He Only Broke 2 Lights In the Process

Ever since Halloween, Zeke has been asking to put up our Christmas tree. See, many of the houses around here decorated their houses for Halloween, usually involving lights of some sort on their houses and yards. Zeke equated these lights with Christmas lights, and Christmas lights with Christmas trees. I told him that first was Daddy's birthday, then Halloween. After Halloween was Thanksgiving, then we could put up the Christmas tree. So in Zeke's head, the day after Thanksgiving was the day the tree was going up, and up it went that Friday. The only thing was, all the lights from last year that were on the tree didn't work. Sad. Thus, Josh and I spent a good deal of time the next two days pulling off an entire trash bag's worth of lights from the tree.

Yesterday Josh went shopping (during his lunch time, which he hates doing since the gate getting on and off of post is a mess at that time) for new lights for the tree. And a staple gun. He got some other things too, but the tree lights and the staple gun are all you need to be concerned with for the purposes of this blog post. So Josh bought lights yesterday, and last night we put them up on the tree. And by we, I mean Josh and the boys. I sat on the couch watching and knitting and taking pictures.

After the tree was all lit up, Josh decided to hang up a strand of white lights we had. This is where the staple gun comes into play. After wearing himself out the other day hanging up lights in the play room/Finn's room with a hammer and nails, Josh decided a staple gun was the way to go from now on for hanging up Christmas lights. So, he go out his gun, loaded it up, and stapled away. This is when he broke the 2 lights. Trying to the staple gun to staple through thicker parts of the wall (I guess) he shattered 1 light over by the couch, and a second light while doing the octagon window. The light he shattered by the window is the most impressive one as he not only shattered the glass, but part of the plastic base that holds the light. Wow. But's all finished and I think the room looks great.

I tried to get a good picture of the lights on our tree because they are groovy. They are so bold and bright (and there are purple lights!). They remind me of something that I can't quite put my finger on, and they remind Josh of a German discothèque/tattoo parlor combination. Not that such a beast really exists, but there you have it. I couldn't really get a decent picture, I think, but what I did get is up on flickr, so you'll have to pop over there if you want.

Anyway, the tree is up. The inside lights are up. The nativity set pieces are sprawled all over the floor. The cat has taken up his post under the tree.

Yep, it's beginning to look a bit like Christmas here.

A Big Morning For Little Boys

This morning my friend, Amity, dropped off her little boy, Curtis, while she went in for an ultrasound (she's pregnant). With Zeke being back at school, it was just Deacon and Curtis, and boy did they have some fun.

When Curtis arrived, Deacon was already engrossed in Sesame Street, so Curtis joined him:

After Sesame Street was over, and while Finn was down for his morning rest time, we read a book until the tow truck showed up. While my neighbor may not fully appreciate this, I totally planned for his truck to break down so he'd have to have a tow truck come out to our street and get him, giving the boys something really cool to watch for a solid ten minutes:

Okay, I really didn't plan that at all, but it was a fun time for the boys to watch from inside the nice, warm house. They really got excited when I explained to them that Mater from Cars is also a tow truck. As the tow truck here, pulled our neighbor's car up, Deacon really got into things and exclaimed, "Mommy! The blue truck in ON the Mater truck!"

After "Mater" left, it was snack time - fruit snacks and cereal for everyone! Notice how nicely Curtis eats his cereal, one piece at a time, while Deacon is shoving an entire fistful of cereal into his mouth (dropping a piece or two every time):

Shortly after snacks were finished, more of the exciting fun that I had planned (not really) for the boys showed up: the big snow plow! So it was back to the windows for another couple of minutes while "Jack" (that's what Deacon has named the plow) made his way up and down the street, making nice little berms of snow at the base of everyone's driveways. Ahh...winter.

The plow didn't take as long as the tow truck, but it was still exciting. Once the plow was out of sight, it was time for train tracks and blocks and the like:

Do I know how to set up a great playdate for little boys, or what? I mean, come on. And because the camera cannot come out anymore without Finn taking notice, here's a shot of him I took this morning. Seriously, the boy is turning into a little ham:

And I love it!

