A Quick Run Down of What We're Up To

 Will is 22 months old now.

He is talking A LOT!

He is finally using words on his own instead of just repeating after us.

Boy oh boy, can he tell you what he wants.

He's had croup for the past 2 nights. He sounds terrible but acts totally fine, so I'm not worried about it. Other than that he's been healthy which is a huge relief compared to where we were last year at this time!

Will is a rough and tumble boy.

He runs, jumps, hops, crawls, climbs, tackles, hits, pushes and giggles all day long.

My favorite thing about him right now is his singing. He has this soft little voice that is pretty much the most precious thing on the face of the earth when he sings.

He loves "Twinkle, Twinkle" and our night-night song but his favorite song that he requests is "PopPop & Nanny." That means he wants me to sing Jesus Loves Me, with PopPop and Nanny's (that's what he's calling Grandmom these days) names in it.

Yes, Jesus loves William

Yes, Jesus loves Christian

Yes, Jesus loves McKenna

and PopPop and Nanny too!

Will has started telling his mommy and daddy "no." Actually he usually says NO!NO!NO! just to make sure that we get the point.

We're not big fans of that in this house, so we've had to get tough with the discipline so we don't end up with bigger problems later down the road.

McKenna can hardly stand it when Will gets in trouble. She runs and hides and cries.

Last night Will stood up in the bathtub and slipped and his head went under the water which scared him. McKenna was taking a bath with him and she had to get out because she was so upset about how Will "almost got hurt." She couldn't stop crying. She loves her "little buddy" so much. He calls her "sissy" and is always calling for her...all.day.long!

 This is what happens when Ryan tries to watch football on a Sunday afternoon.

Yes, that's our Christmas tree. I had it down before New Years, I'm just extremely behind with blogging.

Ryan got a new boss. Our feelings about that are still up in the air. 

On a super foggy night this week someone stole an entire truckload of product from his distribution center. That has created a ridiculous amount of stress for him. What is wrong with people??

 The winter months get long for Christian.

He doesn't like school right now.

He's in a funk most of the time when he's home.

He the best big brother ever to Will and leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to McKenna.

Yet, despite the attitude junk we have going on, I see a boy who makes me so proud. He is an excellent student (even though he doesn't like it). 

The thing that makes me the most proud is the character he displays through his friendships at school. There is this kid who is a bully on the playground. All the kids know he's mean and Christian usually just ignores him because the bully doesn't ever bother him. But one day this kid took it too far and Christian told me "He was about to push over my friend (who is this sweet little innocent Mennonite boy who is definitely a fish out of water in public school) so I stepped in front of him and he ended up pushing me on the ground. That made him mad and I told him he was acting like a bully and I wasn't going to put up with it anymore." I was a little shocked and a tad bit worried that Christian was so aggressive with this kid, but I think he made the right decision. I'm glad he's willing to stick up for the underdog.

We sign up for spring baseball on Friday! It can't come soon enough.

This crazy lady is finally signed up for gymnastics.

I have pictures. You'll see them one day.

In the meantime, just believe when when I tell you she loves it!

She is about to be five. Let's not talk about it, it makes me sad.

I've told her that she's not having a party this year and yet she has one all planned out and has been inviting her friends at preschool to it.

I spelled something in the car last night so that only Christian would know what I was trying to say and McKenna knew exactly what I spelled. I guess that won't work anymore.

Quite often McKenna will ask me to please go upstairs to my room and shut my door so that she can baby sit. She always wants me to go take a shower and a nap or do some work with my door shut. She loves to be in charge of her little buddy, Will.

She talks about Kindergarten all the time.

She bosses Will around all the time (in a very nice mothering sort of way).

She has bad dreams that have been disrupting our nights a lot lately. Her daddy mainly deals with it. I'm not very patient in the middle of the night.

She is going through this phase where she is terrified of our house or her school or our church, catching on fire. (This is pretty much Christian's fault since he got a ball stuck up in our light in our 2 story foyer. He didn't tell us about it because he didn't want to get in trouble and then the ball melted and our whole house smelled like burnt rubber. And I was not thinking and told him that it was wrong for him not to tell us because he could have burned our house down. Totally regretting those words now!!! So actually it's really my fault.) We have discussed it and prayed about it and discussed it some more. It's still an issue. She's a complicated little cookie.

So that's the latest!

Everyone is doing great and everyone has their issues! I'm just feeling tired these days! How many more days until spring?? If it's not coming soon, we at least need a big snow so we can be stuck at home for awhile with no school! I would love that!