manning's got the joy in his heart

manning has been singing christmas carols daily so we were pretty pleased when he pick up a more seasonless option. he sings all of the time. love.

disney junior theme song(s)

we don't have cable, but every now and then a theme song will jump into their minds. maddux came up with some hand gestures for the disney junior theme song - and then they all had to do it... love.

random videos

maddux made up a little song (sort of about manning's feet, which the second video shows how little he liked it)...

our pre-disney excitement song fest...

working on their cannonball skills for big pop and grandma's pool...

we borrowed a minnie-rella movie from the library and one of the episodes has daisy duck getting rupunzel style hair where she sings about how to style it. manning sings it all of the time! he sings, "how do i wear my hair?" (he normally sings "braids, braids, braids" but madelyn reminded him about the "spray, spray, spray" verse and that has been the one that sticks.) really, i just love how he sings "hair." love.

sing "let it go" "like a boy"

on the way to the park, maddux was saying that he doesn't "want to sing 'let it go' like a girl. i want to sing like a boy". we weren't sure what he meant until he showed us how he sings in a low voice. we tried to get him to talk about it, but he was a little shy about the camera. that silly kid! love.

jesus had a little lamb

maddux brought home his "baby jesus" today and we had to lay it out with mason's from last year.  the kids just love these and take great pride in the mangers they painted for him to sleep in.  our two baby jesuses are snuggled up together by the fireplace and guarded by faux evergreen reindeer.

maddux also brought home a 'lamb' made from a cut-out of his hand which was very sweet.

the lamb inspired mason it make up this song (he claims not to have learned this anywhere and had a pretty lengthy explanation of what inspired the song, so maybe he did make it up.  although i feel pretty sure that someone else had thought of this before.)

we have such sweet 'lambs'.  love.

christmas concert - final night

mason was very excited to have the whole family there to see him sing this time.  manning had not taken a nap this afternoon, but he did take a short one at church this morning.  it wasn't enough... sigh.

within five minutes of the concert beginning, this was my view.

i didn't even get to stay to see mason because manning was screaming to go back to our seats. he wanted to be in the room, but he did not want to sit still or be quiet so we had to leave.  so he and i roamed the halls of the church...

and then he played in the water fountain for a while.

we were far from alone.  a 6pm preschool concert was tough on the little ones.  i later learned that several of the 3 and 4 year olds fell asleep waiting for the concert to end after their classes had sung.  manning and i found several others playing in the church nursery so we joined them for a bit.  when manning was ready to leave he ran out and fell right on his face - biting his lip.  yep.  blood everywhere.  thankfully, another mom went to get me some ice while i tried to contain the bleeding (getting lots on my shoulder and arm).  the picture below doesn't show how bad it looked.  he is screaming in the picture because i wouldn't let him hold the camera, not because his lip was still hurting.

manning was just done.  he was hurt, overtired and tired of being contained.  we might have to leave him at home next year so that i can actually watch!

it sounds like mason did a great job and he was so happy to have daddy get to see him.  love.

christmas concert - first performance

there were doubts about whether the weather would cooperate, but they were able to put on the christmas concert at mason and maddux' preschool.  only mason would be singing though (they don't let the 2-year-old class come to the 1-hour concert).  i had signed up to bring 3-dozen cookies and did not want to be stuck with them so i decided to just chance it and run to the store if school wasn't cancelled.  ugh.  school was not cancelled so we had to swing by the grocery store really quickly before school.  thankfully, everyone was cooperative and we were in and out quickly on our way to preschool.

none of my pictures were all that great, but here are some videos for a taste.

i loved how he was 'dancing' during most of the performance.  mason does seem to like being on stage.

the whole family will get to go on sunday night to hear him sing.  love.

musical boy

manning is the most interested in music of all the kids.  he sings all of the time!  most people can even name the tune when we are out.  mainly he sings the alphabet song and "the itsy, bitsy spider" but he will try and sing anything he hears.  we have had this fisher-price dog since madelyn was little (it was a birthday gift from uncle josh and aunt adrienne).  all of the kids have liked it at one point or another and enjoyed pointing out the body parts.  but manning LOVES it.  he will carry it around with him (even up and down the stairs) and sing and dance along.  (yes, i am now realizing that video would have been better than stills.)  it is a good thing that he is so happy with lots of noise, being the youngest and all.  we just love hearing him sing!  love.

manning singing

manning loves to sing.  he is always singing or singing along.  today he was just singing away in the car and playing with his feet (it has been a while since he has been in the car barefoot and he was quite amused).  the camera was a little distracting and i was driving so there was no effort to frame it up (don't worry - i was on a side street with no traffic and was not looking at the camera in any way).  i was just hoping to catch the audio.  i was pretty impressed to see that he was mostly in the shot the whole time.