What Had Happened Was...

A few weeks ago, McDonald's started giving Megamind toys with their happy meals. After explaining to Zeke that the toys were from a movie, and then seeing commercials for the movie on TV, Zeke decided that he wanted to go to the movies to see Megamind. So, we figured we'd go one weekend, but then Josh's big exercise happened, and so going to the movies got pushed back to this weekend. We had originally planned on trying to leave Finn with a friend, then all four of us going, but when Saturday rolled around, Josh didn't really feel like going anymore.

Now, I could have taken both boys at the same time to see the same movie, but I was concerned about a few things, which led to me seeing one movie with one boy, then later on, another movie with the other boy. First concern was seating. When I took Zeke to see Toy Story 3, he wasn't quite big enough to stop the seats from closing on him, forcing him to sit on my lap through the entire movie (not that I minded, of course). While he is a few inches taller now, he's really not much heavier, and I was concerned that if he couldn't sit on his own, then Deacon surely wouldn't be able to sit on his own, and I'd have to figure out how to sit with both boys on my lap plus our refreshments, since Josh decided to stay home with Finn.

My second concern was that, with this being Deacon's first time seeing a movie on the big screen, I wasn't sure how he'd do. He doesn't usually sit through an entire movie at home yet (unless it's Wall-E), so I didn't know if he'd sit through one someplace else. Deacon has also become a little more sensitive to scary things (he covers his eyes with his hands now - it's so cute), and I wasn't sure if the movie would scare him. So, if he got scared and/or wouldn't sit still through the movie, and I had to bring him home (or take him out so he could run around a bit), it wouldn't affect Zeke any. You see, Zeke is very much like his mom when it comes to movies, and he hates to miss parts of them, so having to pull him out of a movie he was enjoying because Deacon wasn't having as good of a time, didn't seem like an ideal situation to me.

So, after much deliberation, we finally decided that since Deacon usually plays the first half of his nap and sleeps the second half, and Zeke sleeps the first half of his nap but wakes up and sings through the second half, I would take Deacon first then switch him out for Zeke. Since we went to the theater in town, and it's only a 5 minute drive, it all worked out pretty well. Except for the tummy troubles I experienced when I got home. Oh, and there's also the fact that I really wanted to see Tangled.

While I have you, I thought I'd let you know Finn's second tooth broke through this morning. If you look closely, you can see his first tooth, in all it's glory, in the picture I chose to accompany this post. Oh, and I am feeling better today. Thank you for asking.

My Tummy Hurts

So I took the boys to the movies today. First, I took Deacon to see Tangled, the new Rapunzel movie by Disney. After bringing Deacon home, and putting him down (late) for his nap, I took a little rest myself, then got Zeke up (early) from his nap, and took him to see Megamind, the new "superhero" movie by Dreamworks. They were both pretty good, and we enjoyed ourselves (Zeke went so far as to start dancing around by his seat), but I think all of the popcorn and lemonade has upset my stomach terribly, so I'm going to...um...excuse myself now...and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully feeling much better. Toodle pip!

Taking It Easy

Yesterday was a big day, even if it was low key and just us. Therefore, I am going to relax and rest and enjoy the peacefulness the snow has dropped. Peaceful in one way, that everything looks calm and beautiful. Peaceful in another way because it led to the 3 big kids going outside to play for a good portion of the morning, and again later this afternoon.

I hope you all enjoy your Friday, and the rest of this "holiday weekend".

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a day!

Once again, Josh let me sleep in a little in the morning. I overheard him and Zeke getting some things for dinner together, and I really wanted to get up and take some pictures, but I didn't want to interrupt their bonding time, so I stayed in bed. But once I got up, we hung out for a bit then flicked back and forth between the parade and the Lions/Patriots football game. They both ended just in time for lunch and naps.

