Bits and Pieces

Ever since I took the boys to the dentist earlier this month, Deacon has enjoyed practicing his own dentist skills out on Josh. It's really quite amusing to watch Deacon wrestle Josh to the ground, "force" open Josh's mouth, then grab a nearby toy or whatever to "clean" Josh's teeth. When Deacon's finished, he closes Josh's mouth and announces, "All clean!"

Here are some pictures of the future dentist at work:

* * * * *

The other week on CakeWrecks, there was a link to a fun little quiz thing. It's 100 cupcakes, each with a different picture on it. Each picture represents a different game, and the "quiz" is to see if you can name the game portrayed on each cupcake. There are all kinds of games too - board games, video games, computer games, etc. It's really pretty neat and worth a look.

100 Games Cupcake Game

I got 56 of them. Josh got 68. What can I say? He's a bigger nerd than I am.

* * * * *

I know I've posted a picture like this before, but it happened again the other night, and I just about died from the cuteness, so I'm sharing...

Besides the sock missing from Deacon's right foot, I think my favorite part is how Zeke's leg is draped over Deacon's. I really can't imagine this being comfortable for either of them though.

* * * * *

Finally, for all you fellow knitters/crocheters out there, I'm on Ravelry. It's a pretty neat site. You should let me know if you check it out and decide to join too. We can be friends there. It's also where I post pictures and things of the stuff I've been doing knitting-wise. Anyhoo.

And...that's about it from here for now. Later!

It Was Too Cute.

This is how the boys walked around the store today (when Deacon wasn't riding in the cart that is):






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All He'll Want For Christmas

A few weeks back, I mentioned that Zeke has an absess above one of his front teeth that I was instructed to have looked at by a pediatric dentist. Our family dentist was kind enough to provide a referral and a phone number to a pediatric dentist somewhere in Anchorage. Actually, they referred me to one place, but called as I got home to tell me this place wasn't taking new patients at the moment, and gave me the info for a second place.

After getting the kids lunch and putting them down for naps, I called the pediatric dentist and explained to the secretary about the absess and what's it. After I finished my spiel, she first asked (in a rather incredulously toned voice) why didn't the dentist write Zeke a prescription since an absess is a clear sign of an infection? Then she informed me that I should have had the absess looked at right away instead of waiting so long because it could "move from his mouth into his brain, explode, and that could be fatal". After delivering this fabulous little tidbit she finished by saying that they couldn't get him until February 18th. Wow. So now my over-sensitive pregnant brain is freaking out thinking, "You tell me my kid could drop dead any minute from this thing in his mouth, then tell me you can't see him for over a month?!?"

Don't worry, he's fine. When I told Josh what she said, he reassured me by pointing out the fact that the absess is in the front of Zeke's mouth and would have to travel to the back of his mouth before it could ever go to his brain. Plus, it had been there for quite some time, and since it doesn't even bother him, it's nothing really to worry about. Thank God men are logical beings.

All the same, I didn't really want to wait until February to see what the deal with this thing is. When I took Zeke to his check-up two days later, I asked if there was a pediatric dentist on post, was given his number, and gave him a call. Now, however, is a terrible time to make any sort of dental appointments on post. There are a ton of guys getting ready to come back home after a year long deployment, not to mention a bunch more getting ready to leave for a year long deployment, so all dental personnel are wrapped up in this stuff. However, when I called to see if we could get in I was told that every Tuesday from 9-11 the pediatric dentist sets up at the Arctic Oasis and sees all walk-in children, and I would have to bring Zeke there for him to check out the absess to determine what should be done next, if anything at all.

Groovy, right? So, we were all set to go last week, but then the boys woke up super early (like 5:45am early), which meant they were both melty and uncooperative by 7, which meant we didn't do a thing last week. We stayed home and had morning rest time. However, we did make it there yesterday, and this dentist was wonderful. We actually got there a few minutes before 9, but he was all set up and ready to go for it, so go for it we did.

