A day in my life

What Luke was up to:
-we take a shower and I put a diaper on Luke but no clothes. He goes in his room and starts playing with toys. I start doing laundry. Jack comes in to tell me that there is gross stuff on Luke's floor. I walk in there and Luke's diaper is off and completely clean but there is poop on floor, his chair, and his hands and feet-nice.
-demands cup, throws it, I put it up, he throws a fit,  I ask him to say please, he does, I give it to him, he screams and shoves it back in my face, I put it up--- repeat.
-excited to play with dinosaur toy that moves, I am not so excited so I ask him to turn it on, he can't, gets mad, fine I turn the thing on, smiles real big, hands it to me, um......what do you want?, I turn it off, he screams, I turn it on, he cries, I hand it to him, he hands it to me, I hand it back, he throws it, I turn it off and put it up, and he runs down the hall and throws himself on the floor. I still don't know what he wanted.

What Thomas was up to:
Thomas wakes up and is cute and sweet, then begins to cry, I put him to bed but he only sleeps for 20-30 minutes, get him up and he cries when he is held, cries when he is being bounced, swayed, and rocked, cries when he is in his chair, cries on his stomach, cries on his back, so I feed him again. He is fine for a bit, but he wasn't that hungry to start with so he gets cranky again pretty soon. Finally, he falls asleep from crying. I put him in bed(I moved him to bed only because he fell asleep on me) and he cries- I let him cry for a bit but he doesn't calm down. I get him out and he is pretty good for about 10 minutes then we start the whole crying thing again. Grrr.....!!!!!! Then he falls asleep on me and I realize that I am just going to be confined to the couch today because if I move him at all he will cry. He sleeps for a bit but I am just sitting on the couch not able to do anything. He wakes up, I feed him, then I have to finish doing the laundry I started while Luke was busy pooping on his floor. He starts screaming and crying. I ignore him because I have clothes to put away. When I go back to him he is bright red and covered in sweat. I put him on the floor mat for a bit and this works but now Luke is going crazy about his cup and dinosaur.

Let's just say it was one or the other or both all day long!!!!!!

Science

Science Experiments- The top picture is corn syrup, cooking oil, and water. The second picture is right after we added the bleach, and the third picture is about 3 minutes after we added the bleach. You get to learn about density, how color works, and even bleach- at least if you live in our house you do.

We also played with non-Newtonian fluid one night. I took a video but Jack is not dressed enough to share. Sorry. It is pretty fun and I suggest you try it with your kids- you just need corn starch and water, we added green food coloring to ours.


We have Jack doing science and we have Luke being destructive: he threw a book Pete was reading into the toilet while someone was urinating. Pete's glasses are a little broken. He is constantly pouring liquids on the table, floor, himself, etc. He likes to unroll dirty diapers. He likes to get stuff out of the garbage and eat it. He screams a lot and just for fun- really- he likes to just scream randomly. The child just can't quite master walking so he falls down all the time or he forgets that steps are there and just walks straight out and falls. When you tell him to stop or say no he either ignores you or just stares at you then resumes what he was doing. He throws real fits but then he throws these little fits that are so pitiful- he will lie down face to the floor and just stay like that without noise or movement. I have to say the silent fits usually get my attention far more than the yelling and screaming ones. He is so cute you forgive him pretty fast. Plus, when he is really tired he grabs your hand and has you rub his foot-how can you stay mad?

Stress

Since we found out that we are moving in April vs. 'the summer' I  feel constantly overwhelmed. I thought Jack would be able to finish the full year of preschool before we moved, but now he may not return after Spring Break since we will want to take a couple of weeks to spend time with our family before we leave the country. It isn't a big deal, but it still makes me sad. Another thing that has been on my mind lately is what to do with our stuff. We weren't going to ship anything, but then I wondered how we would tote 3 kids and lots of suitcases through a new town where we don't know the language, so I decided we would suck it up and ship clothes, books, toys, and a few other things we may need. Then I decided I wanted to get a Kindle Fire for Christmas so it was decided we shouldn't ship books because we could put them on the Kindle plus they have books in English on Amazon.de that we could buy cheaper than what it would cost to ship books. Sigh.... now we are back to not shipping anything since we can pack a few toys and clothes then buy whatever else we need once we get there. We are being paid Euros so that makes things a bit easier. We don't really want to have to deal with a storage unit so I think we will get rid of most of our stuff before we move. We really have no idea how long we will be overseas so it doesn't seem worth it-- especially since we don't own really nice things as we are a graduate school family. The next concern is what to do with our van. I keep going back and forth and probably will for a long time. If I only knew how long we would be there that would help, if it is just a year we would definitely keep it but if we are going for 5 years then we would do better to sell it.

Oh well, I did check out German language cds that I have been listening to in the car. One big thing we have actually accomplished is mailing off the stuff for passports. Yay!! That is a huge relief. Once we get them it will be time to work on getting visas. Wouldn't it be nice if moving to a new country wasn't so stressful?

Well besides being stressed about moving we have done a few fun things. We went to the library for Family Fun Day. They had free books to give away, a balloon artist, cupcake walk, snacks, science experiment demonstrations, storytelling, rides on the Boilermaker Special, and a few other things. It was a lot of fun. The next day Jack's school had an Open House, and we got to eat some of the pumpkin bread/pie the kids made earlier that day. Jack apparently helped a lot in making the pumpkin bread-he does like to help bake things. They also had a book fair going on. I had signed up to help, but Thomas doesn't really like to take a bottle so Pete went instead. He got to 'gossip' with the secretaries.

The boys have been going through a test the boundaries stage. Luke is screaming, throwing, ignoring, and acting as if he decided to turn 2 a few months early. Jack is going through a being mad at everyone stage and if he can't be mad at us then obviously we hate him-it has to be one or the other. It is frustrating and makes going places with the two of them pretty difficult. Thomas doesn't like to take a bottle so for Pete that is hard, but when he is with me he is pretty cute. The past few days he has been more interactive-smiling and cooing.

Halloween PIctures

Happy Halloween!! Jack was Harry Potter. He looked great and thanks Jamie for making his scarf! Luke was a football player and Thomas was a football. Thanks Heather for letting us borrow the costume. We went to Morehead and stayed out for about an hour then headed home to eat the loot. It was lots of fun. Thanks G and P and Big L for hanging out with us on Halloween!!!