Smatterings of January

It snowed here at the beginning of the month. The boys' schools closed for a couple of days. It was fun! Not bad for a southern state. :)
It is snowing again today! Don and the boys are out sledding. Fun times.






I try to get the boys outside when it's not too cold outside-- Caleb too. Many days, it's just too cold, but we have had some nice days, too. Below, Caleb at 4 months:


Luke is coming into his own. He really seems to be maturing all of a sudden. He has struggled a little bit with getting really emotional when he gets frustrated. He also goes through stages of being clingy to me. I think a lot of it is lingering adjustment to not being the "baby" anymore. But here lately, he seems to be moving past it. I am so proud of him. He looks older, taller, healthy. He seems happy again. And that makes me happy too, of course! One of his most recent hits is the following that he came up with during one of our doctor's visits with Caleb:
Luke: Yoda's like a pickle.
Me: what makes you say that?
Luke: Well, he's green, and he's an oval (shape). Later: well, except for his ears. His ears don't make him look like an oval.

He and Jon David have been experimenting with different ways to sing happy birthday. (I think they were inspired over Christmas by their cousin, Nicholas :). Here is one of Luke's most recent versions:
"Happy birthday to you. You're one thousand and two. You look like a monkey and your beard looks like a shoe." Um, I think the rest is something like "10 years later I turn into Darth Vader, and then I turned back into Anakin again"?... Anyway, it all comes back to star wars eventually. ;)

The other day I told the boys that a friend was coming over to see us. Jon David asked if she had any kids. I said no, and that she is not married. Luke then asked if she had a husband. :)

Thursday of this week was a Luke day. We played Chutes and Ladders, memory, Candy Land.
I love that kid.

Jon David also has been maturing quite a bit. He is learning how to handle friends, how to act around adults more. Sometimes I get glimpses into that brain of his, and I'm amazed to realize how much he is learning. Two days ago, he had to pull two "tickets" (for behavior) at school... Would you like to guess what the tickets were for? Talking. Huh... well, there's no tellin' where he gets that tendency. ;) He is learning to assert himself when someone is not kind to him. He is learning to be OK with the world when things don't always go his way. He is dealing with car sickness better. The other day he said this to Don: 40 is a pretty important number in the bible, isn't it? Don asked him why. Jon David said because Jesus was in the desert for 40 days, and it rained on the ark for 40 days. I am so proud of him. I love that kid, too. ;)

While I'm on a bragging roll, here are some highlights of their report cards:

This next one makes my heart melt. I can picture Luke doing this!... I asked him if he sometimes gets embarrassed when his teacher asks him a question in front of the class. He said yes... sweet boy. Well, let's just say that he and Jon David have different personalities. ;)

Well, after the ambulance incident, things settled down a little with Caleb. He eats prunes every day, and he has pooped much more often, even if he is still not very regular. Thankfully, he seems to enjoy the way they taste: (4 months old)


Don has finished his Hebrew class. He did great! He got a good report card too! ;0
I really seem to be enjoying various punctuation mark faces... Ha!

As for me, I am doing very well too. I am working on trying to be more positive on days when I don't want to be. I have a tendency to focus on whatever negative thing is available. God is really teaching me a lot, too. I hope I can learn and get a good grade! Smiley face again. I am so thankful that God is so full of grace.
I feel like He dropped a neat opportunity into my lap a couple of weeks ago. I am now watching a couple of children from Jon David's school a few days a week. They are very sweet.
Other than that... well.

Allright, well here it comes. If I didn't mention the wii, I could not accurately portray the month of January in the Caulley household. I have gone through various emotions about it. Right now, I have made peace with it, I think. When we first received the gift, the boys were on an emotional high. However, the honeymoon abruptly ended when they were unable to complete "missions" like they wanted to. Luke would cry, Jon David would get angry. Wii wii wii. All the way home. It was not pretty. I gave serious thought to taking Grandaddy up on his offer to keep it at his house for a while. Then we got home, and were able to monitor them and lay some more defined ground rules about the length of time they could play, etc... Things got a little better. Then, sometimes Jon David and Luke would get upset with each other because they each wanted to do different missions, and they each have different strategies... We have had days that they have gotten obsessed with it, and we say "no wii!" We try to encourage them to play the old fashioned way, you know, with actual toys!-- inside or out. At times I have felt like it has overtaken their young lives. We have had brief conversations about how God is much more important! I would say that overall, after having a month of playing some almost every day, they are doing much better. I use the timer a lot, and they don't throw fits about stopping. They aren't the only ones enjoying the wii... There is another... See if you can guess who that is! Anyway, we are all learning how to handle this new part of our routine, and it's been fun. In some ways, I feel like I keep closer tabs on how much "screen time" they have. They know that they need to save up for the wii, so they won't watch TV as much. It's still a challenge, though. Especially on days like yesterday when the high temp outside was like 24?!
Luke really gets into it--with his whole body. It's so funny to watch! Especially when he was first learning, he was hilarious. The first two video clips capture snippets of this. The rest of the clips are just glimpses into what our life has looked like this month. Thank you, Lord for a great start to 2010--eventful, and full of God's blessings.











Below, Caleb: 4 months.