After naps it was go, go, go while we got dinner ready and on the table. We really made way too much food for just the 4 (5 if you count Finn) of us, but it was all so good. There was stuffing and green bean casserole. There was mashed potatoes that Deacon helped peel:

There was cranberry sauce (two different varieties) and gravy. There were biscuits (we tried to make bread in our bread machine but something went terribly awry and the bread didn't really turn out...sad) and pickles and squash. And, of course, there was the turkey, which Josh cooked in the turkey fryer this year, and man was it delicious!

As I said, way too much food, but it was all so good. We have truly been blessed this past year, and we are so thankful for so much. Before we started eating, we all took turns saying some of the things we are thankful for. After we finished, Zeke decided to recap, and here's what he got from it: Daddy is thankful for Zeke. Mommy is thankful for Jesus. Zeke is thankful for family. Deacon is thankful for milk. And Finn isn't thankful because he's too little. Heh heh. Finn wasn't too little, however, to taste a few of the goodies we made:

After dinner there was chocolate cake, baths, and the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special on TV. All in all it was a very low key day, which really was very nice. Oh! It also been snowing all. day. long, and has dropped about 4-6 inches so far. And since I posted a picture of everyone else, here's one of me to close the post:

I hope everyone else had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

Bed Heads and Potty Trials

They cancelled school again today. I'm just putting that out there in case anyone cares or is interested.

The boys woke up with some sweet bed head today:

See, with it being winter, it stays dark until pretty late in the morning here. This means that the boys do a much better job staying in bed (usually sleeping, but not always) until I finally roll out of bed around 8 or 8:30 and get them up. Yeah! On days there is no school, obvioulsy. I've been waiting for days like this since we were living in Oklahoma and the boys would wake up every. single. morning. around 6:30 or so. That's still not as early as some kids get up, I know, but it was kind of rough going for awhile there, since I'm not much of an early morning person. Back to the kids - you can tell they slept well by the state of their hair as they bounced out of bed this morning. Well, Zeke bounced, Deacon sort of slowly slithered out of bed and up the stairs. And then there was Finn, who I'm pretty sure is in here somewhere:


Here's the thing about our mornings lately though, Zeke will get up, go upstairs, play or walk around or whatever for a few minutes then realize he has to pee. So he'll go to the bathroom, and then go about his day. However, many is the morning (like today) where he pees on the floor instead of in the toilet. I don't know if it's because he has to go so badly from holding it all night that he just goes figuring he's in the general vicinity so he'll be fine, as long as it doesn't get on his underpants? I don't think that's entirely the case because it doesn't just happen first thing in the morning. He just doesn't seem to catch himself and aim better in the mornings, like he will later on in the day, and that just might be because he's still kind of waking up. I don't know if it's because he's in such a rush to get back to playing/eating/whatever that he isn't careful about it? I'm starting to get tired of cleaning up the floor around the toilet though.

And while I'm on the subject of Zeke and the toilet, here's the other thing: Zeke won't get out of bed on his own if he has to go to the bathroom. It doesn't matter if it's naptime or bedtime, he will not leave his room on his own. I know many parents have the opposite problem where their kids will not stay in their beds, so this may seem weird to them. But if he has to go to the bathroom while he's in bed one of 3 things happens. One, he just holds it until it's time for him to get up, then he runs to the bathroom like a bolt and goes. Two, he starts to sing really loudly until one of us goes downstairs to tell him to quiet down, at which point he'll say he has to go to the bathroom and then get up and go. The third option is that he lays there crying until we hear him and go down to check on him.

I'm not sure what to do. We've repeatedly practiced with him what he should do if he has to go to the bathroom with him while he's bed. We've acted it all out, had him act it all out, quizzed him and got appropriate answers from him, and still he just won't get himself out of bed and into the bathroom. He used to always get permission to go to the bathroom no matter what time of day it was, but lately he's been going when he has to. So maybe he'll start going on his own when he's in bed too? I just don't know.

