Things I want to remember and am trying to forget.

First the things I would like to remember because they make me smile:
Last Thursday I had to take Brendan to the dentist for him to get some sealants in his molars to prevent cavities.  I hadn't prepped him that well this time to go to because last time he did so well (who wouldn't if you could just lay back in a chair and stare at a movie on the ceiling?)  So I just told him the morning of the appointment that we would be going to the dentist so that the dentist could make his teeth stronger.  His response was classic!
His eyes welled up with tears and his chin started to quiver as he choked up and asked, "But mom am I never going to be able to brush my teeth at night ever again?"  I just had to chuckle as I pulled him close to me and explained that he could continue to brush his teeth and that the dentist and mom and dad would really like it if he continued brushing his teeth.
Now something Brendan has asked me to try and forget:
Last night at dinner he asked me if yelling was a bad choice or a good choice.  I asked him what he thought it was and he said a bad choice.  I agreed and then he asked me "Well then why do you and dad yell every day?"  Ouch.  It really hurts when your kids call you out on something.  So I am trying to forget how to yell.  I really need to do better and usually I do pretty good at not yelling and speaking nicely to my children, but these past couple of days-I'll admit-have been pretty bad.  No tellin' why.  I can't even figure it out, but I have lost it one too many times for a while.  So Brendan and I made a deal.  I played his little game about trying to figure out if whining was a good choice or a bad choice and he guessed it was bad.  So if he can stop whining, I can stop yelling...wish me luck.
Next up:

Now we have instituted something new at our house.  We have been trying to hold regular Cleaning Parties!  A Party?  Yup.  We get our new timer out and set it for 15 minutes.  Then one of the kids get to choose an index card out of a bowl and figure out which room we get to go to.  We then make our way into that room and clean for 15 minutes.  We actually try to beat the timer.  When that 15 minutes is up, someone else gets to choose the next card and figure out which room we are headed to and we set the timer again and clean for only 15 minutes more.  I can usually get through 3 rooms with the kids and then they are distracted, but while they stay interested, they are so much help to me!  Even Lincoln.
One day I was just trying to tidy up quickly -not having declared that it was a Cleaning Party Day-and Brendan walks into the room.   He stops, looks at what I am doing and asks, "Hey mom, are you having a Cleaning Party without us?"
Loved it!
They soon had rags in their hands and were helping out...of course we had to get the timer out, though.  I have really enjoyed being able to work along side my kids.  They sure have made it fun and I appreciate all of their help and enthusiasm.
Next let's forget again:

I really don't know how she could be comfortable in this sleeping position, but when this girl crashes, she is gone.  More and more often she is crashing at about 5pm, sleeps until 7 or 8 and then wants to be awake until 1 or 2 in the morning!  I am trying to forget about how tired I am the next day after one of these crashes hits.  I really would like some help in this department because it really drives me crazy when she does this, but she is an absolute bear if I try to keep her awake...I know, I know, how could you ever be upset with a girl as pretty and cute as this?

Sleeping during the night has started to be quite the fiasco if you ask me.  3 days ago, all 5 of us ended up in the same bed in the morning.  Neil has promised a bigger bed after school is over.  That is what I look forward to these days.  Last night was better so maybe we are getting through this spat of sleepless nights.
Next something that the kids have remembered:

Now hopefully Neil will forgive be for posting such a flattering picture of him (one of the kids took it and it was the only one on the SD card that I have right now).  Last Friday I went out with girlfriends to a high school play.  One of the young women in our ward did an awesome job with her part!  But before I left, I made dinner for my cute family and then Neil said the blessing on the food.  Well, in the prayer he prayed that I would have a good time that night, but that I wouldn't be too crazy with my friends.  Well then I poured everyone a glass of water and Neil does this crazy thing where he pulls the pitcher of water way up high and then lets it fall into the cups.  The kids love it!  So that night, I tried to do it--and spilled some water and I said that I didn't need to be with friends in order to be crazy.  All of the kids thought I was crazy, though.
Well, days have passed and with Neil working in the ER right now he cannot be home for dinner and so I try and fly solo.  I tried to liven things up again the other night by pouring the water crazy...and spilled again.  Eliza said "Mom are you being too crazy again?"
It made me think of Neil and how much I miss all of the support and help that he is and that he has a way to always make things fun and helps us to laugh.  This is something that I really need to remember.  I love my husband!  I am proud of him for going to school so that he can spend more time with us in the future.
Next.