As I was filling out the health form, I told Zeke that the man in the white coat was the dentist who was going to be looking in his mouth. Zeke then walked right up to him and went, "AHHH", nice and big. The dentist laughed, gave Zeke a high-five and started to show him the light on his glasses that he would be using to look at Zeke's teeth. He said Zeke's teeth looked great, except for that absess. Before we could talk about the absess though, Deacon started getting antsy for his turn even though we weren't there for him. But he jumped up and down next to me saying, "Sit Mommy's lap (the dentist had me sit Zeke on my lap with his legs wrapped around my waist, then laid Zeke's head back onto the dentist's knees, and I have to say, I really like this method). Sit Mommy's lap. Dentist light. Deacon dentist light." The dentist laughed again (he really got a kick out of Deacon) and gave Deacon a little examination too. Again, beautiful teeth, lots of space in Deacon's mouth, everything's groovy.

After Deacon's turn, I let the boys play on the playground right there (I'll have to write more about this place later, it really is an amazing set up), while the dentist and I discussed Zeke's absess. The dentist said that it is a result of Zeke falling and busting his tooth (you know, way back whenever that happened). He was a little surprised to see it sitting so perfectly between two teeth, but since the one is discolored he knew which one was the cause, and announced that the tooth shall be pulled. That's right. Once the appointment is made, my son will look something like this:

Josh says the pink doesn't really show up well (you can click on the picture to see it better, I think) and I should make the hole black. Let's see...making the hole black... So I guess he'll look something more like this then:

Okay, probably not. We're just goofing around. But, the tooth will be pulled, there will be a space there, and it will be a part of his smile for the next couple of years. That's right, years. Initially, our family dentist said the pediatric dentist might suggest a baby root canal on the tooth so it doesn't have to come out yet. Yeah, baby root canal. The pediatric dentist we saw yesterday said the tooth is just going to come out in a year or two on it's own anyway so why waste time and money on a pointless procedure. He'll just have the gap a little bit longer than he normally would have and he'll be fine.

I'm not sure I will be. I don't think I'm ready for my baby to start losing his teeth. That seems like such a "big kid" thing. Like first grade or some time around there. Not when he's 4. But there you have it. Now I'm just waiting on his office to call and set up a date to wiggle it out. I think I'm okay with waiting on making this appointment though.

An Apple A Day

My boys are eating apples like big people now. How did we get here?











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Brr...It's Cold In Here!

Sunday morning, as we were getting ready to leave the house for church, our carbon monoxide detector started going off. Josh and I looked at each other with rather confused faces. As Josh went to check things out, it started saying there was a fire. Knowing full well there was no fire in the house, we decided the batteries must be dying. We replaced the battery, all was silent, so off we went to church.

When we got home, I could hear the carbon monoxide detector beeping again. As I opened the door from the garage to the house, we could smell a bit of gas. Lovely. I should probably stop here to note that twice during the week last week, the heat would kick off and not come back on until Josh went downstairs to manually flip a switch and get it going again. I called the rental agency, who in turn, called their heating and plumbing guy to come out and see what the deal was. He came, he looked around a bit (not at the part that was broken, but since I had no idea what Josh was talking about to begin with, I didn't realize he wasn't looking at the right part), and told me that our heating system was so old and simple that it would either work or not work. And since it was working, there was nothing wrong with it. He then bid me adieu and was on his way.

Back to Sunday. So, Josh turned off the heat, called the rental agency, who called the same guy, who called us back and said there was nothing he could do since it was a Sunday and he'd send someone out Monday. Until then, we opened a bunch of the windows, turned on the fans, and prayed that none of us would get carbon monoxide poisoning. (Needless to say, neither Josh nor I had a good night's sleep on Sunday.)

Monday morning, a different guy than the original guy came out, took a look, and found that there was a crack in the pipe, and that's where the gas leak was coming from. And, of course, it was in that one spot that the first guy never checked. Guy #2 (who was much more personable than the first guy) determined that the whole thing needed to be replaced. So, at 9am Monday morning, our heat was turned off as he began to work. At some point G2 realized that the new unit was smaller than the old one so he had to go back to Anchorage to build a part that would properly hold the new unit in place. He left, around 10:30 or so and didn't come back until 1pm. Keep in mind we're without heat this entire time.

