Happy Weekend!

I want to post something today, but I'm kind of tired. Therefore, you all get to enjoy this. Have a happy weekend!

It's Also the Second Rule

The first rule about Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.

While feeding Finn a bottle the other morning, I heard the bigger boys arguing in the play room. Eventually Deacon got frustrated to the point of hitting Zeke (I could hear the punches land on Zeke's back). Zeke then retaliated in a way that made Deacon shriek and start crying. I have no idea what happened because after Deacon started crying the conversations went like this.

ME: Zeke, get out here.
ZEKE: (coming out slowly, hands behind his back) I don't want a spanking, Mom.
ME: I'm not going to spank you. What happened?
ZEKE: I don't know.
ME: Is Deacon crying?
ZEKE: Yes.
ME: Why is Deacon crying?
ZEKE: I don't know.
ME: Did you hit him?
ZEKE: No.
ME: Did you throw something at him?
ZEKE: No. I don't know why he's crying.

ME: Deacon, come out here.
DEACON: (running to the couch, crying) Huh?
ME: Why are you crying?
DEACON: I don't know.
ME: Are you hurt? (Knowing full well he was hurt since he looked like this with that little gash under his eye:)

DEACON: No. I not hurt.
ME: Are you sad?
DEACON: No.
ME: Then why are you crying?
DEACON: I don't know.
ME: Did Zeke hit you?
DEACON: No.
ME: Did Zeke kick you?
DEACON: No.
ME: Did Zeke throw something at you?
DEACON: No.
ME: Then what happened?
DEACON: Noffing.
ME: Nothing?
DEACON: Noffing. I'm okay.

Sigh. However, I DO know what happened this time:

See that blue bridge in his hands? He was goofing around on the couch, rolled off, and face planted right onto on of the legs of the bridge. Let's just say that since Josh has been gone, Deacon has become quite a bit more...um...rambunctious. Even though Zeke is so skinny he looks like he could snap in half at any moment, I can't help but wonder if it'll be Deacon who breaks a bone first?

Easter 2011: Part Two: Ka-blam!ty

As I mentioned yesterday, my dear friend Amity Ka-blam!ty (it's what I like to call her sometimes) bought colored bubbles for the boys for Easter. Before I go on, I'd like to point out 3 things about these bubbles.

1. The bottle says "spill-resistant bottle". Spill-resistant bottle, my foot.
2. My back deck looks like 2 tiny alien armies waged a massive war back there.
3. I felt like a crime scene photographer taking pictures of it all (check my flickr for more, because oh yes, there's more).

Now, behold what my children did Easter afternoon with their new bubbles. (This is why we had baths before dinner that night.)

As you can see, they were pretty happy with what they did. Zeke even told God all about it when he prayed for dinner. I'll admit that at first I was a more than a little upset with the mess and the colored bubbles in their "spill-resistant" bottle overall. But then, as I was putting those clothes, coats and shoes into the wash I overheard Zeke say to Deacon, in the sweetest voice ever, "This was a fun Easter, huh Deacon?"

So, Amity, even though I still can't get it out of my rug, and even though I'm still finding blue and green smudges all over my house, and even though I'm worried that if it doesn't rain soon the bubbles are going to permanently stain the back deck, thank you SO much for making Easter a fun one for my boys. You totally rock!

Easter 2011: Part One: Amity

I feel like I need to tell the story of our Easter in two parts. Mainly because I have so many pictures from the second part that I want to share, and I don't want this getting too long or overwhelming.

Easter started with Finn still being sick. Therefore, we didn't make it to church (sad). My mom had sent a box of Easter goodies that was supposed to be here on Wednesday for me to give to the boys on Sunday. That box hasn't shown up (it'll probably get here today). Since I was counting on my mom's box, I didn't have anything for the boys myself. And since Finn was so sick, I couldn't get to the store to get anything, just in case.

Cue Amity. I texted Amity on Saturday to see if she was, by any chance, going to Walmart since I needed juice and milk. She was going, and was more than happy to get my groceries for me (at least, I'm assuming she was happy to help). I also asked her to grab some donuts as a special breakfast treat for the boys. When she stopped by to drop off the goodies, she also gave me these colored bubbles. She said they were for the boys, just in case my mom's box didn't get here on time. And since my boys are sweet, bubbles and donuts were a good start to Easter for them.