 

Lincoln is just so cute and at such a fun age.  He takes my mirror from me every morning when I do my hair...then I have to fight with him to get it back so that I can finish my hair.  Oh well.  This past weekend my baby became my toddler.  I finally broke down and gave him a hair cut.  The first haircut is always the hardest for me to give because it makes my babies grow up instantly.  But it was sorely needed and now he is just so cute.

I think that his favorite part of the haircut was being able to touch the clippers.  I wanted him to know that they wouldn't hurt him.  For the rest of the time all he wanted to do was touch them.  :)  But now he just looks so big and old and is ready to officially enter the nursery on Sunday!  YEAH!!!

He is just so cute...almost ready for school with a haircut like this.
And that about sums this catch-up post up.  Thanks to all of those faithful friends and family for reading all the way through this monstrous post.

Fee-Fi-Foes

Brendan came to me this morning asking if he could play with these fee-fi-foes.  I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked down and saw that he was holding some small figurines in his hand.
At Christmastime we were invited to a party at the house of one of the doctors that Neil was doing his clinical work with.  They generously gave each one of the kids a present.
Brendan came home with 3 G.I. Joes that night and loves them.
But he just can't seem to remember what they are called.  Fee-fi-foes?

Thirsty Tired and Granola

One of my favorite little games to play with the kids goes like this:
"Mom, I'm thirsty."
"OK Thirsty---" or "I love you Thirsty"
They typically get a little bit upset and correct me by stating their own name.  They really don't like the game at all, but fall for it EVERY time.  That is probably why I keep egging them on!
Last night at the dinner table Eliza said that she was tired.  Neil chimed in and said, "OK Tired, eat your dinner and then---" and then Eliza cut him off by exclaiming that she wasn't Tired, but Eliza Ann Erickson!"  (Please believe us when we say that Eliza is not one to be messed with when she is tired.  I think she gets that defective gene from both mom and dad, but oh well.)
This morning I was pouring some granola cereal over some yogurt for Brendan and I didn't know if I had given him enough granola with the amount of yogurt so I said "tell me if you need more granola" and before I could even blink an eye he replied with "My name is not Granola, it is Brendan."  I guess he had just heard "tell me if you need more, Granola."
I guess Brendan is finally catching on to our little game  :)

Let's get Disney

This morning and for quite some time now Brendan, Eliza and Lincoln have loved getting Disney.  They will spin around in circles for minutes at a time and then resolve that they are Disney enough and be done.  Then they start spinning again and again just so they can get Disney. 
I think that it was Brendan that just came up with that and no matter how many times I have tried to correct him and let him know that it is dizzy and not Disney, he can't get it straight in his head.  Eliza does everything that Brendan does and Lincoln thinks he is 4 right along with them.  I love to be able to watch my kids playing nicely together.
Absolutely love it!

Best breakfast!

So I have been really tired lately and when I woke up to a really loud somebody knocking on my door, I ran out to get it.  Lincoln had been sleeping with me...and when I turned around from getting the door, this is what I saw!.  All three of them were eating sunchips that were left out from the night before (thanks Neil) and three kids totally zoned to morning cartoons.  Now I feel like a really good parent already today!  We'll have to see how the rest of the day plays out...it is bound to be definitely good based on the balanced and nutritious breakfast we all had!

A child's prayer...at our house

I hope that this post isn't sac-religious in anyway because I just think that it is absolutely adorable how my children say prayers.  Brendan and Eliza’s prayers usually follow this general flow:  “Heavenly Father, Bless Amber on her mission.  Help Brandon and Sara to have a baby.  Bless us to be strengthly (not misspelled) and healthy.  Bless that the prophet will be our leader.  Help us to be good on the Earth.  Help us to be happy and play nicely.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”  There is usually some variance to it, other than the first sentence before and, as of late, the first two sentences.  Most of that stuff they came up with on their own.  The cutest is when Brendan helps Eliza to say it.  Priceless.

