Oh those Walter boys!

And Then There's Finn

2012-01-27T09:57:00.007-09:00

Finn, who LOVES water (especially in puddle form):

Finn, who LOVES tv (especially Mickey Mouse Clubhouse):

Finn, who seems to have a hard time figuring out hats still (hehehe):

Finn, who is so stinking cute and knows it:

Finn who is talking more and doing more and getting so big I almost can't stand it anymore:

It's So Easy to Love This Kid

2012-01-24T10:46:00.004-09:00

I am, of course, referring to Deacon. My sweet Dee Dee. So full of fun and imagination. Always cracking us up, whether it's something he said, or a face he made, this kid just melts my heart every day.

Deacon is in preschool this year. He goes every afternoon from 12-3, and he LOVES it. Today I had a parent teacher conference for him, and his teacher says he's doing really well. She said he's very sweet, and listens well. He is one of the few kids in her class this year that likes to do individual work and coloring. He is NEVER bored, as he finds many uses for many of the toys in the room. He's coming along on his numbers and letters, and is fascinated with writing.

The teacher said Deacon usually plays by himself or with 1 other child, but never really in a group like most of the other kids do. But, that's just Deacon's style. He's always preferred one-on-one time. That's not to say he is completely opposed to group activities, he just likes things a little more low key. The teacher noted that he's really good at going about his business regardless of the chaos going on in the classroom. I commented that that's because our house is almost always chaotic.

Because Deacon says some hilarious things I started writing some of them down (to share here, of course). For example, the other day he and Finn were at the table eating breakfast. Deacon said, "Finn, look at that boat!" (He had made a "boat" out of his waffle or something.) Finn looked at Deacon and appropriately said, "Oooohh!" Deacon then said, in a most matter-of-factly way, "Ooh is right."

Or when we were in the car listening to a new cd I got for Christmas and in one of the songs the lyrics were something like "Heaven fall down". So we're listening to this song when Deacon says, "Kevin's okay." I said, "Kevin? Who is Kevin?" After thinking for a second Deacon said, "Kevin is a boy." And that's when I realized he thought the song was saying "Kevin fell down", and so he was assuring me that even thought this boy named Kevin fell down, he was okay.

And then there's this. I did go back and forth for awhile about whether or not to post this picture as it's kind of "NSFW" as they would say (not safe for work). But it was really funny, and so here it is. A week or so before Christmas we were at the table coloring. Deacon handed me his finished product and said, "Look! I made a man Santa Claus!"

Can you see it? There below the circle that is Santa's...body? Belly? It doesn't matter, below Santa's main body part is a little anatomically male part to distinguish this Santa as a male Santa. Oh how I laughed when he showed this to me. I asked him what that part was and he said, "It's Santa's butt!" Oh Deacon, leave it to you.

Deacon is also slightly obsessed with ghosts and aliens, pumpkins and Angry Birds. I'm not sure what his deal with ghosts and aliens is, but they pop up here and there in his stories and imaginary play. Pumpkins and Angry Birds are his favorite thing to draw right now. Maybe I'll post some of his more recent pictures for you to see. They're actually quite good.

And finally, I'm not sure I ever wrote this here, but Deacon is finally, fully potty trained. Towards the end of October he finally got the hang of pooping on the toilet and we've been diaper free ever since. Now if we could just get the little one...hahahaha!

So, that's pretty much Deacon in a nutshell. Smart, funny, sweet, not as eager to help as Zeke but still happy to do what he can, imaginative and wonderful. I love you Deacon, and I am having SO much fun watching you grow up.

To the Doctor's Part 1

2012-01-20T09:26:00.005-09:00

This past Saturday morning I took Zeke to the doctor's for his 6 year check up. He weighed in at 47 pounds (Deacon weighed in at 45 1/2 pounds on Monday, by the way) and is 4 foot tall even (so, 48 inches). The doctor said that places him in the 50% range for weight and the 90% range for height. Go figure. His vision is 20/20 and his hearing is fine.

The doctor pronounced Zeke to be in perfect health. She also threw out there that he has a functional heart murmur. It's no big deal, pending he doesn't suddenly start tiring out easily and get sick more often. One website I read said, a functional heart murmur is basically your heart whistling while it works. So, nobody panic, he is fine.

Now a little bit about my sweet boy's personality.

I sometimes think we should have named him Barnabas (son of encouragement). He is almost always overflowing with excitement and is ready to praise a person for just about anything. Last night, for example, I showed him a different way to do something he was having a hard time getting done and he said, "Yeah! Good thinking, Mom! High five!" Then he high fived me and went about his business.

Zeke is also a big help around the house. He helps me clean up, he's started helping me make his lunch on school days, he gets himself ready and helps his brothers once he's all set. He carries things for me (if they aren't too heavy for him), and he takes really good care of Finn. In the mornings he lets Finn follow him around while he gets dressed and ready for school. The other morning I listened as Zeke dried off Finn's hands after Finn got his hands wet while Zeke was brushing his teeth. He also lets me put Finn in the shower with him, and he helps me by making sure all of the shampoo gets washed out of Finn's hair. He really is just so sweet.

Zeke is also a lover. He's very affectionate and will hug just about anyone. If I had to guess, I'd say that physical touch and words of affirmation would be his main "love languages" (for anyone who's read that book). He still likes to sit on my lap on occasion, or right next to me. I'm not going to lie, I like that. It'll be a sad day for me when my boy doesn't want to cuddle anymore.

Anyhoo, Zeke also LOVES school still. He's very excited about going every day. He's doing really well too. He seems to really like math, as it's one of the few things he'll actually tell me about when he comes home at the end of the school day. Zeke still likes reading, especially now that he's learning sight words and how to sound out what he sees on the pages. He's also learning how to figure out what might happen in the story by looking at the pictures, so he's become quite good at "reading" to his brothers.

Yes, he still gets WAY to wound up sometimes for his own good. Yes, he sometimes throws fits when he doesn't get his way, and yes, he tries to turn everything in life into a competition now (especially meals). But Zeke is my favorite 6 year old boy, in the world, and I wouldn't want him any other way.

I love you my sweet, sweet boy.

There It Is!

2012-01-19T10:27:00.002-09:00

For those who don't know, Josh is currently on a trip to the UAE (United Arab Emirates). He left last Wednesday (my birthday) and will be back on Saturday. Before he left, he kept joking about all the things he was going to do and places he was going to go on (by?) camelback. He's been sending back pictures of different things on his trip, some of them of camels, but none of him actually on a camel. Until, today. I am so pumped I got this picture (and some video) that I just had to share it with you all. So, here's the hubs, in Abu Dahbi, on a camel. Oh, that biggest Walter boy!

To the Doctor's Part 2

2012-01-18T10:26:00.004-09:00

I know, I know, usually we start with Part 1, then go on to Part 2. And I had intended to do that, but darn it all if it isn't just too hard to get around to blogging while Josh is gone. (Lame excuse, I know.) And now that I'm actually sitting down to blog, I see that I only have 15 minutes to write before I have to get Finn up to get Deacon from school. And since Part 1 is going to be a bit wordier than Part 2, I figured I'd just do Part 2 first so that I would actually blog something this week.

So, Sunday afternoon Deacon woke up from his nap twice crying, complaining that his ear hurt. Since I was trying to take a nap too, I put him in bed with me after the 2nd time and saw that he really couldn't sleep on his right ear without wincing in pain and rolling over. I figured he probably had an ear infection, but since it was a Sunday there wasn't much I could do. Monday morning he woke up in a SIGNIFICANTLY better mood, and an ear that looked like this:

Yep, ruptured eardrum ahoy. I called the doctor's and got an appointment for later Monday morning. I took Zeke to his play date and then off (back) to the doctor's we went. "Yep" she said, "He has a full blown ear infection." That's why we're here doc! Anyhoo, now he's on antibotics and ear drops twice a day. And we have to go back in 10 days to make sure it's all working and the ear is healing properly.

Don't worry about Deacon though. He's perfectly fine otherwise.

Happy Birthday to MEEEEE!!

2012-01-12T10:57:00.004-09:00

So, yesterday was my birthday. It was a good day. Not a great day since Josh left in the afternoon for the UAE (United Arab Emirates) for 10 day, but a good day. For the 2nd year in a row I got to go to PWOC on my actual birthday, and have the ladies there sing to me, so that was fun. The boys were pretty good throughout the day, and watching sitcoms after they went to bed was a pretty good way to end the day.

Since Josh had to leave yesterday afternoon, he surprised me by arranging to have Kirsten come up to babysit the boys for us so we could go out to dinner. Due to my insistance on having my birthday brownies with my boys before we left (figuring they'd be in bed after we got home - which they were), we left later than Josh had anticipated, so we went to the local Olive Garden and had a lovely time. Afterwards we did some shopping (cat food and a slurpee - do we know how to have a good time or what?), then went home and watched Biggest Loser. This is the 1st season of this show I've ever seen, and I have yet to fully make up my mind about it.

Anyhoo...back to me. *smirk* My birthday was a pretty low-key affair this year, but that's kind of how I like it. I got a Kindle Fire as my gift, and I pretty much LOVE it. We had fun eating brownies (even if they were so hot when I served them that the 1st plastic knife I used melted a bit, as did the candles)

and I was showered with love and birthday wishes from all over the world from my family and friends via phone calls, text messages, and facebook wall posts. I think I'm going to enjoy being 32.

Book Nerds

2012-01-10T09:47:00.002-09:00

In case you didn't know this, Josh and I are book nerds. We both love books, and we love to read. Which is why it makes me so very happy that my boys love books as well - all 3 of them.

Books keep Finn happy on longer car rides.

Books give Deacon great ideas for when he's using his imagination, while lost deep in Deaconland.

Books were Zeke's favorite present from his birthday.

As you can see by the picture, books also make it okay to be all up in each other's personal spaces. Now that Zeke is learning to look at the pictures in books to determine what might be going on in stories, he's been doing a really good job "reading" books to his brothers lately. It's fun to hear the stories they make up as they go through the pages together.

I hope this love for books stays with them their entire lives.

Just Another Saturday...

2012-01-07T13:44:00.002-09:00

...here in Legoland - I mean, Walterland.

Speaking of the Snow in October`

2012-01-06T09:41:00.004-09:00

As I was looking for the picture I posted last night, I realized that I never got around to blogging about the crazy snow storm we barely survived in October. Well, we survived just fine, having come from Alaska, but our little corner of New Jersey took quite a few days to get back on track. I'm getting ahead of myself though.

Friday the 28th, Josh's mom came up to visit and spent the night so she could spend her birthday (the 29th) with her son with whom she shares a birthday (Josh and his mom have the same birthday), and the rest of us. Our visit was going well until it started snowing on Saturday. Not paying it much mind at first we did all the birthday things we wanted - Josh, the kids and his mom made ice cream, we all played and had fun, we sang and had cake (I didn't have any actual birthday candles so we had to go with this:)

Meanwhile, outside, it just kept snowing and snowing and snowing. Eventually it was decided that it was too bad out there for Josh's mom to leave and she wound up spending a second night with us. A cold, dark night as at 7pm-ish our power went out. And out it stayed until 7am when it came on for about a 1/2hour so we could warm up the place a little (and make some tea!), then it went out again until it came back on for good around 11:20. (We were some of the lucky few - other homes on base lost power for a full 24 hours or so.) This was when Josh's mom decided to head home. Apparently the further south you went, the less severe the storm was. By my parents it had only dropped an inch or so, and by Josh's parents it only rained.

This is his mom's car on Saturday night - notice the darkness behind it as well as all the snow on top of it.

Anyhoo, Sunday was a pretty glorious day, so most of the snow from the roads melted and by evening it seemed like all was well. Except that all wasn't well as I got a call that school had been closed for Monday. Then it was closed on Tuesday. It was closed again on Wednesday. Thursday they finally went back to school, but it was a delayed opening and only for 1st grade on up. Kindergarteners in the state of New Jersey do not have to go to school a certain number of days the rest of the grades do, so they decided to let the little ones stay home. Which, was probably a good thing because what happened was they brought all the kids to Zeke's school, took attendance, then bused them to other schools in the district because Zeke's school still didn't have power! Crazy, right? Friday things were back to normal though and the kids were able to have their Halloween costume parade a few days late and all that jazz.

We definitely had some good times in the snow though. It's nice having snow in New Jersey because it's warmer here and you can let the kids (and their dad) play in the snow longer than 20 minutes, without worrying about frost bite and them freezing to death. Oh Alaska. How I miss you sometimes. Heh.

One day, Finn and I even ventured outside as well. Since Finn was still working on perfecting his walking, he didn't enjoy it too much as he did a bit of falling. But he did have some fun and it was good practice for when (if) we get more snow this winter.

Ever the creative one, Josh built a little snow fort, and a pretty "cool" castle thing (not pictured):

So, there you have it. Crazy October snow storm. No power all night. Josh's mom stranded here. No school for almost a full week. But lots of snow to have lots of fun in. The end.

When I Was Younger

2012-01-05T18:58:00.004-09:00

I used to think that freshly fallen snow was one of the most beautiful things ever. I would get so upset when someone would walk across it, ruining it forever (or until the next time it snowed).

Now I still like the look of freshly fallen snow, but I also enjoy heavily trampled snow because it usually means someone (or 3 little someones in this case) had a seriously good time, thoroughly enjoying themselves in the snow.

Six?!?

2012-01-04T09:23:00.002-09:00

Yesterday, January 3rd, my oldest boy turned 6. It was also their first day back to school, so it was a HUGE day for Zeke. As it was a huge day, he was one excited boy all. day. long. The morning went off without a hitch though, and once he was off to school, I started baking cupcakes.

At 2 in the afternoon, I went to Zeke's school, where his teacher threw a little celebration for him. I brought in and read Where the Wild Things Are to his class (per Zeke's request). After the story was over, the class played Zeke specific BINGO, where his teacher (who is the sweetest thing, by the way) had made BINGO boards using pictures of characters from kids shows and used words that relate to Zeke. Words like "January", "brother", "winter", etc. Zeke won the first round (by design), another kid won the 2nd round and then Zeke won the 3rd round again (by coincidence)! So his teacher said, "Don't clear your boards, we'll go for a 2nd winner this round." Ha! After BINGO the kids had their snacks and Zeke handed out the little goodie bags we had made for them.

I think it really meant a lot to Zeke that I went to his school for his birthday because the whole ride home he kept talking about how he and I are friends and how he loves me "all this day". He's such a sweet boy.

After school, I took Zeke home with me, and picked up Deacon from school and Finn from child care. We got home, and then Zeke's friend, Thomas, came over and the boys played while I finished up the cupcakes.

It's not the greatest picture, but the ones on the left are dinosaurs (I'll try to get around to getting pics up on Flickr soon). Then there are your regular cupcakes, or "real" cupcakes as Zeke called them all day yesterday. I let the birthday boy decide what flavor cake and frosting he wanted and he went for the chocolate/chocolate combo. That's my boy!

Being back in New Jersey, this was the first birthday for any of the boys that we were able to have some family celebrate with us. As you'll see a picture or 2 down, my mother, father, step dad and twin sisters came up and had some dinner (hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, per the birthday boy's request) and cake with us.

After we ate some hot dogs and some cupcakes it was, of course, present time. After all, what better wayis there to wear off a sugar rush than by ripping up some paper?

Shortly after all the presents were opened, it was time to say good night and good bye as family left and the boys went to bed. All in all, a very good day. And now I have a 6 year old. Crazy, but wonderful.

Oh Zeke.

2012-01-03T19:01:00.002-09:00

Happy Birthday Sweet Prince.

You are so loved.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

AAALLVIIIIINNNN!!

2012-01-02T12:36:00.000-09:00

I took the older 2 boys to see the 3rd chipmunk movie in the theaters today. It was an exciting time for all of us. Until maybe 5 minutes before the movie started, we were the only 3 people in the theater (ours was 1 of maybe 7 cars in the entire parking lot - which was packed when we left).

A father and his son sat in the row in front of us, and that kind man got quite the kick out of Zeke. You see, being 5 (6 tomorrow!), Zeke doesn't really have the where-with-all to know which comments "need" to be said, and which don't have to be shared at all. Also, being 5, he gets SUPER excited about things and when he's excited, he also has no voice control and sets his volume to LOUD. Thus, through most of the previews and a better part of the actual movie, Zeke would make random comments with his "outside voice", which kept the man sitting in front of us cracking up the entire time. When the movie was over, the man turned to Zeke and asked him if he liked the movie. "YEAH!" Zeke enthusiastically replied, and oh how we all did laugh.

It's a New Year!

2012-01-01T12:29:00.003-09:00

It's a new year and I am ready for school (and work - Josh) to start again.

In fact, I think we might *all* be ready to get back to "normal".

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ho Ho Ho NO!

2011-12-17T08:39:00.003-09:00

I'm not sure where things went wrong. I can't tell you what happened specifically as I wasn't there, assuming there was even a "there" to be at. All I know is that one day my boys were thrilled with Santa, and the next Zeke was scared and Deacon was angry. Yes, you read that right, angry. Deacon came out of his bed room one day, and we had the following conversation:

Deacon: Mom, I don't want Santa to bring me any presents because I'm angry with him.
Me: You're angry with Santa?
Deacon: Yes.
Me: Why?
Deacon: Because he makes me angry. He can bring Ezekiel presents, but not me.

