Jack's Party

We had Jack's birthday party with his friends today. We did a fireman theme. As the guest of honour, Jack went as a fireman. We invited his friends to come dressed up as something as well. We had firemen, nurses, fairies - to name a few. We played games, ate cake, sang songs. We had nine three-year-olds so needless to say we are pretty tired tonight. But all in all, it was a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures and videos.

The table and birthday boy


The cake


Jack and Benjy


Jack and Grace


Grace, Rebekah, and Moya


One of the games we played was duck duck goose.The kids love it even though they don't fully get it:

He is off....

As I type this, Charles is getting ready to leave to take his thesis to be bound. It is about 6:45 AM. He came to bed at 4 AM after putting some last minute touches on it. It has been such a long process, but he is nearly there, God-willing. The hope is that he will take it this morning to the Binding Company in Cambridge and then submit it to the University of Cambridge Graduate Studies on Monday. Then we will await the viva.

I am so proud of him and thankful to have him back as a socialable member of our family!

Here are a couple of pictures of him before leaving this morning -

Putting the last touches on:





Three copies of thesis ready to be hard bound:



Cleaning the car off (it's freezing for England!):

Ellie's Breakfast

Jack asked to read this book, Ellie's Breakfast, on the camera today. He really has just memorized the book, but he calls it reading. Enjoy!

Review of Theo Day

So Theo Day is over. We spent the morning reading lots of books and playing with friends. Then the afternoon was filled with a trip to the pottery painting place where we painted Theo's handprint. The day was capped off by a great bathtime. We hope Theo enjoyed his day. We sure did! Here are some pictures and video that I took along the way today. After breakfast Jack asked to hold Theo as part of Theo Day. Here is that picture:


Here is a picture of Theo with some of the books that we read (all selected by Jack):


Here are boys in the pushchair ready to head home after our painting adventure:


And here is a video of Theo laughing near the end of the day. We were reading a book to him and Theo really liked it when I said 'down the stairs' so I kept saying it (and Jack helped as well). That hopefully is some explanation of what Jack and I keep saying as Theo continues to laugh.

Having Fun

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Reintroducing....

Theo had a good night of sleep, woke up happy, so we said let's go for it....so Today has been rescheduled as Theo Day. We are particularly happy that Theo's skin looks a lot better. He has really been struggling with his eczema but the doctor has prescribed new lotion that seems to be doing a better job. We will update you at the end of the day with more news on how we celebrated. But until then you can enjoy this video taken at breakfast.

Happy Birthday Jack

Jack turned 3 today and we had a lot of fun celebrating.

Here is a brief interview with the birthday boy:


And here are some pictures of how we celebrated.

Here is the whole family plus Uncle Matt at Pizza Hut. We asked the server to take our picture and this is the best we got. Kind of pathetic. I guess our server was really busy that night.












Here is Jack enjoying his ice cream sundae at Pizza Hut:









Here is Jack blowing out the candles with friends and family.









And a family picture from today:










Here is Jack playing with some of his new toys. He has had such a great day.

Theo Day Postponed

We have postponed Theo Day due to a bad start of the day for the whole family! To be rescheduled soon!

Gearing Up For Theo Day

Theo has had a rough week which means I have had a rough week. He has struggled with his sleep, eating, and has been to the doctor more times than one would like during a given week. We had our third doctor's appointment of the day tonight at 6 pm (none of them too serious). This appointment was topped off by three immunization jabs. Poor Theo.

He is sleeping as I type which is a good thing. As a response to the last couple of days being hard on Theo, I have decided to designate tomorrow as Theo Day. I am not really sure what this means, but I will let you know as the day progresses and ideas come to me! This will be fun for me since Friday mornings are the day that Jack goes to his playgroup. It will be good for Theo to have some special attention as we gear up for Jack's birthday on Sunday. I will let you know how it goes (and how Jack responds when I tell him!) and post some pictures tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of Theo taken this week during some of the brighter moments:

Rhyme Time

We have a book called Cleo the Cat. It is one of 'Theo's Favourites' - according to Jack. We always make note of the fact that Theo rhymes with Cleo. As a result, Jack has really gotten into rhyming - or more accurately, trying to rhyme. We have explained rhyming as two words that sound alike, or have similar sounds. I think our definition of being similar may have made things more difficult for Jack. Here are some of the rhymes he has come up with in the last week:

Monday and Tuesday - they are similar
Fish and Whale - they are similar
Jack and Theo - they are brothers

Then we had a breakthrough... He woke up and the first thing he said was 'Backpack rhymes with me'. I applauded him and corrected him at the same time telling him yes, backpack rhymes with Jack not Me.

