Colors, questions, and definitions

In the midst of celebrating holidays and spending time with family, the boys have said some pretty amusing things.  One thing I forgot to write in my post about Christmas is that Daddy had taken Christopher to buy me some small Christmas presents, and they had wrapped them together.  When we opened gifts, Christopher proudly presented them to me by saying, “Mama, here is your candle!  Here is your candy!”  I was glad I hadn’t told him what was in anyone else’s gifts!

Will is working on counting and learning colors, but he hasn’t made much progress yet.  So far, he can count to two.  He holds up one finger and says “one!” then tries in vain to hold up two fingers while he says “two!”  The other day, we’re pretty sure he said, “One, two!  Good job!” He’s obviously very proud of his mathematical abilities.  He is also very good at identifying the color blue, but he thinks everything is blue.  Christopher thinks it is very fun to ask Will what colors things are, and he’ll just ask him about blue items to make his brother look smart.

Christopher and I have had lots of interesting conversations lately.  He often asks the definitions of every-day items, such as light or a fork.  Even though he knows what it is, he wants an actual definition.  I wish I’d gotten a dictionary for Christmas, since it isn’t easy to give a definition of light.  On that particular question, I gave both a physical definition and spiritual explanation about Jesus being the Light of the world, and then broke into “The People That Walked in Darkness” from the Messiah.  A few days later, Christopher told Daddy, “Jesus is the Light of the world.  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.  Mama wrote a song about it.”  I guess classical bass arias and the silly made-up songs I sing all the time sound similar to a 3-year-old.

Christopher also likes to talk about what he’s going to do when he grows up–we had to explain to him why he can’t marry Will, but that it is perfectly fine that he wants to be a doctor AND a van driver.  (“I’m going to do both.  But I’m still growing right now.”)  He was a little concerned about the marriage issue, and he wanted to know which mommys aren’t already married.  So I explained to him that somewhere there is a little girl who will grow up to be his wife.  A few days later, when he was talking again about being a doctor and a van driver, he asked, “Is that girl grown up yet?”  Confused, I asked, “Which girl?”  He replied, “The girl I’m going to marry!”

In general, our days are a running litany of questions.  Here’s an example from yesterday:  Why do cars have trunks?  (So we have a place to put our stuff.)  Why do cars have hoods? (To cover up the engine.)  So the rain doesn’t get on it?  (Yeah, I guess.)  Why does the rain wash the spiders out? What is rain? What is a spout? Why do spiders have webs?  Then we spent the rest of the day humming “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, of course.

Oh, yeah, and Will is asking “Why?” now, too.  2008 should be interesting!   Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

We are still recovering from a fabulous, four-day Christmas celebration! We started on Saturday by celebrating with Aunt Laura, Uncle Garland, and Caroline (her first Christmas!). The boys had a great time helping Caroline open her presents from us and then helping her see how very fun they are.

On Sunday, we spent most of the day at church. In addition to morning worship, we had a Christmas Eve Eve service. Grandma, Grandpa, and Great-Grandma Brewer joined us, and then when we got home, Uncle Jamie and Great-Grandpa Coomber arrived and we all had dinner together. The boys put on their Christmas pajamas, and Christopher was so excited, he couldn’t stop running and dancing long enough to take a photo!

On Monday, we celebrated our family Christmas morning a day early, since Daddy was on call Christmas Day. We had the boys’ big gift–a workbench with lots of tools attached–ready to go next to the tree, with their stockings and other wrapped gifts. They had such a great time playing with the workbench, we could hardly get them to look at anything else! We had a great morning, and it was nice that Great-Grandma was able to join us, since she was staying at our house.

Afterwards, we headed to Nana and Granddad’s for the day to celebrate Christmas with them as well as Uncle Kevin and Mam-ma. The boys had a great time opening gifts, and we had a yummy bbq dinner.

Finally, Christmas Day arrived! We spent the actual Christmas with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jamie, Great-Grandpa Coomber and Great-Grandma Brewer. (We can’t wait to see Aunt Amanda next week! We missed her!) Daddy had to go on rounds in the morning and then amazingly, he didn’t get called in the rest of the day and was able to spend Christmas with us. It was such an unexpected blessing! We opened still more presents (apparently, there were toys remaining that we didn’t already own) and enjoyed a big turkey dinner. We couldn’t have asked for a more fun-filled Christmas!

It’s almost Christmas!

We have been so busy lately getting ready for Jesus’ birthday. Mommy has even made up a silly song that we sing every morning about how many days it is until Christmas. Here’s a video of Christopher singing one of his favorite Christmas carols. Sometimes Will joins in with some “Ooooo”s, but he didn’t want to be on the video.