Then he walked away. The other night we put on "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and as it started Zeke said to the TV, "Santa Claus, I don't like you, you scare me." As far as I know, this is the first Christmas they're really aware of anything Santa at all, so I'm not sure where these feelings are coming from. Thus, when Santa visited our street on Wednesday, Finn was the only one who went out to greet him, and that's because Mommy physically made him (I picked him up and carried him outside).

(Sorry it's blurry. I only had my iPhone, and things were going quickly and my neighbor took the picture for me.) Finn did pretty well being near Santa. He sort of stared like he was trying to figure Santa out. Then he cried a little, but that was only when Santa patted his head.

When one of the police escorts saw the other two boys up in the window he asked if they were going to come out too. I told him one was scared of Santa and the other was angry with Santa. He chuckled and said, "Well, keep the angry one in there. We don't need Santa getting beat up." Heh.

It was a cool thing though. Santa drove up and down every street on base, in a fire truck, and handed out teddy bears to all the kids that came out to see him. So, that means we've seen Santa roll up in a paladin and now a fire truck. That guy really enjoys using alternative methods of transportation, huh? I think he also rode around on a little train thing the Spaghetti with Santa nights, but we didn't go to that, so I'm not positive that actually happened. And, as you can see by the picture below, he stopped right in front of our house.

If you look close enough to our window above the garage, you can also see Scaredy Scott and Angry Andy watching from the safety of their living room. I love how they keep life interesting like this. Oh, those Walter boys.

This Year's Tree

2011-12-08T09:49:00.004-09:00

In Alaska, our house came with an arificial Christmas tree. It was a nice enough tree so we used it the 2 years we were there. However, much to Josh's disappointment, our place here in New Jersey did NOT come with an artificial tree, so we decided to go out and buy a real one this year. This news thrilled Zeke, who counted down the days until we could buy a tree. Every day as he got off the bus he would say, "Three more days until we buy a Christmas tree, right Mom?" and so on.

So, Saturday morning off we went to get ourselves a real Christmas tree. When we got to the tree lot, we put Finn in the stroller, much to his dismay. Josh said, "Here, give him a rock to play with, he'll be fine."

Of course, Finn immediately put the rock in his mouth. Sigh. Notice the second rock between his legs. Deacon decided giving Finn rocks was a good idea, and was more than happy to go along with it.

I found one tree that was beautiful, but unfortunately it was also a little on the big side.

Even Deacon was skeptical. Oh well.

We did eventually find one, and despite the look on Finn's face, it is a lovely tree. (He was SO over being in that stroller.)

While Zeke and Josh paid for the tree, Finn, Deacon and I roamed around, mostly watching the guys open the trees that had just arrived from the farm. It was a pretty neat process. The one guy was super sweet and even gave Finn a little branch to run around with.

Once the tree was paid for and strapped to the top of the car we were on our way back home.

Here's Josh bringing the tree in. You know, before he set the stand up to put the tree in.

We set up the tree then left it for the rest of the day as we had that ball and what's it to go to. Sunday, however, Sunday is when the rest of the fun happened.

Since Zeke was super thrilled about the whole "tree thing" it seemed fitting that he put the star on the top of the tree (with some help, of course).

After the star came the lights.

After lights, Josh took the boys outside to put some more lights up out there, but not before Zeke got his one special ornament up on the tree.

After we came back in, Christmas tree decorating commenced...for everyone except Mommy who was sent into the kitchen to make dinner. Sigh.

And here's the finished product.

We are all very pleased with it. And now that I've written this post I realized I haven't watered it since we set it up so I should probably go and check on that. Ciao!

Slow Down December!

2011-12-05T09:25:00.004-09:00

Well, my plan to blog every day in December went right out the window! My apologies. I actually sat down on the 1st to blog, but then my friend texted me to see if I was going to the tree lighting ceremony on post that afternoon, and I figured, "Why not? It's a beautiful (if chilly) day." So then I figured, "If I'm going to this tree lighting thing, and Santa will be there and all that, I'll just wait to blog today and write about our afternoon in the evening."

Having decided to wait to blog then, I went upstairs to try on dresses for the ball Josh and I had to go to on Saturday. I know, who waits until Thursday to try on dresses for Saturday? This girl, that's who. And wouldn't you know it, not one of my 3 dresses fit right, leaving me dressless for the ball. Therefore, the evening of the 1st was spent online dress shopping just to see what might be in the stores. This also took care of any blog time I might have had on Friday, since I spent Friday at the mall dress shopping. Which also meant I was pretty worn out come Friday night.

This brings us to Saturday. I thought for sure I'd blog Saturday since I knew we'd be going Christmas tree shopping and what's it. But wouldn't you know it, Saturday I found myself back at the mall. As it turns out, the bra I bought to wear under my dress still had the security tag on it, so I had to go back and get the tag removed. And while I was there I got all the extras to go with my dress: shoes, jewelry, shawl, clutch, etc. Saturday evening was the ball, and Sunday, well, Sundays I don't blog usually anyway, but my sisters were here, and I wasn't feeling good, so here I am now.

So, back to Thursday. Thursday after school I took my 3 boys and Thomas (he's in 1st grade and lives on our street and rides the bus with Zeke) to the tree lighting ceremony on base. It was fun. The kids mostly ran around in circles ignoring all the festivities.

After the tree was lit (somewhat anticlimactic as it was still pretty light outside so you couldn't see the lights that were on) Santa rolled up in a paladin. That was fun. After he got out of the paladin, he handed out candy canes to all the kids. Zeke, who is thrilled with the idea of Santa, apparently is way less than thrilled with the actuality of Santa. He hid behind Josh's legs and said "NO! Santa's scary!" Thomas and Deacon were fine though. We also took a family Christmas card picture.

Lol, could you imagine if I did send this out and everyone was like, "Um? I thought Beth and Josh only had 3 kids? Who's this extra one? He looks like he belongs, but um..." Anyhoo...

Saturday morning we took the kids to buy a Christmas tree. It was a beautiful morning and we had a good time looking around, trying to find the "perfect" one. I'll write more about it later as I have some fun pictures/little stories from our time at the Christmas tree place.

Saturday night was the holiday ball on post. It was nice. The place was beautifully decorated. We were able to sit at a table with a bunch of people we know, so that was nice. The food was good, even if we did eat WAY too late. Everyone looked lovely and I had some sweet footwear (not sure if you can really see them in the picture, but they were gold and glittery with a 6 inch heel.

Sunday we went to church as usual, and after nap time we decorated the tree. And by "we" I mean Josh and the boys decorated the tree while I got stuck making dinner. Lame, right? But Zeke was thrilled to finally have a tree and to be decorating it. He'd been counting down all week, leading up to Saturday.

Also excited about the Christmas tree is this guy:

He woke me up at 6:45 this morning just so I'd go down and turn on the lights. As soon as they were on, he laid in front of the tree quite content looking, and stayed there for the next hour until the kids got up and ruined the serenity of his morning.

And that, my friends, is about all for December so far. Hopefully it'll slow down a little bit and I can get some time to put up some stuff from November (maybe even as far back as October...yeah, that's what happens when I skip an entire month of blogging).

So, November Kind of Got Away From Me

2011-11-30T10:30:00.004-09:00

Hey there! Long time no hear from, huh? Sorry about that. November sort of got away from me this year. I had thought about doing NaBloPoMo again, but totally bailed on that idea after the first day when I realized I'd be gone a few days this month and didn't really want to blog while I was gone. So I took the entire month off. I'm toying with the idea of "making it up to you" by blogging all of December. We'll see.

As for November though, the "few" pictures I took this month are up on flickr, and looking through them, we really didn't do too much that was exciting this month. Which is probably why I didn't blog too much this month. Thanksgiving was this month, so I'll blog about that (minus pictures because I apparently didn't take any that day).

The day before Thanksgiving Zeke's kindergarten class and the other kindergarten classes put on a little show/dinner for their families. It was super cute. He'd been singing the songs for us a good week or so before the show, but it was fun seeing him up there, singing and dancing with all the other kids. When they lined up on the stands, he look at us and almost started crying from excitement when he saw that ALL of us were there, since Daddy was able to leave work for an hour to be there as well.

Here's a video of one of the 2 songs they sang. Zeke is in the center on the back row. And if you look closely at the bottom left of the screen when I zoom out at one point you'll see a cute blonde woman - that's Zeke's teacher. I like her. Anyway, the video:

Aren't they all so cute?

Thanksgiving day we watched the parade in the morning. Well, I watched the parade while the boys ran around and played. Although, the Sesame Street float was a HUGE hit with Finn. He climbed into my lap and bopped around and pointed at all his friends. It was very sweet.

We had Thanksgiving dinner down at Josh's parents' house. We had a nice time. The bigger boys had a ton of fun playing with their cousin Sam, as well as Josh's cousin Holly and her husband, Jordan. Finn impressed everyone with his mad iPad/iPhone skills. It was really nice seeing everyone who was there, and enjoying a good meal with them.

The rest of the long weekened was spent playing LEGOs. Josh's parents gave us BOXES of LEGOs and LEGO sets and all that kind of stuff, which we spent almost the entire weekend sorting, and putting specific sets together, and organizing and all sorts of stuff.

We're not even close to being finished either. You see the big brown box there? That's FULL to the TOP with just pieces. Yes, I would say thousands of LEGO pieces. We aren't keeping them all. We're going through and trying to put together all the sets so we can send of them on to Linda for Sam to play with (you're welcome Lin!). Hopefully we'll have it done by Christmas.

And that, in a nutshell, was our holiday weekend. Nice. Quiet. LEGO-filled. Just how we like it. I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving as well.

A "Marvel"-ous Halloween

2011-11-02T10:32:00.005-08:00

What a day Halloween was here. Our day started like a usual Monday with some food shopping, but it was extra...let's say...exciting because Zeke was with us as his school was closed due to the storm we had rage through on Saturday.

After food shopping, we had a special event. Josh got promoted to Major! That's right, now he's a Major Pain In My Butt!! OH! I've been waiting for quite awhile to use that joke. All joking aside though, I am very proud of him and all that he's done.

Since Zeke's school was cancelled and since Finn was going to be there anyway, I made Deacon come too so all of us were there, including my mom who came up for the promotion ceremony. After the ceremony was over, I brought Deacon to school while everyone else enjoyed the food I brought.

Speaking of the food, as I was getting out of bed Monday morning, around 7:30am, Josh said to me, "Do you think we should have some sort of food at this thing today?" Umm...YES! So I frantically ran around that morning getting things together (also making food shopping "exciting"). But it all came together well, and we had a great time. Especially since Ironman and Spider-man were there!

This happened because Deacon had to wear his costume to school, which meant Zeke wanted to wear his costume. And since both boys decided to wear their costumes, Zeke insisted that Finn wear his too. So, we had a sweet little tiger in attendance too:

I think the tail was my favorite part of the whole thing:

After I got Ironman and the Tiger home from the promotion ceremony I put them down for naps as I was exhausted. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was exhausted...sweet super hero.

After naps a bunch of kids from the neighborhood(s) came to our street and there was a little costume parade. It was sweet, and a good number of kids showed up considering the snow and everything.

After the parade, Josh left for another trip (this time to Virginia), and then it was dinner and all that kind of thing, until trick-or-treating "officially" started at 6pm. We did our street with our friend Thomas, and his mom, Kris (also Thomas' brother Christopher and his friend Tay).

After we did our street, the kids didn't really have much loot (as only 5 houses were home) so Kris, because she's wonderful, took the bigger boys to another part of base to do more trick-or-treating while I went home with Finn to be warm and hand out candy. About an hour later the boys came home, I got rid of the rest of the candy and we went to bed a little late, but very, very happy.

That's...a lot of snow!

2011-10-30T04:02:00.001-08:00

So, we got about a foot of snow yesterday. We lost power around 7 last night. It came back on at 7 this morning, but it's out again. We are all fine. Just wanted to let you all know. You know, in case you were worried.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Pumpkin Day - Part Two

2011-10-18T08:46:00.005-08:00

After we got home from pumpkin picking, we put the boys down for naps. After naps we played a little and had an early dinner. After dinner though, that's when the pumpkiny fun continued. This year I let Josh do all the carving since I got to do it all last year, and because I was just too tired to shove a knife through the big pumpkins we got. Since Zeke was still working on finishing his dinner, we started with Deacon's pumpkin.

Don't worry, we made him move back right after I took this picture. In fact, in order to keep the bigger boys occupied while Josh carved to his heart's content, I put the boys to work sorting out all the pumpkin seeds.

It really went like this though. I would pull out the gunk, then sort out the seeds. I'd hand the seeds to either Zeke or Deacon (whoever was standing there waiting), who would then put them into the colander. Zeke didn't like touching most of it, but Deacon was good about diving right in this year.

Zeke was also "responsible" for throwing away the chunks of pumpkin Josh would put on the table as he carved. At one point Deacon turned to Zeke and said, "Zeke. There are pieces over there for you to throw away." As Zeke got up to throw them away Deacon then said to Josh, "Daddy. Zeke is on his way to take care of that. Okay?" Oh, he makes me laugh. He was just SO matter-of-fact about it all.

Finn, who is too young to really participate in and enjoy the carving festivities, started out coloring (Josh made that face, not Finn, but he does color with his left hand).

Eventually he got bored with that, and then ran around the house like a crazy man. Zeke accompanied him in this, in an attempt at avoiding dirtying his hands. Finn also acted as safety inspector by showing us how easily he could get his little ninja hands on the knives that were hanging out on the table. Eventually we found safe spots for them and he left us alone.

And now the finished products:

After carving was done all the menfolk went upstairs to take baths, while I stayed downstairs and cleaned up. I also washed and toasted the pumpkin seeds. All in all, it was a very good day. A LONG day, but a good day.

Pumpkin Day - Part One

2011-10-17T08:49:00.003-08:00

Saturday we took the boys pumpkin picking. We were going to do apple picking too, but apparently that ended last week when we first thought about going before deciding to wait until this week. Oh well, now we know for next year. Having grown up in New Jersey, we decided to take the boys to the places we went as kids. Our first stop was the Cider Mill. Unfortunately, due to all the rain this summer/fall, their pumpkin crop was pretty much non-existent.

No matter how much we looked, all we could find were pumpkins that looked like this:

It was not a complete waste of a trip though as we did enjoy some of the world's most delicious apple cider (I may be a bit biased), as well as some tastey donuts.

Not wanting to go home without the pumpkins we went for, we decided to stop at Alstede Farms, pretty much right down the road. While Josh grumbled at first, saying I was a glutton for punishment, it ended up being a great idea, and we had a really good time. Especially since we got to go on a hay ride to the pumpkin field!

As you can probably tell by their faces, the boys were very excited with this, and totally made the trip worth it.

Once we got to the field, it was off to find the perfect pumpkins. Josh took the boys one way and looked for some nice big ones to carve,

while I followed Finn around, picking him up every time he fell down. Which was quite often as by this point he was getting tired. Plus pumpkin patches tend to have bumpy grounds and vines that make it very easy for little ones to trip.

Be that as it may, as the sign below says, we had loads of fun.

To end our afternoon out, while Josh stood on line and paid for the pumpkins, I took the boys to the giant haybale hill thing, so we could climb it and get out any energy the kids might have had left in them by this point.

All in all, a very good day. And for those who read the titles and noticed that this says it's Part One, that's because we carved the pumpkins later that evening, but since that involves more pictures I'm going to save it for tomorrow.

Oh! I also got some gourds. Aren't they cute? I have to admit, I never thought twice about these things until we moved to Germany and I became friends with Joni. Now they're some of my favorite things. Okay, until next time!

So, September

2011-10-13T09:28:00.004-08:00

And now, without further adieu, a quick wrap-up of all the fun we had in September (I will do my best to try and stay on top of blogging in October).

We checked out the water park on base and LOVED it. We can't wait for next summer so we can get a season pass and hang out there quite often.

We went to Josh's cousin's wedding. (Sorry no pics for this one...maybe on someone else's facebook?)

Zeke started kindergarten.

The chapel we go to here had a picnic, complete with tug-of-war (tug-o-war?).

Josh's parents brought Peavey back to us, much to the boys' delight.

We went to a little Oktoberfest celebration at Josh's boss' house.

My mom had a birthday and we went down for dinner. Sadly, Deacon (and me a little) got a bit sick, so we had to bounce right after dinner was over. (Again, sorry no pictures.)

We went to West Point to visit the Starlings. We also got to see the Golby and the Childress families while we were there!

Soccer season started.

I had my first back to school night, which was fun. (Also no pictures of this.)

And we did a bunch of just hanging out and "relaxing" when we weren't running around.

So, there you have it! September in a decent sized nut shell. The rest of the pictures are up on flickr, again, for anyone interested.

Summer Pictures

2011-10-10T11:11:00.003-08:00

I've spent the past week organizing and labeling my pictures from the summer. After I blogged last week, I realized I hadn't gone through all the pictures I took this summer and saw how badly it really needed to be done. So, if you're interested, and to hold you over until I blogged again, here are the links to my pictures from the summer on flickr.

June's pictures

July's pictures

August's pictures

And now I have to go and get started on September's pictures. Ciao!

There Goes Another One!

