Lennox is too funny lately. He is getting so big that my eyes well up with tears when I look at him for too long.

• While unpacking Christmas decorations, I found Lennox's Wise Men keepsake so I thought it was a good opportunity to tell him about the Christmas story. I was talking about the wise men and how they followed the star and how they walked and walked and all they wanted was to find baby Jesus. I went on and on about how happy they were when they finally got to Jesus. Lennox looked at me with this "duh" look on his face and said, "yeah, they were just tired of walking!" Later he said, "The wise men don't believe in airports. They just like to walk." ha... well, I guess he missed the point of the story but we're planting seeds! He also announced that the angel said, "Don't be afraid!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but that's where his imagination took over and he started thinking about scary stuff! He totally missed the rest of what the angel had to say!
  


• We got our first "bad" report from school :( Lennox's teacher sent home a note that he had a bad week. He was telling her "no" and refusing to participate in activities. He was throwing fits and misbehaving in general. His teacher is very sweet and loves Lennox so she wasn't trying to get him in trouble. She just wanted me to be aware of his behavior. I cried over it a couple of times because #1 - I never want my child to be disrepectful, #2 - I never want my child labeled... especially as "bad" #3 - I felt like I was a failure as a parent because my child was being disrespectful. That all went down while I was working like a maniac. Anyway, the day the note was sent home, Jay picked Lennox up. He told me he was going to handle the situation. When I got home, we were eating dinner and I asked Lennox about what was going on and I asked if he knew what was going to happen if his teacher had to send another note home. "yes, I'm just going to get punched again." he said. I started laughing and asked what he was talking about. He went on and on about being punched and he can't do this and he can't do that! I finally figured out he meant "punished" not punched. LOL. When my dad asked him about the same incident he bent himself over and started spanking his own butt! ???? He didn't even get a spanking! I don't know where he comes up with this stuff! Anyway, after a weekend of talking about respect, obedience, and reassuring him that he was a good boy, he had a great week.



• Lennox is into "funny shows" (aka America's Funniest Videos). He just laughs and laughs at the people falling down the stairs and tripping into the pool. He never gets tired of it! I thought he would like Home Alone... I was so right! He LOVED it. He can basically reinact the whole movie. I heard him talking to himself saying, "This is your chance. Don't. Be. Afraid." Too funny!



• He is totally obsessed with transformers... how long will this last?! He got several Transformers for Christmas. He can totally transform himself. His most recent transformation is from a plane to a jet. When he is a plane, he is laying face down with his arms out perpendicular to his body. When he transforms into a jet, the head comes up and the arms fly back toward his legs... parallel with his body.... complete with sounds effects! He has also figured out that the song is "Transformers! Robots in disguise" instead of what he sang for months, "Transformers! Robots in the Sky!" :( kinda sad. He's growing up!



• I cannot get over how many letters Lennox knows. I tried so hard to work with him on letters before he started the 3 year old class but he really could have cared less. Apparently they sing these songs about letters that he really loves... "Connie Cow, Connie Cow... Cuh Cuh Cuh???" His favorite is Dexter Donkey. Anyway, he recognizes about 75% of the letters and he knows the sounds they make. I'm proud!

14 months

What's really sad is that I have misplaced my camera's memory card so I have no pictures to post. I really hope it is only misplaced, soon to be found, because I haven't uploaded any of them from Stella's birthday party. She had so much fun at the party and she was too cute! She did start running a fever right before the party started but she bounced back pretty quickly.

She will be 14 months on Christmas day. I am horrible and missed her 13 month post completely. I was working 7 days a week at the time so I have a good excuse! Now she is running and climbing on everything. She begs to jump on the bed but, thankfully, she hasn't figured out how to climb on it yet. She loves the bath tub and is always trying to climb into it. She has almost mastered climbing on the couch. Last weekend she was trying to climb a ladder (while I was standing on it) but she fell and has a horrible black eye. She fell on the baby sitter's steps and cut her forehead the week before. She threw a fit and banged her head on the driveway and has a bruise from that! I really do try to protect her little head. If you only knew all of the bruises and bumps I have prevented, I wouldn't seem like such a horrible mother!

She is still a fiesty little thing. She gets SO mad. I think what makes her the angriest is when we won't hand over our phone or when we won't give her the food she is currently demanding!!! She usually starts screaming then she turns and runs the opposite direction then abruptly turns back and charges with her head down. She's a mess. She charged me the other day and had her hand up ready to slap me in the face!! UH OH!! She also bit me recently when she was mad. Like I said, she's a mess. I don't know where she came from.

She is starting to understand so much. She follows simple directions like "put this in the trash," "take this to daddy." "Go find Bubba." "Let's go outside." "Let's take a bath!" She high tails it to the tub and the backdoor... everywhere else, she's really not interested! She is talking all of the time but I don't really know what she is saying except for "mama," "dada," and "bubba." She repeats things I say like ball, bye bye, hey, night night, baabaa. She is really getting interested in books lately. She likes the Priddy books with animals. She barks at the dog and baa's at the sheep. She makes a MMMmmm sound for the cow. She likes particular pages and gets mad if you try to turn to pages that are not her favorite.

Stella cracks up at Lennox even though he pushes her down 197 times each day. The poor girl can't stand up when he is around without getting tackled or tapped or toppled over. It's ridiculous. He gets in trouble. He just keeps doing it. Hard heads. It is so funny to hear her laughing at Lennox. She thinks he is so funny when he's doing silly things like throwing a stuffed animal in the air. He gets a kick out of it and cracks himself up too!

Stella's favorite things to do are go outside, take a bath, play in the spice cabinet, empty the clothes basket, put clothes on her head (Lennox used to put socks on his head but Stella likes any article of clothing), look at books, play with the hand manny erector set (which is weird for a 1 year old girl, i think), and she LOVES her babies. She kisses them and hugs them and drags them all over the house. She is very good at making a mess. She might even be better than Lennox at strowing and dragging things out.

She still has a bottle. I know. I need to get rid of it but she loves it. I took it away for a day or two and she was a complete mess. So, I gave it back! Maybe next month? Her hair is getting long and so much thicker and it's white... or light yellow. It is starting to flip up on the sides which is so stinking cute! She still poops in the tub about 85% of the time. I'm going to start putting her on the potty and see if I can get this girl potty trained!!! ha.