It looks like I've been collecting the monster's cute little sayings for a little too long and now I have one incredibly long post. Feel free to skim. :)

While trying to push her curly hair out of her eyes, Alaina got frustrated and said, "Mama! My hair is so wiggly" (curly)

Ethan was dancing in front of Rob when he suddenly stopped and said, "Look, I'm skating" as he proceed pt pretend to ride and do tricks on a skateboard. A couple minutes later he stopped again and said, "Daddy, look at me, now I'm surfing!" Robert was pretty impressed with his sporty kid. Not to be out down Austin jumped up and shouted, "look Dada! I'm 'Super Why' (his favorite cartoon character) And with amazing speed and energy he jumped in front of Robert and put his hand one inch in front of Rob's nose and started signing the "ABC's" as fast as he could. He only know about 6 of the letters, so he was creative on the other 20. Whoooha, look at my little super nerd go!

Austin was busy playing when I called him to dinner. His excuse for not coming was the following comment, "My belly is full! If I eat my belly will get bigger and bigger and bigger (he used his hands to motion his belly's growing size and the bigger his belly got, the higher pitch and louder his voice got) and go through the window and BREAK the HOUSE! It was very dramatic.

Alaina always plays with a different eclectic group of toy. This particular time she had a chicken, a tiger and a princess at the table. Robert leaned over and like any good tactful father, tells her that tigers eat chickens. Shocked she said, "No, the cocka-doodle flies away. Then the tiger gets on the cocka-doodle and the they fly off." She then rambles on, "the tiger eats BOYS! The tiger eats little boys but then the angel says, "Shut your mouth!" and the tiger is nice." So random.

Austin came into the kitchen and asked me for a bagel. Before I could respond he raised both hands up high and started to shake them like a baptist preacher, shouted, in a strange Louis Armstrong gravelly voice, " I want a CRAZY bagel!!!" "Oh yeah?" I replied...."what kind of crazy bagel do you want?" Rolling his eyes at such an ridiculous question, he replied "One with cream cheese." I thought to myself, "Yeah man..that is CRRAAAZZZYY!"

Austin was coming out of the bath and trying to bring some of his bath letters with him. He knows that I don't allow that, so all in one breath he said. "Mama, I want to bring my "k." "K" like the "A." I wanna bring my "K" out...Say "YES!" I love my "k"....it's bootiful."

Everyone hates being picked last, but yesterday I hit a new low. Ethan was being a teacher and the rest of us were sitting on the carpet waiting for him to call us up for our turn to play a game. To help make up his mind, he sang "eeny, miney, moe. Touch a gramophone. My mom says you are not it." (don't ask me how he learned his version of that little tune.) first Austin got picked. He picked out his favorite colored candy heart. After a second, strange, "eeny meeny moe," Alaina got picked. She stood up and picked out her favorite colored candy heart. Then Ethan turned to me and started the whole "eeny, miney, moe" thing and I reminded him that I was the only one left. "No," he replied, "there is doggy." So, between imaginary doggy and me, doggy got picked. To make matters worse, when "doggy" got up to the table, he ate all of the candy, got punished by being thrown across the room and the game was over. Shoot. I didn't even get to eat a candy.

Austin's best friend at the moment is his cousin Jack. He doesn't really know Jack...but for some unexplainable reason, he has chosen him to be his best friend. He calls him "ABC Jack." And ABC Jack goes everywhere with us. He eats at our table. He shares Austin's car seat. He gets put on time outs for bad behavior and treats for good behavior. Austin talks constantly about how he loves his ABC Jack. I hope the boys get along after they actually meet again.

Speaking of Austin...he is also in love with the letters "A. B. And of course, C." When he goes to bed he holds my face with his to chubby hands, gazes into my eyes and in a most serious voice says, "I ABC Love You." And the other night as he gave the prayer for dinner he said, "Bless A. Bless B and Bless C. And bless 3 and bless 8." Eventually he blessed the food too.

All three of the kids have started prefacing sentences with "I'm a big boy/girl to..." I'm a big boy to get my shirt on. I'm a big girl to color this book. etc. It's cuter when they say it....

