Orange Crayon

We ask Olivia to make sure she cleans up her crayons when she's done with them and we try to make sure they all get picked up. I guess we all missed one.


I was on the phone with my Mom and Addie walked up to me with the orange crayon hanging out of her mouth. I guess she was hungry for dinner!

Addie's New Nickname

Some of you may recall that Olivia was a terrible biter at daycare. In the beginning, she was a one bite per day little girl and worked up to 3-4 times per day. I still remember the day she bit a child so hard that she broke the skin. Every day I dreaded going in to pick her up to see how many incident reports I would have to sign. I remember the teachers jokingly calling her "Hannibal".

Well, I heard the familiar nickname again last week but this time the teacher was referring to Addie. Addie has started biting her friends at school. I hate walking in the door and seeing the orange paper hanging behind the daily gram because I know that it most likely means she bit another child. It's terrible but on Friday when I picked her up, there were 2 incident reports. I assumed that meant she bit twice but I was a little excited when the one incident report was from another child hitting her in the head with a baby doll. She only bit one time!

In addition to the biting, she has become a little bit of a bully. Her teachers told me that she has been knocking the other kids down. She will walk up behind them, wrap her arms around them, and then fall backwards, bringing the other child down with her. Needless to say, she's getting familiar with "time out". Hopefully these behaviors will stop soon. We were asked to bring in a sour or bad tasking (edible) liquid (ie: lemon juice, vinegar, etc.) that the teachers can put in her mouth when she bites. Liv didn't mind lemon juice or vinegar so we'll see how that goes. Addie is also moving up to the next room in January so she'll be one of the younger kids in the room. She's big for her age but moving up to the next room will mean she's no longer the biggest (tallest) child in the room.

Frosty the Snowman

Watching the holiday cartoons was a fun tradition when I was growing up. I was excited this year to be able to sit down and watch some of them with Olivia. We didn't get to watch "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" because it was on at 8:30 (past bedtime) on a school night. But, we did get to watch "Frosty the Snowman". It was fun watching the kids make Frosty and see him come to life when they put the magicians hat on his head. We watched them sing songs and dance around. It was even fun to watch Frosty and Karen in their adventure to get Frosty to the north pole. That is until the greenhouse scene. Do you remember what happened to Frosty?

Poor Karen was sooo cold that she was shivering uncontrollably. The camp fire the animals made was extinguished by the Professor Hinkle (the evil magician) in his quest to get his hat back once he realized there was some magic in it. Frosty looked and looked for some place warm for Karen and finally found the greenhouse. He took Karen inside the greenhouse to try and warm her up. Professor Hinkle closed the door so Frosty could not get out and you know what happened.

When they showed the scene where Karen was on her knees with her face in her hands sobbing over a puddle of water (yes, melted Frosty), Olivia fell apart! She started to cry just like Karen because Frosty melted away. Half the fun of watching the kids Christmas specials is seeing Olivia's reaction to them but we didn't expect the reaction we got. Of course we calmed her down and got her to keep watching so she could see Santa make it all better. It's a good thing that Frosty was made of Christmas snow because Christmas snow never really melts away.

"A Kodak Moment"

Last night, I was sitting here at the computer checking email while Bill was putting Addison to bed. Olivia came up beside me and said, "Look Mommy, I put stickers on my face." Here is what I saw.............

Ya gotta love her!

Addie

I feel like I've had a lot to say about Olivia lately so I wanted to add a post about Addison. She has learn how to slide down the steps on her butt. My Dad witnessed out tomboy in action on Thanksgiving Day. Addie will climb on, chase, tackle, or jump on anything or anyone she can. Right now, she slides down one step at a time and stops to giggle. My guess is that in about a week, she will be sliding down all of the steps without stopping and will be screaming and giggling the whole way down. I'm telling you, it will happen!

Addie likes to draw and color (or attempt to, I should say). Sometimes she spends more time trying to eat the crayons but she does manage to get some crayon on the paper.

Her Daddy likes to color too......

Thanksgiving

Olivia had a lot of fun at school learning about Thanksgiving. She made a turkey, a cornucopia, and learned about being thankful. When I picked her up one day she told me that the class talked about the things they are thankful for. I asked what she is thankful for and she said for her sister, Addie. I feel the need to mention this because it is very sweet but also to document it in writing for when she gets older and hates Bill and me for having a second child.

One of the art projects of the week was to make a pilgrim costume. She did a good job. Ok it may not be the best pilgrim costume but how much can you do with a paper bag, some construction paper, and a bingo dabber?

When they make costumes at school, her class goes on parade through the school. So, when she comes home with her costume, she likes to go on parade at home too. Addie loves to follow Liv anywhere so it's not a problem to get her to join in. Bill was lucky enough to get to join in the parade too.
We were able to spend time with my family on Thanksgiving Day and with Bill's family over the weekend. It's fun for the girls (and us) to see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins but Bill and I are glad when the traveling is done. The girls are really well-behaved and listen well for the most part but you bring them to someone else's house and they can turn into little maniacs. At home the things they can't touch are out of their reach but at other people's houses it is much different. I can't tell you how many times I said the words, "no, no", "don't touch", "put that down", and "yikes" over the past few days. Here's an example. In the bedroom at Billy's parents' house, Addie saw Bill pull the night light out of the outlet. Within seconds, her finger was just outside of the socket. Fortunately, we are still smarter than she is (for now) and we were able to stop her from sticking her finger in the socket.

Anyway, it was great to see everyone over the past few days. Christmas isn't that far away so we'll be doing it all again soon.