Imaginations!

Once again, it's been a busy week.  The boys started swimming lessons (yay!) and we did more baking.  Last Thursday the baking element in my oven caught on fire (yes, I realize that they aren't supposed to do that).  I was preheating the oven for pizza, told the Boy at the table that I was going to sit in the living room to nurse Girl2.  Five minutes later he came in and told me that there was a fire in the oven.  "There can't be, Sweetie.  There's nothing in there to catch fire."  Sure enough, it had sparked and what shouldn't have been burning was doing an awfully convincing job of just that.  Off went the oven, on the phone I went to call the handyman that our landlady uses. 

I gave him the info he needed (serial number, model type) and he got us a new element.  He wasn't able to put it in until sometime Saturday, though.  We were going to be in Edmonton for a chunk of time Saturday, so he walked me through what I had to do to install it myself so he dropped it off while we were out and we put it in.  Works like a charm!  The old one looked very corroded and broke in two places when I was taking it out :(  I'm glad it happened after the baking I did for the Boy's Halloween party!

There was alot of frosting left from those cupcakes, though, so I made another batch of cupcakes and these:

I found a recipe for soft homemade oreos!

But there ended up with more cookies than icing, so Hubby went out and bought cream cheese icing.  Now the cookies are gone and there's still icing left again.  Going to have to do something about that....  :)

Smiley and surprised at the same time.  Love her eyebrows...

It's been a pretty good week.  Everyday when we get home with the Boy I let the kids go to town with their Halloween candy.  They have to stop around 4:30, though.  Otherwise they won't eat supper.  This way they get their sugar rush and crash right before bedtime and they're good and tired. Strategic sugar crash to aid in bedtime.  It also means that they are intolerable for a while, and we'll likely be detoxing next week (since most of their treats are already gone), but it's nice to get it all done and out of the way.

Boy2 took this one as Daddy and the Boy were getting ready to leave one morning.

 The Boy got his first report card of the year.  Or, I guess they call them progress reports, where they cover how the child is learning and not just what they are learning.  The last sentence of the report was a thanks for supporting his learning at home.  I think we all are doing a good job!

And Boy2's preschool teacher (who was also the Boy's teacher) keeps telling us how much of a joy Boy2 is to have in class.  Like his brother, he shows incredibly developed leadership ability and he is always aware of what is going on around him.  Since he's obviously a socialized child, he doesn't have to learn how to behave in a group as well as the other learning that takes place in class.  I guess there have been a few issues of other children having a more difficult time adjusting to class, so Boy2 not having those issues is a relief for the teachers.  He comes home singing new songs, telling me about some of the kids in class.  It's very different from our experience with the Boy, but that's because he was so much further behind in his speech.  Not anymore!  The Boy's language is just about where it should be for his age.  He still falls a bit behind when he's tired or excited, but he's still understandable.  Just needs to be reminded to slow down the word sounds.

The Girl is continuing to do better.  We've turned the humidifier back on to help with the coughing that has started up a bit again.  But she's not constantly demanding "snuggies" and she's able to put her num away if we push the issue.  She's a little magpie.  She finds coins on the bedside table or the counter, picks it up, and then goes off to her room to put them into her piggy bank.  I'm sure she's more rich than her brothers, since she manages to abscond with mostly quarters, loonies, and toonies...

Just today Girl2 has started doing something that really made me chuckle.  I laid her down in her crib while I was getting Boy2 and the Girl ready for nap time.  I looked over and she had rolled onto her belly (not really new, she's been doing that for a little while now) and then she rolled back onto her back (she's never done that one before!).  So when I gave her tummy time this afternoon, she rolled herself back onto her back.  I chuckled and rolled her back onto her tummy.  She rolled herself back.  I rolled her onto her belly.  She rolled herself back.  I did it one more time and she just yelled!  I had to help her back onto her back that last time.  I amused myself with that, though :)

Something else the kids have started doing in recent days is taking the cushions off of the couches.  I don't mind that, as long as they put them back (and they have been pretty good about it).  Then they jump from cushion.  Sometimes pretending there is lava between, sometimes just pretending it's a path or runway.  They've been being the Avengers.  So we've had Stark, the Hulk, Captain America, and Hawkeye in the living room.  The Girl has been Captain Kitty (the concept of the Avengers is a little lost on her) and pink Spiderman (I asked if that would make her Spidergirl but all I got was a look that said, No.  I`m pink Spiderman!).  They have launched themselves off of a cushion ramp, they built themselves Jedi Cruisers and traveled through space as jedi or clone troopers.  Their imaginations are absolutely wonderful!