i can identify when he is singing "abcs"/"twinkle, twinkle" (the same tune), "mary had a little lamb" and "itsy, bits spider" now.  sometimes it is just made up songs too - i think.  all of the kids have really liked music, but i don't remember any of them singing this much!  love.

madelyn sings "the perfect 10"

madelyn was asked to memorize the ten commandments for church. her teachers recommended a song called "the perfect 10" and it is quite catchy. madelyn and i find ourselves singing it all the time!   i guess there are worse things to have stuck in your head.  

it sounds like madelyn was the first one to have it memorized and she got to sing it in front of the class. 

i have been meaning to have her sing it again and yesterday i remembered. for some reason she wanted to read and would loose her place because she would switch to memory instead of looking at the words. 

enjoy the show!  love. 

original christmas carols

madelyn has added "lyricist" to the list of professions she wants to pursue when she grows up.  she was actually doing a really great job with original christmas carols one night this week, but once i got the camera she got more theatrical and the lyrics weren't as good.  (seriously, they were good.  i wanted to jot them down which is why i got the camera.)  my favorite part is maddux trying to sing along.  love.

christmas concert number 2

mason was so excited about singing for daddy and madelyn too!   he had been looking forward to today.  and then he woke up with pink eye.  i was so upset.  not so much about the pink eye, but because he got it today and might not be able to go to his concert.

first thing i did was put madelyn's drops in each of his eyes (cvs wouldn't open until 10 and i wanted to get him started).  nana volunteered to stay home with mason so that we wouldn't have to miss yet another week of church.  it was really great for them to have some one on one time too.

as soon we got home, matt took mason to cvs while i made lunch.  mason gave me his medicine bag when they got home and i felt/saw two familiar pink bottles.  "does he have an ear infection?"  yep. apparently he has a pretty bad ear infection too.  mason shows absolutely no symptoms for an ear infection.  i guess it is good but the last one perforated his eardrum before we even knew something was wrong.  so maybe pink eye was a good thing?

now we just had to hope that the oozing stopped before the concert.  if he was actually having school i would have kept him home, but standing next to classmates and singing seemed fairly low risk to others so we went.  he looked a mess.  both eyes were red, his nose was running, his new shirt was way too big and he was tired.  but he still did great and sang nice and loud!

we sat in a different section than we did on friday and mason had a very difficult time finding us in the crowd.  but once he found us his face lit up with a huge smile and there was lots of waving.  he had been looking for us so intently - he really wanted daddy to see him singing.

i learned last year at madelyn's concerts that it is better to just watch and enjoy than try to get lots of pictures, so the only picture we have is this one maddux took - upside down.  love.

mason's christmas concert

mason has been waiting all month for today - his christmas concert!  he has been practicing his songs almost daily and tells us all about how he is going to stand on the stage in chapel and sing after the kindergartners.  (mom's a little excited too.)

this is mason's special day where he is the center of attention.  he suggested that we go to wendy's after the concert and then he wants to take nana to playland.  sure, buddy, that sounds great!

this is mason's go to pose - the lean

nana and mason

after dropping madelyn off at school, we all headed over to mason's school for the 'grandparents' christmas concert.  school starts at 9 and the concert wasn't until 9:30.  i stayed with both boys last time and made sure i had lots of options for maddux this time.  he did so great!  he got a little crazy with the stickers (on nana, in his hair, on the floor, etc) but he was quiet and stayed with us - not too bad for a two year old who had to 'sit still' for over an hour.

and then it was time for the concert.  you can see mason in his white shirt and the voice you hear?  yep.  it's mason.  all week he has been telling/showing that when his teachers cup their hand by their ear, that means to sing louder.  and mason is a very obiedent boy.  he was a loud singer, just like madelyn last year.

wasn't he great?!  he was so proud to have us there watching him too.  the real concert is on sunday night and that is when daddy and madelyn will get a chance to see him do his thing.  i think mason was most excited about the cookie reception after the concert.  love.

on a lighter (louder) note...

manning was feeling good and 'sang' in the living room for a while.  as always, the camera was more interesting than what he had been doing...  love.

lyricist

madelyn has added "lyricist" to her list of professions.  some of her songs rhyme and are fairly good (in my opinion).  the one in this video isn't her best work, but it gives you a sense of her work (she is 'singing' extra loud for the camera).  what i liked best was maddux trying to sing along!  mason is starting to dabble himself in original songs so i am sure there will be more video to come.  love.

mason's new song

here is the song mason learned at school today.  (it is pretty quiet - so turn up those speakers.)  i love the last two lines.  so sweet!  love.

birthday cake

it took us a few days, but we finally made our baby jesus birthday cookie cake.  madelyn wanted to sing the version of happy birthday, jesus from her school concert.

breakfast and a show

a madelyn original

there are few moments these days where madelyn is not singing.  i have honestly started to tune it out if it is not directed towards me as part of our conversation because it is extremely repetitive most of the time.  i did notice a few catch phrases in this one that got me to pick up the camera. 