But, now I'm off to do some dishes, and all that sort of fun stuff before Josh gets home from work. I said to Josh, "Why don't you just try and take today off so you don't have to go out on those horrible roads?" He said, "How am I supposed to come home early if I don't go in at all?" Silly me. Or maybe silly Josh? Either way, in closing here are a few more silly people - Deacon looking kind of crazy and Zeke proudly wearing his "bird school shirt".

Okay, that's not actually the super proud picture, that's the "try smiling with your mouth closed a little bit" picture. But it's still sweet, so I'm leaving it. I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving (since it'll be almost over for most of you by the time I get around to posting tomorrow)!

It's Wet, Wild Stuff

It's been cold here lately. I think the "warmest" it got over the past week or so was 18 degrees*. Until yesterday that is. Yesterday, for some reason, it warmed up to 34 or so degrees. Not only did it warm up, but it rained. Well, it rained frozen rain/sleet/stuff, causing all of the roads to become super slick sheets of ice. Josh left for work as usual, and came home 45 minutes later. That's how long it took him to drive, essentially, around the block. He got to the main road that goes through our town and saw that it had been closed by the Anchorage Police Department. He said there were semis just stopped on the roads, trying to get their chains and things on. Eventually he got a call from work, telling him to just stay home.

Now, I love my husband, and I really love when he's home and when he gets days off from work. What I don't love, is when he's home on mornings when Zeke still has to go to school. It's really just a bunch of silly little things that get to me, but they do get to me and I tend to get really stressed out when Josh is home on school mornings. Once Zeke is out the door and on the bus, I'm better. Yesterday was no exception.

Now, add to that stress the stress that came as we watched neighbors try and fail to get anywhere during the morning, causing me to worry for Zeke's safety as he made his way to school on those icy roads. Then there's the fact that whenever it snows or the roads get bad, his bus is always late getting him, which means it's late getting everyone else, in turn making all of the kids late for school (which wouldn't be a big deal if he was going for a full day, but when he's only there for 2 hours and he misses 1/2 an hour because the bus is late, that's sort of a big chunk of his day...anyway).

To sum up, just to make sure we're all still together on this, I was stressed out because Josh was home on a school day. I was stressed out because the roads were awful and I was worried about Zeke's safety. I was stressed out because it was getting late in the morning and the bus wasn't there yet, and I get annoyed that Zeke gets to school late sometimes because the bus runs late in inclement weather. My head really felt like it was going to explode.

At 9:00, when school starts here, I decided the bus wasn't going to make it and so I called the bus company and cancelled his pick-up. Then I called the school's attendance line (since there was NO getting through to the office) and told them Zeke wouldn't be going to school. Poor kid was so ready too. He had his snow pants and boots on, so he could quickly get the rest of his gear on when the bus did show up. Thankfully, Sesame Street was enough to help him get over not going to school:

Yes, he did keep his stuff on during the show. It made him happy and who am I to refuse him such a simple thing. (And yes, Finn is watching it too...he LOVES the theme song and whenever they sing. And Murray. He really enjoys Murray. Otherwise, he doens't care for it much.) Once I made the calls to the bus and the school, I did feel much better about everything and really enjoyed the rest of the day. Now you see why I needed that nap. I know I made the right call because the schools are closed today (in light of how they should have been closed yesterday?). And Josh had a late report time today, so having him home this morning was wonderful. Especially since he got up with the boys and let me spend an extra hour in bed. Ahh.

*A little side note about the recent weather, the other morning it was 9! degrees when I took Zeke out to the bus in the morning. Don't worry though, it was a balmy 12 degrees 3 hours later when I went back out to pick him up from the bus. Like my fabulous friend Monica said, "I love it when the weather takes a turn for the better..."

