Church

Sunday mornings in our house are a bit early and a bit hectic.  If Jude is our alarm-clock, we wake to him crying / laughing in his crib around 6:30am.  If we are lucky, we can ignore him for a little while until he gets really upset with his wet diaper.  Then everyone must be cleaned, dressed, fed, and bundled into the car by 8 o'clock for our short journey to the church.  We attend the early morning service because Brian works the lunch shift, which overlaps with the later service time.  As I have mentioned before, I enjoy this service because it is a little more laid back, we sing more contemporary songs, and it feels a bit more intimate because we usually have less than 50 people attending. 

Anyways, it has been that upon arrival, Jude and Tam are shuttled off to the nursery for the entirety of the service.  I sit and participate and Brian helps with leading the singing. 

With the new year, and in light of Tamlin being 4 years old now, we decided it was time for him to start attending part of the service.  This would give Tam a chance to practice being quiet, listening, praying, and to get a sense that he is part of greater whole.  I vaguely recall being in service while I was young and sitting with my Aunt Carol, usually doodling or coloring.

Well, last week was our first attempt at this new twist to the routine.  Tam and I said goodbye to Jude in the nursery and went into the sanctuary.  Tam sat and drew pictures for the 15minutes prior to service, and then he announced to me that he wanted to go and see his friends.  Again, since there aren't many people at this service, Tamlin knows most of the members here.  So, for the first opening songs, Tamlin snuggled up to a fellow church member.  Later, she said that he was her friend and wanted to say hello.  She asked him if he needed to see the hymnal to sing, but Tam informed her that he couldn't sing but that was ok.  Tam sings "La, La, La" when he doesn't know the words.  He then came back to me after the peace.  He sat very quietly through the opening prayers and listened to the scripture.  A total of about 15minutes of the actual service past, and Tam did a great job.  I just couldn't bring myself  to make him sit quietly through the sermon, so he happily went to the nursery to play. 

My little man is growing up!

Tam's leap-pad

Tam:  Wow, my new "ipad" is awesome. 

 I love playing these games, especially playing the train game.

Jude: Hey, Bro.  What's up?  Whatcha doing?  Can I play too? 

Let me see?  I wanna touch it?  Can I play?  Come on...

 Jude:  Come on, let me play Brother.  What game is this?  

Tamlin:  I guess you can see.  It's lots of fun.

Tam:  See, here are the penguins and I'm putting the popcorn in the bowl.  

I'm counting...one, two, three, five, five, six, seven...

 Jude:  Ooooohhhh....

What fun.  Mind if I drool on it a bit?

Jude: Wow!

Tam: Wow!

 Me:  Aw....look at my boys playing together :-)

This sharing moment lasted about 10minutes before Jude tried to grab the game and 

Tamlin declared that Jude "Was NOT helping!"

Sigh.  Peace for a short time is better than no peace at all :-)

Side-note...

Since we used a credit card to cover the plumbing costs...we earned enough cash back to treat ourselves to Lego Pirates of The Caribbean game for the wii (for free).  I guess there was an upside...and, yes, we are fiscally responsible and promptly paid the debt on the credit card :-)

Superhero

Tam has been getting into more imaginative play lately, which is very cool.  Some of his cars now have their own personalities...the good guys, the bad guys, the helping guys, etc.  This past Christmas, the boys got their first superhero figurines.  These are small and only slightly pose-able, not quite as big and flexible as the ol' G.I.Joe figurines.  Our comic book guy supplied a good deal more to the boys too...he had extras that were duplicates from his own collection :-)  Of course, Brian thinks that this is awesome.  His current favorite is the large Galactus figure (who is a bad guy) that has a huge grin on his face.  I admit, I'm a bit partial to batman and spiderman my self.  The comic book guy also sold Tam (deeply discounted) a used batman side-car and batman figurine.  This silly car is a favorite for tearing around the house and running into bad dudes.  Jude likes anything with wheels or spinning parts, so he likes the batman cars too.  He for some odd reason has decided he likes one of the spiderman figurines.  It seems to be the only one that he "plays" with and tries to place in the cars. 

Now we have a bunch of these little dudes conquering the play world of our home...they are on the trains, in the cars, racing on the rocking moose, tackling the stage-coaches, and about as underfoot as all the match-box cars!

I love watching their play evolve and learning what is their favorite toy of the week ;-)

Wordless Wednesday - Playdough

With the addition of a truck, we now have a huge rubber-maid of playdough paraphaneilia.

The boys will now happily play with this medium for a good 20minutes, making cars and squashing them.  This gives me enough time to get dinner ready or to wash the dishes.

Bye-bye to baby clothes

  Jude is now 20 months old.  It was round about this age of Tamlin that Brian and I decided to consider having anther baby.  How do I feel now? 

After reflecting, I'm good.  I love, LOVE, my two boys.  I feel like my family is whole and complete.  I love being able to cuddle both boys at the same time and I love watching them play with each other.  My heart feels full.  I don't have a daughter, and I may never get a chance to name her Iris Louise, and I may not get to dress her in frilly little dresses, but I love my boys and I don't think I would trade them in for anything.

In light of this, I am ready to sell off the ol' baby clothes. Now I tried a bit of this last fall with selling at a consignment sale and it went well.  Now I am ready to rent the table, tag, and try to sell off the bulk of the stuff.  I am booked to give it a go at the end of February with my sister coming up to help.  But, before I get to the actual sale, I've got to sort and price everything. 

This past week, I tackled the clothes and shoes.


Jude helped :-)  Well, he found an old shirt that had a reindeer and cars on it which he clung to for the next hour.  He kept pointing to the cars and grinning.   Jude also helped with the organization...well, he clambered into and out of the tubs of clothes and squealed with happiness.

Tam was not interested in this at all.  Luckily, neither of the boys are overly attached to their clothes and have no problem with the idea of them being sold or given away.


 Next weekend, I'll tackle the toys...the boys may have more input with this!