Tuesday, March 24, 2015

He's had a Birthday, shout Hooray!

How does time go by so fast? M and K got big fast, but I feel like with Little B, time is going even faster. It's gotta be because I know that he's our last. I want to hold onto all his cute baby things for as long as I can. There are already so many things I miss. Like,when he was little enough that he would sleep on me at church, or his cute bum wagging back and forth as he crawled across the floor, or how he used to love being in the stroller when we would go for a walk instead of now where he MUST push it or the entire walk is filled with a very upset child yelling,"AND OUT, AND WALK, STUCK!!!" He doesn't not like to be strapped into things and will try to get out while telling you over and over that he's stuck.  I miss his open mouthed kisses that he would plant on whatever part of your face his mouth happened to land on. I miss the little baby that is know a wild and crazy two year old. Thankfully, he still has a little bit of the adorable baby chub on the backs of his hands and his feet. He'll still lay his head on my shoulder when I put him to bed, but not for very long. After he has established that M and K are going to bed too and he's not the only one being banished to bed, he says,"Bye, see ya!" He LOVES to go to Target. I know, such a happy mama! Truthfully, the reason he loves it is because of the free cookie he can get at the bakery. As we're at the light by Target, the light that you can't even see the store from, he'll get all excited and in a high pitched, almost scream voice he'll say,"coooookieeeee?!!!!!!!!" Today after we took the kiddos to school we were coming home and he said,"And Target?" I asked him if he wanted to go to Target and he said,"YEAH! A cookie and sicker(sticker)!" I love looking at clearance and he loves getting a cookie and a sticker, which he promptly takes off the paper and sticks on his forehead. He came up with putting the sticker there all on his own. He does it every time and I have gotten used to it. When we were there on Saturday he did it and M and K about died laughing. It is pretty funny and we had a good laugh about it. He loves to play outside and if it's time to come in before he's ready, he'll stand there, bow his head and cover his eyes with one hand while he cries. Watching him do it is truly heartbreaking. I keep hoping that I'll have the camera when he does it so that I can get a picture of it. (I know, I'm a little strange.)  He loves dogs and cows. In his head they're always together. If he sees a dog he yells,"A dog! Where a cow go? Moo!" We're still totally enamored by him and are so happy that he's ours forever!

I forgot to mention that he loves suckers. Loves isn't even the right word. He asks for them for breakfast and all day long. On his birthday he could have as many as he wanted. I don't know how many he ate, all I know is that I was shocked to see that there were some pictures without a sucker.


I don't know who loves this car he got more, him or K. He loves it so much that he wants it parked in the garage next to B's car.


Of course he got a train. He loves it, especially when K let's him have a turn using it. I'm pretty sure we've told K close to a bazillion times that it's Little B's train so it's Little B that should be sharing with him, not the other way around. I wish that we had already taken Little B's birthday pictures, but we haven't. Maybe next time! Happy birthday little boy! 

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Pals



 These here little fellas are pals to say the least. What might be more fitting is that they are one in the same. The only differences are their age and one of them has glasses. Other than that they are basically the same person. Just to clear the air, we do not put them in the same jammies. I got little B in his jammies first. K saw what ones he had on and said,"I'm going to wear my Planes jammies too, that way we can match!" They both love cars and trains and boats and balls and to put the marble track game thing together and watch the marbles roll along the thing they just built.


They love to play together, although the dynamics are changing ever so slightly now that little B can talk. Where K used to rule the playing field and do whatever he wants, we now here little B say,"No K! Stop!" The first time little B said it, K thought it was cute and proceeded to take away the car he wanted. But when little B took it back K didn't really like it anymore. Thankfully we have enough little cars to cover three small countries, so there's always enough to go around! (I'm not kidding about the amount of cars that we have in this house. See the wooden box in the background? FULL of cars. We're talking so full that unless the cars are put in there right, the lid won't shut. I know we have a problem. There are days when the crazy in me comes out and I go through it and throw some away because I can't stand finding them all over the house. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to find them in little crevices whilst young ones are in the bath.)



