We're In

We're in our new house! Well we've been in. We closed on the house a few weeks ago. However, since then we've been working our tails off getting the house ready to move into. All of this effort comes at expense of blogging about the kids. Feat not because I've taken notes and I'll fill in the blanks when I can.

The day we closed on the house we already started on a project; painting Alyce's room. For the longest time we've been building up the new house to Alyce by telling her she got to pick the color of her room. Almost since leaving our old house Alyce has asked for a dark purple room. Not "pinky purple" like her old room. She wanted "dark purple". Of course Mom and I aren't going to give Alyce unfettered access to the paint chips at Lowe's but mom picked a color Alyce was happy with.

The first time Alyce saw her painted room it was only half finished. Specifically it was only cut in. Alyce said to me later that I missed a lot of places with the paint in her room; everyone's a critic. A few days later when finished Alyce gasped when she walked into her room and then danced in circles around her room.

After closing we grabbed the kids and went out to the new house. We wanted to give them a chance to decompress in their new house. Both Alyce and Luke quickly took to the new house. They ran around in circles, jumped, and rolled on the floor. Seeing their excitement made living in the apartment worth it.

Time For Bed

Since Thursday morning Alyce had been under the weather with a stomach bug. It's the same one that hit Mom two weeks ago. I'm guessing all the effort we went to to keep her healthy was for naught as she picked it up at school.

Today she was on the road to recovery and she was mostly her old self when I got home from work.

After dinner Mom went out shopping with Grams and it was left to me to put Alyce to bed. I let her watch a show before bedtime and I took the opportunity to take a quick snooze on the couch. I find that children's shows put me right to sleep and Bob the Builder is no exception.

Alyce's show must have finished while I was out of it. I was woken up to my little girl standing over me saying "daddy it's time to go to bed".

Alyce's Daddy Book

Tonight when I got home from work Alyce greeted me with her most recent artwork.  What she gave me was probably the sweetest thing I've ever gotten from her or from anyone.  At school the teachers stapled together a few pages of colored construction paper and then let the kids create their own book.  The subject matter of Alyce's book was me!

Every page of the book was a hand drawn picture of me.  In a few of the pictures I was holding hands with Alyce.  I asked her what we were doing when we were holding hands and she said that in the orange picture she and I were going for a walk and in the yellow picture we just got done playing.

Later Mom told me that after Alyce finished her book her teacher put it on the overhead projector and Alyce read / explained the book to the class.  Mom and I were both so very proud of her.



I don't have the words to describe what I felt when she showed me her book; flattered, proud, loved?  I do know that it was great.

Christmas Day 3

Christmas day 3 wasn't originally supposed to happen.  As mentioned previously Christmas day ran long so the next day we packed up the kids and ran out to my hometown to finish the immediate family gift opening.  This trip was much less stressful than the night before.

When we first got there we hung out for a while before we started opening any presents.  The house needed to be picked up some from the night before.  While Mom and I were doing this Alyce and Luke were left to their own devices.  Luke was playing with toys in the family room while Alyce played in the living room. There is a saying that when the kids are too quiet it means they are up to no good. After a while I went in to check on Alyce and when I rounded the corner I caught my little girl red handed!  Alyce has opened the wrapping paper on the corner of one of her presents!  Maybe I should have been mad but instead I said in a playful voice "what are you doing?".  Alyce immediately recoils and covers her face in embarrassment.  Naturally instead of teaching a valuable lesson I reached for my phone to snap a picture.

Pretty soon thereafter we open presents to the kid's delight.  Both Alyce and Luke did very good jobs opening up their presents and taking turns.  Alyce helped Luke whenever he ran into trouble.  In all they both behaved themselves.

By the time we headed back home Mom and I could tell the kids were spent.  Two and a half days long days of good behavior, over excitement, and late nights took their toll.  While the kids were in nap time Mom and I used the opportunity to assemble Luke's new toy, the Wheelie car ramp.  Assembling toys on Christmas put a smile on my face as I thought to myself that the torch has been passed.

