what was that?

Jonas has started speech therapy, his first appointment was just a few days ago. (He has trouble with many consonant sounds.) He enjoyed the session and was so so so excited to have homework. "I'll do my homework when Seth does his homework, K mom?!"

His homework consisted of two pages of pictures, one with words beginning with "sp" and the other with words ending in "k". We did some homework on the way home, starting with the "sp" page. He did really well with the first few pictures, then I pointed to the bowl of noodles to which he said "ssssssss...macaroni". He knew as soon as he said it that it was really funny, so he has continued to insert it into conversation all weekend. A little funny man, that one.

We moved on to the next page, words ending in "k". His answers for this page were sssss..fork, sssss..duck, sssss..lock.

He's not quite there yet.

plays nicely with others

I have recently figured out something about Jonas.

He plays really well with girls and not at all with boys.

His siblings are the exceptions- Maryn and Jonas have never gotten along that well, mostly because she doesn't let him play with her or her toys. He loves playing with Seth, but as with most older brother/younger brother relationships, Seth starts getting impatient and annoyed with Jonas after a while.

Girl example #1: Jonas thinks his best friend is Zoe (pictured above as the white queen with her little sister along with Maryn and Jonas) even though Zoe is Maryn's age and her best friend. To Zoe's credit, she balances these two kids vying for her attention with way more poise than you would expect from a five-year-old. Because Maryn is in kindergarten now and Zoe is not, she and Jonas have had a lot more opportunities to play together one-on-one and they both love it. I sometimes think that Zoe prefers to play with Jonas... I'll never tell Maryn though.

Girl example #2: C and her mom came over last week and spent two hours with us one afternoon. C is the youngest of 4 and only about two months younger than Jonas- they're in nursery together at church. Their whole family has been to our house numerous times, so this definitely wasn't the first time they had played together. So this past week, for the entire two hours, they played and played and didn't make one peep. Not one fight or complaint or tattle, nothing. I was shocked and amazed. And this is when my theory started brewing because of the following two examples.

Boy example #1: W moved in next door to us at the end of the summer. He loves to play with "Jona-th" and is always so excited to have Jonas come over to his house or play in our shared backyard together. I think the part of the relationship that Jonas likes the best is being able to play with W's toys which are cool in his basement playroom which is way cleaner than ours. He doesn't ever seem all that interested in actually playing with W.

Boy example #2: I have arranged with a mom of one of Seth's classmates to have weekly playdate swaps with our three-year-olds. L is a pretty easy-going kid. But when he comes over to our house for the playdate, Jonas is upset the whole time- crying, telling L not to touch his toys, refusing to play what L wants to play. This means that I have to spend the whole two hours hovering, trying to make sure that Jonas shares and doesn't cry or say mean things to L.

I don't know that it means anything, really. I think he likes playtime with a structure or creative "purpose" and maybe other three year old boys just don't play that way. I'm cool with that, generally playing with girls is quieter.

Beatlemania continues

A few weeks ago I picked up an old VHS of Yellow Submarine from a thrift store. The kids have been watching it and love it. I've watched a few minutes here and there- it's weird. But the music is obviously awesome and the kids love that too. Here's my Dad singing one of the hits from the movie (notice he doesn't need to read along with the karaoke, he knows all the words):

We were listening to this song in the car recently, and Maryn was singing along. After the chorus "will you still need me, will you still feed me" Maryn said "I think he can feed himself, can't he?" Let's hope so.

Jonas loves to sing along to the Beatles too. His favorite song is Hello, Goodbye, but he can't sing all the words as quickly as they do in the song. So he still sings "you say goodbye and I say hello" but he's about a whole phrase behind.

In other funny-things-kids-say news lately: we were eating at a 50s diner type restaurant last weekend and ordered the usual burgers fries and shake for every one. When they brought out the shakes first before everything else, Seth looked at me wide-eyed and said "Do we get dessert first?" Some sort of alternate universe, the 50s. On that same occasion, the two couples dining next to us were very elderly. I said to Jon "they were probably our age in the actual 50s", kind of a funny realization. Where will we be sitting in 50 years?

