Technical Difficulties

Due to technical difficulties (we've apparently used up all of the space available for this blog and are working to figure out the best way - whether it be to purchase additional storage space or create a "Wiggles Part 2" blog that would pick up where this blog left off - to remedy the situation), there won't be any new posts on Wiggles this week.  Hopefully we'll have everything worked out within a few days and can then pick up where we left off.  Thanks for understanding!

A Little Extra Love

Will enjoys helping me in the kitchen, but only with "big picture" tasks, like carrying plates to the table or licking the bowl. He couldn't possibly be bothered with actually gathering the ingredients for and combining them into the batter that will eventually be licked from the bowl.

Hallie, on the other hand, likes the detail work. She loves to help measure out ingredients, stir the batter, place the cupcake papers in the tins, and set the timer on the oven.  When it comes to setting the table, she'll take 10 minutes just to arrange the napkins, and even then, they won't be positioned anywhere near where the four of us will actually sit.

A recent table setting a la Hallie.

Meanwhile, Will was blowing up his whoopee cushion
to put on Tom's chair.  Big picture stuff, people.

"He's coming!  Quick!  Act natural!"

I always bake on Friday afternoons, and this last Friday afternoon was no exception.  Hallie and I decided on apple pie, and 30 minutes later we popped our finished product into the oven.  Usually at this point I start cleaning up the kitchen and Hallie runs off to color or play with with her dollhouse or dress up like a princess.  But for some reason on this Friday, Hallie felt like someone needed to keep an eye on the pie while it cooked.  So she sat here:

For at least 20 of the 45 minutes the pie took to bake.  She even made Tom, who was home that afternoon because of a bomb threat on campus (another story for another time), sit in the kitchen and watch the pie with her.  And when we finally ate slices of the pie, it was as if we could taste the extra love she put in.

DJ Will and the Log-Man

Last week Will's friend Logan and his family (all friends of ours) came over for lunch and to watch the Aggie football game. While the grown-ups enjoyed the game in the living room (well, we enjoyed the food, drink, and company, but the Aggies kind of fell apart - four turnovers and seven missed kicking points against a sixth-ranked LSU - and therefore the game wasn't all it could have been), the kids spent their time dressing up, playing Bocce ball in the backyard, and "rocking out" on Tom's keyboard in the playroom.

After the disappointing conclusion of the Aggie game, we abandoned football altogether and ventured into the playroom to see what the kids were up to...this is what we found.

From here on out, as a duo I'm going to call them DJ Will and the Log-Man (pronounced "Loag", as in Logan, and not "Log"). Now we just need to get Will a pair of headphones and Logan a set of actual drums.

Bubbles

When they walk through the hallways at school, Hallie and her classmates put bubbles in their mouths to help them remember not to talk to one another. (Just so you're not worried, they actually just hold air in their mouths and puff out their cheeks to make it look like they have bubbles in there.) Hallie's really good at putting bubbles in her mouth, to the point that once I saw her hang on to the same bubble for 12 minutes straight.

Now, whenever Tom and I ask Hallie to take her volume level down a notch or to simply be quiet for a couple of minutes, she automatically puts a bubble in her mouth. It's like her "I can be quiet" security blanket.

She stayed like this for an entire car ride home, and it was the most peaceful car ride we'd had in quite a while.

Turning Six

The birthday boy was a little under the weather the evening before and woke up feeling the same on the morning of his sixth birthday. He was chipper enough to enjoy his first gift, however, a Betta fish he named Blue.

Despite not feeling very well, Will insisted on going to school; he didn't have a fever, and I just couldn't rob him of the opportunity to share his special Darth Vader and Yoda birthday cookies with his friends, something I knew he was incredibly excited about. Will made it all the way until 2:30pm (school lets out at 2:50pm), when the school nurse called me and told me he'd like to go home a little early.

You can tell he doesn't feel that well - he just looks a little rough around the edges.
On an unrelated note, I can't believe I forgot to take a close-up picture of the
Darth Vader and Yoda cookies - they were amazing!

Poor buddy spent the next few hours on the couch, and then the hours after that throwing up. I'd started making Will's birthday dinner (spaghetti and mixed veggies, with Oreo cupcakes for dessert) before the throwing up began, but when the meal was finished he was in such bad shape that he didn't eat a single bite. I felt awful for him.

This picture makes me so sad.

Talking to Grandpa on the phone.

Will started to rebound once we offered presents though, and he perked up a little more with each gift he opened.

The first card Will opened, from my aunt and uncle, had
$3 in it.  He acted like they'd sent him $1 million.

Tom & Jerry from AJ lifted his spirits.
The boy (and his daddy) LOVES Tom & Jerry.

As did the birthday button.
(AJ has sent Will a birthday button every year since he turned two.
We still have all five, and I don't think I'll ever get rid of them.)

A disc golf bag!  With a pink lemonade inside!

Oh, and discs too.  :) 

Reading a few Garfield comic strips that
Grandma included in her card.

