Hail to the Chalk

Every year Jason and I fill out brackets and this is something we have had our kids do as well. Jason is obviously a big sports fan and I am not as much, but I love March Madness, because what's not to love? The competition is great and you get fun upsets, exciting buzzer beaters, and college athletes. It's pretty great. Jason and I have competed against each other in the past, but this year we had an espn.com bracket group consisting of just our family members.  But obviously our kids aren't quite old enough to really make wise choices when they fill out their brackets. So this year Jason helped them. For Joshua, all favorites in the round of 64 were chosen but after that he chose winners based on who would win if the two mascots fought each other (that seemed like something Joshua would endorse). For Clara, he used a celebrity basketball player's bracket (Stephen Curry). For Hannah, he picked the highest seed to win every match up. Jason had a little bit more time than I did to work on his bracket, but we both do not have the time we used to to devote to this. Which makes me sad. I really had a good run for awhile. Anyway, Jason and I both chose our brackets as best we could. Much to our chagrin, Hannah was far and away the victor in our family league. (Note, though everyone else was far behind her, I beat Jason by a few points and that is a key takeaway). Here she is posing with her winning bracket. Jason and I look forward to the day our kids can be a little more active in filling out their brackets (and hopefully we will once again be fighting for 1st and 2nd place at that time).

Cute and She Knows It

Ron has said that Clara may be a future president and I agree that could happen. Clara is a very determined girl who generally knows how to work it so things go her way. One of the ways she does this by leveraging her extreme cuteness. Like look at this face. How can you say no?

And if you do say no, you get this face. Doesn't that make you want to rethink your stand on the marshmallows for dinner issue?

I really think she will accomplish a lot in life because she doesn't let things stand in her way once she decides she wants something. However for now, keeping her in check and helping her realize that she doesn't get to control everything is something we are working on.

Open House

Last year we went to the K-State Olathe Open House and had a pretty good time. This year we went and had a less good time. They seemed to have fewer kid-friendly exhibits this year and also Clara was having an off-day. However, even though it wasn't the best thing ever, we still managed to have a fun little outing and the kids were really excited to get balloons. Jason and I were more excited about Call Hall ice cream. We would love to go to Manhattan for Open House every year, but that's too big of a trek for now so this is a nice substitute and maybe when the kids are older we'll be able to go to the real thing.

Our Big Helper

Hannah is becoming more like a kid and less like a baby every day. One of her new things is she really likes getting into the dishwasher. The other kids will help put away silverware and Hannah isn't really tall enough to do that yet (nor is Clara with any degree of accuracy since she can't see the tray, but that doesn't stop her). However, Hannah still really likes to get the silverware out of the dishwasher and also close it. Unfortunately, she hasn't really caught on to the fact that it needs to be clean before we take it out. She feels super proud of her new-found "big girl" skills anyhow though.

Lunch at Sonic

Since I normally work on the days Joshua is in school, Halie typically drives him to school and picks him up. But today I had a conference with his teacher so I picked him up. Mrs. Pogue is happy with how he is doing, though no surprise to us she thinks listening is an area of growth for him. But she has seen a lot of progress even since Christmas, so he is doing well. After talking to his teacher, I decided we should eat lunch. So we went to Sonic and he got to have a hamburger, which is his favorite. Then, after that, we got ice cream. It was a fun mini-date before we went home and I went back to work.

15 Months!

Today Hannah turned 18 months old. It has been a big three months for her since she has now finally become a toddler. She walks everywhere all the time (but she has only been doing so for about three weeks). She climbs and gets into things. She has many words and is pretty verbal. She is very girly. She loves her bows and dresses, and when we went shopping recently, she wanted these super princessy pajamas with a tutu. Unfortunately I don't believe in polyester sleepwear so it didn't work out, but she forgot about it immediately so it was fine. She has a little silly streak and loves playing peek-a-boo. She has a very interesting personality type. Most of the time she is super laid back and sweet. But if you make her mad, she gets really mad and is not easily consoled. If you offer her any comfort, like offering her a toy, she gets really mad at you. But most of the time she is super easy-going. She is our pickiest eater at this point, which I never though anyone would beat Clara. However, she is gaining weight fine. She is 30.5 inches tall and 21 lbs, which are the 19th and 8th percentiles respectively. Even though she is in on the small side, she is remaining in a similar percentile over time so the doctors are happy with that.

Daddy Daughter Laptop Time

Today I worked from home in the morning.  Usually when I do that I work upstairs, but today I decided to work downstairs with the kids and Halie since I had no scheduled calls and it was pretty light work.  Joshua has pretty much learned that he's not allowed to touch my laptop, so he's mostly lost interest, but Clara remains very intrigued by it and also can't help herself from trying to touch all the keys if she's near it ("What that button do?").  One of the kids (Hannah, I think) received a toy laptop for Christmas, and while they all like it a fair amount, it doesn't compare to the real thing.  But after I made it clear to Clara that she wasn't going to get to touch my laptop, I suggested she sit next to me and use her laptop.  She thought this was an acceptable idea, and we both spent some time sitting next to each other working on our respective laptops.