Timothy’s first hit off the machine in baseball.

Emily’s presentation at the PTA Reflections Awards.

Her newsletter without illustrations (we didn’t get it scanned after she drew the pictures)

Zachary’s first t-ball season will be starting soon! I’m sure many videos and funny tales will come from that…

We’ve admired this house from the outside for 8 years and had often thought that one day we’d like to build one that looked just like it. Instead, we decided to skip building one and buy the house.

In the meantime, we are living in a Wayland faculty / staff house. As far as staff houses go, it is a pretty nice one. There are three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a spacious kitchen and dining room, a large living room, a sunroom, and an office. So, the boys share a room and we have been using the office as a play room.

Until today …

There was an incident on Thursday night / Friday morning that caused Timothy to end up in our bed really early. Too early. So early in fact that Scott and I revisted the idea that we had been throwing around to move one of the boys’ beds to the playroom. We’d had mixed feelings about this. We figured there were definitely advantages — 1) They may actually sleep at night and would not wake the other up if they need something, 2) Fewer fights about someone messing up someone elses bed (Timothy is really picky about the way his things are kept, Zachary …. isn’t)… — but we just weren’t sure if we wanted to make the move yet. Both boys had told us that they wanted their own room, but we weren’t convinced how happy they’d be to be apart. They have shared a room since Zachary was about 6 months old, so we’ve been concerned about how they would react…

Well, after thinking about it in the wee hours of Friday morning, we decided to go for it. Last night, we moved some things out of the playroom and moved Timothy’s bed, dresser, and a handful of toys in there.

Not being ones to do things the easy way, we decided to have Emily and Zachary switch rooms as well. Emily has a daybed, a 9 drawer chest, and a desk with a hutch (not to mentioned all her toys, art supplies, dress up clothes…she’s a bit of a packrat). Zachary has a twin bed, a 4 drawer dresser and two rubbermaid tubs full of toys that he and Timothy share. Because they were sharing a room, the boys had the 2nd largest bedroom. Emily’s was probably half the size of theirs.

After breakfast this morning, we got back to work. First, we got some more things moved to Timothy’s room and cleaned out the closet and cabinets in there. Then, Emily and I started moving things from her desk and closet into her new closet. Scott moved her desk and dresser into there and moved Zachary’s dresser and bed into the living room while we continued clearing out Emily’s things. We finally got everything moved in just before lunch.

The whole process was actually pretty pleasant, which isn’t generally the case when we are doing projects like this around the house. So far, we are very pleased with the results. All the furniture seems to fit like the rooms were made for them!

We’ll see how tonight goes and the days to come go before we can call this a success. I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel like I could sleep for a week after all that we’ve done!

When we returned to Plainview, Emily decided she wanted to take gymnastics this year so she could learn to do a cartwheel. She took dance when we were here before, but had never done gymnastics. So, we enrolled her in gymnastics at a place called “Radical Cheer” that is located just down the street from here. Having never taken gymnastics before, she was placed into the beginners class. Most of the kids in her class are 4 & 5 years old. This does not bother her a bit. She is having a great time!!

There was a fundraiser for the competition teams last night. It was a barbecue dinner that included a silent auction, a cake auction, and the kids on the teams put themselves on the auction block to do light housework or babysitting (depending on their age). It was fun, but the highlight of the night for us was when the classes put on a demonstration of what they do in class.

Here is a video of Emily’s class…

Enjoy!

I asked him several times what the big deal was about turning 4, and he explained to me that several things would happen when he was 4:
* he would no longer be a baby – though I explained to him that he would always be MY baby, he was pretty insistent on this one. It really threw him when I told him that Scott was still Grandmama’s baby and that Grandmama was still Gran’s baby…

* he would no longer suck his thumb – we have been passively working on getting him to give up this habit. Having been through before with Emily, we knew better than to push too hard until he was ready. He had decided that he would be ready when he was 4. So, on the night of his birthday, we told him to try to only suck his thumb at bedtime. No point in going cold turkey on a 4 year old habit! Well, I have to tell you that he has done so well. He hasn’t sucked his thumb at all since last Monday night. Not even in bed!

* no more dragging his blanket everywhere – he has carried his “blank with fringe” with him everywhere he went for the past 4 years. He still plays with it around the house, but that’s it. No more getting dragged into the car and begging to take it with us wherever we’re going.

* play on the computer – Timo LOVES to play on the computer. Somehow, Zachary has gotten it in his head that he would suddenly know how to play on the computer when he turned 4. I was willing to show him how to play before then, but he really wasn’t interested. Well, this week, he came to me and asked if he could play on the computer. I opened the NOGGIN website for him, showed him which mouse button to click and he was off and running! All our educational games have gotten pretty scratched up through the years. I guess that’s something we should put on his Christmas wish list…

* go to school – I’ve been surprised that he hasn’t asked to go to school this week. Anytime he would tell me that he would be going to school when he was 4, I would remind him that he would after he’d been 4 for a few months. He’ll be going to pre-K in the fall.