Then we went back to our old pattern.

Wednesday and Friday - they are similar
Table and Chair - they are similar

Then another good one today - He asked me what I was making and I said Jello Salad. He then came back a couple of minutes later and told me that Jello and Hello rhyme. Yeah!!! We are slowly getting there.

I love the fact that he is trying. It beats lying! :)

Fun at the Farm

Brian and Jack had a good time on the trampoline yesterday. Only a two-year-old would get bounced around this much and still beg for more.

Snuggle Puppy read by Jack WC Anderson

Jack and I made cookies this morning. The fact that I say 'Jack and I' means there was quite a mess to be cleaned up afterwards. So as I was cleaning up the mess and doing the last couple of dishes, I told Jack to go pick out some books to read to Theo. Very similar to Jack at this age, Theo loves to read.

Jack came back a couple minutes later with 'Theo's four favourite books' (according to Jack). I was nearly finished with the cleaning up when I heard Jack reading the first book - Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton to Theo. It was so cute. We have read this book so many times to Jack and Theo that Jack nearly has it memorized. I asked Jack if he would read it again if I got the camera out. He said, yes. Here it is:



As you might have noticed, Jack had a little trouble making it to the ending (and became a bit redundant), so we tried again. The end of the story asks you to whisper so that is what Jack does here(the sound on your computer has not malfunctioned!).

The Wise Man

We had a playdate the other day with one of Jack's good friends - Grace. She sang us a wonderful version of the Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock. I am including it (with her mother's permission!) for your viewing pleasure.

Fun with Uncle Brian

Jack has loved playing with Uncle Brian. Here are a couple videos of what we have been up to. Here is Jack riding the Uncle Brian Horsey...
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And how Jack responded initially...


And Jack's response soon after....


So here is the new modified safety-first approach.

We miss you Daddy!

We recorded this video while Charles was in Boston:

Who's whose brother....

We are fortunate enough to have one of my brothers visiting this week and then one of Charles's brothers is due to come visit us in early December. It is so much fun to have our family come and have Jack and Theo interact with them. Jack, in particular, has been really interested in family relationships - who's daddy's brother, who's mommy's brother, who's mommy's mommy, etc. He is starting to get quite a bit of it, but the one thing he always gets right is that Theo is his brother.

We were talking about Uncle Brian coming today on an airplane. Here is an excerpt from our conversation.

Jack: When I get older. I want Theo to live far from me. I want him to come see me on an airplane. I want him to knock on my door, come into my room, go pee and poo, and eat chocolate with me.

Sounds like a great plan to me. I hope that Brian and I might be able to eat some chocolate together this week, but I plan to keep the poo and pee part more personal.

Agitated??

Theo was crying today and Jack asked me:

Mommy, what do you think is causing Theo to be so agitated?

Agitated??? What 2 year-old uses the word agitated? Is this what I get for marrying Charles? I should have known when we were dating and he sent me a 5 page typed letter that required me to get the dictionary out 3 times that this might be in store!

And here is a fun picture of Theo when he is not 'agitated' -

Spanking the disciples' bottom

Last night Charles was reading the Bible to Jack - specifically the story from Matthew 18 and 19 of the disciples arguing over who is the greatest. Some times when we read the Bible to Jack we are unsure how much he is actually understading. Well, last night he was getting some of it for sure. Here is the excerpt:

Jack: Those guys are fighting!
Charles: Yes, they are arguing.
Jack: Someone needs to spank their bottom.
Charles: I think Jesus is going to do something just like that.