2011-10-05T08:48:00.004-08:00

Deacon started preschool on Monday. Talk about exciting stuff. He was so thrilled to finally be going to school (he's been waiting since Zeke started school last month). He has 2 teachers and 6 (I think) kids in his class. He is having a great time, is doing well (you know, the whole 3 days he's gone so far), and really looks forward to going every day (again, the whole 3 days he's gone so far). The school is right here on base, so it's literally a 3 minute drive - at the most. It's also right across the street from where Josh works, so he's able to help drive him back and forth (when he's around that is). Deacon goes to school from 12-3 in the afternoon, every day. This is NOT what I wanted, nor is it the class I originally signed him up for (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 8:30-11:30), but due to many things that still have me a bit irritated, this is the class he's in. And since this is the class he's in, I'm trying to embrace it and appreciate it, so I don't want to dwell on what happened anymore - unless you insist on hearing the story (hahaha). It's over, it's done, and it's all good. Right? Right!

One of the good things about Deacon going to school in the afternoon is that if he were home, he'd be in bed taking a nap, so it's almost like he'd "be gone" anyway, so I don't miss him as much! An unexpected "side effect"(?) of Deacon starting school is that now Finn wants to be a part of the school action. He found his little backpack that we use for church, and insists on wearing it most of the time he's awake. It is really kind of funny watching him run laps around the house with this backpack on, bouncing all around. He also tried to get on the bus with Zeke this morning (with his little backpack on). Not yet buddy.

So that's where we're at now. Deacon has started school, so we're adjusting to that and adjusting the change in schedule it's bringing about. Zeke is still loving school, so that's good. Finn can't wait to go to school, even though he has no idea what it is, so that's fun. Josh leaves again this weekend for another trip, this time to D.C. And I'm kind of tired today so I'm going to go lay down for a bit. See y'all later!

Does Everyone Have Their Violin Ready?

2011-09-29T09:59:00.004-08:00

So, as I said at the end of yesterday's post, Josh left AGAIN for Tuscon on Monday. It's been kind of a rough week. Starting on Sunday when Finn threw up around 8pm. Thankfully Josh was home to help with that (and get thrown up on), so I won't dwell on this. I will say that he woke up at 3:15 and 5:30am happy and ready to go. Oh yeah.

So Monday morning, Josh leaves and Finn turns Mr. Cranky Pants. I do not like Mr. Cranky Pants. MCP is NOT a lot of fun. In fact, he's no fun at all. He just walks around and whines. He doesn't want to be held, he doesn't want his drink, he doesn't want to play/read/eat/color/watch tv. He just wants to whine. All. day. long. But besides MCP showing up, it wasn't too bad of a day.

Around 10 that night though, I heard crying coming from the upstairs. Afraid it was Finn throwing up again, I ran up and found Deacon sitting up in his bed sobbing. Eventually he calmed down, but insisted I stay with him, which he never does. Usually, once he's calm he sends me on my way. But he said, "Mommy I need you to stay here and hold me." So I did. A few minutes later he told me I could go, but that I had to go to bed. So I did. I turned off the tv, got ready, read my Bible, and got into bed around 11. Which is when Finn started crying.

I got out of bed checked on him, no throw up. Just MCP making it known he was still around. Eventually he calmed down and fell back asleep. Until 1am when he woke up crying again. This time I stayed in bed and listened as Finn usually wakes up and cries at least during his sleep, but he goes right back to sleep on his own. Which is what he did this time. And sleep he did, until 3am. This time, he didn't stop crying so I got up and checked on him. Twenty minutes later he was still fussing, and I had no more tricks to try, not to mention eyes that were burning and twitching with exhaustion. So I put him back in bed and let him cry it out. And cry he did until 4am. Of course, listening to my baby cry for an hour made me feel quite stressed and so it was another hour until I was able to fall asleep (5am for those keeping track).

Tuesday morning Deacon had a hard time getting out of bed (I assumed because of being up the night before for a little bit), Finn seemed okay, but still cranky, and Zeke was fine. So Finn and I walked Zeke to bus while Deacon stayed home and played. Finn got super cranky at the bus (VERY unlike him) and I realized, hey, it's been quite some time since he's pooped, I bet he's constipated! Which, he was. He didn't poop ALL day, which meant he was cranky (again) all day.

I put Finn down for a little rest in the morning (mainly because I needed a break, but he did sleep some and woke up better - for a bit anyway). Deacon and I watched some Sesame Street. After it was over, he just sort of hung out on the couch together. For 20 minutes. It was really nice, but I should have known it was a bad omen. I got Finn up at 10, and we were going to go Target because I needed a few things from there. But, as I came downstairs with Happier Finn, Deacon threw up on the couch. Oh boy. Deacon then spent the rest of the day on the couch, doing nothing but looking miserable. (By the way, one of the things I needed from Target was some sort of children's Tylenol or something...yeah.) So, I sent Zeke to soccer with a neighbor and spent the whole day at home with one sick boy and one constipated boy.

Wednesday morning came and everyone was good! Finn had pooped so he was incredibly happy. Deacon was feeling much better so he was incredibly chatty and excited about everything. Zeke was, well, Zeke. Unfortunately Deacon wasn't feeling up to leaving the house Wednesday so I didn't get to Bible study OR Target (so there's still no medicine besides the infant variety). Zeke came home from school, and seemed a little off walking back from the bus. He went in without me as I stood outside and chatted with a friend. All of a sudden, I heard him crying.

I went inside and he was standing at the top of the stairs, bawling, because he had wet himself. The poor kid rarely has accidents, so when he does, it truly devastates him. So I helped him out of his wet clothes, he went some more in the toilet, and kept on crying. I thought, at first, he was just upset about the accident, but by the time I got him upstairs to get him clean clothes, he was holding his stomach, crying even harder, curled up in a ball on his bed. Great.

Long story short (too late!), Zeke spent a good hour or so curled up, holding his stomach, crying. He calmed down a little bit when I moved him to the couch and put on Backyardigans. He ate some dinner because apparently he was hungry. He was even fine during the movie. But as soon as it was over, he was upstairs and curled up and crying again. I gave him some infant stuff and put him in some pajama pants. I think he fell asleep in 2 minutes. Add to this day the fact that Josh texted me and said he was getting sick and felt awful. Yeah.

Thursday Zeke woke up fine. They all did (including Josh). So we FINALLY went to Target (there was no school for Zeke Thursday or Friday for Rosh Hashanah). We got there, I got them all set up in the cart and realized I didn't have my wallet. SIGH. An older woman smiled at me when she saw what was going on and said, "We all have days like these." SO, I loaded the boys back up into the car, drove home, and spent 5 minutes looking all over for my wallet without any luck. SIGH again. I found my phone (apparently I forgot to grab that the first time around) and my one credit card, but no wallet. My license and my military ID were already in my car (for various reasons) so I had everything I "needed". And back to Target we went. Half way through our shopping though Zeke started looking worse and worse. By the time we finished and got some lunch he really wasn't doing well. (Josh wasn't doing as well as his day went on either.) Poor Zeke was SO excited to "go to the red circle store and eat pizza for lunch!" But when it came time to eat the pizza, he was feeling so terrible that he only had one bit. Maybe.

We got home, I put the other 2 in bed, took Zeke's temperature (102-ish), gave him some Children's Tylenol (yay!) and put him down for a nap too. I then sat down to blog and do some things on the computer. Ten minutes after sitting down I found my wallet.

Yeah. Right there next to the keyboard. Ahem, moving on. After nap time all boys were doing pretty well. They played quietly while I cleaned the house a little (IE. cleaned up the papers that had been multiplying all over my counter during the week). Then we had dinner, but by dinner Zeke was fading again. He ate half of it, so I figured that was pretty good. I set up a movie and gave him a pillow to lay on so he'd rest during the movie. A few minutes before the end of the movie Katherine and Kirsten showed up (they babysat for me again today) and that made everyone super happy and super excited. I'm kind of glad Zeke was a bit ill as it kept him relatively calm. Deacon on the other hand...

But today everyone woke up feeling well, and so far, has stayed feeling well. Josh says he has a headache, but hopefully he'll be better by the time he gets home. Two hours late. Yep. He texted me this morning and said they were 2 hours delayed before they even took off or boarded or anything. Hopefully he won't have to go anywhere next week.

So there you have it. My rough week in a very big nutshell. Thanks again for listening and for your support. Next week I'll catch you up on some of the more fun things we've done this past month!

Can I Get a Little Cheese to Go With This Whine?

2011-09-29T09:17:00.007-08:00

Not that I like complaining or anything, but we've been having a rough time here lately and I just need to vent a little. Plus, I mentioned how stressed I was to a friend last night and she asked what was going on and I realized that I've been trying so hard to keep my head above water here that I haven't been blogging/tweeting/whatever-ing, to keep my friends aprised of all that's going on over here in Walterland. So, forgive me, and now allow me to fill you in and catch you up a bit.

Two weeks ago Josh left for Fort Benning, Georgia on Monday morning and got home Thursday afternoon. That trip went fine, nothing major to write about really. The next week (or last week) Josh left Wednesday morning for Tuscon and came home Friday evening. This trip didn't go as smoothly as the first did.

Wednesday morning I fell down the stairs. During naptime that day my sisters came up to babysit for me that evening as it was my first ever Back to School Night. So, the twins showed up, Zeke got home from school, and then he promptly went insane. Just being crazy and melting and getting crazy again, and running into his brothers and what's it. SO I sent him to bed for 10 minutes. He, of course, cried as I put him up there, and about 5 minutes into his "rest time" he started screaming. I went up, spanked him and told him he is not allowed to scream like that just because he's upset. Cry? Fine. Scream? No.

While he was upstairs having a fit, I ordered some Chinese food for dinner. Kirsten, apparently, doesn't like Chinese food (what?!) and so I said she could make a frozen pizza for dinner. Since we live on base, delivery food people aren't allowed on so I had to meet him at the base's Visitor Center. While I was waiting for him I texted Katherine to start the oven as I had forgotten to do it before I left. When I got home, the oven was beeping like crazy and it wasn't heating up properly. So I cleared whatever Katherine had done to it, reset it and burned Kirsten's pizza. However, after Kirsten's pizza finished cooking, the oven refused to turn off, and just. kept. getting. hotter. Then it started beeping. Every. 5. seconds. And it would beep until I hit the Clear All button. But 5 seconds after that button had been hit, it would beep. Again. And again. And again. Then I accidentally locked the door. I finally figured out how to clear it and get it to stop beeping, but it stayed hot and locked. Housing Guy (who I called) said it sounded like the Self Clean button got hit, which I'm not sure it did as I was very careful NOT to press that button ever, but whatever. Evenutally it cooled down, and once it cooled down it unlocked. It was just a lot to have to stand there, so sore from falling earlier, stressed out because of Zeke crying and Finn freaking out over dinner (I forgot to give him his silverware), pressing the button over and over and over.

Anyway, eventually I gave up on the evening and left for Back to School Night, which was lovely. Zeke's teacher is super cute and super excited about everything, so I think he's going to have a really good year. Maybe I'll revisit BtSN in another post. But that's it on that for now.

Thursday afternoon was soccer practice. Sigh. K&K had already left so it was just me and my boys. Finn was everywhere, it was warm and I was in jeans and a long sleeve since it had been cold in my house, so I got tired and a little cranky quickly. About half way through practice though I looked up and saw Zeke and Deacon wrestling. I let Finn run in their direction so I could go over and tell them to knock it off. Actually, I first yelled at them from behind the bleachers and it was pretty funny watching them look all around like, "where did her voice come from?!" So as I was standing there telling them to knock it off, one of the coach's helpers came over and offered to separate them. Without Zeke there, Deacon apparently decided to mess with the next kid in line. I looked up to see him tugging on this boy's shirt, making the boy cry. So I called him to me, told him to go apologize to the boy, and then come back to where I was because he was done with soccer for the rest of the day (it was 10 minutes from being done). So, he apologized to the kid (I think/hope) and came back to me a bit upset. But he got over it quickly. Good times.

Friday was pretty uneventful. I think. And since this post is now longer than I had expected already, I'm going to end here and write about this week tomorrow. Thanks for listening, whoever is still reading. Sometimes it helps to just vent.

Not So Graceful Actually

2011-09-27T09:02:00.004-08:00

For those of you who didn't know, my middle name is Anne. The name Anne, means "grace". Grace, however, is something, physically, that I lack. It's part of the reason I don't like to dance. It's the main reason I constantly walk into things and bang various body parts on various items (like the top of my head on the refridgerator "ceiling" this morning). Let's just say it, I'm clumsy. So, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I fell down the stairs last week. (In fact, I'm a little surprised it took me until last week to fall down the stairs here.)

So last Wednesday, Josh left in the morning for Tuscon. So I got up, got the boys up and breakfasted (yeah, I'm making it a verb now), and brought them back upstairs to get dressed. Zeke does fine on his own, so he was no problem. As I was picking out clothes for Finn, Deacon informed me he had to go to the bathroom. I told him to go, and continued getting Finn ready for the day. As I took off his pajama pants I saw that he had pooped - for the second time that morning. I went to the bathroom to get a diaper and some wipes, and realized that Deacon was still in there. I opened the door and Deacon said, "Mom, I pooped."

Oh, did he ever poop. Apparently he pooped while standing in front of the toilet, so there was a bit on the floor and a bit running down both of his legs. Awesome. So I turned on the tub, washed him down, washed the floor and piled up all the poopy clothes and towels so I could wash them after we got Zeke on the bus. (I did take the time to tell Deacon he did a good job by NOT pooping in his underpants, but that next time he needs to poop IN the toilet.) By the time I got all this finished though, it was already time to get shoes on and get Zeke to the bus (apparently if you're late here they leave without you, even if they're early - ahhh!). But Finn was still poopy and pantsless. SO I sent Zeke and Deacon downstairs to put their sneakers on, and quickly changed Finn's diaper.

The evening before, Josh took Deacon school shopping for new jeans and sneakers. And of course, Deacon picked out the same sneakers Zeke has. It is very sweet and cute, but made for a bunch of yelling that first morning, "MOM! ARE THESE MY SNEAKERS?!" "MOM! IS THIS MINE OR DEACON'S?" Already stressed I picked up Finn and headed for the stairs, telling the boys to wait until I got down there and then we'd figure it out.

I still don't know how it happend. I was rushed, I was stressed, I was in boots I haven't worn in probably 2 years, Finn was wriggling, and I missed a step (I guess) and stumbled down the stairs in slo-mo. I know it happened in slo-mo because I had the where-with-all to clamp down on Finn and position myself so that if I acctually went down my body would absorb most of the blow. I also saw Deacon sitting at the bottom of the stairs, directly in my path, staring at me, completely ignoring my constant yelling of "MOVE DEACON!" "DEACON GET UP!" "MOOOVEE!!!"

Now, I never actually "fell" as in falling onto my butt or my back or my side. I did "fall" in that my feet kept slipping out from under me and I flew/slid down the majority of the stairs, stopping on the step right above the step Deacon was sitting on. This didn't help my stress level at all, by the way.

After I stopped falling, and sat down to try and stop myself from shaking I looked at Deacon and yelled, "God dammit Deacon! When I say move, get off your butt and MOVE!" (I owe Linda $5 for her "consequenses jar" now.) And no sooner do I finish yelling at Deacon and stand up then Zeke says, "Is this my shoe, Mom?" I screamed. AAAHHHHH!!!! Then he asked if I was hurt, and boy was I. My entire left side was SO hurt. My shoulder, wrist, thigh, ankle and 2nd toe were all so sore. At least everyone else was alright.

I then calmed myself, showed Zeke how to determine which shoes are his and which are Deacon's by their sizes (and it's never been an issue again). I got all of us to the bus without further incident, and on time. After Zeke got on the bus, the other 2 boys and I went to PWOC, came home, had lunch, and as I put Finn down for his nap (after changing his 3rd poopy diaper of the morning), Deacon did it again. As I walked into the bathroom to help him Deacon looked up at me and said, "Mom, I need another bath." After assessing the situation it was clear that this time he had tried to poop in the toilet as he had put the little seat in the toilet and there was poop on it, but I guess he just didn't make it. So, I cleaned him up, again, put him in a diaper, lest there be more poop, and gently collapsed onto the couch. And that was just the morning...

I Am Now, Officially, A Soccer Mom

2011-09-21T09:12:00.005-08:00

Soccer "season" started yesterday. We registered Zeke and Deacon, and boy did they have fun last night. I'm fairly certain they had NO idea what was going on most of the time, but that didn't stop them from running around like a bunch of monkey-headed hooligans.

I am pretty excited about this little soccer league they're playing in. It's through the base, so it's on base. In fact, it's about a 5 minute walk from our house, so I don't even have to drive there. It's an hour on Tuesday and an hour on Thursday. After a few practices, they'll make Thursdays game days. I like that, as it means we won't have any games on the weekends or at crazy times on whatever evenings. And since our boys have never played in any sort of organized sports before, this will be a good introduction for them.

There are a bunch of kids playing this year too. I think the head coach was a little overwhelmed at the number of kids that showed up yesterday. He made the comment at one point that there are probably twice as many kids this year as last year. Then he made them all go run a lap around the field - I think he needed the time to mentally prepare for the rest of the hour. Whee!

But it went well. All the kids had a good time. And besides the mosquitoes, all the parents seemed to have a good time. I was thankful when Josh showed up and took Finn home so I didn't have to chase him all. over. the field. anymore. I will have to go better prepared next time with plenty of things to (hopefully) occupy Finn. On our walk home, both boys informed me that "they won" at soccer that night. Yes you did boys, yes you did.

