Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? & Huh?

A few weeks ago I took Morgan out to lunch. The place mat at the table had some fun facts. The one that caught my eye said: In an average day, a four year old will ask 437 questions. 437! WOW! And my husband wonders why I can easily get irritated when he comes home at the end of a day and starts asking me questions. Even something as simple as, "What's for supper?". Since that is usually Shelby's first question when she gets out of school, and more times than not my answer is met with complaint and whine, I don't want to hear it from him! I feel like he should just be amazed I'm cooking no matter what it looks like! :) Here are some of my favorite things about 437 questions in a day:
- Your answer is never satisfactory
- You killed off 500 brain cells trying to come up with the answer that was not satisfactory
- Is that a boy or a girl? (Usually at a drive-thru window or about a store sales person).
- Why do they have a tattoo?
- Why does she have her face pierced?
- Why do they have holes in their pants?
- (Of course these kind of questions are asked in front of the interesting people. The only answer I can come up with is, "Because they want to!").
- Why was the ice cream man bigger than the pizza man? (Morgan's question before bed on a Friday night the Schwan's man came before the Papa John's man).
- No matter how hard you think to come up with a logical answer you get, "HUH?"!!

Happy Handwriting

I think Shelby is doing a great job with her writing skills. In my opinion, she does way better than most adults, namely doctors! Perhaps some of them should go back to printing. I took a picture of this particular assignment because of what she wrote at the bottom: I can see Jesus. I continue to be impressed by this mainly because she attends a public school that will teach her nothing about God or Jesus. I will have to pray that her boldness to show her heart and mind will not fade away as she gets older and the pressure is greater. I'm proud of you Shelby girl!

Having A Baby!

If anything, the title of this blog post has you on the edge of your seat! Keep reading. :) A week or so ago I was sitting at the computer. Morgan came up to me and said, "I am having a baby today and you are going to have to be the doctor". OK then. Not exactly what I thought I'd be doing that day but whatever. I continued to finish what I was doing at the computer and a few minutes later she comes back and says, "I need to have my baby NOW"! So off to the hospital we went (the toy room) and she made herself comfortable on the bed (baby changing table) and I got out the doctor kit.













I thought that maybe she had a baby doll sitting out that was going to be the baby I delivered. I didn't see one so I asked where the baby was? She says, "In my tummy. I have Jesus in there". Well, more than one miracle going on in this birth for sure! I did my duty as doctor and soon little momma had her baby. I convinced her little teddy made the perfect baby. Doesn't she look proud? Just an example of why I tell her a lot that she is funny!

Big Girl!

A few weeks ago I decided to put Morgan's twin bed up for her. We are in the process of cleaning out the basement in order to get the floor fixed. Her bed was hanging from the ceiling and was going to have to be moved for the project so I decided now was a good a time as any to set it up. I already had purchased the bedding when it was on sale so all she needed was the bed. There is some history behind this old bed. My mom purchased the antique Jenny Lind style bed (my favorite style) at an auction back in 1985 on the day my great-grandpa Johnson died. I always liked the bed even though it was never used in our house. There was no room for it so it remained in storage. So when Nate and I bought our house, I worked with my mom stripping the bed. It was a lot of hard work because of all the grooves in the spindles. I remember using hay baler twine to work the zip strip into each groove. My mom surprised me the weekend they came to help us move in by bringing the finished stain & varnished bed. We set it up in one of the spare bedrooms. That room eventually became Shelby's so the bed went back to storage in our basement. At the time when Shelby was ready for a big girl bed I decided this bed looked too bulky for Shelby's room. We now had a lot more furniture & a glider rocker in the room as well as the fact her room is the smallest of the bedrooms. Morgan was a part of our family so I decided to save the bed for her. We often would look at it down it the basement and she was excited to someday have that bed. Although Morgan's furniture is white, I chose not to paint the bed. I remember all the hard work to get it cleaned up and hated the thought of painting it. Amazingly since having the bed, she has only visited my room a few times and that was in the early morning. And queen klutz hasn't even fallen out and I did not buy portable side rails. She loves it and tells anyone that will listen all about it!

Christmas Celebrating Continues

After opening gifts on Christmas morning, we started preparing for our trip to Greenville to celebrate with Nate's side of the family. It was amazing to think we hadn't seen his brother's family since June! We truly need to get together more often. If we did, maybe it wouldn't be so crazy. Nate's brother Alan has 3 kids - Drew 7 (8 in March), Reese 5 (6 in February) & Trey 3 (4 in June). Shelby and Reese are the same age and Morgan and Trey are the same. And they all love to torture Drew! If I had $1 for every time I hear, "Aunt Jill, Drew...." I could have paid for Christmas! They have a lot of fun together and I suppose they wouldn't be kids if they didn't torture one another at time. On Christmas day evening, we celebrated with Nate's dad, step mom and brother. The girls always get fun stuff for their American Girl dolls there and this year was no exception. They know the boxes so excited they are as soon as the paper comes off. So reusing an AG doll box to wrap up something else would not be a good idea for them. :)

Drew and Uncle Nate spent any free time they had playing Nintendo DS. One night was into the wee hours while everyone else was sound asleep. Nate had a hard time beating Drew in some of the games.

