Heard on Sunday

From Ian:

I'm tired (communicated through crying). 

From Ansel:

Mom, is it fast Sunday today or slow Sunday?

...and...

The rains came down and the flowers came up!

From Ollie:

I remember when I was in nursery. I played with puzzles and had a great teacher. Those were the good old days. 

Piano recital

Ollie had his first piano recital a while back. The kid was nervous but mustered up the courage and played like a champ! I was impressed. 

He is so much better at piano than I was at his age. And his teacher is superb. 

It was held at a music store I used to frequent as a kid with my mom and siblings. The smell of the place brought back so many memories. And it looks exactly the same. Makeshift closet toy room and all. 

He's four

Ansel has been waiting to turn four for a long time now. The day finally came and he was so very excited. This guy is such a treat to have around. 

He LOVES to swing on the swing downstairs and listen to music. He knows pretty much all of the songs on several CDs and their order. His interpretation of words is classic. He sings "I bought the law and the law won!" with such enthusiasm. 

He loves the game Temple Run. He loves it so much we limit it to about 15 minutes a day or else we get frustration that he can't play it more. So yesterday, instead of playing it on a mobile device, we ran around the house collecting coins, jumping for gems, and ducking from prickly plants. All his idea! At the end, Ansel exclaimed, "I'm sweat[y]."

His latest is gathering rocks from outside and painting them. He loves to find granite rocks and he likes to paint them gold. 

And one day before his birthday, he was running so fast in the house, tripped on the baby bouncy seat and hit his head on the edge of the wall. Six staples later a very brave boy is very protective of the wound. "I had to get staples. Don't touch them!"

And sometimes he'll just stop and say, "Mom," and I'll ask him what he needs and he'll say, "I love you."

Growing

Sometimes I'll look at my kids seriously and say to them, "Hey, I want to tell you something." They'll stop and look back, wondering what could be so important. Then I say, "Please, just stop growing!"  It makes them laugh every time and they respond with, "Mom, we can't stop growing!" They then explain that their bodies simply grow on their own and they can't do anything to intervene. In fact, they don't want to stop growing. Dang, I'm out of luck. I do so enjoy each of them at these ages, regardless of how little sleep I'm getting (I'm looking at you Ian:). 

Old enough for the exercise-saucer? Say what?

Very excited to get his cookie college diploma. 

Spelling things in the Cyrillic alphabet, with park bark.