Christmas is a' Comin'

We started decorating for Christmas tonight. We started pre-Thanksgiving because we travel during that time and will have a hard time getting it done afterward. Joshua was so excited (read driving his parents crazy), so I pulled out his and Caleb's new Little People Nativity set. I was hoping that he would be preoccupied so that we could do the "boring" stuff like actually put up the tree. While I was attempting to get the toys out of all that packaging that can only be described as obnoxious, Joshua was busy setting up the manger scene. When I was done, I looked up, and this is what his scene looked like. Just precious. He said, "Well, they're all looking at baby Jesus because it is his birthday." We can learn so much from our children.



PS: This song sums up my feelings on toy packaging perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1t90Bg9wAw

Joshua's Friend Abbi

For several days now, Joshua has been asking to have a play date with his friend Abbi. If you know Joshua well, you know that she is his favorite friend. She still lives with her parents in Gadsden, which is about an hour and a half away from us. We used to get together at least once a month, but both families have now added second children. This makes it a little tougher to make play dates happen.

I finally got around to talking to Abbi's mommy and arranging a date. I was telling Joshua when we would get together this morning. He said OK, got a little quiet, and then he said the following:

"Well, when I'm eight, I'm going to go stay with Abbi for twelve weeks. You can come, too. And Caweb. We will all stay at Abbi's house for twelve weeks."

Matt wanted to know if he could still go to work. Joshua informed him that he would be having a lot of "special daddy stay home days", a.k.a. vacation. We asked if Ms. Staci (Abbi's mommy) would be going to work. No, she would be staying home. I don't have a job to escape to, so I guess I'm stuck at home, too. Joshua decided that Mr. Daniel (Abbi's daddy) could go to work and go get our groceries. I'm wondering why he's the lucky one who is allowed to leave the house.

The Parrot

Joshua is a parrot, meaning that he loves to repeat what we say. He especially likes to do this when talking to Caleb. He does this in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice. Today, it went something like this:

Me: Caleb, do you have a stinky diaper?
J: (In his I'm-Talking-To-A-Baby voice) Caweb, do you have a stinky diaper?
Me: Let's go change your diaper and get a clean hiney.
J: (Same voice) Yes, wet's go change your diaper and get a cwean hiney, Caweb.

As you can imagine, this gets really annoying after a while. I tried to ignore it, but eventually I could NOT take it ANYMORE. So, I told Joshua to use his regular voice and his own words to talk to his brother.

His response:

"Well, my voice just does that when I'm talking to Caweb. And Mommy, you just keep picking all of my favorite words!" Of course it's my fault. It always is.

He tried this again after Matt got home from work. He repeated something, and Matt and I both told him to stop. This time, he said, "They weren't the same words, they just SOUNDED the same."

Drawing in the Jungle

Just a couple of funny things from tonight:

Joshua said that he watched the "Book of the Zoo, no, the Book of the Jungle" at church tonight. He meant Jungle Book.

Then, he told us he knew how to draw a party hat. This is how he said to do it, more or less: "You draw a line, and then another line, and then another little line, and the another line, and then a circle."

Joshua has some elaborate plan for my birthday, also. It's a secret, so I'll have to fill you in later.

Some days. . .

Today was one of those that I really enjoyed being a mom. Caleb was laughing (cackling) very loudly this morning while I was "getting" him. Joshua was loving on his brother and telling him that he was "the best baby ever". There were lots of kind words and laughter, and I could even here birds chirping in the background. (Well, not really, but it was a good day.)

I was reminded today that there are no better gifts than my children. Truly a heritage from the Lord, just as He says. Please remind me of this post on the days that I think I may kill them. =)

Just one funny: Tonight Joshua was in the tub talking about closing his eyes to keep water out of them. He said that he just needs to close his "shutters" on his eyes. In other words, his eyelids.

More Children Than the Stars

Today, Joshua told me that, when he a Caleb are both too big to sit in my lap, I should have another baby so that I have someone to hold. I then asked him what I should do once that baby was too big to hold, and he said I should have another one.

Suspecting that this was a never ending plan, I asked him how many children I should have. He told me that I should have more children than the stars, because that's how many children God told Abraham that he would have.

I asked him where all of these children would sleep, and he said that we would have to get a bigger house. He also said that we could get some of those "stacking beds like the ones on TV" so that they could share rooms.

This was funny to me, since he had just said a few hours before that the hardest thing about being a big brother is that I "don't really look after him anymore and he's always getting sick". How much "looking after" will I be able to do with a galaxy full of babies?!