The Best Thing That God Made

Today, Brian was reading the boys the creation story from our Children's Bible. After all of the plants and animals etc had been created, the Bible said "But God had saved the best for last" meaning us humans, of course. Brian said to the boys, "What was the best thing that God made? What did he save for last?" David guessed correctly right away and spelled his guess for Brian so that Michael could make a guess too. "What do you think, Michael?" asked Brian. "Trains," said Michael :) I guess "the best thing" is subjective...

Fun at Kalahari Water Park

In the Wisconsin Dells

Bathing Beauty

Elena's first time swimming. Well, OK, her second time :)

Basta Pasta

Making homemade pasta with Papo on Mardi Gras.

Dino-roars

The Dinosaur exhibit at the zoo. Grrrr.

David and Michael's Lady Friends :)

Our Playgroup Valentine's Day Party.

Sweethearts

Happy Valentine's Day from The Guarraci Kids :)

Dance Party USA!

Our 2nd Annual Dance Party. For this song, the kids were in costumes/masks/crazy hats.

Baby Laughs!

Some of Elena's first laughs!

Michael's First Book

Michael "read" his first book a few weeks ago: Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? It's so cute because he makes up all of his own verbs. I have to get a Flip video of it, and get it on here - the trick is taping him without him knowing that I am taping... :)

Tidbits

David's preschool teacher conference (about 2 weeks ago) went really well. Ms Heather says that he long ago met all of his preschool benchmarks, so she has borrowed the kindergarten benchmarks from a friend and is starting to work with him on those things. She says he has good "number sense." I agreed and shared a story from just a few days before the conference when David randomly said to me, "Mom, I know what 3 rows of 4 is. Same as 6 rows of 2. It's 12." She says that she has recruited his help in teaching his classmates how to read. He has won "The Quite Game" on many occasion. Today, Ms Heather and Ms Trina invited him to bring his violin in to school to play a few tunes for his class.

Michael continues to be a character. The other day, he came out of his bed at night time. I had just come upstairs from a workout on the elliptical machine and I had peeled my sweaty socks off. I was sitting on the couch barefoot when he came out. First thing he says: "Mom, why do you have bare feet?" I explain myself. "Can you come to my room and cover me up?" "Sure, Michael." "Can you put your socks on first?" :) This kid HATES bare feet :)

About 3 weeeks ago, I came out front after showeing and getting dressed. Michael looks at me and says, "You don't look very pretty today, Mom." "That's OK," I say. "Pretty is not the most important thing to me." "You should feel bad about that, Mom."

He read his first word the other day. Guess what it was? Cat? Nope. Dog? Nope. Run? Nope. It was VEGETABLE. He read it off the bottle of vegetable oil. I encouraged him to sound out the first letter, V, which he did. Then I moved my finger under the E, and he made the 'eh' sound. Then he proceeded to say the rest of the word. He doesn't really know what vegetable oil is, so it's not like he was just identifying the item. However, since he has yet to read simpler words like Cat and Hat and Dog, it is probably just an isolated "lucky guess." But I am counting it :)

Elena is as sweet as ever. She is SUCH a good baby. She loves attention from her parents and her brothers (though Michael's attention can be a bit much for her at times." She is able to roll over both ways, though she doesn't do much rolling. She coos, but is relatively quiet. She goes to bed between 6 and 6:30 every night, and has been waking up once at 1 ish and once at 6ish. She liked swimming at Kalahari. Born to swim, literally :) We are now working on baby signs and getting her to sit up on her own. Doc says she can start rice cereal any day...

The Dells

Took a family vacation (Elena's first!) to the Wisconsin Dells with Renis and Dominic and Laura and Steve and their kids. We stayed at Kalahari resort, where the main attraction is the indoor water park. We had a fun time, but our kids were a bit more timid than we would have liked. They were hesitant to get on the water slides, even the kiddie ones, and spent lots of time either in the regular pool or in the cabana. Brian especially was disappointed and wished they could have taken advantage of the fun slides and water play opportunities that exist there :( Maybe we'll try it again in a few years... :)

Happy Birthday to Michael, the handsome, sweet, smart, sassy, feisty, charismatic, funny, irresistible boy that has brought us so much joy for the past 3 years. Love you, Michael Bear!

Big Boy Bike!

Congratulations, David! How many kids do you know who do their first poop on the potty AND learn to ride a bike in the same yea? :) That's my David Joe! Kudos to Daddy who made a commitment to get out there and practice with David every day for about 2 weeks until they completed their mission. David is very proud of himself, and we are very proud of him too :)

Family Camp Olympics

Family Camp

Our friends from Notre Dame, the Engle Family, invited us to join them at YoungLife's Family Camp in late August in Detroit Lakes MN. We had a fun weekend relaxing, playing on the beach, and doing some of the other activities that they had available for us. Here are some video highlights from the Family Camp Olympics. Also, check out David and Michael imitating the comedic MCs of the Family Camp weekend, Rico and Tico Suave and The Extreme Lifeguards.

