'This is TERRIBLE!'

Jackson is 4.... that leads to some interesting conversations at our house.

A handful of days ago Jackson brought me a toy he had broken and showed me that it was broken. I looked at it and said, 'Oh no, that's too bad. Did you break it?' He looked at me and replied as innocently as he could, 'No, it must have been Kambree.' Still unsure, just for good measure, I said, 'well, I sure hope who ever broke it will tell me. It would sure make Jesus sad if we broke something and didn't tell anyone. I don't know if Santa would want to bring any presents to someone who did something like that.' A few minutes later Jackson tapped on my leg and said sadly, 'This is TERRIBle!' 'What?' I replied. 'I did not tell the truth.... now Santa won't bring me presents!' and BURST into tears. Poor kid. We had a good talk about lying and decided that if we said sorry and didn't tell any more lies he would still be ok as far as Santa goes.

Speaking of Santa... there is a website, The Portable North Pole, where you can type in some information and they will send you an email from Santa for your kids or who ever you choose to send it to. I did this for my kids and sat them down to watch it. We started oldest to youngest so Jackson got to go first. Near the end of the video the elves put their name into a machine and it tells them whether or not that kid was naughty or nice. Jacksons came back nice and he was thrilled. Next was Kambree's turn. When it got to the elves putting the name into the machine, as the machine was computing Jackson was chanting... 'naughty, naughty, naughty....' Of course it came back as nice which was just not fathomable to Jackson. He was SO upset! Stinker!

I have really been working on trying to focus on Jesus and His birth this year with the kids. Sometimes it seems to work better than others. Kambree is like a sponge and she absorbs most everything I say. She tells me about Mary and Joseph and the Wisemen and Shepherds. Jackson on the other hand... sometimes I wonder if he catches much of anything I say. His little mind has a million other things going on and he can't seem to focus on the things I tell him about. Usually if I ask he can tell me who Jesus' mom is, stuff like that, but it has to be kept to just a few words answer or we get distracted and he begins telling me about his cars, or transformers. Such is life with a little boy I guess.

Our house came in one tone paint. In order to keep costs down I have been painting all the base boards and doors. I will never EVER take 2 tone paint for granted again! It is such a time consuming process. Especially when you have 3 little kids who want to paint also. Because of all my little 'helpers' I have been trying to do most of my painting while the girls are napping or after we put the kids to bed. Today I was painting some doors while the girls were napping. Jackson was just hanging out in the hall talking to me as I painted. During this time his little fingers kept on finding their way to my paint. About the 50th time of me saying, 'Jackson, could you PLEASE stop touching my wet paint?' I got this reply, 'Mom, I am really trying! I tell my body not to, but it just does it anyway!'

I just love my little 4 year old. How interesting he makes life!