Carter (aka Car, Car Tom, Car Tom Tom)
Carter is halfway done with his kindergarten year! He is really excelling in school and we received a good report about him during his conferences. Also, when I run into the moms who volunteer in the classroom they all tell me how sweet he is :). It seems that he has more friends that are girls than boys. Matt ate lunch with him one day and commented how at least 5 girls were gathered around him talking before lining up for recess. His girlfriend is Anna who lives in our neighborhood and parents work at the school. I asked him how he knew she was his girlfriend and he said that she put her arm around him at lunch one day and said 'this is my boyfriend.' I guess that is how it works in kindergarten - ha! He really likes Breleigh who lives across the street from us because they have a shared love of Toothless and How to Train Your Dragon. He even wanted to give her a Christmas gift so I suggested a How to Train your Dragon egg since it is small and inexpensive. He was all over it. We wrapped it and he gave it to her at the bus stop. My heart almost burst because it was the SWEETEST thing ever!
Carter loves math and will write number sentences all day long. He still likes to continue to draw and our house is always full of papers. He is getting into writing and often asks us how to spell things. He is getting more confident sounding things out when reading. The only hang up he has about school is his OBSESSION with the color chart. When I ask him how his day is he immediate answers me in reference to the color he ended up on. I don't mind that he wants to stay on 'good' colors but he can really get crazy about it. For example, green is 'ready to learn' and where every child starts the day. I am more than happy if Carter stays on green all day. He is also happy with this for the most part...one day a boy in his class, who is usually on a 'bad' color, ended up on yellow, which is 'good job' and one color above green. Carter was almost beside himself that this boy 'had a better day' than him (Carter's words). I had a talk with him about it and reassured him that being on green was a good day. He responded with, 'but I am disappointed.' Oh My Carter! Sometimes he is so much like my brother it is scary because I know that if Mark had a color chart in kindergarten he would have been equally obsessed with it.
Carter is still very into dragons and is got most of the 'defenders of berk' for Christmas between us, Santa, my parents and siblings. He also got a How to Train Your Dragons blanket from my brother and Grete, which he has slept with every night. He loves to pretend with his dragons and does 'pretend' to be a dragon himself although he hasn't spoken dragon to us too often lately. He told me one day that when he runs around at recess he hears the How to Train Your Dragon music in his head. He loves to climb on he playground and go across the monkey bars. He likes to eat hot lunch at school and brings peanut butter and honey sandwiches if he brings lunch from home. I almost forgot Carter's biggest news as of late....he lost his first tooth!!! His bottom tooth has been wiggly for awhile but finally got to the point where it was so loose he couldn't leave it alone. I have a 'thing' about teeth and it totally grosses me out to have him mess with it in front of me. So I was happy when he ran into my bedroom in the middle of the night to tell me his tooth fell out. He was super excited!! A friend of his that rides on the bus lost his tooth about a week before and told Carter that for his first tooth the Tooth Fairy leaves $5! Um...teeth prices sure have increased since I was a kid. He did receive $5 for his first tooth but will not get that much going forward :).
The things he says/Carter quotes:
Carter: "Mom, I want to change my name."
Me: "You don't want to be Carter anymore?"
Carter: "Well, I have been that name for five years and I want a different name for five years."
Me: "Carter, what is your favorite subject?
Carter: "What is a subject?"
Me: "Like math, reading, writing..."
Carter: "Recess!!"
Me: "No, not recess."
Carter: "LUNCH!"
"Mom, guess what?! When a thunderstorm hatches it makes a loud noise that rumbles in the sky."
"I look ridiculous"
Carter has a boy in his class named Benjamin but Carter always pronounces it "Ben-jer-min"
"Mom, mine and Addison's are equivalent and Gus and Isla's are equivalent."
"Mom, I just can't believe you are having another baby...I just can't believe it!"
On being a big sibling:
"Isla you are going to have to know better, not bite. You can't do anything bad and no screaming okay?"
Isla (aka I, I Liz, Isla Cakes, Elizabeth, Liz, Lizzie)
Isla Cakes is doing really well. She saying more and more words and putting them together. More in chopped in phrases than sentences but I will take it. She does have an issue with beginning sounds in the sense that she rarely says them. It is so strange because I know she can make the 'p' sound because she says 'papa' but her favorite color is still 'ink." :) Some of the cutest things she is doing lately...
Carter and her like to wrestle and every time they start she yells 'wrestle time' and then they go t their corners. She is so tough! She pretty much likes to do whatever Carter is doing. One thing I have noticed lately is that they are playing really well together, which is really nice to see. Carter will still get frustrated if she touches something he doesn't want her to but for the most part they are nice to each other. She likes to draw/scribble and holds the pen almost perfectly. She likes to pretend she is a waitress and will go up to people with her pad and paper and ask 'want?'
She is really into playing with princesses and received 7 of them from Santa. Her favorite princesses are Anna and Ariel. I love to hear her play with them because someone is always in peril it seems and on the verge of falling off a cliff :). She also likes to make her dolls kiss and will do a kiss sound to accompany them, which is so cute. Isla also really like baby dolls and got an Bitty Baby for Christmas and loves that the doll's eyes close when she lays her down to sleep. She is also into dragons because her brother is into dragons. Her favorite dragon is 'Gronkle' and Carter gave her a little stuffed Gronkle for Christmas that she loves.
Isla's biggest news is that she is potty trained!! Woo hoo! I was kinda of waiting around for her to tell me she was ready to go like Carter did but finally decided it was time for her to train. She has had an off/on interest in potty training since the summer but would always tinkle in her undies. It was so frustrating because she would tell me. Carter would have an accident and immediately let me know. She would go about her business and not say anything until I checked her. This became a problem on several occasions when she insisted on wearing underwear but didn't want the responsibility of remembering to go on the potty. So when I was done with finals I decided that is was potty training time. It took her about 4 days to really get it. The first couple days were a little frustrating but by the fourth day she really 'got' it and knew to listen to her body and let me know when she had to use the restroom. She has been accident free at home since then but did have an accident when we were at the Children's Museum over Christmas break. A combination of things went wrong there and we both hopefully learned. She is always super excited when she goes and will look at me with a big smile on her face and say 'potty' and then give me a thumbs up. She is really just too cute sometimes.
Her favorite song is 'All About that Bass.' Matt will play it when we clean the house and she will run to find me and yell "Mom! Jam!" because she knows it is our jam :). She does the cutest dance with it and when lyrics, 'no treble' come on she waves her little finger back and forth. It is so adorable! She has been really good lately and answers most requests with 'okay, mom.' She does a good job listening and following directions but certainly can be sassy at times. Isla and Gus are either best friends or worst enemies depending on the minute it seems. My mom and I figured out that it is because they are both dominate personalities and won't do what the other one asks. Carter and Addison got along so well partly because Addison was willing to take orders from Carter. Isla is getting really tall and looking like a little girl (tears!). She is still not a cuddler and stingy with her hugs and kisses but that is all part of her independent personality. She has been sleeping in her big girl bed for several months now and I never hear a peep from her after we put her down for the night (knock on wood). She loves her bed and curls up under a million blankets every night.
The things she says/Isla Quotes:
Daddy: "Isla you look beautiful!"
Isla: "yeah!"
Daddy: "do I look beautiful too?"
Isla: "No. Handsome dad. Handsome"
Some pics! These are from August (and October) but still cute :)
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| Big girl swinging |
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| Posing |
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| Cute Girl! |
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And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
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