Henry's gift to his teacher

...is a story he wrote. Considering how much he likes to write (not much!) it is a definite gift from the heart!

Mrs. F and the big, bad teddy bare

By Henry
Illastrated by Henry

(drawing on the cover includes Math City-->)
One time a gigantick bear attacked math cituy and Earth!
O.K. Here's how it started.
Astronouts found a teddy land ad started kating teddy bears from teddyland. The king of teddy land got mad . he siad "send the giant teddy bear to shrink and grow when he gets to earth." (drawing of king talking to the super-sized teddy bear)

(Next page: drawing of super-sized teddy bear, being attacked by Star Wars ships. speech bubbles with "it's nasty!" "we're dommed" "It looks like a teacher will save us!" with a caped, small teacher in the corner)

After the evle (evil) teddy bare retreated...it went to Earth!

Then Mrs. F uses her superpowers to blas the big bad tett bere back to his home plant, teddy land. (Drawing of people cheering and the bear flying from earth to his home planet).

Happy Birthday, Harmony!

Harmony turned 6 on Friday. How can it be six years already? She's a beautiful girl--not because of her appearance, but because of her heart. She finds joy in everything, and she's got a giving and prayerful heart. She's the one who most often wonders about our Compassion children, wondering how Leidy spent her birthday on Wednesday, praying that they'll have a good day, wondering what time it is where they live. She was insistent that she wanted things to send to Haiti instead of gifts for herself for her birthday party.

We celebrated on Friday by joining Mammaw and Pappaw at Chuck E Cheese.

On Sunday we had a joint party with her birthday buddy, Emi, at the pool.

She not only got some fun things for herself, she also received 102 items to send to an orphanage in Haiti!

How old is Hope?

Harmony's poetry

Gardns by Harmony
flowers are prite
Mud Putols are not
Gras is prite
Bees are not
Busssss
swush
swush

My cat by Harmony
My cat is vere sneke and quiit
She is amosing at hid and sek
She eats a lot
Meyo

Babes
Babes criing
Babes chasing
Babes Playing
Babes eating
Babes nice
Wah!!!

Grama
My Grama is fun
My grama plants
My Grana is tall
Yaaa!!!!

Lily
Lily is fun
Lily Plays with me
Lily likes me
Lily hugs me
best frend!!!!

Dogs
Dogs are fun
Dogs giv kissis
Dogs are fast
Wof!


My mom
My mom prays
My mom techis chemstre
My mom eats a lot
My mom is the sekint oldis.
I LOVE YOU!

Hope and Wags

Hope LOVES the Wiggles, especially Wags. She carries around the DVD case (when she can find it), points to the TV and begs until either we succeed in distracting her or she gets to watch it!

My OCD daughter...

I think it's just they way toddlers are, but Hope is completely obsessed right now with:
--washing her hands (we did it for most of the plane ride to Fargo (this was pre-"bathroom bomber")
--brushing her teeth
--putting on lotion
--having her hair put in pigtails (she really doesn't have enough hair to do them, though!)

Jeanne Robertson "Don't send a man to the grocery store!"

A friend shared this and it made me laugh out loud :)

Wordless Wednesday: Pizzas, prizes and pies night

Congrats, Henry, for selling enough Cub Scout popcorn to get to throw a pie in your leader's face!

Sleeding fun 1

We had lots of fun playing in the 17 inches (!) of snow that fell at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Uncle Mark helped forge a good sled run by the barns! Both kids enjoyed snow "snacks" as they went down...silly kids :)

Merry Christmas!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.
(Romans 15:13)
Merry Christmas 2009 from the Taylor Family

A Marvelous Plan

Harmony's Christmas dance program dress rehearsal! It was a very small stage, but they did a great job.

Conversation with Harmony tonight..

While tucking Harmony in tonight:

H2: Mom, is there another baby in your belly?
Me: No. (Guess I better get back on track with the diet!)
H2: We should have another baby. Jen has four kids.
Me: Why should we have another baby?
H2: So we can have a boy for Henry to play with.
Me: Well, they'd be at least eight years apart, so I don't know how much they'd play.
H2: So how do you know if there is a baby in your belly?
Me: uh...God gives it to you. Moms have ways of knowing.
H2: The baby should have the same birthday as Hope.
H2: But in December. December 16.
Me: You'll have to talk to God about that.


Oh my. First, I better get back to the situp routine and diet. Second, the kids have been eerily correct on talking about babies before they were born (though I am in no way, shape or form ready for/considering more babies!! I'm feeling definitely too old!!)

Top Ten things Hope says...