The House Part Three: Second Floor

2011-09-15T06:06:00.007-08:00

Let's just jump right in today, shall we?

Coming up the stairs from the first floor to the second floor:

Josh's idea as to where to put the hope chest, and I love it.

Since this is how the pictures loaded today, this is the order I'll show you the upstairs rooms.
(It will be slightly different on the video.)

First, is the master bedroom.
Forgive the "mess".

Here is our closet...nice and big.

Our bathroom (again, not very exciting).
Hi, Finn!

Now we have Finn's room.
I got the bigger boys new mattress/boxsprings the other day so I put the toddler bed Deacon was sleeping on in Finn's room for when he's ready.
This is the boys' bathroom.
It's the only one with a tub (which is hidden behind the door).

Now we have Zeke's room.
(Sorry it's a wee bit dark. The sun was shining too brightly. Not that I'm complaining.)

Here is the hall closet, filled with towels and sheets and the like.

And last, but not least, we come to Deacon's room.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the tour of our house. In the middle of our street. It's our castle and our keep. And we like it. Which is good, since we'll be living here for a few years. Now, here's the video "tour" and if you'd like to visit in person just let me know. We love having visitors.

The House Part Two: First Floor

2011-09-14T10:23:00.005-08:00

First, welcome to post number 500. Whoo! I feel like I should throw a party or something. But I won't. Anyhoo...

Yesterday I posted a little tour of the ground floor of our new house. Today I am going to post the first floor of our house. And that's all the introduction I have today.

Okay, so here are the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor.

Once you reach the top of the stairs you walk right into the "main room".
Here you find our computers, tv, couch, etc. It's big and it's beautiful, really.

(the other half of the room)

If you look next to the blue (grey?) chair, you'll see a door.
That door is the door to a closet.
That closet we have turned into the boys' "toy room".

Behind the same blue chair you'll find a bookshelf and the boys' little table.

Off of the living room (and right next to the stairs) is bathroom #1.
Not much to see there really.

There is plenty to see next to the bathroom, however, as that's where the kitchen is.
And a lovely kitchen it is too. There's so much space (counter and cabinet-wise) that I was a little overwhelmed at first. I'm not used to having nice-sized kitchens.

The kitchen has 2 pantries.
In the first we have some food. Obviously.

In the second, we have our small appliances and the garbage can.
Finn has taken to throwing things away.
Things that usually shouldn't be thrown away.
Things like new boxes of dryer sheets and pot lids.
Hence, the garbage can is now in the pantry.

Directly off of the kitchen is the dining room. Breakfast nook?
Whatever. It's where we put our table, and it's where we eat.

And that's pretty much it for the first floor. It makes a nice little loop for the boys to chase each other (and the cat) around. It's all hardwood and tile floors so that makes it a little easier to clean (I don't like to vacuum much).

>The only thing I don't really like is that there isn't a "back" door here, that I can use to get from the kitchen to the backyard quickly if the boys are out there playing. Instead I have to go through the house, down the stairs, and then through the house again. Granted, it's not a HUGE house, but it's still inconvenient, plus I can't yell at them real well through the window. But, it is what it is, and it's really my only complaint about the place. (Not to mention that Josh's mom pointed out that if there's a fire in the basement, there's no exit as both doors to the outside are in the basement. But we won't dwell on that. Happy thoughts from here on out everyone!)

Now, here's the video and tomorrow will be the final installment: the bedrooms!

The House Part One: Ground Floor

2011-09-13T08:32:00.007-08:00

Now that our stuff is essentially unpacked, and our house is, for the most part, "settled", I figured it was time to let you all see Walterland New Jersey. And since I don't really want to overburden the post with picture after picture, I've decided to break it up into a 3 part series, one part (day) for each floor. I have also taken video of each floor, so that those who want to maybe feel like they're actually here, being given a tour, they can do that. And since I'm the only one home right now (Josh is on a trip to Ft. Benning) the video tour isn't all that great. I guess I could wait until Josh is home and shoot it then, but I don't want to wait anymore. SO, without further adieu, I give you, the ground floor of our new house.

First, we have the front door, as well as the rest of our building (I guess). Upon entering the house, you find yourself in a little entryway...go figure.

(from the other side of the entryway)

To your immediate left, as you enter the entryway is the garage.

We are still working on this area, but should soon have it ready to house my car.

If you look, you'll see a door in the back wall of the garage. This is the first (of many) storage areas the house has.

Josh has chosen this one to be the home for his little selection of "man cave" stuff (his bow and arrows, fishing stuff, some army stuff, etc).

Now, if you scroll back up the entryway, you'll see a doorway directly across from the front door.

If you go through this door you will enter into the laundry room/area.

Very exciting stuff, I know.

Now, while the laundry room itself may not be very exciting, what is super cool is the laundry shoot the house has. Oh, yeah! There's a door on each floor to drop laundry down.

We all love it.

Now if you scroll back up to the laundry room picture, you'll see a door. That's our back door.

It leads to the backyard.Eh? It's nice and fenced in, even if it is a wee bit small. But right on the other side of the fence is a bit of a bigger area that we can just go out to and run around in.
(Also notice how conveniently close the chapel is located.)

On (in?) the back side of the house are two more storage areas.
One has a few things since it also has the heating system and stuff.

The other has all of our "play stuff".

Oh, and all of our strollers.

Now, last but not least is possibly the best room in the whole house. It is certainly the best room on the ground floor at least.

The book nook!

SO many books. And board games. It's a little out of control, but that's how we like it.
And that brings us to the stairs, and the end of our tour for today.

My name is Beth, and I have enjoyed being your tour guide this day, and look forward to showing more of the house tomorrow. Until then, here's the video I mentioned earlier (for those who want to see it).

Kindergarten!

2011-09-07T08:35:00.005-08:00

Yesterday was Zeke's first day of kindergarten. It was also his first day going to school all day long instead of for a couple of hours in the morning. It's kind of funny, I didn't realize what all full day kindergarten entailed until a few weeks ago when the chaplain was praying and asked God to provide good friends for our kids at school to play with and to eat lunch with. Then it hit me. Oh. my. goodness. My baby is going to be eating lunch at school. In the cafeteria! Talk about a mind blowing moment (not to mention a tear producing moment).

Anyhoo, back to yesterday. I hate to say it, but there isn't too much to say. We got up, I made pancakes for breakfast, I got the boys dressed and such as usual. I did have to put the tv on for 10 minutes just to get them all to be quiet for a few minutes as they were starting to stress me out. Since Zeke was super excited, he walked around the house for 20 minutes asking, "Is it time to go yet? Can I put my sneakers on now? Can I have my backpack now? Is it time to go? Is the bus coming? Can I put my sneakers on? Can we go? Is it time to go?" Et cetera. Obviously this is completely understandable and didn't really phase me. Added to it though was Deacon walking around behind Zeke asking, "Can I go to school too? Can I have a lunchbox too? Can I ride the bus too? Can I go to school too? Can I have my Thomas backpack? Can I go on the bus? Can I go to school too?" Et cetera. Again, understandable, but slightly unnerving since my answers to him were all the same NO. I don't enjoy repeating myself over and over and over. Et cetera. But THEN, to top it off was Finn who was following me everywhere whining and falling over and pulling on my shorts and whining and trying to bite my legs/eat my shorts (I'm not really sure what he's doing there) and falling and whining. Et cetera.

FINALLY it was time to go. We put our shoes on and dashed to the bus stop as it was pouring out. We met another mother whose little boy is going into 1st grade at the same school Zeke is going to, which is really nice, as now we have more new friends. Yay. The bus showed up, Zeke threw out a "Good-bye Mom" as he got on the bus. No hug, no kiss, no sign of hesitation. He just threw out a good-bye and off he went. For my part, I didn't cry. I think because I was still a little stressed, and because I had to go food shopping, plus all the rain made it more like, "good, he's taken care of, on to the next thing".

The rest of the day went like usual. Food shopping, lunch, naps, laundry, and all that jazz. Nap time does seem quieter without Zeke here for that, but I'm not sure why. Poor Deacon adjusted to Zeke being at school all day the hardest. I think he asked for Zeke a good 17 times. As we left for the store, when we got to the store, when we got in the store, when we left the store, when we got home from the store, when "rest time" was over (we had "rest time" yesterday so I could unload the groceries without "help"), when it was lunch time, when lunch was over, when he watched some tv while I made lunch, when he went down for his nap. So maybe not 17, but close enough. Deacon really missed Zeke yesterday.

When it was time, I walked back to the bus stop (leaving the other two in bed since it was still raining, and since they were still sleeping) to pick Zeke up. He bounded off the bus, super excited that he had eaten ALL of his lunch. He chatted a little bit about his day, but not much - boys. After a few questions he got this look on his face so I asked, "Are you tired of me asking you questions about your day?" He said he was so I stopped pestering him, and waited for him to offer more info about his day, which he did.

Apparently, on his first day of school, Zeke went to the gym, but they didn't play gym (I think they had a little assembly - listen to the principal kind of thing). He went to music and sang songs. He has boys and girls in his class but he doesn't know how many or any of their names. His teacher is nice. He ate all of his lunch. And he really likes it. So that's good. In fact, this morning he was getting dressed and said, "I'm excited to go to school today." That's my good boy. Here's hoping he keeps that attitude all year long.

Oh, Camp

2011-09-02T09:10:00.003-08:00

For those of you who don't know this about me, I spent a week or 3 almost every summer from the time I was 9 or 10 until I was about 24 at Pine Bush Bible Camp. I started as a camper, did the kitchen worker thing, the CIT (counselor in training) thing, jr. counselor and finally counselor. I was even the dining hall supervisor one year - which, I'm still not sure how anyone let that happen. Since we've been away from NJ for so long, it's been quite awhile since I've been back there. I guess I was there 3 years ago when were last in NJ, but that was just me tagging along with my stepdad as he brought my sisters up.

This summer though, I went back. It was only for a day, but it wasn't just me tagging along. This time, I went up to visit my sisters (who were working in the kitchen during Teen Week) on my own and guess what. I brought my boys with me. We all had such a great time and it was definitely what I needed. Sure, it was a lot of driving (1 1/2hours each way) but the boys were good, the weather was glorious, and it was just so nice being back there again, catching up with some friends and all that jazz.

We left around 10am and got there in time for me to let the boys run around a little bit, meet some of my friends, and eat some lunch before I put them down for naps in the trailer my sisters were sleeping in. (I know, what kind of mom brings her kids to the best place on earth then makes them take naps? The kind of mom who wanted an hour or so to eat and chat with friends without being interrupted 800 times, really.) After I got the boys up though, we had a blast. We went swimming (thank you Tia and Tante for swimming with us and making that whole thing SO much easier on me!). After 1 hour and 15 minutes in the pool I finally made the boys get out - I had gotten Finn out about a 1/2 hour earlier because he was done and cold. Once they were dry and dressed they played on the playground and the swings (thank you again Tia and Tante - oh, and Tito and Ray who are pictured below) and had a great time while I chatted with friends some more. Then it was into the car and off for home, which we got back to around 6:30pm.

Like I said, it was a great day, and just what I needed to help me relax a little before the next day, which was moving day. But more on that day later.

Quickie

2011-08-31T09:24:00.002-08:00

Just wanted to let you all know we are still alive. We moved into the house last week and it has been quite the week of unpacking and laundrying, and setting up the place in general. The guy came today and set up our phone/internet/cable, so now I'm back online. And since I have a bunch to do this is all you're getting today, with the promise that September is going to be (hopefully) a blog-tastic month. So, hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with something a bit more fun (and some pictures).

Finally, Some News Worth Sharing

2011-08-18T10:31:00.005-08:00

It's been a week here in Trailerville. Way too early Monday morning Josh left for Arizona for 3 days on his first "business" trip with his new job here. And, of course, it rained 2 of the 3 days he was gone. This meant having to find alternative ways to spend our mornings instead of going to the playground.

So, I used those rainy days to register Zeke for school, and yes, it took me both days to get it all figured out and settled. Monday I met with the school liason lady and she was very little help. So i went down (keep in mind I have all the kids with me) to the school I thought Zeke was going to be attending and could only find a 3rd grade teacher who told me I had to go to the board of education building in a completely different part of the...area of New Jersey we're in. (I would say a completely different part of town, but it was in a different town. And it's not like it was super far, just kind of out of the way in a little place.) By this point though, all of us were tired, hungry and cranky, so we went back home.

Tuesday we headed back out and met with much success. I found the board of education building (which is WAY closer to our trailer than it is to the elementary school we were at on Monday). I was originally told that Zeke was going to have to have a physical here because the school wouldn't accept his physical from Alaska because he HAD to be seen by a doctor in the TriCare Remote system. I was also told they probably wouldn't accept his birth certificate since it's from Germany. But I went down there with what I had anyway and it all worked out. Since his physical was done in January they were more than happy to accept it, and since I also had his passport with me (even though it is expired) they accepted his German birth certificate. Of course, his passport was made when he was born so his picture is from when he was 6 weeks old. The secretary and I had a good laugh over this.

Here's where things get somewhat exciting. One of the main issues I was having with trying to decided what kindergarten to put Zeke into out here was his IEP. His IEP is written for a full day kindergarten since that's what they have in Alaska, and Alaska is where it was written. I was told that the base has a wonderful full day kindergarten, but they don't have any services (speech/OT/the things he NEEDS). The elementary school that the base sends their kids too has a kindergarten with a wonderful speech teacher, but it's only a half day school. And it was made to seem that these were my only 2 options.

A little side note here that will come into play later, there is an elementary school essentially right outside the back gate of the base (Dwyer is it's name). It is literally a 5 minute drive, if that. Yet, for a reason unknown to everyone I've talked to about it, they send the kids to a school that is on the other side of Route 80, a good 10 or so minute drive (O'Brien). Why? Anyhoo...

So, as I was handing in Zeke's paperwork on Tuesday, I explained about his IEP being written for a full day kindergarten and yadda yadda, and the secretary said, "Oh, then he can go to Dwyer." Hubba what?! That's the school that's 5 minutes away. That's the school that made me so excited about Zeke maybe going there when I first saw it. That's the school that made me feel bummed and confused when I found out it's NOT where the kids from base go. AND, he still gets to ride the bus! Of course, I could drive him if I wanted to, but I know how much he loves the bus, so yeah.

And since it is a full day kindergarten, they call it a "transitional" kindergarten, meaning he'll be in a classroom where all the kids have IEPs. It'll be the same cirriculum as a "regular" kindergarten, and he'll still move on to 1st grade next year (if he's ready), but there are extra aides in the class, so he'll get more help and all the services he'll need and require. So, now I'm super excited. God totally had all of that under control, and I just let myself stress out over things He was already working on. I really should learn that lesson some day.

Also, as I was trying to get things together on Monday for Zeke's school, one of the things I needed was a letter from the housing office stating what our address was going to be and that we do, in fact, live on the base. So, while I was at the housing office getting this letter, the housing lady told me that she was doing final inspections on our place this week and "fingers crossed" our place would be ready to move into any day next week we wanted. So, on Tuesday, after I got Zeke registered for school I took a little leap of faith, if you will, and called the movers to schedule them to bring us our stuff on Wednesday (it's the earliest they could get here), even though we wouldn't hear until tomorrow whether or not our place was going to be ready.

Well, Josh got the call today(!) and it is good. to. go. He will go in on Tuesday and sign the lease, then the movers come Wednesday and we will be out of this trailer and into our own "big home". Yay! I'm not sure when we'll have a home phone number, but our cell numbers are staying the same (for now at least). I have the address and if anyone would like it let me know and I'll send out a mass email/facebook mail some time...soon-ish.

Now, if we could just hear back about whether or not they're going be having the preschool class I want Deacon to be in we'd be all set. But hey, 2 out of 3 is very, very good. Thank you, Lord.

One Week Down

2011-08-08T09:05:00.005-08:00

Well, we've spent a full week in the trailer. We drove up to Picatinny last Sunday. It's a beautifully wooded area of NJ, with a bunch of lakes and ponds around. The trailer is a trailer. I'm going to be honest here, I'm not excited about being in this trailer at all. I know a lot of it has to do with having been "homeless" for so long already, with no definite end date in sight. Part of it has to do with not having my own bed, and computer, and things for "so long". I know it's only been a little over a month, but still. We are, in my opinion, 1 person too many for this place. All of this being said, don't be surprised if we don't invite anyone over while we're in the trailer. Josh thinks it's fine and "character building". I think am enough of a character, thank you. Even the boys are ready to move into "the big house" (what they're calling our future home).

However, it has been fun. There is plenty of nature around. We've seen deer, rabbits, chipmunks (the one by the playground the boys named Theodore), Josh saw a wild turkey, and we all saw a momma bear and her 3 cubs driving back from the store one night. One night, after the boys had gone to bed, Josh caught a frog, so we got the boys up and let them "play" with it for a few minutes before setting the frog free.

Otherwise, things here are just moving along like usual. I take the boys to the playground every morning for a little while before lunch. Josh usually comes home for lunch. One day last week I decided to take the boys for a walk instead of going to the playground. Worst idea ever. Just as we were getting ready to turn around and head back home, Finn totally ate it and the entire left side of his face was covered in road rash, gravel, and blood. He's fine, and now there are just a few scrapes on his nose left, but still, we probably should have stuck with the playground. (This picture was taken after I had cleaned his face, and a little bit of time had passed. I promise, it looked much worse when it happened.)