An Opinion

One of Jack's favourite activities is to go to the library. We try to go about every other week. In fact, he often gets really sad when we tell him that we have to give some of the books back. He will often request that we ask the librarian if we can keep at least one book. After I ask the librarian and she gives her approval for us to check the book out again Jack acts as though the lady has just given us a million dollars. He gets so excited exclaiming - We can. We can. The lady says we can take it again!

Well last time we were at the library, I noticed that the library was having a story telling time of Charlie and Lola books which are some of Jack's new favourites. So I signed us up. I really talked this story time up to Jack. It was definitely the most anticipated event of the day. I even decided to make it extra special and memorable by taking the bus to it. When the time came, we loaded up the stroller and headed off for the bus stop in a pretty steady drizzle. Jack got so excited when he spotted bus number 307 headed our way. We loaded the bus and were off to the library.

Well, you might be anticipating this, but the story time did not meet my high expectations. Jack was the youngest kid there. Most of the kids there were about 5 (although the sign advertised the story time for all ages) and not very well behaved. Jack lasted through a couple of stories and then got up and loudly told me he was ready to go home. I whispered to him that we couldn't go home yet that we needed to wait until the end - hoping to teach him manners (not to mention the fact that I would have been embarrassed to get up in the middle and walk out). Jack did decently well the rest of the time. At the end we exited and on the way out I asked Jack, did you like it? Did you have a good time? To which Jack looked up and said - No, Not really.

It was one of the first times I liked the fact that Jack was saying NO. I loved the fact that he had an opinion. He was right. It wasn't that great. This was partially due to the kids interrupting the story teller at least twice each page, but mostly because Jack wasn't the right age. We will have to try story time again in a couple of years, but until then we will keep riding bus 307 because that was the big win of the day.

Sing your Praises to the Lord

I was visiting with a friend the other day and she reminded me of a story that happened almost exactly a year ago. I loved being reminded of it and thought it was worth blogging about. So here it is.

As you can probably tell from previous postings, Jack really enjoys music. He really has loved singing and listening to music from just a few months. When he was just learning to talk, he would often tell us 'more guitar' when he wanted to listen to music. For a long time he referred to all music as 'guitar'. In fact, he was also known for being quite impatient, and would start chanting 'more guitar' in between tracks on a CD - not aware that a new song was already on its way.

His love for music and his impatience both showed up while we were visiting churches last year. We visited quite a few churches in North London before settling on a church home. One church that we visited was going through a transition period where the new vicar was trying to bring in some new ideas - including new music. This particular church had a choir that consisted of 'four-ish' elderly people. The choir was trying really hard but they couldn't impress our nearly two-year-old. Right as they started to sing 'In Christ Alone' by Staurt Townend, Jack quickly perked up and loudly said 'No more guitar. No more guitar.'

Most of the time we have been pleased that Jack's language has been fairly advanced and decently understandable. This was not one of those times. Charles and I quickly said shh! Our friends who were sitting next to us could barely hold their laughter in. The only reassuring thing is that I think the choir members were old enough that they probably weren't able to hear Jack's loudly expressed opinion for which I am glad.

I use to have a poster on my bedroom door when I was a kid that said 'Sing your praises to the Lord - even if they are a little off tune.' This poster seems as though it might have been written for this particular situation. Charles and I laughed later - not because Jack yelled out so loud but because he was SO RIGHT!

Rolling Ball

The following are two conversations Charles had with Jack today.

While getting ready for a Fellowship Group Social -

Charles: Come on Jack, put your shoes on. We need to get the ball rolling.
Jack: I don't want to roll the ball.
Charles: You cannot go to the party without your shoes on.
Jack (clearly still interested in the 'ball'): I want Daddy to roll the ball.

After the social...

Jack (looking at some of his construction toys): I am making it all new.
Charles: That is what God says, He will make all things new.
Jack (nodding his head): Yeah, I make all things new too.

