Jokester

Livi has been really into knock, knock jokes lately. She sees a golden opportunity at bedtime when Daddy is saying goodnight and chooses to prolong it as long as possible by asking him to come up with knock, knock jokes over and over again. She started coming up with her own non-sensical knock, knock jokes such as this one:

"knock, knock"
"who's there?"
"orange"
"orange who?"
"orange banana poopy"

Clearly she has a gift.  Last night Liam was telling us silly jokes from a book of his and she saw this as a whole new world of material. Sure enough when bedtime rolled around, she couldn't wait to share some new jokes with me. I loved them so much I had to write them down. Don't feel bad if you lack the sophistication needed to understand some of these. It happens to the best of us.

Why did the nail come in?
Because he's a walking animal

Why does an elephant walk into the store?
Because he's naked (this one KILLED with Liam)

Why does a dog walk in?
Because he plays with the ball when he walks in and he steps on toys

A giraffe walks into a store and he wears undies with no clothes on. (we drew a picture of this)

Liam thought these were just so great. It made me so happy to see them share a moment and Livi beamed with every joke that Liam laughed at.

Liam is Seven

Liam is now seven years old and in first grade. He's in the high achiever class and is just so smart. There is something called a Rigby test where they asses what level you are at for reading. It ranges from 1-30 and Liam scored a 23 when he arrived in the class. His teacher told me they expect kids to be closer to 9 or 10 so she was very happy with that score. Recently, he took the test again and scored a 30. A 30. As in, she doesn't have to test him again because you can't get any higher. As smart as he is, we don't dote on him. This stuff comes easy to him so it's not really any big achievement. We've been emphasizing the process and praising the failures as much as we can with him. Being so naturally smart makes him kinda lazy. He gets frustrated quickly and gives up way too fast. I think it's working. He is picking up our lingo and learning that he can do just about anything but he has to practice and most likely fail and that's ok.

He's really analytical. He doesn't just memorize facts. He likes to understand them. He is constantly asking questions. To me, that's a sign of a critical thinker and that just makes me like... giddy and stuff. The other day he was telling me about his friend that I saw him practicing baseball with. He told me that his name was Kyle and when they are in school, Kyle gets in trouble a lot. I asked if Kyle was in his class and he said yes. After about of minute of silence he added, "Mom, you should have known Kyle was in my class by me saying that he gets in trouble at school. How else would I know that?".  Obviously, he just learned about inference. Brat. Also, he quoted Neil deGrasse Tyson the other day and I died.

As analytical of a thinker as he is, he is also quite the sports buff and social butterfly. I always had a little worry in me that he would just be the kid who was on his computer all the time and didn't interact with people or get out and exercise. Not that there is anything wrong with computer geeks (I happen to be one), but everything in moderation! He plays every sport. There has never been a sport he hasn't wanted me to sign him up in. He LOVES his teammates and classmates. He jokes and runs around with anyone that will play along. He also adores football. When I say he loves to watch football with his daddy, it's just such an understatement. Obviously, he loves having a thing that he does with his dad but it's more than that. He loves the game. And he talks the for the. whole. entire. game. He's basically like a sportscaster that states really obvious things. Like a sportscaster for the blind, maybe? He's at that great age where he actually knows a lot of what is going on but is also still convinced that "Daddy knows everything about football".

This is getting long and ridiculous, but one more thing. I can't talk about Liam without mentioning his sweetness. He is the sweetest, kindest, most loving boy I have ever known. He hugs and kisses me more times in a day than some people get in a year. He literally tells me I am the "most amazing, sweetest, cutest mommy" every single day. He gets super stressed out when I raise my voice to Livi or when Livi gets a little too lovey with the cat. He just wants everyone to be happy. Mission accomplished, kid. You've done it. You've made us very happy.

Liam's questions for age seven:

1. What is your favorite color? Green
2. What is your favorite toy? My microscope
3. What is your favorite fruit? apples and pears
4. What is your favorite tv show? Stampy's minecraft videos
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? chicken tenders
6. What is your favorite outfit? Minecraft shirt
7. What is your favorite game? Terraria and Minecraft
8. What is your favorite snack? Starbucks
9. What is your favorite animal? Elly (our cat)
10. What is your favorite song? Get Over It by OK GO
11. What is your favorite book? Quest to Find a Diamond Sword (Minecraft fiction)
12. Who is your best friend? Mason and Eli
13. What is your favorite cereal? Cinnamon toast crunch
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Pee, just kidding. Play football.
15. What is your favorite drink? Water
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? my ocelot
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Pancakes and waffles
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Legends
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Archeologist

Livi is FOUR

It's hard to describe in words how sassy this little girl is. She is so independent and stubborn. I just have no idea where she gets it from (it's me). She will straight up pretend like she doesn't hear you or answer with a "no, I don't want to do that" when you ask her to pick up her mess. She loves to smile and ask you if you are happy with her at the exact time her brother was put in time out.

She is very girly, but to a point. She loves to wear skirts, but not dresses. She loves her princesses, but doesn't have the patience to actually watch any princess movies. She loves to sing. Oh, how she loves to sing. She is always singing. She will sing the classics just as much as she will make up her own tunes. She is a big story teller too. Barbies and dolls are her favorite and she can spend hours making up stories in her room with her dolls. She has such charisma when she's making up these stories. She'll act it out with such conviction. I absolutely love it and I will be so sad when this phase is over.

