Seven Year Interview

I did a little interview with Isabelle now that she is seven.

1. Who is your favorite princess? Rapunzel
2. What is your favorite color? Purple
3. What's your favorite toy? My cheetah stuffed animal from Grammie
4. What's your favorite subject at school? Math
5. What's your favorite thing to do at school? Math and science 
6. What's your favorite thing to do? My favorite thing is to have a sleep over.
7. What do you dream about in your sleep? I dream about going to Disney World and seeing lots of characters. The characters I want to see the most is Elsa and Anna. 
8. What's your favorite animal? Cheetah!
9. What's your favorite thing to do outside? Jump on the trampoline.
10. Who's your best friend? Mary 
11. What are you afraid of? Nothing. A ghost. 
12. What's your favorite thing to draw? Cheetahs.
13. Where's your favorite place to go? The store. Walmart.
14. What's your favorite restaurant? Chick fil a
15. What's your favorite food? Cheesy Beefy Rice

Isabelle at Seven

Here we are...parents of a seven year old. One more year till she's accountable. Pressure is on! :) Here are some things about Isabelle at seven:

1. She's an excellent student. Every time I talk to her teacher, she tells me what a joy Isabelle is to have in her class. On her most recent progress report, she had straight 100s. 
2. Her favorite subject is math. She loves doing math homework...well most of the time. 
3. She loves to draw. She would draw all day long if she had access to writing utensils and paper all the time. (We have to keep them up and away because her sisters and brother STILL color all over the walls, doors, dressers and beds.)
4. She does well with reading and for a few months now has reached the 1st grade reading level goals. However, I can rarely get her to read at home. I think that she just likes playing and drawing and having fun with her sisters so much and works so hard at school that she just doesn't want to read at home. 
5. She is a big helper as long as she is in a good mood. She will clean, but she definitely prefers to do the rare jobs like cleaning walls, helping with the dishes, cleaning windows, vacuuming, etc as opposed to picking up or doing her chores. Getting her to pick up is a fight...but sometimes I really understand her frustrations. She hates that she goes to school all day while the other kids make messes. Then clean up time comes and she is the one who cleans up 60% of the mess while Em and Ella each do 20%. 
6. She's definitely the oldest. She wants to do everything first. She wants to be in charge of every game they play. She wants to tell her sisters everything to make their dolls say. She wants to do the most of everything. She wants all the privileges and delegate all the work. She want to boss boss boss...
7. She whines a lot still. She nags a lot still. She is never happy with an answer of no and she lets you know it. 
8. She hangs on to stuff and pouts for a really really long time.
9. She is very very stubborn. You cannot make her do something she doesn't want to. 
10. She's very picky about her clothes. I cannot go shopping for her clothes anymore. She's passed this picky-ness down to her sisters too.
11. She loves to do her own hair. Getting her to let me do it nowadays is pretty impossible. She is getting better, but she looks like an orphan child most days.
12. She has friends, but often forgets or tells us she doesn't have friends and everyone hates her.
13. She is really really good with Ruger. He does test her patience, but she has always taken him under her wing.
14. She will hold Evalynn when I make her so I can get things done, but she doesn't like it when Evalynn starts crying. As far as Evalynn goes, Isa really hasn't taken a liking to her like she did with Ruger. 
15. She often puts her name as Izzy on her school papers.
