1-1-11 Happy New Year!

Well the new year is here and we "rang it in" in a very sweet way. We toasted to the great things of 2010: Caden's birth, Grandma graduating from grad school, and general health and happiness. We also toasted to what's to come in 2011: first steps, potty training, and learning to read. Caden was fast asleep and Joe was entrenched in work that needed to be done on his website. The boys were eager to toast with their little shot glasses. However, Conrad was skeptical when he didn't see any buttered bread still warm from the toaster. He got the hang of it pretty quickly. So did Max with only moderate spilling. I was toasting sparkling grape juice with my parents and my two little boys. I'm not sure if that makes me old or young. . .

I made homemade pizza for dinner. I thought it would be fun for the boys to make their own, but they weren't interested in topping a pizza when they could be playing hide and seek with Grandma and Grandpa!

Everybody liked the pizza. I usually prefer a thinner, crispier crust. I made two small crusts with this recipe. Here's the crust recipe that I used.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F /45 degrees C)

1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons olive oil 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

1.	In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2.	Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
3.	Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4.	Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5.	Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

12-3-10 Conrad on Faith

Conrad on faith. . .

I overheard him say that he wishes he could walk on water, but only Jesus can do that.

After talking about Dorcas being raised from the dead, Conrad was talking about how Jesus and Nonno were the only other ones raised from the dead.

12-1-10 State of Affairs

The boys are just blossoming in many areas. Conrad's developed a definite interest in letters and combining them into words. Max's vocabulary has exploded to way too many words to count and he uses them in sentences. Caden is sitting up (started about a month ago), reaching for me, and asserting himself in conversation and activities.

It's a very busy time at our house, but it's amazing too. The boys are just changing so much and becoming able to do so much. Max's first molar recently cut through and the other three are starting to cut through. Conrad wrote his name for the first time and I almost cried. Caden will still snuggle his face into my neck and if he's REALLY tired, he'll fall asleep while I'm holding him. I have to hold onto these fleeting baby moments. But the big boy moments are awesome too.

I laugh when Conrad pretends to be a robot and moves like he has hinges and when Max stands at the toilet holding up his shirt so he can pee. I can't imagine ever forgetting these moments, but there are so many of them!!!

I may have a biter on my hands. It's hard to tell if Max is an official biter or not because so far he has only bitten his brothers. I think the offender has to strike at least one non-sibling to be officially declared a biter. It brings up some unusual discussions at our house. I usually try to see if Conrad may have been an instigator in the situation and the other day when I asked Conrad if he did anything to Max before he bit him, he told me, "No, Honest I didn't do anything. Ask God. He knows everything."

11-9-10 The Magic of Mothering

Even with baby #3, it still amazes me that there is something uniquely special about a mother's touch. When Caden is really upset, I can snuggle him really close to me and he relaxes. I guess there's some sort of baby magic too because when I'm tense from the day and Caden snuggles his little face near my neck, the weight of him resting on me makes me fall into a state of calm and I what to freeze-frame those moments, but it's okay that I can't because each age brings about new magical moments. At least moments that make me laugh.

We took the boys out to dinner at Wendy's the other night and Max kept saying we were going to Weinies. Come on, you have to laugh at that! I can't believe how much he's talking. It's fun to be able to communicate with him. He's got so much to say. He absolutely wants to do whatever Conrad does, including cut vegetable during dinner preparation. So far, so good with letting him use a butter spreader to do his "cutting".

Conrad came into our room at 5 o'clock this morning and called me a mean-o because I didn't stay in his bed after he fell asleep. We both got over it quickly and fell right back to sleep. I need to make a plan on how to break him of the habit of coming into our bed at night (it's usually well before 5 a.m.). So far, my only ideas on this are to take him back to his bed every time; I'm not very motivated to do this in the middle of the night. I'll have to think about it some more.

On a lighter note, Chick-fil-A finally opened a store in our area. I treated myself to one of their delicious chicken sandwiches and their specialty lemonade this week. The flavors took me back to memories of my first job in high school. No, I didn't work at Chick-Fil-A. I worked at a tiny store in the mall and Chick-Fil-A was the only place that delivered, so I ate that a lot because I pretty much always worked alone and couldn't leave the store. I can't believe I worked alone and then did the deposit by myself after the mall closed. Does not seem like a good idea. . .

10-26-10

I'm so glad that Max still has all of his teeth! Tonight he took a header right into side of the open back door. It sounded bad when he hit and I held my breath during the two-second delay before he started crying. Within 20 more seconds, there was a little bit of blood coming from the inside of his lower lip. I scooped him up while holding Caden crying in my other arm.

Max has been trying out saying my name, Emily. It's the sweetest little experiment sound as his works to create each syllable. Tonight, he clearly assigned the name Emily to his stuffed bunny. I think I blushed.

10-25-10 Count your many blessings

The most wonderful blessings in my life have names. Sometimesit hits me like a ton of bricks how much God has blessed us with being able to have three children, that they're pretty healthy, and developing like they should.

10-9-10 God Questions

Whenever an ambulance drives by we pray for the person that is hurt or sick. Sometimes Conrad prays and sometimes I do. Max always chimes in with the "Amen". Tonight, it was my turn. After the prayer, Conrad asked me to ask God who was hurt.

I wish it worked like that. That whenever we had a question for God, we could just ask it and he would send the answer right down. Write it in the clouds maybe, but a verbal answer would be nice too.

Con also asked why there are three different languages. I like to think that this question stemmed from us recently reading the Tower of Babel story in the Bible, but I think I have to give credit to Dora the Explorer. Luckily, the Tower of Babel provided the answer.

These are hard questions to answer to a three-year-old. The other day we did a little science experiment to demonstrate God, us, and sin. It's a mind bender to accurately explain sin to a preschooler.

It's MUCH different having ongoing conversations with your own child about these topics that it is to teach a preschool Sunday School class with other people's children.