The Joy of Motherhood (It's Back)!

This summer, if you recall from my previous posts, was fairly bad on the coping with motherhood scale. The boys fought all day over the same toys, and Tommy seemed especially intent on doing the opposite of what I asked of him. 

This weekend though, watching them play in the leaves, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm at the difference in my kids that just a few months of school has brought about. At Tommy's parent/teacher conference Friday, his teachers had only the best things to say about him.  And, (are you sitting?) not a single tantrum. I am so, so proud of Tommy.  He is starting to look so grown-up these days, and I know my snuggle time with him will be over before I realize what happened.  He insists on holding my hand each morning we walk P to the bus, and I gladly let him. 

Patrick loves school. The girls love Patrick. At his school's open house last week, Tom and I were perplexed by the number of girls (and not just kindergarten) who ran up to hug him.  When we asked how he knows them all, he just shrugs his shoulders.  He comes home from school and sets himself up immediately at the kitchen table to do an hour or more of homework. That would be self-imposed homework.  He practices his letters, tries to spell out words (he got box all byhimself), and writes in his notebook.

This was a page he completed today, and below is one of his self portraits.

P started CCD this year too, so we haven't added many outside activities this fall.  Having her brothers around makes Kaya happy.  And me? My sanity has returned, and I feel like I can enjoy fall and all it has to bring.  

Halloween prep

The Pohl kids are getting excited for Halloween, and our costumes have been decided.  Tommy will be Olaf, Kaya will be Anna from Frozen, and Patrick- Emmet from the Lego Movie.  All great picks, but with one glitch.  You cannot buy an Emmet costume.  Despite the huge popularity of the movie, Lego has decided to not cash in on the windfall that they could collect if they would have manufactured an Emmet costume.  So begins another project.  I found great tutorials on the complicated process of making a Lego man head.  We opted to buy a large Lego Storage bin instead and cut out a large opening for the face so P will be comfortable wearing it for a whole night of trick-or-treat.

$31 on Amazon

We are going to try for some Emmet hair using foam insulation spray, but P also is set on having Emmet's red construction helmet.  After Tom and I had an in-depth discussion on what we could use to create the helmet., I found this on Amazon for $12. We decided it was worth the cost, so it is on the way to our house-

We didn't want to make Lego Man legs for P,  so I found these orange, fleece lined pants on sale at Gymboree:

Hoping they turn out to be the right color orange, but they have not arrived yet.

That leaves the cardboard body which we will make and then paint to look like Emmet's shirt, the Lego man hands, as well as the hair we will construct.  I want the hair/helmet to be removable from the Lego head like real Legos so that we can reuse the Lego head for future Halloweens. This costume is not going to be cheap, so the more we can reuse, the better. 

Kaya, 14 months

Kaya is a hair puller. She especially loves Tommy's hair. She loves climbing onto the couch to watch cartoons with her brothers.  Probably not much to my credit, she can now say "muffin" and loves squeezing past us to get into the pantry, grabs as many muffin packs as she can from the first shelf, and runs.  She's no longer a baby, but don't tell me. I am going to remain in denial a bit longer.

(You get a sneak peek at the "after" of our exterior project here)