A typical morning

I always put Theo in his bouncy chair as I take my shower and get ready for the day. During this time Jack gets to entertain himself which rarely means doing much very far from us. He is so my son in how he loves to be with people (not meant to be a slam on Charles just an observation which Charles would agree with).

He almost always follows us up the stairs and makes some interaction game up while I get ready. Often he is the pizza man who comes to the bathroom to take my order then runs to the bedroom to fulfill the order. Even though he is the pizza man, he rarely asks me to order pizza. It is almost always drinks. The choices are usually water, juice, or beer.

Today I heard Jack interacting with Theo. When I got out of the shower Jack told me that he had gotten Theo's 'Nah' for him and his teddy bear. He told me that Theo had told him that he really wanted them. I got out of the shower to find Theo sitting here like this:




Jack does his best to look after Theo for which I am very grateful. And I think most of the time Theo enjoys it as in this picture. This is as opposed to the other day when I walked into the room to see Jack reenacting Theo getting his immunizations using a play-syringe. At moments like that one I remind myself that I am the third child, presumably similar things were done to me, and I am fairly well adjusted...I think??

Video versus Theo? - tough choice for Jack!

I shot this video the other day. I find it really amusing largely because of how Jack gets bored holding Theo and asks to watch a video on my computer. Oh, I can already imagine the boys watching this one when they are older and laughing about Jack's preference for a video over holding Theo.

How did you use your extra hour?

England set their clocks back last night for fall standard time. As such, we were ready for church earlier than usual and decided to take a few family photos. Unfortunately, there were no neighbours around to take one of all four of us. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for Dave Lewis

Jack randomly asked me the other day - 'Who gave us Theo?'

Hoping he didn't want a medical answer, I quickly told him that God had given us Theo. Just like God had given him to us. To my relief, he seemed satisfied.

He then followed up a couple minutes later, 'Did God give us Daddy?' to which I answered yes. Not wanting to leave me out, he then said 'God gave us you too Mommy?' Again I agreed.

He then asked, 'Did God give us Dave Lewis (one of Jack's best friend's Dad - and one of our friends!)?'

I chuckled and said, 'Well, yes. God did give us Dave Lewis too.'

I laughed because I have no idea why Jack would have jumped from our family immeidately to Dave Lewis (most likely because he is one of Jack's favourite poeple and in this case Jack is a good judge of character!). It was really amusing to me. But as I thought about it more, I thought what a great perspective. Yes, God has given us all of our friends. And for that we are very grateful! Thank you Lord for giving Jack an inquisitive mind from which I can learn. And thank you Lord for giving us Dave Lewis too!

Theo Laughing

I hesitate about putting this video up because I sound so silly while in the process of trying to get Theo to 'laugh' or 'talk' to the camera. But then it occured to me that this will not be the last time I look foolish for the sake of my children! Hope you enjoy.

Light of the World

Jack absolutely loves music. He really loves singing the songs at church. One of his favourites is Light of the World which he has memorized without any prompting from Charles and me. Today at lunch he was singing it, and I asked him if he would do it for the camera. He said he would, and here is the result (my favourite part is for sure the 'MY GOD' - watch for it!)....



Just in case you cannot tell, here are the lyrics (modified only a bit by Jack):

Light of the World, You stepped down into darkness.
All of my life spent with you.
So here I am to worship, Here I am to bow down, Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me.
And I never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.

Church Service

I just finished clearing up the breakfast dishes and heard Jack playing church in the other room. Here is what I heard:

Jack: Hello everyone. Welcome to Grace Church. Today we are going to read about God. In the Bible it tell us to not do the wrong thing and obey our parents and share. Please turn to page 6. (Running into the kitchen with his harmonica) - Mommy time to play the harmonica. Let's sing Light of the World.

Gotta go - the band leader is calling on me....