After getting back, he went right back to work and found that he needed yet another part. He said he knew he was going to need this part, but until he actually put it all together he didn't know what size he was going to need. Once he determined the size he needed, he left again, to go buy the part. Sometime close to 4 he was finished and we once again had heat. Yep. Seven whole hours without heat. In January. In Alaska. Fantastic.

Praise God it happened on a day when Josh was home from work so he could deal with it all, and it happened on a day that was relatively warm. I think the temperature peaked around 27degrees that day, so not bad. (Especially when you consider that every day since it has not made it to the double digits.)

SO, how did we keep warm during the day you may be asking? We each had our own methods of coping with the cold.

Josh chose to make a fire, and tend to it all day.

(He got a little upset that I chose the moment he decided to burn our paper recycling

instead of the firewood to take a picture.)

Deacon and I decided to snuggle under a blanket and read books.
(Having the cat on our laps certainly didn't hurt either.)

Zeke's plan was two-part.

First, he decided that eating would be a good thing to do.

After packing on a few extra ounces, staying in constant motion

was how he beat the cold.
(He's jumping in this picture - hard to tell when it's a still shot.)

And there you have it. A great way for us to spend Josh's 4day weekend. I can hardly wait to see what President's weekend holds for us.

Peavey's Turn

I figured while I was taking us all to various doctors and dentists and the like, I would share the health care love with the cat. See, for the past few months he's been doing this awful coughing thing. It sounds a bit like he's coughing up a hairball, only nothing comes out, and it's a bit deeper and raspier than normal hairball coughing. Plus, he will cough like this for a good 3-5 minutes at a time. Sometimes he even coughs for a few minutes, gets quiet for a few minutes, then starts again, and repeats the pattern for an hour or so. Needless to say, I was getting concerned, so I made an appointment and brought him in this afternoon.

Turns out, he's constipated. Poor cat will be so embarrassed when he finds out I put that out there like this, but that was the vet's prognosis. He said it happens a lot with older cats (like Peavey), who are on a dry food diet (like Peavey). Apparently as they get older, their bodies can't handle all that dry food by itself. He also said that all of Peavey's vitals are excellent, and that Peavey's lungs and heart are perfectly clear. Good deal.

While we were there I also got Peavey all caught up on his vaccinations and rabies shots and stuff. He was due in March for it all, but the vet said we might as well do it today since we were here. "Let's save you a trip" he said. Very cool. Oh, but back to the cat's constipation, we got some laxatives for him and was told to add wet food to his dry food and he'll be good to "go". *chuckle*

The photos in this post are of Peavey doing some of his favorite things: playing railroad baron (aka being in the way), sitting under the Christmas tree (which, he obviously doesn't do anymore, but he LOVED it under there), looking out the window from the top of the couch (aka spying on the neighbors), and sitting on Josh's fleece (if he can't sit on Josh's lap, might as well snuggle into the next best thing). Oh, that cat.

Evaluation Part Two: Zeke

During Deacon's initial evaluation, I mentioned to the therapist how I was more concerned about Zeke's speech than Deacon's, and asked if she had any ideas of what I could do to get him some help. She said I could about it one of two ways. I could either call his pediatrican at the clinic and see if she would be willing to write him a referral for evaluations/services based on my request. This, she said, could one of two ways as well. The ped could either say, "Sure!" and give me a what I ask for, OR (and this is the more probable answer I was told) the ped would say something along the lines of how the military doesn't like to shell out the money for services when the Alaska gov't has so much of it, and we can get services that would be free for everyone if we go through the Alaska school system. The other option is to just go through the Alaska school system myself.

I said to the therapist that Zeke isn't in the school system, so how could we do it that way? She told me that he's old enough to be in school out here (which, he is) and that I could enroll him and go from there. I told her how I had tried to enroll him in preschool but he's not potty trained and no 3-year old class was willing to take him untrained. She looked a little surprised that he wasn't trained, but then smiled and told me all about this wonderful program they have out here for children with all sorts of developmental delays.

Basically, this program (from what I was told) will evaluate Zeke, then place him in a classroom with a team of teachers/therapists who will focus on his main problem areas. Plus, there will be other children in the classroom so he'll get to socialize and be in a school-type setting. When I brought up the potty-training issue again, she said (rather excitedly) that his not being trained yet might help him get in the program, and they will help work on that with him in school. Wow.