I have to add in this little tidbit of a story.  When Grandma and Grandpa Bedke were here visiting us right before Steven and Jill's wedding, we were sitting around the table and getting ready to eat and Eliza was asked to say the prayer.  Brendan didn't want to help her this time so Neil was helping her.  The prayer was a bit longer than usual because Neil was helping and Brendan decided enough was enough...he had better intervene and help Eliza end this prayer.  So after Eliza repeated what Neil had said and before Neil could add anything, Brendan jumped in and said: In the name... and waited for Eliza to repeat it.  I thought that this was just too funny and I started to laugh.  I was trying to muffle it, but then I just started shaking because I was laughing so much.  Eliza being the bright child that she is and never letting anything get past her, noticed and got this really confused and almost hurt look on her face.  I opened my eyes to peek at her because she wasn't finishing the prayer.  She was just staring at me and then of course at Grandpa, too because then he started laughing.  Then she started crying.  Neil ended the prayer.  I tried to explain that I wasn't laughing at her and that I was just laughing at the fact that Brendan had butted in because it was taking so long for him.  But there was no convincing her of that.  I tried to say another prayer with her, but I really couldn't compose myself.  I hope that Heavenly Father had a sense of humor in that moment, because I just am still giggling about it. 

I have to redeem myself now because I want everyone to know that I am trying to teach about prayer to my kids.  We pray quite frequently to help us find things that are lost.  But Brendan reminded me the other night at Family Home Evening about a special prayer that he had said back in July.  If this four year old kid can remember something as far back as 6 months ago, maybe something is sticking.  When we were in Mammoth for the family reunion Brendan lost his shoes.  They were the only pair that we had brought with us besides his Sunday pair.  We really needed to find them.  So we went looking...and looking...and couldn't find them.  Then he and I knelt down in the living room of one of the condos and said a prayer to have Heavenly Father help him find his shoes.  Right after the prayer, we went and looked in the rooms again and we were able to find his shoes.  He put them on, we said a prayer of thanks, and then he went off playing again.  Grandma later told me that he walked into their condo and Ryan asked where he had been and he told Ryan that he had been looking for his shoes and that Heavenly Father was helping him and that he had then found them.  What a great kid!

I hope that my children will always turn to their Heavenly Father again and again throughout their lives.

Oh and one more thing.  Every night Eliza will fall asleep during the song A Child's Prayer.  I think it is one of her favorites!  I know that it is one of mine.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Does your family like cookies?  Well ours sure does and I think my favorite are peanut butter ones because Neil makes them with the kids and it is just too cute the way that they work together as a TEAM!  :)  Last Sunday the kids helped Neil make cookies because our friends the Flynns were coming over and we haven't seen them in a long time.  They moved just 30 minutes away, but we haven't gotten together to play games for forever it seems! So we were happy that they were coming and Neil wanted to make cookies.  All of the kids had to help him.  I think that this was Lincoln's first time making cookies with his Dad.  Neil set Lincoln up on the counter and taught him how to turn on the mixer when it was time to mix all of the ingredients together.  That little brother is such a quick learner!  After the cookies were done mixing and the beater was up in the air, he decided to turn on the mixer again and little bits of dough went everywhere...especially all over DAD!  :)
Well the next step in making peanut butter cookies is rolling them into balls and then pressing them with a fork.  A long time ago when Brendan was just learning how to make pb cookies with his dad, Neil started making squishing sound effects when he would press the cookies with the fork.  It started a tradition and Brendan and Eliza started in with the squishes without having to be prompted at all.  Lincoln hasn't quite figured out the squishing sound or even using a fork yet.  He just wanted in on the action of squishing and this is what we got:

Good thing the stove top was not on.  We don't regularly set our children on top of the stove, but in tight quarters here we just don't have enough counter space! 

Eliza's face is the face of a very pleasant 2 year old little girl.  We love her dearly!

Brendan stole the camera and took this last picture of the cookies baking in the oven.  He then came and told us what he had done.
The cookies were very tasty and I had 5+ too many!  Thanks Neil and kids for the yummy entertainment and delicious cookies!