And that's pretty much it. We're just hanging out waiting. Waiting for my car to get here. Waiting for word that our new home is ready for us. Waiting then, for our stuff to be put in our house (our stuff is here and sitting in storage right now). Waiting for our paperwork from TriCare so I can make an appointment for Zeke so I can get him set up for school. It's hard waiting for so much, sometimes. But God is good all the time, and we are having fun (when I let myself de-stress and relax enough, lol). And now that I've pretty much said all there is to say right now, I'm going to go and watch some "Twin Peaks" - a very weird but interesting show. What would I do without Netflix?

The Flight That Took All Night

2011-07-28T05:44:00.005-08:00

On Friday the 15th of July, we finished packing up all of our belongings, turned over our keys to our house and flew to New Jersey. Our flight left at 9:30pm. We left for the airport sort of early since we wanted to stop for dinner on the way, plus I had made reservations for Peavey to fly as cargo, so we needed to figure out where he needed to be dropped off and then drop him off there, as well as return our rental car.

Josh called the airline in the morning to see what Peavey's "no later than time" time for arriving was and was told, quite surprisingly, that since we were traveling on orders, that Peavey could be checked as baggage. Sweet! Not only did this mean one less thing to do and take care of, but it also saved us the $200 cargo fee. And since we were allowed 8 pieces of luggage and only had 6 (including the bigger boys' 2 booster seats for the car) we had plenty of space for the cat. It was kind of funny though, as we rolled up to the check-in line, one of the ladies who was helping people to check in came over to us and said, "Please tell me you're traveling on orders, because there's a pet embargo for the summer and your cat can't fly as baggage." After assuring her we were traveling on orders she put us on a different line than everyone else so we were next to check in. Again, sweet!

After checking in and checking all of our baggage (and cat) we went through security. As we were waiting on line here, a security guard said, "Are you all traveling with that infant? You can come through here." This allowed us to skip the rest of the line and get through security rather quickly. Of course, getting through check-in and security as quickly as we did meant we were at our gate about an hour and a half before our flight was scheduled to take off. At one point I took Finn to the bathroom to change his diaper and his clothes (into pajamas) only to come back and find all 3 boys (Josh, Zeke and Deacon) playing Angry Birds. Zeke had my phone, Deacon had Josh's, and Josh had the iPad. At least they were occupied, happy and quiet.

The first flight went pretty well. It was one of those planes that has 2 rows of 3 seats (rather than 2 5 2 - you know). So we sat the bigger boys on the inside seats with Josh on the end on one side of the aisle, then I put Finn in the middle seat and I sat on the end seat on the other side of the aisle. The bigger boys were thrilled to be on an airplane and I'm sure Finn enjoyed it too.

Since it was an overnight flight, we had hopes that the boys would all sleep during most of it, allowing us to get some sleep too. For the most part, this worked out. Deacon was the first to fall asleep, using Josh's lap for a pillow, making it hard for Josh to do anything (he did get a little bit of sleep towards the end of the flight). After much flailing and thrashing and all sorts of monkey business, I finally managed to get Finn in a hold that prevented him from moving too much, allowing him to relax enough to fall asleep. And once Finn was asleep, I was able to fall asleep a little bit too. Zeke, on the other hand, didn't fall asleep at all. Well, he might have taken a 20 minute catnap at the end of the flight, but he pretty much stayed up all night long.

We landed in Minneapolis on time, but there was lightning going on so we had to sit on the tarmac for awhile until the lightning stopped long enough for them to let the workers out on the tarmac without fear of them getting struck by lightning or anything. But our next flight was also delayed by the same amount of time because of the same storm, so we had enough time to get to our next gate, grab some muffins and juice, eat said muffins and juice, and go potty before getting on the second plane.

Second plane had the same set up as the first, but this time no one slept. Since it was a shorter flight, it was fine. Sitting with Finn and me was a really nice lady who I had a pleasant conversation with. This flight also went smoothly. Really, the whole experience was smooth. All 3 boys did really well, I didn't get sick at all (whoo!), Peavey made it just fine, as did all of our luggage.

The only thing that didn't go smoothly was the drive from the airport to Josh's parents' house. Before Josh left Alaska to go to Alabama, he shipped his car. His car arrived at his parent's house a few weeks later. Since Josh had technically cleared the base in Alaska, the army wouldn't fly him back there, they sent him to NJ since that's where he's now being stationed. So, Josh graduated from his class in Alabama, flew to NJ, spent a week in NJ, drove himself to the airport, flew to AK, took care of things up there with me, then we all flew to NJ. And since he had driven himself to the airport, his car was there, waiting to take us away. Getting to the car was fine, loading it, getting out of the airport, etc. It was the drive. Oh, the drive! We sat in so. much. stinkin. traffic. Heading south on a Saturday in the summer in New Jersey is NEVER a good idea. Unfortunately we forgot this and sat there. And sat there. And sat there. I think it took us about 2 1/2 hours to do a 45 minute drive. Welcome to New Jersey indeed. At least Finn and Deacon used the time in the car to take a little nap. Zeke, on the other hand, STILL refused to fall asleep. He just stared, all glassy-eyed, so SO so apparently tired.

But we're here, we're keeping busy, and we're looking forward to getting up to Picatinney (most likely on Monday) and getting settled in up there.

So Much To Say

2011-07-25T05:45:00.013-08:00

Hello New Jersey! We landed last Saturday and essentially hit the ground running. By the time we got off the plane, gathered our luggage (and cat), got to Josh's car, and sat in 2 hours worth of shore traffic to get to Josh's parent's house, we were exhausted. Luckily it was nap time, so after some quick pbj sandwiches, we all went to sleep for a little bit. We also went to bed early that night.

Sunday morning though, we got up at our "usual" time (no room for jetlag here - keeping on schedule seems to help the kiddos out quite a bit). After breakfast and what's it, we went to my old church, up closer to where my mom lives. And since we were "in the area" we had lunch, naps (the kids napped anyway), dinner, and LOTS of outside running around time at my mom's. It was so great. All 3 of my sisters were there, as was my stepdad and my one sister's boyfriend. We all had a great time. And, unfortunately, all the pictures from this visit are on my mom's camera, so I can't share any of them with you.

Monday we did some summer clothes shopping (living in Alaska, we didn't really have much of that sort of thing) and some food shopping. Josh showed the kids around Grammy and Papa's garden, where they picked lots of fresh veggies for us to have with dinner.

Tuesday, we drove down to LBI to see Josh's parents. They rented a house down there for the week, so by the time we got in on Saturday, they were already long gone, so we went down to see them, as well as Josh's sister and her hubby and son. It was so much fun getting all of the boys together (FINALLY).

Her son is a year younger than Deacon, but almost the exact same size, so, needless to say, they all had a blast. My sister, Katherine (aka Tia, to the boys) came with us, so that was fun too. We got there in time for lunch and naps (short ones this time). After naps everyone headed to the ocean. Everyone, that is, except for me and Josh's mom since Finn was still napping and I wanted him to sleep. Of course, by the time Finn finally woke up, 1 1/2 hours later, and we made it to the ocean, everyone else was packing up to head down to the little bay beach.

Don't ask why both of them are sticking their tongues out while they play. I have no idea.

I also don't know how the big kids were when they saw the ocean, but Finn was thrilled. I put him down on the sand when we reached where everyone else had set up, mostly because he's HEAVY, and he made an immediate beeline for the water. And coldness be darned, he went right in and continued to walk in the water until it reached about his knees. Then he let me hold on to him and sit him down as the waves rolled back, and stand him up as the waves came at him. It was hilarious too, every time a wave came and splashed against him, he would roar back at the water. But after a few minutes everyone was ready to leave, and Finn's lips were blue and he was shaking, so we bundled him up in a towel and paraded down to the bay, where the water was calmer, warmer, and much more fun for the kids.

Then it was dinner, some play time and then home. A good day.

Wednesday we tried to just stay home and relax a little, and recouperate from the "non-stopping-ness of our first few days in state. Wednesday and Thursday we (and by "we" I pretty much mean Josh) set up a little blow-up pool for the kids to play in. And by "the kids" I mean all 4 of them.

Thursday we also did some food shopping in the morning, and had my father, stepmother and brother over for dinner. We ordered some pizza and had a really nice time just hanging out and visiting with them. Again, no pictures, my bad.

Friday and Saturday were low key days again, with Friday being ridiculously hot so we took the boys to the mall. And Saturday Josh's parents came home from LBI, much to the boys' delight. In fact, Zeke decided he wanted to pray at dinner that night and said, "Thank you that Grandma and Papa could come visit us today." I guess he doesn't quite get that we are the ones visiting.

Which brings us to yesterday. Yesterday we went down to my father and Karen's house in Brick. Again, we got there in time for lunch and naps. Well, before the bigger boys had lunch they went with my dad, my cousin, Josh and another cousin's daughter, in the boat to go check on the crab hotels they had placed in the water earlier. Yep, their first boat ride. Josh said Deacon sort of hung back by him and was just chill, mostly out of shyness rather than fear, but that Zeke and Zoe were up on the front of the boat, holding on, enjoying the ride and the wind blowing around their faces.

After naps they swam in the little pool for bit, swam in the lagoon behind the house for a little bit, and had a GREAT time with all the water and all the toys and things there. After a huge, delicious dinner, we got back on the road, headed home, and promptly put our tired boys in bed.

Now we're hanging out, relaxing again, so I thought I'd take this time to let you all know we made it safely and we're already finding plenty of things to do to keep ourselves busy. And I promise to write about our flights and how all that went soon.

The Housing Sitch

2011-07-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal, for those wondering, on where we will be living once we get to NJ. Originally we had planned on buying a house off post somewhere, but while Josh was in Alabama he was talked into living on post. So we took care of all the paperwork and wound up being #2 on the housing list. Sweet.

I was really hoping we would be able to get one of the single family houses on post, and that it would be available for when we landed on Saturday. However, neither of those hopes happened. No single family houses are available at all, and the townhouse we will be moving into won't be available until the end of August. Not so sweet.

And it's not that I really have anything against townhouses, it's just the whole "sharing walls" thing. Our kids can be quite loud at times, making me worried for our neighbors. On the flip side, our kids are also pretty good, and what if our neighbors have loud kids too, but kids who are out of control? I know God is completely in control of all of this, but these are the thinks I think sometimes. But now the thing is the only townhouse available is a middle unit. An end one is supposed to open soon too, so we are hoping it does open before we move so we can have the end unit instead.

However, like I said before, neither unit will be available until the end of August sometime. Therefore, we will be staying with Josh's parents until the end of July, when we will then move into temporary housing on post (read: trailer park) until whatever unit we get is available for moving into. Sigh.

It's going to be a long rest of the summer.

Just Grin and Bear Paw It

2011-07-12T12:23:00.001-08:00

This past week was Eagle River's Bear Paw Festival. And since Josh got home on Thursday, we wasted no time in taking part in the activities.

It all started Wednesday, when I took the boys to the park next to where they set up the carnival. The little roller coaster was closest to our picnic table so Zeke spent the next few days talking about the caterpillar ride (it was designed to look like a caterpillar and a garden) and asking when could he go on it. So when Daddy showed up on Thursday, and since we were going down by the festival to return library books on Friday, I figured Friday morning would be the perfect time to go down there and try out the caterpillar ride.

When we first got down there, it didn't look like any of the rides were moving yet, and the boys really wanted to stay at the library for story time, so stay we did. (And while the boys and I were at story time, Josh went and found an ATM.) After story time, Josh said the rides still weren't going, so we decided to look around the food booths, and let the boys go on a pony ride. All the food was pretty overpriced, and Zeke chickened out as we walked up to the ponies, but Deacon gladly got up there and had a blast.

After Deacon finished his ride, I decided to walk back to the carnival rides to see if they were going yet, and they were! So Josh went to the ticket booth while the boys and I waited by the caterpillar ride. Once we had tickets, we got the boys on the ride and watched them go. Deacon absolutely LOVED it. He laughed and smiled a huge smile the whole time. Zeke, on the other hand, started out okay, but once the ride really started going he only made this face.

That, in case you are wondering, is NOT a happy face. That is a very concerned face. When they got off Deacon cheered and asked to do it again. As Zeke came down the stairs I asked him if he liked the ride and he said, "No. It was too scary." Sweet boy.

After that the boys each popped a balloon with a dart (no pictures of this as Josh was trying to keep them and their darts facing the right way, and I was trying to keep Finn safe from any stray darts that might have headed his way) and won a bouncy ball. The Deacon went on the elephant ride while Josh took Zeke down the giant slide.

While Deacon was going around on the elephants I looks up at the slide and saw Zeke clinging to the railing, quite clearly freaking out. Josh said Zeke was doing fine until he told Zeke to look down at me. This caused Zeke to realize how high up he was, which led to his little panic attack. However, once they started going down the slide, Zeke relaxed and enjoyed the "ride". In fact, he enjoyed it so much that he went down it again a second time, but this time he went down all by himself while Deacon rode down with Josh. Then it was off to home for lunch and much needed naps.

The next morning was the Bear Paw parade, so we went to that too. We had a good time, especially since we hung out with some friends (Liam was in Zeke's class this past school year.)

Obviously this was taken before the parade started. But we had a lot of fun, and I'm really glad we did as much Bear Pawing as we did. Oh Alaska, you and your Bear Paw Festival will be truly missed.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Just the Facts, Ma'am

2011-07-07T14:52:00.001-08:00

Last week I took this guy:

in the clinic for his 4 year check up. (This picture is a few weeks old, hence the longer hair, but I love it and feel it truly shows Deacon's personality, so I'm using it.) Deacon did really well at his appointment. He is 41 1/2 inches tall, placing him around 50% for his age. He weighed in at 41 pounds even, placing him in the 80th percent for his age. Yes, he is a thick boy. I'm not saying he's chunky, he's just solid.

Deacon is also working on potty training (finally). He pretty much has the hang of peeing in the toilet, and for the most part, is good about telling me when he has to pee. He does a great job staying dry all night too. Our only hang up (which is the only thing keeping him in diapers at night) is pooping. He just can't figure that out. But we are working on it, and maybe when Daddy gets home today(!) he can help us with that (and maybe with peeing standing up). It would be so nice to have Deacon completely trained by the time we fly next week. Fingers crossed!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Um...Really, Guys?

2011-07-05T12:37:00.001-08:00

Sorry it's been a full week since my last post, but it really has been a FULL week. As you may or may not know, the movers came last Monday and Tuesday and took away all of our stuff.

The move itself went well enough, even though I was convinced by the end of it that every moving team should have at least one woman on it solely for organizational and common sensical purposes. Take, for example, my bed. The first day of the move, one of the movers worked on my room. He didn't get around to taking apart our bed, so he left it over night. This was fine since it meant I'd have a bed to sleep on. However,

This is what they left. Just my bed, the fitted sheet, and Josh's bow and arrows. No blankets, no pillows, nothing. I'm pretty sure if there was a woman on the team, she would have said something like, "Are you going to take apart and pack up that bed today? No? Then maybe you should leave the blankets and pillows out." Sigh.

Likewise, I'm sure a woman would have come through the living room, saw the computer piled like this

and would have asked, "Are you going to pack that computer tonight? No? Then maybe you should leave it plugged in just in case they'd like to use it for one more night?" Sigh.

Then there was this, which I'm still not sure how or why it happened

Yeah. They just left that pile of stuff in the middle of our living room over night. Sigh. I partly blame this on how scatterbrained they seemed. They'd work on whatever rooms, then they'd take a break, come back from their breaks and start working on a completely different room, leaving the first room halfway done. Which, again, a woman might have prevented by keeping them on task a little better.

My 2 favorite parts though, are when they quit at 4 on the first day because they "ran out of packing stuff" yet

I'm just saying.

Also,

I found this the day after they finished and left. I'm not even sure how this happened as that suitcase was one of the first things from the shed that was picked up to bring to the garage for packing. So, not only was it dropped shortly after being picked up, but it was then left there and either stepped over or walked around who knows how many times. Sigh.

Now, I'm not really saying a woman would have made it all better. Just someone with better leadership skills who was a bit more aware of what his team was (or wasn't) doing. And maybe who was more concerned with my move than with his plans for Tuesday night. Again, I'm just saying.

But, it's all packed up, gone, and on it's way to NJ. The boys and I are enjoying living in our mostly empty house, or "camping" as I've called it to convince Zeke that this is great fun. Now we are counting down the days until Josh gets back (Thursday) and then it's one more week until we fly.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Where Do I Begin?

2011-06-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

I guess I'll start my story on Thursday. No, no, I'll just jump in on Saturday and do a little flashback action on you later.

So, Saturday night I put the boys in bed around 8:00. I went upstairs and started working on Deacon's birthday cupcakes. I turned the oven on, started mixing up the batter (in the blue pitcher since my mixing bowls were already packed), and getting the paper cups all ready and what's it. A few minutes into mixing the batter, I started to smell something funny. It took a few minutes for me to realize it was something burning. It had almost a flowery-ness to it so I was very confused as to what could have spilled into the oven that would be making that smell as it burned. I opened the oven door to check it out and was shocked to see FLAMES you guys, BIG BURNING HOT FLAMES dancing around the inside of my oven!

