energy

tonight john had a snack of holiday oreos and milk. first, he kept calling the oreos, churros. i guess he gets the churro from costco too often. he was eating them and being quiet and i was a little distracted with gillian and her snack. i finally looked over and his face was covered in chocolate. he was dunking the oreos and somehow ended up with a chocolate mustache. he was a generous big brother and gave one cookie to gillian. after he was done, he drank some of the milk and then ran around the room. he stopped and said "i need some energy." then walked over and drank his milk. he then said "now i've got energy and i can do this." as he proceeded to do johnny style parkour.

the field trip

john's class had a field trip today. they went to atlantic farms in manasquan to feed the animals. when we picked him up from school today, we asked him what happened on the trip. he said "we fed the animals." we asked him what he fed the animals and he said "carrots." daddy and i had to stir the pot. so we started naming all kinds of animals that would not be on a farm. we said, you must have fed the elephants. "no! elephants don't live on a farm!" i said, he fed the monkeys, they like carrots. "no mommy, monkeys eat bananas!" daddy said, maybe he fed the horses, cows and the orangutan. "daddy, what's an orangutan?" daddy says, a big monkey. john replies, "no daddy they eat big bananas." got to love his logic. we did finally get some information out of him. they fed a horse, goats, sheep and a pig. he told me, "i didn't feed the pig. he was in the mud. so i just throwed him the carrots."

see-saw

john and gillian were being very silly tonight.  they were playing on john's chair.  gillian was sitting still, and john was jumping on it.  and the chair would rock back, and gilly would laugh. 

john kept saying, "its a see-saw."  i know i should discourage behavior like this, but i love it when they play and get along.

sleepwalker

john is a pretty heavy sleeper. he comes by that honestly. i also can sleep through a lot. i also can hold conversations in my sleep and have no memory of it. monday night around midnight, john came in our room and said "mommy, you didn't snuggle me. you also didn't give me medicine." he made me walk him to his room and climb into his bed and snuggle him. within 2 minutes he was asleep. i'm not even sure he was awake when he came into our room. this morning around 5 am, he come to my side of the bed and says "mommy, my hand hurts." he likes to sleep with his hands above his head. so he is constantly waking up with his hands having pins and needles. anyway, I pulled him into our bed figuring I would need to get soon so there was no point getting up and putting him back in his bed. big mistake. i thought he was being good but apparently he thought daddy's head made a good pillow. and john also kept kicking daddy plus daddy had duncan on the other side. daddy was surrounded by two squirmy boys. after about 15 minutes, we kicked him out of our bed. please keep your fingers crossed that he stays in his bed tonight (or at least go to daddy's side).

duncan

duncan is my first born, fury baby.  kyle and i bought him for our first anniversary while we were living in hawaii.  he is now seven and a very important part of our family. 

he was there to welcome john and gilly to our little family.  he wasn't so sure of those little bundles of joy at first, but after a few nights he was sleeping in their rooms and was the first responder if one of them cried. 

meeting john for the first time

meeting gilly for the first time

kisses for john (1 year old)

he is a good big brother and lets the kids climb on him and snuggle with him.  he has also learned that gillian is the best person to sit by during dinner. 

just hanging out in duncan's bed

snuggle time with duncan

waiting patiently

i am glad that the kids have a dog that enjoys being with them and is good with them.  i hope that john continues to have his bestest friend.

chinese food

the other night we ordered chinese food for the first time in years. knowing that john would be a little skeptical, i made sure that i ordered a variety of food. i got sweet and sour chicken, chicken & broccoli, shrimp chow mein, chicken lo mein and egg rolls. right away john didn't want to try anything. kyle got john to try the sweet and sour chicken. and of course he love it. he also had some plain rice. gilly, on the other hand, loved the chicken and broccoli. as a matter of fact, she liked the broccoli best. i couldn't cut it fast enough. after dinner kyle taught john about fortune cookies. he told john that there was a secret message inside the cookie. of course that was enough to intrigue him. i think his fortune describes him perfectly.

laser tag

today was my nephew justin's 9th birthday.  he had a party at the local ice skating rink, that also has laser tag.  johnny loves justin.  he is like a big brother to john.  needless to say, john was very excited about justin's party. 

kyle and i decided to run some errands before the party, so we left the house 3 hours before the party started.  big mistake.  every time we stopped at a store we heard, "is this where justin's party is?"  and all john wanted to do was to hold his gift.  we would get to a store and he would say, "but i don't want to leave his gift."  we were finally done with our errands and on our way to the ice rink when john says "mommy, why is justin a different color than me?"  on a side note, justin's mom is from peru and justin's skin tone is a little bit darker than johnny's.  i asked daddy if he heard what johnny said.  and we had him repeat his question.  he repeated it and said, "his skin is darker than mine."  we explained to him that justin's mommy has darker skin than his mommy and that's why justin's skin is darker.  john replied "but i want to be the same as justin."  we explained to him that the color of your skin doesn't make anyone different.  i hope it registered.  i just can't believe we had this conversation with him today.  he is only 4. 

john & justin at the turtle back zoo

after our heavy conversation, we headed to the ice rink for justin's party.  john was a little shy at first, because all the other kids were much bigger than him.  after we ate some pizza, we headed downstairs for laser tag.  we got all the big kids set up with their laser tag gear (and some of the parents too).  we finally convince john to try it out.  he was super excited.

ready to kick some butt!

he went out with daddy at first.  he was a little leery and went a little slow.  but after awhile, he was running around and shooting people.  next he went with aunt betty, but they both had to have green vests.  i joined them shortly after that.  as i was walking around trying to find my little man i heard behind me "i think that was my mommy."  and then i got shot!  he giggled.  he had so much fun and so did all the other kids (of all sizes).  



john & aunt betty ready for round 2



aunt trish & sammie were ready too





and the birthday boy