Finger Painting

I started finger painting with Haylie when she was 6 months old, and she regularly paints/ finger paints still. For some reason I have never actually sat down and allowed James the opportunity to finger paint. A few weeks ago when I noticed he was regularly pouring out his milk on the table and high chair, and stirring it around with his fingers, I decided he was definitely long overdue for some finger painting fun. He was fascinated with the whole thing and absolutely loved it!

Of course Haylie had to join in!

Time for a haircut??

OK - this is the last embarrassing post of poor James but I had to do it to prove Micah wrong!!! So Micah and I have been debatig back and forth for weeks on whether James needed a haircut. Micah absolutely thought James didn't need one. But I kept telling him his hair was getting long.

Soooooo - I took this picture (the before):
James was SUCH a good boy at the haircut place. Given his fear of strangers I thought for sure he would scream but he just sat on Daddy's lap like a good boy!

The after (ah much better!):

Easter - Afternoon

After church on Easter we snapped some quick family photos and headed over to Micah's Aunt and Uncle's house to visit with family:

Haylie loved flying her new Dora kite:

Easter - Morning

Although Easter is over for most families, we have still been doing Easter activities as recent as last night. So, I guess that makes it ok to post this several weeks after Easter.

To start off - a little story: One day, a week or two before Easter, we were riding in the car and I hear Haylie chanting in the back. "He is not here. He is risen." I don't always understand what she is saying so I thought maybe I heard her wrong. "What are you saying Haylie?" I asked. "He is not here. Say it Mommy!" "HE IS RISEN!" I retorted back, like I was still in 6th grade proud to know the answer. "Good job Mommy," Haylie said as she clapped for me. Let's do it again. We proceeded to repeat over and over again until we had James chiming in with his own imitation of he Bible verse (Matthew 28:6, Luke 24:6). Apparently they had just had that lesson in school the day before and Haylie really enjoyed it.

I later bought her a new Easter book that she absolutely loves. We have read it every other day or so since Easter. She loves to talk about how Jesus died on the cross and paid for our sins. Most of all she loves to say "He is not here. He is risen!" Just a little side note, yesterday we were watching a video, and in it the character said "God Loves you" and Haylie said, "God loves you Raider," - Raider gave a half-hearted acknowledgement, "uh-huh." and Haylie kept repeating it until he really paid attention to her. It was cute. She really wanted him to know God loves him!

We celebrated Easter in Southern California with Micah's family. Micah's parents were moving into their new house and we were doing our best to help them get set up. Since everything was in boxes and the kitchen counters weren't even in we never got the opportunity to dye Easter eggs so we actually did that this past Saturday. Haylie absolutely loved it! We did however do Easter baskets and an Easter egg hunt while in SoCal. Here are some pics of Easter morning.
We put these Hello Kitty shoes in Haylie's Easter basket. We had seen them a couple weeks before at the shoe store and Haylie really wanted them. We told her no but Micah later went back and picked them up. She was SO excited when she saw them. She exclaimed, "Yay - the shoes I wanted!" I was so happy that she loved the gift:
Raider got shoes too! A good way to give a useful gift :) He was very excited about his shoes also:

James playing ball with Grandpa:

James loved his new little toy:

Catching Up

OK - Micah has been all over my case about not keeping up to date on the blog lately so stay tuned over the next couple days for a series of posts. Since lately I haven't even had the time to scrapbook (so sad!) this is my only means of recording what we're up to. Plus Micah is looking forward to the next "blog book" at the end of the year so I have to keep up the updates!!

Sharing Daddy

The following conversation with Haylie occurred yesterday while driving in the car with the kids:

After getting off of my cell phone with Micah:

Haylie: Who was that?
Me: Daddy
H: AGAIN?
M: yes
H: you like to talk to Daddy a lot. Again and again and again and again! Why?
M: Because I love him.
H: No I love him.
M: No I love him.
H: We both love him.
M: Ok we can share.
H: Yes we can share... and I can hug him and you can hug him and James can hug him.
M: Ok. That sounds good!

Time for Timeout?

I seem to recall just after Haylie's first birthday is when her little tantrums began. Well James is making sure he doesn't fall too far behind. Ohh - he is developing quite the little temper! It's tough being a little brother because you have to share your toys, you sometimes get knocked over by big sis when you are touching her favorite baby doll and worst of all you don't get all of Mom and Dad's attention. As much as we try to intervene in the budding sibling rivalry it's difficult to know when to punish and when to let them work it out. James has definitely learned to fight back though. The other day Haylie was standing in front of the mirror talking to her herself when James walked up and pushed her out of the way and said "No!" He really doesn't like taking turns either, that usually sets off a tantrum which lands him in timeout. The amazing thing is how much he understand though at such a young age. Sometimes he gets mad and tries to hit and say no, but when I say, "do you need to go to timeout?" he quickly puts his head on my shoulder to give a little hug, hoping that will get him out of it. I can't wait to see how his little personality continues to develop as he learns what's right and wrong in life.

Miss Polly

Haylie recently learned about doctors in her preschool class and this is her newest favorite song:

Miss Polly had a daughter who was sick sick sick

So she called for the doctor to come quick quick quick

He came in the room and he shook his head

He said Miss Polly put her straight to bed!

He wrote on the paper for a pill pill pill

I will be back in the morning with my bill bill bill.