Josh Singing

Primary Program 5

Primary Program 4

Primary Program 3

Primary Program 2

Primary Program

Candace's Talk/Family Singing

jesus' baptism

happy thanksgiving everyone

out of HARM's way

Levi got a new high chair...

It should help keep him out of HARM's way...

Meet HARM.

candace the dictionary

After changing Levi's diaper I asked Candace to throw it in the garbage for me.
She said, "Sure."
Then she came over and said, "Mom, do you know what 'sure' means?"
I said, "No, what does it mean?"
She replied, "It's like when you don't want to do something, but you still have to, because your mom asked you to."

swine flu anyone?

Swine flu? No, just a really heinous cold. Swine flu? No, just a horrible bladder infection. We've been obsessed of late with the swine flu. I guess everyone has been a bit obsessed lately. It's on the news everywhere and everyone knows someone whose had it. The past two weeks have been really challenging for our family. Since the night before Halloween we've been plagued with runny noses with coughs that started shortly thereafter. Joshua and Levi also had some mild fevers. That was the first swine flu scare. Then Thursday morning Candace woke up at four vomiting with a fever. Her intermittent fevers and vomiting mixed with her runny nose and cough really made us think swine flu. But no, another scare. We are grateful to have access to the healthcare that we do. At any rate, if we make it through this bought of illnesses, I'm convinced the rest of the winter will be a breeze.

And here is an adorable picture of the littlest one. Super cute in his Nike Warm-Up Outfit. (Thank you to hand-me-downs.)

bekah bekah

We love aunt bekah!

yellow glasses

These are the yellow glasses that go with Mr. Potato Head. Lately, we've been finding Joshua with these on while he's doing various random activities. Last night he was eating some yogurt with them on.

question

How do you explain "lying" to a four-year-old? We've been trying to talk with her about what lying is and that it is wrong. She's catching on remarkably quickly and so well that we're having some problems.

Scenario #1: We're reading tons at our house lately. Candace has branched out from 5 minute picture-books to chapter books that take around 30-45 minutes to read. She loves it and we love it too except that it's introducing more complex themes and situations. One such theme came up when we were reading the latest "Pinky and Rex" book together. Pinky wets his pants in school because he was so nervous about the spelling bee. He incidentally won the spelling bee. Pinky has to put on his gym pants because of the accident. Rex is his best friend and they walk home together. Pinky is really embarrassed about what happened and is dreading his little sister, Amanda, finding out about it. So when Amanda see him and asks why he is wearing his gym pants, Rex (Pinky's best friend) lies and says that it's because he won the spelling bee that day and only the winner gets to wear their gym pants the whole day.

Scenario #2: We tease our kids a lot. We tickle them and play games and laugh a lot at our house. Sometimes I pretend to be someone I'm not and I'll tell Candace that I'm "Broomhelga the witch" or some other person and then just tease them about whatever. Then Candace will break up the conversation suddenly and say, "You are lying. You are not "insert whoever or whatever". I'll say that I'm just teasing and she'll say, "But you're lying."

Now these are not huge issues and I'm sure it will just resolve itself as she grows older, but I'm worried that I'm confusing her in some way. Obviously I know lying is wrong, but there are instances where lying would appear not that bad or even okay. Probably I should just stick to the "black and white" approach and be very clear when I'm pretending or point out when others are lying even if they're lying to prevent embarrassment to their best friend. I don't know. I'm interested to hear what other think about this point.

our three dinosaurs

We went to our cousins house for Halloween. It was a blast. The kids carved pumpkins, decorated a Haunted House, went trick-or-treating and visited. The kids had a great time trick-or-treating although Joshua was more interested in the carved pumpkins, people's Halloween costumes and saying "hi" and "bye" to everyone.

I finally finished sewing Levi's costume. He's a cute little stegosaurus.

This is the Yankee pumpkin James carved.

While I was taking his picture, Levi decided to roll over for the first time. :)