Lame

That's what this post is going to be today. See, we had a somewhat crazy morning, which lead to me being quite stressed out. Therefore, I decided that taking a nap myself this afternoon was a little more important then blogging and doing the dishes. I had thought about blogging during movie time, but after doing 5 loads of laundry and 3 days worth of dishes, I decided to just put up this little bit about my day and a sweet picture of Finn sleeping, and call it a day.

Screaming, Scolding, and Sound Effects

Many moons ago, as Zeke and Deacon started becoming more aware of the things that go on around them as we drive hither and yon, I started teaching them what the different color lights on a stop sign mean: green means go, yellow means slow, red means stop. I mean, it's never too early to learn the driving basics, right? Right. Well, thanks to these three fellows, driving has become a whole new adventure (you can't actually see Finn as he's still riding backwards, but he is there in the carseat).

Finn likes to keep things interesting by randomly deciding to scream on our way home from places. It usually happens when he's tired and hungry, but wouldn't you know it, as soon as we are in the house, he takes a look around and relaxes and starts smiling as if he hadn't just been screaming his head for the past 10 minutes. He also HATES it when his hat falls over his eyes and he can't see anymore. Thankfully, Zeke is usually more than willing to help Finn out of his hat. I must say, Zeke is usually pretty good about entertaining Finn whenever Finn starts to get upset. Zeke will also direct me to put on "Finn's music" if he notices Finn starting to wind up.

But Zeke also notices when I turn right on red. This has made driving really interesting lately. Since I taught him that "red means stop", he gets quite upset when I make those right turns. And he lets me know he's upset. Whenever he sees a red light, the conversation usually goes something like this:

Zeke: Red means stop, Mom.

Me: Yes it does. Very good, Zeke.

Zeke: You need to stop the car, Mom.

Me: Yes, honey, I am.

Zeke: You wait for the green light now, Mom.

Me: Yes, Zeke. I have to wait for the green light.

Now, whenever I need to turn right, I have started sitting through red lights (even though it's perfectly legal here to turn right on red) because it's easier to sit there then to have this conversation over and over and over:

Zeke: Mom, red means stop.

Me: Yes, Zeke, I'm stopping.

(I check the traffic, making sure no one is coming at us, then I start to make my turn.)

Zeke: MOM! STOP! Red means stop! No turning on red light!

Me: Zeke, it's okay for Mommy to make a right turn (he pretty much knows his right from his left, so this concept is not totally lost on him) when the light is red, as long as no one else is driving this way. I checked, and the road is clear, so I'm turning right while the light is red.

Zeke: No, Mom. No turn on red. No go on red. Stop the car, Mom. Stop the car.

And so on for blocks, until something else finally catches his attention. So I sit through red lights now, no matter which way I'm turning, or how many cars line up behind me.

Let's not forget about Deacon though. Because if getting screamed at by Finn, and scolded by Zeke isn't enough, I have Deacon back there too, doing one of two things. Deacon is either joining in with Zeke about my breaking the law, or, even better, he's back there making sound effects and telling me/other cars/bikes/etc to look out for other cars/us/bikes/dogs/trees/etc.

For example, the other week when we were taking Finn to his doctor's appointment, as I was turning onto the on-ramp for the highway, Deacon was behind me going, "Vrroooom, vroooom, eeeeeerrrrrr!!" (you know, the screeching tires sort of sound). Then, as I was getting ready to merge onto the highway he pipes up with, "Watch out, Mom. Watch out for those other cars, Mom." Yes, Deacon, I am watching out for those other cars. All two of them.

Don't you just love backseat drivers? Who knew it started so young?

Finn's Big Bath

While Josh was off, doing his big military exercise thing, I was left to do all the house and kid stuff on my own. Which is fine, he was working hard, and the boys and I had a lot of fun (most of the time anyway). One of the more tiresome times though, were bath nights. We usually give Zeke and Deacon a bath after dinner, while Finn is down for his evening rest time. Then we give Finn a bath in his own little tub after he gets up, while the boys are watching their movie. This works pretty well, except for when I'm the only adult here, and I'm exhausted by the time the movie goes in and so Finn's bath suddenly becomes so much more of a chore. Well, last Saturday I decided that Finn was big enough to bathe with his brothers, so I could knock it all out with one punch.