Back to School

David had his first day of his last year of preschool today. Same great teachers as last year, most of the same great friends. He was very excited to go back. He picked out his favorite Star Wars shirt and "matching" shorts to wear. He got to choose his favorite lunch to give him energy: Tri-color rotini with sauce and grated cheese and strawberries. And he wore his new Clone Wars backpack. When I picked him up he looked happy as a lark. Pictures to follow...

A few other David tidbits...

The other day he picks up his violin and says, "Hey Dad, listen to what I can play!" And he rattles off parts of Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart and Dancing in the Dark. Gotta love this kid.

He is very interested in math these days. He has learned several "rules." He knows that any 1 digit number times 100 is "that-digit-hundred" (e.g., 5x100=5 hundred.) He knows that any 2 digit round number times one hundred is "the-first-digit-thousand" (e.g., 50x100 = 5 thousand). He loves being able to solve those "big" problems.

As you may also have noticed, he loves to email. If you haven't yet received an email from him and you would like to, please let me know. I'm sure he would be happy to oblige ;)

Today, he says out of the clear blue sky to me: "I know how to spell "castle." C-A-S-T-L-E." "That's right, David! How did you know that?" "I saw it written down once."

Oh right, of course. I think we call that "photographic" :)

Putting Us To Shame

Michael got a fly with the fly swatter today. I feel like Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid. I chase the darn thing all over the kitchen for 5 minutes, looking like a fool. My 2 year old picks up the fly swatter and within a minute - BAM! The fly is dead. Beginner's luck.

A few other Michael stories:

We were at Family Camp this weekend in Detroit Lakes, MN. I told Michael we had to get ready to go back to the dining hall for dinner and that the beach was closed. "How can the beach be closed, Mom? It doesn't have a door!"

Lately, Michael's big word has been "HATE." He hates this, he hates that. I have threatened him with tickle torture every time he says "hate" instead of "really don't like." His response: "I hate being tickled."

Sweet and Sour

My Michael said to me this morning, "Mom, you are the best girl ever." And 2 nights ago as Brian walked past his room at night, he said, "Dad, you are a great dad." Sweetie pie boy. Let's just ignore the fact that yesterday he said he "hated the world" and didn't like God because he doesn't have shoes ;)

Sioux Empire Fair

For a while now, Brian has been highly motivated to increase the boys' amusement park ride repertoire. We have told the boys that we aren't going back to Disney World until they get some guts with regards to the rides. So, Brian especially, was looking forward to the fair this year as an opportunity to practice some of the more intense kiddie rides. Namely, the roller coaster. I, being 32 weeks pregnant was not allowed to go on the rides, but Brian went with the boys for their first ride of the day. Michael's face revealed that he was loving it. David, not so much. By the end of the ride, David had vowed that he would not be going on it again. We went and did some other rides, and eventually, Brian brought them back to the roller coaster and insisted that they ride again. Michael was all for it. David not so much. In fact, it turned into quite a scene with David wailing away that he didn't want to go, and Brian and I not giving in. (These are the moments that I question myself as a parent and wonder if it's worth the "trauma." That being said, Brian and I were both wimps as children and only discovered the joy of roller coasters much later in life. If somebody had "pushed" us a little, we might have enjoyed many more years of roller coaster bliss...) Brian patiently explained to David that it often takes a while to get used to new things and to realize how fun they can be. He gave David several examples of new situations of which David was initially scared, but eventually came to love (e.g., going underwater). Long story long, they went on the ride and David tolerated it. He came off saying that it was better than his last ride. Daddy encouraged the boys to yell silly things (like Geronimo and Cowabunga) on the way down the hill, which seemed to add to Michael's exhilaration and to relieve some of David's anxiety. We went off and did some other things, ate some nasty fair food, passed on some even nastier fair food (Fried Kool-Aid????What is that???) and before we left, Brian asked the boys if they wanted to ride the coaster one last time. To our amazement, both boys said yes! They rode one more time with Brian, and then, at David's request, rode again one last time...all by themselves! Brian and I loved seeing them have so much fun, screaming with delight all the way down the "big" hill. The video clip I have attached is short, not in HD, and hard to track, but at the very least watching it helps me remember the joy on their faces. Shout out to Daddy for knowing when to push a little bit. All in the name of roller coaster fun!