So, when she came back out the day after Deacon's second evaluation (to go over the evaluation results with me), she brought an application for this service for me to fill out and fax in to get started on getting Zeke some help too. We filled it out, Josh brought it to work and faxed it for me, and I made the follow-up call to make sure they got it. A few days later I got a call back to set up an appointment, and off we went.

The evaluation went well enough. The woman who performed it said at the end that Zeke is very difficult to understand and will almost definitely qualify for services, but he has to go through further evaluation first. Like Josh's sister said, that's a little less definitive of an answer then I was hoping for. My guess, though, is that the initial evaluation is just their way of weeding out the hyper-sensitive crazy parents from the parents with legitimate concerns. Now it's been determined that we have legitimate concerns. And this is pretty much where Zeke's story ends. As we were leaving his initial eval, I was told that their secretary would call me to set up a second eval. She said they it probably wouldn't be until the second half of this month because they were booked solid with evals the first half. We're still waiting for the call.

Now, I'm pretty patient, and I know they're legitimately busy, so I'm trying not to be all "when are they going to call? what's taking so long? maybe I should call them and remind them we're waiting over here?" But what's making that hard is that since Deacon is seeing a therapist, he's pretty much in the system, and is in line to be evaluated for the same program Zeke is. Apparently they like to get things going for the kids really early, so 90 days before his 3rd birthday is when they'd like to see Deacon for the eval that Zeke just had. And when Deacon's therapist was here last week, I filled out the same application I had filled out for Zeke last month, and we pretty much have an evaluation date set. So I asked Deacon's therapist if she would sort of mention Zeke when she called again about Deacon. I feel a little bad about it, but I really would like to get Zeke's ball rolling a bit faster than it is right now.

On the plus side though, I was able to get in contact with EDIS in Germany (the service we used with Zeke on his speech when we were out there) and their new coordinator emailed me all of Zeke's old paperwork. Isn't she fabulous? So now, whenever I do get a call to schedule Zeke's next eval, I will have his paperwork to either email them ahead of time or bring with me, so they can see what we've done before.

So, there you have it. Deacon's meeting weekly with a therapist to work on his listening and speech skills. Zeke is waiting on a second eval with the school system for placement in a classroom for his speech delay (as well as his refusal to potty train - because yes, he does refuse to go on the potty). And I'm just hoping that it all falls into place well before Omi gets here, if only because I don't want to have 3 in diapers at the same time.

Evaluation Part One: Deacon

I've been meaning to sit down and write this post for some time now. It may wind up being a bit lengthy, so bear with me.

Way back in October (see? I told you I've been meaning to write it for awhile) I was trying to get the boys' physical paperwork signed off on by the clinic so I could enroll them in CYS (Child Youth Services - sort of like a babysitting center on post, only they do much more than that). So I get an appointment for Deacon after quite the hassle, I bring him in and instead of the appointment being a physical, it was put in the system as a "well baby" appointment. Sigh. So after filling out all the paperwork and such associated with well baby appointments, and getting him weighed, measured, and the like, the doctor came in and started in on the well baby questions. I stopped her and said, "All I want is for you to sign his physical paperwork. He was just here 3 months ago for his well baby." She looked surprised, said, "Oh. Well, the didn't even need to make an appointment for that, they could have just looked up his stuff from the summer and signed it. (AHHH!!) But since we're all here, let's have a look at him anyway."

Let me stop here to say that the paperwork associated with well baby appointments/check-ups are a packet of "can your child do this" type questions and you check "yes", "sometimes", or "no". My problem with this is that there were a bunch of things on those papers that I had no idea whether or not Deacon could do because they aren't things we do around our house. Sorry, but we don't spend out days threading beads with shoelaces or dressing baby dolls. So, for a number of the activities I had to check "no" because I've never seen him do it. It's not to say that he can't, he probably can, but on the off chance he can't, I had to check "no", just in case. I really think they should have a 4th box "haven't tried/no experience" or something like that.