Fat lip Jonas

Last Monday, I had awesome intentions to take Jonas and go on a walk/run. I was getting the stroller out of the car, Jonas was walking down the concrete steps playing the Leapster. I heard the Leapster hit the concrete and turned around to get mad at Jonas for dropping it to find him also on the ground with blood gushing from his mouth. My attempts to exercise were foiled as I put him in the car and drove straight to urgent care. After a few comical attempts at taking x-rays, it was determined that he didn't break his nose but the doctor still wanted to stitch up his lip. The numbing stuff they put on worked really well because he sat still like a champ while she put in two stitches.

We left quickly and drove to pick up Maryn from preschool. I noticed when looking in the rear view mirror that he was picking at his lip. I told him repeatedly to stop but in usual two-year-old fashion, he kept picking. After the 10 minute drive, he had pulled out one of the stitches. With Maryn, we drove straight back to the dr only to have her tell us that she wasn't going to replace it. A good thing probably because in the 5 minutes it took to drive home, he had the other one out too.

Thankfully, 10 days later his lip is totally healed.

my two little boys

could not be more different....
Tonight we were at an outdoor concert ("Blues, Brews and BBQ").  The kids all got their faces painted and a balloon tied to their wrists (both were free- you can tell by the quality of the "baseball" on Jonas's face).  Jon pointed out to the kids a red balloon flying way up high in the sky.  Jonas was fascinated by it, looked at the red balloon tied to his wrist and said "Mommy- I want my balloon go up too!"  (He has suddenly started to speak in complete sentences!)  I spent the next few minutes explaining to him that his balloon was going to go bye-bye.  He seemed excited about it, so I took the balloon off his wrist and he let it go.  He was totally elated and watched the balloon until he couldn't see it anymore yelling "bye-bye balloon" over and over.  Seth and Maryn still had their balloons but Jonas didn't care that he didn't have one anymore. 

In complete contrast to Jonas's excitement- Seth completely fell apart crying and saying "He should have just given his balloon to me!  Can we go back and get him another red balloon?"  He was totally distraught for the rest of the evening, crying and saying things like "I wish balloons would never pop.  How does the helium get out of the balloon anyway?  Is that balloon going to go all the way up to outer space?  Is it going to get to heaven?"

caution and control-----curiosity and adventure

my kids....

unfortunately do a lot of this.....

The funny thing about this picture is- it shows how Maryn and Jonas pretty much copy exactly what Seth does. If Seth lays down on the floor, then Maryn does too (usually very close up next to him) followed by Jonas not long after.

birthday boys

More pics and party recaps to follow...

wedding: Wendy

I had an absolutely totally fun time during my trip to Tucson. There was a party literally everyday for 4 days, intermixed with all the wedding preparations. The whole event turned out beautifully, the weather was perfect, the overall look of the decorations was totally cool--totally Wendy, and of course the real Mexican food was so, so good (you really can't find that in my neck of the midwest).

True to form, I didn't take many pictures during my trip. The following are a few of the highlights. The rest can be viewed here. I'm anxiously waiting for Wendy and Chad to get home from Mexico so I can see the actual wedding pics from the real photog. Until then, here's a few--

This is one of the only pictures I got of the happy couple. Not the best because they are feeding cake to each other, but you can see Wendy's beautiful dress (knee-length) and a little glimpse of one of the cakes behind them. Wendy was very hands-on, not just in the planning of this wedding, but in its execution as well. What bride makes her own wedding cakes? She did. And they were really yummy.

Near the end of the night: Mom, me, Rach and Wendy (where were you, Car?) Wendy had 5 bridesmaids. She let us pick our own dresses (either white or cream) and she made us each a necklace (as well as her own). So awesome.

Jonas and Papa.

