When I Grow Up

This video has a little bit of real life with boys at the end, sorry about that! But, this is our life. It's always entertaining.

For those who can't watch the video, BB would like to be

1. "Ee"lympics

2. Basketball

3. Zookeepaw

Valentines and Other Lost Holidays

 

Do you know how much I love you? in a card!!! It's like it was made just for Jonah and J and I.

Monster and dino valentines for his classmates

In January my beautiful BFF gave birth to this precious baby girl in about 10 minutes flat. Okay, it might have taken a little longer, but it wasn't long enough for somebody who was invited to be in the room with her to actually make it to the hospital in time. A little different from my 26 1/2 hours of  first-time labor.

I settled for a lot of post-birth cuddling :) 

Baby G, 8 days young

Now Baby G comes over a few times a week and gets a lot of attention from these little men.

Some MLS teams came to Tucson to play some preseason games, so we got to go cheer on the Seattle Sounders here in Tucson! My sister and her fam are ardent Seattle Sounders fans, and thus are we, by proxy.

Silly faces! Can't get enough of Archer's silly face :)

It was such a beautiful night! 

I will say that I'm not sure what made me think the boys would sit and pay attention to an entire professional soccer match. I mean, they watch sports on TV with J, so I guess that's what gave me these optimistic expectations? Instead, the boys were normal preschooler and toddler and were antsy, all over the bleachers, requesting snacks every 5 minutes, etc. But we still had fun.

Couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous evening. Soccer + beautiful sunset = my happy place. The only thing that could have made it better is if they called me onto the field to play with them.

Playgroup mama's red lipstick night out!

Our first time at the Tucson Rodeo parade, an annual Tucson tradition.

A night out downtown for my friend's birthday

 

One of my fave pics of the boys, from Thanksgiving!

 

Anniversary dinner in January

Cutie pie buddies from the womb

BB's first and only (so far) non-mama haircut

One night SS and BB disappeared and instead we had dinner with a monkey and a fox.

aaaaaaaand publish.

Undies

A plague has decimated our household. One by one, all of have fallen. All except the mighty Mama.

First BB, then SS, and now Daddy have all suffered through this stomach bug's wrath this past week. Thus, we have been home bound for so. many. days.  Mama's losing her mind.

BUT, the silver lining of our cloud of quarantined illness for days on end has been that being home gave us the opportunity to keep SS in undies with immediate and frequent access to a potty for several days in a row, and SS has been very successfully using the potty with only had about one accident a day (usually #2, I don't think he has the sensation for that one down yet)! A few days ago I felt stumped and stalled out in his potty training process, so this has been such an encouragement! And today, while Daddy slept off his stomach bug, the boys and I re-entered society, and SS wore undies out in public for several hours for the FIRST TIME EVER! With no accidents in public! We went to the Farmer's Market for several hours, and then out to lunch, and SS rocked his little undies and dry shorts the duration of our outing. I am so proud of him!

Here are some photos of our first outing with both boys in underwear:

BB loves silly faces and poses

And SS does and says everything his big brother does

This week of illness is the third time SS has been sick in about six weeks, including our first ER visit, so I am really feeling it this time around, especially after being stuck at home for so. many. days. in a row. Our outing today was very refreshing, but things feel hectic and out of routine. Encouraged by the huge leap forward on the potty-training front, and looking forward to a new week!

One Two Three

About a month ago, SS surprised me. BB and his cousin were singing a silly version of the ABCs in the car, and when I unbuckled SS, he busted out the entire ABC song for the first time ever. Every letter wasn't perfect, but many were and he had the tune down, beginning to end. SS had clearly been paying attention! I was thrilled and clapped and cheered and asked him to sing it again. SS sang the ABCs two more times for his enraptured audience of mama, brother, and cousin.

And this is where I would post a video of him expertly serenading you all, except SS has since refused to repeat his performance. No encores in his contract, apparently.

