visit us and we took a trip into the mountains in hopes of seeing the Aspens in golden splendor--unfortunately we were a bit too early for this year but it was beautiful none the less. There is a small chapel off the road we travel on that is part of a Catholic Retreat Center. In the past when we've stopped the chapel has been locked but we took a chance again and this time it was open.

After exploring the chapel Katie was in need of a potty break so we headed to the main lodge of the retreat center. As we approached the entrance there was a sign posted on the door which Aidan began reading out loud, "Beware! There is currently a bear on our property..." and Sarah immediately jumps in with, "So run for your lives!!!!!" Her quick wit had all of us laughing and needing a potty break! (FYI-the sign actually read something to the effect of "Beware! There is currently a bear on our property so please don't leave any food outside or in your cars and take caution.")

This is a Narcissus (Paper White) bulb that Sarah "planted" a few weeks ago at school. All they did was stick the bulb on top of some pea gravel in a plastic cup. We've dutifully watered it and it has been amazing to watch it grow. Definitely our best take home seed project ever.

I love the Pumpkin Time of year!

The Rock Creek Pumpkin Farm is literally just down the

hill from our house-it can be seen from Aidan's bus stop.

Is this one good?

Katie's found just the one.

Aidan and Jonah

Sarah and Katie

Aidan watches as Jeremy carves his pumpkin,

Aidan created the design himself!

Yum-pumpkin goo!

Our Little Pumpkins!

Responsibility and Math

Most days I get up around 6:00 a.m. while Jeremy is getting ready for work but on Friday my alarm didn't go off, and I fell back asleep after Jeremy kissed me good-bye. I usually wake Aidan up around 7:15 to get ready for school. At 7:30 I woke up with a jolt and rushed out of our room to go wake Aidan up only to find he was already out of bed. In fact he'd taken matters into is own hands and made himself breakfast. He'd used the bathroom step stool to reach the top shelf of the pantry for the cereal and was calmly eating when I came downstairs. I asked how long he'd been awake and he said since 7:12. He didn't want to disturb me. I helped him finish getting ready for school and then told him I needed a shower before the other kids woke up and asked if he could manage getting out the door for the bus at 8:03 by himself. He was OK with doing that and yelled bye to me through the bathroom door at the appointed time. It makes me wonder if he would have woken me up at all had I continued to sleep or if he would have just seen to everything himself and gone on his way...


While I'm on the subject of Aidan I want to say that we have a math maniac on our hands-he's always had a thing for numbers-when he was four, I'd put him down for a nap and he would lay there and count as high as he could (into the thousands) instead of sleeping if he wasn't tired. He's been assessed extensively at school with regards to math. He's currently in first grade, and it was decided that he would accelerate to third grade math this year. He is doing wonderfully well with the third graders and it seems to be providing the challenge he needs in this area. They have been working on "Number Sense"recently which includes writing numbers in various forms and one day when he came home from school and wrote 1,111 on a paper and then proceeded to come up with all the ways that number can be written-expanded form: 1000 + 100 + 10 + 1, written form: one thousand one hundred eleven; etc. He did all five of the ways they'd worked on in school and wanted to come up with one more and remembered Roman Numerals as a way to write numbers, so we headed to the Internet to look them up which made him quite happy. That is a serious love of numbers!

Diaper Days are DONE!

On Friday night I walked out of our bedroom to see Jonah opening the bathroom door and his buns were bare! He had pulled off his pants and diaper and wanted to sit on the potty. So I put him on and he seemed thrilled with sitting there. He went through the same motions two more times that night but did not produce anything in the potty. Jonah is 20 months old and I really wasn't sure he was ready to potty train so I kept a onsie type outfit on him through the weekend to keep him from removing his diaper by himself-because at some point that could turn disastrous. Yesterday morning when I was putting clothes on him, his diaper was dry so I thought we'd give the potty another try and he had immediate success! He kept his diaper dry all day (including during nap time!) and would come to me and pull me towards the potty when he needed to go. He is the first of my children to approach potty training with enthusiasm and willingness and I am embracing it wholeheartedly! Today he has been in underwear all day and even though he's had a couple accidents he definitely knows what's going on and I have no doubt in two-three days he will be accident free. I'm sure we will be continuing diapers at night time for a while longer but that's no big deal. I am so excited to think that after seven straight years of changing diapers-frequently having two children in diapers at the same time-my diaper days are just about done---and we'll have about $40 more in the grocery budget each month!

I have several stories to share about the kids but can't seem to find the time to sit and type them up. I promise they will be coming soon...