Happy birthday, Zion!!

Zion turned six today.  He's such a quirky little funny boy that I just love to pieces.

He started off his day with a pancake and OJ breakfast from McDonald's, since his momma is all up on the early wakeup and whip up some pancakes NOT boat, and ended the day with his requested meal of "hot dogs, french fries, macaroni and cheese, Doritos, and cake."  He picked out his own cake from Food Lion, since his momma is also all up on the fancy cake baking and decorating NOT wagon.  (Just call me gourmet domesticate woman.)  It had two fall plastic leaves on it and was yellow cake with chocolate icing.  He wants to save the leaves.  He also chose Grape Crush to drink.

I got him some Despicable Me minion slippers with eyes that rattle around when you walk, a Transformers BumbleBee piggy bank that he had spotted at Walmart one day and wanted very badly, an Angry Birds umbrella, and some black ninja nesting dolls.  He's such a tucker and a hider and likes to put things in pockets and hidey-holes and boxes, so I thought he would really like them, which he does.  However, when I saw the box, it said in big bold letters that they were Nesting DOLLS, and Zion is ALLERGIC to anything that would happen to suggest any girlishness factor.  Roll of eyes.  My worst case scenario was that one of his brothers would catch sight of that word on the box and gleefully point it out to him, so I carefully colored the word in with black permanent marker, both on the front and the back, and Tim carefully and pointedly referred to them as "Nesting Ninja's" and all remained well and right in Zion's birthday world.  :D

On birthdays, Mom says yes to almost anything at all.  Noteable was a request to chew gum at bedtime.  Mom said ok.

Zion is just cute.  He is a slow processor - you ask him a question, and it takes him usually about 4 seconds to answer you back.  Not because he's shy, but because he is thinking.  Over this past year, he really has come up with a whole lot of energy.  Ahem.  He still has a tendency to whine, which we have worked on with only minimal success over the year, using, among other things, a chart to reward lack of whining that began in January and ended in July.  Because it just took that long.  !!!  He LOOOOVES Caroline and she really enjoys him back.  He goes into this crazy-faced contortion as soon as he sees her to try to amuse her, and it generally works.  His main playmate is Layla, but they definitely have a tendency to "fight like cats and dogs" at times.  He also plays with Israel.  He really loves to be like his older brothers, who have a varying degree of resentment at times regarding that fact. :D  But I just love it when I can tell that he feels "big" and it just makes him so satisfied.  Starting school this year definitely made him feel that way.  He can be a great help to me, and can be a very productive and happy worker.  He really is thoughtful, and loves to share good things with people (Mom, can I get [the neighbor] a popsicle/ice cream/piece of pizza/etc. too?)  He is very hospitable in looking out for other people's small comforts, especially if they are a guest.  He likes to be covered up and prayed for, with a special request for a prayer for "good dreams" at night, and he sleeps on two Spiderman pillows.  He has GORGEOUS green eyes.  I just love him so much and like him a ton.

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Just the other day I was THRILLED to receive a FREE box of gorgeous tomatoes that I went to town on last night.  I like to freeze them.  SO NICE!!

Also, yesterday I made a quadruple batch of the best bran muffins in the world.  It just takes that many if you want any leftovers. Plus it used up all my buttermilk, which would otherwise have been sitting around to go bad.

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Caroline actually went to sleep at a normal time tonight after night after painful night of crankily staying up late due to cold/teething/whatever is going on with her.  But the Hallelujah Chorus, it was just going through my head tonight when I sat down to nurse her and instead of nursenursenurse whack around and wrench up and reach for the door, she WENT TO SLEEP.  Hallelujah indeed.

She has been taking a few steps here and there.  I just can't believe she is this close to walking, because she was so delayed on her gross motor skills up until about 10 months.  She is SOOOOOO sweet and cute and I ask her often and with great relish why Jesus made her so precious and dear and precious and sweet because she's just so lovey.  :)

Girlies

"When I eat this, it makes my eyes blinky!" - Layla, while eating grapefruit.

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11 month old baby girls have an avid radar for all things electronic and for sweet drinks. She just knoooooows.  

Also, she loves to have her feet kissed.  In fact, she nigh demands it.  I usually give them loud smacking kisses while I am changing her diaper so as to keep her interested and not trying to flip over, and she repeatedly waves them right back into my face with a big satisfied grin on her face. 

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Beloved

Those moments when you just finished nursing the baby during the night, and she throws herself onto her back in your lap and flings her arms up above her head and smacks her lips sleepily and goes right back to sleep and it just takes everything you have to not just smooch those little baby lips and kiss that sweet little face all over and squeeze her tight and wake her up.  I love her so much.

Caroline and Zion and Battle Berries

Caroline has been delayed almost two months behind in her gross motor skills up until about 10 months.  Then - BOOM.  She took off and caught right up.  

9 months 3 weeks - sat up from laying on own.  She was crawling at about 10 months, and pulling up about a week after she started to crawl.
At 10 months 2 weeks she was crawling all over the house.





She said her first word at 10 month 2 weeks - "Ca. Ki ca.  Ki."  Cat.  Kitty Cat.  Kitty.  But she whispers all of them when she is saying them.  And she listens with delight when I talk about the "ki ca" back to her because she knows exactly what I am talking about it.  Her next word about the next day or so was "Da" when she saw Tim on the computer screen while we were video calling him.



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I am in love with Zion's wide eyed delight in kindergarten.  He had shy delighted happiness when he made a "new friend" on the first day of kindergarten.  His new friend was a girl but he didn't know her name.  The second day of kindergarten he made another new friend who was a boy.  He loves the idea of having friends.  I think it feels very grown up to him to talk about new friends after hearing his brothers talk about their school friends.  But he is just adorable.  Today I asked him what they had for snack and he said it was a "bunny snack.  Nobody knew what it was called but we all liked it."  He just kept talking about bunnies and it was just so cute.  :D  Bunny is a little kid word and he is still so little and cute to me.  He also was wide eyed and happy about eating in the cafeteria.  Kindergarten.  Where all your big kid dreams come true.

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I saw this bag of...green things...on the counter the other day and asked Israel if he knew what they were.  "Oh yes," he quickly affirmed.  "They are battle berries."

"Battle berries," I repeated with mild astonishment.  I had never heard of such a thing.

"Yes - we throw them at each other and have battles with them."

Oh.  :)
                                


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The kids were playing outside the other day, happily doing their own thing and the day was just beautiful, and I watched them and thought how the much of the goodness of childhood is made up of dirt, sand, and water.  :)  They just never grow old.