This being Finn's first foray into the world of big tub/big brother bath time, I obviously wanted to take some pictures. Being the only adult at home meant that those pictures would most likely be very interesting. There were some fantastic shots, and Josh enjoyed looking at them so much that he asked to make the comments for each of them. Here are the pictures I took and the comments he came up with:

"Here, Finn. It smooths and conditions."

"I mean, really? What would possess you to think this was a good idea?"

"What you do here, Deacon, is you hold him under until the bubbles stop coming up."

"And this is how you do the Heimlich maneuver."

This picture is just too much fun to caption ourselves, so we thought we'd let you play along. Share with us, in the comments section, whatever caption you would give this picture. Because I don't know about you, but I can't help but laugh just looking at it, and so many things pop into my head.

Anybody Want a Cat?

NaBloPoMo just wouldn't be complete without a post about the furriest member of our family, Peavey Cat. Oh Peavey, what am I going to do with you? Let me start by saying that I still love this cat, and he is far and away the coolest cat I've ever met. Lately though?

Do you remember WAY back in January when I posted about Peavey and mentioned his cough that the vet said was due to constipation? Well, here we are a year later and he's still coughing. I hate to complain about it because I'm sure it's not like he enjoys walking around the house hacking uncontrollably, but it's really starting to wear thin. It is especially annoying at night.

See, Peavey sleeps with us at night now. It's usual for the winter since he doesn't spend as much time outside (hardly any time now that there's snow everywhere), and he doesn't get as dirty. Plus I think Josh likes the extra heat he brings to the slumber party - except when the cat decides that Josh's face is cold and tries to help out by laying right across it. But since the coughing is uncontrollable, at random points in the night Peavey will wake up and just start hacking. Which wakes me up. This is doubly annoying because not only have I been woken up from my sleep, but I've finally gotten back to a point in my life where I can sleep through the night without having to get up to pee (and most nights without having to get up for a kid), so I want to sleep through the night when I can. So now I wake up because the cat is hacking. This happens, 2-3 times a night. Or, like last night, 4 times. I've gotten him "trained" to get off the bed when he starts coughing (most of the time). Now I just need to get him to leave the room. Because it's loud and it's gross.

If he didn't sleep with us, it probably wouldn't be as much of an issue for me. If we close our bedroom door, he obviously can't get it,and that would stop him from sleeping with us (and by us I do mean Josh - the cat isn't allowed on my side of the bed). However, if we close the door, Peavey will throw his body against the door and scratch at the door and cry outside the door until we (and by we I mean me since Josh never hears any of it) let him in. I can tell him to knock it off, and he will. But it's only a matter of time before he's back and making a rucus again. So, it's kind of a lose-lose situation here for me.

I know I should take him back to the vet, but the thing is, they will only see your pet if you call in the morning of the day you want to bring him in. So, you call in the morning, to get an appointment for the afternoon, usually around 1:00 or so. This doesn't really work for me because that's when my kids are in bed, taking naps. Or singing every song they know as Zeke is currently doing down there. And I'm sorry, but I'm not going to make 3 boys miss their naps so that we can all take the cat to the vet. Besides, I'm not quite sure how I'd get myself, the 3 boys and the cat into and around the vet's office.

So now I'm sitting here, exhausted, because I didn't sleep well last night. But it's so hard to stay mad at Peavey. First of all, I know he can't help it, and I'm sure he wouldn't do it if he had any control over it at all. Secondly, he really does have the sweetest little face. Poor Peavey.

Around and Around and Around

At the beginning of last month, we got out the "play table" for Finn. Actually, sometime in September Josh cleaned the whole thing and brought it upstairs, but Finn was a wee bit too "short" for it (his feet couldn't reach the ground). We tried again last month, and all 3 boys have been enjoying it since.

