Hooray for Girls

Liza.....my little buddy...... last night we decided to go on a walk at 9pm (an unusual occurance at our home given that I am a bedtime nazi)! We had such a good time singing, laughing and stopping occasionally to star-watch. She is absolutely delightful and remained positive and tough even in those last long tired minutes of walking home sooooo late. She keeps begging us for a sister, but I am selfishly liking our twosome :) 

Turkeys

A few nights ago, the twins were asking me all about where "meat" comes from......oh boy.....I tried to couch it softly, but how do you tell a three-year old (or two) that when he eats chicken nuggets, he is relishing in the slaughter of his favorite farm animal? Touchy topic. But as I got into it, I was explaining that crab meat comes from crab the animal; turkey meat comes from the gobble gobble turkey.....in a moment of their astonished silence, I tried to compensate for the shock by telling them "It's ok; Heavenly Father gave us the animals so that we could eat them. It's ok for us to eat them." Apparently, I did nothing to put out the fire, and had ignited one instead, because Jonah sat straight up in his bed and got the most angry look on his little face and said, "I told Jesus NOT to eat TURKEYS!!"  

Scrubs

Dane is constantly bringing smiles to the faces of family and friends. His latest gig is to sing an entire song to someone, looking them straight in the eye the entire acapella time. Simultaneous sweetness and hilarium. The other night, he was talking to Kevin who was at work. He asked Kev, "Daddy, are you wearing scrubs right now?" to which Kev responded that yes, he was wearing scrubs right then. Dane asked him, "Could you please bring me some scrubs home from the hospital? You know? For me.....the teeny big boy kind?" :)

A highlight of our summer: setting 5 butterflies free at our Cardiff property after we'd raised them from baby caterpillars. Metamorphosis is even weirder, bigger, better than pregnancy. Miraculous.

Liza has had the unique opportunity of joining Papa and Abba on some of their trips around the country.  A few weeks ago, they took her to St. Louis where they went to the top of the arch, took a riverboat cruise, and learned about Lewis and Clark. Especially for Liza, they then trained to Chicago, where the American Girl store was a must, along with great sight-seeing and food-eating! Liza loves seeing new cities, but I think that the best part of the trips for her is having her grandparents' full attention for so many days.....all to herself! They really focus on her; Kevin and I appreciate that gift to Liza more than anything else that comes from their trips together. She loves the attention and they love having her with them! 

Namesakes

Dan Christensen and Dane Christensen Tolton tear up the driveway on Dan's (aka Papa's) new John Deere - one of Dane's favorite pastimes for sure. The objective is to make it (yes, Dane is steering) all the way to the bottom of the long driveway, where they stop, tie an empty garbage can to the back of the tractor, and tow it all the way back up the driveway! There are always about the right number of garbage cans as there are kids awaiting rides, so everyone gets a turn with Papa. 

Wherever Dane is, there is a party; he is usually either laughing or being funny himself and is a total light.  His dark side: he is drawn to anything adrenalin-oid. His latest passion is to scare any onlooking adult to death with his fish-like ability to hold his breath and dive underwater. His average dive is about 10 seconds - long enough to have me on the edge of my seat every time....but he always comes up smiling holding as many dive rings as his little hands can manage! Trampoline jumping, and cruising on his tricycle are some of his other favorite energetic activities. 

When it is time to calm down, he loves a good book or to navigate around the "Starfall" website that Papa showed him which teaches phonics. He and Jonah have surprised us several times by sounding out/reading words, something you'd think that Kevin and I would be eager to take credit for but NO it is Starfall. We love to hear his huge thoughts, always expressed and punctuated with lots of hand motions and squinty eyebrows - how can you not listen to this guy !?! His new word is "actually"; I love it. He and Jonah like to play daddy and baby; Dane is usually the baby, so he crawls around making funny noises and asking his "daddy" to hold him. He does love to be held - by any of us and getting to snuggle with any of the kids is some of the sweetest time of each day. 

Brags

Every child has his strengths and weak nesses; one of Baby Will's primary strengths has been his ability to speak since he was a tiny wee minky. From the beginning, he picked up on, internalized and then repeated every subtlety of speech. It wasn't "ball". It was "It's a ball".  It wasn't "water". It was "I want a drink of water please." He's been a full-sentence kind of guy since about 9 months old. At 16 months he was singing the entire alphabet song, and now at 21 months, we have the joy of just conversing with him and it's hilarious! Talking to a baby! Who knew? (Should "blogs" be called "brags"??)  BUT..... the ability to express all of one's two-year-old angst about life isn't always such a great thing. SO much about the world, he straight out disagrees with and he let's us know. For instance, last week in the car I said to him, "Will, look out your window - it's raining!" He came back with "NO! It's NOT RAINING!" Just go with it, buddy. Don't fight it. It's weather.....Or "Here's your chicken noodle soup, baby" is retorted with "NO! It's not chicken noodle soup! IT'S NOODLES!" Notice the volume, the passion, the conviction. This kid has the world DOWN at 21 months. It's probably a good thing that his older brothers have taught him to hold his own physically, because if he keeps up the verbal spats, he will definitely have to defend himself a few times. He is an absolute gem; this short post doesn't at all illustrate his quiet, sweet, shy side.......I guess I just introduced him with the Brags......it's a mom thing.