Bullies & Laughs

First for the good news, Victoria started laughing on Saturday. It was the sweetest little giggle and we of course could not get her to do it again once we had the video camera. She did laugh several times on Saturday. The very first giggle was inspired by a tickle and peek-a-boo from Mommy! Here is our little darling in her bumbo seat (Thanks, Amy!) helping Mommy make whole wheat waffles (just in case you care about our whole grain intake!) on Saturday morning. This was taken just a few hours before the laughter debut!On the not so good front: Our son's best friend is a bully. Here is our handsome six year old playing soccer with his team, the Green Dragons. Once again, he is the largest child on either team! And the bully? One of the tiny children on the yellow team. I know, I am a terribly cruel woman to call another child a bully. Believe me, I have given this kid the benefit of the doubt. He is our neighbor and we have known him for over a year. During this soccer game, we observed this bully, whom I shall heretofore refer to as Mr. Naughty Pants, intentionally kicking and pushing children who were no where near the soccer ball. This observation was merely the straw that broke the camel's back for me... I'll explain more...
In addition, our wonderful six year old lost his other front tooth last week! Here is his little snaggletooth face!
How did he lose this tooth, you ask? Well, the aforementioned bully yanked it out of Isaac's mouth with his undoubtedly grubby little hands and then lost it on the playgroud. Isaac had to give the tooth fairy an IOU. So let us make a list of all the things from the past 16 mos. that have led me to conclude that this child is a bully.
1. Last year, shortly after we moved in, Mr. Naughty Pants taught Isaac to give people "the finger", a fact I discovered at a block party, when I looked over to see my sweet 5 year old flipping off the neighbor's six year old little girl.
2. He has cursed at Isaac many times.
3. He simulates pelvic thrusting randomly while they are playing army guys or star wars or whatever they might be playing.
4. He ALWAYS bosses Isaac around and calls him names if Isaac sticks up for himself at all.
5. He told Isaac that his dad was going to shoot Isaac in the head and kill his whole family.
6. He has kicked, punched and slapped Isaac.
7. At recess and in our neighborhood, he tells other children that they are not allowed to play with Isaac.
8. In the boys' bathroom at school , he recently decided to show everyone his family jewels.
9. He was hit Isaac in the head with a metal pipe (allegedly on accident)

I am certain that there are other things I have omitted...
I would like to say that I have tried, and continue to try, very hard to be compassionate to this boy. He has a single mom and one 15 year old sister who is supposed to baby sit him after school but mostly just ignores him. He is often over at our house for an hour or two when she eventually wanders over and says, "is my little brother here?" I know, I know, I should be more compassionate- and I try. I invite him in to play when I really want to say, Stay away! I figure he is better off in our house than wherever else he might be wandering around. I let him stay for dinner and endure his incessant smacking and try very hard to invite him to fun activities at church and to be an all aroud good neighbor. I am sure Isaac does his fair share of misbehaving, but I know that it is not nearly on the same level. I sent Isaac to his birthday pary with a very nice gift and let them play together much more than I would like to... But I am not going to let him turn my son into a juvenile delinquent!
I truly am willing to accept any advice. Although we have not let Isaac play with him for certain periods of time and on certain days, I seriously worry about forbidding him to play with Mr. Naughty Pants. I worry that this will impede Isaac from being able to make good choices and I generally accept the philosophy that it is better for him to learn how to choose not to play with someone now rather than when he is a teenager and the stakes are even higher. In addition, I worryt aht he will just play with him at school andstart getting in trouble there. Part of me wants to say, "You can never play with Mr. Naughty Pants again!"
All suggestions accepted...

Victoria's 3 month Pics

Victoria has been 3 mos. for a little bit now, and she gets more delightful every day! I must say, my memory has faded a little of baby times with my older kids. I am remembering each day how sweet and precious these times are. Tori gets bigger and more interactive every day. I am truly humbled by God's amazing power and His willingness to entrust Matt and me with another of His sweet children. We absolutely adore her and are reminded each day of God's love for us through caring for Victoria, as well as Isaac and Daphne. They are truly our greatest joys in this mortal journey. Here are a few of her smiley moments! Isn't she the cutest bunny you've ever seen? I got out one of the bigger headbands because I couldn't find the little pink one- and here she is, rabbit ears and all:
This isn't the greatest shot, but you can see more clearly that her eyes seem to be turning blue or maybe green. Isaac is a blue eyed boy and Daphne's are hazel. I thought for sure I would get a brown-eyed girl, but they look more blue every day!

