Category — Will

A couple of months ago we started a new “good behavior program” at our house. I bought a bag of marbles at the dollar store and cleaned out a cherry jar and let Will know that when he filled the jar with marbles he would earn a reward. This time his reward was a trip to Chuck E. Cheese!

Will earned his last marble at the first of the year. He can earn marbles by obeying without complaining, feeding the dog, putting up his dirty clothes, being nice to his brother, being cooperative at the grocery store and sometimes just for being cute.

Will was SO proud of earning all his marbles! There are 50 marbles in the bag and it took him the better part of 2 months to earn them all. Some days he lost more marbles than he earned!

Typical Will.

PawPaw and Nonny met us at Chuck E. Cheese for the festivities. {And Will somehow convinced them that they should take us to eat at Ichiban!}

This backhoe ride is Will’s absolute favorite thing at Chuck E. Cheese – he probably spend half of his tokens at this ride!

Thomas took a ride on Clifford.

He had this really amused look on his face the entire ride. It was like he was really having a good time but wasn’t quite sure what exactly was going on.

It was a fun morning for all of us! We can’t wait for Will to earn all of his marbles again

Will was not very cooperative at our last photo shoot (Thomas’ 9 month pictures) and I had been  hoping to get a couple of picture of just him to mark his third year. So, after Christmas our friend Ryan came over and took some pictures of Will playing with his favorite things. It was the perfect way to capture who Will is as a 3 year old! If you’re in Chattanooga and looking for a good family photographer give Ryan a try – Ruby Photography: rubyphotos (at) hotmail (dot) com

Since Will’s first Christmas we have gone back and forth on whether we would “do” Santa at our house or not. And 3 years later I think we’ve come to a solution that will work for our family. It really couldn’t wait much longer since Will is old enough to understand most things!

The short answer is: We don’t do Santa. But, it’s really not as simple as that (nothing ever is)! I hope I am able to describe how we feel in a clear and meaningful way.

Advent: During the Christmas season we strive to put as much emphasis on Christ as possible. For that reason, we celebrate Advent in our home each year. We read Scripture each night of Advent that tells the entire story of Christ from the beginning of the world to His return as Savior & King. We hope that Advent will become a treasured tradition for our boys and not simply a countdown to Christmas.

Gifts: We want to teach our children that we give gifts (to our family, friends & others) at Christmastime to celebrate the gifts that God has given us. We want them to be generous towards others and not just in December but year round and Christmastime has lots of opportunities to pick presents for other children, donate food, or send gifts around the world through Compassion, World Vision, etc.

If we stop to think about all the gifts that God has given us, I think we would describe those as lavish. God’s love for us is lavish – he held nothing back not even the life of his only Son. In that way, the gifts that we give our children may be lavish. Or if you prefer, we are probably going to spoil our kids at Christmas! This does not mean that we are going to buy things that we cannot afford.

Santa: If we don’t “do” Santa what does that mean exactly? We’re not 100% sure but this is what we think it will look like.

The gifts our kids receive at Christmas will be from us.

We won’t use Santa as a discipline technique – “You better be good or Santa won’t bring you any presents.”  One, we don’t want to give our authority as parents away to anything. Our kids should (or suffer the consequences) obey us because we’re they’re parents. Two, if we give gifts as a representative of God’s gifts to us – God does not withhold the ultimate gift of salvation because we aren’t good. Thank goodness, salvation is by grace alone and not because of anything we do or don’t do!

As our kids get older, we will explain why people celebrate Christmas with Santa by telling them about the real St. Nicholas and how generous and giving he was.

We’ll still get our kids picture made with Santa because it’s fun!. We are definitely not “bah-humbug” about Santa but feel like this is best for our family. So, what do you do at your house?

Our new house has A LOT of trees in the backyard and 3 in the front yard so we had A LOT of leaves! A few weekends ago PawPaw brought his lawn mower over to get all the leaves up and Will was a big helper.

November 2 was a very busy day with movers unloading at the new house, Bill went back to work and it was Will’s birthday!! While I was with the movers Will spent the day “working” with Papa. It was the perfect thing for him to do on his birthday since “working” is one of his favorite things to do. That night we celebrated his birthday at Chuck E. Cheese!

This truck was Will’s favorite thing to ride! He had Nonny guard it so nobody else would use it while he went to the bathroom

There was a simulation roller coaster – and we rode it with our hands up

Opening his presents. He wore his hat backwards all night because “sometimes boys wear it like this.”

He loves Chuck E. Cheese!

Blowing out the trick candles

Happy Birthday Will!!

*** Somehow my Mom and Bill’s Dad didn’t get in any pictures all night long! But, they were there to help us celebrate***

Tuesday was Will’s first day at CCC this year. He was really looking forward to his new teachers, new classroom and new friends. His teachers this year are Mrs. Heather & Mrs. Kathy and he is already talking about them all the time. Of course we had to get our “first day of school” picture – and it was crazy!

Honey had to spend a couple of days in Nashville for work and it’s always a treat to have a guest! Will loves when people spend the night in his room – but watch out because he will crawl into bed with you

Papa sent some money to take the boys to Chuck E. Cheese – and we thought it would be a great way to celebrate Will’s first day of preschool. So after a fun day at preschool and a good long nap we headed out to play and eat pizza.

The Bob the Builder ride was a popular choice. I think Will rode it at least 6 times in a row.

Bill and Will riding the horse that you have to “guide” through the race course.

Thomas & Honey.

Bill & Will driving the race car.

This was Thomas’ first trip to Chuck E. Cheese and he loved all the bright lights!

At one point we looked over and found the boys in the crazy simulator contraption.

Thomas sat on the Merry Go Round like he knew just what to do.

When we were eating a teenage boy that worked there was cleaning/fixing a table near us and we were watching him. He looked over and said something and I said that we were just sitting there wishing that he would go and put on the Chuck E. Cheese because it would make a 2 year old really happy. A few minutes later – out came the mouse!!

Chuck E. Cheese had a sign that said “Follow Me for Free Tickets” and Will was at the front of the line.

All the kids had to do a dance and then they threw tickets out for the kids to gather up.

Thank you Papa & Honey for a fun night at Chuck E. Cheese

Last week Will’s friend, Judge, came over to play. Judge is a friend from church and playschool but it’s the first time they’ve been able to play at our house. They had an absolute blast! And they were SO cute and well behaved. I couldn’t help but take their picture all day.

The best conversation of the day went like this:

Judge: That’s baby Thomas.

Will: Thomas is a baby.

Me: Judge doesn’t have a baby at his house. Do you Judge?

Judge: I’m the baby! (Judge has 4 older brothers.)

The first thing Will wanted to do is show Judge his new bed. This is before they also piled all of Will’s animals in with them.

Then lots of playing in the “work” room.

Playing makes boys hungry! Lunch consisted of: PB&J sandwiches, popcorn, raisins, crackers, watermelon, bananas and chocolate milk.

They would put raisins in their mouth and then chomp on them with their faces about 1 inch apart. I hope they don’t do this at playschool

Thomas thought they were crazy boys!

After lunch it was time for more playing.

No play date is complete without racing on the scooter & tricycle.

They took a 15 minute break to watch Boz and eat fruit snacks.

They finished the afternoon playing cars.

It was a great day and we can’t wait for Judge to come back again!