16. She cares what people think of her and her clothes A LOT. Some kids, mainly boys I believe, have made comments about her ugly clothes and she will never wear them again. Oh the fights and struggles that have been born out of some dumb kid's comments. 
17. She still will not wear clothing with buttons.
18. She doesn't like to wear any pants or shorts that have any gap in the back when she sits down. At all. I can't say I blame her, but it is really annoying that she won't wear much of anything unless it has an elastic waist.
19. Her favorite color is still purple. 
20. More times than not she comes home from school with food on her face from lunch! She has never started to eat normal again from when she lost her first tooth just over a year ago. She puts her food in her mouth from the side to bite it without using her front teeth, so she gets food on her face all the time. She's getting slightly better about cleaning her face after eating, but oh man. Not good enough.
21. We have a lot of dinner time struggles. She likes everything I make. Everything. Yet, if I make something she didn't want or if I prepare her plate incorrectly or whatever she deems not worth of her, she will not eat it and pout and complain all of dinner. When Curt and I leave the table, she will then eat it all. Or if I make something new and she doesn't want to try it...same thing. Complains all of dinner time, but will eat it when we are not looking. That stubborn streak. I tell you. We cannot make her do anything.
22. She is incapable of putting away her shoes until we ask her at least three times. Every day. 
23. She loves Primary. 
24. She knows the scripture stories pretty well. We go over scripture stories daily and she is able to answer a lot of questions we ask. She's gotten confident enough that she's started answering them in Primary too.
25. She wants to learn how to bake and cook well because she loves watching the Kid's Baking Championship.
26. She loves loves loves to play with her cousins. Nothing is better to her. There is no one she would rather be around that Abby. She would always pick to be with Abby over anyone. However, if Abby isn't around, she's starting to favor hanging out where the adults are. This is totally how I was as a kid. She isn't as bad as me, but she's still only seven. 
27. Out of her sisters, she would pick to play with Emery over the others 100% off the time. She's even admitted and told me lately that she doesn't like Ella. It's a very real problem in our house. Within seconds of her arriving home from school, all calm has disappeared and contention fills our house because the fighting and exclusions gets so bad.
28. We have yet to figure out a punishment that she truly cares about. 
29. When she is happy, she is such a joy. During those happy times, she will talk your ear off and tell you all about her day, the people in her class, her life from her perspective, etc etc. I love those times. However, if she is not happy, she makes everyone in our house miserable. And there is not a thing we can do to pull her out of it. At least not that I know of.
30. She loves to help make dinner.
31. She likes to write stories and illustrate them.
32. She is quite proud that I've started asking her to go to the car and get things. She loves when I give her that assignment.
33. She loves Star Wars.
34. Her favorite toys are Barbies and Princesses.
35. She struggles with our small house. She already is showing signs of wanting her own room and her own space. I think she likes the companionship of her sisters at bed time because she would actually be scared in her own room, but she really hates that there isn't really anywhere in our house she can go to be alone and draw or read or play by herself. Her sisters always find her. It doesn't matter if she hides in a closet or in my bed or where ever.
36. Speaking of hiding...she is is hide and go seek champ. Her cousins even know, she is the best at the game. A lot of the time, she's never found. They either give up or it's been so long, she gives up and comes out.

