What makes my day

Funny things Calvin has said lately:

Instead of just saying "no" he tells me, "no way" Like this morning when I asked him if he wanted to take another bite of cereal, "no way."

When I was getting out of the shower and someone knocked on our front door he yelled "come in" about 50 times before I got myself downstairs.

Sometimes when Calvin wants me to play sports with him I'm lazy and sit on the floor while shooting hoops or hitting golf balls. I guess that's no longer acceptable because now he tells me to "geh up!" He kind of shrugs his shoulders and jumps while he tells me this.

At the end of a hymn at church Calvin will say "done" or "the end"

When I tell him to come inside from playing in the dirt, he explains he can't because he is "working"

When Cal comes into a room you are in he will say either "hey" or "hi" in a dull voice like he's super cool. Which, he is.

He wanted to go outside at 9:00 at night and I told him it was too dark outside. He told me he would wear a coat.

Qubo

We don't have any kind of cable, just what I thought were basic stations. However, Canada is basic too I guess. Some of you may be familiar with Qubo, which is the only all-cartoon station we get. Cal's favorites are BG and Jacob Two-Two. I have to say, the art for Two-Two is kind of cool. If we tell him BG or Two-Two isn't on he'll respond with "check". He doesn't trust us that we know they're not on, now we have to check. oh he is funny. And he tells us when things are funny too. The other day he was looking at a picture of a bald eagle and he pointed at the beak and said, "teeth, funny". I don't know what was funny about it, but I sure like seeing him laughing and telling me what he thinks is funny.

Pictures

I just posted a pile of pictures, some of which include "before", "the mess", and a few "after" pictures of our new home.

Egg hunting

When Calvin woke up on Easter morning we brought him downstairs and told him their were eggs with candy in them. Since "canny" is a common request from him that he doesn't always get, he was stoked. He didn't bother carrying his basket around, but preferred to run and find a handful of eggs, run and put them in the basket, run and find more (and announce it), and run back to the basket, and so on. It was very entertaining to watch and it's too bad you couldn't have seen because we are still in a house of boxes and chaos so I have no idea where the camera is. Maybe next year.

Naming

Calvin has named his favorite basketball. He calls it "Orange". You might think he is just saying the color of the ball, but no, his orange ball that is exactly the same except it has black basketball lines is not referred to as Orange. That ball is not acceptable when looking for a ball to shoot with, only Orange will do.

*sigh*

Anyone know the best way to wash throw up out of a pillow? poor Calvin. what a night.

Crazy continues...

I will spend this week packing and cleaning as much I reasonably can. Then I will fly to WA for my grandpa's funeral, come home, and sign papers to close on our house. Then we will have only a few days to pull up carpet & tile, then put down new carpet & paint so we can move in. And clean the house. oh yeah, and while we do all that, we will finish packing and cleaning our apartment. Yesterday doesn't seem so crazy anymore. But the wonderful part is that in the end - we will be living in a house! Contrary to what my niece might tell me, I do know what it's like to live in a house and I am looking forward to it.

Sunday Adventures

Today was full of surprises. Calvin slept in and we woke up when Brandon got a text to see if he was going to his morning meeting. We forgot about day light savings.
It's my sister's birthday so we had her over for some crepes. Calvin was so excited since he heard it was her birthday, he keeps yelling BIRTHDAY! He just knows it means good food.
Some of our neighbor's kids were coming with us to church today, (ages 2, 3, and 6) while their mom went to the hospital. The oldest girl made sure her little sister remembered to put on underwear, which she claimed she was. Fortunately, she dragged her back inside to make her put some on, because she really wasn't. The little boy was buck naked when we arrived and ready to head out the door, but his mom quickly got him dressed, mostly in boy clothes. But the shoes took too long to find so he sported some pink boots.
Sacrament meeting was far from dull, as you can guess with Cal + three. Everyone went to their classes and had a good time, except Calvin. Things were fine until he decided to climb up on a chair where a girl was already standing. She shoved him off and he face planted onto a toy chest before hitting the ground. Bloody lip and bloody nose and LOTS of crying. I think everyone in the building knew someone was injured. Luckily Brandon was in the hallway right outside the nursery. We grabbed some paper towels for the blood and took him outside. He cried for awhile, then the blood slowed down, and when we promised him cookies when we got home he stopped crying.
Afterward our friend was home from the hospital, but needed some rest so the three kids played at our house. We threw together some grilled cheese and sides and tried to keep them from locking bedroom doors. Later we cleaned up the mess and has some company over for dessert. Crazy day! I'm ready for bed.

