Crazy Week, Crazy Kids

Sorry I am slow on the update! It is still my goal to not let more than a week go by without posting SOMETHING on the blog, so I apologize. But it has been a crazier than usual week, but here is a quick recap of what everyone has been up to:

Preston has been out of town since early Monday morning. He is in Tampa, and I asked him yesterday if it was warm there. He said something like "It isn't warm, but it isn't cold." I said, "What do you mean it isn't warm? Do you mean it is only like, 70?" "Yeah, only around 70." I would seriously maim someone for 70 degrees right now.

Corbie has been doing great this week after her surgery. She has been such a little trooper with her cast, and hasn't let it slow her down much. I understand now why they had to put a cast over her toe. She would have completely destroyed any soft bandages, and she still makes me nervous shoving her fingers down inside of her cast to play with her toes. So far she hasn't caused any major damage to her stitches, and hopefully our luck will hold. The only problem with the cast is that everyone assumes she has a broken leg. NO her leg isn't broken, NO I didn't drop her! Sheesh. She is pretty much back to her happy self during the days now, but I think her toe and the cast still bothers her as evening closes in, and especially at night when she is trying to sleep. But hopefully she will get her cast off next Thursday and we can all get our first look at her new toe. She reverted to her army crawl for a few days, but today she decided that she is going to crawl with her tummy off the ground again. She is even starting to try and stand up again:I am really proud of Corbie. She has really been so sweet through this whole thing even though I am sure she has been in pain. She is learning new things every day, and is moving faster and farther almost by the hour. I wish that I could slow time down for a while, because I know that the next time I blink I will look around and she will be a toddler! Daxton is really turning into a little caveman. All day he is throwing balls, trying to wrestle with Arden, yelling REALLY loudly, and swinging, banging, hitting everything in sight with anything he can get his hands on. It has been hard to teach him the rules of throwing and banging (such as, it IS okay to throw balls at people from 10 feet away, but NOT okay to throw balls directly at people's heads from ONE foot away. And, it IS okay to hit balls with sticks, but NOT okay to hit people with sticks. Or stuffed animals. Or hangers. Or pretty much anything else). Arden had some of her friends over today for a playdate, and I caught Dax chasing one of her friends around the playroom trying to hit him with his little toy cat, of all things. What is the thought process behind that??? "I bet this kid will really like it if I hit him on the shoulder with my meow!" It is a mystery. He is also still completely against the idea of going to nursery without Arden. But we will figure it all out eventually.

Arden got moved up into a new gymnastics class this week, and was really excited to be with the "bigger kids". She is now in the advanced 4-5 year old class. She was MUCH more excited to get some "real" gymnastics clothes that her cousin Kinley has grown out of. She got three leotards, and this is how her day went yesterday, outfit-wise:

1. Wake up in the morning and immediately change out of jammies and put on purple gymnastics outfit. Fabulous! It is your favorite and your best! Wear it for 15 entire minutes.
2. Change into the pink leotard because that is really your favorite because it has hearts on it. Eat breakfast happily wearing it, and dance around doing cartwheels until bath time.
3. After bath time, decide that ONLY the blue gymnastics outfit will do. Wear it for only 2 minutes before deciding that it MUST be the purple outfit after all. Actually wear the purple outfit to gymnastics because mom REFUSES to help you in or out of any other gymnastics clothes. After gymnastics you want to play outside, but you have the meanest mom in the world and she thinks it is too cold to go outside in a leotard, EVEN with your coat on, so...
4. Grudgingly change into shirt, skirt, and tights. Play outside, eat lunch, go to "nap" (which is really just code for "stay in your room and play quietly while mom tries to get some work done").
5. During "naptime," change into black party dress for reasons you can't explain.
6. After nap time, you need to use the bathroom and decide to just change into a different dress while mom isn't watching. Again, for reasons you can't explain.
7. When Grandma and Grandpa come over for a visit, change back into purple gymnastics outfit to show them how sparkly and soft it is.
8. Sneakily change to pink gymnastics outfit during visit from Grandma and Grandpa, just in case they wanted to see it too. Be mad because mom tells you to stop changing your clothes.
9. FINALLY, put on your jammies to go to bed because your mean mean mom won't let you wear any of your gymnastics clothes to bed.
10. Leave ALL of the above clothes on your bedroom floor.

Here is a picture of her and Corbie in the playroom. She got this tea set last year, and my mom told her to hold up her pinkie while she drank her tea. This is what she does:

Yes, she is holding up the pinkie on the hand that is NOT holding the cup. I can't convince her that she is supposed to hold up the other pinkie. So silly.

Chrystie has just been trying to keep up with all of the kids and counting down the days and hours until Preston gets home. T minus 4-ish hours!