It's a Mystery!

My kids are so cute. I don't even try to be reasonable and objective any more, because they are just too darn cute for words. As with most siblings, we can either get pictures of them completely adoring one another or screaming at eachother. So here is a good one of the former option: In the previous picture, notice that Daphne has mixed and matched her pajama top with a lovely pink skirt. She hasn't been able to find matching jammies for a while and I will explain why: Well, things have been a little on the crazy-busy-don't -even -sit -down -and -take -a -breath- all -day side since school started and I have been a little behind on cleaning. BUT, I have kept up with laundry, so where could her jammies be? CLUE: Daphne LOVES to dress up, which is super fun because dressing up was my favorite thing to do when I was little. I love to see all her new creations. Yesterday, I went downstairs to their play area and looked through her dress up trunk and found five different pajama pieces, none of which matched. So, she's been coming downstairs in the morning and trading her jammies for dress ups! We solved a mystery. Here she is dressing up this week:

Ahhhhh.... Relaxation

Life can be tough when you are a baby in the Hunter house. There is a lot of eating, an inordinately large amount of growth, lots of sleeping interrupted by very noisy older siblings, and just general uncertainty about the world all around. Here are a few things Victoria does to relax:

THE BOUNCY SEAT: Tori loves to hang out in here for time increments of about 10-15 minutes. She likes the vibrating seat and watching the bubbles and fish attached to the seat. But, she mostly likes to sit in the seat and have long meaningful conversations with her mom. These delightful talks are mostly about how beautiful and smart she is and about how much I love her!
THE BATH: Victoria is a third generation bath lover. Her Nanny is a committed non-shower, 3 hour bath kind of woman. Her Mommy also thoroughly enjoys a nice long bath whenever life and time permit. Victoria can be a cranky ball of fussiness and a bath will ultimately sooth her sweet little spirit. Don't expect to see elation- Tori enters a state of tranquility in the bath tub!


THUMB SUCKER! Much to her father's chagrin, Victoria hearts sucking her thumb. She does not have the complete set of motor skills to consitently get the thumb extended and into her mouth repeatedly, however. She know it is on the end of her hand and she tries really hard to get it extended and into her mouth all at the same time. When she acheives this magnificent state of bliss, she is a happy little peanut! In fact, she spends the great majority of her waking hours trying to recreate this effect. I am trying to get a good picture of her sucking her thumb, but so far, this is the best I can do:

First Day in the First Grade...

Our family has had a very busy few weeks, culminating in the first week of school for all of us. Isaac began first grade, Daphne started her last year at preschool, Victoria started her first week of staying with her Nanny (Matt's Mom) in the mornings, Matt began going in to work later so that he can see Isaac off to school and Tori to Nanny, and I began my third year of teaching at Weber State. All in all, the week went very well. Everyone is adjusting and seems happy with their respective places. Last year I decided to begin the tradition of making a "First Day of School Cake", which is supposed to resember a chalk board. Cake decorating is really not my forte, but the words are fairly legible. At the bottom, I have the children's initials and what grade they are entering. The idea is to get a picture of them holding the cake each year, and to share a piece when they come home. I told both of them that the rules say that they have to tell me about their day while we eat. This is especially helpful with my tight-lipped son, who does not voluntarily share many tidbits of his day. Daphne, on the other hand, usually can't stop talking about her day!
I have really tried to promote the new school schedule by telling Daphne that it is just us big girls who go to school and reminding her that the baby is too small for school. She has started referring to us as "the big girls" and I am truly enjoying our time together. I get to really listen to all of her fabulously imaginative stories and remember how positively delightful she is!
Can you believe I have a first grader? My sweet son is 6 1/2 years old and jumped into full school days this week. His teacher seems great and he says he likes it. He looks like a worn out little puppy dog when he gets home, but I think he is doing well. Matt and I both wish we could observe a day of school for him- we hope he is making friends and following the rules and having fun.
I took Isaac for his well child exam, and he was once again off the charts for height and weight. He is 4'3'' and weighs 66 lbs. I have gotten so used to Isaac being so big for his age that I sometimes forget how tall Daphne is: She was in the 95th percentile for height and 74th percentile for weight.

