Layla’s 20 Questions August 25, 2014

Ok I am way, way behind capturing Layla’s 20 questions for her 4th birthday.  She is 4 1/4 now, but it’s still fun to see what her answers are each year.  She is growing so fast!  She loves school (she is chomping at the bit for it to start up – one more week to go), she’s very loving, can be stubborn, playful, funny, loves Frozen and animals, and is a pretty good eater.

1) What is your favorite color? Green

2) What is your favorite toy? Markers

3) What is your favorite fruit? Grapes and kiwi

4) What is your favorite TV show? Paw Patrol and Team Umizumi

5) What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Babybel

6) What is your favorite outfit? Frozen shirt

7) What is your favorite game? My Little Pony matching game

8) What is your favorite snack? Babybel

9) What is your favorite animal?  Dolphin

10) What is your favorite song? Baa Baa Black Sheep

11) What is your favorite book? Her Frozen Olaf book and a Minnie book

12) Who is your best friend? Avery

13) What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios (I’m not sure I would agree with that – I think she just answered with a cereal she could think of)

14) What is your favorite thing to do outside? Mow

15) What is your favorite drink?  Sprite

16) What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

17) What do you like to take with you to bed at night? Elsa

18) What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Croissant

19) What do you want for dinner for your birthday? Q’Doba

20) What do you want to be when you grow up? A mommy

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20 Questions for Hayden

Somehow Hayden is 7 already!  He has had a great year being 6, and I’m sure it’s all upwards from here.  He loved Kindergarten and really flourished.  He’s got a big year ahead with starting a new school at the International School of Bologna, which he is excited about!  It’s fun watching him mature more and more every year.  He says things now like, “Mommy, do you think I could do [x]?  I don’t think I’ll be allowed to because [y] but I’m just asking.” 🙂

His birthday fell during our move, so we had his birthday party in July to make sure we had time for a party.  He really wanted it at the Monon Center water park, but it got rained out so we did a last minute switch to Dave and Busters.  His actual birthday was the day we flew to Italy.  We asked him if he would rather be in Indiana for his birthday, be in Italy already, or be flying on his birthday (in case we had flexibility to choose when), and he wanted to be on airplanes and in airports for his birthday – and that’s what he got!  We also got to fly first class due using points to upgrade, so that made it extra special!  Although, we got ice cream sundaes on the flight and for some reason Hayden didn’t want any…?  I just can’t figure that one out.

1) What is your favorite color? Black

2) What is your favorite toy? Wii

3) What is your favorite fruit? Peaches and apricots

4) What is your favorite TV show? The show with the bear and the girl – something new we’ve watched in Italy but don’t know what it’s called.

5) What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Bread he’s been eating here with butter (making essentially an empty sandwich).

6) What is your favorite outfit? Lego Star Wars shirt

7) What is your favorite game? Mine Craft

8) What is your favorite snack? Chocolate granola bar

9) What is your favorite animal?  Dolphin

10) What is your favorite song? “The robot song” – I think this is called “Party Rock Anthem”

11) What is your favorite book? These Aren’t the Droids You’re Looking For (Star Wars)

12) Who is your best friend? Drew

13) What is your favorite cereal? Cocoa Krispies (“but I don’t eat it anymore”)

14) What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play in the big playground in Hawaii

15) What is your favorite drink?  Peach tea (cold)

16) What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

17) What do you like to take with you to bed at night? Bunny and fox

18) What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Waffle and fruit yogurt

19) What do you want for dinner for your birthday? McDonald’s

20) What do you want to be when you grow up? Nascar driver

Hayden is Six! Twenty Questions August 30, 2013

Hayden turned six this month!  He’s getting bigger all the time (still 90th percentile in height).  He’s starting Kindergarten at the big school, he’s been taking loads of field trips at day care this summer (and riding the bus to those), and he’s doing more and more things for himself (begrudgingly).