So, because I had checked "no" to so many of the motor skills activities the doctor said she was worried about his motor skills and wanted to have him evaluated by a physical therapist to help him get on track. I told her I wasn't worried about his motor skills, and that if anything, he was probably a little behind on his speech/verbal skills. Of course, I'm not worried about him being a little delayed in his speech, because I know that his main role model is Zeke and Zeke still isn't anywhere near where he should be speech-wise, and that once it clicks for Zeke, Deacon will take off with him.

Anyhoo, the doctor put in the referral anyway and I forgot all about it. A few weeks after his appointment, I got some papers in the mail saying the referral had been accepted and sent to an agency out here and I could contact them whenever I wanted. About an hour after I checked the mail and got the paperwork, a therapist from said agency called me to set up a time for her to come out and evaluate Deacon/get started on some of the paperwork for his therapy. I figured if she was willing to come to our house, and it's not something that would hurt him, why not?

The following week or so, she came, she saw, she agreed with me that his motor skills were perfectly fine, and that maybe he did have a slight speech delay, then asked if I would mind if she came back with the occupational therapist for further evaluations, just to see where he is with everything. Again, I figured it couldn't hurt, so why not? (I told you this might be lengthy.)

About two weeks later the 2 therapists came over and evaluated Deacon a bit more in depth. Funny side note, the occupational therapist is our pastor's wife who knows Deacon already because she volunteers in the nursery occasionally. They scored him up and his motor skills (gross and fine) are well beyond where they should be. His speech is even right around where it should be. However, his listening skills were a bit "immature" let's say. That means that under the old system he would have been classified as just fine and wouldn't have qualified for any services. But there's a new system in place where they can offer partial services for children who need just a little help, and that's where Deacon fit.

So, they paired us up with one of their therapists (we lucked out and got our pastor's wife), and she comes every Thursday or so for an hour in the morning and just hangs out with Deacon. She brings specific toys for him to work with, and he has a great time with her. The hardest part is keeping Zeke occupied so he won't try to play with all the toys too before Deacon gets a chance to explore them for himself. And that's that. I've been working on slowing down my own speech when I talk to Deacon, which seems to help, and trying to ask more questions about things going on in the books we read. He just needs to slow down and listen a little better. Kind of hard for a 2 1/2 year old, I know, but he's getting there.

And then there's Zeke, which will be a post for another day since this one is already way too long as it is. To those of you who made it all the way to the end here, thanks for reading.

Doctor, Doctor

Since taking the boys to the dentist Monday morning was so much fun, I decided to go ahead and schedule some more doctor's appointments for this week.

Yesterday I had my 22 week appointment. Everything's fine and as it should be. When the midwife went to listen to the heart, she found it right away but Omi moved on her. When she managed to track him down again, he started kicking at her. It was pretty comical. Not so comical was waiting at the pharmacy with the boys during their busiest hour of the day. Luckily my prescription was just for some muscle relaxers (I am in some serious pain from my hips down), so I only had to wait for them to call my number the first time. I had it sent to the satellite window so we could leave right away and I went back and got it this morning (probably saving myself a good 30 minutes or so of extra waiting and trying to keep the boys under control).

Today, we went back to the hospital for Zeke's 4year check-up. He did really well, I must say. He followed all their directions and even did most of the eye chart before getting bored and looking to me to bail him out. In all fairness though, the handle on that cup was very hard to make out, they should use a different symbol there. But he weighed in at 36.8pounds (right about 50% for his age) and measured a little over 3feet 7inches tall (ready for this? that's 97% for his age). This meant his BMI (body mass index or body fat percentage) measured 3%. So he's long and lean, just like his daddy. I can't think of it all without chuckling a little.

He did, however, have to get some shots. That did not go over very well. Not only did he get his final doses of his "regular" shots, but I got both boys their seasonal flu shots, as well as the first round of H1N1 shots today. Deacon cried when he got stabbed, but calmed down once he had some juice and realized they really didn't hurt that much. Zeke cried a bunch (probably because he got shot 6 times), and only calmed down when I let him out of the immunization closet so he could see the fish in the waiting room. He did fine after that, although he did rub his one shot spot as we walked to get my meds and then to the car. As we got in the car though he started crying again. He didn't stop crying until we got home and I took his band-aids off his legs and showed him there was nothing going on there. I did give him some children's motrin, so I think that helped a bunch too. As did the sweat pants I replaced his jeans with. Poor baby.