This last month Ethan has started nodding his head vigorously with a closed-lipped smile instead of ever answering yes to any question.

Austin is adding "last year" at the end of comments instead of one minute ago or yesterday. "I already brushed my teeth last year!" "I ate dinner last year!" "I already went to bed last year!"

Austin was breathless and red-cheeked from playing out in the cold "It's hard to play outside anymore! It's hard for me." I said, "You don't want to play anymore outside..let's take off your jacket." Austin immediately replied, "No...it's ok. It's not hard anymore. I like to play outside." A little annoyed I zipped back his jacket and sighed, "ok...so you do want to play outside. Go on then." Austin laughed and shook his head, "Yah...I silly. (pause) I silly momma." A moment later he's back out in the chilly air.

Yesterday I was tired. I am usually somewhat tired everyday, but yesterday I bone-tired. And to top it off, I was really grouchy. Sure, part of it had to do with the fact that Sat. night Robert walked into the garage and found a lake of water on the floor and none in the broken water-heater. But, besides the moral support I gave him as he and our very generous neighbor spent the next 6 hours buying and installing a new water-heater, I really didn’t do much. I could also blame it on Austin who insisted on waking up a couple times that night to turn on his light and pretend it was morning time. Lying down with him and rubbing his face until he went to sleep was tiresome but not too annoying. I could also blame my rotten attitude on the fact that Sunday marked the beginning of our new 9 o’clock church hour. That in itself isn’t so terrible, except for the fact that our building is 1 hour away. No. There was really only one person I feel like blaming for my tired-grouchy morning. That is my sweet girl Alaina.

Alaina has this very nasty habit that we’ve been trying to break her of for the last 2 months. She is completely potty trained, but every night (despite how little water we let her drink in the evening) she wakes herself up and goes to the bathroom. The only problem is that after she is finished, she creeps into our room with her p.j. bottoms & underwear and waves those undies in front of my face until I wake up so I can help her get dressed. This is definitely my least preferred way to wake up in the middle of the night. We have had many serious discussions about how Alaina could just put on her own undies and go back to sleep instead of waking me up…all to no avail. But the other night, she took it one step too far.

I was in a restless sleep when my dreams were interrupted by this tiny but incessant little whine. Instead of waking up, I just incorporated the whining into my dreams and kept sleeping. Then out of nowhere, a slightly wet and cold material was being rubbed all over my face. When Alaina’s usual whining and waving her underwear in front of me wasn’t working, she stepped it up to the next level. I was instantly a little nauseated and extremely upset at the little thing. Shooting up I grabbed the underwear off my face and order the poor girl back into her room. I must have been pretty intimidating because before completely steady myself on my feet, I heard Alaina’s pitter-patter of feet shoot through the hallway. That girl can really move when she is properly motivated. The cute bum disappearing in the darkness combined with the sad whimpers floating down the hall made me seek Lainy out for forgiveness pretty quick.

I caught up to her as she swung into her room and helped her get dressed and back into bed. After she was snug in bed I laid down next to her and had yet another serious conversation about what are good ways and what are bad ways to wake mama up.

Undies rubbed on the face is definitely a bad way.

This is my first post of the new year. I thought it only fitting to start with a little rock an' roll song the kiddies put together. Watch out...this is pretty edgy stuff.

Watch out Jonas Brothers, The Jones Family is coming to take over! Rob made the band equipment...the kids picked out the music. Alaina heard the song during Christmas and decided it was her favorite song. She's been singing it ever since. We also have ABC rock video (Austin's favorite song,) but Ethan pulled out some Micheal Jackson gestures that we didn't think everyone really wanted to see.

As I was cleaning up Christmas stuff I heard the kids conspiring about something. I peeked down the hall and I caught them sitting like this. From their conversation I got that they were on a rocket ship flying to the ice-cream shop which was apparently very far away. You can't tell in this picture but Ethan has a hat on backwards and it is covering his eyes and nose. I guess that helps him fly rockets.

Just a sweet shot of these two.
The boys' new resolution was to help out more in the yard. I asked them to do some raking...and they actually did it. :)

2008....here we come!