1. Hi
2. Mama
3. Dada
4. Mao (kitty)
5. Mai (me)
6. Babo (Bravo! when she's done something good)
7. Boo (book)
8. dido (diaper)
9. baba (bye bye)
10 Moa (more)

She would make her Chinese missionary great great grandparents proud--she has four "ma" words :)

(Since I made this list over Thanksgiving, she's also added "goo gil" (good girl), oof (dog), no (no), noo (nose--complete with pointing to her nose), nigh nigh (put me to bed!) and nuh (nurse).

Is it just me, or is that a lot for a not yet 13 month old to be saying?

She also followed her first command--two fridays ago I asked her to get her blankie from in my office (I was in the doorway). She stared at me for a minute, then went and got it :)

Tonight in the car I asked her what a kitty says (expecting to say Meow myself) and she said "Mao"...I did the same for a dog and she said "Oof."

She is growing so fast--somehow she doesn't listen when I ask her to slow down :)

Phone home...

The backdrop:

Patrick is on his way to Seattle, so I'm on single parent duty.
Monday nights are dance, and Harmony's friend Emi comes home with her after school until dance (they're in the same class).

The big kids get off the bus at 4, have a snack, play, help me decorate some Christmas cookies for a school event tomorrow, and change into their dance clothes. We're heading out the door to pick up Hope, bring Henry to a playdate, and the big girls to dance when the phone rings. Rather than being late for our carefully orchestrated pick up/drop off dance, I bring the phone out to the car with me.

I'm glad I did--it's Henry's playdate, needing to cancel. That's fine, but Henry is disappointed (to be expected).

So I go to the Greenhouse to pick up Hope. I even manage to not forget my cell phone, which I've actually had with me, on and charged all day, since Patrick is traveling.

When I drop the girls off at dance, I hear my phone ring. I check it--3 missed calls! All from the Greenhouse. I didn't even know they had my number! So I call back...the phone in my hand turns out not to be mine; rather, it's Hope's teacher's phone! My phone is in my pocket...oops. So back to the Greenhouse we go...

On the way home from round 2 at the Greenhouse, Henry decides he'd like to stay at home instead of hanging out at the dance studio. Our house is three blocks away, and we have some very responsible tenants in the upstairs apartment. Henry is well versed in the "stay at home" rules since he's been practicing with Patrick in his office, so I agree to it, on the condition that he call me after 10 minutes to make sure he's ok. Henry's excited to get to be big enough to stay at home alone (even if it's not really "alone", and only for 20 minutes).

So I drop him off at home and go back to the dance studio. They're working on a Christmas recital, and I've learned that if you don't stay for the lesson, you miss crucial information...including having to learn the dance with the girls :| As I get out...I notice the house phone sitting in the cup holder! Ugh, pack Hope back into the carseat and venture back home.

I'm not sure how many miles I drove this afternoon between the Greenhouse, dance studio and home...good thing they're both less than half a mile away!

Happy (belated) birthday, Hope!!!

I can't believe my sweet baby Hope is ONE! She is definitely a toddler--her new words today were "No" and "my" (mine). She had a good birthday celebration and birthday-day.

And a Hope funny: her favorite teacher at school, Ms. Amanda, straightened her hair today. Hope didn't recognize her and refused to go to her--it took 20 minutes of talking to her for Amanda to convince Hope it was her!

Henry's acrostic poem

Happy
Exprt at math
Nice
Runs fast
Yung

Harmony's book

My Hos (House)

by Harmony Taylor
Ilust (illustrated) by Harmony

My hos is kol and I Hav buk beds.
My Hos has pupkins. It has wicis and a cat and a pukin pi. The kis got to git the pukin ses uot.

The end.

Translation:

My house is cool and I have bunk beds.
My house has pumpkins. They have witches and a cat and a pumpkin pi (carved in them). The kids got to get the pumpkin seeds out.

The funny thing is that the teacher corrected the pumpkin pi to pie...but really I had carved a pumpkin with a pi symbol!

Happy Halloween!

The whole gang: The kitty bride Harmony, the kitty fairy bride Emi, Commander Cody Henry, Sam someone, Pumpkin Fairy Sarah and Dino-Hope!

Henry's creative writing assignment this week

The topic: Draw a picture of your family eating dinner. Then write a story about your family at dinnertime.

Henry's story:

I eat dinner with my family. On Tuesdays I only have 1 hour until I have to go to cub scouts. Most of the time (flip over to the other side) we have leftovers.

Mercifully, Mrs. F commented: Leftovers make a yummy second meal!

Me thinks I need to get back into the menu planning business...

Henry's Cub Scout Regatta race

He won the first round, but lost in the second...but managed to be a good sport about it :)