Ruger at Two Years

Our little boy is two years old! He is such a perfect addition to our family. I am thankful everyday that the Lord blessed us with a little boy. I'm so very glad to have his sweet albeit destructive force in our family. His personality is so strong and fun right now. Here are some things about him at two years:

1. He LOVES dinosaurs. Most of all his clothes, toys and bedding are dinosaurs. He also really loves trucks and 90% of the time is either playing with dinosaurs or cars.
2. He yells "TRUCK!" most of the time while we are driving around. He gets so excited to see trucks on the road.
3. He drinks all day, every day. I swear he would drink one sippy after another if I'd let him. 
4. His vocabulary is really taking off. He's doesn't really well. He's starting to combine words to make short sentences. While he is doing well, he still struggles to voice what he wants unless it is juice. He has juice down. 
5. He is so loud. He has a booming voice and very loud cry. That combined with him liking to talk and yell and scream and make roaring noises all the time...well he definitely adds to the continuous loud volume in this house.
6. He's learned to open doors. It's a sad day for me.
7. He loves to be outside. He cannot accept anyone being outside without him. 
8. If he is in the front yard, his first instinct is to run into the street. Having full arms or when the girls let him out of the house before me is my worst nightmare. That's often, people. Thankfully, we haven't had any close calls with cars, but I'm constantly terrified.
9. He willingly gives me lots of hugs and kisses. He will crawl into my arms and say, "Hug. Hug. Hug. Hug." over and over as we hug. Melts.my.heart. This is probably my most favorite thing about him right now. Or even thus far. Or even about being a mom currently. Brings tears to my eyes a lot of the time. I don't ever want this to stop.
10. He willingly takes medicine but not eye drops. 
11. He loves to play in the dirt/water/grass/mud whatever. 
12. He likes to have his teeth brushed.
13. We've sleep trained him to put himself to sleep. Every night we put him in his room, say a prayer with him, give him kisses and leave him and close the door. Most of the time, he won't cry longer than a minute. Now that he knows how to open the door, we are struggling a little bit, but not too much. He rarely has a nap anymore, so by the time bed time rolls around, he's exhausted and usually very tired and very ready to go to bed even if he doesn't realize it. Therefore even if he wants to put up a fight, it doesn't last long.
14. He sleeps through the night about once every blue moon. 
15. You can always hear him walking around our house. He's barefoot most of the time and we only have carpet in the rooms...so when he's walking around on the hard floor, you can hear each footstep because he slaps his feet on the floor as he walks. It's another of his little things about him at this age I know I'll miss someday.
16. He loves to look at books. His current favorites are the Golden books we have. Especially the three Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
17. He loves to watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates. If the TV is turned on, he immediately starts yelling for Jake. He also likes Sheriff Callie. He hasn't watch Backyardigans in a long time, but still loves to play with his Pablo figurine whenever it randomly surfaces around the house. 
18. He is really skittish around dogs. If they come too close he will start to cry. However, he loves to see them from afar.
19. He loves to climb onto things...couches, nightstands, end tables...and jump off. 
20. He loves to try on any shoes that are left around the house. 
21. His favorite people are his two grandpas and his daddy. 
22. His favorite place to be is in the garage with daddy playing with all the tools.
23. He is a destructive force like Ella. Those two play quite a bit.
24. He is a hitter. Bad. He hits everyone a lot. 
25. He considers himself an excellent disciplinarian. If the girls are getting in trouble or throwing a fit or being naughty, he will hit them, he will tell them, "Ella! Night night!" and he has even thrown stuff at them. He recently threw something at Ella because she was throwing a fit and it caught her right beside her eye and gave her a nasty black eye. 
26. He can't and won't even try to say Emery or Ruger. Evalynn is baby but he's said Evie a few times. Ella used to be his word for all girls but now it is just for Ella. He pronounces Isabelle as Imbelle. So adorable!
27. He loves to say "bye bye" to people. He says it for a good minute after we drive away. And by "says it" I actually mean "yell it."
28. Within a day or two he learned how to do matching ABC puzzle games on my phone to spell words in the Endless ABCs app. He's a pro. He sounds out the letter A over and over to ask to play it. It's the first game on my phone I've had in his lifetime and it's only been around for two weeks or so. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that I downloaded it yet. 
29. He prefers shorts to pants. He doesn't really like pants because they slip under his feet when he doesn't have shoes on and he hates that.
30. He loves to jump on the trampoline. Especially close to the edges. He's fallen off a lot. Five or more times in the last month or two. I cannot watch him on there because it makes me a nervous wreck. 
31. He loves to climb on top of the dining room table. If he gets away with it, he will reach for my glass chandelier and clang the jars together.
32. He makes hilarious faces. Especially when he is surprised or has found a stick to use as a sword. 
33. He loves to play with balls. He throws everything, but especially balls. 
34. He throws a decent amount of tantrums but they don't last too long.
35. He has no patience. At all.
36. If he wants me to be somewhere or get him something, he will come get me and push me to where he wants me to be so he can point to it.
37. He loves when Isabelle puts him on the small tricycle with her and takes him on a ride. He can get himself around on the tricycle by just using his feet to push himself, but he can't steer it at all. 

This little boy is so fun right now. Yes, he's a two year old, but I think because he's learning to speak so much later than the girls, the fun age of learning how to talk is balancing out the terrible twos. He is so fun to have around. I love having a little boy in our house. I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father gave us a little guy to blend in with our four girls. I just wish I could bottle up his personality and this age so much. Man we love him.