life lately

an update on life at our house:

-lily:

just successfully graduated from the second grade! even though she spells "succeed": "sexseed". i cannot believe she will be in the third grade in July! (sorry canadian friends: the kids got out of school on Thursday this week, and they will go back at the end of july. weird. I know.) I think she is going through a growth spurt because she has randomly fallen asleep and napped in the middle of the day twice this week!!! I need a growth spurt too... these kids are getting big fast.

lily is also more aware of fashion and concerned with what she wears. she will ask me to help her pick out an outfit, and when I show her two choices, she shoots them both down. needless to say- it is not my favorite thing to do with her. but when chris is putting the big kids down (90% of the time he is putting J down! superstar) lily will pull out two outfits and ask chris which one he likes, and he picks one- and she wears it. chris LOVES helping lily pick out her outfits! he is hoping that she consults him until she is 21.

-topher:

at the tender age of 7 years and 2 months, topher FINALLY lost his first tooth. he was ecstatic and terrified. he wrote the funniest letter to the tooth fairy:

"Dear: Tooth fairy
Today my tooth came out. it really hurted. it was pulled out by my Dad. my Dad is very strong. so it hurted more than if you hit your thumb nail with a hammer. Love, Topher."

this kid loves similes! and I love him.

topher's first grade class also had a talent show on their second to last day of school (aka, come to school to kill time.) topher's talent that he chose to share with his class was to tell jokes. he did SO GREAT!!!! chris and I were both able to go watch him because it was at 8:30am. this is my favorite joke from his set:

Q: what does a nosey pepper do?
A: it gets JALAPENO business!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the kids asked him where he got all of his jokes and he said: "my mom's phone."
true story.

-mia:

when I cut apple slices for mia, I hand them to her even though I know she doesn't like the seeds in them. I do this because as soon as I hand her a slice, she looks at it and then hands it back and says: "can you cut out the nuts?"

also, chris and I are officially those annoying people who aren't completely allergic to gluten, but have reactions to eating it (my psoriasis flares up, chris' insides get whacky). so we try to really watch our consumption of it. lily and topher have had classmates with gluten allergies this year, and so they have been SO considerate and always make me go to Trader Joe's to get a gluten free snack for their friends when they are bringing in glutinous treats for the rest of their class. they also often ask if their dad is allowed to eat something (it's almost always a donut) and ask whether it has gluten in it or not (yes. it still has gluten in it. that's why it's so delicious.)

the other day, mia looked at chris while he was drinking water: "dad! are you allowed to drink that? does it have gluten in it?" one day I will re-explain to all the kids what gluten is.

-j:

she was just starting to get back to sleeping through the night, and I was no longer sleeping on the floor in her room, and then she got the flu. so we stopped sleeping through the night again. but the last two nights have been AMAZING and I am hoping that she is really getting back on track again! her new things that she likes to do is hold hands while she falls asleep next to you on the recliner in her room; and she likes to pretend she is unamused when I am smiling freakishly at her by rolling her eyes and avoiding eye contact, all with a silly little grin on her face.

she is also slowly potty training, and can count to ten. she has also memorized most of "Good Night Moon" because we read that almost every night. when she isn't crying and whining, she is pretty awesome. I unfortunately have to remind myself of that pretty often.