Saturday morning we headed to Nate's Grandpa and Grandma Metzger's house. The big man Santa always makes an appearance. The nice thing about this Santa is he is a Christian so he always has the kids sit down and he goes over the meaning of Christmas before they open their gifts. Then one by one he reaches into his gift bag and calls the kids up. They sit on his lap and open their gifts. Shelby and Morgan have never been afraid of the jolly old man and have fun when he comes. Of course, my camera would not work and my video camera was full so the only pics I have were taken on my cell phone. So they are a little blurry and are not centered.

Nate's cousin Mark brings his girlfriend Christina with him. Shelby wanted to know why they weren't married. I guess she was the only one with enough guts to ask what everyone else thinks! Come on Mark, what are you waiting for! Girlfriend or wife, the girls both had a lot of fun with Christina. Since they live in California, Christmas is usually the only time we see them.

Sunday morning we headed to Nate's mom and step dad's house. This is a smaller crowd so it is a little more relaxed. We enjoy a nice brunch and then have gift opening. Some more playing before we head home. Morgan and Trey had a lot of fun playing together all weekend. Here they are playing a game of Connect Four before brunch.

Uncle Al was doing some interesting things here to entertain the kids. As you can see, Morgan is amazed. Reese and Trey on the other hand look like they have seen this act before!

Although Shelby and Reese are the same age and for the most part have the same interests, they have very different personalities. Shelby acts a lot more like her cousin Drew. Here are the two of them hanging out.

We did our best to get a picture of Nonny Mary and Papa Jay with their grandchildren.

That is a lot of fun crammed into one weekend. Morgan was asleep five minutes after we left to head home. She slept the entire way. Shelby held off to about Springfield and then she was out until we got home. Unfortunately, we landed about 8:15. They were no where near to being ready for bed so that was the beginning of some messed up sleeping habits. Good thing we had another week before Shelby went back to school.

Well, that finishes up Christmas 2009. Thanks for reading!

Healed!

Morgan returned to the Orthopedic Doctor today for another X-Ray on her collarbone. This one showed she was healed. It healed nicely although there is a big lump that will flatten over time. Before we left the doc told her to be careful with herself. It's just so hard not to laugh at that advice!

Christmas Joy

The girls were excited about Christmas Day but did not get out of bed until 8:30! Shelby was the first one to come downstairs. I was sitting at my computer which allowed me to see the Christmas tree and the gifts without Shelby knowing I was there. I silently watched her walk straight for one of the big gifts covered with a blanket. Just as she reached out to pull the blanket away, I surprised her by yelling, "step away"! She then walked over to the other covered gift and attempted to uncover it. Again, "step away"! Next she noticed the stockings had been filled. She tried to get into that. Then she wanted to open just one gift. I asked her if she thought it would be nice to wait for Morgan. She said there would still be enough gifts for her even if she opened just one. At this I suggested she go wake up her dad and sister. Then the fun began. Growing up in a family of 5 gift opening was always a little chaotic. I have them sit on the floor and then I give them each a gift to open. For the time being this seems to work. They were very thankful for each thing they got. Every time they opened a gift they would coming running at me with a hug, kiss and a big thank you! But we wouldn't be a family with 2 girls 2 years apart if there wasn't a little grumbling about who got this and who didn't get that! We had fun ......then it was time to open toy packages, install batteries, assemble Morgan's vanity, synch electronics with the computer, pack to get out of town and leave everything a mess. More on that in the next blog. Here are a few pictures from the morning.

Christmas at the Dells

This year since it was our turn to celebrate Christmas early, my family decided to try something new. We met at Wisconsin Dells and stayed at the Kalahari indoor water park with a condo for all 15 of us. My younger brother Luke came but did not spend the night because he had to work. The girls loved the water park and did not want to leave. It was fun. Although, as I remembered my visits to the Dells in the summertime when I was in high school, I decided we needed to go back to the outdoor parks some time. That is true water park fun! My camera was not cooperating so most of what I have is video. There are several, but they are pretty short so take a look. You can hear the squeals of delight from the girls as they are coming down the slides - long before you ever see them!


Morgan had so much fun going down this little red slide. She tried it on her butt forward, on her belly feet first, backward on her back..... over and over having a blast!



Shelby had fun floating in the wild waves from the wave pool. They pushed her right along!


After a few hours of fun at the water park on Saturday, we all took a break and headed to the condo so we could spend some time with Uncle Luke and open gifts before he had to head home for work. Shelby and Morgan did a lot more joyful screaming as only girls can do. They even had my 2 year old nephew doing it as he opened his gifts. That was hilarious! Here are a few photos at the gift opening. For whatever reason my camera was taking a lot of dark or fuzzy pics so I don't have too many good ones.










That was a long post and thanks for hanging in there. But when there is lots of fun there is lots to post!

Birthday Party for Jesus

On our last Wednesday night at church before the holiday break, Morgan's AWANA Cubbies group had a birthday party for Jesus. At snack time they each had a cupcake with a candle to blow out after signing Happy Birthday to Jesus. Unfortunately, I didn't think about taking a picture of that until now! :( During game time, the kids took turns hitting a Happy Birthday pinata and sharing the candy load after the big break. Fun times for all those 3-4 year olds!