Letter of the Week - I

Isabel has really been getting into the Letter of the Week. Every Saturday, she asks me, "Mommy, what letter is it going to be next week?" And I always say, "I am not sure. I have to call Jenna." So last Saturday morning, she asked me the same question and then answered her own question by saying "You need to call Jenna!"  Since we were actually going to see Jenna that morning at gymnastics, I told Isabel she could ask Jenna herself, which she very excitedly did. Jenna didn't have one picked out yet, so she graciously allowed Isabel to choose, and not surprisingly, Isabel chose the letter I. I was less than thrilled to have another vowel to do, so soon after we did U, but since it is "her" letter, I decided to make the best of it!

The letter I
Memory verse: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phillipians 4:13)
Words: Isabel, ice cream, igloo, iguana, inch, inchworm, independent, I love you
Songs: The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, Inchworm
Isabel decorated her letter with: Isabels! (I printed out a couple dozen tiny pictures of Isabel and she glued them on all by herself. When we were done with the uppercase I, there were 7 photos left and she could not bear to throw them away so we made a lowercase i as well! :)


We had a very busy week and unfortunately started it out with a pretty bad injury. On Monday evening, at Luke's softball game, Isabel slipped and fell on the bleachers, biting nearly clean through her lower lip and (we found out later) loosening three of her top teeth (the middle two and the second tooth from the middle on the left side). I felt horrible as I was standing right there with Josiah on my hip and was close enough to see the look of shock and terror on her face as she fell, but not close enough or fast enough to do anything about it. She got lots of TLC over the next couple of days as we first had to go to our regular dentist, who was unable to get a look at it because of Isabel's (understandable) hysterics, and then to a pediatric dentist, Dr. Sally, where every single person in the office had incredible patience and a clear love for children (I am totally sold on pediatric dentistry and in my opinion, each of them should be dubbed heroes!) After complete hysterics in the dentist's office the day before, Isabel allowed them to get two x-rays and complete a thorough examination. She was very excited to show off her four stickers to her classmates at school that day. We have a follow-up visit in three weeks to see if the teeth have tightened up, but are very thankful that they do not think the permanent teeth were damaged or affected in the fall.  Part of Isabel's therapy this week has been soft foods, including a trip to DQ for ice cream right after her first traumatic dentist's visit.

Interpretation of above photo string: Injured lip and teeth...equals mommy guilt....equals ice cream remedy!

The rest of our week was pretty busy but we did manage to get to the library to pick out some I books. Our favorites included Isabel's Car Wash and a couple of I Spy look-and-find books.

Interesting week, to say the least! Who said parenting was for the weak of heart (or stomach)?

Letter of the Week - J

This week, we learned about the letter J.
Memory Verse: Jesus said, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12)

Words: Jesus, Josiah, Jenna, Jessie, jelly, jam, jammies, juice

Books: Lots!  See the widget at the end of this blog post!

This was our favorite Letter of the Week so far. We have lots of J things and people in our lives, so this was a fun one, and despite being very busy, we were able to fit in lots of J activities. On Monday, Isabel spent part of the morning at Jenna's, and the girls decorated their letter J's with jellybeans (a big thanks to Jenna for this idea as I was wracking my brain and not coming up with anything to decorate the letter with this week!) Isabel also worked on a jigsaw puzzle that she really liked there. She has been liking puzzles a lot lately, and shocking me with how good at them she is when left alone to work on them!

Isabel was lucky enough to be able to make Jell-O jigglers twice this week. We made them on Wednesday night, and she made them again on Thursday night with Kyla who came over to babysit. I wanted to do J's and jets, but couldn't find an airplane cookie cutter so we settled for just J's.

We had a great time going to the library this week and choosing J books, then reading them throughout the week. Isabel especially liked "Jump, Frog, Jump" because she got to "read" every third page in the book which said "Jump, frog, jump!" She also liked "shouting" NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED! on the last page of that book. Below are our favorites from this week.

And our last J activity of the week was to make a J poster on Saturday night. I know it is too big of a commitment for me to help her make a poster every week, but this is one that we really wanted to make because we have lots of J people in our lives that we are very thankful for:

• Josiah: he is my son and Isabel's baby brother. His wrinkly-nosed smile lights up the rooms in our home many times a day. Our family would not be complete without him!
• Jessie: she is my sister (in-law) and Isabel's auntie.  Though the miles separate us it is clear that the kids are continually on her mind and she is as dear to us as if she were right next door.
• Jenna: she is my dear friend, our children's nanny, and Josiah's godmother.  She has poured hours of love into both Isabel and Josiah over the years, and she inspires me to be a better parent who takes a more creative, active role in my children's learning.
• Jack: he is our next-door neighbor and friend. He is a tender-hearted boy who is often willing to play with our kids in the yard or on the trampoline (one of Isabel's favorite activities).