Pause

I am excited for this new year!  I can't believe that 2010 is here already.  Sometimes I wish that I could take just a little while and pause everything that is going on around me.  Wouldn't that be great?  The kids think that they can pause just about anything.  Today Eliza put her chips on pause so that she could come and help clean up her toys.  They have paused their playdough and even put their robots on pause.  See what the pause button on our DVR has done to my children?  Neil just asked me about 2 minutes before midnight if I could pause everything...has he become corrupted, too?  Just kidding.  What would I do if we could pause for a moment and take a look around.  I think that this is going to be my resolution for this upcoming year.  I would like to pause more often and take a look at my life and count all of the many blessings that I have.  I am happier when I can see them and I can see them more clearly when I pause for even 3 seconds each day.  :)

We got some snow today...lots of it and the kids got to go out and play with their Dad.  Lincoln didn't know what to think but Brendan loved it.  He said "Wha-hoo" every time he slid down the hill.  He is just such a boy and I love it.  Eliza just ate snow off her gloves the whole time.  She didn't like the sled at all.  Doesn't she just look so cute with her purple hat on.  Pink and purple are her favorite colors.  :)

I loved the festivities tonight.  We played Candyland and Squiggly Worms with the kids and then drank sparkling cider at 12 midnight hoosier time (9pm PST).  We figure that the 2 older kids were born there and as far as Brendan is concerned we are moving back there after Dad is done with school.  And they were super tired even at 9!  They are just so cute!

We are sad that we have to take the tree down tomorrow.  The kids don't want to take any of the Nativities down either.  This has been a good Christmas and New Year season.  Can't wait to see what next year has in store for us...Neil's graduation!!!!!! The countdown has begun!

Church time and Birthdays

When my parents visited us in December I had been busy getting ready for them all during the day and didn't have a chance to take a shower before they got here...so I just put on a little bit of perfume and came out to the living room and Brendan asks:  "Mom, why does it smell like Church time?"
I guess I never put on perfume unless I am dressed up and ready to go to church.
Then a couple of days later I used a match to finish up one of Eliza's presents for Christmas and Brendan walked into the kitchen: "Mom, why does it smell like my Birthday cake?"
So, Brendan has a really good sense of smell!  I just think that it is funny how we associate smells with certain events in life.  What memories come to mind when you think of smells?

Another update from Neil

The kids were sick for the last few weeks.  It started with Lincoln, then Eliza, then Brendan.  I think that means that I am next.  Or I guess Traci is younger than me so maybe she is next.  I actually think that I might have started it.  It is quite possible that I brought it home with me from the clinic on my clothes or something and Lincoln picked it up.  But they are all doing better now.  

Nights are still tough because all of the kids are up at different times throughout the night.  Or at least that is what Julia tells me.  HaHaHa!  No I do help with the kids.  I try to help Eliza, but she just screams and gets mad if I try to do anything with her.  I don’t know what it is, but she does not want me at night.  We are cool during the day, but nada at night.  Which is fine with me, one more reason to wake Julia up to take care of it.  But Lincoln has become more of my responsibility.  At night he does better with me, because he knows that I have no baby chow!  So the only real option for him to do with me is to sleep.  Brendan fends for himself and comes and gets in our bed all by himself.  Both kids have been wearing underwear to bed and we just do a lot of laundry.  We found that Brendan used to keep his diaper dry at night, but we just kept him in a diaper.  Then he started to always be wet and it was expensive to go through so many pull-ups.  Now that we are trying to get him to keep dry, he cannot quite get back to his dry nights.  Eliza started out staying dry at night with potty training time, but started to do the same thing and so we decided to put her in underwear too to prevent her from getting in the bad habit of staying dry during the day and wetting at night.  Her and Brendan are about the same success rate.  About 50% of the time they wake up dry.  Therefore we are doing lots of laundry, but it is saving money on pull-ups.  It is awesome to only have one kid in diapers.  Lots of money savings. 

It sure was nice to have Grandma here with the kids and then to have Grandpa and Chad come and surprise us at 3 in the morning for Lincoln's birthday!  

And we are still enjoying Traci...the kids especially!

Some funny stories from the kids:  I caught Brendan and Eliza standing on the bathroom counter with the medicine cabinet open.  When I inquired as to what they were doing, Brendan replied and said, “We are playing Sid the science kid.”  