1) What is your favorite color? Black

2) What is your favorite toy? Lego police station (but he says he wants another lego police station at Christmas – sigh!)

3) What is your favorite fruit? Raspberries

4) What is your favorite TV show? Paw Patrol (recently changed from Curious George)

5) What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Chicken nuggets

6) What is your favorite outfit? Nothing – says he doesn’t really have something like that 😉

7) What is your favorite game? He says he doesn’t have one, but I’d say it’s Rush Hour Jr

8) What is your favorite snack? Rocket snack (Trader Joe’s version of Goldfish)

9) What is your favorite animal?  Lizard he says (news to me)

10) What is your favorite song? Bad Boys (Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You)

11) What is your favorite book? Star Wars

12) Who is your best friend? Jesse and Robby, and Drew

13) What is your favorite cereal? Cocoa Krispies

14) What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ride my bike

15) What is your favorite drink? Lemonade

16) What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

17) What do you like to take with you to bed at night? Bed toys

18) What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Cocoa Krispies

19) What do you want for dinner for your birthday? Red Robin

20) What do you want to be when you grow up? Construction worker or something else – lol

He had his birthday party at Ben and Ari’s this year.  The kids got tokens and played arcade games for a while, then we went to the party room and ate pizza and cake.  Afterwards most kids left except Jesse and Robby and the 3 of them played two rounds of mini golf.  Hayden was soooo excited about his party and had an absolute ball.  After that we went home and played with some of his presents before swimming for a while in the neighborhood pool.  We rounded off the day with dinner at Red Robin with the Carter’s.  The staff sang Happy Birthday to Hayden and he got a little ice cream sundae.

We are lucky to have such a fun, sweet little boy!  It’s been great fun to watch him grow and change.

Twenty Questions for the New Three Year Old June 5, 2013

In keeping with tradition, here are “Layla’s” answers to the twenty questions this year.  While she is old enough to answer them herself this year, most of these answers are based off my experience with her.  I tried to ask her the questions herself and she wasn’t being thoughtful in her answers (imagine that in a three year old!), just saying the first thing she saw (i.e. what is your favorite color? and she held up what she was holding at the time and said “this color”).

1) What is your favorite color?  Yellow

2) What is your favorite toy?  Dolls

3) What is your favorite fruit?  Strawberries (she says, although she has been known to turn them down from time to time recently)

4) What is your favorite TV show?  Team Umizoomi

5) What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Quesadilla, she says.  Not true.  She likes to ask for a “quesadilla” which for her is a tortilla with some shredded cheese (not melted) in it.  She’ll have a couple of bites and be done with it.  I’d say soup is her fave.

6) What is your favorite outfit?  Pink Colts jersey or Hello Kitty Shirt, jean skirt, “red riding” sweater or Hello Kitty zip up sweatshirt.

7) What is your favorite game? Ker Plunk (what a pain that is to set up!)

8) What is your favorite snack? Cheese Its

9) What is your favorite animal? She says birdies, but I think she just said the first one she could think of.  She loves our dogs and cat.

10) What is your favorite song? Alphabet song (she is saying she likes this more than She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain, but history would say otherwise)

11) What is your favorite book?  Magnet Color Safari book

12) Who is your best friend? Lila (from day care) and Sophie

13) What is your favorite cereal?  Cocoa Krispies

14) What is your favorite thing to do outside? Line up her strollers

15) What is your favorite drink?  Yogurt drink

16) What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas

17) What do you like to take with you to bed at night? “Colts pillow”, which is really a hippo pillow, lots of quilts, big Minnie, plus a whole bunch of dolls and stuffed animals that rotate between the bottom of the bed and up with her.

18) What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Right now it’s cereal, but it changes all the time.

19) What do you want for dinner for your birthday?  Red Robin (mac & cheese – and not much of it)

20) What do you want to be when you grow up? A dinosaur.