We had a blast making the poster and Isabel wrote almost all the words (I would tell her each letter to write and she would write it). I am hopeful that the more of these we do, the more she will want to practice writing her letters. Once again, yay for Letter of the Week!

He is not here. He has risen!

We have joined in the fun with our dear friend Jenna, doing "Letter of the Week" with Isabel. Another post to come on that later....but this week, the letter was "H" and our Bible memory verse was, fittingly, "He is not here. He has risen!" Isabel had the verse memorized by this morning, if I just prompted her with the first word. And when we were in church yesterday evening (we went to the family service on Saturday at 4pm instead of one of the busier services this morning), whenever our pastor would say anything about Jesus rising, Isabel would very unabashedly exclaim, "See, Mommy?!?! He is saying it!" She was so excited that someone else would know the memory verse too.

Today during Easter dinner, we began a tradition of making Resurrection Rolls. We placed Jesus (a mini marshmallow), inside the tomb (a crescent roll), and anointed his body with oil (melted butter), then closed the tomb by rolling up the crescent roll. When the rolls came out of the oven and we cut into them, Jesus was nowhere to be found!  I heard about this idea on the radio, and what a neat way to demonstrate the resurrection to young children in a very concrete way!  He has indeed risen, and I thank Him every day that He has.  We hope that all of our family and friends had a very meaningful, memorable Holy Week and Easter Weekend.

Happy Easter, from our family to yours!!

 

Letter of the Week - H

So this week, for Holy Week, we learned about the letter H.

Memory verse: "He is not here. He has risen!" (Matthew 28:6)
Words: happy, hat, heart, helpful, hair, hug, hot
Songs we listened/danced to: The Hokey-Pokey, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, If You're Happy and You Know It, Ho-ho-ho-Hosanna, Hallelujah
Books: In a People House, How Many Kisses Do You Want Tonight?

Isabel chose to decorate her letter H with hearts that Mommy painstakingly cut out for her!


Early in the week, Isabel and I were able to go on a special breakfast date to Perkin's. In honor of H week, Isabel got to order hot chocolate with her meal. We also must have had hearty appetites that day because we both cleared our plates, something that rarely happens! Hooray for us!

And on Friday, we got to join our friends Jenna, Megan, Camille, and Levi for a field trip to Fairview Ridges Hospital where all four kids were born. The hospital staff were very gracious to us as we wheeled around with two babies in strollers and two three-years olds walking with us! We tried to get a nice photo of the two mommies and all four kids. Despite the fact that only the mommies are smiling, they really are a happy bunch (you'll just have to take our word for it)!

Next we went up to the floor where there were babies in the nursery to look at. We talked to the girls about how when they were born and we mommies needed a little bit of rest, we would send them to the nursery where the nice nurses would rock them, or let them sleep in their bassinets under the warm lights.

And finally we went down and visited the NICU where Josiah spent his first 44 days of life. We told the girls that Josiah was too little to go to the regular nursery with the other babies, and had to come to this special nursery. I reminded Isabel that she was able to come and see her new baby brother through the window a few times, and how she would always say we were at "Josiah's house" when we would drive up to the hospital (she came up with that all on her own just after age 2!)  The best part about our visit was that three of the nurses who took care of Josiah were there and came out to see us. They all marveled at how big he has gotten and said they would never have recognized him as the same baby.  They took a new photo of the two of us and showed us the comparison between that and the photo of us on his discharge date (3/15/10). The difference is remarkable!

They were sad to know that he developed hydrocephalus but were glad that he is doing extremely well post-surgery. And the highlight of our field trip was running into our wonderful family pediatrician just outside the NICU. Dr. Williams is an amazing doctor and has always taken a special interest in our family. She just adores Isabel and Josiah, and was even willing to be in a picture with us!

And we topped off H week with church at Hosanna! on Saturday evening, Josiah happily posing for a photo on the Easter Bunny's lap (Isabel opted out of the photo this year), and a wonderful ham dinner with our family at our house on Sunday.

Big-girl bed

Yesterday, a champion sleeper in a crib.... 

