Silas the singer

Silas has impressed us with his singing ability lately. He has actually gotten quite good at carrying a tune, better even than Joel, and Joel's not bad for a preschool aged kid. Silas loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Most of the words are substituted with "Bah-buh-bah-buh" but he sings it right on pitch. His favorite part of the song is the part where he actually CAN sound out the words correctly and it is the cutest thing to hear him sing this. (I really have to start posting videos, as I can tell describing the singing is not doing it justice) He sings the part, "Up above the world so high" but he says "Up above the high", but he sings it very clearly and on pitch!

Social interactions at 3

We have been quite proud of Joel for trying to reach out and make friends lately. We encourage him to approach kids in his preschool class and on the playground and strike up conversations. Joel has been trying, but it seems other three-year-olds aren't quite ready for him yet.

The other day at preschool, Joel was putting his things in his cubby (like a mini-locker) and another boy was doing the same at the cubby next to him. Joel said, "Hi, I like Thomas the train, do you like trains?" The other boy looked at Joel's Thomas backpack and said, "My backpack is way cooler than yours." Now what kind of 3-year old talks like that? "Way cooler"? Come on, I really hope he's not getting that attitude from mom and dad. Joel didn't seem bothered by it though, thankfully.
Then at the park the next day, Joel saw a boy with a "Cars" shirt on (a recent Pixar movie) so he decided to try to make a friend. This boy was a little older, maybe 4 or 5 years old. Joel said, "Hi, I'm Joel. Do you like trains? Because I really like trains." The boy just stood there and stared at Joel with his mouth hanging open. Joel then said, "Why aren't you saying anything?" Then he walked back to Jorie and said, "Mommy, why isn't that boy saying anything?"

At least Joel should have no problem making new friends in Iowa! Here's a recent tower that Joel built with legos. He said he was building "Chicago".

We're moving!!

Sorry it's been so long since I have updated. I apologize to all my faithful readers. (both of you) This is a random collection of quotes and stories that I have been trying to remember until I got a chance to sit and write a blog post about it. I hope it doesn't seem too disjointed.
On the day when we sold our house, we were so excited and Joel and Silas definitely caught the excitement bug from mommy and daddy. First of all, we were all shouting "Yay! The house is sold!" in the car after we got the good news from our realtor. Then we pulled into our driveway and Joel said "What's this? This is not the brown house." He thought we were moving in right then and there. If only it could be that easy!
Once we were inside, the boys were still very excited (mom was too) and Jorie was saying "Woohoo!" Silas copied her by raising his hand in the air and saying "Wooo!" Now whenever Silas is excited, this is his new celebration. He still does the clapping for little things but now for big excitement he raises his arm and says, "Wooo!" Joel's response to Jorie's cheering was to say, "Mommy, we do not yell in the house."
Silas also loves to do animal noises. He will respond with the appropriate noise for just about any animal you can think of. His lion roar is the cutest one. Lately he has been very into jumping off things. Today, he just got daring enough to jump off the second stair. He seems to be quite the little athlete. Recently, Joel and Silas came home from a friend's birthday party with a couple balloons. Bopping the balloons up in the air and trying to catch them was an endless source of entertainment, especially for Silas. He'd try to jump and toss it at the same time for maximum effect, but he could rarely get the timing right and it was hilarious to watch him. Silas is talking a lot more just in the last week. He'll try to say almost anything, really. He loves to try to pop out and surprise you and say "HI!" He also loves calling his brother "Jo-Joel".
Joel understands that we have to keep the house neat for our buyer. The other day, Silas spit some carrots out on the carpet, making a little mess, and Joel said, "Oh no now we cannot get the brown house!"
We recently had a memorial for my mom to remember the 1-year anniversary of her passing away and entering into her eternal life in heaven. It was difficult, but I think it was good to take time out to think about her and reflect on this past year. We've been trying to make sure that Joel always remembers Grandma Donna. He definitely still thinks about her and remembers very specific things about her. One time, he spotted an airplane way up high and he said, "That airplane is bringing Grandma Donna back from heaven." Joel gets sad when he thinks about heaven because the main thing it means to him is that once you go, you can never come back.
I banged my foot on the leg of the loveseat a few nights ago and Joel was so sweet, he came up with the idea of saying a prayer for me. He said, "Please help Daddy's foot heal and make Daddy feel better."
Joel has been going to preschool since the beginning of this month and he LOVES it. He has NO PROBLEM whatsoever saying goodbye to Mommy and running off to play in his classroom. In fact, after coming home and having lunch after his first day of preschool he asked if he could go back and got very upset when he was told that preschool was over for the day. Preschool is only twice a week, but Joel wishes it was every day.

Joel's expanding vocabulary and a prayer

Here are four sentences I've heard Joel use, with some new 4-syllable words. I am pretty impressed with him, for a 3-year old. I have no idea what is expected at this point, but this seems pretty good to me.

"I was looking for it on the high table, but it was on the original table." (high table = kitchen island, original table = kitchen table)

"This juice box will not cooperate with me." (this is after getting squirted in the face while squeezing the juice box too hard)

"Me and Silas are organizing the leaves." (Actually, they were throwing them off a bridge)

"Stop it, Silas! I'm concentrating on building a sand castle!" (Joel was piling toys into a big pile and pretending to build a sand castle, but Silas kept trying to take the toys to play with)

Joel also frequently uses the words actually and accidentally.
Our Library had been closed for a few days this past week and we had no idea what was going on. There has been some flooding recently, but it was hard to imagine that the library would have been affected by that. But we wondered, because we hadn't seen any signs, it was just suddenly closed all the time. Yesterday, I decided to try to take the boys to the library again, and hope it was opened now. When we pulled up to the library, I said, "Look, Joel, it's open! Yay!" Joel said, "Did they get all the water out?" I replied, "I don't know if there was water in there, Joel." He thought about it and said, "Hmmmm... was there poop?"I prayed with Joel last night, as usual, and he added this to my prayer. This is as close to word-to-word as I could remember: "Thank you for all the babies who are living right now and growing up, and thank you for the mommies who are living. I pray that they will keep on living and that they will not be dead." You gotta love kids. They love everybody and they cut right to point.