I can’t believe she is three already!  She is such a wonderful little girl, we are really lucky to have her in our lives.  She’s so loving, cute, funny, smart, sweet… the list goes on.  Love you, little Lay! xxx

The Five Year Old September 19, 2012

Hayden. Many things have been said and written about my first little munchkin over those five years but I thought it would be a good time to give a current picture of him.

Food – He is a turkey. Let’s start there. He doesn’t want to eat anything except peanut butter and jelly. If there is anything green near or on his food he won’t eat it. He freaks out if there are pips or seeds in his food. Pepper is about the only vegetable he will eat. If he eats something he doesn’t like he has a very inelegant way of just spitting it out and letting it dribble down his chin. On the other hand he loves desert! The words ‘ice cream’ and ‘dessert’ can transform the boy in seconds!

Toys – He has gone through a few phases in his time. Obviously his world was dominated by trains. But as he announced a few months back ‘l don’t love trains, I just like trains’. To be honest we didn’t really notice too much of a different at the time but he had backed off trains a little. Probably only plays trains ~3 days a week instead of everyday. He really started to get into Legos. He is so structured in the way he thinks Legos is the perfect toy for him. He follows instructions well and is actually incredibly focused when it comes to Legos. Focus is not generally one of his specialties that I am sure I will be to later. The other big thing for him right now is his love for Robots. Not quite sure where it seemed from but that is the new love. For his birthday he got A bunch of transformers and robot based toys so that seemed to keep him happy.

Friends – Hayden is picky on his friends and also gets a little overwhelmed if there are lots of kids and he will try to find one kid (often the bossy girl) and try to just play with them. His best friend without a doubt is Oliver but unfortunately Oliver has started at a different school so it will be harder for them to hang out as much now. Robby,his cousin, is his other big friend. When them two are around they are in separable and Hayden just wants to follow Robby everywhere and do everything he does.

Daddy’s Boy – he is still a huge daddy’s boy (I never thought I would have said that when he was 2!). However he has gotten past his period of being rude to him mum. He still always wants to know if it is a daddy work day and always has this heart breaking dejected look (“there are too many daddy work days”. “Daddy work days are too long” etc) when I tell him it is. he is very protective of my over Layla. If we are swimming for example if I play with Lay for like 10 seconds he will come and get himself in between us and challenge “why do you play with Layla more than me?” and poor Layla normally loses it because Hayden is so insistent.

Big Brother – Hayden is a caring big brother a lot of the time. He likes teaching Layla things and showing or telling her how to do things. As all siblings the always want the same toy at the same time and they will constantly fight for it, but nothing new there! He certainly cares for her, I feel he is often thinking or looking our for her, so hopefully theist continues in a few years when she starts bringing the boys home!

Sports – Hayden likes sports but he doesn’t really care for competitive or team sports. We tried him with football/soccer (ended up picking daisies and staring at the clouds) and basketball (had no idea what was going on and was generally just lucky if the ball didn’t land on his head) with little success. So we thought lets try a more individual sport like Taekwondo. He made it all the way to black stripe but I think they just felt sorry for him, bless him. He was supposed to build focus but we would always see him daydreaming or playing with his belt rather than listening or performing the exercises. However saying all this sometimes we will be playing outside and he will want to play football (soccer) and he is a pretty useful dribbler of the ball, and baseball and the boy can really swing a bat! He loves Race cars and monster trucks, and you could define that as a sport so maybe that will be his calling.

Personality – It is hard to sum his personality in a few sentences. He generally wakes up in a bad mood. He is just a slow waker up. Once we get him past his morning cartoon and breakfast he starts to get going. He is generally pretty serious about life. Despite his seriousness though he has he has a cheeky smile and grin that can light up any room. He has a happy dance which he does when he is playing with toys he loves. Often involving trains! Often he is a follower not a leader, but at the same time very stubborn once his mind is made up. He is very curious and often profound in some of the questions he asks (“when will the world end?” etc). He wants to learn, know how things work. Not the most independent kid, but sometimes I think a lot of that is just that he wants to me to hang out with him. He is the champion procrastinator too, again because I think he just likes us to hang out with him. Like I said a tough kid to sum up in a few sentences, but he is a keeper and I love every moment I get to spend with him.

