How Big Are Your Muscles?

Hayes is really into muscles right now. At nearly every meal, he asks me if his muscles will get bigger if he eats what I feed him. (Of course the answer is yes!) Maybe it goes hand-and-hand with his Superhero obsession because he surely does not get the concept of large muscles from either his father or me. He likes to talk about his muscles so much that actually asked me to take his picture. (This is the little boy who usually hides under the table at the sight of my camera.) He was so impressed with how large his muscles looked on the camera that he decided to let me take some more. Here he is making a super-strong face . . .
and then adding a little bit of meanness to his look!

Jack-O-Lantern Smile

Finally! After a few months of being grossed out at meals by E wiggling her teeth all over the place, Daddy pulled the second top middle tooth yesterday after she hit it on a juice cup. She lost the other top front tooth last Friday night when she bit into a piece of pizza. Doesn't her mouth now remind you of a jack-o-lantern's?

Super Voice for Superheroes

Speaking of Superheroes . . .

With an older brother who is obsessed with Superheroes right now, Ben has already figured out that they are, indeed, pretty cool. He has even assigned a special voice to them. Whenever he sees Spiderman or Batman around the house (stickers on furniture, placemats, books, figurines, pictures) he comes up with this smoky voice from deep within his chest, and he says something that actually sounds like "Spiderman" or "Batman." He realizes that these guys are special and ultra-masculine so he gets about as manly as a 15-month-old can with this husky voice.

Are We Ready or What?

The kids got their Halloween costumes today. Can you guess the theme?

I cannot tell you how excited the older two were about their new outfits. The both wore them all afternoon and spent their time debating which bad guys they were going to fight. They got along so well as bat people that I might have to consider letting them transform themselves every afternoon!

E's New Room and New Attitude

We've had quite a bit of trouble with our power and cable over the last few days as Atlanta deals with historic flooding. Luckily, we stayed pretty dry here at our house, but a few of our friends had some major flooding in their homes. Our thoughts are with them as they start cleaning up!


Because it rained all weekend (and all of the week prior), we spent all of our time inside. Eleanor decided that she wanted to rearrange her room because she desperately wanted more room to "play." Dad and E started moving furniture early Saturday morning. Here's the "new" room:She absolutely loves it and now has tons of space to play. I like the fact that with her "new" room has come a "new" attitude. Now, she keeps her room clean at ALL times. If anyone messes it up, she lets them know that they must clean up their mess in her room ASAP. She's also quick to clean-up any mess she makes. What a refreshing change this is from having to ask her to pick something up numerous times before she actually does it. Well done, E!

Sports!

Guess who beats me to our weekly Sports Illustrated issue every week though he's embarrassed to have his picture taken with it?

Common Theme in Our House

The other day, I was sitting on the floor of the playroom reading a book to Hayes while Ben played all around us. Eventually, he came over to see what we were doing. I said to him, "Ben, I am reading Hayes a book." Ben then turned away and walked into his room. A minute or two later, I see him come out of his room with one of his books in his hand. What does he do? He walks right over to me and plops down in my lap, ready for me to read a book to him.

We've got a common theme running in our house. We have some eager readers, to say the least! On days like this, when I see that Ben is into his books, I'll ask him, "Do you want Mama to read you a book?" He'll shake his entire body yes (that's how he nods), walk over to the red chair, and pat the seat with his hand. He is ready to read!

Ben's First Haircut

I bit the bullet and took Ben for his first haircut yesterday, after Thomas reported the night before that Ben's wet hair went down half of his back! With the curls, I kept convincing myself that it was not that long. I should have gotten the hint in August when Ben's preschool teacher came for her house visit. She said to me,"I guess you guys don't like getting the boys haircuts. I remember Hayes's hair being long, too." Until that moment, I had not even thought of Ben's hair as being long, but after that moment, that's the only way I could describe it. I guess I measure by age, rather than hair length, when timing the first haircut. Doesn't 14 months seem too young?

All signs said that it was finally time. We hit the kiddie salon right after driving morning carpool. While we waited for our turn, we started off in the fire truck. Ben loved ringing the bell.
When it was our turn, he had tired of the fire truck so we moved to the airplane. We also decided that some animal crackers would be a good way to keep him sitting down.
He started to zone out after an already busy morning midway through the five minute cut. It was almost nap time!
Finally, the finished product with the last few animal crackers in the mouth. We had no crying, no fighting, no fussing. We love his new look, too! Don't you?

Great Day

Today is great day for Hayes. He came down the steps this morning with a hop in his step. Why?

