Happy Birthday Song

I just love Heidi's reaction to being sung to on her birthday.  Check out this video:

Sleepy

Best nap time ever!

12.26.08 @ 7:54AM

Happy birthday Heidi!

potty song

we still sing the 'potty song' around here.... it came up recently that we had taped boden singing it when we were in the depths of potty training with him the spring before he turned three. just looked it up tonight. i don't believe we ever posted it, but it is too good to not share. the first one cuz it has some guttural voicing that boden still does all the time now and the second with the complete song. enjoy some vintage boden....

Code

We should probably institute a dress code for supper.  One is in her
underpants and the other is in his pajamas.  Even worse, they were
both outside looking at our Christmas lights dressed in this manner.

list

a few weeks ago boden wanted me to make a list of all the places he wanted to go. the first half or so he rattled off about as fast or faster than i could write. when he started to slow down, he went to the map in the dining room to study it and finish off his list.

places boden wants to go:

-Indianapolis
-New Zealand
-Russia
-Hawaii
-New Jersey
-Washington DC
-Mongolia
-China
-Washington State
-California
-New Mexico
-Texas
-Arizona
-Arkansas
-Massachusetts
-Louisiana
-Oklahoma City
-New York City
-Maine
-Rhode Island
-Vatican City
-Italy
-England
-Australia
-Kazakhstan
-Uzbekistan
-Turkey
-Egypt
-Israel
-Algeria
-Libya
-Wyoming
-Kansas
-Idaho
-Montana
-North Dakota
-South Dakota
-Nebraska
-Finland
-Norway
-Sweden
-Scotland
-Mississippi
-Alabama
-Georgia
-Florida
-Mali
-Morocco
-Chad
-South Sudan
-Sudan
-Nigeria
-South Africa
-Lesotho
-Zambia
-Benin
-Togo
-Guinea
-Peru
-Brazil
-Chili
-Argentina
-Colombia
-Cuba

boden was brought immediately to attention when he saw me grab his paper with the places he wants to visit on. he joined me by the computer to make sure i wrote them down right. as soon as i was done with the list, he asked me to add these to it:

-Niger
-Venezuela
-Iran
-Iraq
-Afghanistan
-Cambodia
-Pakistan
-India
-Vietnam
-Laos
-Thailand
-Myanmar
-Uruguay
-Paraguay
-Kyrgyzstan
-Tajikistan


mom has never heard of some of these countries, while her son tells her the name of the country now and what it used to be named.

dad has an intense desire to fulfill boden's wish to go to all these countries in two years.

we are all looking forward to crossing a few off the list on our road trip to Oklahoma next week! if things go well, we may drive a little out of the way to add some more states to our bucket list.

Oops

Wrong way off the bed.

Reading in bed

Maize

The kids did some harvesting on Saturday.

Winter yet?

The kids are getting ready for winter.

Hairs cut

Heidi had her first big girl haircut. She did awesome!

I caught Heidi on video signing "Jesus Loves Me".  Accompanied by herself.

Duet

boden and heidi performing together at the piano.

gutter bawl

a new game to play.

traditional final camping trip

this past weekend was our traditional final camping trip of the summer with the cousins at holland state park. we had great weather and great company.

here boden and heidi are throwing sand in the channel.  of course, we hauled the sand all the way from our campsite.  we didn't think that we could use the sand within throwing distance of the channel.

boden had to stand on all of the rocks.

heidi did some.

another rock.

and another.

as we were heading back towards our campsite we saw a large freighter going through.

on saturday morning we played at the beach.  it was cool and foggy.

the water was cold enough that even boden didn't spend much time in it.

we even got to see a fog-bow.

of course hanging with the cousins was the best part.

wagon time

boden and heidi had fun doing the little red wagon with caleb and logan.

whitecaps

at the end of august, boden and i went to our second whitecaps game of the season.  like the first game, this one also went into extra innings.  also like the first one, we left before the end.  unlike the first one, the whitecaps ended up winning this game.  they beat the lake county captains (so, the tigers beat the indians in the minors, too).  we did have a lot of fun.  i believe that boden was made for baseball game food.  he can go to town on ice cream, popcorn, and chips.  

here boden is sporting his ice cream dish, turned hat.  oh, and his skateboarding wounds.

mini golf

we did a first as a family. last friday night we played mini golf.
we tried to keep it organize, play according to the rules, and take
turns but that didn't last through the first two holes. then it just
turned into every man for himself. nonetheless we had a lot of fun.

coopersville

last saturday we went to the festival in coopersville. there were
lots of classic cars on display. i feel like i have seen more classic
car shows in the last few years than i have in my whole life. it
really is surprising how many people fiddle with these cars and then
like to show them off. anyway, one of the highlights was that boden
and i were able to take a short ride on the train. we had to keep it
short because heidi (she had no desire to go on the train) and mommy
were waiting for us and a storm was approaching (we ended up getting
soaked by the time we got to the car).