The rest of the morning progressed like normal (except for the sick Finn and the no church parts). Right about lunch time Amity texted me and asked if her 2 oldest boys could come over and hide eggs in our yard while my boys napped. She even had an extra bag of jelly beans to put in some of the eggs, which was good since Zeke asked specifically if the eggs would have jelly beans. Thank you pre-school for teaching my son that plastic Easter eggs have jelly beans.

So, her boys came over about an hour after my boys went to bed. They went right to work, and the Peavey went right to supervising.

When the boys woke up, I took them outside to hunt for eggs (Finn had to stay in bed and rest). They had such a good time. When I thought we found them all we opened the eggs with the jelly beans and then the boys stayed outside and played with their new bubbles while I got Finn up and took care of him.

When Finn went down for a little rest, it was bath time for the bigger boys, then dinner for all of us, then movie time for the bigger boys and bath time for Finn. Then it was off to bed for all the littles while Mommy rested on the couch watching "Firefly". It was a long Easter, it was a somewhat trying Easter, but in the end, it was a good Easter.

My Kids Are Out Of Control

The other day I was at the computer, reading something when I heard knocking coming from downstairs. Realizing it was close to the end of "rest time" I turned off the computer and went downstairs to see why Deacon was knocking. As I opened his door, I scanned the room and didn't see him anywhere. I said, "Deacon? Where are you?" And then I heard him giggle, and his giggle was coming from right next to me.

When I asked him what was he doing in there he said, "Taking a bath." He then invited me to take a bath (in the frog) as well, but I politely declined, as I had just finished taking a shower not 30 minutes ago and felt clean enough. Deacon was thoroughly pleased with himself for getting in there though.

* * * * *

Last night I went downstairs to check on the bigger boys before heading to bed myself. When I opened the door to Zeke's room, I saw the elephant in a most unusual spot.

(That big clump of blankets and such by the head of the bed is Zeke. He slept across his pillows last night.) In the morning, the elephant was still there so the following conversation happened.

ME: What is that elephant doing up there?
ZEKE: He's hanging on the hook.
ME: Why is he hanging on the hook?
ZEKE: Because Deacon can't reach him there.

Because Deacon can't reach him there. Nice.

* * * * *

AND Finn is sick. He threw up a bunch last night. He's been coughing and snotting and pretty much miserable since after dinner yesterday. Looks like we might be spending Easter at home this year.

Plugging Away

Let's see...where were we...ah! Water in the bathroom from a leaky sink. So, the rest of the weekend went fine. Deacon was super tired Sunday morning and actually fell asleep during children's worship....lol. But that's about it for the weekend.

Monday morning the plumber came. He was able to get here and get the jobs (yes, jobs as I noticed the faucet in the tub was also leaking this weekend) done before Zeke got home from school, but he got here at just the right time so I wouldn't have enough time to go food shopping with just the little two before he showed up. But it's all taken care of, and he was very nice, and we got the food shopping done after naps. I guess that worked out well too since it allowed Zeke to pick out his own summer jammies, which he is totally pumped about. So much so that when we were checking out, he put them on the belt and said to the 16 year old (male) cashier, "These are my new superhero jammas!" And the kid, being sweet, said, "Wow. Those are cool. I want a pair." Which, just made Zeke's day.

Yesterday was our anniversary. Eight years. I spent my day doing laundry, vacuuming, hacking away at more ice, you know. While I was making dinner Finn got into one of the cabinets and broke some of my dishes. No one was hurt, and they're just dishes, so it's fine, but I really did like those dishes. Josh says it's one less thing to pack when we move. I say it's one more thing I get to buy when we move.

Today I had a "transistion to kindergarten" meeting at the elementary school Zeke would be going to if we were still going to be here in the fall. I'm a little sad now he won't be going to school here as all the ladies we met (the kindergarten teachers, the speech therapists, and the occupational therapist) were super nice. The special ed teacher had actually met Zeke before and was SO bummed we were moving. "You mean, I won't get to have Zeke next year? He's just so sweet and I just LOVE him already. I'm so sad now." I think she put that out there 5 or 6 times in the 40 minutes I was there. But, we had to have the meeting as a formality, plus this school is where his paperwork will be should we need anything in the future. Zeke's current teacher also went through the paperwork with me and went over all the guidelines and suggestions she made to help him do well in kindergarten next year. So, hopefully, all of her hard and wonderful work will help and he'll be good to go when we get to New Jersey.

