Olympics

Yesterday, in honor of the Olympics and the snow (We had a “big” snow storm Friday afternoon. It snowed 3 inches there was a chance of snow Saturday night so church was canceled today.) We held the first Drysdale winter Olympics.

We started off our events with some bobsledding. We didn’t have any sleds, so we got Tupperware lids and pushed the kids down the hill in our front yard. Siesa took gold in that event.

Next we had a snowball rolling contest. I took gold that event. We each had one minute to see who could roll the biggest snowball.





Next we went inside for speedskating. We took the chairs out of our dining room and sprinkled baby powder on the floor and raced around the table in our socks. Jensen took gold in that event and was quite excited. For our fourth event we did figure skating. We took the table out of the room and each did a routine on the baby powder floor and then each gave each other a rating. Jensen again took the gold.


For our last event we did curling. We made tape circles on our kitchen floor and pushed plastic blocks with a stick to put them in the circles. Derek very easily took the gold in that event.

I think we can say that the first Drysdale Olympics was a big success. We do need to dust the whole house because of the baby powder but it was worth the mess.

4 months

This one has a great view of her hair. I did not try to make her hair stick up, I am just to lazy to try to get her hair to stay down. Actually truth be told, I like her little Mohawk.

Elsie is already 4 months. She has been a great baby. She is now sleeping through the night 11-12 hours. Yeah!

Elsie is a very vocal baby. She makes lots of noises but they are happy and it’s like she’s saying pay attention to me. I love to talk to her because she will respond back with cooing and squealing.

Elsie wakes up so happy, she almost never cries for me to get her but just makes happy cooing and squealing sounds. When I go into the room to get her from bed she gives me the biggest smile and is so happy to see me. I love it! It is so fun to wake up to such a happy baby.

Gymnastics

When I asked the kids if they wanted to take gymnastics Siesa was very excited and immediately said, yes. Jensen said, “That’s not really my thing mom.” I said, “What is your thing?” and he said, “sports!” After some encouragement and finding out that one of his friends was going to be in his class he agreed to try it. Both of the kids LOVE it. The classes take place at an actual gym so they have all the real equipment and smaller versions of the real equipment that the kids can play on. They can balance on beams, swing on bars, jump on trampolines and there are pads everywhere.

Jensen and Siesa in the “pit”. It’s a huge whole about five feet down with trampolines on the bottom and then about three or four feet of spongy square balls. They can slide or jump into the pit and the kids have tons of fun.

Skating

Monday night was one dollar night at a local skating rink so we decided it would be a good FHE activity. We had a great time. Jensen was so excited to skate but didn’t really like actually skating on the rink but rather enjoyed skating on the carpet. Derek and I have never been skating together so it had been a while since we have gone so we were a little rusty but our kids were impressed by our speed.
Siesa enjoyed it if we held her hand but even she was a little intimated by the whole thing.

I love this picture of Jensen, sheer joy.

Elsie was busy watching all the happenings, the loud music, lights and people whizzing by her kept her very occupied.
Jensen has been practicing skating in our kitchen with socks on and can't wait until we can go again.

We love our kids

Elsie is a cutie. I love her hair, it always stands straight up in the back.

Jensen actually asked me to take his picture. We were eating breakfast.

We were making valentines and Siesa decided to finger paint the table and her arms. She said she was putting on makeup, thank goodness she didn’t paint her face.

Mission impossible?

With the first few weeks of life Siesa found her thumb. It was love at first suck. There were many benefits of her sucking her thumb like, she was a dream sleeper by two weeks old she was sleeping 9 hours at night, she has also been pretty happy and content since her comfort object was always at hand(ha ha) We decided that it was time to tackle the issue before she got too much older