My Cute Kids!

Life has been completely busy and crazy the last few weeks, with all of us preparing for and starting school. Matt was in D.C for a while and we missed him profusely! Anyway, I did snag a few photos of my sweeties one Sunday morning before church: Big Sister and Baby Sister:

Once Upon A Hunter Family Holiday...

Well we spent the past weekend celebrating PIGWAB. All of my two devoted blog readers may remember a similar post from last year. Matt's father's side of the family has a family reunion event every thirteen months which has take on the name PIGWAB. It's an interesting story and I would be happy to explain in more detail for any of you who have a burning desire to know more. I'll be holding my breath as I wait for that email! Anyhoo, last year we had an All American theme and this year our theme was Fairy Tales. Now, this celebration has evolved into a 3 day extravaganza complete with games, contests, prizes, shirts, annual reports and food galore. So here are some pics from our wonderful and exhausting weekend:

I found THE most adorable little matching tiaras for my girls. Here is Princess Daphne with her Princess hair:
And here I am with Tori in her beautiful tiara! (It looks fake, but we really are in the backyard!)
Some of the table decorations were little plastic fencing swords, which quickly became props for play sword fighting. That's Isaac's back...
Baby Victoria 2 1/2 months old:
One of the contests was decorating cardboard crowns, and here are ours:

I'm not really sure what Daphne is doing with her hands...

Here is one of the castles from the "Build a Castle" contest:
We played a game called "Slay the Dragon" where we tried to demolish two different dragon pinatas. The first one we tried to pummel in the traditional manner (sans blindfold).
The second one we tried to destroy using a "spear":


But alas, this method was unsuccessful, so we went back to the traditional method:

Here we are participating in the somewhat traditional PIG LOB contest, where we try to throw water balloons through the Pig's mouth. This year our pig donned a crown to accomodate the theme.

My nieces invented a relay race where the children had to go down a slip 'n'slide, ride a stick horse and capture the princess... My camera died during this contest, so mics are limited. We also bobbed for apples and did lots of other fun things that I was unable to photgraph. We had so much fun and it was good to be with family.

Here is Daddy and his little princess!

Ice Cream Truck

So, we heard the ice cream man driving through our neighborhood the other day. I know it is kind of creepy and way over priced, but Matt and I both felt that getting a treat from the Ice Cream Man is one of those quintessential childhood experiences that everyone should have tucked away in their memory bank. So, when they were playing outside and Matt heard the music, Matt told them they could get a treat if he came by our house. Daphne kept saying that she didn't want to see the ice cream man and seemed very concerned about the whole ordeal. Since this is not her nature, Matt asked her why she didn't want to see him. Daphne said, "I don't want to see the Ice Cream Man, that sounds scary." It was at this point that Matt realized she thought that a man made of Ice Cream was driving around our neighborhood. Matt explained to her that he just sells ice cream and promised Daphne that he would look just like a regular person. She seemed encouraged by this. After a long while, they came inside thinking that he had left our neighborhood. Then they heard the music again and their faces lit up like Christmas morning! They ran outside and Matt whistled as he drove by. The truck went to turn the corner and Matt looked at the worried faces of our sweet kids. BUT, he made a u-turn and came back to save the day! The kids were so excited to choose their own treat and Isaac picked an Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ice cream. Now, we have strictly forbidden the purchase of any Bratz paraphernalia, and any time we see Bratz products in the store Daphne says, We don't buy those because they are skankin'." (Yes, I do realize that I should not say skanky in front of my child and we have since clarified more appropriate terminology.) But alas, the only girl type ice cream was a Bratz treat, so we allowed her to get that. Whatever happened to gender neutral ice cream? Incidentally, the Bratz ice cream girl had colors that were running together and she looked as though she was crying because she received way too much collagen at her last appointment with the asthetician. But we did have one very messy and memorable evening!

Tori's First Photo Shoot

Matt's sister, Raegan, took some beautiful photos of Victoria when she was 2 weeks old. These are the pics we used for her birth announcements. She is such a gorgeous baby!

Victoria's 8 Week Pics

I can't believe it has been 2 months already! Here are a few pics of Tori from the last few days. I know the flower is huge, but I couldn't resist!
Smiling at Daddy!
Smiling at Mommy!