Worn Out

What happens when you spend the day after Thanksgiving playing with your favorite cousin, Bremen at Grammie and Papa's house? You fall asleep in the car on the ride home...at 5pm! And, you sleep until 6:30 the next morning!

Awesome.

Thanksgiving

I know I have much to be thankful for that I won't get into in this post, but know that this cute kid is at the top of my list!

Thanksgiving day was a quiet dinner for 3 in our house. Jack helped make the pie. Well, after he kept stealing my pie dough, I gave up and made a second batch of it and let him just go crazy with his. He felt it was too dry and needed more water. It was a disgusting mess...but oh, so much fun!

Dinner was very nice. Jack was excited because it was the first time he got to use grown up dishes, including a wine glass filled with Sprite.

As well behaved as he was, he still doesn't have much patience, so it was a quick dinner. He ate very little. I was impressed that he ate broccoli (although I'm sure it helped that I made it with a cheese sauce.) His favorite, not surprisingly, was the dinner role.

Yup, he makes holidays fun.

I love the enthusiasm of a 4 year old. Life is good.

My Cat Spider

So, Jack really wants another pet. Don't misunderstand, he loves his robot butterfly, his fish, and his guinea pig, but he wants a pet he can play with; so, he continually asks for a cat or a dog. I made a very big mistake a couple of months ago and told him he once had a cat named Spider, when he was a baby, and that we gave him to another family because Jack was allergic. (All true. However, Jack appears to have outgrown the allergies because he has no problem being around cats and dogs now.) I never should have said that to Jack. For WEEKS he couldn't stop talking about his pet Spider and could we please get him back? Sheesh. To shut him up, Stuart told him Spider died. Now, we don't know this for a fact, but it is highly possible since Spider was at least 11 or 12 when we found him a new owner 4 years ago. So now Jack still asks about Spider, but less often. He tells everyone that he has a cat Spider who is in heaven.

When taking out the Christmas decorations, I found this stuffed cat. The girls bought it for me years ago and they used white-out to paint whiskers on it so that it would look like my cat spider. (It was very sweet.) I explained the story to Jack and now he is very loving with his new stuffed cat spider. But, he still reminds me that one day, when he dies, he will see his cat spider when he is in heaven.

Making Christmas

No, we couldn't wait to decorate for Christmas. So, about a week before Thanksgiving, we broke out the decorations. As usual, Jack attempted to decorate naked.

We told him he couldn't help unless he at least put on underpants. He cooperated.

I love that he keeps rearranging my nativity scene so that everyone is nice and close to baby Jesus.

I told Jack he had to wait for me to put the lights on the tree before he could hang the ornaments. He decided he could do it quicker. (Especially, if you put the lights all in one spot.)

You'll notice the first ornament up is his baby's first Christmas ornament.

Once again, Jack focused his decorating on one portion of the tree. We decided not to correct that this year, so when you come over and see our unbalanced tree, just know that our happy 4 year old was a big part of creating our masterpiece.

It was hard to get a picture of him next to the Christmas tree because he wouldn't hold still. Maybe it was because of all the excitement. Maybe it is all the marshmallows he ate while decorating.

But, we did get a brief video.

Jack said this was the best way to look at the tree.

Afterward, we watched a Christmas movie. Jack picked Elf. I didn't think he would like it, but was surprised how much he enjoyed it.

He really loved the end, and kept smiling and exclaiming that he believed!

P.S. We have been watching Nightmare Before Christmas a lot. I'm glad Jack seems to like it as much as me. He keeps telling me with a concerned voice that Jack Skellington is making Christmas, but he doesn't know how to make Christmas. It is so cute! (Yeah, if you don't know the movie, this doesn't make any sense to you. Sorry.)

Learning

As parents, we have tried to facilitate a love of learning with Jack, instead of pushing memorization. So many kids can parrot back things, but it doesn't mean they understand it. I loved school as a kid, but Stuart did not, so we have really tried hard to get him excited about learning from the start. Now, Jack is a smart kid, but his interests are selective. He has always loved science, but has never been crazy about art. And writing? Forget it. He had no interest, despite my best efforts to encourage him. His grandma sent over countless preschool activities for me to do with him. His grammie and papa bought him a preschool kit for Christmas last year. But, trying to get him to work on writing was like pulling teeth. We tried alphabet flash cards, but he always lost interest after about 4 cards. I really gave up and thought maybe it will be better when he starts preschool. But Jack always knows more than he lets on. He might refuse to sing a song, telling you he doesn't know it, but if you stop in the middle, he will happily tell you the next line. And, while making his birthday banner last August, Jack identified each of the letters as I made them. We were shocked. Maybe there was hope for him.

