My Funny Little Valentines

What a fun week this has been! This was Scottie's first Valentine's Day in school, so we're very proud of his first valentine. (I can't figure out how to fix the picture to the right -- I did take it the right way, but blogger is auto "fixing" it to make it vertical when it should be horizontal.) Anyway, The front is marble painted in the pic to the left. On the back, Scottie drew a picture of me (the one in blue) and a picture of Ron (the one in red) and wrote the word, "boy" (to the left of Ron's head) all by himself!! We're so proud of him!! The poem in the center is very sweet, too. It reads:

"Most holidays our teacher
Has us do some special art.
You can see our hands and fingerprints,
But do you see our hearts?

You cannot see a "heart-print,"
But our hearts are there each time.
So please accept my little heart,
in this special valentine."

Talk about making a Mommy burst with love and pride for my special little Scottie!!

And Robbie's class did a great celebration this week, too! Today, his teachers held a "Kindness Awards" ceremony. Each student was honored for a kind act in class. Mrs. Drury had Robbie stand in front of the class as she read his award out loud. He was so cute and I was so proud! Robbie's award reads:

"This Kindness Award is presented to Robbie Maisch for his kindness to his classmates. When Mrs. Drury, Robbie and a friend were starting to play a game together, and Robbie and his friend both wanted to go first, Robbie decided to let his friend go first.

Thank you, Robbie, for letting your classmate go first when you're taking turns. That is very kind!"

While the boys were at school, Allie and I had our own little play time. I'm just so amazed at how fast she's growing! I went to get her after her morning nap the other day and found her, STANDING UP in her crib! She had pulled up, not just to her knees, but to her feet. I think she was trying to look over the rail to see where she had dropped her paci. (Guess that "object permanence" phase is upon us!). And check out this video below. She can now sit up all by herself without anything holding her up! And she seems to have learned that "piggy toes" means HER toes! Anytime I say it, she reaches out and finds her toes.

And lastly (and my personal favorite), she loves to dance!! We play music or sing and she rocks her little body to the tune. If someone is holding her, she even does a little baby headbanging! We have Ron to thank for this one. He started singing the "La, la...la, la, la....La, la....la, la, la" intro to Offsprings "Self Esteem" and now Allie recognizes it and does her little dance routine every time! Love this baby girl!!

Kitchen Facelift

I know, I know, it took me long enough! Finally, after much delay, here are the before and after pictures of our kitchen. Ron did a terrific job with our cabinets. Total cost was about $300 (including electrician), but what a world of difference!! Ron took the doors off, added chair rail moulding to the door panels, added crown moulding to the tops of the cabinets, and we both painted the cabinets white, inside and out.


(Do you have any idea how LONG it takes to paint cabinets inside and out? Or how long you have to live with your pantry items on the piano, your tupperware on the credenza, and your dishes stacked on the floor?)



But the end result is a much more open, bright, inviting space. We just love it!

And to give credit where credit is due, this entire cabinet facelift was all Ron's idea. From the crown moulding to putting chair rail moulding on the doors. All him! Thanks, hon! I love being married to such a handy guy!

Creative Games

We hosted a playdate at our house last week for the neighborhood kids. We laughed as the kids invented new games to play together.

At one point, they took out all of the costumes and hats from the dress-up chest and put them on in bizarre combinations. (Scottie, with an empty plastic storage bin on his head told me he was a monster. Duh, Mom!) Then they brought lost of the little play food and small toys to us moms, sitting in the living room. Not sure what that was for, we just laughed and the moms holding their "goodies" just held on to them as we continued our conversation. Next thing we know, a parade of silly kids comes in using empty hats and bags and came "Trick or Treating" for the goodies they had supplied us with. What a cute idea!!

Then came the "Mommy Rope" game. Toward the end of the morning, they found an old section of rope Ron gave the boys when they were being cowboys. The group managed to tie it into a huge circle and all got inside the circle, leaning and walking in opposite directions, forming their own silly game of molecule. The whole time, they're all saying, "Mommy, Moooooommy. Mommy!" The fun was when they all fell down on top of each other. They repeated this at least twenty different times, laughing and giggling more each time!

It's so much fun to see how their little minds work and see them creating such great games all on their own. Who needs fancy electronics and organized activities all the time? These kids know how to invent their own fun!

I'm so glad we got everyone together again. We all (kids and moms) had such a great time! Thanks to everyone who came over to play!!

Allie's Accomplishments!

Monday was a big day for our baby girl!

When I went up at 6:30 to get Allie up for the day, she was on her knees with her hands on the railing of her crib. Ack!! She's learning to pull UP already!!

She had a rough night the night before, which I chalked up to her cold. She was getting awfully annoyed that she couldn't suck on her pacifier since she couldn't breathe through her nose! I thought it might be teething when I saw her pink cheeks this morning, but only felt swollen gums. Then, after her morning nap, she gnawed on my finger and I felt it. ALLIE'S FIRST TOOTH!!!

