We celebrated Daniel's birthday on the 10th. We had paninis for dinner and chocolate ice cream instead of cake. I bought him an Argentina Soccer jersey and Chromecast. His birthday was a little boring, like Brooke's, because he was working all day. I made him waffles with berries and whipped cream for breakfast before he went off to work. And then we did his dinner and presents and fhe when he got home.
Today was our Primary program at church. We've spent the last few weeks rehearsing for it, and we had a special practice on Friday for it. It went so well! Most of the kids knew all their parts by heart, and they sang so strongly and so well. Camille and Brooke both had their parts memorized, but when they actually got up there to say them, only Brooke actually did it without help. But Camille, with help, spoke strongly and normally and did well. Brooke and Camille probably got the most ''Awes" from the congregation. Camille is just so cute and little, and Brooke is cute and wonderful. It was so fun; I love being on the piano for primary. One of the songs we sang that everyone loved was "I Will Be What I Believe", and it was so beautiful to hear all the kids singing about how to be strong and brave like our scripture heroes. It always made me cry to hear them singing it so well.
My kids are so cute. I really like them, and there are certain things about them in this particular stage that I want to remember.
Jack:
- Jack has started being a real little boy. For a few months now, he's started obsessing over cars and trucks and trains, and he loves playing with balls. His favorite things to play with are the balls and cars and this little train that Gramma Holbrook gave him when we were in Utah for his last birthday. It's perfect for him. He loves a truck book we have that has little windows with slide covers with pictures behind them. And Duck in a Truck, the Wheels on the Bus, and other truck books we have.
- He's started really getting into books lately. He likes to look at the pictures and turn the pages on his own. He pulls down books from the shelf all on his own, and it's been fun watching him start loving to read. Of course, we still can't make it through an entire book yet... usually.
- Jack is our little music lover and dancer. He starts dancing anytime he hears music. Even when I'm singing silly made up songs, he'll start moving his little body. He sings all the time, too. Usually just making noises in a sing-song voice, which is just about the cutest thing. But he's also started picking out favorite songs, like "Let it Go". He can sing "let it go" when the song comes on, and he'll indicate when he wants me to turn it on. He also loves the song "Try Everything" from the movie "Zootopia". He always sings, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!" And we all just die from the cuteness.
- Jack Boy is a tiny little man. He's in like the 2nd percentage, and a bunch of the little babies in our ward that are younger than him are all bigger than he is. It's pretty funny and very cute.
- He is in my favorite stage. 18 months to 2 1/2 years is my favorite year. He's walking really well now and he is picking up more and more words: ball, doggie, book.
- He loves dogs and gets excited whenever he sees a dog or hears one barking. He's not afraid of them as much as the girls were (and still are). He'll actually go up and start petting a dog.
- Camille is in a very interesting phase right now. She is a mousie about 70% of the time. She squeaks and does this funny thing with her hands and face when she's a mousie. And a lot of the time, when I call her Camille, she says, "No, I'm Mousie!" All the stories I have to tell her and all the songs I sing to her at bedtime right now have to be about mice. I was a little nervous about her performance in the Primary Program because in a lot of our practices she said her part in a big squeak! She has everyone in stitches over her squeaking!
- She is also just recently came out of her Lion King phase. For months now, she's only wanted to listen to Lion King soundtrack and watch the movie on Fridays. She plays lion king, and has loved playing with the lion animal toys. She carries the lion and tiger animals around a lot. But now, since like a week ago, or so, she's been obsessing over Elsa and Frozen. We have an old Elsa dress that Mom bought for Brooke a few years ago, and Camille wears it every day. I almost have to force her into some real clothes whenever we have to go anywhere. She puts on her Elsa dress, and then comes downstairs and tells Alexa to play Elsa's song, and she dances in the living room while the music is playing. She now asks for the Frozen soundtrack more than she asks for Lion King, and we've been watching a lot more Frozen lately than we have in the past.
- Her tastes in music are expanding a lot, out of Lion King (which is what she would ask for exclusively until recently). She has so many specific requests with her music, I've had to make a special playlist on Spotify just for her, which she loves. She says, "I have my own playlist!" and "Mom, play my playlist!" It's very cute and fun.
- Camille is getting increasingly possessive about things. Especially since Brooke now goes to school every day and Jack is left here to play with her. She hoards toys a lot, even if she isn't playing with them or planning on playing with them. She has this really special attachment to her Sippie (this bright green sippy with a special lid). I don't even think I bought this sippy cup for her. I think it was a Christmas present for Brooke one year, but Camille adopted it many months ago and became really possessive of it and attached to it. Recently, I realized the lid got really moldy and gross underneath, so we had to throw sippy away. But I promised Camille that we would get her a new one.
- Camille has inexplicably started sleeping at night again, and not waking up in the middle of the night anymore. Back at the end of June, beginning of July, we started just locking the girls' door at night, because, quite frankly, we were at our wits end with the sleeplessness of Camille's habits. And it turned out that we didn't hear her at all during the night. I was half (or more than half) expecting her to wake up as always and kick on the door and scream until one of us came. But, she was quiet all night. We weren't quite sure if she was just suddenly sleeping through the night, getting up and playing quietly in her room, or getting up, noticing the door was locked, and just getting back into bed and going to sleep. We suspect the latter, because after about a week and a half of locking the door, she stopped waking up in the middle of the night. She just slept right through. It was a relatively easy fix, and I felt a little silly that we hadn't tried it sooner, and that we'd just suffered through for almost a year. Of course, maybe it was just the right timing, too. Maybe she was just outgrowing that waking up phase. On the flip side, Brooke has been struggling more with sleep. Right at the beginning of school, she was coming out of her room half a dozen times after we put her to bed, saying that she was "struggling to fall asleep", even if she'd only been there for a few minutes. It was driving her mother crazy. The last couple of weeks, she's been better, going to bed right away, almost. I think she's getting more tired because of having school every day and having to get up early.
- Camille's been drawing pictures a lot over the last few months, and I LOVE little toddler pictures, when they first start drawing. The problem is, she draws on any old thing, not necessarily something I want to file away and keep forever. But her drawings are SO cute.
- Brooke's Dinosaur phase is still going pretty strong. She's been bringing home books every Friday from her school library, and some of them have been dinosaur books. She also represented dinos on her "Star of the Week" poster, saying her favorite dinosaur was Brachiosaurus.
- She was "Star of the Week" the week of Daniel's birthday, and we made up a poster together the weekend before, all about her and what she liked. We had a lot of fun together making her poster. She colored some little pictures representing what she liked, we glued pictures on it, and typed up some blurbs about her. It was fun!
- Brooke was so excited to start up homework. The teachers didn't start sending homework home until the 3rd full week of school. Now she gets a packet of homework at the beginning of the week that she has to have completed by Friday. She asked me every single day those first few weeks of school if she was starting homework yet. And the first packet she got, she was so excited! Of course, the work is far below her level, so she finishes in 5 minutes or less. And she doesn't require any help from me, which is nice.
- She's made this little friend at school that she talks about constantly. His name is Nolan, and every day, she comes home saying she played with Nolan and did all this stuff with Nolan. When I volunteered in her class last week, I finally got to meet Nolan, and the other teachers in the class said that he's a really sweet good boy. I'm glad she's making good friends that are good little people.
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