Last week I noticed Jack was being too quiet. I was worried, of course, and went to look for him. I found him on the couch, drawing. I credit his preschool for this.

Friday we had our first parent/teacher conference. It was such an encouraging discussion. Jack is the loving, friendly boy in the class. He follows all the rules and participates really well. I was so relieved, I teared up in the meeting. He still struggles with staying focused. (That wasn't really surprising to us!) But, I love that the teacher said she anticipates that with 4 year olds, and always has an alternate activity they can choose if they want. She said they will gradually raise the expectation of following the structure through the year, to prepare him for kindergarten. I hugged her! We thanked her for all she did for our Jack.

I wish I could show you his class journal. It was so cute. He had a picture that he had titled "Our Pets." It was a picture of Jack, mom, and dad. It cracked me up! I did get a few of his pictures that I scanned.

I love that every child goes through the phase of drawing people that are just heads with long limbs. This is Sheila the Brave and her little sister.

Did I mention he has homework most nights? At first it was hard to get him to do it, but with lots of cheering him on, he is getting better.

We always cheer after he writes a letter. He expects it and will even ask us to do it louder as he grins. Yes, I am convinced that 99% of parenting is cheerleading.

Helping

Another good thing about 4 year olds? They think cleaning is fun!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Jack has never been a big one on singing. He loves for me to sing to him all the time, but is usually shy when you ask him to sing. That started to change this year, although he normally just likes to sing songs that he makes up himself. Last week, however, I caught him singing Jingle Bells.

So cute! Although, if he takes after his parents, he may not have the genes to excel in this area.

Making Biscuits

Last weekend, while daddy was sleeping in, I got a craving for chicken biscuits. I suggested to Jack that we go to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast. He refused and reminded me we have all the ingredients at home and should make them ourselves. I thought about it, and realized he was right. So, with my sous chef by my side, we set out to make breakfast. Jack loves when there is flour and a rolling pin involved in cooking.

It got a little messy, but it was fun. And I got to record some great conversations. They are long, but it is so rare to capture any of his conversations, that I didn't want to edit them.

I left him alone for a few minutes to finish making his biscuit snakes, and came back to a bigger mess. Note to self, never leave a 4 year old alone with shortening.

I love cooking with Jack.

New Jammies

It's finally cool enough to wear jammies with feet! I know a 4 year old who is super excited!
He would wear them 24/7 if we let him.

ROCKS

Guess what I found on our family walk around the neighborhood?


That sure is a lot of rocks!


There's a good spot for them.

The joys of little boys.

Handsome Boy

I took these pics before Jack went to school the other day. He was just so proud of his "Night Fury Dragon" sweatshirt that he didn't mind posing for me.

For some reason, he can't smile without putting his whole body into it, so I asked him not to smile, but I guess that translates to, look mean.

He is just the best!

Everbody Just Calm Down

Ever since Jack started school, he has become some much more vocal...not that he didn't speak well before, but it's constant now. He also picks up new phrases all the time. Normally, I don't have the video going, but I did catch this little clip.

Halloween

We bought 9 pumpkins this year. (3 big ones and 6 little ones.) However, we were so busy we didn't start making jack-o-lanterns until the night before Halloween. Jack and I looked up pictures on-line to get some ideas. I thought for sure he would want to do one of the cool Star Wars ones we saw, like a death star or Darth Vader, but no. He thought they were cool, but wanted a traditional jack-0-lantern. He did want his to look like Jack Skellington, from the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was so proud, since I love that movie! But, I didn't take any pictures of our decorations. Oh well.

But, the good news this year is that Jack agreed to wear a costume...including a mask! He was a storm trooper!

Have you seen a kid happier about his Halloween costume?

Stuart wore a great gorilla costume, of which, I took no pictures. Oops!

Our neighbors came over and met at our house before we went out for the night. The kids played and we ate. They were so cute! (We actually had 3 more kids in our crew, but they arrived later.)

Our neighbors did not disappoint. I still love the ones that do the Mad Tea Party.

The kids had a blast and the adults had a hard time keeping up with them.

We did bring a wagon in case the kids got tired.

We ran into this cute girl along the way. (She is the younger sister of one of Jack's babysitters.) I love that he can't take his eyes of her.

In a moment of tremendously bad parenting, Stuart and I both realized by about the 5th house that Jack wasn't wearing shoes...just socks. And to further secure our position as terrible parents, we did not go back for shoes. He actually wore holes in his socks. Good thing we had that wagon!