Aaaaand the hubs is calling so I'm off. Caio!

Of Course.

Things went much better the rest of this week. You know, once all the boys finished throwing up and all that. The weather's been gorgeous (sunny and in the low 40's). We've been walking every evening after dinner. It's been good.

And then there was this morning. We are all still fine and healthy, no worries there. However, already running a few minutes behind schedule this morning, I went into the bathroom to get myself ready to go to speech, when I noticed a trail of water going from under the sink to almost by the toilet, a good 2 or 3 feet stretch. I looked under the sink and saw that one of the valves was leaking and the other was hissing. I called the housing company in charge of our rental and got myself ready while I waited for someone to call me back. She called while I got Deacon ready, and said she'd have the Ken, the handy man, call me. While I waited for Ken to call I turned the water off in the bathroom, got Finn up and ready to go and left the house to head to speech (now a good 10-15 minutes behind schedule). Ken called and said he'll be out here first thing Monday morning and we're not to use the sink in the meantime. Awesome.

So, I've decided to lighten my load a little bit. Who wants him?

I'm kidding of course. I could never send this sweet boy away. Listening to him and Zeke laugh and play on the way home from speech today was too much fun. Also fun is seeing what good buddies they are becoming. Deacon's warming up to Finn a little more too, but Zeke is where it's at. When Josh was here, Finn would crawl to the gate at the top of the stairs and get all antsy until Josh would show up, then there would be excitement and all kinds of fanfare from Finn. Well, since Josh isn't here to welcome home with such glee, Finn now greets Zeke this way when Zeke comes home from school. As soon as Finn hears me go outside to get him, he crawls to the gate and waits. It's really sweet.

Not so sweet though is the work I did in the backyard today. I spent a good hour chipping, chopping, scraping and shoveling away some of the snow and ice that is still hanging out in the parts of our backyard that don't see much (if any) sun. With it being so nice out I'd really like to be able to start sending the bigger boys outside after naptime, but I just can't right now because of all the snow. Unless I want to put them in their snowpants and boots, but that's just ridiculous. It looks like I did a good job today as most of what I got up and spread around the yard has almost melted away. I guess a few more days and we'll be good to go.

Hopefully It Helps

We have this toy our German landlords gave us when we were living over in Germany. It's a wooden toy that has red straps to tie it to whatever. The other day, the boys took the straps off and started using them as scarves. It was pretty cute until I looked at Deacon and noticed that his "scarf" was wound awfully tight around his neck, making his face look slightly purple. I took the "scarf" off of his neck and gave them real scarves to use instead.

Hopefully it helps. (And that's how Zeke watched the movie the other night. What can I say, he's so weird sometimes.)

Of course, the red straps are still a draw to the children. When I saw them eyeing the straps while struggling with their swords the other day, inspiration struck.

Hopefully it helps keep the red straps away from their necks, as well as keep their swords in a handy place for when the next dragon shows up (because apparently we have dragons out here).

Every day since Josh has left Zeke has asked me, first thing in the morning, "Is my daddy home yet?" And every day I have to sigh and tell him no. So, in order to try and help him understand a little better just how long Josh will be gone, I made this paper chain to count down the days.

Hopefully it helps him to stop asking every day if Josh is home. Too bad it won't help Zeke not miss Josh as much (he's been having a rather emotional day today - "I'm sad because I miss my daddy").

And finally, I made this calendar/chart/countdown thing for Deacon, hoping that if he has some sort of visual thing to see when it's time to start using the toilet he'll be more willing to actually start using the toilet.

So, hopefully it helps him get into the potty mindset so I can get him trained before the summer (I'm really hoping to have him fully trained well before me move so that moving won't make him regress any, so he can go to some sort of preschool in the fall.)

Now that Daddy's gone, Mommy's had to put on her super-duper-thinking cap. I think I'm doing alright so far. Right?

In Christ Alone

The very first time I heard the worship song, "In Christ Alone" was way back in 2004. It was the first Sunday after Josh deployed to Iraq for the first time. I didn't try singing it since it was new to me, and so I sat there and listened. It was beautiful. It gave me so much hope and encouragement for the year that lay ahead. I still love this song, and I still get a little emotional whenever we sing it at church. (I'm not entirely sure, but I think we sang it in chapel the first Sunday after Josh deployed to Iraq the 2nd time too.)