She doesn't often offer a hug or snuggle like her brother, but when she does you relish it because it's so rare. She's becoming more of a fan of her dad than she ever was before. She's still a momma's girl but I can say that daddy is catching up. Liam and her have been playing together more lately. They still mostly drive each other crazy, but there are more times where they run around playing and make each other laugh. She thinks Liam is hilarous.

I know I don't have much longer with this little girl. She's already starting to drift into little person who "doesn't need her mommy" territory so I am trying with all my heart to enjoy every single moment.

And here are her questions for year 4:

1. What is your favorite color? pink
2. What is your favorite toy? Barbies
3. What is your favorite fruit? watermelon
4. What is your favorite tv show? Strawberry Shortcake
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Macaroni and cheese
6. What is your favorite outfit? The shirt with the bike girl
7. What is your favorite game? Skylanders
8. What is your favorite snack? pretzels
9. What is your favorite animal? giraffe
10. What is your favorite song? the Beatles
11. What is your favorite book? The Princess books
12. Who is your best friend? Michaela
13. What is your favorite cereal? cheerios
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play ball and catch butterflies
15. What is your favorite drink? pink juice
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? animals
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? cereal
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday?tacos
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Princess like Belle

 

Bittersweet

January 20th is Martin Luther King Day and so obviously Liam has been learning about Dr. Martin Luther King at school. It makes my heart sing when he comes home from school excited to tell me about what he has learned. There is literally very little in this world that makes me happier. A thirst for knowledge has always been one of my highest priorities for my kids and it's hard to instill. So when I snuggled up next to Liam last night in his bed and he started telling me all about Martin Luther King, my first reaction was elation. Hearing someone so little describe something that is brand new to them but old news to you is amazing. It gives you a renewed sense of awe and you end up really revisiting what happened and understanding all over again why it was so special to begin with.

But here comes the bittersweet part. Learning about Martin Luther King means learning about racism. It means learning there are very bad people out there and America has a very dark past. It's a lot to process for a 6 year old. Some 6 year old's might not even fully try to understand it, but of course mine does. Obviously, he wasn't born into this world knowing about racism and we are lucky enough to live in an extremely diverse community so he has often been in the "minority" as far is race is concerned. He asked me so many questions. He wanted to understand why the brown people couldn't go to school with the white people. He wanted to know why the police used the water hoses on the brown kids. He wanted to see a picture of the man who shot Martin Luther King. He asked about slavery. He asked to see MLK's speech and about Rosa Parks.

I know they have to learn about this stuff. It's important. But it's also a tipping point for me because I can see my sweet, innocent boy starting to learn about this world in ways that he hasn't had to before. He's learning that we aren't all good people and that some people are capable of very bad things. But you know what?  He is also learning that just because some people tell you something is acceptable, that doesn't necessarily make it so. He is learning that for all the bad people, there are very strong and brave people. And I can live with that.

Liam's Birthday Party

I usually have some crazy theme that I have planned on all month for the kids birthday, but this year I decided to copy my best friend and change it up. We had a little pizza get together with family on Friday night. Liam wanted to be able to play Skylanders with his friends and have a Skylanders cake.  On Saturday, we went to wherever Liam wanted to go which ended up being the Museum of Discovery and Science. He got to pick out whatever toy he wanted from Target which was a Hobbit lego set and a Castle lego set. It was so perfect. It might actually be hard to plan a proper party for Livi in February.

 

Liam is Six!

He's grown so much in the past year. Kindergarten will do that to you. He is doing great in school. He is one of the top readers in his class and he's won an award twice for his good character. He loves history and will keep me up at night discussing what he's learned about Martin Luther King or Dizzie Gillespie. Despite his success at school, he's still pretty lazy when it comes to homework. He would never want to skip homework and get a zero, but he is perfectly happy with doing just enough to get a passing grade. I have to push him constantly to do his best. Luckily, he still cares a great deal about not disappointing me so it's not too hard to get him there.

If it were up to him, he would spend every waking hour playing video games. He LOVES the iPad and playing the Wii is the ultimate bribe. He started playing baseball once a week and he is surprisingly good. He really loves it and we're hoping to put him into baseball next.

He adores me and often tells me he loves me more than he loves himself and I adore him even more. He is sweet and protective, sensitive and kind.... and funny. He's getting his own sense of humor which is witty and sarcastic and makes me smile constantly. I would do absolutely anything for that kid.

1. What is your favorite color? green
2. What is your favorite toy? Indiana Jones toy (he doesn't have an Indiana Jones toy...yet)
3. What is your favorite fruit? banana
4. What is your favorite tv show? Ninjago
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? PBJ
6. What is your favorite outfit? my Mickey shirt
7. What is your favorite game? the driving game and Indiana Jones
8. What is your favorite snack? muffins
9. What is your favorite animal? tiger and lion
10. What is your favorite song? the clapping song
11. What is your favorite book? Indiana Jones book
12. Who is your best friend? my whole class
13. What is your favorite cereal? none
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play baseball
15. What is your favorite drink? orange juice
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? my tiny pillow
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? tiny muffins
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? pizza
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? ninja turtle

 

Thanksgiving

I can't even remember the last time we had Thanksgiving together as a family with all the "kids" in town. It was a nice change. We fried some turkeys, played some games, enjoyed some beautiful weather and stuffed our faces. Success.