It's a lot of fun to see Finn playing with it since we bought it for Zeke when he was 6 or 7 months old (sorry he's blurry - he's a man in constant motion):

When Deacon was about the same age, we set it up for him:

Of course, between when Zeke would run around it and when Deacon ran around in it, we just took the arm off and used it as a little table for Zeke to play at:

Now, it's Finn's turn:

And I must say, he's getting quite good at it (this video is about a month old now...man time flies):

Go, Finn! Go!

I Want To Show You Something

Actually, I want to show you 2 things actually. They both "concern" Josh.

The first thing I want to show you is this:

This is a collection of black socks. All of those socks are Josh's. All of those socks have been worn at least once. All of those socks are just laying there, in front of the closet. I bring this up for 2 reasons. One, why are they just laying there? Why haven't they been put into the laundry basket if they're dirty? If they aren't dirty enough for the basket yet, then why are there so many of them laying around? Two, when they lay there, in front of the closet like that, it gets annoying after awhile because the closet door opens over them, but then 1 or 2 of them get stuck in the closet door as I close it. Every time. (And yes, this is me asking Josh to do SOMETHING PLEASE with those socks in a somewhat passive aggressive manner. I love you babe!)

The second thing I want to show you is this:

I have finished Josh's Green Lantern hat! When I finished Deacon's Iron Man hat, Josh decided that he had to have a hat too, and that he wanted his hat to be green and black and have the Green Lantern symbol on it. Okay. I decided, however, that the Green Lantern symbol was not one I wanted to tango with, so I went ahead and ordered a patch online that I sewed onto the rim of his hat. I'm pretty pleased with the end result. Now it's on to the next one...

Nice, Deacon.

This morning I brought a basket of clean laundry up to put away. As I brought it up, Finn woke up from his morning nap so I put the basket on the chair in the living room and proceeded to get Finn up and fed. As I was feeding Finn his cereal and fruit mix, Deacon "found" the laundry basket and said, "You wear on you belly, Momma?" I looked up and saw Deacon holding my bra. "Yes" I replied, then asked him to put it back in the basket.

Deacon looked at me, looked at the bra, looked at the basket and said, "No, Mommy. It's like Wall-E." He then put the bra over his face like Wall-E does in the movie and said, in his best Wall-E impersonation (which is actually pretty good), "Whoa!"

Then he put it back and went on his merry way.

Do You Like My Vest?

Back in September, we took the boys shopping at Old Navy. While we were there Josh found these faux fur vests that ON was selling. Since Deacon was standing next to him when he found them, Deacon was the lucky boy who got do don one of the vests. Being the rock star that he is, Deacon didn't mind at all. In fact, he had quite a good time strutting around the store in the vest (hence the blurriness of the photo - it's hard to nicely capture a moving model on an iPhone). I love this photo because when I look at his face, I can almost hear him saying, "That's right. I. am. GOR-GEOUS!" Add to it Zeke in the background laughing his nerdy laugh, and it's all priceless.

Another day back in September, Josh let the boys take out the umbrella. This provided a good 15 minutes of entertainment for the boys. Who knew?

And just in case you were wondering, Alaska might not be the best place for a vehicle like this:

All I can say about a car that is a giant Radio Flyer wagon is YES! Oh the things we see up here.

Movie Time

Almost every night we put on a movie for Zeke and Deacon. It's really the only time they sit still for any length of time, so it's our way of "calming them down" before bed. Of course, some movies (The Chipmunks) rile them up instead, but for the most part, it works. And yes, Daddy usually undoes it all when he puts the boys in bed, but that's just good fun.

Usually, when it's movie time, the boys will both climb into the big blue chair and watch the movie together. Like so:

However, while boys are getting bigger, the chair is not. And I've been wondering lately, as it gets tighter and tighter there, what they'll do. I'll admit, I was a little sad at the thought of them no longer sitting together while they watch their movies.

