Letters to Santa

Dear Santa,

Hi Santa, this is Caden ******.  I wanted to see how you're doing and let you know how good I've been this year.  I also wanted to let you know what I want for Christmas this year.  Please see the list of things I want for Christmas below:

• Christmas shoes with sticks on them
• Princess shoes
• My family to be with me
• Wand
• Santa hat
• Santa beard
• Christmas lights to light up on me 

Thank you Santa for bringing good boys and girls presents on Jesus' birthday.

Caden

Dear Santa,

I like Rudolph.  I like dog.  I like stockings.  I like pizza with pepperoni.  I like Chuck E. Cheese.  That's it Santa.

This is Caleb ****** and I be good this year.  Thank you for bringing me toys on Jesus' birthday.

Caleb

**My husband helped write the letters.  I edited as I typed them up to share.
***My heart melted when Caden requested his family to be with him for Christmas.

Princess Rings

I found a note in a rarely used laptop in my house tonight dated December 27, 2009.

It is a quote from Caden.

"Daddy, your ring doesn't have a princess like mommy's!"

This was just three short months after we'd wed.

Like I shared in our engagement story, my ring has some lovely diamonds.

Keith opted for a simple white gold band.

Caden apparently feels he should have princess too!  (Maybe that's why this Christmas he asked Santa for princess shoes and a wand.)

That's not fun

Caden: Can I watch a movie?

Mommy: No.

Caden: But we didn't get to do anything fun today.

Mommy: Oh really?  Well you can go make your own fun now and play with all your toys!

Caden:  But that's not fun.

Mommy: If your toys aren't fun, we can box them up and give them all away.

Caden: NO!

Mommy: So let's make some fun with them!

Caleb chimes in: Mommy can I watch TV?

Mommy: No!

Jingle & Mingle Morning

Today was Jingle & Mingle with Santa at the company my husband and I work for.  We choose to bring the boys in for the morning session for breakfast and fun.  Wouldn't you know I left my camera at home today? 

Luckily my co-worker and friend Kristin saved the day and let us borrow hers!

However, I will have to wait for her to get the photos sent to us before I can share.

We ate breakfast, we decorated ornaments, we made magnets, and more importantly we saw Santa!  The boys gave Santa their carefully crafted letters with the help of Daddy.  (I plan to share their letters another day; I hope.)

Caleb asked Santa for a rocket ship for Christmas.

Caden asked Santa for pricess shoes for Christmas.

They saw mommy and daddy's co-workers; then it was time to go back to day care with their new stuffed teddy bears from Santa. 

As I walk the boys back out to our van to drive to the day care, Caleb is asking questions. 

Caleb: Mommy, those people, they know your name?

Me: Yes.

Caleb: Oh.  They call you Beth?

Me: Yes.

Caleb: Oh.  How come they don't call you Mommy?

I explained that they had their own mommy and that I was only Caden and Caleb's mommy.  Just for them.

But really, I chuckled to myself and felt very, very loved.

Parenting Class: Week 12

This was our final week!  We've all received certificates of successful completion!  We've come away a little wiser as parents, and grateful for our abilities and families.

We talked about logical consequences.  This was actually just a review of a topic we covered last week, that I didn't blog about.  The concept is nearly as simple as it sounds.  The consequence is a direct correlation to the action that occured.  For example, you break a chair, you don't sit on the chair anymore.

We also touched on the subject to teaching problem solving, mostly for older children.  Their reccomendation was to "scaffold" or to talk your child through the process of promlem solving in different situations when they're calm.

There was also a graduation and small celebration for Dinosaur school.  The kids all showed us what they'd learned in dinosaur school throughout the program.  There were some great lessons for the children on learning how to control their emotions.  Those items were things like a "shield" that reflected bad words and kept nice words, your "ignoring muscle" for when another person is bothering you, and a "turtle shell" to "hide" in when you're angry.  They also learned ways to calm themselves down by counting to ten or taking deep breaths. 

I'm hungry

Caden has developed a habit of waking up in the middle of the night.

It started out as being just around 5:00 a.m., but it's slowly progressed into anytime between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. lately.

It started that he would come in and say "Daddy, I'm really hungry."

Yes, in the middle of the night.  And yes, I feed my kids!  They eat very well!

Now, Caden's questions are starting to branch out a little bit.

"Daddy, I'm cold."

We politely remind him that it isn't time to get up yet, and we'll make breakfast in the morning.  Then we sleep again until morning.

The great thing about this, my kids have learned that in the middle of the night, their best chance at anything, is Daddy.  Mommy, in the middle of the night, pretty worthless!

A Piggy Bank Full of Water

It was an eventful day in my house this Saturday.

My mom and I spent the afternoon baking away for Christmas.

I had to run to the store to pick up some chocolate molds from a co-worker.

While I was gone, my boys got the great idea to take a piggy bank to the bathroom with them.

They proceeded to fill it up with water.

I spent the rest of the evening finding wet spots on my furniture and floors.

I then had to smell them to figure out if they were water from the piggy bank or dog pee.