Bey Blades from Sara, Jeff, and Lily!

A (toy) bow and arrow!

Tom and I made Will give each of us a turn.

My new favorite picture of Hallie in her
half-birthday present.  She sure thinks she's super.

The following morning Will was still little tired, but he seemed to know - even though I never said it - that if he didn't go to school and make it through the day we would have to cancel his birthday party sleepover with his best friend Logan. It was as if Will "willed" himself back to perfect health, because when I picked him up from school that afternoon he was at 100%.

For his party this year, Will chose to go see Hotel Transylvania with Logan and then have Logan sleepover at our house. The five of us (Tom, me, Will, Hallie, and Logan) enjoyed the movie (though I think I would have enjoyed it more if we hadn't seen it in 3D - 3D makes me a little nauseous) and lots of popcorn, and then we came back to our house for dinner; R2D2 cake; lots of Wii, Bey Blades, and Tom & Jerry; and very little sleeping.

Not much sleeping went on in these beds.

In the morning we went out for donuts, played a round of disc golf and on the playground at the disc golf park, and then dropped Logan back off at his house. It was a crazy couple of days, but I think they looked exactly like what Will envisioned.

Happy 6th birthday, Will!

Jake

We've seen her dressed up as both Princess Merida and "Princess" Katniss, but most recently Hallie dressed up as Jake, from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

Jake

Scrub cap + tiara + Chinese pajamas + gold
beads + high heels = Hallie as Jake

The funny thing is that even though the outfit Hallie put together looks nothing like what Jake wears, when I first saw her in this ensemble I thought to myself that she was probably trying to look like Jake. Or a girlier version (tiara, gold beads, high heels) of Jake.  Ahoy, mateys!

It's a Rainy Day

It rained here once, and on that glorious day we made the kids walk in the rain twice. They didn't complain, primarily because the air and rain temperatures were quite warm, but also because they LOVE to wear their rain boots and carry around their umbrellas. (We used to let Will play with his umbrella in the house, but when he started using it like a boat and sitting in it - which resulted in three broken umbrellas in less than two weeks - umbrellas became an outdoors-only toy. Now both Will and Hallie live for rain so the umbrellas can come down off the out-of-reach shelf in the front closet.)

This walk - the second of the day - only lasted to the end of our street and back, but it was probably the best 15 minutes of my weekend.

So handsome.

Humidity curls - she's clearly my daughter.

"OMG there's an ant!  I can't walk there, Daddy!
Pick me UUUUUUUPPPPPPPP!"

There is very little I love more than walks in the rain with my people.

Six

Has it been a year since Will turned "A Whole Hand" old? 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days? I can't believe it.

It seems like we celebrated Will's fifth birthday just yesterday.

Will's fifth birthday wasn't yesterday, however, and I know this because yesterday he reminded me that he was five-years-and-364-days old. Five-years-and-one-day old Will wouldn't have known how many days there are in a year, or that "physics has to do with gravity", or that "multiplication is kind of like adding numbers over and over again".  The ease with which he communicates, the depth of his knowledge, the confidence with which he carries himself, and his ability to make new friends and adjust to new environments remind me every day that even though I can still call him a little boy (when he's not listening), he won't be little for much longer.

At the same time, I see my superhero-cape-wearing baby struggle to meet the social expectations of kindergarten - controlling his emotions, solving his problems with words, winning humbly and losing gracefully, and "keeping his hands to himself while waiting in line for lunch" (straight from a note home from his kindergarten teacher) - and am reminded that he is nowhere near grown.

Thank goodness.

Here's to you, my sweet boy.  May you spend this coming year just like a six-year-old little boy should: playing baseball and soccer, taking karate and swimming lessons, building Lego spaceships, watching Tom & Jerry cartoons, reading Garfield comic books, reenacting Star Wars sword fights, making new friends, loving kindergarten, and antagonizing your little sister.  And I hope you do it all while "rockin' it" in your superhero cape.

Happy birthday, Will.  I love you to the moon and back plus infinity times a million with a cherry on top.

AJ's Songs

We are lucky enough to be in possession of rough cuts of a number of Aunt Jenna's songs (that she both wrote and recorded), which we put on a CD so that we could enjoy them in the car. The kids have learned nearly all of the words to the ones I let them listen to (there's one that I've decided isn't three and nearly-six-year-old appropriate because it deals with an abusive relationship), and often rock out to them both with and without music throughout the day.

Once, at the grocery store, Hallie repeatedly sang the lyrics, "I swear I won't fight if you'll just spend the night" to strangers in the canned goods aisle. As always, I just apologized and walked away quickly before they could think too in-depthly about her proposition.

Will's preference is to jam out to AJ songs at home, where he has more room to incorporate his signature somersault-meets-donkey-kick move into his performances.

Broke


You Rescued Me


Will only likes the uptempo songs, so the next videos will be of Hallie singing the ballads.