Today, a champion sleeper in a big-girl bed! (though we have not risked taking a picture of her sleeping in it yet!)

You might be thinking, "isn't she a little old to still be sleeping in a crib?"  We held off on this "milestone" longer than many families, which is consistent with our child-sleep philosophy of keeping what works for as long as possible, to encourage continued good sleep habits. Isabel was happy in her crib and has never once tried to climb out.  When Josiah was born, she was just over 2 and we were not ready to move her into a big-girl bed to hand her crib down to Josiah. Instead, we bought her a new crib that has the ability to convert to a toddler bed and then eventually to a full-sized bed frame, so the expense of a new crib was worth it since it will be the bed she will have until she leaves for college someday! I was the holdout on converting it to a toddler bed, as I am usually more worried about these types of things than Luke is.  Even though she has likely been ready for months, I wanted to be 350% sure that a) having no crib rail would not cause any bedtime battles, and b) that Josiah was very consistently sleeping through the night because I did not want to be dealing with two children in the wee hours of the night! :)

So for the past couple of weeks, we have gotten her very excited about her big-girl bed, and actually used it as a "reward" on the sticker chart we have been using with her (she gets a sticker for having a happy drop-off at school in the morning and another sticker for getting herself all ready for bed at night, only asking Mommy and Daddy for help when she really needs it).  She earned the big-girl bed reward prior to this weekend, so when Saturday rolled around, we knew that when she took her afternoon nap, it would be the last time she slept in a crib!  After she woke up, Luke started the process of taking the outer crib rail off and putting up the guard rail that will prevent her from falling out of bed (I am thankful for the guard rail).  The most fun thing about this part (in Isabel's mind) was using her mattress as a trampoline as it was sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor!

For the last part of the project, we shooed her out of her room so it would be a surprise when she came in and saw the finished product (side note - I just love her girly room and the bed turned out so cute!).

The wall emblem says
 "Small in size, but destined for big things"
- perfect for our petite daughter!

She was so excited when she saw it (she even cooperated by shrieking at a hushed volume so as not to wake her brother)!  She promptly ran over and hopped up into bed, proclaiming "I don't need any help. I can get up here all by myself!"  When it came time for actual bedtime, Luke reported back that she went to bed just as well as she would have, had the crib still been up. And now we have had three nights of her sleeping in her bed, so I am officially declaring it as a smooth transition!  The first two mornings, she was sitting up or standing up in bed when I came in, but this morning, she was on her floor reading books, and she looked up at me to see how I would react with her being out of bed. I was totally nonchalant, and she got this funny grin on her face and looked up at me, saying "Mommy, I got out of bed and am on my floor reading books. Is that funny!?!?" I said it was funny, and that was that. I am perfectly fine with her entertaining herself in her room in the morning as long as she doesn't start getting up too early. If that starts happening, we are going to get her a digital clock and tell her she needs to stay in bed until she sees the first number is a "7"!

Our little girl, one step closer to big-girldom.
Mommy has mixed emotions about this (~sigh~)

We love you too, sweet girl!

                    

Springtime...the snow is (almost) gone

Recently, those of us who reside in Minnesota have watched our igloos turn back into houses, our glaciers turn back into yards, and we are finally able to take our children outside without dressing them in 85 layers of warmth.
Welcome spring!

How to pray like a child

Isabel and I read another chapter in the Jesus Storybook Bible that I was really impacted by. The chapter was from Matthew 6 and included a child-like paraphrase of The Lord's Prayer. The Storybook Bible quotes Jesus as saying to His followers, "So when you pray, pray in your normal voice, just like when you're talking to someone you love very much. Like this...

Hello Daddy!

We want to know you.

And be close to you.

Please show us how.

Make everything in the world right again.

And in our hearts, too.

Do what is best - just like you do in heaven,

And please do it down here, too.

Please give us everything we need today.

Forgive us for doing wrong, for hurting you.

Forgive us just as we forgive other people when they hurt us.

Rescue us! We need you.

We don't want to keep running away and hiding from you.

Keep us safe from our enemies.

You're strong, God.

You can do whatever you want.

You are in charge.

Now and forever and for always!

We think you're great!

Amen!

Yes we do!

I know that I could really benefit in my walk with God, by remembering that I can talk to God very conversationally, throughout the day, using my own normal voice, talking to Him as I would talk to someone I love very much. It is so amazing to me that as a parent, I am learning so much and growing in my own faith journey, by introducing Isabel to Jesus and seeing Him and His teachings through the eyes of a child.