And while we're talking about Zeke, I just wanted to let you know that he is amazing when it comes to playing with my iPhone. I got a couple of kid apps for him (and for Deacon who never gets to play with the phone because Zeke always has it) and you should see him zip around that thing. He knows exactly how to get into and out of everything, how to work them all and everything. It's fun watching his finger just slide around the screen getting things done, switching back and forth between coloring, popping bubble wrap, and using the first words app (which I may have to break down and pay for the full app as the ten words the free one comes with are starting to lose their appeal).

And now that I've rambled on a bunch, here's a quick recap (if only to get my thoughts in order as I prepare to close this post):

~I went to the doctor's yesterday and everything's great except for the pain I'm in

~Zeke went to the doctor's today and is tall and thin, also in some distress after getting 6 shots

~Zeke is a natural at the iPhone and can probably do more with it then I can

The rest of our week is free of doctor's appointments. Not free of activities and fun, but free of needles and clinics and the like. Whew!

It Was Very Nice, Thank You

So, yesterday was my birthday. I celebrated by taking my boys to the dentist in the morning. Good times. Their teeth are fine. Deacon's 2 year molars are coming in, and Zeke has an absess above one of his front teeth that we need to have checked out by a pediatric dentist. They both freaked out about having their teeth polished (Deacon was crying before he even got in the chair), so they both got, maybe a quarter of their teeth polished. But they were great and opened wide for the dentist.

Even though taking the boys to the dentist made for a long morning, I did have a nice birthday. Saturday we went to Cold Stone Creamery for free ice cream. If you join their online birthday club thing, they email you coupons for free ice cream on your birthday. So I signed us all up, printed out the coupons for Zeke's bday and mine, and we all had some ice cream Saturday afernoon. Zeke decided he doesn't like ice cream though. Deacon on the other hand LOVES ice cream. That's my boy.

Sunday after naptime we all went out to dinner to a local Italian/Greek restaurant in town called Piccolino's. It was yummy. Our waiter was great too. He got the kids drinks in cups that had lids and straws, and he brought them coloring books and crayons that keep in the restaurant. Very cool. Josh and I even managed to eat almost all of our meals before the boys started getting antsy. We were able to finish while we waited for the check. The boys really were very good and I had a nice time out.

Then yesterday, the actual bday, I celebrated by putting the kids in bed a half hour early so I coud watch "Chuck". And while I have not recieved it yet, I'm getting an ice cream maker for my gift from my menfolk.

All in all, a very nice birthday.

(Sorry there are no pictures.)

Clever Lad

Guess who figured out a new way to line up his cars? Tell you what, I'll give you a hint. His name starts with the letter:

Isn't he clever?


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Speaking of Alaskan Excitement...

These guys were all over our street the other night...

In fact, the smaller one was in our yard, eating from the bush that's in front of our basement window. In this picture, they are across the street and two houses down. It was crazy.

JJ was across the street taking pictures of something (at the time we didn't know what). We kept seeing his flash go off every couple of seconds, so I got up to ask him what he was taking pictures of, when I saw the big one down the street. I called to Josh, who grabbed the camera, and joined me at the window. As Josh took some pictures, I got the boys out of bed because really, how often are moose just going to be hanging out right in front of our house like this? The boys, of course, were thrilled (and this seemed to be just what they needed to finally settle down and go to sleep), and Zeke asked for the moose again in the morning. I think it was while I was getting the boys that Josh noticed the one in our yard. JJ said he wanted to come over and let us know they were out there, but didn't want to get anywhere near the one in our yard. Understandably so.

Ahh, Alaska. What will you entertain us with next?

How Often Is There a Blowtorch Shooting Flames On Your Street?

Apparently, the answer is not very often. Which is probably why, when this guy came down our street to clear it up and make it a bit wider again, all three of my boys were glued to the window. It's essentially a giant snow blower, it sucked up the snow from the road and shot it across everyone's yards (this upset Josh a little since he had spent the night before shovelling out the front yard into a sort of fort formation, and this machine pretty much filled in all his hard work). I'm guessing that at some point in his travels on our street, things got too cold so he had to break out his blowtorch to heat up parts of the snow blower machine thing.

