Stuff I want to remember :)

Time to do another journaling post of stuff I never want to forget. I think of things every day, but just haven't taken the time.

I will start with Gunnar... 

First of all it's so funny how everyone thinks this little boy is so shy! Well he is when he gets around other people. Even my closest friends...when they talk to him he will turn his face away or hide behind me. Wow what a different kid he is at home!!! I need to get a good video of him dancing around, or just being his funny, crazy self! He is so smart and imaginative and so so funny!
(his little angry bird face he makes ALL the time)...

The other night he came with us to Ashton's parent/teacher conference, and just sat on my lap. I didn't really think he was listening to anything Ashton's teacher was saying. Well anyway some of the things she told us about how Ashton is doing were that he's doing great in everything academic. He is off the charts in reading & math and well everything else.
It all comes so easily to him. Then she said if there was anything she thought he needed to work on it would be that sometimes he teases other kids. This was not a huge surprise to me, well because #1 he's a kid, and because he's Ashton and if he gets bored he tends to do things like that. Then the one other thing she said was that he and numerous other boys in the class mess around in the bathroom with the toilets or something. She said she didn't really know what they were doing, but they'd come back from the bathroom telling on eachother for things like that.
 So we promised Mrs. Rawlins that we'd not be doing these things anymore. When I say we I mean he :)

Anyway back to Gunnar...the next day after the conference, I asked Ashton after school how his day was and he said fine, then I asked him if he teased anyone and he said nope. So Gunnar is sitting there and he says to Ashton "No more playing with the toilets???" He cracks me up! Just out of the blue he will say something random that we'd think he knew nothing about or that he wasn't paying attention.

Love it!

He is just such a cute fun kid!

And I find myself counting my blessings so often that he is so easy to take places. It never really crosses my mind to try to find someone to watch him when I have to go to an appointment or anywhere really. I take him to volunteer with me when i need to and he knows he just has to sit with me and quietly listen to the kids reading, and he does. Sometimes that "shyness" really comes in handy!

I also love that he just is really sincerely so eager to please all the time. He can't stand the thought of getting in trouble and usually if he doesn't want to do something I ask him to do, all I have to do is act sad or tell him it's making me sad and he will do it. Our sensitive little guy...I love that he can't stand to make me sad :) He is so so sweet and thoughtful.

I took him to see Beauty and the Beast the other day in the middle of the day with a friend and her little boy. I told him he could choose a treat after he got all ready and told him to choose one for his little friend too. So of course he chose 2 things for himself at first, but then as we're about to walk out he says "But then Owen will only have 1 and I'll have 2, I better get him 1 more."
Beauty and the Beast was fun, I honestly hadn't seen it for years & Gunnar had never seen it and really liked it.

Then a few more things from last week...

He had climbed up on his stool to sit at the counter for breakfast and the other stools were all pulled out because I was sweeping, so the first thing he says is "Wait Mom, will you please pull one over so Ashton can have a place to sit?" Then that same day we had to cash a check at the bank and of course going to the bank means suckers! So I asked Gunnar if he wanted one and he said yes, "And oh Mom, don't forget to get one for Ashton!" So we saved Ashton's in the car for him and forgot to give it to him that day. Well anyway every time Gunnar gets in the car, he likes to search the front seat for anything he can find like gum or a treat...so he sees the sucker from the day before and instead of taking it, says "Oh I'll save that for Ashton." He is just always thinking of others.
 He really seems so unselfish to me and for a 3 year old it seems like that would be hard!

We went and picked out a gift for his cute little friend Amalia whose birthday party was on Sunday. I told him that we needed to go look for something girly, so he walked around with me pointing out things that were pink, or dolls etc...saying "That's girl-ish Mom." Finally we decided on this huge stuffed lady bug.
 The whole time he never once asked me if he could get something for himself and he was SO excited to give it to her! He had a few days before the party however, so little miss ladybug hung out with him...I love these pictures! Love that he had to have her sitting right next to him...haha :) 

 We hid her in my closet when Amalia came over to play one day and I heard Gunnar telling her..."we got your present Amalia, it's something red with big black spots on it!" The look on his face when she was opening it was priceless...seriously so excited for her to finally see it. So cute!