Breakfast with a two-year-old

Charles went up north to preach today (part of getting ready for his missions trip around Easter) which required that he left before the boys got up this morning. It was one of the first mornings that he has been gone during breakfast since Theo was born - I usually am feeding Theo while Charles helps Jack with the beginning of breakfast. Apparently, Jack has gotten rather use to Daddy's way of doing breakfast and was not too sanguine about my ability to remember how to make breakfast. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Jack: I want toast for breakfast.
Erin: That sounds good.
Jack: Do you know how to make toast?
Erin: (a bit annoyed) - Yes, I know how to make toast.
Jack: I want it buttered. Do you know how to butter it?
Erin: (deciding now to play along) Well, I am not sure, but I will give it my best try!
Jack: (completely sincere) O.K. Thanks.

Happy Friday!

Jack goes to playgroup on Friday mornings from 9-11 AM. He really looks forward to it which makes me happy, but equally I look forward to it because it gives me two hours alone with Theo. Theo and I had a great time this morning as you can see from all his smiles. During this photo session, I was singing him a song about being cute and handsome and his smiles almost make me think he understood what I was saying! I cannot pick my favourite picture so I am posting a lot of them...

For the Grandparents' Viewing Pleasure!

Sorry to everyone else - I hope these videos aren't boring, but I know the grandparents will love to see them.



I like this one of Jack because you can hear him talking a lot. Sorry about the position of the picture. I have messed up like this numerous times, but I keep forgetting and once again have made the same mistake. Hope it is not too bothersome.

A Car Ride with a 2 year old

I was driving around the other day with the boys and Jack made two comments that I found very interesting. We passed a convertible - somewhat rare in cloudy/rainy England - and he said 'hey, look Mom, that car doesn't have its lid on.'

A little further down the road and Jack told me that Theo was looking out his window and then proceeded to happily tell me that he was sharing his window with Theo. I praised him on sharing his window, and then wondered how many years it would be before I hear 'Mom Theo is looking out my window, make him stop!'

Who made the soap?

One of Jack’s favourite activities is to ‘play church’. This consists of Jack and either Mommy or Daddy (some times both) acting out a service. Jack assigns one person to be the pastor and the other person is a mix between a member in the congregation and a member in the band. Some times Jack is the pastor, other times Mommy or Daddy is. Most of the time it is a fun activity, occasionally it gets old and monotonous.

Tonight Jack asked me to play church while Charles went upstairs to give Theo a bath. I agreed and before I knew it I was assigned to be the pastor and he was a member in the congregation. I was handed a Sandra Boynton book to be my Bible and the service began with the song ‘Light of the World’ chosen by Jack who was acting as the leader of the band at this point. When the song ended Jack took his seat and looked up at me to begin the talking part of the service.

I welcomed everyone to church and then told them to open their Bibles to page 10 where we were going to talk about creation (just what happened to come to my head at the time). I then really got into the preaching role and started saying that God created both the heavens and the earth and everything in them. I then looked down at Jack’s Bible (which was a First Words book) and saw that his page 10 had pictures of things used in the bathroom. I decided to start ad-libbing my sermon and told him that God had created everything including the things on his page. So I said that God had made people to make bath toys, and shampoo, and hairbrushes. Those were the first couple of things I saw on his page 10. Jack then quickly interrupted by saying ‘Excuse Me’. I then stopped my sermon and said ‘Yes, Jack.’ He then said ‘Who made the soap?’ I looked down at his page 10 and noticed that I had left out the picture of soap when giving my sermon. I looked up at his face and saw how earnest his question was. I reassured him that God had also made the soap. He looked relieved, and then quickly transitioned us into our next song, ‘All My Days’.

A Night To Remember

Monday night was a night to remember in Theo's life (and ours!). It was the first night that he slept from 10 pm to 7 am. I woke up a bit confused around 4 am trying to figure out why he hadn't woken yet. God-willing we are moving in the right direction of sleeping through the night. Theo was very proud of himself and his sleeping accomplishment as this video shows. Enjoy!

Theo and His Toys

We posted today regarding Jack and his friends. We didn't want to leave Theo out. Here is a video of Theo with his favourite toys (not friends!). Notice his double chin. He is really putting the weight on - one pound a week the last two weeks! Let's hope that doesn't continue to be the trend his whole life.

Jack and His Ladies

One of the great things about Oak Hill is that there are always lots of playmates around for Jack. This morning our family ventured out to the front orchard and before we knew it there were quite a few other families that had joined us.