A week and a half ago we explained to Siesa the reasons to stop sucking her thumb like that she is a big girl now and that it can cause problems with her teeth. I took her on a special trip to the toy store and let her pick out any toy she wanted. We put up a sticker chart and told her that if she went without sucking her thumb she could put a sticker on her chart and once the chart is full she can get her toy. I also made her a little “Thumbelina” puppet which was to help her remember to not suck her thumb. She only wore the Thumbelina for about a day and a half and then sort-of lost interest in that, but we have been putting bandaids on her thumb at night so she won’t suck it in her sleep. The first couple of days were pretty rough. Siesa walked around a lot and whimpered and didn’t know what to do with her hands. I felt like a terrible parent and almost wanted to call the whole thing off because she was so sad and miserable. On day number three we were driving in the car and she said, “Mommy, I don’t want to be a big girl anymore.” I said, “Why not, Siesa?” She said, “Because I want to be a baby so I can suck my thumb.” (Usually the only thing Siesa did while driving in the car was suck her thumb). I explained to her that she is not a baby and she doesn’t need to suck her thumb anymore. It has been over a week since I have had to say anything to her about sucking her thumb.



Yesterday she finished filling her sticker chart and got her toy a bus and another Polly Pocket doll. It’s actually been very humbling to witness her sheer willpower and how she just stopped. How many things in my life do I need to change, but just can’t and yet in just a matter of days a child who is not yet three can stop a habit she has had since birth just because of sheer willpower. The toy was a big factor everyday she would push the horn on the bus to hear the music play and dream about actually taking the toys out of the package.

Since Siesa has stopped sucking her thumb she is definitely a little more whiny and grumpy at times because she has lost her comfort object. On the other hand she has become much more vocal, playful, and involved in everything going on around her because she used to just stand and go into her own world and watch what was going on while sucking her thumb, but now she is right in the middle of everything. I thought it was going to be impossible but we have conquered the thumb! Yeah Siesa!

Christmas Fun

Christmas eve we acted out the nativity. Elsie was of course baby Jesus, Siesa was Mary, Derek was Joseph, Jensen was the angels and the wise men, I was the Shephard, Mr. Bear and Siesa doggy were the sheep. We had a good time finding costumes and reading the Christmas story. Siesa kept leaning over and kissing Elsie and saying “Oh cute baby Jesus.” Elsie was happy through the whole thing. The kids went to bed exceptionally well so that Christmas would come sooner.

After we acted out the nativity the kids opened up the gifts they got for each other.

Siesa gave Elsie some spoons and an outfit. Jensen gave Siesa a tutu. He was so excited about it he picked out the fabric and bright blue sequins and helped me cut it out and sew it. He was almost a little frustrated because he wanted to do everything and didn’t want me to help him. He even pushed the sewing machine pedal while I sewed. It turned out very cute and Siesa loves it. Elsie gave Jensen some more train tracks. Jensen was very excited about the tracks and with daddies help they set up a very cool train track.

Christmas Morning

Jensen reading the tag to see if the gift was for him.

Some of the biggest hits of Christmas were the tick-tacks and the candy. Siesa got Skittles and Jensen got a bag of M&Ms. That was the first thing they wanted to do was eat there candy.

Jensen showing me a brain from this science kit.
The mess- every room in our house looked like that.

Jensen’s favorite part of Christmas was of course the presents. He has been asking for a remote control helicopter but they all say for 8 and up so I told him he was too young for one. In his stocking he got a match box helicopter he was so excited and said “it is a good thing Santa didn’t give me a remote control one because I can’t have one until I am 8.” Ever since Christmas Jensen has been going from toy to toy. We gave him a CD player and some books on CD. I now have the Arthur theme song stuck in my head, he has listened to it about 30 times.

Siesa liked opening all the gifts. She helped every one open their gifts. We gave her a back pack and a little dry-erase board. She also got play pans and food, a barbee, and clothing. She got a poly pocket in her stocking which has been a big hit. Siesa has always liked little things. Surprisingly, she hasn’t lost any of the clothing yet.

Elsie’s favorite part of Christmas was looking at the Christmas tree. She mostly got clothing, but she did also get some spoons from Siesa. Elsie’s Christmas gift to us was that she slept 9 hours Christmas night.

Christmas was wonderful! Having kids makes Christmas so much fun.