Saturday night, as I was doing the dishes after putting the boys in bed, I was planning out Sunday morning, so it would go smoothly and we'd hopefully get to church on time. I stood there and though, "Oh gee. If we sing "In Christ Alone" tomorrow morning, I'm not sure I'll be able to keep myself together." Can you guess what happened?

We were a song or 2 into worship, and I was sitting down (probably because Deacon was starting to get heavy by that point) when the music started. As soon as everyone around me started singing "In Christ Alone" I started crying (just a little...not full on sobbing or anything...but enough that I had a hard time singing along). Zeke looked at me and said, "Mom, your eyes are tearing." Then he wiped my tears with his hand, climbed into my lap and sat there hugging me. He didn't let go until I stopped tearing and assured him I was fine. I know, I have the sweetest boy in the world.

So, since this song seems to be my "anthem" for when Josh is gone, and what with Easter rapidly approaching, I'm putting a video of the song at the bottom here with the words. Feel free to sing along if you know it. Or just sit and listen to the beautiful words. Or skip it altogether.

On a completely different note, sort of an aside here, not 10 minutes after I wrote and posted yesterday's blog post about our weekend and all the throwing up Finn and Deacon had done, I went downstairs to fold laundry before getting Finn up from his nap. I think I folded one shirt when I heard Zeke crying. I went in, held him for a second, then he jumped out of my lap and started throwing up. All. over. his. rug. Yeah.

That means that in the first 3 days Josh was gone I had all 3 boys' throw up to clean up. I did learn something though. I learned that throw up on the bed is MUCH easier to clean than throw up on the rug. Here's hoping we've gotten it all out of our systems now (pun intended) so that we don't have to deal with it again while he's gone.

We Survived Our First Weekend Without Daddy

Barely.

So, Friday night I took Josh to the airport. I got home a little after midnight. My friend who was here staying with the boys hung out and chatted for a bit (which was wonderful). By the time she left, and I got settled and into bed it was about 1am. I didn't really sleep well - mostly because I brought my phone to bed and got a twitter message at 5am then Josh texted around 6am when he landed in Salt Lake City.

Here's a crazy little rabbit trail, sort of. As I was dreaming Saturday morning, an image of Josh sort of flittered in the foreground of my dream and he said, "It's time to get going." I woke up, looked at the clock, and sure enough, it was time to get up and get going. Crazy.

Anyhoo, so I got up Saturday, got the big boys up, then went to get Finn. When I put Finn in bed Friday night he cried a little after he had been in bed for a few minutes. Figuring this was his normal "settling down for the night" cry, I didn't check on him. Well, when I went in Saturday morning Finn and pretty much his entire bed was covered in throw up. Yeah. My poor baby slept in his throw up all. night. long. He was fine in the morning, but that meant a load of laundry had to be done.

Saturday is speech day, so at 10 I loaded up all the boys and drove into Anchorage for speech. Miss Kathie was wonderful and let Deacon go in with Zeke, so I only had to entertain Finn for the 45 minutes. When speech was over, Miss Kathie came out cracking up. She told me what a riot the 2 of them together were and how much fun she had with them both. I hope this means she'll continue to take them both. At least, until Deacon becomes too much of a distraction for Zeke.

Sunday at church Deacon got really sad when I took him back to Sunday school, so I let him sit with me during church. He did really well and sat really quietly the whole time. Plus he kept me warm since I didn't bring a sweater and it was colder then I expected it to be in there.

The rest of the weekend went pretty much as usual. Putting the boys in bed Saturday night was probably the hardest and saddest part of the day. It wasn't much easier Sunday night.

After I went to bed last night things got interesting again. About 11:15pm I heard Deacon crying. So I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs and found my sweet boy covered in vomit, tears and snot. Perfect. So I cleaned him up, I put him upstairs in my bed, started the washing machine and got his stuff in the wash. I also had to plug in my sentsy warmer down there because WOW did his room smell AWFUL.

After taking care of all of that, I climbed into bed with my sweet boy. No sooner had I laid down then he bolted up and put his hand to his mouth. I took him off the bed and stood him on the towel I had put on the floor, since we weren't going to make it to the toilet on time. When he was finished "spitting out" (what we call it here - isn't he cute for coming up with that) he wanted to sit on the toilet so I left him there to clean up my side of the bed and the surrounding area.