Happy birthday, Layla! Twenty questions May 24, 2012

I found this really cute idea online, and I am going to implement it in our family at birthday time.  Layla is too young to answer for herself, so I’ll do my best to answer for her.

1) What is your favorite color?  Purple, although she will only say the color “blue” when she is trying to say which [cup, bowl, shirt, shoe, etc] she wants, even when there is no blue, and if there is a blue one she will say No to the blue one when it is given to her.

2) What is your favorite toy?  Minnie.  Hands down.

3) What is your favorite fruit?  Apple.  No question.

4) What is your favorite TV show?  Team Umizoomi.

5) What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Hmmm…. that’s tricky.  She’s a pretty good eater in general, but doesn’t have a go-to food like Hayden and his peanut butter and jellies right now (all.he.will.eat).  I guess I’ll say… cocktail wienies.

6) What is your favorite outfit?  Purple Minnie tank top.

7) What is your favorite game? She likes puzzles.  Does that count as a game?  Let me ask the judges… ok, I say yes!

8) What is your favorite snack? Crackers

9) What is your favorite animal? Doggie or kitty

10) What is your favorite song? Baa, baa black sheep

11) What is your favorite book? Where is Baby’s Belly Button

12) Who is your best friend? Haddy (Hayden) or Tessa (from day care)

13) What is your favorite cereal?  Daddy’s cereal! Which she shares with him every morning.

14) What is your favorite thing to do outside? Swing/play on playset

15) What is your favorite drink?  “Minnie juice” (anything in her Minnie cup, usually apple or apple/grape juice).  Also, strawberry yogurt drink.  And anything with ice.

16) What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas

17) What do you like to take with you to bed at night? “Yiyo” (Pillow – a purple pillow that has the head of a hippo or pony), Minnie, plus zillions of dolls, her princess quilt, and some blankies.

18) What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? For the past week it has been toast.  Also, Mommy’s oatmeal.  Formerly, yogurt, but no longer.

19) What do you want for dinner for your birthday?  Hot dog.

20) What do you want to be when you grow up? A woman.

Layla, I don’t know how you are two years old already.  I feel like time is going by faster with you than it even did with Hayden.  You are a sweet little girl with a big personality.  You are such a blast.  I love having you in my life.  I love watching you and Hayden play and laugh together.  I love watching you getting older, understanding more of the world around you and communicating better and better.  I love watching you get excited, and laughing along with us like you “get the joke.”  I love your singing and telling me and Daddy to stop singing.  I love how you snap to attention when I walk through the door at day care, run over to me saying “Momma, Momma, Momma,” and give me the tightest hug in the world.  I love when I pass by on my run while you are playing outside at day care, and I get a kiss through the fence.  I love the cuddles I get first thing in the morning as I get you out of your crib, when you whisper to me in your cute little voice. We are one lucky family to have such a wonderful little sweetie in our lives.

Minnie! May 17, 2012

Since we went to Disney, Layla has been all about Minnie!  She gets so excited any time she sees anything to do with Minnie, and she always has to have her plush Minnie at bedtime (along with scores of dolls and her beloved pillow-animal thing).  Last week I got her a Minnie sippy cup, and she will not drink from anything else now.  We have to wash it by hand every morning because it’s always in use so never makes it into the dishwasher.  In fact, as I’m writing this I’m thinking we could make loads of room in our cupboard taking out all the other sippy cups since they aren’t getting any use these days.  Anyway, she doesn’t just want juice, she wants “Minnie juice.”  She has two Minnie Mouse outfits: the one she is wearing in this picture, and a purple Minnie tank top Nanny bought her at Disney.  These are in heavy rotation.  In fact, she wore the pink outfit yesterday and refused to wear anything but the tank top this morning.  “No. Minnie! No. Minnie!”