There have been other things mentioned, but those are the top 5. Turning 4 was a BIG deal in his mind. So, we started planning the celebration in early November and the celebration really started at Thanksgiving. On the day after Thanksgiving, he had a mini-party at Gran & Ol’ Granddad’s house where he got to open his presents from Grandmama & Granddad and Gran & Ol’ Granddad. He was quite excited to get a Ben 10 Alien Creation Chamber and some “dollars” (that he later used to buy a Dora game for his Leapster). We all spent the rest of the weekend making aliens.

We came home from Amarillo on Saturday. The next few days were rather tame as far as celebrating his birthday were concerned. We put up Christmas decorations and continued the countdown to December 7th. Grandmother & Granddaddy arrived on Friday. Their visit was mainly to see the kids (and, I like to believe, to see us), they were also coming to see the new house since they had not been up since we’d moved back to Plainview. We’re hoping that we’ll be in yet another new before too long, but that’s for another post.

Friday evening was spent enjoying spending time with Grandmother and Granddaddy. We left the house once and drove ALL the way to Wayland to see the living nativity before dinner, but that was our only outting. Before bed, I baked a birthday cake to be iced the next day. As he smelled the baking cake, Zachary knew he would soon FINALLY be 4.

Our plan for Saturday was to go to Chuck E. Cheese in Lubbock. We always let the birthday child choose one special meal for their birthday, and that was Zachary’s choice. We had big plans for the 7th, so we went on Saturday. I decorated the cake to look like an Omnitrix (from Ben 10) so we could take it with us. We decided to let him open his gifts before we went. He likes to dress up like the characters in his shows. We had got him some clothes similar to what Ben wears in the show, and we thought it would be fun for him to dress up like Ben to go to Chuck E. Cheese. He was very excited to get his own Leapster (so he doesn’t have to beg Timothy to let him play his anymore), Diego checkers, cards, and “magic ink” coloring book, and his Ben clothes (a green windsuit). We arrived at Chuck E. Cheese around 2:00 and had a great time.

On Sunday, Zachary decided to wear his “Easter suit” to church. We have a “Birthday Champ” ribbon that he wore proudly. He had a great morning telling every one that it was his birthday. Because he’s 4, he now gets to go to worship with the family. We had a great time worshipping together. After church, we went to lunch and then headed home.

Now, for the evening, we had a decision to make. After getting the tickets for his REAL birthday gift, a ride on the Polar Express, we had found out that the Children’s Choir Christmas musical was that night. All the kids were scheduled to sing. The service started at 6 and we had to be at the Polar Express Train Station in Lubbock by 7:45. We probably could have done both, but our time would have been rushed. So, we explained to a tearful Emily (the boys couldn’t have cared less) that we’d be skipping the musical. We arrived at the train station at 7:45, picked up our tickets at will-call, and found our place in line to get on Train Car 1.

The train ride was wonderful! Zachary enjoyed letting everyone know that it was his birthday. The whole train car sang Happy Birthday to him twice! Everyone enjoyed singing, dancing, listing to the “Polar Express” story, having hot chocolate and cookies, and of course, getting to see Santa and his Elves.

These pictures are from Chuck E. Cheese and the Train Ride.

There has been one interesting development of letting Zachary open his presents before his actual birthday. Any time someone asks him what he got for his birthday, he tells him that he didn’t get anything. He got a Leapster, Ben 10 clothes, Diego checkers, and an Alien Creator when he was 3, but he didn’t get anything when he was 4. Little turkey…

Thanks for making us laugh!

The week long celebration came to an end tonight with a trip to the North Pole on the Polar Express.    A full account with LOTS of pictures to come soon.

If that doesn’t put you in the Christmas spirit, nothing will.

We weren’t all in the best of health.  Some of that could be attributed to the over-indulgence in snacks, but we think Emily might have had a mild case of strep.  By the time we got home on Saturday, she was feeling much better and her fever was gone.  We expected to take her into the weekend clinic but she wanted to wait to see if she stayed better and we agreed.  By Sunday, there was little evidence that she had been sick at all.

On Sunday, while playing hookie from church for no good reason (shame on us!), we cleaned the entire house, room by room, starting in the back and working our way forward.  We did try something new this time, attacking each room as a whole, all five of us.  Usually we split up and each take a room.  This seemed to go faster in my opinion and you see progress a lot faster (snowball effect?).  

Once the house was clean, we started decorating for Christmas.  The tree is up, the knick-knacks are carefully placed (thanks to Lori).  I was in charge of grocery shopping during the knick-knack phase and it’s a good thing.  Everything is much more appropriately placed than I would have been able to accomplish.

I’m officially ready for Christmas Season!

– Scott

We’ve been waiting for hers so we could post both of our school kids’ pics.

Here’s Timothy’s Kindergarten picture.  What a good looking guy!

Open up the pictures folder on your computer, choose the fourth folder and then the fourth photo. Viola. 4×4. Try it.
Here is my picture:

Aw.  My favorite 4 people in the world at Sea World San Antonio last Spring Break.