First, Hayes has Lunch Bunch today. He gets to stay after school for an extra two hours, eat his packed lunch, and play with his friends. All last year, he longingly watched his friends go to Lunch Bunch while he went home at the normal time so that his baby brother could get his afternoon nap. He jealously watched as his sister packed her lunch for school every week, dreaming of the day when he could do the same. Today, it is finally his turn. He was so excited about today that he had his lunchbox packed last night so that it would be "ready to go" in the morning. He feels that this is going to be a great day for another reason. . . Mom let him wear his new Target Spiderman shirt to school today. Just yesterday, when I had him dressed in a cute little matching shirt and short outfit, he said to me, "Mom, I need to get some new cool shirts." I guess he has already learned the art of nuance as this was his subtle way of telling me that his shirt yesterday was not high on the "cool" meter. I hope his day turns out as great as he anticipates it will!

First Week of First Grade

At Open House night at E's school, Thomas and I looked through this little book that Eleanor made about her first week. I thought I would store it here, rather than under her bed or in some overflowing file, to document her writing and drawing skills at 6.5 (can't forget the half!) years old.

Though it's difficult to see in yellow, this picture is of the school bus which she rides to and from school every day.
I love seeing how she spells words, like "firned" for friend in the page below.
She's getting better and better at drawing people. She even detailed Mr. Smith's goatee.
For the life of me, I have no recollection of her having Lay's chips at any lunch. I just don't buy them. She has a habit of making trades at lunch so maybe this is how she ended up with those chips. Also, I think its funny that she sat by Vance at lunch because he was a boy last year who, with his gang of neighborhood boys, would chase and be chased by Eleanor and her girlfriends on the playground. Finally, "apolle sos" is just plain cute.
Isn't it amazing how they are already aware of the "best friend" concept in first grade?!
She does love her computers, but I am surprised that this was the answer she wrote down.
Finally, we were told by her teacher last year that she had beautiful handwriting. At this point, she still interchanges a lot of capital letters with lower-case ones. I think her first grade teacher is trying to break that habit. :-)

If they do a book about the last week of first grade, won't it be interesting to see the progress? Check back next May!

Finally . . . Mama!

Ben walks around the house jabbering all day long. He's been able to say "Elle" for Eleanor, "Bater" for Baxter, "Dada" for Dad, and even "Eyes" for Hayes for some time, but I've been waiting with much anticipation for him to say "Mama" and REALLY mean it.

Well, it finally happened today. We were playing peek-a-boo in between Hayes's and Eleanor's bedrooms. Ben was in Hayes's room, and I was in Eleanor's room. He would poke his head around Hayes's bedroom door, see me and say "Mama," and then quickly hide his head again. I would respond with "Ben" as I poked my head out looking for him. He got such a kick out of it and kept doing it over and over.

He had to have known what he was saying, right?!

Ben's First Day of Preschool

Poor Ben! His first day of Preschool was Thursday, but both his mom and older brother were stuck in bed with either the stomach bug or swine flu. (Hence, why I'm just now posting this today.) He did not get the proper "first day of school" treatment, but we are just grateful that his dad was able to get him to school dressed, with his school bag, juice cup, diapers and of course, Dogdog. I had planned on taking a picture of Ben out front, holding his school bag, just as I did with his older two siblings, but it was just not meant to be. Daddy managed to get this picture as our sweet friend, Mrs. White, got ready to drive Ben to school. After his first day, Ben's teacher Mrs. Scott told our friend Mrs. White that Ben would have won the "Best Behaved Child Award" if she had one for that day. Thank goodness our boy persevered, even though he had to have wondered what in the world was going on!

First Day of Pre-K

Today was Hayes's first day in Pre-K. I asked him what he did today at school and he said, "Ummm. I don't know." Typical response from a four-year-old boy!

As I did with Eleanor, I let Hayes choose what he wanted to eat for dinner. He asked for pizza. Hayes would have preferred that I order Mellow Mushroom or feed him a frozen pizza, but he was not so lucky. I was going to go the Boboli route until I thought about how long the actual shelf life is for those crusts and how they NEVER seem to go bad. Hmmm. I got a little crazy and decided to make my own pizza crust using my bread machine. Surprisingly, I made some adjustments to add some whole wheat and everything worked according to the recipe. The kids helped me with the sauce, cheese and pepperoni while I put fresh tomatoes and basil from our CSA box on the adults' pizza. I thought it was yummy. Eleanor would not touch it and Hayes ended up eating it after he complained about it at first. Continuing with the pizza theme, I made Rocky Road Cookie Pizza for dessert. All in all, it was a successful first day of Pre-K for Hayes!

Cheetos

Eleanor had the stomach bug all Labor Day weekend. It started Friday night, but she appeared to be back to her old self come mid-day Sunday. Thomas and I left the three kids with a sitter while we went down to the NASCAR race (for T's work) south of Atlanta Sunday night. When we arrived at the track, I realized that I had a voice mail from Eleanor. Here is what she said . . .