We played a game for family night.  It was taking way too long for all of us to make it to our “happy home” at the end of the board.  I started to alter the game pieces and cards to expedite the game.  Some cards said move forward 2-5 spaces and some said move back 1-3 spaces.  I was making them all positive.  It got down to Julia and I being the only two left to finish and we each had one or two spaces left.  Brendan and Eliza had gotten really into the game and were watching intently to see who was going to reach home next.  I flipped over the card for my turn and changed the piece to say that I had done something bad and that I had to move back 32 spaces.  Brendan, in disbelief, dropped his head into his open hands and just sat there shaking his head back and forth for about 20 seconds.  It was classic.  Traci and I were almost crying.  

Lately Julia came up with a sign to signal for the kids to be reverent.  She decided the sign the letter “R” which if you don’t know is crossing the index and middle fingers.  It works really well for both kids: for Brendan because he is a pleaser and wants to do right.  It usually gets Eliza to be quiet because she stops whatever she is doing and tries to mimic Julia by making the same sign.  She struggles with it for a little and that takes her attention away from whatever distracting thing she was doing.  Apparently making that sign in ASL means “where is the bathroom?”  

Lately whenever the kids hear the front door close they will ask “did Traci leave?”  They are so paranoid that she will leave and abandon them with their boring old parents again.  A few times Julia has answered jokingly that she did leave and Brendan and Eliza will respond, “but I love her” in the sweetest, nicest voice.  When I heard that it reminded me of, “but he likes it!” 

(Contributed by Neil)

Portland temple photo shoot

Some funny stories from the kids:  When Grandma and Traci took care of the kids while we were at the Portland Temple they were walking around the grounds and Brendan said, “we need a map.”  He was also the first one to see the temple from the freeway.  Out of the blue, not with us prompting him to look for it or a temple that he has ever been to before, he hollered our, “I see the temple.”  Right as we were passing the exit we were supposed to take.  I was impressed that he recognized it on his own as the house of the Lord.  He must have good parents.

Brendan also decided to be a cheeser when Traci started to take his picture.  He just started making all of these faces on his own:  

We are so appreciative to Grandma and Traci for watching the kiddos so that we could have an enjoyable time inside the temple.  

While playing back at home, Eliza took one of the tongues from the Mr. Potato Head dolls and said “Look a pink spitter.”  She is too young to understand that tongues are used for more than just spitting, right?  I mean, you can speak different languages with them, trill them, etc.

Funny kids.  Thanks Neil for the documentation!

Some funny kiddo quotes...well, just from Brendan

Brendan’s reply when I told Lincoln to take something out of his mouth.  “Dad, he just wants to smell what it looks like.”  One night at the dinner table when Brendan and I were having a typical disagreement and making our points known, Brendan said, “Dad, stop arguing with me!”  He turned the tables on that one.  

Brendan wants really bad to be SpiderMan for Halloween.  Eliza wants to be Jesse from Toy Story 2.  We have a Yoda costume for Lincoln.  We also have a princess Leah costume if Eliza wants to wear that.  

Grandma and Traci will be here for it so that will be fun.  We will see what we can come up with.

Books...do you just read them?

In our house we do a lot of things with books besides just reading them.  Brendan likes to lay them on the ground and build roads with them.

I thought this whole patchwork of books was really kind of clever!

Eliza has been found after long moments of silence just enjoying a good book in her room.  I love it when this happens:

Lincoln likes to eat them.  Seriously.  We have this set of 12 board books that have made it through 2 kids just fine with minimal wear and tear...expected!  But with this kid he has destroyed them and devoured them.  Covers have been torn from them and then eaten.  I just don't know why he does this.

We just love BOOKS!  We can learn so many things from good books.  One of the kids favorite places to go is to the library.  They absolutely love all of the books that we bring home.  We read them over and over and over and we love them.  Some of our favorite books have been Fancy Nancy, Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys, Are you a Horse, and Giraffe and a Half (just to name a few)

How's this for street proselyting? and HARD WORK!

We love our kids to death. We appreciate them wanting to help when we go out to rake the leaves and do any of the cleaning up around the apartments. They just make me want to smile all of the time...well, most of the time!

Ta-Da

This morning Brendan came back from cleaning the pool with Neil and his clothes were all wet. When I asked him what happened he excitedly told me that he went under the water and that he didn't get water in his mouth or up his nose. I asked why he got in with all of his clothes on and he then told me that he had slipped on the step.
Then Neil filled in the blanks.
He fell into the pool (again) and Neil came racing over to him from the other end. Before Neil got to him, Brendan stood and looked up and said, "ta-da" with a big smile on his face. He is just tall enough that he can touch in the shallow end of the pool. Luckily, that is where he fell in.

