The J. Thalman Family: What the. . . weather?

Raising children is an unique experience with every child. It all goes back to realizing that each person is so individual. All the kids in the family can experience the exact same event and have completely different opinions or facts on what happened. This is because as we grow, we take our experiences and morph them into fitting into our brain and other experiences we have had. Thus, leaving each person with a totally unique perspective on the exact same event.
Getting to my point, Jaxon - the oldest - had a very different home as a toddler/child than Jainie - the youngest - has. In particular, Jaxon had homemade cookies everyday, a perfectly clean home, a very quiet house, had to entertain himself a lot, had millions of books read to him, was always right, never had to share, but was a bit spoiled. With each sibling, he had to learn a bit at a time to share, (not only his toys, but mom and dad) how to get along with others who always wanted to be right too, how to have someone follow him around, etc. You get the point. Every child, no matter their order, has to learn to accept and grow from different experiences in their life's. Clear down to Jainie, who was born into a family with 4 older siblings. As you can imagine, she has always had to share, to play with others, to get along, etc. And, being the baby, has grown up in a totally different household than Jaxon did in his toddler years.
This all does lead to a story, and here it is; in our house of ever changing dynamics, the kids do like to watch TV. Jaxon always got to choose whatever shows he wanted, so we watched a lot of Sesame Street, Teletubbies, and yes, even Barney. He loved those shows (he doesn't admit it now). We only had PBS. I loved letting him watch these appropriately aged shows. Jainie likes shows like WordWorld, HandyManny, Dora, etc. However, now Jaxon and Josie like tween shows like, Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie, even Hannah Montana (gag). So, when they all watch TV together, guess which shows they watch. No, Jainie never gets to watch her shows, but gets a LOT of tween drama. (Side note: I do happen to think some of these Disney shows are really quite clever and cute. Unfortunately, I must admit I get sucked into an episode every once in awhile.) This leads to Jainie and Jake acting older. They pretend to kiss on the lips, get very sassy with me, say things that are older sounding. For example, Jainie has a bad habit of saying, "What the," that's it, just that part. However, I find it very annoying, not cute, because then my brain and everyone else's goes right to the next word.
So, the other day it was raining a bit then turned to hail, yes hail! Big stones of hail, I couldn't believe it, it was crazy. I wish I would've gotten a picture but I was in my swimsuit and didn't want to walk outside that way. So, we are all just pulling into our driveway when it starts to hail and the kids are talking about what hail is and then Jainie says, "What the . . . hail?" Because she had just picked up on what the kids said it was. It really was pretty funny, everyone was laughing, even Jake who didn't get it, unfortunately, Jaxon, Josie and Josh did. Another great thing she picked up from TV, I think it might be time to cancel it.

Yep, she has a LOT of personality!

These pictures are of the day it rained really good. Jaxon got the "run around the house and pick up anything that can't get wet" job. Also, the window well in the back filled up, because we didn't have the drain on the house, and Jaxon got to bucket it out. Fun job!