Usually the parents are able to stand around and have nice conversations in between interruptions of reminding their kids to share, helping a kid up who has just fallen off his bike, or instructing their kid not to eat the apples that have lots of bad spots on it. Why didn't anyone tell us that after having kids you never have uninterrupted conversations, at least while they are awake? Maybe they did and I wasn't listening!

Anyway, in between those conversations today we noticed that the kids had invented a nice little homemade roller coaster. This is what kids do in a country that doesn't get enough snow to have good sledding. Hope you enjoy the video - we did! Oh, and yes, that is a fairy on the back of the skate board. She is one of Jack's best playmates called Grace.

And lastly, notice the ratio of boys to girls - Jack is one lucky dude!

Brothers

We have been fortunate enough to have some of our closest friends move in next door to us. They have two boys about the same age gap as Jack and Theo only two years ahead. They have just recently bought bunk beds for their boys which has has definitely gotten Jack's attention. He has already started planning that he and Theo can get bunk beds when they get older. He has also already claimed the top bunk for himself!

Although too young for bunk beds, Jack has begun asking for Theo to lay next to him in bed. Today they looked so cute that I grabbed the camera.

I love to hear Jack make plans that involve Theo. We received a congratulations card when Theo was born that ended by stating that they prayed that Theo and Jack would grow to be the closest of brothers. That statement caught both Charles's and my attention. We do indeed pray the same thing.

More Pictures

We have had a couple requests for more pictures. I have to admit my creative juices aren't really flowing so I will indulge you all with pictures for now. I hope to have some stories or thoughts some time soon (God-willing!). Until then, enjoy...

Video of Jack Holding Theo in Hospital

This is a video that we took when Jack first held Theo. You can hear Jack talk about 'Theo not crying', 'Theo wants to be held'. He also refers to 'Theo's Nah'. The background on this is that Jack's favourite snuggle blanket is a little polar bear called 'Nah'. We purchased a similar blanket with a monkey on it for Theo and had Jack bring it to the hospital as a gift for Theo (Theo reciprocated with a tractor present for Jack - very proactive on Theo's part!). My favourite part of this video is when you hear Charles anxiously say 'Whoa, Whoa, Whoa' as Theo flops around in Jack's lap. Not only is Jack a new big brother, but it is obvious that we are inexperienced in some areas as well! Poor Theo - what kind of family have you been born into!

Happy First Week Theo!

We celebrated Theo's one week birthday today. It has been a lot of fun to have Theo at home and to see him and Jack interact (as much is possible at this age). Jack loves to help with Theo which is a real blessing. Jack greeted us the first morning that Theo was at home by excitedly proclaiming that he wanted to 'Go wake up his new brother.' We pray that he continues to love Theo (and of course, help!).

Erin and Jack have loved having Charles home all week as well. It has almost felt like a relaxing holiday, well kind-of. At the least, we have thoroughly enjoyed the week but are very aware that it may have just been the honeymoon phase of parenting two kids! Here are a few picture that give you a glimpse into our week.

Welcome to the world, Theo

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Theodore Michael, who showed up this morning, 30 July, at 10:58am. He weighs 7lbs and 8oz and has been in good form all day. He and Erin are doing well.


Here we are our last morning as a family of three before heading to the hospital. Our good friends at Oak Hill, the Robsons, watched Jack today, which was a huge blessing to us.



Here is Theo, enjoying a rest on Mommy.




We think there are some definite resemblances between Jack and Theo as newborns, though Theo looks like he has more initial hair.




And here are the happy parents with Theo. Jack and Theo haven't had the chance to meet yet, but they did speak on the phone this evening. Evidently Theo had been crying when we called, and as soon as Jack got on and said, 'Hi Theo. I love you', he quieted right down. I think he probably heard that voice plenty in the womb and so was pleased (and not surprised) to hear it once again.




Jack and Charles will go up to the hospital tomorrow, and we'll be together as a whole family. This is Mr. Foot Down on behalf of Mrs. Thumb Up.