And our girl can move, too! She still travels with her belly on the floor, so it's not an "official" crawl just yet, but let me tell you, she is efficient!! She does get up on her hands and knees to rock and can move her knees to crawl, but mostly, that pushes her backwards, which she doesn't like. So she continues to scoot, but covers an awful lot of area that way! Today, in the amount of time it took me to walk into the kitchen to refill Scottie's water, she had gone all the way from the living room, through the hallway, through the den, and up the small ledge into the playroom!!! All by herself!! When she knows what she wants, she moves fast!

And finally, Monday also brought with it the need for our baby gates again. Check out Allie's new trick when she sees someone head upstairs. Yes, this is my girl, pulling up on the bottom step/landing of our house. After seeing how she got into the playroom yesterday, I'm not doubting she'll make it up the steps in no time.

Ack! My baby is growing up! And today she turns 7 months old. Happy mini-birthday, Sweet Pea!!

Brotherly Love

Everyone always comments on how well the boys get along. They truly are each other's best friend. But the flip side to that is that they're also each other's worst enemy.

Yes, it's true that we were walking through the Home Depot this weekend and the boys, standing behind us, said, "Look at us!" So we turn to see them standing in the middle of the aisle, just hugging each other, like in this picture here. Fellow shoppers smiled and said how cute they were. If they only knew the episode from earlier that morning. Rewind about 2 hours and this is what happened:

Ron and I are finishing lunch in the dining room when we hear the telltale wail that means one of the boys is hurt. Typically, Robbie is crying because Scottie has hit him in a battle over a toy or Scottie has fallen down or walked into a wall, but we try to always hear them out to get to the bottom of it anyway. Well, this time it was Scottie who was the injured party. He came in crying, holding his hand.

"What's the matter, Scottie? Did you get hurt?"

"Yes. My hand is hurt."

"What happened? Did you fall?"

"No, I didn't fall down."

"Well how did you hurt your hand?"

"I tried to punch and hit a toy."

(Ron and I are now trying to conceal our laughter.) "You tried to punch and missed? What did you try to punch?"

"Robbie."

"So you went to punch Robbie, but missed and your hand hit a toy and that's how you got hurt?"

"Yes. Can you kiss it to make it better? I need a snuggle."

Well, we just couldn't contain ourselves anymore after that. Ron and I burst out laughing and told Scottie he doesn't get a snuggle for trying to punch Robbie. We sent him on his way and finished our lunch. Just a typical day in the Maisch household!!

Robbie, the Reader

Last night, I took Robbie upstairs to go to bed. As he's brushing his teeth, he sees the flashlight we keep in the medicine cabinet for emergencies (and sometimes for reading books to Robbie after Scottie is asleep). He asks, "Mommy, can I have a book tonight?" I tell him, of course, he can.

"Actually, Mommy, can I read the book tonight? And can I use the flashlight to do it? I know which book I want to do. I can read "Little Jack Horner" all by myself the right way."

So, we get him tucked in and he says his prayers and I get the book. (These are little 5-page nursery rhyme board books we have from a whole set.) I'm thinking he'll say all the words and then flip the pages and talk about the pictures, like he usually does.

But he takes the flashlight in one hand and the book in his lap and uses the flashlight to follow the words across the page. He turns the pages all at the right time, and said every word correctly. I was just so proud! I know he's not "reading" it yet, but I love this pre-reading stage. It's so cute and he's so excited about learning to read!

When he finished, I told him how proud I am of him and he said, "Maybe someday I can read ALL of our books the right way, Mommy!" Love this kid!

Here's a little taste of him "reading" to all of us last week when we had my parents over for dinner. "Green Eggs and Ham" is another favorite and Robbie did the ENTIRE BOOK for us like this. It was so cute!!



And we can't leave out Scottie. His favorite book before bed is Sandra Boynton's "Snoozers". It's a collection of bedtime stories with the silly Boynton rhymes. Here's Scottie reading us his version of "Pajamas" from that book:

Kid Quotes and Prayers for "One HIP Grandpa"

We've been saying prayers at night with the boys for Grandpa's hip surgery to go well. We're pleased that it has gone well and love hearing what the boys say in their prayers for him. A few favorites include:
"and God Bless Grandpa's hip." and
"God Bless Grandpa with shurgy" (that's with "surgery" from Scottie) and
"God Bless Grandpa with a fast covering" (that's "fast recovery" from Robbie).

Another cute one that gave me a giggle was last night in a conversation with Robbie. We were talking about why I've been on the computer so much this week (I've been filling in for my editor while his family was on vacation) and this is how that went:
Robbie: Mommies don't work. Only Daddies work.
Me: That's not true, Robbie. A lot of Mommies work. Mommy is a writer. I just get to work from home. That's what I do when I'm on the computer.
Robbie: But Mommies don't GO to work.
Me: Well, some Mommies do, but they get someone else to help take care of the kids.
Robbie: Well, Mommies should not work when Daddies work because then we would not know what is the right things to do.
:)