"Hey Mom. How does this sound? I take that Cheetos bag that Mildred (the sitter) brought me and open it just a little bit. I pull out 1 Cheetos and try it to see how my stomach feels and if it feels good, I can eat the whole bag. Does that sound fine to you? Bye."

I quickly called her back and told her that eating a Cheetos was probably not in her best interest. I told her that she could save them for another day, but I did not want her to "try" one Sunday night. (Little did I know that she'd plow through the bag for lunch on Monday and then proceed to get sick all over again Monday night!) When we got home, I found the bag just like this and realized that my daughter had actually heeded my advice. She felt all the better on Monday morning because of it. I just wish I had taken the bag away from her all together, at least while her tummy was still recovering.

Noticing the little things . . .

Yesterday, we hung our fall wreath on the front door. It was fun to watch each of the kids' reactions as they walked through the front hall and noticed that it was a little darker than usual. Even Ben observed the change. Though it has been less than 24 hours since the wreath was hung, if I ask him where the wreath is, this is the response I get:

End of Summer

Though it's not officially the end of summer calendar-wise, it is for the Carroll family since all of the kids will be in school as of this week. Yeah! It is also time to take a look to see what we accomplished on our "Summer To-Do List". I am happy to report that our achievement rate was pretty high. I am surprised, though, by some of the things that we did not do, such as crafts and painting. (E really does those daily by herself, but I had intended that we would all get crafty together.) I guess I had high expectations for the summer and with three kids under the age of 7 (and one of them turning 1 over the summer) things are not as easy as they might appear! We had to juggle around Ben's nap schedules and meals while also accommodating the older two's interests. I'm exhausted just remembering how it all went down! We did make some great memories, though, and that is the key!

A Little Excitement

Earlier this week, we think Ben had the flu. He started showing symptoms Monday afternoon and had a fever by Monday night. When he woke up Tuesday morning, he was really working hard to breathe. We went right in to the doctor's office where we started a breathing treatment and got some medicine. Before we left the office, we were instructed to give breathing treatments every four hours for two days. We have been so lucky in that we have not ever had to do a breathing treatment on a child so this was breaking new ground for us. We had to put this contraption over his nose and mouth and get him to take 6 breaths per shot of Albuterol and he had to have 4 squirts of Albuterol each time. As the nurse said, "By the time you are done with the treatment, you'll be all sweaty and tired." She wasn't kidding. It was a struggle just to get him to sit still long enough to get one breath of the medicine, let alone 24 in each sitting! Luckily though, he must have inhaled some medicine over the two days, because he was quickly on the road to recovery by the time we finished the treatments. Hopefully, we won't have to use that contraption ever again!

Scotch Tape Obsession

Have I mentioned that Eleanor is obsessed with taping things? I can't find a roll of Scotch tape in my house because they are all stashed away upstairs in her room. What does she do with it? Let me give you a hint (and please excuse the varied lighting throughout the house) . . .

This is on the door at the top of the stairs . . . This sign is taped to the bottom of the banister in the front hall.
This note is taped to the wall in between Eleanor's and Hayes's rooms. I'm not exactly sure what it is about, but they both understand it and that's what matters.
A few weeks ago, Eleanor decided to arrange a scavenger hunt inside our house. The scavenger hunt idea died before the hunt began, but this note is a remnant from this grand plan of hers and hangs at the top of the stairs on the wall.
These signs, which spell out, "DO NOT COME IN" hang on the wall outside her bedroom door.
This note is another scavenger hunt remnant, but I'm not sure what it says . . .
These last two notes are about her Fairy Book collection as mentioned in this post. They are taped on the wall at the top of the stairs and on the windowsill above her books.
I've begged her to stop using my tape, but its hard to contain her when her creative juices are flowing!

Would Rather Be Reading . . .

It appears that the two older Carroll kids LOVE to read.

If all is quiet around the house, I can usually find Hayes upstairs doing this . . .Yesterday, on the drive home from gymnastics, Eleanor informed our carpool friend Mrs. Reavis that she did not want to sign up for gymnastics again next year. Mrs. Reavis asked what E would rather be doing. "I'd rather read my books at home with my mom," Eleanor responded. She spends most of her afternoons reading. As each afternoon advances, she moves throughout the house to read in different spots. For example, today she read in her room, in the playroom, in the kitchen, in the family room, outside on the porch, and finally, in the front yard in an Adirondack chair. . . all in one afternoon!

I do love to read, but never get the chance to do so during the day. I don't, therefore, think they are "modeling," but I can't complain about how they spend their free time!