Sometimes when people come into our house that don't really know us they probably think that we never clean up the toy room. We do, it just doesn't look like it. It is totally normal to have the marble track game thing set up standing next to the door. Next in line are the cars that are in a pile next to the little police station and last of all are the trains that are taking up the rest of the floor. I used to have them clean them up as they went, but it was a waste of energy because they just go in circles of things they are playing with. I think that their little brains run on a chant that goes a little something like this," eat, marbles, cars, trains, repeat." If the weather's nice then they throw in going outside, but mostly they spend their days in the playroom together. Little B has become especially attached to rescue vehicles. He calls them all," Wee-o, wee-o's" He can spot them from an incredible distance too. The other week I was just finishing mopping the floor. He had been playing with his little police car. He kept saying over and over, "A wee-o wee-o." I kept asking him if he was playing with his police car. He would answer in a very excited voice,"Yeah! And a wee-o wee-o!" I got done mopping and went to rinse the mop out. I had to pass the window by the door. He was standing there staring outside. That's when I noticed that there was a fire truck across the street. We decided to use the outside water spigot to rinse the mop so we could watch the fire truck.


My guess is that it was a carbon monoxide detector that went off. There were no flames shooting from the windows and no smoke billowing up. People still go in and out of it every day, so clearly it wasn't destroyed in a tragic house fire. Anyway, we loved sitting out there watching the firemen come in and out and when they were able to leave, it drove right in front of our house. Best. Day. Ever! 


As the firetruck was driving by, it stopped, a fireman got out of the truck and walked across our grass. He gave little B this hat and said that they had all noticed that we had watched them. He asked little B if he liked the firetruck. Little B just stared at him with huge eyes. He didn't say anything so I thanked him for the hat. After the firetruck had pulled away little B started waving frantically and yelling,"BYE A WEE-O WEE-O!" I was able to get this semi good picture before he took the hat off his head and ripped it in half. Have I mentioned that he's crazy?! He likes rescue vehicles and K likes to shoot his Nerf gun.


I know he's outside in jammies. He didn't feel good this morning and by the time this afternoon rolled around there was no need to change. Yes we are so classy and let our kids play outside in jammies. Anyway, there's something white hanging in the tree. I don't know what it is. When I pointed it out to K he said that he thinks it's a butterfly cocoon. I told him I think it's too big to be a butterfly cocoon. He told me he would get his gun and shoot it down. As he was shooting at it he said,"Actually, I don't think that it's a butterfly cocoon. I think it's a baby tarantula." Great! In that case please continue to try and shoot it down from the tree! As we all know he gets his skills from me and so the white thing continues to hang in the tree at this very moment. I don't know what's in it and hopefully whatever it is, stays there until it's supposed to come out and then it can just climb down the tree and go away. Little B's job for now is bullet retriever. He doesn't mind it as long as K will let him shoot the gun once in awhile. I just love the fellas in my life and hope that they are always pals.


Wednesday, March 4, 2015

We love ice!

The other morning the phone rang at the awful hour of 5:45. Truthfully I was getting up to work out, but to hearing the phone at that hour made me one of two things was happening. Number one thought was that there was a family emergency and something terrible had happened to someone that we love. Or, school was going to start late. It had been raining all night and they tend to cancel school when it rains. Well, not just water rain, it has to rain ice. Anyway, I bolted down the stairs to get to the phone right as the machine picked up. Thankfully, no family crisis, just a two hour delay to school starting. If school's not going to be canceled, I'll take a two hour delay! The phone rang again at 6:45 saying that due to the rain that had turned to ice, school was no longer delayed, it was canceled! I clicked my heels together and did a little dance. No, I'm not making that up. If I had any kind of patience, I would consider home schooling our kids just so they could be home with me, but I know myself and home schooling would end very badly, so to school they go. But, I do love when they get to be home with me! The only bummer when it rains ice is the ice. It looks like snow, but it's not. M and K were so excited to go play in it. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't play-in-able, but they really wanted to go play. Out they went. I bundled up and then put little B in so many layers he almost couldn't put his arms down. The sun was out and it actually wasn't very cold. Our house sits at the bottom of a small hill. We had this great idea to go sledding down our street. Not gonna lie, at first I was really nervous to try it because it really was just ice. There was probably two inches of ice all over the road. We tried sledding, loved it and ended up playing outside until the sun had turned the ice to slush and the sled wouldn't slide anymore. We noticed that there were a lot of people using the road at the end of our street. That's a major hill, so we went over to try that one out. Our neighbor from across the street was born in Florida and had never seen snow. She's M's age, so she came sledding with us. At the top of the hill she just kept saying, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die!" I couldn't help it, I laughed at her and told her to be brave. I told her that she wouldn't die, that she was going to love it.

M and K were so excited to go all the way down the hill! They didn't care that they were going to be flying down a hill of ice!

Oh man! I stood there laughing at their happy screams. 

