Theft

On Thursday, I found Sam playing on the couch with this.

Me: Where did you get that?
Sam: It's mine.
Me: Where did it come from?
Samm: I found it in my room.
Me: Try again.
Sam: I found it outside.
Me: Where did you get it?
Sam: I found it in my room...no outside...It's mine.
Me: Did you take it from somewhere?
Sam: (shrug)
Me: Where did you take it from?
Sam: I don't know.
Me: Did you take it from playgroup?
Sam: No
Me: Did you take it from school?
Sam: (long pause, then very quietly) yes



So, Sam stole these bits of plastic from school. I've never seen them before and I have no idea what they are. On Friday, we spoke to the director of the pre-school. He would not say that he took them. He told the director that they accidently came home with him. She did prompt him, and he did finally say that he took them. They are bits from a large construction set. After Sam apologized, she and I talked a bit.

This is the first time that he has taken something bigger from somewhere. He has stolen toys, markers, books, etc. from his older brothers and from me. He has stolen hair bands and paper clips from preschool before, but this was the first bigger thing from school. I have a feeling that it is just a start. We talk about how stealing is wrong and taking things is wrong, but he just can't seem to understand that he shouldn't take things that don't belong to him.I am not sure how to get him to stop taking things.  He doesn't seem to feel much remorse about stealing it in the first place though.  Sigh.

Devilish Charm

This little man is full of charm.  Devilish charm.  And it's a good thing that he has it.

Today he stole a pair of Joe's scissors and cut one of Joe's brand new books.

Front cover and back.

Joe was fairly devastated as he treats his chapter books as if they are made of gold.  So Sam had to pay me the money to replace this book as well as apologize to Joe. 

Someone else in the house has been a bit distructive lately.

Lacey has decided that it is loads of fun to rip her dog bed to shreds.  Rolls of toilet paper can be substituted for a bed and shredded just as well.  Lucky for her, I understand why she does all this stuff. 
Plus Sam and Lacey are two of a kind...

A kookaburra has replaced the magpie as the resident bird of the deck.  For the first several visits, we'd all point, look, and comment.  It doesn't matter that kookaburras are quite common (and sometimes annoyingly loud) around here.

We've a very nice winter so far.  My parents enjoyed their visit, and we had good weather almost the entire time.  In fact, the weather for the whole winter has been much better than last year, less rain and warmer days.  The weather is supposed to get colder and wetter later this week though. 

In case you haven't heard...

Tom is back in a sling.  On Wednesday morning, all three boys were having a bit of a wrestle in the front yard.  I stuck my head out the door and cautioned them against such action, with a reminder to be careful.  Two minutes later, Tom starts screaming!  As soon as he came in the door, I had a feeling he'd rebroken his collarbone.  Well, actually, Joe jumped onto Tom's back while Tom was lying on the ground and that broke the collarbone.  An x-ray confirmed the break, right through the healing of the other break.  Tom gets to wear his sling for 6 weeks this time.  It means that his soccer season is over.  He's handling it all fairly well, but we still have 5 1/4 weeks to go. 
The kids will head back to school tomorrow.  They've been off for just over two weeks.  I am certainly ready for things to get back to normal a bit around here.
 

Challenge 16- Spouse

So for challenge 16, I am supposed to take a picture of my spouse.  In all honesty, Jay really dislikes it when I take his picture.  He's not a fan at all of getting in front of the camera.  So, I have to take them on the sly sometimes.  I did get him to pose for one picture but it didn't turn out so well. 
His posed picture:

Wouldn't have been so bad, except the wind was giving him funky hair. 
So I had to catch him unawares:

Yup, that's my Jay.

Thar' she blows!

We have been enjoying our time with my parents and have been visiting many local sights all over again.  As a special treat, Jay took off work on Friday.  We ate lunch at Murray's Brewery, which was really yummy and then headed out on a whale watching cruise.

This was our second time on the MoonShadow cruise.  While we didn't have any jumping whales this time, we had some great sightings.

My parents enjoyed their first whale cruise, though they had to bundle up a bit from the cold.

The water was rolling quite a bit, though we didn't have a lot of white caps.  It made spotting the whales a lot easier.

We even got to see a little flipper action.  The whales were being quite playful, but they just didn't feel like coming out of the water. 

We had one whale surface right next to the boat.  It then dove and swam under the boat from the middle starboard side and resurfaced on the front port side.  I grabbed a few good pictures before it went down on a deeper sounding dive. 

This picture is not only my favorite from the day, it is probably the best picture from the day.  It almost looks fake, but it's real. 

On the way back to the dock, we got to visit with some harbor seals. There are two in this picture.  Can you find them?

We also got to see some dolphins up close.  We had a few that chose to ride in the bow wave of the boat.

They swam right along with us and seemed to enjoy the attention from all the passengers.  All the boys loved seeing the dolphins up close. 

Challenge 15- Smiling Child

So challenge 15 is to take a picture of a smiling child.  It was hard to pick just one kid and just one picture.

I like this picture.  In spite of the fact that Sam has food on his face and is not looking at the camera.  It just shows his personality so much.