So Layla turns two on Monday.  How that happened I really don’t know.  But needless to say John and I made sure that her presents reflect her love of Minnie.  We took the kids to Toys R Us last weekend and did some sneaky shopping.  We got plenty of Minnie stuff which was fun until we got home and Layla could see Minnie’s face through the (what I thought was opaque) shopping bag, and started crying because I wouldn’t let her get to any of it.  I have also ordered her some Minnie Mouse cupcakes, so I think she will be a happy girl! 🙂

Birthday Boy August 29, 2011

Hayden is four! I almost typed finally four – in fact Kara was saying just the other day that she can’t believe that our little boy is four already, and my response is that I can’t believe he isn’t four already – we’ve been talking about his birthday since Christmas!! He has been so excited about it that it’s been “when I’m four …” and “for my birthday” etc, that it seems like it’s been a bit of a build up to the big day!!   I can certainly remember back before May when we were laying out the sequence of birthdays so he knew where his fell.  Also he knew in line with coming back from England it was his birthday. He just missed the bit that said there was going to be three weeks in between coming back and his actual birthday!

We were going to just do a low key birthday, but of course Hayden had other ideas and basically planned his own birthday party at Chuckie Cheese, with a cake and presents… so you’ll hear more about that later I’m sure.

Three was an interesting year for Hayden. He was a really good two year old, but when he hit three, he certainly become a but of a threeager.   He started to question why he had to do things, rather than just doing them. Started to learn the power of the tantrum in public and realize that while threats of having toys taken away wasn’t great, it wasn’t enough to sway whatever his particular argument was at the time. He also become a big daddy’s boy, to the point though that it’s a bit ridiculous at times, and certainly hard on Layla and Kara. Small example would be if I’m there, Hayden won’t let anyone else but me put him in and out of his car seat.  If it’s just me and Layla, then he’ll throw a fit if I try to do anything with Layla first. If I carry Layla he will suddenly need carrying. If I play with Layla, he will get himself in between us and insist I play with him. So he certainly became pretty testy. Certainly his relationship with Kara has gone under some good test as he loves to push her buttons and draw out her patience!  Luckily for him she has plenty!!

Of course, all of that is always instantly forgotten because he is also the sweetest and funniest little boy. He gives out hugs and kisses. He loves being tickled and just loves any play time with me or Kara. In fact I think he just loves attention. More than anything of course he loves Trains. His obsession about trains bleeds into everything he does, but it’s a healthy obsession as things like that go, and he gets so much joy out of just pushing his trains around we just leave him to it.

He still loves his routines.  Two books at bed time is just as important now as it’s every been.   He gets very upset if he can’t get his books, or songs, or even his bath.  These are the things he does, and he wants to know why if things are going to change.

I couldn’t imagine life without my little guy and can’t believe how fast he is growing.   But it is so much fun watching him grow up.  Love you Hayden!!

Happy birthday, Hayden! August 8, 2011

Hayden turned 4!  As John has written, he had big plans for what it would be like to be four, and I really have noticed a change in him.  He is already doing a better job of doing things by himself (eating, going potty, etc).  He also seems to be a little more agreeable.  Age three was a challenging age for us with Hayden.  He got to the natural developmental stage where he started testing his limits, so there was a lot of navigating to try to keep him from throwing a tantrum in public (sometimes we successfully navigated those waters, and other times we had to go into ABORT! mode).  He had a greater understanding that for any one scenario there were multiple options, and he did his best to protest if he didn’t like the option we chose.  But, already, I feel like we are not having to “talk him down” as much now that he is four.  I’m sure I just sealed my fate for a huge tantrum at some point today.