To continue the partying fun, the next day we had a birthday party for Ellena. Jonas got some goods out of the party too. This is the costume I bought to try and keep him from wearing Maryn's princess dresses. (It isn't working all that great so far.) Carlie got him the cool hat and swords to complete the look.

And finally, Wendy played guitar and sang a song for Chad, I Feel it All-- the song from their engagement video. It sounded really great, she is so talented. As I was listening to it, I looked around and realized that no one was filming it! Aaah! So I ran across the yard, got my puny little camera and recorded the last half of the song.

To end, I've included their engagement video (which I shot). It's really cute and she was so surprised! Chad flew in from Seattle and met us in Tucson, she saw him when she looked through that telescope thing. Watch it.

the forgotten third child

(photos to accompany this post soon!)

It's sad, but you all know it's true- milestones and other cute developmental things for the poor third child frequently go unnoticed until they all start happening at once. Case in point- my sweet little Jonas. He has really had a language explosion in conjunction with a major growth spurt over the last few weeks since we've been home. It's taken me this long to actually put all of the pieces together and notice. This really makes it sound like he just gets ignored around here, but that truly isn't the case. He's just such an easy-going kid, doesn't make a fuss about anything that I'm not constantly worrying about him.

First- the growth spurt. He's been wearing size 12-18 month pants and pajamas this whole winter season so far. They are all of the sudden hilariously short now and probably way tight in the waist too. For the most part (except for this current winter season), I've been really lucky- in that I've been able to use Seth's old clothes for Jonas. The two problems are- 1. Jonas is way skinnier than Seth ever was, 2. We lived in AZ, so pretty much the only clothes I have for him are summer-wear.

Second- the language explosion. Keep in mind, all of these examples have been so sudden over the last few weeks. I'll do this section in bullet points to make for easier reading.

• he can identify 3 colors: "wed", "boo", "geen"
  


• he can identify all the little einsteins: "annie" (which is also conveniently his cousin's name) "doon", "we-o", "de-de" (Qunicy), and "wocket"
  


• he can identify most of the princesses: "Beow" (Belle), "Reh-rah" (Cinderella), "White" (Snow White), "A-e-o" (Ariel). We have 4 princess dresses in our house and whenever Maryn puts one on, Jonas has to have one on too- complete with shoes. Jon was mortified when he saw this for himself and insisted I find Jonas some sort of alternative- a prince costume or something. I looked around for a while and finally bought a Captain Hook costume from the Disney store online. We hope it does the trick. (I chose that one over the Captain Jack Sparrow costume because the Hook costume had sparkly brocade on it- hopefully Jonas thinks it's similar enough to a princess dress!)


• When we were walking through Target the other day, Jonas started yelling "paw-bwo"! At first I couldn't figure out what he was saying, then I realized he meant "Pablo" from Backyardigans. He had a seen a really cute little stuffed animal Pablo, so of course we had to get it for him.


• He's been able to hum and/or grunt the tune of 'Twinkle Star" for a while now, but recently, he's added in the word "star" and its rhyming words in all the right places. He's actually really good at singing (humming, grunting) along to all songs. Maybe he'll have an awesome ear for music like Seth.


• other new words: R-2 (R2D2) & "Pee-o" (C3PO), "Day-too" (thank you), "ulk" (milk), "nack" (snack), "Ni-neen" (Lightening McQueen), "icky" (Mickey Mouse), "Wah-ee" (Wall-E)

Jonas is so sweet. He is so friendly and will pretty much give anyone a hug if asked. Love him, love him.

p.s.- I am feeling much better, thank you. I was totally blessed this time around with very mild symptoms. I'm so ready to get back into a normal routine!

somtimes I like having a live doll to dress

I am absolutely in love with this green and blue plaid dress and argyle tights outfit.

And the fall leaves look pretty too.

*******************************

P.S.- Jonas loves yogurt, eats it every day, but unfortunately insists on feeding himself. I tried to get a candid shot of him with the spoon in his mouth like this today, but he saw me coming at him with the camera and said "cheese".

