So Much!

PICTURES AT THE BOTTOM!!

The past few days, I have really wanted to blog everyday! I feel like I have a lot of stuff I want to write about, some over what we did the past few weeks, and some over what we've done yesterday and today. We aren't doing a lot of new and exciting things, but I've felt in the mood to share a bit more of our lives with you lately.

So, here goes just a bit. I am going to try to make it brief, because I turn things into mini-novels if I'm not careful. Which doesn't bother me, and those who don't want can just skim, but it does make it where I can write about less of what has been going on in the McDougle family!

Where to Start??

So for the past few days we have been listening online (on and off as our day permits), to people at Sunset reading the Bible orally. They are doing a 72 hours challenge of the congregation reading through the Bible straight through: Genesis to Revelation. They started Thursday, around 8am, and should finish around church time Sunday morning. There are time slots that families can sign up for, to read. Fifteen minutes at a time. My parents chose time slots at 3am, because they knew we'd be awake to listen. (Yes, they are the most devoted-thinking of us even in this!) It has been cool to see various familiar faces reading parts of the Bible.

My boys, since they really hold the title and reason I started the blog, are growing up so fast! Everyday I am becoming more aware of their unique and amazing personalities. Max, our very laid back and easy going baby, is starting to develop some opinions of his own. Instead of just going along with the flow and calmly backing off things when we tell him "no," he is starting to test us to see if "no" really means "no." And he is starting to throw mini tantrums when we take things away from him that he can't have. We've started to discipline for this behavior, since it isn't a good habit to start forming at such a young age, and it will be much easier to break him of it now than later. Though there aren't always natural consequences to this, there was the other day. I told him not to stand up in the bathtub (he is now pulling himself up on everything), and he got mad, threw himself down- and into the water. He came up sputtering and spitting. No need for any further discipline there. I just reminded him in a stern voice not to do that again!

In other Max news, he has finally started cutting his 3rd tooth! A top, front tooth poked through about a week and a half ago, just 4 months after he got his first two teeth. And speaking of teeth, they are great to have to eat with, which is what Max would do all day if we'd let him. He LOVES to eat! He eats most things, although he prefers to have his veggies pureed, instead of just chopped up in small pieces. He also likes breads, oatmeal and cream of wheat, and some fruits.

Max is the King of jibber-jabber these days. He rambles in baby talk all day long. Sometimes loudly and directly at someone, but most of the time just a general jabbing of the jaw! He doesn't say any of his words that he was so direct in saying just 3 months ago. Just blabs. In addition, Max is pulling up on everything and is walking along the furniture. He has no interest in walking or standing alone. We even try to grab his hands and walk with him. He'll go a few feet, and then crumple down and start crawling. Also, Max has learned how to navigate all the stairs in our house (there is a step down into the bathroom, two steps up in the entry way, and a step down into the laundry room). He can successfully go up and down them without crashing, though sometimes he forgets he is near stairs and sits back down and stair. But he is pretty tough and doesn't cry too much.

Go Fish: that is what seems to describe our play time recently with Canaan. We are all the time playing games of Go Fish with him. It isn't the traditional game where you collect 3 of the same, but Alphabet go fish, matching animals and alphabet letters (mother animal on the big letter, the baby animal on the small letter). He LOVES it! Malachi came over to play the other day, and he and Canaan both played a game. Except when you are 3 and 4 years old, your little hands can't hold the cards; so you lay them out on the table. This is fine when there is one child and one adult; the adult just holds his hards strategically so that he can't see the child's cards that are all laid out. However, two children, each with cards laid out for the other to see: quite a different story! Overall, Canaan is very into games these days, even having Daddy break out his game of Risk that he got for Christmas to play a shortened version (of about 10 or 15 minutes) with him! He likes to play Sorry (a bit revised to his level) at David and Olivia's, which they have, and dominoes if the mood strikes him. Oh, we also play Memory, which he is pretty good at, and Daddy plays War with him with cards. I am planning to make a game for him soon, since he seems to love playing them so much.

Canaan continues to keep us laughing all the time. He says funny stuff all the time, which I am trying to keep record of when I remember. I plan to make a blog post of it soon. However he is also starting to drive us crazy with his constant, "WHY?" He chatters non-stop about everything, with questions littered throughout his ramblings, I think to make sure we are still paying attention. :) To end up this section, I'll leave you with one funny thing he said the other day. Dougle told him to clean up all his books. A minute later he looked over and Canaan was just sitting on the floor. "Canaan, obey me. Clean up like I told you. " To this, Canaan replied, "I was just thinking how I was going to clean up the books, Daddy." Always the stinker.

Canaan has also recently started to color in the lines, a skill that was being honed over the holidays with all the extra attention of grandparents and Auntie, Uncle and Daddy. This is a leap, since he really had no interest in actually coloring anything but scribbles and circles and lines until recently. Oh, Canaan has another interest these days, as well. He has started to pretend. His cars are now starting to talk to each other, and he even goes around play-acting, in part. The funny thing is that he always wants to be a 'bad guy.' I am not really sure how this came about, but he knows there are 'bad people' and he sometimes will tell me he is going to be the bad guy and fight me, or hit Max. Of course, I tell him that isn't nice, and if he really hit someone, he'd be in trouble. Then I try to talk about how he needs to be the 'good guy' and fight away the bad guys, or save the people. I guess this is a Boy thing. My friend Katya told me her son does the same thing now (he is almost the same age as Canaan). So perhaps it is all normal. When I start to get worried about his love of being 'bad,' I remind myself about how fun it was to play the 'robbers' in a game of Cops and Robbers with neighborhood friends. Or how daring it felt to play the rebellious child when we girls were playing house as kids. So, as he gets older and starts play-acting more and more, I try to engage him and play with him sometimes, even to the point of playing 'swords' and fighting him with our left over wrapping paper rolls (the brown core left when you finish the roll).

I guess that is our biggest news lately. If you haven't read Dougle's blog, then you don't know that he, too, has been having fun being a "walrus." He has gone two Saturdays in a row to jump in freezing cold water outside. Yes, crazy. Today he said it was the coldest he'd ever felt before (it was 20 degrees F, and snowing). Took him hours for his feet and fingers to finally feel warm again! But he's enjoyed some nice cups of tea afterward with our new friend, Kevin (Yang Ping Jiang) from China.

Hope you all have enjoyed reading. I want to post more often, but I know I shouldn't promise that to you or myself. However, I'll write again when I next get inspiration and a moment of time to do it - both at the same time!