Apparently, I've been getting sad for no good reason:

They'll just move over to the couch! This makes me happy for two reasons. One, now they'll still sit with each other to watch movies (when they want to - and they don't always want to). Two, on the couch, there will be plenty of room for Finn when he's big enough to join them. Assuming they let him, of course.

Speech News

It was suggested to me, one day, that I should look into bringing Zeke to a private speech therapist because he is so behind grammatically, that the speech teacher he sees at school will not be able to have him ready for kindergarten next year. I have to say I was a little crushed at first to hear that, but God has been so amazing at putting it all together that I know it was the right call. I was told to seek extra help in September, right before Zeke started taking the bus, actually. I got a list of private speech therapists from his speech teacher, and started calling down the list.

The first woman I got was not very encouraging. She said if I couldn't get our insurance to cover it (because those of us in the military know how trying TriCare can be sometimes) that it would cost $400 for an evaluation, then $150 or so a session after that. And that it would be about 4 weeks between his evaluation and his starting sessions, if she could find a spot to fit him into. So I kept calling. Eventually I got a hold of this lady, who was wonderful. She accepts our health care and said she's worked with them before so if paperwork ever starts to take too long, she'll help out. When I told her I was hoping to have someone come to our house because of the two little ones, she went online and looked to see if there were any options like that, then went on the TriCare website so see if any of those options were part of their coverage. Wow. She then told me what all she found and said that she does see kids on Saturdays and has at least one Saturday slot, but is working on getting a second one (she had a kid that was going twice a week, but really only needed to go once).

Totally enamored with this woman, I had Josh drop off all of the necessary paperwork at the clinic to get the referral process going. This is where I figured I'd have to wait forever. Josh dropped the paperwork off on a Tuesday, and on Thursday I got a call saying our paperwork had been approved and we should hear from the referral office within 7 to 10 days. The Wednesday following, I called the speech therapist and told her where things were with the paperwork, and how we were just waiting on the referral to come through. The next morning, her office called to say that they got the referral number and Zeke could start that Saturday morning! I have never seen anything involving our health insurance move that quickly. God is good. To top it all off, Zeke has been to see Miss Kathy a handful of times now, and LOVES her. He loves "speech school" just as much as regular school, and it's so great to see him so excited by it.

Look out world (and poor Finn), Zeke is on his way!

Which Older Boy Does He Resemble?

I was asked this question by my friend who works the Teddy Watch room on Tuesday, as I was picking up Deacon after Finn's appointment. I'm not really sure. I feel like all 3 of my boys look similar to each other. At the same time though, they each look different. They are, after all, their own person. If I had to pick I'd probably say Deacon since Josh and I have both called him "Deacon" at least once in the past week. (Of course, I've been calling poor Deacon "Zeke" a ton lately, especially now that he's wearing more and more of Zeke's clothes.) So, to help figure it out, because it's kind of fun, I went back through some old pictures of my boys, and after wasting way too much time doing so, I have chosen these pictures to present to you:

Finn at 6 months:

Deacon at 6 months:

Zeke at 6 months:

And since Zeke was WAY underweight when he was 6 months, I'm putting up a second picture of him, from when he was closer to a year, and closer to Finn now in size:

After all of that, I'm still not really sure. Also, after all of that I have found that Zeke's baby book does NOT have any kind of section where month by month growth numbers and things are supposed to go. Deacon and Finn both have a page for each month to fill in the stats and put a picture, plus Finn's at least, also has a page where I list his height and weight (and their percentages) for every time I weight and measure him. Now I'm kind of sad. OH! I just remembered where I did write that all down. I'll have to write it into the back of Zeke's book or something so it's there. But it's still kind of sad there aren't pictures. Hmm...

Anyhoo, now that I've wasted a bunch of time looking through pictures, and pondering Zeke's baby book and all sorts of things, I must go. We are having some company over for dinner and I should probably get some things done before that happens. Or, before the boys wake up from their naps at least.