Christopher has stood twice lately on the stage of the church where he attends preschool and AWANAs. Last week, his children’s choir that meets before AWANAs did their Christmas presentation. They sang “Away in a Manger”, and Christopher sang the whole thing AND did the hand motions we do at home (see video below). I think the kids were supposed to be doing some hand motions, but Christopher did some extras. On the second song, none of the kids sang, and Christopher spent most of the time turned around, looking at the pianist. This morning, Christopher’s preschool had their Christmas program. They sang 4 songs, and Christopher did a great job. I got a little concerned when at the beginning of the first song, the kid next to Christopher hit him in the eye with his jingle bells. Christopher held his eye for most of the song, but he recovered quickly. He appeared to be singing and doing all the hand motions they had learned, but he had his back to the audience most of the time. I couldn’t figure out if he was looking at the kids behind him or looking for the pianist again. But it was pretty cute.

The other day, Christopher and I were talking about giving gifts to people at Christmas, and we had this interesting conversation:

C: Momma, does Grandma think about other people?

M (confused): Um, yeah, I think she does.

C: Like me?

M (starting to see where this is going): Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s thinking about you.

C: Momma, does Grandma have any money?

M: Yes, Christopher, she does. Are you wondering if Grandma is going to buy you some Christmas presents?

I guess he’s okay with thinking about others at Christmas, as long as someone out there is thinking about him!

Another funny moment was the other day in the car, when Christopher asked me to sing the “my true love gave to me” song. So I dutifully sang the entire 12 Days of Christmas. When I finally finished with my last partridge in a pear tree, Will yelled, “Again!” I declined.

Here’s a couple more funny pictures that show you a little of what goes on around here from day to day . . . Will is Mr. Independent, and one day he decided to fix his own hair. I found him standing in front of the sink with the water on and a comb in his hand, and here’s what he had accomplished–apparently, he’s practicing for the day he’ll need a comb-over:

Last Friday night, Christopher and Daddy had a camp-in. Daddy built a tent in Christopher room, and they read books by candlelight, played with the flashlight, and slept in their sleeping bags. Christopher had a blast!

One thing the boys love to play right now is pretending to be astronauts. Christopher puts on his helmet, his backpack, and his gloves. He sits on a drum in front of the sofa and uses drumsticks as his “driving things.” Then he makes blast-off noises, and away they go!

In the words of Mommy’s silly Christmas countdown song, “It’s 5 days to Christmas, 5 days to Christmas, 5 days to Jesus’ birthday! Happy birthday, Jesus! Happy birthday, Jesus! 5 days to Christmas, Jesus’ birthday!” Merry Christmas!

Giving thanks and getting ready for Christmas

This post will be a little out of order, but first you have to see this video I took this morning. This might be my favorite thing of the entire Christmas season:

So, going back to November, this photo pretty much sums up our Thanksgiving:

The boys were sick with upper respiratory viruses (lots of coughing!) that could be dangerous to their Great-Mam-ma, so Daddy brought us leftovers from Nana’s Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, Nana and Granddad stopped by later and joined us while we ate our yummy leftovers. Nana saved the day with delicious Thanksgiving cupcakes!

Since Thanksgiving, we’ve been busy getting ready for Christmas. I wanted to have Christmas lights on the house for the first time ever, so my friend Lynette and I conspired to pressure our husbands to do it together. I had no idea how tall and how steep our roof was until I came out of the house to find Noel and Peter using Peter’s rappelling gear to get Noel to the top part of the roof. Once I saw him standing on the steep roof, I changed my mind about the Christmas lights! He did get most of it done from a ladder, so only the highest peak doesn’t have lights. I think it looks great!

The kids have enjoyed Christmas activities like riding a Christmas train with Daddy and Granddad and going to see the lights on the downtown square. (Christopher even rode a pony there!) Will says “Christmas tree!” anytime he sees anything with lights on it, just like his older brother did two years ago.  And despite our efforts to avoid the secular and commercialized version of Christmas, Christopher believes in Santa.  We have explained to him that Santa is pretend, and even read a book with him about the historical Saint Nicholas and the kind things he did for others out of a love for Jesus.  But the other day, Christopher started asking questions about how we don’t have a chimney, and doesn’t Santa need to come to our house?  I explained that Santa is pretend and just a game, and he replied, “No!  He’s real!  I saw him on the Christmas train!”  It was probably a little harsh, but I said that no, that was  a man dressed up like Santa.  Christopher kept insisting that it was really Santa.  Although I want to keep the focus of Christmas on the birth of Christ, I thought it was pretty amusing that he believes in Santa despite our blunt telling of the truth.  Maybe his desperate belief has something to do with the fact that I have many presents under the tree, and none of them are for him (yet!).