SS surprised us again yesterday. While helping me make my bed, he suddenly counted "One, two, three!" and then threw the pillow on the bed. SS had never counted before! Thrilled, I told J the exciting news. J sat down with SS and asked him to count, and SS busted out with "One, two, three, four, five," like it wasn't no thang. Seriously, he was like, "Oh yeah guys, four and five? Of course I know those, wasn't that obvious?" And then he counted again, and counted all the way to SIX. SIX, people! First day counting!

Another notable recent SS discovery involved cracking the SS linguistic code. I can usually understand most of what SS says, but sometimes SS will tell me something so urgently, staring pointedly in my eyes and repeating himself the exact same way each time, but I cannot for the life of me decipher his dialect. Well, recently we figured out that "onk" means "want", as in "I onk my mane-ket," or I want my blanket. This discovery led to further revelation - SS is using a "ck" sound for his "t" sounds. With this knowledge, I am able to translate much more effectively, and we are all enjoying understanding each other a little better.

SS also loves to wear his helmet, not necessarily while riding his bike, just around the house all the time, often backwards. Here is a rare moment of his wearing his helmet forwards while performing a helmet-appropriate activity. SS loves tearing through the yard or the neighborhood on his bike, and is becoming quite speedy. We're hoping to get him a balance bike!

Kiss Them, They're Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Last night J took it upon himself to make corned beef and cabbage for dinner, and then had the boys help him bake Irish Soda Bread cookies for dessert. J is quite domestic when he wants to be (it's all those episodes of Chopped). Must be my Irish luck that he chose me to be his wife! And the boys loved handing out the Irish Soda Bread raisin cookies at playgroup this morning. 

I Believe

Last night I stood at the stove and J and the boys sat at the kitchen table as we all chatted about our day. Somehow it was brought up that people don't live forever. I clarified that while people don't live forever on earth, we will live forever with God in Heaven when we believe that Jesus loves us and died for us and when we make Jesus the Lord of our life. 

BB has heard the gospel a zillion times, it is regular conversation in our home. But last night, BB responded by saying that he believes that. In the past, if I asked BB he would agree to the gospel, but if I asked him if he wanted to pray and tell God he believed, he would say no or would start acting silly. But last night was different. When I asked BB if he wanted to pray, his response was a joyful surprise. 

BB said, "I know what to pray, I know what to pray," like, I got this guys. J and I said "Okay, go ahead," and in spite of how sweet some of BB's prayers have been lately, I was honestly expecting the Cookie Prayer. The Cookie Prayer is a prayer BB prayed when he was probably 2 1/2: "Dear God, thank you for our friends, and I will give you a cookie." It got a huge laugh the first time, so it became this jokester's go-to prayer, usually said in fast-forward mode with a huge smile, anticipating the reaction. But last night BB didn't pray the Cookie Prayer. Instead, my little boy bowed his head, closed his eyes, and prayed, "Dear God, I believe in Jesus. Amen."

Amen, indeed.

February 16th 2014

What I'm Doing

You know those commercials where the biologist gingerly cleanses the feathers of a penguin after an ocean oil spill? The philanthropist gently massages the syrupy, black toxins out of the innocent animal's feathers as we contemplate how we can reduce our dependence on oil, thus decreasing the incidence of this man-made tragedy.

I'm not doing that exactly, but as I shove the Dream Lites penguin under the faucet in the bathroom sink and attempt to strategically wash away the urine soaked into the stuffing without shorting out the light circuit, this is the image that comes to mind. As SS stands beside me crying "My men-gan! My men-gan!" and I scrub the hand soap into the fabric and lather, rinse, repeat, I contemplate how I can convince SS to keep his diaper on during naptime to avoid such natural disasters. I contemplate how to convince SS to actually nap during naptime. I contemplate why anyone would create a stuffed animal with a tag that reads "Spot Clean Only. Do Not Machine Wash."  I reflect on how I have changed both BB's and SS's sheets today, thanks to SS using both beds as his personal urinal. And I wistfully recall my plans to blog this afternoon.

What I'm Doing Instead of Blogging Today:  philanthropic electronic stuffed animal resuscitation.