When Elena decides she wants to be helpful, she can be very good at it. She normally throws herself onto the floor in violent protests whenever I make her clean something.  But once in awhile, she will decide she's going to pitch in and then she will dust every room in the house or sweep several rooms.

Fortunately, she was in a helpful mood when Sam started to fall asleep at the kitchen table in the middle of his snack.  I was upstairs and oblivious to the fact that he was losing consciousness, but rather than letting her brother collapse onto the floor, she managed to piggy-back him all the way over to the living room and put him down for a nap. 

Like I said, when she decided to help, she goes all out.  Here is Sam taking his nap after Elena tucked him in.  You can't tell, but there are about five blankets there. (She's not really asleep, but also wanted to pose in the photo):

The Box

Nothing beats a big, huge box to play in.

The kids have had this giant box taking up a large part of their bedroom for the last month or so.  It has been a house, a slide and a spaceship among other things. It has now been destroyed beyond recognition from overuse and will leave their room whenever I get the chance to drag the thing outside, but I've loved having it. 

Kids whining that there's nothing to do?
Just say, "Hey, remember that box upstairs!?" and they go running.

Kids beating each other up as a source of entertainment?
"How 'bout that box in your room?"
"Oh yeah!!"

Need to distract your kids in those few hungry minutes before supper is ready so they won't either have a meltdown or hide under the table with a box of crackers stuffing themselves full?
"Box!"

It worked for a few weeks anyway, and I enjoyed every minute of it. 
The downside: It cost several hundred dollars.
The upside: It came with a free water heater.

Congratulations! Everyone who guessed on here was right.  The pictures are:
1. Sam
2. Charlie
3. Elena

Guess Who?

During each of my pregnancies, I wondered what my unborn child would look like when we finally got to meet him or her . I don't think I'll be so curious with any future pregnancies.  Considering just their looks in their first few months, it's sort of like I keep having the same baby over and over again. It's been fun to see how Charlie's looks seem to flip-flop between Elena and Sam depending on the expression he's making.
I'm curious how many people will be able to correctly identify our 3 kids in these pictures. If you want to make a guess, leave a comment, and I'll post the answers the next time I'm on.


1

2

3

Birthday Surprises!

Elena turned 6 today. She's quickly moving from little kid to big kid.  She received many lovely gifts.  Her least favorite was Seth's. I know this because when I asked her what her favorite part of the day had been, she said, "My presents....except for the one from Dad."

I can't blame her, though.  His gift was an empty box ("April Fool's!").  She might as well get used to that joke now. She was a little disappointed at first, but when I told her that it was "a box full of air!" she though it was funny enough that she wasn't mad. But my personal favorite was Charlotte's gift.

We had mentioned to our exchange student that we wanted to add some green to her (Elena's future) bedroom since that is Elena's favorite color, but we didn't want to repaint the whole room.  Charlotte offered to do something, and knowing her artistic ability, we got her some paints and told her to go for it.  She started this in the afternoon and stayed up until it was done that night.

Sam discovered it and did his best to keep it a surprise.  Unfortunately a 4-year-old's idea of keeping a secret is to say, "Elena, there's a surprise in Charlotte's room, but I'm not going to tell you what it is." Then, after we all shush him and tell him not to give it away, he oh-so-cleverly covers up with: "The surprise is not a painting." (Just like our 3-year-old nephew who likes to hide his clothes when he comes over, thinking we can't send him home without them.  We just ask where his clothes are and he points directly to the place where they are hidden and says, "They're not here. Don't look here.") 

Luckily, Elena is also young enough that she doesn't catch on quite as quickly as we adults and she was still more or less surprised.