Anyway I am just so thankful for such a sweet, thoughful, sensitive little boy...he amazes me all the time and I learn a lot from him!
He of course has his moments (he is 3 after all!), but they seem to be more few and far between these days.
It shocked me the other morning when I got him a cup of milk and for whatever reason he didn't like the cup I gave him and said he wanted a different one. So I told him to let me know when he was ready to drink his milk in the cup I gave him...then all of a sudden he back handed his milk across the counter at me and it went everywhere!!!
I think it shocked him too because he immediately started crying and ran to his room, then started saying he was sorry. Yeah he's still 3.
What else...?
Oh for about a week and a half straight, he played and played and played (for literally hours at a time) with this set of blocks!

He built and un-built countless things. I love to see him concentrate like that...he was in his own little world!
Taking a little potty break...cute little tush :)

Oh and one day he spent about an hour on this "card house"...

He is kind of a little perfectionist about stuff like this. Can't imagine why...but it makes me feel kind of bad, because my own perfectionism drives ME crazy sometimes! I notice when he colors sometimes, he won't just scribble, he wants to carefully try to stay in the lines, and if he doesn't he gets mad and wants to throw it away and start all over! I want to say...Gunnar...Just scribble!
He also had lots of fun with this marble set for a couple days...

He is just my little buddy and I so treasure these days of him being home with me.

He is really a pretty good little eater...there aren't too many things I put in front of him that he won't eat. And he is such a manners boy! I love it!
Please and thank you for everything.
He still loves preschool and comes home singing the cutest songs and telling me cute stories about his time there. Yesterday when I picked him up he excitedly told me that he has new friends! So I asked him who and he couldn't wait to tell me that there were two new kids in his class...twins! "And Mom they had the same shirt and the same pants on! But not the same boots, one had brown and the other had blue." It was so cute to  hear him describe them and I could tell he was so excited to have these two new little girls in his class.
So that is our little Gunnar in a nutshell at almost 4! Wow...how can he be almost 4? He talks about his upcoming birthday all the time. Oh and speaking of nuts...that's what he calls me or whomever he is mad at. "You're a nut!" ah...I'll take it, it could be worse!
Moving onto Ashton...
(love this picture of him:)

Like I said he is doing awesome in school and I am so glad! It really is nice that everything comes so easy to him, but then there is the other side of that, where he becomes bored at times and a bored Ashton is not a good thing! The kid that needs to be busy constantly...or "What should we do Mom?" "What are we going to do today Mom?" Or my favorite, when we're saying prayers one night, I was praying for people who don't have enough food to eat or a home to live in and Ashton in all seriousness as if it's the worst possible thing ever says "Or for people who have NOTHING to do!!" Really I think that's a fate worse than death for him.
He got this cool magic set from Grandpa and Grandma in Texas and loves it. He honestly spent about 3 hours playing with it the afternoon he opened it!

 He also got a bunch of books from them for Christmas and his birthday (the Magical Treehouse series) and he LOVES them. I am so thankful he has really started to love reading. He would stay up reading at night long past bedtime if we let him, and we actually will let him stay up and read for awhile when he wants to. He has a hard time winding down at night, so if reading helps...I am all for it!
I took these next pictures the other day just to show how much of a little clutter bug he is! Honestly he collects and saves EVERYTHING! He is the definition of one man's trash is another man's treasure! This is his nightstand...

 ...and the next one is his dresser and I go through it all at least once a month and de-clutter. It's kind of funny though, believe it or not I kind of remember being the same way...:) He really is like me in a lot of ways and I think that's why we butt heads sometimes!

Something funny he said the other day when we were working on his vocabulary words...we came to gullible, so I asked him what it meant and he said "Like if I told Gunnar I would give him a thousand candy canes if he went outside and stood in the snow barefoot, oh and naked, he would be gullible if he did it." hahaha! Oh Ashton...love it!
Then as I was sitting here typing on the computer one day, he came to ask me something and was in complete awe that I could type without looking at the keyboard. He said "How do you do that Mom??" And he had the same reaction when he saw me tying my pajama pants without looking a couple days later. I am just enjoying these days when he thinks I'm so amazing for things like that :)
We watched a great movie a couple weeks ago called "Mars Needs Moms". I had heard of it and thought it looked weird, but Lars recorded it and we all watched it one night. I totally loved it and so did the boys. Why did I love it so much? It just has such a cute story and I think was especially good for Ashton to see to make him realize how much Moms love their little boys (and girls) and that kids should appreciate them and tell them they love them more :) About halfway through the movie I asked him if he wished I'd be taken to Mars and he got sad and said no and came over and gave me a big hug and a kiss and told me he loved me. Good movie!
I am so glad these two have eachother :) They love to "swim" in the tub with their goggles lately...

Love, love, love you boys!