And one more thing- Jon left his Ipod in his pants pocket after camping with the scouts this weekend. I washed all his camping clothes...twice (they smelled really bad). And guess what- the Ipod still works!

Halloween 2008

Happy Halloween to all!

For costumes this year, Seth chose to be Indiana Jones (thanks to Aunt Carlie for the hat and "man-purse") Maryn chose to be a kitty, and Jonas was a cowboy (with a too big hat and no boots- don't worry, he still looked cute). Jon was also Indiana Jones for some of the festivities (picture below).

We participated in a variety of Halloween activities this year: our ward trunk-or-treat, trick-or-treating at Daddy's office building, and trick-or-treating with our friends on Halloween night. (See those pumpkin buckets in the picture above? By the time we were done with all of these festivities, we had accumulated 6 bucket-fulls of candy. Sick. We let the kids pick out 10 pieces each and are going to give the rest to our Bishop- he keeps a stash in his office.)

Seth had been practicing the Indiana Jones half-smile, it shows up in a lot of the pictures.

Jonas's bandana functioned well as a bib to keep candy goo off of his coat.

By the time we remembered to take a picture of Indy father and son- Seth had had enough of the festivities.

The next few pics are of our kids and their BFFs. We all went trick-or-treating together in their neighborhood. (Which is a few residential streets away from a fancy country club, we even went to his house- but he wasn't handing out subs.)

Henry Jones, Jr. and Henry Jones, III.Little witch and kitty girl.

I'm sure the kids had a lot of fun over the past few days. They enjoyed trick-or-treating (for while, until they realized how much walking it took) and enjoying playing with their friends late into the evening (past their bedtimes). Jonas showed no hesitation and walked right up to people on their porches with his hands outstretched. We also had freakishly-good, AZ-type fall weather, not too cold at all.

As usual, for the grandparents, more pics of the events can be seen here.

yes, we're tired around here

This is how I found Jonas napping a few days ago, surrounded by his favorite things.

Maryn has been having night terrors where she wakes up screaming and is inconsolable. It wears both of us out.

But she sure is a pretty girl.

Halloween cookies (on the good ship lollipop)

Last week, the kids had a great time decorating cookies. After the sticky mess of frosting and sprinkles was cleaned up, I realized that I probably shouldn't have had them do this right before dinner.

Jonas (with pink eye) licked all the frosting up with the little knife and left the cookie.

This is pretty much what Maryn does when I ask her to smile, she screams.

For more pictures of the event, click here.

I'll end with a little Shirley lovin'.

Jonas feels the jazz

I included both of these videos because the first one is the cutest, but I filmed it sideways. By the time I came to my senses and started filming the right way, the music was pretty much over.
But seriously, the boy can groove, right?

my husband is famous and my kids are cute

Check out Jon in the pop culture blog-o-sphere.

And thanks to Mat for taking awesome pics of my kids.

We had a fun time with all our visitors this past week, thanks for coming to see us in the Midwest!

a boy of few words

The following are two short clips of Jonas talking. As you can see, his vocabulary is quite small and consists of about 5 words: Mom, Dad, ball, hi and eat.

what we've been up to

We are enjoying our beautiful summer here in the midwest. Humid- yes, but not too bad...yet. Because the sun doesn't go down until 8:30 pm, we have been spending many evenings after dinner at the pool or the park.

For the grandparents- more pics of our 4th of July fun and other July adventures here.

Jonas doesn't realize that he will have to endure many years of teasing later on for this picture (eh, Scotty? I think I feel a song coming on). But I'm simply trying to document his life. Because of the closeness in age (I think) Jonas loves to play with or do whatever Maryn is doing. This includes donning princess shoes. (The only reason Maryn allows this is because a little plastic heart broke off of one of the shoes and now she won't wear them.)

In other news, we got one of these. Still not sure how I feel about it. Sure it's fun, but is it really worth it?