I slammed the door shut and stood there frozen for a few seconds as many thoughts raced through my head. Is this going to cause the whole house to burn down? Should I evacuate the children right now? How long will it take for the smoke alar- never mind. What was in there? What do I do first? AHHHH!!

Once I finished this inner monologue I leaped into action. I found my baking soda, tore the top off of the box, opened the oven and dumped the entire box of baking soda on the flames. Fortunately, it worked. Unfortunately I got freaked out (again) by the size of the flames leaping out of my oven and so I dumped too quickly and missed a spot with started burning again. So, I shut the door again and watched to see what it was going to do. Eventually it burned itself out so I started opening all of the doors and windows. I stood on a chair by the fire alarm, and tried to fan the smoke away from it with Deacon's super hero cape (it was the first thing I grabbed).

By the way, our alarm goes DING DING DING DING and then a woman's voice calmly says "Fire." DING DING DING DING Fire. DING DING DING DING Fire. Interesting, no?

Anyhoo...so, once the fire was out, and the smoke had mostly cleared out, and the alarm was done alarming everyone, I looked around my house and saw that it was COVERED in soot and ash. And not just the kitchen. Oh no friends, the soot got EVERYWHERE. It was all over the dining room table and benches, it was all over the couch, it was on the desks, even in the fridge (the call is coming from INSIDE the house!).

Not sure what to do next, I realized my biggest concern (once I realized our lives were no longer in jeopardy) was Deacon's birthday cupcakes. Obviously my oven was out of commission now, so I called Amity to see if she would pick up the batter and the cupcake papers (I had the foresight to cover the cupcake papers with a towel once the fire started - go figure) and baked the cupcakes for me. When I told her what happened she so graciously volunteered to come over and help me clean up. I accepted her offer, and I am SO happy I did.

While I waited for Amity to get here, I called Sara to tell her the story because I figured she'd still be up as she's in California, and she's a supermom, so I thought she might have a useful tip or two of what to do next. As I was talking to her, I looked inside the oven again to see what it was that had caused these MASSIVE FLAMES to shoot out of my oven.

I'm so embarrassed. You see, on Thursday I emptied out the big freezer we have in our basement so I could unplug it to defrost it before the movers came. In order to make sure I had enough room in the freezer upstairs, I took out the bucket that's supposed to catch the ice the ice maker makes. Another aside: I say "supposed" because the ice maker doesn't actually make ice. It makes noise like it's making ice and goes through the process, but it doesn't make ice so the ice bucket doesn't really catch ice. So I took this bucket out so I could put stuff under the ice maker. Not having any place to put the bucket right away, I put it in the oven figuring I'd move it later once I was finished with my current task. /sigh /facepalm /shakes head Yeah.

So, I never took the bucket out, I turned the oven on, and the thing caught on FIRE. In an attempt to see what it was I pulled the rack in was on out about an inch. Sara suggested I let the plastic cool all the way and see if would just separate itself from the metal and just pop off. She's the science teacher, so it sounded good to me. Amity then showed up (it was about 8:30 by now) and she and I got to work dusting and wiping and cleaning up the joint. As we cleaned I realized that, while I had the wherewithal to cover the cupcake cups, I did NOT think to cover the actual batter, and so the batter was ruined as it got a good bit of ash in it.

It took us a good 2 hours to clean up the whole house. At one point, as Amity was cleaning the fridge (both inside and out), the ice maker made it's ice making noise. I explained to her then how annoying it was that it does that and how I've been trying to figure out how to make it stop as I'll soon be sleeping in the living room and I don't want to hear that going off every 20 minutes all night long. With the most serious voice and face ever, Amity said, "You could just set it on fire." Ka-blam!ty!

After we had most of the house cleaned, we decided to try getting the cooking rack out of the oven. You see, when I started to pull it out while it was hot, then decided to let it cool per Sara's suggestion, I didn't think to put it all the way back in and let it cool in a place that prevented me from being able to close the oven door all the way. Sigh. And just in case you're wondering, the plastic did separate itself from the metal in some places. But in other places, it melted around the rack and into itself, making a super plastic when it cooled.

We tried breaking it, we tried pulling it, I unscrewed the heating element from the back of the oven wall. I should say, it's an electric oven and the main problem was that in one spot the plastic had melted in a ring around the heating element and I couldn't pry it free. So I thought if I could get the whole thing out? But nothing was working. At a loss Amity suggested turning the oven back on to see if the plastic would heat up and melt again. Not really wanting to take the chance of setting my entire kitchen on fire again, but liking where her head was at, I decided to get a lighter out and just set the one portion on fire (again).

A few minutes later and presto! the rack was out. And I was filthy.

Once we had that finished and everything cleaned up, Amity left to run to Walmart for some thing (cake batter being one of them now). I then spent even more of my evening sweeping, mopping, vacuuming and showering. By the time it was all said and done 3 1/2 hours were spent on the oven fire. At 11:30 I was SO done and ready for bed, but I still had to get things ready for Deacon's birthday, so it was midnight before I was finally able to literally fall into bed. It was quite the night.

Oh, and if you're wondering what Josh's response was to all of this when I told him about it on Sunday? He said, "Well. I'm really sorry this happened to you. But at the same time, I'm really sorry I missed it because I bet that was something to see." And oh, how we all did laugh.

Four Never Looked Like So Much Fun

2011-06-26T22:15:00.003-08:00

I know I don't usually post on Sundays, but today was Deacon's birthday, and I wanted to make sure I got it up before our movers come tomorrow. Plus, I have a second post I want to write about an event that occured last night, again, before the movers come tomorrow, just in case the computer is one of the first things they decide to pack up. You never know. But first, today!

Today, my sweet, silly, shy guy Deacon turned 4. Judging by the smile that was plastered to his face for most of the day, I'd say he had a good one. I mean, it started with presents, so really, how could it be bad?

After he opened all of his gifts, they boys played with all of the gifts. Then there was breakfast and more playing. The next "big" surprise for Deacon was when we were leaving for church. Last night I had taken out his car seat and replaced it with a booster seat (mostly because I need the car seat to be packed by the movers). He. was. thrilled. But not only did I put his big boy booster seat in there, but I also found his sunglasses (as well as Zeke's sunglasses) last night while I was cleaning the car out a little bit. So, as soon as I got into the garage with Finn, both boys were chattering at me at about 100 mph. So exhausting, but so sweet all the same.

So, we went to church, had lunch, took naps, yadda yadda, all like normal. After naps, we had cupcakes! A friend and her son stopped by (mostly to return a movie she borrowed, but also to have cupcakes), as well as Amity and her oldest 2 boys, and the baby (of course). Unfortunately, Amity was late so my friend and her son didn't get to sing with us, but they did take a cupcake home with them. Also, since Amity's 2 boys were here, we went ahead and sang without her. But I think having Stephan and Wyatt here, meant a lot to Deacon. Zeke certainly thought it was cool.

After cupcakes the Amity and boys left, we had dinner, played a little, and watched "Peapunzel" (as Deacon calls it). Well, the boys watched the movie, I started moving all of the things I DON'T want the movers to move into the pantry. After the movie, the boys helped me pack a little and then it was off to bed, tired, but very, very happy.

Happy birthday Sweet Deacon. I really can't wait to see what 4 brings. It's going to be a big year for you. But I know you'll handle it with aplomb. I love you little man.

It's the Big Yellow Box, That Everyone Knows

2011-06-23T15:09:00.002-08:00

I caught Zeke doing this, way back in December of 2006:

I caught Deacon doing this, back in April of 2008:

I caught Finn doing this, last month (May of 2011):

Look At Him Go!

2011-06-21T10:05:00.005-08:00

First, let me apologize for it being such a slow month here on ye olde blogge. With my mom visiting, and getting ready for the movers to come (now that we have dates), and currently with me being sick (it's just a head cold, nothing too serious but enough to make me feel crummy) it's just been a crazy month. Also, we haven't really been doing much here. We go to parks and play outside when the weather's nice:

and we play inside when the weather's not nice:

All of that is just to say that besides being busy doing nothing, there really hasn't been much to blog about. I have been boxing up some of our stuff that has boxes (certain plates, coffee pot, etc) and moving all of the stuff that the movers are taking out of the pantry so I can now put the things I don't want the movers to take in there, with a big sign that'll read MOVERS STAY OUT! or something. I'm still working on the actual wording. I tell you what though, I think I'll be pretty happy when the movers have come and gone and there is a lot less stuff for Finn to mess with. It's exhausting trying to keep him out of things - especially since that whole "just distract them with something else" thing doesn't work on him.

And speaking of Finn, he has been doing something exciting that I've finally gotten around to taking a video of to share with you here:

That's right, Finn is walking! He's getting fast too. He started taking steps on his own while my mom was here at the beginning of the month, and slowly but surely he is getting the hang of it. Part of me wished he had waited a little longer because the thought of having to chase 3 walkers around airports makes me tired, but at the same time, I'm happy he's doing it now because he can walk at the airports instead of crawl all over those gross floors. Either way, it's going to be an interesting time.

And before I go, can someone else who uses blogger help me with something? I went to change the boys pictures on my sidebar the other day and they keep posting HUGE and I have NO idea how to resize them (either in blogger or on my computer in general) so that they are their normal size again. I feel like blogger changed some things lately and I don't like it. And to those of you who used to use blogger but switched, where did you go?

We Have Dates

2011-06-15T09:44:00.004-08:00

Since I know most of you have been wondering what's going on here and when are we leaving, and all that jazz, I thought I'd let you all know what we know, now that we FINALLY know it. You see, for the longest time we were waiting for the movers to schedule our move. Once the movers scheduled the move, Josh could get tickets for the boys and me to fly to NJ. Once Josh got our tickets, I could then get his tickets from NJ to Alaska, so he could fly back with us.

Seems simple enough, right? Well, from here, the army decided that the only way to get on the mover's list of people who want moving is to use a website they set up. Since it's a military website it doesn't work real well, and it took us 3 tries (1 by me, 2 by Josh) to get us into the system. A week went by and neither one of us heard from them, so Josh called the office up here, only to find out that there are two forms he needs to sign and either fax and/or scan and email back before they'll look at the dates we requested - and NO WHERE on the site did it say this NEEDED to be done. Sigh. But he got it all taken care of and the movers will be here to collect our stuff on the 27th and 28th of this month. (That means blog posts will be shorter and done from my phone since they'll be taking my computer then, just so you're all aware of what's to come here.)

Once those dates were set in stone, oh, quick rabbit trail: they originally wanted to pack us on the 23rd and 24th (Thursday and Friday) then leave my house in boxes for the weekend, and come back on that Monday and Tuesday to load everything on the trucks. Yeah. Thankfully, the guy from the moving company came and did a walk-through and when I asked him if he would be willing to leave the beds together over the weekend and leave out a box for the linens he was shocked that they were planning the move to take 4 days and assured me it could be done in 2, so now they're just coming that Monday and Tuesday. Whew!

Now, once those dates were set in stone, Josh called SATO and got tickets for the boys and me to fly back to New Jersey. We leave the 15th of July and land in Newark on the 16th. Please don't read this as an invitation to start calling and trying to show up on the 16th. (Not that any of you would, of course. Lols.) We'll need at least a day to recover from travelling all night and to get things figured out there. But it is very exciting to finally know when we'll be back on the east coast.

Once our tickets were booked and confirmed and set in stone, I called the airline we're flying on and got Josh's tickets. Can I just say, that God is good? Not only did I manage to get Josh on the same exact flights as us, but I was able to get him seats right next to us! Like, we had seats A, B, C, and D (let's say) on one flight, and Josh is now in seat E. I was so excited that it worked out because I was seriously worried that he'd be in row 6 and we'd be in row 37 and I'd lose my mind. I also, got the cat his "ticket" for the cargo section of the flights so Peavey is all set to make the long flight back to NJ as well.

And since the army is sending Josh to NJ from Alabama (and rightly so, I guess, since he's technically not stationed here anymore) I got Josh a round trip ticket from Newark to Anchorage, and so he'll be back here on the 7th of July. Whoo-hoo! And yes, for those of you doing the math, that means we'll be here for 3 weeks with no stuff - but I have a plan, so it's all good. Two of those weeks, we'll still have no Josh, but he'll be here for the last week to help with shipping my car and doing a final house cleaning and clearing and all that jazz (and restoring my sanity a little after spending 2 weeks in a mostly empty house with 3 balls of non-stop energy).

And now that a post that I had planned on only being a few short sentences of dates has turned into a long-winded story about moving and tickets and nonsense, I'm going to get going. I wonder though, I wonder if they'll keep the stuff I have in diaper boxes in the diaper boxes, just tape them closed, put a number sticker on them and throw them into the crate?

I'm Ba-ack!

2011-06-13T14:10:00.004-08:00

Hey everyone! SO sorry for my absence. As I mentioned in my last post, my mom was here visiting (for a week and a half) and so I decided not to blog while she was here. I used her time here as a little bit of a rest time for me. But she left last Wednesday, and now I'm here to write about her visit, because really, we did have a lovely time.

The day after my mom got here we it was Memorial Day so we just hung out and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. The following day, Tuesday, we went to the zoo (which I've already blogged about HERE). Then it started raining. And raining, and raining. It rained for pretty much the rest of her visit. So, we pretty much hung out the rest of the time.

Wednesday we still had lunch at McDs. Friday we went to storytime at the library. Saturday my friend Marci turned 50, so we went to her birthday bash for a bit. Sunday was church. The rest of the time was spent hanging around the house. I sure do know how to show guests a good time. The second Monday she was here it wasn't raining so we went to the playground at the school by us. But the Wednesday she left it was nice again so we went to the park for lunch.

Even though we really didn't do much while Grammy was here, we did have a really nice time. It was nice for me to have someone else around to have adult conversation with, and to have some help with the kids. Not to mention, someone else to read them books over and over and over again. It was nice having someone else to chase the boys around the playground so I could sit and chat with my friends a little. Someone else to help with the dishes and the picking up. Someone to watch "Better Off Ted" with (which, is hilarious, by the way). Too bad Grammy had to leave before we finished it - I should have started watching it earlier in her visit. We are so happy she came to visit, and we can't wait until we're in NJ and closer to family for awhile.

To The Zoo!

2011-05-31T15:11:00.005-08:00

This morning we met up with Amity and her passel of offspring at the zoo. With Grammy here, we just had to go at least once, right? We had so much fun. Zeke was SUPER excited and practically ran amok until I sat him down and had a little chat with him. I mean, it's one thing to be 5-7 feet in front of me, but it's a completely different thing to be on the other side of the zoo from me (he wasn't really that far from me, but you know what I'm saying). But he quickly calmed down and did a much better job staying with the pack.

The zoo had a few new baby animals on "display" including a baby musk ox, as well as the CUTEST baby polar bear ever. They only let her out of the infirmary from 11-12 and from 4-5, so we were able to see her out and about. But since she's behind bars all the time, it was hard to get a good picture, so I'm not going to waste blog space with pictures of animals. Well, I guess these animals are worth posting pictures of.

After spending 2 hours walking around and seeing all there possibly is to see there, we had some popcorn and headed home for lunch and much needed naps (even I laid down for a bit). A very good morning indeed.

Too Gross Not To Share

2011-05-28T13:28:00.003-08:00

I'll start by saying that I do not have any pictures to go with this story, so you can rest easy about that. I'll also say now that the story involves poop so if you want to avoid that topic then feel free to read the first half about Zeke, then skip the rest. Or skip the whole post, it's okay, you won't miss much.

So, yesterday afternoon Zeke decided he wanted to go outside to play again. When Deacon got up, he decided he didn't want to go out again. When Zeke found out that Deacon didn't want to go out he was shocked. You could see it in his face. His face was all, "What?! Why NOT?! There are rocks outside. And dirt! And sticks! And balls! And dirt! And rocks! And bubbles! And dirt! And trucks! And rocks!" But Zeke went out on his own and had fun getting dirty by himself.

Since Zeke was the only one who went out yesterday afternoon, he was the only one who really needed to be washed last night. And not really wanting to do the whole "bath thing" for one kid, I decided to let him try taking a shower for the first time. He LOVED it. He stood there, in the shower, for a solid 10 minutes, fogging up the mirror and driving Finn insane. (I set up the baby gate in the bathroom door so I could poke my head out and check on the other two while staying close to Zeke in case he slipped or something. But this meant that Finn spent the entire shower time at the gate crying to get in as the little man loves him some water.) So, Zeke had his first shower and it was a huge success and I'm so excited because it'll make things a lot easier this summer.

Here's where the poop comes into play, so feel free to leave now if you want. Apparently, while I was in the bathroom with Zeke, Deacon, who before yesterday was scared of the shower and HATED even the IDEA of it, decided he wanted to take a shower as well, and as such got himself ready to go. And by ready to go I mean he took off the shirt he had on (he was still pantsless from naptime) as well as his diaper. His diaper, which he had pooped into. So, I took Zeke out of the shower and started to wonder why I was smelling poop, I mean, Zeke was clean. So I let Zeke out of the bathroom, cleaned up the bathroom, walked out of the bathroom and saw Deacon, laying on the couch naked, his bottom covered in poop, with a little turd hanging out (I told you this was gross). On the other side of the couch was his diaper, nicely folded in half, but with a giant poop ball laying on top of it that Deacon had apparently put there manually, as his fingers were covered in poop. Ahhh yes, motherhood is SO glamorous.