Finally, around 1am this morning he settled down enough for both of us to be able to get some sleep. At one point he had bolted up again and I said, "Are you going to spit out again?" He got so upset he yelled, "NO! NO MORE SPIT OUT!" Almost like he was commanding his body to stop making him spit out.

This morning, he spit out the first 1/2 cup of Gatorade he gulped down, but he's been absolutely fine since. And that was our first weekend of TDY - mostly normal but bookended with "spit out". And now I get to get them up from naps and take them all food shopping! July cannot get here fast enough right now.

This Is It

Well, today's the day.

The car has been shipped.

The computer has been mailed.

The clothes have been packed.

Josh leaves tonight for Alabama.

For those who missed the post I wrote about what all is next for us, you can read it HERE. Apparently a bunch of people missed that post and are confused as to what's going on. ;)

Happy (Early) Birthday Finn!

Since Josh is leaving Friday (early Saturday morning actually) and won't be here next month when Finn turns 1, we decided to have Finn's birthday celebration a month early so Daddy could be here to celebrate with the birthday boy. Of course, now I'm not sure what to do next month his actual birthday comes. But boy did we have fun last night!

We started the evening's celebrations with a most delicious lasagna for dinner. As you can see, Finn is quite the fan of his mother's lasagna and could not get enough of it in his belly. Nor could he get enough of it all over his face, head and arms. But that's part of the fun, right?

After we cleaned up dinner (and Finn [and Finn's tray]) we brought out the cake. For Zeke and Deacon's 1st birthdays I made them individual sized round cakes then made cupcakes for the rest of us with the remaining batter. This year, I couldn't find those pans (probably still in a box somewhere) but I did find my heart shaped little cakes pan and used that. I was going to just make one heart for Finn, then cupcakes for the rest of us, but Josh wanted a heart cake to so I made all 6 of them, then used the remaining batter to make 6 cupcakes. Oh and, Deacon helped with the baking.

It took Finn all of 30 seconds to figure out how delicious cake is. Once he figured it out though, it was on! It was also thoroughly enjoyed. (I have a bunch more pictures up on flickr.)

Since it was a double whammy night of lasagna and cake, it was also a bath night. Which works out really well because the birthday boy LOVES bath night. He is a splash maniac and I am already trying to figure out how I'm going to bathe the 3 boys by myself once Josh leaves. (AHH!)

After the boys were all cleaned up and jammied, it was time for presents. Josh and I bought Finn a toy (which Zeke and Deacon have been fighting over ever since we presented it to Finn - go figure) for the occasion. As it happened, my stepmom had mailed us a package a few weeks ago and had the foresight to put Finn's birthday presents from her, my dad and brother in the package, so we let Finn open them last night too (I hope that's okay Grandma Karen).

Finally, we put in a movie for the older boys so Finn could actually play with his own birthday present for a little bit. Then it was off to bed for 3 very tired, sugar crashed boys. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good 1st birthday for our sweet little boy. We sure do love you Finn!

My Apologies To Those Who May Be Squeamish

Last Wednesday, the guys Josh worked with here had a farewell lunch for him. While we were there, they presented Josh a really sweet bow as a going away gift.

What's really cool about this bow is that they had the Air Force symbol engraved on one side of it and the Army symbol engraved on the other.

So Friday afternoon, a squirrel dared to come out of hibernation a little too early and got itself killed by Josh (with the pellet gun). Always the clever one, Josh decided to set things up so that it looked like he had killed the squirrel with his new bow, and texted the picture (that I took) to his friend.

Yesterday, a second squirrel dared to show itself on our back fence, causing Josh to rush through the house like a crazy man. He emerged from the bedroom with his new bow this time. After mentally debating whether or not her really wanted to try shooting the squirrel with his bow, he drew back and let that arrow fly - right into the squirrel! You guys, my husband SHOT a SQUIRREL with a BOW AND ARROW! I'll spare you that picture since it's kind of gory, but as I saw the squirrel fall from the fence I immediately thought, "I guess I know what I'm blogging about tomorrow."

Now, to say that Josh was totally pumped about SHOOTING A SQUIRREL WITH A BOW AND ARROW might be a slight understatement (sorry to get all "capsy" on you there). But he really was totally pumped. And really, who can blame him?

Who Needs Friends...

When you have brothers?