Happy Summer!

little boys- following their example & preschool's over

Yesterday at church, the kids were sitting side by side in the pew with Jon and I on either end. During the opening prayer, I looked over to see all three kids sitting quietly with their arms folded- even Jonas. I was amazed! He usually will fold his little hands if we annouce that it's prayer time, but he won't hold still more than a couple of seconds, until yesterday. He sat through the whole prayer, just like the other kids, and even bowed his head a little bit.

Hopefully he will continue to follow their good examples (and not the bad ones).

In other news, Seth has completed preschool. There was no "graduation" ceremony or anything like that, which I think Seth was disappointed about. His teacher handed me his completion certificate through the car window when I picked him up on his last day. Kind of uneventful.

I've included the pictures I took on his first and last day (in front of the sign on the building). Jon mentioned the other day how Seth is starting the thin out and loose a little of the baby face chub. And he's also grown taller, you can a little bit in the pictures, he's made it up to the "R" in Springer.

Seth is so excited for kindergarten! He can hardly wait until August (and frankly- neither can I!)

busted and "how many sick kids does it take...?"

At the beginning of April, over conference weekend, Maryn tumbled down our basement stairs and landed on her face. A trip to urgent care and a few facial x-rays later, we were relieved to find out that she had no permanent injuries. Her face healed very quickly and was almost totally back to normal within a week.

How did she fall down the stairs? She was sitting in time-out on the top step (which was our time-out spot of choice until that day). She was obviously mad about having to sit there and in the middle of throwing a tantrum, she must have lost her balance, tumbled down our very steep stairs, and hit the cement floor below.

A few hours later, Jonas was trying to run down our concrete front walk and fell on his face too. Not a good day for baby Stone faces.

In more recent news, a trip to the doctor's office this morning revealed that all three kids have ear infections and Seth also has strep throat (not to mention the pukes over the weekend).  One dose each of amoxicillin and motrin for each child has resulted in a sleeping Maryn and much less grumpy boys.  Thank you, Alexander Fleming.

so much for originality, Jonas update, and pics from grandparents' visit

As much as we tried to select uncommon, unique names for our kids, it appears our efforts have been in vain.

When we chose to name Seth, I had only known one other Seth in my life (besides the guy from SNL- but maybe he wasn't even on the show yet). A few months ago on the news, they were interviewing a soldier in Iraq. His name was- you guessed it- the same exact name as my son (first and last). Also, there is another Seth in his preschool class, so he is "Seth S". Lame! Exactly what I tried to avoid.

When we named Maryn, I had only known 2 other Maryns in my life. Last week at the playground, Maryn was playing with another cute little girl with long blonde hair. I was calling her and calling her trying to get her to come to me so we could leave. She of course could not be bothered by my request and continued to play. When I finally walked over to retrieve her, a mother standing close by asked me how I spelled Maryn's name. She said her daughter (the little blonde one) was named Marin too, but spelled differently. After chatting for a few moments, we figured out that they were born only two months apart and share a middle name too.

I'm hoping to fair better with Jonas. So far our previous ward and our current ward each have another Jonas. So we'll see. Speaking of Jonas, I want to document some new things about him. (It's been a while since I've done that- poor third child.) He has started to run and is so fast at sliding down the stairs that I can't usually catch him. He loves to play with whatever Maryn is playing with (much to her chagrin- I'm constantly hearing her say "Mommy- Jonie's buggin' me!") especially Care Bears, princesses, and Color Wonder markers. He says 5 words- "Mam!" (mom), "Da" (dad), "eyes", "bye" (with a wave), and our new favorite "uh-oh". He also nods yes or shakes his head no in response to questions- sometimes. He has taken to throwing tantrums which entails repeatedly banging his own forehead against the floor. Sweet, sweet boy.

I've posted some pics of our awesome visit with Grandma Jeanie, Grandpa and Emily here. Thank you so much for coming out to visit us! We had such a fun time and were so sad to see you leave!