So, I wiped up Deacon's butt, cleaned up the couch, threw out the diaper, and showered Deacon, who handled the shower quiet well. He was as excited and in love with showering as Zeke was, but he wasn't scared anymore either. Looks like I will be able to get away with more showers and less baths than I had originally anticipated this summer. Whoo! \o/ (<---that's a guy with his hands in the air)

Life Is a Series of Tangled

2011-05-27T14:31:00.003-08:00

There are no typos in the title of this post. Life isn't really a series of tangles right now. No, life is good (even though we all miss Daddy terribly). Life is, however, a series of scenes from the movie Tangled right now. Part of me is starting to agree with the comment Amity made the other day, about us having seen the movie too many times. But really, how many is too many when the movie is so good? And if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend that you do so, and soon.

Amity made this comment at the park on Wednesday when I told her what happened when we got there. As soon as we had put all of our stuff on the table we were using, Zeke laid down on the grass and started singing "Just feel the grass! The dirt! Just like I dreamed they'd be!" Then he got up and ate his lunch like nothing had happened. There's also the fact that he's started saying, "Yes, Mother" to me, which I'm pretty sure he got from that movie.

Then, today, as I got out the vacuum, Zeke started running around the house singing, "I could go racing and dancing and running and splashing, when my life begins!" (Except the "when my life begins" part was incredibly mumbled since he doesn't actually know those words, but he knows the tune and how they're supposed to be sung.)

Deacon, is also caught up in it. The other evening he found a comb and started brushing my hair. As he brushed, he recited random lines from the movie. Zeke ran around in the background singing, "And then I brush, and brush, and brush and brush my hair!" Deacon also loves a good animal sidekick, and the chameleon from Tangled is no exception. Only, because Flynn calls the chameleon a frog on more then one occasion, and since he's not as familiar with chameleons as he is with frogs, Deacon likes to hop about pretending he is a frog. He's getting really good at it too.

Add to all of this the fact that Deacon requests I sing the songs from the movie a lot (at least, the segments of each song that I know - which really isn't very much). I have to work on learning more words to each song. Maybe if we watch it a few more times! Also, I set up the castle again at the boys' request. Only, it's not a castle anymore, it's now Rapunzel's tower.

They've also assigned "roles" to each of us. Zeke is Rapunzel, Deacon insists on being Mother Goethel, Josh and I are the king and queen, which leaves Finn to be Flynn. Zeke tried hard to convince Deacon to be Flynn, but Deacon just wouldn't hear of it. And finally, Zeke, who usually loves having his haircut because he likes to keep it short, has decided he doesn't want his haircut anymore because he wants it to be long like Flynn Rider's.

Oh! And the main "force" behind my cutting my hair the other week was that after watching Tangled the first time (or two), as well as Mulan, Zeke became insistant that I get my hair cut as well. Such funny kids with their funny whims. At least it's a movie that I love to watch over and over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again too.

*here's a link to the song zeke sings the different parts to TANGLED
the grass the dirt is at about the 55 second mark
running and splashing etc is at about the 1minute 15 second mark*

We Laugh In the Face of Danger!

2011-05-26T15:09:00.004-08:00

I am truly loving the weather we've been having. Spending hours outdoors each day has been wonderful. Take yesterday, for example.

Yesterday morning we went to the park for 2 whole hours. We stopped at McDs to pick up some lunch, then met some friends for fun. The big boys played and ran and jumped and rolled to their hearts content. Even Finn was great the entire time. You'd never know it was getting further and further past naptime (Finn usually gets a little cranky as his nap time approaches). And of course, 2 hours of running around a park meant 2 hours of solid nap time for all the boys. And, while we're on the topic of the park, I must say that I am impressed with all 3 of my boys who kept their baseball caps on the entire time we were there. Finn removed his a few times, but left it alone for awhile whenever I put it back on. They played so well with the other kids too. Zeke made up a game where a little girl would slide down the slide (with her mom's help - she was 19 months old) and slide into Zeke. Zeke would then "fly" off the slide and roll on the ground, causing the little girl to crack up. The girl's dad had a poodle with him, which he let Deacon and Finn pet (and Zeke when it was time for them to leave, ending his game with the little girl). It was such a good time.

As we were leaving for the park yesterday, we saw the baby moose on the side of the road, at the end of our street. As we turned the corner, Zeke got worried, and asked where the momma moose was. I assured him she was close by (and lest you're worried too, we spotted her right after we turned).

This pair have really been going about the neighborhood. This morning, as I came back in from putting out the garbage (at 6:30) I looked out the front window and there they were, right across the street. I'm wondering now where they were while I was out there, and how close I might have come to being seen as a threat and thusly attacked by Momma Moose herself. Not that she seems the attacking sort, of course.

That didn't stop Josh from freaking out when I texted him this picture last night though:

See, the boys were out back (at this point they were on the deck blowing bubbles) making all kinds of noise, as boys outside are wont to do. Oh, who am I kidding, boys will make all kinds of noise regardless of where they are. So, as the boys blew bubbles, Momma Moose came to the fence to check out what was going on. I'm pretty sure she was just assessing the situation. Zeke saw the moose and asked first if it could talk (thank you Disney), then asked if it could wave to him. I thought it was very cute, so I sent a text to Josh, with the above picture. Apparently Josh's immediate reaction upon opening the text and seeing the picture was "My kids are going to die." Puh-lease! I know moose can be fast and all, but I'm pretty sure I would have been able to grab both boys and get them safely inside (and probably out of sight downstairs or something) before Momma Moose could break through the fence, run across the yard, make her way up the stairs (I'm not even certain she'd fit up them with that big butt of her), and get at the kids.

Danger? Hah! I laugh in the face of danger. Hahahahahahahahahaaaa!

And of course, what would a great day be without a great bathtime?

I guess we've entered the season of almost daily baths. It's a tiring thought, but when I think about what it means (that the day was gorgeous and the boys spent a good part of it outside) I think it's totally worth it. We can do baths every night if means every day is like this.

A Good Afternoon

2011-05-24T13:49:00.003-08:00

Yesterday afternoon was beautiful. The bigger boys asked to go out front to play, so I got them up a bit early from naps and took them out front while Finn continue to "rest". There was picking of berries (or bird grapes as Zeke started calling them yesterday):

There was picking of flowers (dandelions). There was "dirting the grass". Zeke remembered that all plants need dirt to grow, so he found some dirt and then sprinkled it all over the grass.

We were having such a good time, and the sun felt so glorious, that when Finn decided he was finished hanging out in bed, I brought him out too. He wasted NO time finding the dirt, and then eating the dirt. Unfortunately our front yard is a bit too steep for Finn's enjoyment. Still, he was happy sitting by the dirt for a good 45 minutes or so.

While the boys played, I worked. I got out the garden rake and started thatching the front yard. Here's what I got up after Round One (feel free to be impressed):

After I finished the yard work, I ushered the bigger boys into the backyard, and brought the baby inside. After 2 full hours of playing outside, I called the bigger boys in for dinner. (If you look closely in the next picture, you can *almost* see how dirty they got.) And since they were both fil-thy, we had a special treat of icepops after dinner.

Then it was time for baths, and She-Ra, and bed. All in all, it was a very good afternoon. A very good afternoon.

Nature! Goulet.

2011-05-23T14:17:00.003-08:00

It's been like Animal Planet up in here you guys.

It started with the moose in the back yard (not actually in our yard, but just on the other side of the fence). At one point there were 3 of them back there. A medium sized one, then a big momma and her calf. The momma kept chasing the other one further and further away so the calf could run about as it pleased. (Once the calf goes behind the tree you can stop the video, I tried to follow it to the other side, but got distracted by Zeke.)

It's been fun. Also fun, is when Peavey caught (and killed) a bird Saturday morning and brought it home for us. Who's a good hunter with his big, sharp claws? Peavey is! When Peavey dropped off the bird, Zeke asked if Peavey shot it. I had to explain then how cats catch birds using their claws and fangs. Zeke was impressed, then pointed out how the bird is now dead. Which is good he realized the bird was dead, because shortly after our conversation about the bird, Peavey ate the bird's head. Yeah. No other part of the bird was eaten, just the head. My cat is so weird sometimes.

(I guess I should clean the back door again.) Shortly after Peavey had killed the bird, I took the boys food shopping. As we were walking across the parking lot, Zeke said, somewhat matter-of-factly, "So. Peavey caught the bird." To which Decon replied in possibly the most excited voice ever, "AND THEN HE ATE THE HEAD!" My middle child is so weird sometimes. And I'm guessing that my kids are not going to be bothered by death much. At least, not when it comes to the animals living in our neighborhood. Or, the animals no longer living in our neighborhood, I guess I should say. I am so weird sometimes.

Getting Knitty With It

2011-05-21T12:23:00.001-08:00

Here is another post about my latest knitting creations. Now that "prayer shawl making season" has ended, I want to show you the last shawl I made for our group. It's a somewhat more ambitious pattern than I've done before, so it was a bit on the frustrating side. In fact, one night I got so frustrated I decided to just finish it where I was at. I then decided I really shouldn't do that, but the more I looked at it, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should. After all, children need prayer too. And the shawl was perfect (in my mind anyway) for a little girl - after all, it is shades of pink and purple, and has diamonds, sort of. So, here it is, being modeled by one who is close in size to whom I imagine it might some day go to:

He was a little sad he couldn't keep it for himself. Sweet Zeke.

Another project I've started up involves more things Zeke is sad he can't keep for himself, even though I insist on using him as my model for photos, are super cute headbands. It started with this one that I made to try out the pattern, and LOVE, so it's all mine:

After I saw easy and relatively quick the pattern is I decided to make these as teacher gifts for Zeke's teacher, classroom aide, and speech therapist. (I'll also be making some for his extra curricular speech therapist, but shhh, it's a secret.) Here are the ones I've made (and given) so far:

There was a day I had Zeke and Deacon wearing these for me so I could take pictures. They had a good time (which you'll see, if you want, whenever I get the pictures up on flickr) and thought the headbands were super cool, and wore them around for a bit. As the silliness went on, I turned to Finn and saw him making this face:

Yeeeeahh. He's just not sure about those big brothers of his sometimes. And honesly, I don't blame him one bit for his concern.

Three Cheers For Aunt Linda!

2011-05-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

Last week (from last Thursday until this past Monday) Josh's sister, Linda, came to visit us. We had such a great time, even though Finn was a bit of a pill and would freak out if I moved more than 3 feet away from him while she was here. He did eventually warm up to her, you know, the day she was leaving. And while we mostly just hung around the house and went about our everyday lives with her here, we really did have a lovely time. Besides, it was nice being able to go out, without any kids, during nap times to get some things done. It was also nice having someone else around to put the kids in bed so I didn't have to on days I was just too worn out to walk down those stairs one more time.

Let's see...here's what we did while Aunt Linda was here:

We went to the library (did you know Aunt Linda used to be a librarian? true story):

I got my haircut during one of those glorious nap times (sorry it's blurry - silly phone photos - but trust me, it's super cute):

The boys had even more technology to play with (don't be too surprised if I announce the addition of an iPad2 to our family soon):

And we showed Aunt Linda some of our new favorite shows/movies - She-Ra and Care Bears:

Thank you SO much for coming to see us Aunt Linda! We can't wait to see you again in your part of the world.

This Happened Too Quickly

2011-05-19T14:41:00.006-08:00

Today is the last day of school out here. I know I already posted it on facebook and tweeted about it, but I have a kindergartener now you guys. It's so crazy. I know that a lot is going to happen between now and when he actually starts kindergarten, but still. I'm so excited to watch Zeke as he continues to grow and continues to learn. He is a sweet and sensitive boy, as well as energetic and enthusiastic (and he gets enthusiastic about pretty much everything). Zeke is cute and charming and a little bit crazy. Look out New Jersey (and the rest of the world), Zeke is on his way!

I Thought This Was Interesting

2011-05-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

So, I'm going to share it with you.

Last week I was driving to Bible study. The sun was shining (so wonderful) so I had my sunglasses on. I looked up at the sky and saw the coolest thing. The sun was there, surrounded by a circle of clouds, and the clouds were all sort of outlined in pink. It looked so cool. But when I took off my sunglasses and put my head closer to the steering wheel to look at it again (I was stopped at a red light, don't worry) the pink was gone and it looked like this:

(These pictures were taken after I finished driving to Bible study, I was not taking pictures as I was actively driving down the road. I was parked in a parking lot.)

Still pretty, but where did the pink go? I moved my head up and looked through that blue tinted part of the glass to see if that was the cause of the pink, and it turns out it wasn't.

Almost looks like a night shot, huh? Or not. Maybe just a VERY blue shot.

So then, I put my sunglasses back on, and looked through the non-blue part and nothing looked pink. SO I looked through the blue part with the sunglasses on and voila! There was the pink:

Okay, this really isn't a very good picture of what I saw, but from the time I first saw the pink on the road by my house, until I got to base (where I could safely take pictures) the clouds had moved, and so had I. Plus, the phone's camera, blah blah blah. But all those clouds around the sun were essentially outlined in this sharp shade of pink, and it was really cool. But even though you can't see what I saw, I still think it's interesting the difference the different "lenses" make when looking at the exact same thing.

Meet Faith

2011-05-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

Faith is a spider. Faith came inside the other day, much to the boys' delight. Zeke and Deacon stinking LOVE this spider. I'm a little less thrilled about it. I haven't killed it yet because 1) they're really kind of attached to it (hence the spider having a name now) and enjoy looking around the house for it, and 2) Faith likes to stay up on the highest parts of the ceiling, very much out of reach. So, Faith, enjoy it while it lasts. Some day Josh will be back and he'll be tall enough to take. you. down.

Mr. Mysterioso

2011-05-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

I found these sunglasses the other day while cleaning up my bedroom some, and Deacon has been quite taken with them. He wore them pretty much all day the Saturday I found them, including while watching some TV and to speech.

When he wasn't wearing the glasses, and you could get a good look at his eyes, you'd see that, due to the 2 grey shirts he was wearing that day, his eyes had turned grey. They were so cool looking, I almost wished they would stay that color.

Nice, right?

I also tried another day of potty training with Deacon and decided (again) that he's just not mentally ready. Physically he is SO ready, but he just doesn't want to and so he won't. I even let him wear my fun socks as super cool leg warmers, but he just wouldn't do it.

The kid can hold it too. He didn't pee the first 4+ hours he was up. He finally got to the point where he was leaking little drops of pee here and there because he really couldn't hold it anymore. But he STILL refused to go. I sat him on the toilet and some trickled out, but once he got enough out, he stopped. And then sat there for 10 minutes. I know I need to be consistent with him and do it for a few days in a row, but I just don't have the energy for it. Maybe next week.

But probably not. **giggle**

Oh, Finn

2011-05-11T14:39:00.001-08:00

My baby turned 1 last week. It's so crazy to think about that. But there it is. And here he is:

Cute, right?

Finn has quite the personality. He is usually a pretty happy, smiley boy. He likes laughing along with people, even if he has NO idea what they're laughing at (which, is usually the case). Finn likes to be tickled, and will lay his head on the floor (or the pillow that's on the floor currently), and smile up at me until I get down and tickle him. Then he squeals and laughs and crawls away, only to crawl right back and do it again. And again. And again.

Finn knows what the word "movie" means. The other day I said to Zeke, "I'm going to do laundry real quick then I'll come up and put the movie on for you." At the word "movie", Finn crawled to the TV and looked up at it, expectantly. When nothing happened he crawled away until I said, "What Finn? You want to watch a movie?" At which point, he crawled back to the TV and looked at it waiting for something to happen. That's not to say that he actually sits and watches TV. If there's singing going on he'll usually stop and watch for a second or two, but that's about it.

Finn has most of our noisy toys figured out. Most of them play a song when you hit a button. After the song, if you hit the button again it'll cycle through 2 or 3 "sayings" then it'll come around the song again. Well, Finn has figured out how to push the buttons to get the songs to play, then once the songs are over, he'll push the buttons as fast as he can until he hears the song start again. That, or he'll just sit and wait 30 seconds until the toy has "reset" or whatever and will play the song with the first push of the button again.

Finn enjoys helping me cook dinner by rearranging my tea drawer and/or the tupperware lid drawer. It's super fun when he leaves tea bags all over the floor and the other 2 boys ask a good 7 or 8 times each, "What's this?" But Finn loves his brothers and loves to play with/by them. He loves playing with (and putting his drool all over) whatever he can get his hands on. The computer fascinates him so I have to turn off the screen AND the mouse whenever he's awake.

What Finn does not like is when I leave him. I got called back to the nursery Sunday because he wouldn't stop crying. That's really not like him. Apparently he doesn't like it when Lora, his favorite nursery worker, or I am holding someone else. He's such a jealous little boy. Once Lora was free to hold him again (she wasn't holding another little boy anymore) Finn was fine in the nursery on his own, and was in quite the good mood when I went back to pick him up after church. Last night I left him with a babysitter and she reported that he cried from the moment I left until he fell asleep. He wouldn't even drink his bottle! Today he had a little meltdown with big tears and everything because I was holding Deacon for a minute. This phase came on so quickly that I'm hoping it goes away quickly. It's not fun for anyone.

Basically, he's just a super sweet boy (who really loves his mommy [and food...he REALLY loves to eat]) that we love very, very much. With some killer cheeks.