(the picture is her wearing bracelets as head bands.)

really, the best part is the look on maddux' face.  you can't really see how enraptured he is, but he was loving it!  my favorite parts are:
- "american flags all around"
- "looked out her window and saw a rainbow"

- "100 days"
- "house with the red door"
- "my little sister"
- and, of course, the bootie shake

basically she has combined all of her favorite things (except church) into a single song.  she was trying to sing the same verse every time but was loosing steam by the time i finally noticed what she was saying and got the camera. enjoy.  love.

final wisconsin move - day 1

i have been delinquent in posting about our trip to wisconsin to close on the house because it was so non-stop that i just needed some time to recover.  i have been doing laundry for 3 days, had to stock the kitchen with food, get some sleep so that i could put together a complete thought, and other back to normal life activities before i could get a chance to sit down and write about it.  so much happened that i am going to break it up into a few posts.

we left monday night after matt got home from work, and it was snowing.  the snow wasn't a huge deal, more of an annoyance.  the main problem was that maggie had diarrhea.  and nothing says "fun" on a long car trip than a dog with diarrhea.  it also wasn't fun to keep having to run her outside while i was trying to get everything ready for the trip.  her stomach was upset because mason keeps feeding her from the table.  i think that it was the monterrey jack cheese that did her in this time.  anyway, back to the trip.  madelyn was really excited to be going and made up this very catchy (and repetitive) song - the original 15 minutes had "i'm so excited" more often than the video shows.  it's dark, but you are just listening to her (over maddux' crying).

i worked during the drive and matt drove.  mason was actually the one of the kids awake for most of the drive.  i was a little surprised, but he slept at the beginning of the trip enough to make it so he wasn't tired enough to fall asleep in the car again.  both kids were awake when we arrived in wisconsin and not very interested in going back to sleep at 2am.  matt and i were beyond tired and were trying to be patient about getting them situated on their air mattresses.  madelyn said that she didn't remember where her room was in that house.  maybe she didn't.  she also didn't refer to it as "home" a single time on the trip, it was always the "wisconsin house" or the "house where we are staying".

the kids did so well considering all the chaos and lack of schedule (i.e. one hour time difference, no toys, boxes everywhere, air mattresses, no food in the house, etc.).  i think that i was really expecting the worst and they gave, mostly, their best.  maddux either sat/slept in his carrier or napped belly down on the floor (we had a pack-n-play, but only used it for night time sleeping).  i don't think he got nearly enough sleep on this trip, but stayed happy.  in retrospect, i really wish that i had brought my moby wrap so that i could have 'held' him more.  it was hard to find a safe place to set him most of the time.

such a happy boy.

can you find the sleeping maddux?

tuesday morning matt ran up to mcdonalds to pick up coffee and breakfast (we did not eat very well on this trip) while i got maddux fed and everyone dressed.  once he was back and we ate, i went up to mcdonalds for internet access.  i ended up working for an hour and felt bad leaving him for so long because i knew that he couldn't get much done with the kids there.  at least i had plans to keep them out of the house for a while.

we wanted to see as many of the neighbors as possible during our visit.  unfortunately, most of them had sick children and we didn't get to see them, but we were really thankful to see the ones we did and were very lucky that amy was willing to host us all for a lunch time playdate on tuesday.  matt packed while we played, but joined us for lunch.

madelyn playing with ava.  ava was one of the people madelyn most wanted to see.  ava's family is also moving soon - to california.

we were able to take the kids back to the house so that mason and maddux could nap while matt and i packed some more.  we had also really wanted to see our friends aeron and kate, and their daughters avery and tess.  we weren't able to see them before the first move and were really glad that they were willing to have us over for dinner on tuesday night.  even when avery woke up from her nap with a high fever.  i only wish that we could have visited longer, but we really had to eat and run because we needed to get some more work done at the house and still needed to stop by to pay the boy who had taken such good care of our house while we have been living in ohio (clearing snow, etc.).

tess, madelyn, and avery

mason joined them and it got a little wilder...

we got home kind of late (after 9pm); we hurried the kids to bed and got back to packing and loading.  i went to get my camera so that i could take pictures of our goodwill donation for the following morning only to discover that i must have dropped it outside of aeron and kate's house!  i called but they couldn't find it.  i couldn't let it go and went to look myself (because i couldn't describe clearly enough where we had parked).  sure enough, it was under the car that was parked in the space where we had been.  i was so thankful to find it, and that it still worked, but i lost an hour of packing time and it was after midnight.  good thing that we still had wednesday.  love.