Sing and dance

we caught the elusive heidi singing and dancing on video. she sings quite a bit, but it is hard to capture.

bits and pieces

lately the kids have been doing and saying so many things that i'm like - "i've got to blog that!" - but of course i forget or don't get around to it. i'm going to attempt to try and pull up a couple bits and pieces to record and share:

-a few days ago, heidi and i were riding together in the car. she was making up a song (not a totally new thing) and to be truthful, i wasn't paying that close attention until she asked me to sing with her. that is when i realized she was making up a song on her own in a minor key. she decided she didn't like me singing with her so i stopped and listened more closely to her. not only was it minor, but she had repeating sequences and would often start phrases on the same note.

-same day or the day after at the dinner table heidi sang some food word (can't remember, maybe it was eat or cheese or milk or please) on a major ascending triad and finished it off with V - I. pretty cool for a 2.5 year old!

-boden often comes and snuggles with me in bed in the morning. it is one of my favorite things. we have been doing this since he was a baby and i'd be afraid to even put my arm around him for fear that i'd fall asleep and crush him with the weight of my arm :) anyway, as we were laying there, i was reflecting and thinking that it is getting close to the new school year and a new schedule for us in the mornings and that both age wise and schedule wise we may be nearing the end of this phase. i say to boden - "don't ever get too big to snuggle with your mommy, ok." he says, "oh no, i won't." after a short pause he says to me - "when i get older i'm going to live by myself or with someone else or with my kids. it's God's decision though. God will decide."

-boden is really into geography lately and the statistics that are related to size and number of states, cities, countries, people, etc. eric got him an atlas for his birthday and they have been looking at it a lot together. we were in yet another 'bigger than' conversation together tonight at supper and boden was often referring to his 'atlas' and wanting to confer with it after supper. the funny thing is how he says 'atlas'. he mixes the letters all up and it comes out - 'asslet'. got eric and i laughing pretty hard and he couldn't understand why we were laughing because he was very serious about his subject. of course, we couldn't really tell him why :)

-boden had a doctor appointment with his ear doctor (also know as - the snot dr or the dinosaur dr.) today to check on his tubes and hearing (everything checked out fine). on the way out the scheduler lady was giving the kids some stickers for coming. i told the kids to say thank you to her. they both mumbled something under their breaths. i told them to say it louder so the lady could hear them. heidi loudly exclaims - "i love you!" the scheduler lady and i both had a pretty good laugh.

-lately heidi is admit that she is not a baby anymore! she is a big girl!

-walking into target with heidi this week, it was sunny and a slight breeze blowing, and i look down at her: she has a cute summer play dress on, her hair was all freshly brushed and pulled back, she had on her pink sunglasses and purple shoe flops, new pink necklace around her neck, silly bands covering a third of her forearm, and her pink and purple purse clutched at her elbow with her arm bent, and she was parading in like she owned the place. least you think i influenced this get up, the only thing i had to do with the whole ensemble was doing her hair. :) i wish i would have gotten a picture of her but i thought of it too late. :(

-the absolute most favorite spot for our kids to go to the bathroom is in public restrooms. seriously. especially if it is one that they haven't tried out before. heidi will still pee in her pull-up at times at home, but never when we are out. boden especially has a fondness of doing the 'higher number' when we are out and seems to be able to produce on command. it wouldn't be half as bad if they didn't seem to have to touch EVERYTHING in the restroom. it is enough to make me want to puke.

i know there are loads more, but that is all i can come up with right now. at least i got those, right? ;)

Mower girl

I know I already included a photo of the mower girl in a previous
post, but it is just so cute that it warranted more photos.

Zoo day

On Thursday we went to the zoo. It sure was a lot if fun. Some of
the family favorites were the penguins, flamingos, and the drums.

Take note of boden's necklace and ring. That is how he has been going
around lately....

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we visited a furniture store. Boden thought the finger
chairs were pretty neat.

We also played in the yard a while. Boden has really been enjoying
playing baseball. He played catch with Uncle Robbie while he was in
OH and I can tell his throwing has greatly improved from that. Heidi
does well swinging the bat, left handed.

Heidi likes to mow the lawn. She got a "new" mower from the
neighbors. Almost as nice for me as for her because the old one kept
breaking.

Beach morning

We did the beach the other morning. We did all the usual stuff:
splash in the waves, bury each other, layout, and got very sandy.