January 2008

Yes, Christmas has passed. But as I put away the Christmas tree and the rest of the decorations, Andrew mourned the loss of Christmas. So I pulled out the Santa Hat which he now sleeps with. Unfortunately Pooh Bear must not be allowed to either wear or see the hat.










Handy Andy
One of the boy's Christmas presents was a Handy Manny toolset, Manny is a Handy Man on Playhouse Disney. The boys have started 'fixing' just about everything, mostly fixated on their wheeled toys. And where else do you do repairs....but the coffee table? Luckily the Lion has remained in tact through all of the work sessions and no injuries have ensued. Although, Andrew has tried to tow the Lion with the school bus.





Diaper Man

After bath time Andrew's job is to select a BLUE diaper for the night, which are the tidal wave diapers ready to handle 11 hours worth of juice, water and milk intake from the day. Then in the morning his job is to select a WHITE diaper for daylight activities. Last month he started selecting both diapers at night time. After trying to explain only the BLUE was for night time, I agreed to putting on both diapers, thinking he would not like it. WRONG! Now he wears 2 diapers to sleep at night, which in theory should save time in the morning as I could just rip off the inner diaper and he would be ready to go. Some how it does not work that easy. Then one night, for some reason known only to a Kazak, he chose to put a third diaper on....his head because putting it on top of the other 2 diapers would just be silly. Andrew then demonstrates a new form of aerobics. It's times like like these where I swear he is genetically related to my family.

Ketchup

More proof that Andrew is genetically related to Rob is his love of ketchup. Sure, every kid puts it on tater tots and hot dogs. But how many kids repeatedly ask for Ketchup for their pancakes. It makes me shutter to think about it. The only think more repulsive is eating balls of butter at Perkins. The nice chef provides 1 butter ball to slather on the pancakes, but Andrew just sticks a fork in it and eats it like a popsicle, then asks for 2 more. To keep his cholesterol down, he eats Cheerios every morning.

Magic SchoolBus

Andrew continues his navigation skills en route to Day Care with Mommy each morning as we reach each intersection he gets to chose between the 2 options that will still get us to daycare in a reasonable amount of time. Well, this works just fine for Mommy, but not so for Daddy. One morning when Daddy did drop off Andrew was expecting the same level of participation in getting there, which caused several freak out attacks when Daddy went his own way. The only thing that cured the problem was the magic appearance of a school bus at each turn. The sure fire way to stop most temper tantrums now is to say "Hey, is that a school bus I see?!" Even when we are driving without the kids in the car, we tend to get excited when we see school busses.

Sharing is good.....sometimes

We have been trying to teach Andrew and James good manners, heavens knows we don't have them so they might as well. So we have been trying the Please, Thank you and getting them to share. The sharing is primarily an issue for Andrew who likes to think that all toys and food (except vegetables) are exclusivly his. This was all well and good until one night we had friends over, who we shall refer to as Megan and James. We were all sitting on the sofa and Andrew chose that moment to dig up his nose for some treasures. Unfortunately for all of us, he found a jewel which he held up for all to see. And even more unfortunate for Megan, he chose to attempt to share it with her. What's a little boogie among friends.

Out of Juice

We have learned another way to manipulate our children. Any time there is a toy or TV show we don't care to partake in, we say that it is "Out Of Juice". This first started with the Christmas Swivel Sweeper, which truely was out of juice. It can now be applied to the TV, a horribly annoying car toy or even a tired parent. We hope this lasts long.

More Cheap Entertainment

The Sunday paper is good for more than just the coupons....like hours of 'paper diving' or 'paper wrestling'. did you know that you can make it 'snow' newspaper ?

Art Work

This month brings up a mish mash of artwork. First, James created this little Gingy who looks like he has had way too much egg nog, or a long night under the Mistle Toe.

We are not sure what the heck this cyclops red thing is that James created. Perhaps a loopy Devil? Either way it's going to scare the kids back into church.

This little beauty is entitled "A Hand" by Andrew. I'll be damned if I can find any body part in this piece of art. Perhaps there are other lifeforms in the universe and Andrew is in touch with them. it sure beats his 'Family Picture' where we all looked like balls of yarn. Hmmm, I am starting to see a trend here. Beware of the Yarn People.

January must be Weird Hat Art Month. First Andrew came home with this toker high hat and then the Harry Potter Sorting Hat. We can only hope he is a Griffindor, but something tells me he has Slytherin in him. We can only wonder what Art surprises February holds for us.

Then and Now

People are always saying how much kids change, and they change so fast. These 2 pictures of Andrew were taken 11 months apart, and they look like they were taken a day apart. So much for kids changing so fast.

This month we also got the rare gift of a picture of Andrew from someone who was in the orphanage a month before we got there. He is displaying his red eye brows that come out when he's crying.....so we know he cried for more people than just us in the orphange. Check out those stylish jammies.

And for those readers who don't think James gets his fare share of the blog, here he is doing what he loves best: eating. He believes that the Lunch Hour truly is an hour. His plate appears to be clean because...well it is clean. He can down 5 dollar pancakes, a banana and a half and still have room at lunch for 2 hotdogs. Oh yeah, and throw in 2 snack times for the day as well.....all before having dinner. More proof that he somehow inherited our genes.