Squishing water...that's AMAZING!

For lunch today I made the Sunday classic of grilled cheese and tomato soup.  I let Eliza help me flip the sandwiches and once we flipped it over she responded, “That was amazing!”  Apparently I am an impressive flipper.  Although I didn’t even know that “amazing” was a part of her vocabulary. 

While we were eating our Sunday classic, I finished before Eliza and she wanted some help, so she came and sat by me so I could help her.  In between her bites, I took a drink of water and was swishing it around in my mouth to rinse the food out.  I had a lot of water and so my cheeks were full.  Eliza saw my puffed cheeks and couldn’t help but squish them.  She quickly clapped my cheeks and water gushed out onto her.  She thought that was the funniest thing and I was thoroughly entertained also, so I let her keep doing it and Brendan had to get involved also.  They were just continually slapping my face waiting for water to spray, but I was laughing so hard at times I couldn’t keep my cheeks puffed out and they just kept on hitting waiting for something to happen.  It was very hard to not spray water out of my nose also during the laughing spells.  In the end we were all wet, but had some great fun.  Luckily Julia was asleep so we didn’t get into trouble.

Lincoln just keeps on getting into the drawers.  We are going to have to do something about our climber.

I have two weeks left of my summer break.  It has gone by so fast.  The only good thing about starting back up with school is that the sooner I start the sooner I finish.  And the sooner I get to draw a regular paycheck again.
-Neil  

Beanbags and more

Yesterday was a monumentous day in my life...I finally finished Eliza's bean bag that has been mostly done for months! (Brendan's has been done forever.) I won't say that it was an easy task with Eliza being herself all day. She just makes me laugh. I laugh because otherwise I would scream! :) For example: She came over to my sewing machine and said (to the machine), "I don't want you in here because you are making it too shiny in here" and then slapped the machine with the toy that she had in her hand. I guess the little tiny light bulb that is in the machine was too much for her to handle or it was crowding her spotlight. I really don't know about that girl sometimes. She is just such a character! But I hope they enjoy their bean bags. They did a lot of work by cutting up foam to go in them. They are experts at using scissors now becuase of it.Meanwhile...in another neck of our wood...Lincoln is managing to get himself stuck in a lot of places. Although I wouldn't mind getting stuck here:
Oh another funny thing. Lincoln is at that stage where EVERYTHING goes in his mouth. Today as we were pulling a small toy out of his mouth Brendan provided the explanation as to why he is always doing this: "He just wants to smell what it looks like." Hmmm....thanks Brendan!

Girl or Gorilla

Yesterday at dinner time this picture came up on our screen saver on the computer. Dad said, "look at that gorilla!"
Brendan's response-"no that is a boy, dad."
I'm glad that he already knows that girls won't ever look like this! This gorilla is at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. We got to visit there in 2007. Some people might recognize him because he was the gorilla that starred in Return to Me (one of our favorites).

Heaven Help Me

How could these three cute kids be so crazy sometimes?

Yesterday I had to change my shirt 3 times because I got poo from Lincoln all over me that many times...Yuck! Hope things go better in that department today.

Today Neil has to go to Seattle so I offered to clean the pool so that he could get off on time. I was all but done over there and was just putting the pool-tester kit away to turn around and see my children throwing fist fulls of potting soil into the clean pool. Needless to say, the pH will really be off now and they had to sit in time out for the rest of the time that we were at the pool. I probably screamed a little too much at them, but I am just too tired to laugh about it right now...maybe in a couple of days. When I then got out the vacuum to clean, Lincoln started crying because he had had enough with sitting in the stroller already. Sorry, guy. Talk to your brother and sister about it. Eliza walked up to me when we were about to go and without any prompting said "Mom, I'm done being a crazy girl" and then said sorry for throwing dirt in the pool. Thanks Eliza. Maybe all of those promptings to say sorry are finally paying off.

I only hope that I will make it through the day and that my kids will still be alive when it is all over. I have enjoyed having Neil here all of the time this summer. I don't know how we are going to do it when he goes back to school in September!

Under the Table and Dreaming

I love that (most of the time) all of my kids can play nicely with one another. It just so happened that today they decided to play under their table. I thought it was cute!