Looking For Suggestions

2011-05-10T10:37:00.002-08:00

Library season (for us) is here! I'm super excited, but somewhat overwhelmed and confused. So, I'm turning to you, dear readers, for book suggestions. What do/did you like reading with your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces/neighbors/etc? Or what did you enjoy reading yourself as a kid? And if anyone has a book suggestion or two for me, I'll take those too!

I am working on a post about Finn, his likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, and all, but my computer got sick today so I had to shut it down until Josh can call and (hopefully) help me fix it. But I still have my phone with Internet capabilities so send along those book suggestions!

Until my computer is up and running again, I'll leave you with all 3 boys totally enthralled by Snow White:

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy (Actual) Birthday Finn!

2011-05-06T13:28:00.006-08:00

At one year, Zeke weighed 22 pounds, was 30 inches long, and looked like this:

At one year, Deacon weighed 22 pounds 8 ounces, was 30 1/4 inches long, and looked like this:

At one year, Finn weighs 22 pounds 9 ounces, is 29 and 3/4 inches long, and looks like this:

Since we did our "big" celebration for Finn's birthday last month while Daddy was home, yesterday was a sort of low key day. Finn and I spent 2 hours at the clinic for his check-up, immunizations, and finger prick. After naps we had cupcakes. We had stuffed peppers and watermelon for dinner (it was Cinco de Mayo as well after all). Zeke and Deacon spent a good hour outside running around while Finn and I hung out inside reading the book he got at the clinic and playing with whatever we wanted.

Happy Birthday Finn! We love you very, very much sweet boy. (By the way, I'm having a hard time believing he's 1 already...where did this year [and my baby] go?!)

This Must Be What Living With Binky Would Be Like

2011-05-03T19:55:00.003-08:00

For those of you who don't know who Binky the Clown is, presumably because you never watched Garfield and Friends growing up, here is a quick clip of Binky the Clown:

See, he's super loud and always exaggerates his greetings in a SUPER LOUD voice. I realized tonight, while praying with Deacon, that living with Deacon must be a little bit what living Binky the Clown would be like. He started his prayer tonight with a growly, yet high pitched, super loud "HEEEYYYYYY GOOOODDDDD!!" I quickly calmed him down, but I couldn't help but think of Binky right then. And the more I think about life with Deacon, the more I realize that he can be quite the loud mouth. At least, whenever Zeke is home he's loud. Deacon is constantly shrieking and screaming and yelling instead of talking, even if I'm 4 inches away from him. I'm always telling him to tone it down. I imagine if I lived with Binky instead, it wouldn't be that much different.

Okay, it would probably be very different. Deacon does have his quiet times (namely when Zeke is at school or otherwise occupied). Deacon is also a very sweet kid. I'm not sure Binky has ever been sweet. Deacon melts my heart every time he says, "I love you too, Mama." And while Deacon may get over protective of his toys and a little annoyed when Finn crawls up, he's still very gentle with Finn. Deacon loves princesses and Care Bears, rocks and dirt, trains and superheroes, books and Peavey.

So maybe living with Deacon isn't that much like living with Binky the Clown. Just every once in awhile, and I think that's okay. It's all part of who he is, and who he is is a boy that I love very much. Even if he does give me the occasional headache solely with the volume he chooses to communicate in.

Happy Weekend!

2011-04-30T15:00:00.001-08:00

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

2011-04-28T13:10:00.000-08:00

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

2011-04-26T12:44:00.003-08:00

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

2011-04-25T14:10:00.006-08:00

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

2011-04-23T14:56:00.004-08:00

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

2011-04-20T13:10:00.005-08:00

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.

2011-04-16T14:52:00.002-08:00

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

2011-04-13T13:31:00.003-08:00

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

2011-04-12T13:06:00.003-08:00

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

2011-04-11T14:48:00.002-08:00

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

2011-04-08T13:18:00.005-08:00

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!

2011-04-06T13:29:00.004-08:00

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

2011-04-04T13:57:00.007-08:00

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...

2011-04-02T12:58:00.002-08:00

When you have brothers?

Like a Moth to the Flame

2011-03-31T13:16:00.004-08:00

There must be something magical about Daddy's food. Whenever Josh makes himself a snack, lunch, whatever, and tries to eat it when it's not any sort of "mealtime", he is quickly set upon by 2 oh-so-suddenly-hungry boys:

(And yes, Josh is wearing the same clothes in all the pictures, but no, they weren't all taken on the same day. He just likes to wear the same clothes for a good week before changing them. Unless there's a major spill or spitting up involved. But these sets of pictures are actually a good 3 days apart.)

My Boom

2011-03-29T13:31:00.002-08:00

So, 9 o'clock this morning rolled around pretty quickly today. Usually at 9 I turn on Sesame Street for the boys. Today, however, Deacon and Finn were playing so nicely in the playroom on their own, that I decided to let them continue playing. I played with my phone a little, tweeting, texting, etc, while I waited for the inevitable sound of Deacon freaking out because Finn invaded the 3 mile circle that is Deacon's personal space. It never came.

After ten minutes I checked on them, they were both happily absorbed in what they each were doing, so I decided to "tempt fate" as it were, and got out my book. I read for about 2 minutes. As soon as I turned the page in my book I heard a crash followed by Finn crying. As soon as I heard the crash I jumped up and ran to the playroom, almost knocking Deacon over since he was running out to get me.

I looked in the closet, and there was Finn, splayed out, reclining against the bookshelf, trapped under this little plastic toy bin/shelf thing we have. I will be quick to mention that the plastic shelf thing had NOT landed on Finn, the bookshelf actually caught it and was holding it just above him. Finn did, however, hit his head somewhere in all of this, I'm not sure if it was on the bookshelf, or if one of the drawers of toys opened and hit him, but he looked like this right after:

Poor baby. So I picked up the shelf, which made Finn's crying stop. I moved Finn out of the closet, closed all the shelf drawers and set it back on the ground so it wouldn't fall over again (see, the thing is really light, so if all the drawers are opened at once, which Deacon has a tendency to do, then it tips because it's front heavy). As I then scooped up Finn he said what sounded like, "Mah boom" over and over in his sad, "feel pity for me" voice. Which, is really kind of funny and cute. Mah boom. Yes sweet boy, you did go boom, huh?

Oh, he's fine by the way. By the time we left the playroom and walked to the couch he was off and playing something new. Just in case anyone was worried about him.

Hopefully I'll Have Something Better For You Tomorrow

2011-03-28T13:28:00.002-08:00

It's just that, I have this song stuck in my head, and it's making it hard to concentrate on other things (especially since today is when I pretty much recovered from the awful food poisoning I had Thursday/Friday). And of all the songs to have stuck in one's head, I think this might be one of the stickiest. My apologies if it gets stuck in your head too. Enjoy!

I Guess This Will Do

2011-03-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

When it's a slow news week, you have to make do with what you have. And what I have is a baby who, apparently, loves him some Mickey Mouse. Yesterday, the bigger boys plowed through their lunch. By the time I got the cantaloupe cut, their sandwiches were gone. By the time I got Finn's cantaloupe cut and jar food out, both boys were finished with their entire lunches and off to watch a video before nap time.

Usually this isn't a big deal since Finn will happily ignore the TV to eat. Yesterday, however, this was NOT the case. It had been awhile since we've watched Mickey Mouse, so I suggested they watch an episode of that. I put it on and went back to feeding Finn. However, as soon as Finn hear Mickey's voice, he REFUSED to eat (or sit still) until he could see the TV.

Crazy, right? I guess Mickey Mouse, like Murray the Monster from Sesame Street is something that Finn just cannot ignore. He sat there and watched the entire episode, entranced. While I was a little concerned that maybe he's a bit young for such enthusiastic TV watching, it was nice to be able to feed him without him getting his food everywhere. It was nice, for once, to be able to take him out of his chair looking somewhat clean, and not like this:

While this look IS adorable, and while bananas are a more natural way to make your hair look like this than hair gel is, it's not a look I like seeing after every. single. meal. So, I let him sit there and watch TV while I fed him this once. And we were all happier in the end for it.

I Don't Really Have Much To Say

2011-03-24T14:25:00.003-08:00

There isn't too much going on here right now. We're just kind of hanging out, going through the routine of day to day life. It's really kind of nice. So, I'm just checking in, to let you know we're all still here and doing fine. We just aren't doing much that's "blog worthy" I guess. But here's a picture I took of the bigger boys watching cartoons after lunch:

They are SO best buddies.

There'll Be No Stopping Him Now

2011-03-21T13:00:00.002-08:00

First, I want to start this post with a video. Well, the whole post is really going to be videos, but I want to start with a video I took this morning. I had gone downstairs to work on a food shopping list for Josh. Maybe 2 minutes later, I came back upstairs and found Finn doing this:

Gross, right? But what can I say, the kid LOVES water.

Finn has figured out how to work the drill, and he loves it. He likes to try to grab the drill while it's moving. At first, he would only use the one hand to do both (which doesn't work since the drill stops as soon as you let go of it), mostly because he would lose his balance if he let go of the bench with his other hand. Eventually, as his balance got better, he figured out how to grab the moving drill with his other hand. Apparently this was working, but always the thinker, Finn decided to see what would happen if he could get at the drill from another angle, and so I found him doing this:

Crazy, right? But what can I say, the kid knows no bounds now that he's mobile.

Speaking of mobile, while I had Zeke (and Deacon) at speech Saturday morning, Josh decided it would be a good time to work on Finn's "walking skills" since they had some quality one-on-one time. See, Josh is determined to see Finn's first steps before he leaves for Alabama in a few weeks. And it looks like he got his wish:

Insane, right? He hasn't taken more than 4 or so steps at a time, and it's usually from one of us to the other (therefore more videos of this might be awhile coming).

Life, as we know it, has just gotten a lot more interesting.

A Little Spring Organizing

2011-03-19T12:35:00.003-08:00

I know it's not really spring yet, and that it's still snowing and stuff here, but I've decided to let the sunshine do it's work, in making me want to do some work. So, I started the other day by weeding out all the 3T stuff from Deacon's closet, and moving all the 4T stuff from Zeke's closet and putting it into Deacon's. Today I had Josh pull down all the random boxes of clothes I have in the garage so that I can better organize them, and set them up so that as Finn grows into them, I can have them more readily available, not to mention easier to find. Not only is the sun bringing all of this about, but so is the fact that Finn is rapidly outgrowing all of his 12month sized shirts.

Man, they really do grow quickly, huh?

Do You Have 5 Minutes?

2011-03-18T14:00:00.005-08:00

Because if you do, I took this video of Deacon the other night, and I think you'll enjoy it. But it really is a good 4 1/2 minutes long, and while it lags in parts he does keep us cracking up (you can hear Finn laughing throughout the video - he was highly entertained by it all).

On Wednesday, we watched The Backyardigans Tale of the Might Knights. As soon as it was over, Deacon ran to the playroom, and came back out in his knight armor. He then proceeded to run around, reenacting scenes from the movie, and singing some of the songs. (My favorite part is around 1:35 when he sings "the helmet is off!")

In case you aren't familiar with the Backyardigans, or more specifically, either of the songs Deacon was singing, HERE is the Dragon Mountain song, and HERE is the Might Knights song.

Déjà Vu

2011-03-17T13:42:00.004-08:00

After I wrote Tuesday's post, Josh and Zeke went outside and did even more work on the driveway. And since I got some good pictures, I figured I'd do another post about the state of our driveway, since it was just about finished.

As you can see, the ice at the bottom of the driveway was incredibly thick.

And yeah, we've pretty much acclamatied to Alaska weather. Josh was out there in the 33 degree weather in just a t-shirt. Of course, the sun was beating down and he was doing some hard work.

Zeke was also doing some "hard work".

When I took this picture I told Josh not to worry, that I had captured the moment he broke his back playing with the ice. (He didn't actually break his back, he didn't even get that piece of ice off the ground whole. He broke the giant chunk into smaller chunks and moved them.)

Eventually Zeke got tired of "working" and decided to play. And what better game to play when you're outside than Puddle Jumping.

By the end of Tuesday, Josh (and Zeke) had cleared most of the driveway. I asked Josh to leave that foot and a half of ice that you see by where Zeke was jumping because as the snow and stuff melts from the neighbor's yard, it trickles across our driveway. Not a big deal, except when it gets cold at night and the run-off melts and makes the driveway a slippery mess until the sun comes out again. That foot and a half or so of ice makes for some nice traction.

What doesn't make for nice traction though, is the 2 inches of snow we got this morning. That's right. After all the work the town did to clear the roads, and all the work Josh did to clear the driveway, it snowed. Again. It's not surprising since it is still March, after all, and last year it was snowing in May. It's just a little disheartening after all the spring-like weather we've been having. Also disheartening is slipping on said snow taking Zeke to the bus this morning, falling rather hard, pulling Zeke down with me. He was fine since he had his snowpants and coat and mittens on. I, on the other hand, have bruised my left knee, my left elbow, and the palm of my left hand. Sigh.

I Think It's Time

2011-03-16T14:32:00.003-08:00

Last night, during bathtime, Zeke took hold of the washcloth and these pink sticks, and "knit Mommy a shawl".

See? He said it's pink and red and green, and I just love it.

So now I wonder if maybe he is ready to learn how to knit for real? (I am going to teach my boys how to knit at some point in their lives. At least I think I am. I guess we'll see how it goes.) Or maybe he just enjoys acting out what he sees happening around the house? Either way, I think it's fun he's "knitting".

A Work In Progress

2011-03-15T12:58:00.003-08:00

Starting last week (essentially), Josh has been coming home from work super early (a little after 11am yesterday and today, for example). With the weather being so nice, and the sun shining so warmly on our driveway, Josh took the initiative last week and spent an hour a day chipping and scraping away at the inches of ice covering our driveway. Of course, with the time change this past weekend, things have slowed a little since they sun doesn't hit the driveway as long as it was the week before, but it's still coming along.

Yesterday, he managed to get all of the stuff in the road up and a bit more from the right side, some of the pieces actually being 6 inches thick. Of course, yesterday he also had Zeke out there with him, telling him what to do. Today, while Zeke was getting dressed, he was telling me (again) about how he was out there with Josh, "shovelling" and picking up pieces of ice. At the end of his story he said, "I like helping Daddy."

Aaaand...that's all I have to say about that, soooo...um...The End!

It Was A Good Week

2011-03-14T13:03:00.004-08:00

This past week Zeke was home on Spring Break. It was a good week. We didn't do too much out of the ordinary, but it was nice sleeping in an extra 20 minutes every day and just having him home (when he wasn't aggravating Deacon that is). The weather recently has been gorgeous too. The days start out cold, in the single digits usually, but by the end of the afternoon, it'll be up in the mid to high 30's. It's like spring. And it's sunny. SOOOO wonderfully sunny. But once the sun is gone, it cools of really quickly. So quickly in fact, that a friend came over for dinner Tuesday night. In the hour and a half she was here the top step froze and she fell down the stairs. (She's fine...she milked it the rest of the night while we were at Bible study...but she's fine.)

Tuesday was also the day we had a new friend come over to play. Zeke has made friends with this sweet boy at church. They are in the same Sunday school class, and they both are in the same class on Wednesday nights. Last week we sat behind them in church, while Zeke sat with them. So, Tuesday morning, this boy, his little brother (20 months old), and his mom came over and hung out with us for a good hour and a half. Zeke was SO excited, he told Josh all about it when Josh got home from work, as well as my friend when she showed up for dinner. He can't wait for their next playdate (which sadly, most likely won't be until school is over in May).

(I didn't take any pictures during the playdate, so this is a picture from today actually, of the 2 boys not mentioned in the above story.)

Monday, Wednesday and Thursday were normal days, so not much to say about them. Friday, Josh came home from work super early, like 9:15am early, so we all took a trip to Target. We did a little shopping, ate a little lunch, and really had a fun time. At Target, Zeke finally got a chance to spend his birthday money and so he got a nice, big, talking, Spider-man toy. (And since Deacon's birthday is coming up soon enough we let him get a "matching" Iron Man toy.) Poor Zeke had to wait until after his nap though to play with his Spider-man, and I'm pretty sure he spent the whole time sitting in his room just waiting. As soon as I opened his door he jumped up said, "I play Spider-man now?" and was out the door and up the stairs.

On Saturday, Zeke's speech was cancelled, so that didn't happen either. But it was okay because Zeke had a birthday party to go to. A boy in the other preschool class at his school turned 5 this weekend and invited Zeke to his party. This is kind of a big deal as it was the first school friend birthday party he's ever gone to (he got invited to another one earlier this year but couldn't make it). It's an even bigger deal since I didn't stay. I dropped him off at 3 and picked him up at 5, and he had a blast. The boy's dad very sweetly invited Deacon to stay too, but Deacon was at home in bed. Sigh. My little boy is growing up so fast.

Also on Saturday, this happened:

Yep. Since Finn is everywhere and into everything all at once, a gate had to be put up to stop him from going into the kitchen when we're trying to cook or do the dishes. Of course, none of our gates were wide enough to span the entire space that is the "entryway" to the kitchen, so Josh had to move his nightstand there. Eventually I'll hang some artwork on it so it's not so...um...there.

Sunday was church and naps and hanging out. Just how we like our Sundays. And that was our Spring Break. All in all, a really good week.