Here are some of the things about Hayden at three:

• Started out at three loving cars.  Toy cars, race cars, cars on the road, Cars the movie, anything to do with cars.
• The last few months his new thing is trains.  He is loving trains.  He was so excited when we went to England and he got to ride on real trains, as well as when we went to Colorado and we did various train-oriented things.  He got a bazillion train-related things for his birthday.
• He does not like preschool.  He is always happy when I pick him up, but he never wants to go in the morning.  I remember never wanting to go to my babysitter when I was little.  Even though I liked her I would have rather stayed home.  So I understand, but it is sad, too.
• He’s not hugely into sports at this stage.  He will kick a soccer ball around for a while with John, but hardly ever initiates it on his own.  He shows an interest in basketball, but hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to play.  He likes to play around with these toy golf clubs we have.  He’s taken gymnastics classes and swimming lessons and always been lukewarm about them.  He is going to be on a soccer team in the fall which John will coach, and I can’t WAIT for that!  It will be cool to see if he likes the element of a team sport.  We also plan to sign him up for basketball in the winter because whenever he sees people playing he wants to play.  And swim lessons start next week – not because he is interested but because John and I really feel it is time he learned how to swim, considering that he is around water a fair amount.
• He loves to sing.  He often sings absentmindedly while he is playing.  My nephew asked me the other day while we were all at a water park why he sings so much.  I hadn’t even noticed, since I’m so used to it!
• He loves macaroni and cheese.
• He really loves his daddy.  He loves me, too, I think, but he has a really special bond with his daddy.  For the record, for the first 2 1/2 years he was a big mommy’s boy! 🙂
• He loves Team Umizoomi.
• Sometimes he can’t do things because his “hands are busy” (his hands are full).
• He says “smorrow” instead of “tomorrow.”
• He loves wearing shirts that have some sort of picture or cartoon on them.  It’s hard to get him to wear a regular shirt.

I can’t believe he is four already!  I still feel like he should be a newborn.  It’s been exciting watching him grow up, though.  Yesterday he was riding his bike that has training wheels, and he was so unsure at first.  John was helping him, and Hayden kept telling him be sure to hold him tight.  I was thinking it was so precious to see him learning to ride his bike, and it’s such a brief time in a person’s life that even as I was watching him I felt like I was already remembering it.  Time just goes too quickly.  I wish the kids could just stay my little people forever, but they keep getting older and bigger and I have to share them with more and more people.  Anyway, sure enough by the end of our walk with Hayden on his bike, he was zooming on up ahead of us, not worried about us holding on tight.

Love you, buddy.

When I’m FOUR! August 5, 2011

We have been hearing about Hayden’s birthday for a long time now – from Hayden.  His mind is full of ideas of what is going to happen when he is four.   For a start he thinks he is going to break the house, because he is going to be so tall, that his head will bust through the roof.  He told me the other day that he was getting bigger already because it is almost four.    He will obviously be bigger than me when he is four.  He thinks that he can eat more ice cream, because – why not, he’s four!   He will start to use a grown up knife and fork, because that is what you do when you are four.   For about two years he hasn’t like Milk, he also told me that when he is four he is going to like Milk again.

We have also used this “when he is four” concept to tell him that there are a number of things that four years can’t do, and that he will have to do when he is four.  Some of them:

• eat by himself (he has a very nice dad who seems to spoon feed him half of his meals!).
• always go pee pee standing up (his potty will be confiscated on his fourth birthday!).
• and go by himself
• be a good boy.  bad boys aren’t allowed to be 4
• dress himself
• poop every day

I haven’t even mentioned the “i want this for my birthday”.  Every time he looks at a magazine or catalog he wants everything for his birthday.  He did this last year for Christmas and it’s been relentless since Christmas.  We just tell him to put it on his list.  The list is very long.  I think he will be disappointed at Birthday time!  And we start the count down to Christmas right now!