Personal style

Calvin has decided he is old enough to decide what he wears now. Yesterday and today he has insisted on wearing his swim shorts instead of pants. At least spring weather is coming (I hope!)

Family Tree

Brandon and I have been checking out the new family search website the past few weeks. (not because there is the TV show about family history, but that was cool too) I was excited to find out all the Russian and Ukrainian ancestors I have since my little brother just got called to serve a mission in Russia.
When Brandon was looking at his line we were getting excited to see Counts and princesses, I kept hoping we would see a king, but after a few dozen of them from several European countries the kings were even getting boring. Then we found Charlamagne and Julius Ceasar, etc. etc. Every kind of royalty there is, and bishops too.
Brandon wants to know who messed things up in the family and why we don't live in a castle in Europe right now? That's his motivation for family history.

update: the next day we looked at some more lines on my family tree and found more kings and Constantine and more famous people. Maybe when you go back that far you have thousands of ancestors so a handful of them are bound to be Kings? The first name we saw that we recognized from Brandon's family tree was King Coel and his wife "the Fair" who lived in 125AD. I'm guessing there is a closer relation than that, but I like thinking that we aren't related until the 2nd century.

Geneology

This show looks awesome. What a great way to inspire people to learn about their ancestors.

Junk

It's that moving time of the year when I need to go through my clothes and boxes of things to decide what I can chuck. I came across this shirt. Yes, it is ugly. very ugly. Do I ever wear it? no, not really. But I had to run SO far to get that shirt, how do you get rid of it? I guess that's what spouses are for.

Translation

Calvin is at the age where he says a lot of stuff, but it takes parent intervention to understand a lot of it. Some examples are:
down = phone
butt = button
man-ah = snowman or snow or play dough (because we make snowmen out of play dough)
walky = thank you
He used to say "tank tu", and before that he said "tanks", we are kind of going backwards on this one. I think walky is a version of "your welcome"?

Fill in a caption

Ditch the workout, join the party

My zumba instructor is so amazing the news is going to come to her class. So many people come to her class she has to teach in the gym now instead of the dance room to fit everyone. It's crazy. I am debating if I should go to class that day. It would be fun to see the excitement, but do I really want to risk being on TV while dancing like a fool? If I do go, should I buy some cute, new work out clothes? Also, if I go, and you see me on TV, keep this in mind: If I look ridiculous it's because that's one of the new songs I haven't gotten down yet. If I look awesome it's because that is the one song I bought on itunes and practice at home. And if they have the camera on me while saying "zumba is for all shapes and sizes" I am never going again.

New Soap Dispenser

A new soap dispenser isn't super exciting, but it is exciting to get to make your own. My friend Robynn invited me to go to Color-Me-Mine a few weeks ago to have some fun creative time. I knew Calvin would insist on painting too so I turned his clothes clothes inside out and let him paint away. I figured with Calvin it was better to keep it simple so we stuck to one solid color. Then Robynn watched Calvin so I could add some decorative swirly leaves at the end. If it didn't cost so much I think I would go there everyday. Then I would have a lot of soap dispensers.

Confession

Brandon, Heather and I played a fun game of Settlers tonight. (Brandon won)
It made me think back to when I was little and how easy it was for me to win playing Monopoly against one of my younger sisters. I would magically roll a 13 to land on "Free Parking" that was stacked with money for me and I rarely landed on her property. She was too young to count the dice quick enough and I guess I was too young to have a conscience? Sorry about that, Michelle. I promise next time we play monopoly I'll give you some free money... or at least be a kind trader. (which is saying a lot considering my usual competitive and borderline vicious trading style)

Patience

Patience is a hard thing for a lot of people. It's so hard for Calvin he can't even wait for me to cook an eggo waffle any more. Lately he gets so mad if I try to cook them and insists on eating them frozen:
(and he even ate the whole thing)

Names

Lately Calvin has started shortening Mama, Dada to MaDa or DaMa. I guess he figures this is a quicker way to talk to both of us? He also calls me Becca. I kept trying to figure out if he was referring to something else but he keeps pointing to me and insisting that I'm "Becca!"

I haven't had anything to blog about because I've been so focused on buying a house. Not that it takes up my time, besides looking at carpet and paint samples, but my mind is consumed with images of our potential new home. So hopefully things go well with all the paperwork and the inspection and we will be homeowners sometime in March. Calvin is practicing for the house by doing a lot of extra loud yelling that will no longer disturb neighbors when we don't share walls with them.

More Snow

We had a nice pile of snow this morning and since our snowman had some awesome hair going on, we decided snowoman would be the best way to go on this one: