We got a Dog & a Horse!

 At church the kids "graduate" to their next level of class at the beginning of the year so Jocelyn & Lillian recently moved up to "CTR 6" and "CTR 4."  CTR stands for Choose The Right and the kids receive their token dime CTR rings from their teachers.  New teachers and new rings are all very exciting and can cause a lot of anticipation.  Lillian (since this was her first year in the CTR classes) was especially thrilled to come home with a new ring.  She has lost and found it (for days at a time), much to her disappointment and delight over the course of the 3 weeks she has owned it. This picture was taken at her request.  Jocelyn got a new scripture bag and is using a set of my old scriptures to take to church each week which she is also very excited about.  Lillian makes up words some times and lately she has been using the word "Ginormous" (a hybrid between giant and enormous) and it cracks me up.

 You may have been wondering at the title of the post.  I should clarify that we got a dog HAT.  Lillian's true love ever since she was 1 has been dogs. For the past year and a half she has been especially interested in husky dogs.  Whenever we see one on a walk, she must pet it.  If we see one in a library book we must check it out and read it within a matter of hours.  If she sees a picture of a husky there is a general "husky" chant for the next couple moments.  So, you can imagine her infatuation when she saw this husky hat at the grocery store last week.  They had a random display of animal hats in the middle of the dairy section and she was very sure she needed it.  I told her I wasn't just going to buy a random $12 hat while grocery shopping, but if she thought about it for a couple days and really wanted to spend her own christmas money on it, she would be welcome to do that. 

For Jocelyn that would have been that and she would have forgotten about it by the time we were home because she is pretty sure she needs about everything she sees.  Lillian rarely asks for things and I was tempted to buy it for her just for that reason, but on principle we went with the usual routine.  Well, about 4 days later Lillian came to me and told me "Mom, I've been thinking about it and I'd really like to go get that hat." I couldn't take her that day because I had an appointment, was driving for carpool, etc. etc.  Well, every day she would calmly ask me "Is it the day to buy my hat yet, Mom?" so finally on Monday we made the big purchase.  She was so thrilled with herself and wears it to bed and pretty much anytime she leaves the house.  This is the type of dog I can handle :)  It certainly startled me when Jared pulled it on over his head and crawled in the room on all fours while I was nursing Emma the other day and also when I look in the rearview mirror driving on the way to preschool, but it makes me smile!

Lilly in her beloved husky hat

Emma with a half smile to humor us

 Our sweet Emma baby is so stubborn when it comes to her smiling.  How it works is that she smiles for us when we talk sweetly to her and she's actually fairly ticklish, and she's in a great mood when she's getting worked on (baths, diaper changes, outfit changes, etc.) but the second you pull out a camera, she ceases all smiling.  Even if I try to be tricky and I'm talking and smiling to her and just sneak the camera on the side with my other hand she notices it and STOPS smiling immediately.  Well, I've been working tirelessly to at least get ONE picture smiling so my friend Tami came over to help me.  We put Emma in her blessing outfit since I didn't really get any good pictures of her in her blessing outfit and we went to work.  We mostly succeeded.  Here's a sample of how she did.  Tami is still editing some of the pictures but I was excited to see we captured a couple smiles!  Thank you Tami for once again acting as the family photographer :)

Jocelyn with her fall art projects

Jocelyn has been taking art lessons this school year (because I swap with the art teacher for watching her granddaughter during the group art lessons) and she enjoys it most of the time.  She sometimes says "I just like drawing the things I LIKE, the way I like it, not the things the teacher tells me to draw." but she seems to be happy when she returns from class, is very proud of what she has drawn and is learning a lot of great skills so I think it's a win.  We've had a lot of conversations about how you can learn a lot doing things differently and learning from other people, but I'm not sure how far that translates.

You may remember the post Where Jocelyn had a meltdown over giving away our old table and we had a similar experience with an old toy of hers recently.  A couple years ago we found some mini hobby horses at the dollar store and they were such a hit that I went the next week back to the dollar store to purchase more, only to find out they were discontinued/recalled and they were removed from all dollar stores.  Over the past couple years I have sewn unicorns horns back on, stitched up holes and eyes that had torn off and the horses were on the last stitch.  This was one case where duct tape was NOT going to pull through as we had layer upon layer around the plastic "sticks" and they were still falling apart.  Their manes had been nearly completely combed out after their numerous "grooming" sessions and let's just say they had seen better days.

Three kids in track suits with hobby horses

   Well, Santa brought all three older kids some hobby horses for Christmas and they were thrilled with them!  They galloped around all day with the new horses and pressed the ears to make the magical sounds, etc.  Well, Lillian brought me the old horses the next day and told me I could get rid of them, so I threw them away.  I should have learned my lesson from the table experience but clearly I hadn't so when Jocelyn saw her beloved old Starlite in the garbage she had a complete freak out/meltdown.  It resulted in Jared going to Home Depot and paying more for repair materials than we paid for the horses originally, but clearly it was better than the other option!  Here is Jocelyn with old Starlite and new Starlite so she can Ride off into the sunset with both of them!  Jocelyn also makes up her own words and uses the word "beautifulist" all the time in place of "the most beautiful."  I don't know why but I rather enjoy when they use words like this because it reminds me they are still young and learning and I should probably correct them every time, but I don't, at least for now.

Jonas has been very much into dressing up lately and at the mention or sight of a superhero toy or logo feels the need to change into the fitting outfit.  He also has been into taking off his pants and socks lately since that is a newly acquired skill. This can make for some pretty interesting superhero costumes!  Jonas is very proud of himself now that he can wake up in the morning or from a nap and just come downstairs on his own.  Every time he spreads out his arms and says in a really loud, happy voice "I WOKED UP!"  and we all cheer for him and he gives hugs all around.  It is so fun and I will miss when he grows out of this.  Of course, there are the times when he wakes up grumpy and just sits and cries on the stairs instead, but we sure like when he announces himself happily.

Superman & Puppy save the day!