Christmas Day 2

Of course when it comes to Christmas day 1 blends in to day 2.  When we got home the night of Christmas Eve we got Alyce all gigged up for Santa.  We got the Santa's Cookies plate out, added a few cookies, and a mug of milk.  While I was putting Alyce to bed she all of the sudden came down with a serious look on her face.  I asked her what the problem was and she asked how Santa was going to get in the house.  She went on to say that he couldn't come down the chimney as our TV table was in front of the doors.  I told her that I would move the table away from the wall to make room.  That must have been a good enough solution as she rolled over and went to sleep.

 Christmas morning Alyce and Luke were greeted by a stack of presents.  There were some presents from Mom and I and some presents from Santa.  Alyce's big present was a treasure chest full of dress up clothes and jewelery.  Luke's big present was a Little People Wheelie car play set.  The car play set was the big winner of the year.  Since opening it Alyce, Luke, Mom, and myself have all played with it.  After opening all of the presents the kids got to play for a little while and then we loaded them up into the car for breakfast and presents at Grams and Papas.

Presents and breakfast at Grams and Papa's house was a lot of fun.  Chris's half brother Joe and Gigi were there.  Alyce's favorite present was a tea party set and Luke's was a set of Fisher Price gears.  After breakfast we hung out until it was time to get the kids home for naps and quiet time.  We had to head out to Onermark Grams later that night and Luke needed all the sleep he could get.

We wanted to get out to my mother's house before the larger family party started so we could exchange presents.  However Luke didn't cooperate and we didn't get out there until just before the other guests showed up.  The next few hours was chaos.  Tables had to be moved and chairs set up to handle the influx of parents and children.  Alyce and Luke both had a great time playing with their cousins.  All of the kids are within 3 years of each other and even though they aren't old enough to be left to their own devices in the basement they were able to sneak away here and there to get in to a bit of trouble.

The best part of the Christmas party with my family is the white elephant gift exchange.  This year created a new wrinkle in that the kids wanted to "help" open all of the presents.  And even though we allowed Alyce to help with ours she wanted to help everyone and we had to keep telling her no.  This led to an unhappy little girl but luckily it never hit a full on tantrum.

After the party was over and the guests went home we futilely tried to do our immediate family gift exchange.  I thought we could get all of the presents opened even though it was way way past the kids bedtime.  I thought wrong.  We got a few open but quickly it degenerated into madness.  Instead we decided to call it a night and come back out the next day to finish the presents.

Christmas Day 1

It's two days after Christmas and only now have I had enough time to write about it. We were busy seeing family on both sides over the past three days. On Christmas Eve we went over to Gram's and Papa's house for the family Christmas. Alyce and Luke both had a great time running around the house and playing with their cousins. Luke found a good friend in his cousin Isabella. She took to him the second he walked in the door and he was more than happy to sit in her lap and give her lots of hugs. Alyce enjoyed dancing to all of the Christmas songs being sung by her family and played on her cousin Augostino's guitar.


Following dinner that the kids couldn't be bothered to eat the kids played the game Pin the Nose on Rudolf. Mom made the game for the Holiday Party at Alyce's school however she fell ill and missed that day. Rather than let it go to waste the kids played. Luke even got a chance to play however he didn't use the blindfold. When finished the kids asked what had they won? The answer, they got to open presents!


Alyce's favorite present opened was a doctor kit that has light up instruments. Luke liked a set of books and a play power drill.


Both kids did great all night. Mom's cousins all have kids our kids ages and aren't afraid to step in when needed. We do the same and this allows everyone to let their guard down and have a decent conversation as you can rely on each other to keep your kids from getting into major trouble.

The first night was down with two more to go.

God is a Real Person

For a while Alyce has been asking who God is. We try our best to describe him to her but describing such a thing pushes the limits of what a 4 year old can understand.