K would scream and then laugh. M couldn't help but scream and E was so scared that she would scream and then scream louder. Once they made it to the bottom and E knew that she had indeed survived, she stood up and said," That was so awesome! Can we do it again?!"
K took charge of this run and instructed me on what to do and how to make it so we didn't go too fast. Little B didn't know what to think. I didn't realize that I was squishing him, at least it kept him stuffed in the middle tight right? The whole way down K and I were laughing and little B was totally silent. When we got to the bottom he said,"again?" I asked if he wanted to do it again. He got a huge smile on his face and said"Yeah!" He started marching back to the top of the hill.
K made it to the top before little B could get there. When I took this picture it was so bright outside that I didn't realize that K was already going down the hill. I put the camera down just in time to see the inevitable happen. Clearly little B got wiped out. K couldn't stop so as he slid down the hill he yelled out sorry. B laid on the ice not being able to roll over to stand up because he had too many layers on him. I tried not to laugh as his little arms were flailing and his legs were kicking trying to stand up. Thankfully, he was more scared than hurt, but when I picked him up he was saying,"and done, and home, and done." Poor kid! It was lunch time anyway, so I rounded up the kiddos and we went home. M and K were not done being out on the ice. By the time lunch was over and cleaned up, the ice on the road had either melted or turned to a slushy mess. They went out anyway and discovered that another neighbor had a perfect sledding driveway! Before you go call DCFS on me, when it rains ice here, everything is shut down. The entire day I saw one car driving in the neighborhood. No one knows how to drive in the inclement weather and so they stay in their house. I knew they would be safe sledding down the driveway because there were no cars out.

They stayed outside and played on their driveway until dinner time. I could hear them screaming even though I was inside the house. I went out to check on them and the one that didn't get to sled was on check for cars duty. The other two weren't allowed to go until they had heard that it was safe to go.


We had bathed them before dinner to help them warm up. Playing out in the ice most of the day is hard work! It was such a fun day! What made the week even better is that the ice melted and the next time it didn't rain ice, it snowed real snow!
The real snow day started out with a power outage. Thankfully, B was off because he had been on call the night before, so he was home. Clearly, it wasn't too warm in our house. Even when the power's on and the heater's going, our house is drafty and cold. I thought it was just me that thought our house was cold, but the other day my friend was over. She was sitting in front of the window. She asked if the window was open. I said no, it just feels like it's open because the windows are so drafty. Anyway, so to have the power out made our house just real chilly! To pass time and to try to prevent the freezing process from starting, we bounced a ball back and forth to each other. I knew it couldn't last long, the snow looked awesome to play in. There were two problems with going out into the snow. #1- The power was out, so when they came back in, there was no way to warm them up. #2- we don't own any snow pants, boots or waterproof gloves. I knew that they would be so cold if they went out there. It was only a matter of time before they would ask to go out. I was truly hoping that they would be so cold inside that they wouldn't want to go outside. Of course I was wrong. The ball game lasted until 8:45 and then they wanted to go out. I hate snow. I hate that it's so cold and that you get wet and then freeze. My hands freeze and my feet get so cold that they hurt. And have I mentioned that they power was out? Oh that's right, the power was out, so there was NO WAY TO WARM UP!!!! That didn't not sound great to me. B loves to play in the snow and he really wanted the offspring to be able to play in it because the forecast for the next day was warm, so the snow was going to melt. He took one for the team and took all of them out so they could play. They had a great time and I was able to get a couple pictures!

This was before they went out. We don't have any gloves for little B, so we put socks on his hands and then put sandwich bags over the socks. He kept them on for the picture and that's about it.

Yay for snow days that there's actual snow and not just ice!

What a cute kid right?!

M is totally nuts and unzipped her coat. She said that she was getting hot. Clearly she's a little sick in the head!


K would pick up huge amounts of snow and throw them without compacting them into a ball. Every time he threw snow, it was like your own personal snow storm as it fell down on you. Little B wouldn't pick up the snow himself with the socks/sandwich bags on his hands. He had B pick it up and hand it to him. He ended up just ripping the socks off his hands. Then he really didn't like to pick the snow up. Maybe someday we'll get real gloves.

What's not to love about this one?! I am so glad that they were able to play in the snow! I'm even more glad that B was home to play with them so that I didn't have to! Too bad the snow was gone the next day. Yes, the next day. It was sunny and warm, so it all melted. Now you know why we don't have snow gear. The snow doesn't stay around long enough to justify buying any. 







   




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