Almost one week later - it's out!

After almost a week of anticipation Brooke's first tooth fell out today. She was just beaming! The picture was taken almost 6 hrs after the "event" and she was still beaming. All afternoon Brooke has been asking questions about the tooth fairy and my response to every one of them "I don't know Brooke, it's been a long time since I've had a tooth fairy come visit me - what do you think?" So I have predictions that it's a she, with wings, who lives on a cloud, and is waiting around our house until she falls asleep...and the faster she falls asleep, the faster the tooth fairy will come...she'll leave a dollar (good to know) and Brooke's unsure where this fairy comes up with all that money from but that she must have a HUGE tooth collection. So we'll see what morning light will bring!

Wiggle, Wiggle

Brooke discovered today that her bottom left tooth is wiggly. She is just beyond excited - here's the footage. Right after her discovery she needed to call Seiler's and share the news. (It was hard to convince her that we should probably call daddy first!) About every 5 minutes, all evening we heard, "Look mom, do you think it's EVEN MORE wiggly now?!"

Kickin' Balls and Stomp'n Bugs

Clayton started his soccer basics camp. In our family, generally the "basics" on any sport is a good way to start. He learned that you kick the ball with the inside of your foot when dribbling and scoring, you stop the ball with the bottom of your foot and "no hands." His favorite thing to do was stop the ball...he loved standing there with one foot on the ball and then trying it with his other foot. (His other favorite thing was to stomp any bugs that he found on the gym floor.) We'll work on the "no hands" thing at home this week - his preference was to carry the ball about a foot in front of the goal, set it down, kick it in, and make eye contact with mom and dad as he yelled "I DID IT!" I've been learning over the past few months that although Clayton plays rough and tumble boy a lot, he also has a very tender spirit. His self-confidence levels are easily crushed and he's fairly quick to say he can't do something out of fear that he will fail. Coach Shaye did a good job of encouraging him as he tried his hardest to dribble the ball forward.

He did such a great job that daddy agreed to take us all out to McDonald's for dinner afterwards where we got the special treat of eating inside (who knew the excitement that sitting in a booth eating chicken nuggets could bring a 3 year old boy!)

One funny story - as we were walking to the car, Clayton let Mike and I know that he did a great job. He said, "I did a good job at soccer practice. I did not poke and I did not push - is that great?!"


It was also interesting to watch Brooke have to sit back and let Clayton have the glory for tonight...it'll be a good experience for her. Although at dinner she let me know that she's watching his clinic very carefully so that she'll be a great soccer player when she starts her games in April.

A new toy!

It's been a while since Stanley's have been able to post video to the blog...our old camcorder that I knew how to do that with broke (it's been a couple years now...) I didn't realize that I didn't know how to upload from the fancy new machine and when I sat down to figure it out, found out that it involved moving our charging system, which is hooked up behind the TV to the DVD burner...all that to say, big pain! So we were introduced to my new favorite toy - Flip video! It's a camcorder that's smaller than a 3x5 index card and has a USB that plugs directly into the computer and pretty much uploads itself...hee haw!


Lincoln turned 6 months old on Sunday and went for his checkup today. He got 4 shots, so not quite himself, but here's my first go round with the FLIP. It records in HD, but gets compressed on the blog. Perhaps if I went through youtube - ah well, let the experimenting begin.

Ahh, the wisdom a five year old has

Brooke is definitely my child...

Tuesday morning I went into my bathroom to find that Brooke was sorting her hair clips into different piles. She had the swim bag emptied, and my makeup bag emptied as she diligently worked on her task. As I entered she said, "mom, I really think this is something that needs to be done." I agreed that it was a good idea to organize her things. About 20 minutes later as I was finishing getting ready and she was almost done reassembling piles, she says, "Now mom - if we want this to stay nice and organized we will have to put things back as soon as we are done using them. Do you understand that? Because mom, I think we've talked about this before and you should know that its important." Her tone was kind, not sassy, so I didn't correct her for lecturing me on the things that I lecture her on. We've been working a lot on being a good steward of our things because God has blessed us with them and that's our job - I'm glad to know she's at least hearing me!

We made a...mess!

My plan for naptime today was to organize our tax file for the accountant and get up-to-date on our checkbook. As I was about to head downstairs because both boys had just gone down, Brooke excitedly brought over a coloring book page that had a recipe for a cake on one side and a picture of the cake to color on the other. She quickly explained that we had the ingredients and she knew how to make it...and..and... I looked around at my newly clean kitchen and decided that the bills and taxes could wait until tomorrow. We got out ingredients and measuring cups - Brooke is so proud to have learned how to safely turn on the oven and operate my mixer.

She decided that the frosting should be purple and have cream cheese, coconut, and bananas in it....definitely a unique taste to it. When we finished I was cleaning up, Lincoln had started to whimper that he was done with nap and Brooke was asking me to sit down and work on something else with her. I explained that I was almost done cleaning the counters and would need to go pick up Lincoln from his bed. She asked if that was more important right now (long story, but we're working on priorities and that mommy can only do one thing at a time...) I said that for right now it was, but that I would sit down with her after I had gotten Lincoln. I then said, "Brooke, you and I spent all of naptime working on the things that you wanted to do. And we had a lot of fun making a..." I was looking for the word "cake" - she responded with "MESS!!"

So here's a picture of my not-so-clean kitchen after we finished...she did just about everything herself, including adding the powdered sugar into the mixer for the frosting (I think perhaps we had more on the counter than in the bowl!)

Snowmen in the window

For the month of January we hung snowmen in the window and each day we wrote one thing on them that the kids would like to do this year. Here's the list:

• Disney World
  Flabbergast
  Apple Picking
  Pumpkin Farm
  Zoo with Tommy, Sammie, Allie
• Shedd Aquarium
  Camping
  Strawberry Picking
  Date with Daddy
  Date with Mommy
  Children’s Museum
  Tubing at the lake
  Old World Wisconsin
  Wirth Park Pool
  Brewer Game
  Bug Line hike or bike ride
  Fly daddy’s airplane
  Build a swingset
  Wash the car with a hose and sponge
  Grow and herb garden
  500 piece puzzle
  Toy Story 3 in theater
  Silly String Fight
  Out to breakfast on Valentine’s Day
  Wisconsin State Fair
  Sleep in a tent in the backyard
  Indoor Water Park
  Sleepover at Grandma Denyse’s
  Visit daddy and work and go to lunch
  Sleepover at Grandma Nancy’s
  Lakefront Picnic

2010 should be a lot of fun!!