On our way to school this morning Alyce asks if God is a real person. I say that yes he can be. And naturally her response is "why can't I see him?". Trying to put a response in terms she'd understand I say that it is because he is far away. After pondering that for a few moments she says "I think god is a real person and we can't see him because he is hiding behind trees". I love that little girl.

Under Construction

I've commented in the past about our new house being under construction.  Luckily things are progressing faster than we anticipated and we are closing on our new house January 17th.  At present the exterior of the house is finished, the interior walls are finished, and the cabinetry is being installed.  There is lots of work to be done but the excitement is building.

One downfall of the house being mostly done is that it is now under lock and key.  Once the garage door is installed and interior materials delivered the builder has the doors locked to prevent those items from walking away.  The builder's hours are from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. so if we want to take a look at the progress we have to do it between those hours.  Instead of stopping by the house twice a week we now only go once a week during lunch.

Each week we bring the kids with us so they can take a look at what their new rooms are going to be like.  Alyce gets a lot out of this and Luke likes to come along for the ride.  Each time we are on the property we are supposed to wear hard hats and I can only remember one time that we've actually done it.  The hard hats are in the building office and more often than not we looked at the house after business hours thus no hats.  The one time we got hard hats we managed to get a picture of Luke and Alyce wearing them and it was so cute!  Luke looked especially happy to be wearing his.

Train Engine

Yesterday Alyce finished the last section of her Lowe's train.  In previous weeks Alyce and I put together the caboose and passenger cars.  This week we put together the engine.  Alyce's friend Gideon wasn't able to show up this week as he had a doctors appointment.  On the way to Lowe's Alyce was asking if Gideon was going to be there and when I had to break the news to her she was pretty broken up.  By the time we got our packet of materials and hammer Alyce had gotten over it.  We picked up a packet of materials for Gideon so he could finish his train.  Alyce was very protective of his packet and kept reminding me that it was Gideons; very cute.

Alyce's hammering skills have improved throughout this project.  Her swings have much more confidence with longer swings and more energy behind them.  With that confidence came a decrease in accuracy as half the swings were off the mark.  Some of that can be attributed to hand eye coordination but the rest comes from inattention.  While I was holding the pieces Alyce's swings went wild onto my fingers.  In pain I'd look up and she would be looking around rather than focusing on what she was doing.

The engine turned out great.  If I had my way I would have left the train natural wood and forgone the stickers.  But Alyce's favorite part is decorating the train and again she chose the holiday stickers.  That made two train cars decorated with holiday stickers and one decorated with freight train stickers.  When we got back home Alyce wanted to switch the stickers on the caboose and luckily I had saved them from a few weeks ago and mom switched them out.  Now all parts of our train match.

I really enjoyed this project.  In just a few weeks Alyce's skills with tools have improved.  Over the years with more complex projects I hope Alyce learns more skills like reading directions, taking measurements, and the use of more complex tools.  I don't expect her to become a master carpenter, but being able to assemble a new toy or furniture should be within her abilities when she has kids of her own.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Lately I've noticed a few things Alyce has been doing that she pulled directly from Mom.  When Alyce washes her hands she washes them her own normal way.  However, whenever she turns off the water she'll shake her hands dry in the sink and lightly tap her hands on the bowl.  Next now that it is cold Alyce is wearing long sleeve shirts.  Whenever she goes to put on her coat she pulls her sleeve down and holds onto it while pushing her arm through coat.  Doing this stops her shirt from bunching up in her sleeve.

What is so interesting about these two things is that Mom does the exact same thing.  I'm sure some behavioral expert could explain why that happens but I'll chalk it up to Mom being a good role model and Alyce wants to be just like her mother.  Even something insignificant like how you dry your hands is proof that your kids are watching and the examples you set are noticed, adopted, and enacted.  We need to keep our bedroom cleaner.