I think the fact that there was a blowtorch shooting flames into a machine for a solid ten minutes might have softened the blow of the snow fort for Josh. He certainly was the most amused of the three when it came to the fire. Zeke and Deacon were just thrilled this giant truck came down our street and stopped right in front of our house at lunch time so they could eat their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while they stood on the couch looking out the window.

Who knew Alaska could hold such excitement?

DINO-MITE!!

If you can believe it, my sweet boy, Zeke, turned 4 yesterday, and what a birthday he had. Not that we were really planning on going with any sort of theme, but one sort of popped up. For Christmas, Josh's mom gave me a cupcake pan that makes cupcakes in the shape of dinosaurs. It is really pretty cool. So, we had dinosaur shaped cupcakes, along with regular cupcakes (only because I didn't want to fill and bake with the dino pan 4 or so times until all the cake batter was used up), and Josh picked up dinosaur wrapping paper for me to wrap Zeke's gifts with. And that's pretty much the end of the theme. But it was fun.

The day started like any other Sunday in that they got up, regular morning routine, church, lunch, naps and the like. After naptime, though, was when the "festivites" began. I had invited the teen across the street, JJ, to come over for cupcakes since the boys just LOVE when he's here. JJ showed up before the boys got up from their naps, so that was a fun surprise for Zeke right off the bat. We put out the cupcakes while the boys played, then sang "Happy Birthday" to Zeke and ate the cupcakes. Zeke ate two. One regular, one dinosaur. We were glad JJ showed up early (I had originally said 5:30/6:00 thinking after dinner would be a good time for cupcakes) because it took a few hours for the sugar to run its course through the boys' bodies. Josh claims that Deacon was actually vibrating at one point from the sugar high.

After cupcakes, Zeke opened his presents from us (a couple of collared shirts for church, a new puzzle that he has already mastered, and a some new Thomas tracks to add to the set). After everything was unwrapped and the opened, it was play time! So all the boys played (and watched some bittball, of course) while I made Zeke's "special" birthday dinner of hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, and pickles. Yes, he's got quite the sophisticated sense of taste. Only the finer things our Z-man.

After dinner, JJ went back home and we put on "Cars" for the boys since it's Zeke's current favorite (I think this was the 3rd or 4th time since Christmas that we've watched it now). Then it was into jammies and off to bed where they spent the next hour and a half or so burning off the rest of the sugar. However, unlike most nights when they stay up too late, the did not wake up at their normal time. I went in at 8 this morning and they were just starting to wake up. I guess this means I don't give them enough sugar during the day if two cupcakes is enough to send them into super-hyper-drive (they're always in hyper-drive) for at least 4 hours, then land them in a sugar induced coma that lasts for about 11 hours? What can I say, they're sweet enough as it is.

Happy birthday Ezekiel. You are a wonderful boy, and we love you.

Some Super Sticker Silliness

One of the gifts the boys got for Christmas this year was plastic container/box things that Josh's parents had put all sorts of fun stuff in: construction workers that look like their soldiers, trucks and cars, little play-dohs, pencils, sticky-note pads, and stickers. All of it has been a big hit, but the pencils, pads, and stickers have been the most "used", let's say.

The first two pictures are from the day after Christmas. As you can see, the boys were hard at coloring, using up as many of those pieces of paper as possible. The picture on the right is another one of those times I wish I knew what was going on in Zeke's head. Josh wondered if any (or all) of them read "Kick Me".

The rest of the pictures are from Christmas, and the day after. On Christmas, the boys started out covering themselves in stickers: Zeke put them all up and down his one leg, while Deacon chose the more traditional belly route. At some point, one of them got the great idea to peel the stickers off of themselves and put them all over Mommy. There's a picture of the process, then the final project, front and back.

The next morning it was Daddy's turn though. Then later in the day they did up Deacon's pants. That was fun to peel off before naptime. My favorites are the two on his nose. That was a nice touch, done all on his own.

I wonder how long it'll be before Peavey fall prey to the sticker monsters?