What Kind of Kids are We Raising?

Today, I was sitting. 
Reading a library book. 
Bear walks up, says, "book!" and immediately rips out part of page and shoves it in his mouth.
I die laughing.
He says, "yuck", but chews thoughtfully for 5 more minutes before making his way over to the trash can.   
You can insert your own clever pun here about how he is hungry for knowledge or some such.

After dinner the same child bursts into tears because I tell him we are having cookies and not ice cream for dessert.  (We never even have dessert.)  (And we had ice cream for lunch.)  (And obviously Jon is out of town.)
He shoved a whole oreo in his mouth, while he still had a giant crocodile tear on his cheek. 

Then my sons were at their sweetest/most disgusting.  They were working on their twisting apart and licking skills while also being 100% darling by sharing their cookies with each other.  Twist, lick, swap, repeat.  It melted my heart and made me want to gag. 

 

We may have counted our chickens before they hatched

 

20 days later, it occurred to me... I don't have to stay in this thing.

Alternative caption: Now I lay me down to sleep...

 

 

There was much giggling and playing tonight after tucking in a couple of kiddos.  Jon and I died laughing when we went into check on them before going to bed ourselves.  Turns out they really do need us.  They are terrible at tucking themselves in.

 

 



 

Good idea, Jube.

 

 

 

The Sweet Spot

A place where a combination of factors results in a maximum response.
Thanks, Wikipedia.

School starts tomorrow.  That means fall is here.  I love fall.  I think if I live to be 100 years old there will still be something in me that catches back to school fever.  I was out running (yep. you read that correctly) by our elementary school thinking about all my friends that have major life change that accompanies the start of school.  My buddy half-way around the world teaching new subjects, leaning on God and learning some new life rhythms.  The dear family we just bought our mini-van from uprooting to a new country with 4 young, elementary-aged kids and 18 suitcases to learn, serve and share the gospel.  My friends sending their big kids to school tomorrow.  Other friends getting up early tomorrow morning to put on their most perfect teacher outfits and going into unknown chaos.  Buddies who will be starting home-school curriculum.  Faithful friends ready to start their last few semesters of college all the while praying for wisdom and guidance. 

And with all this change in the air, I am content to be.  While I may have trouble falling to sleep tonight thinking about all those who will hit the ground running tomorrow in their new classrooms (seriously, something must be wrong with me) I am not sad to be missing it.  I believe we have hit our stride.  Life has become predictable.  And I mean that in the most spontaneous, fun-loving way.  Predictable in that I know my kids.  I know how they handle new situations, and we have learned how to best prep them for success. And when you aren't walking on egg shells or fearing triggers for melt downs, life can relax and you can feel free to be spontaneous again.   

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.  (2 Chronicles 16:9)

Whether life for you is full of change or has a steady pace, the Lord continues to faithfully strengthen. 
 

And just like that...

...our living room looks like Toys R Us.

G'ma and G'pa left before the sun made an appearance this morning.  We hate to see them go.  I find the day after company to be mentally taxing.  When you spend the weekend with 30% less questions ("why?  why?  why?  why?") you can really appreciate grandpa for deflecting some of them. 

 

Grandpa and SuperMan playing "blue man red man".

 

 

Grandma and the conductor. 

 

Grandma may have been feeling a little worse after seeing these so called doctors.  "It's just nose spray, Gwamaw." 

 

See you in a few short months!

Birthday Boy!

Terrible two's, here we come!  ;)

 

The loot!

Testing out the toys while we wait for the birthday boy to wake up from nap.

 

Exciting!

 

Your angelic voice is hypnotizing, mom.  Best rendition of Happy Birthday that I have heard to date.

 

The closest O Bear came to blowing out his candle.



 

You do it, mom.

 

Yuuum.

 

This fireman could put out any fire with sheer cuteness.

 

We love you, Bear! 

 

 

The Good Life

Here is our soundtrack for the week.  Seryn, a new (to me) band that I will love obsessively for months and hopefully years to come. 

 

Our day was filled with demands of "tickle me!  tickle me mama!", playing and playing in our new van ("ban, ban, peese?"), lunch with Mimi at "chickela", testing out the trailer Momo brought over for our John Deere, talking non-stop about grandma and grandpa coming tomorrow, listening to music with Super Man and learning that all songs are assigned to someone ("Dis is Ababa's song....   Oh! My song!  ...Dis is Jesus' song.") folding laundry and demands that Jon clean the kitchen with me, because we are a team after all. 

 

All in all, a pretty perfect day. 

 

 

I'm a tad partial, but aren't these the cutest kids ever?  Seriously, if I stumbled upon this blog I would be tempted to print these pictures out and hang them in my house.  Just saying....

 

 

 

My thoughts exactly

As my amazing sister-in-law always says, Get out of my head! 

Today this goes to you, Jen Hatmaker.  I've been trying to shore up all my feeling and emotions to transparently reflect life over the past year.  I'm a fan of the good 'ol rough draft, so I have already been trying to get my thoughts together for a few weeks now.  No need!  Someone else has taken all my emotions and thoughts and put them online.  What a time-saver that woman is.   

We just had our final visit from our social worker as well, and let me just say it was a lovely, enjoyable hour.  During our three-month visit, all I remember is bodily holding a screaming, thrashing child for what felt like 5 hours.  Ahhhh, sweet progress. 

He is enough for us all. 

Catching Up

We've been missing you, dear blog!  Jon (my live-in IT guy) was out of town all week, so of course the internet stopped working the day after he left.  Despite my following the service providers' phone instructions, plus trying what Jon suggested, I could not get it working.  When he got home it was up and running in about 7 minutes.  What is wrong with me?

While he was gone we passed the 11-month home mark!  We are fast approaching one year home!  Right now in our house, Big Man S is in love with babies.  "Mama, you wanna talk?  You want to talk about BAAABIES?"  Here is he is laying his little ones down for a nap.

O Bear loves Green Eggs and Ham and walks around saying, "I like it, ham.  I like it, ham? Peese?"  We have been reading it at least 5 times a day.

Montana Mimi also returned from her grand adventure with the cutest glasses anyone has ever seen.  I encourage the boys to wear them everywhere because strangers see us and laugh.  What could be better?

We had a terrible beet crop.  Only one the size of a preschooler's fist.

O Bear has done an excellent job transitioning to his toddler bed.  I'm surprised every day at naptime and bedtime that he doesn't get out after we tuck him in.  Only one morning I did find him sleeping behind the door.  Where was my camera then?? 

And one final obsession:  the lawn mower!  Everyday those boys talk about how we are going to go to grandpa and grandma's farm to sit on a riding lawn mower.  Here's a classic of them pushing around the lawn mower (not running, of course) while dad is on his iphone in the hammock, relaxing.

 

Our Little Drummer Boy

Whataburger

                                              

Victory!

Jon tried to ruin our lives 6 months ago by setting out to lower his triglycerides. 

He got the results back today and I can put aside my bitter attitude about no brownies and too much salmon because a major victory was accomplished.  

His numbers went from 299 to 72!  I am seriously proud.  He also lost 15 lbs that he didn't need to lose. 

What about me you ask?  (I'm guessing you didn't really ask, but thanks for humoring me.) I'm not one to blow my own horn, but I also ate salmon multiple times a week, and lost an amazing...... zero pounds.  

I'm thinking the 9 popsicles I ate a day contributed to the difference in weight outcomes.   

Let's make animals and a fire hydrant!

*Theo, you may have inspired us!

Off-Roading with the Bear Family

Life is Confusing

"Mama, this is a bee."
"Yep."
"Bees make honey."
"Yeah, that's right."
(long pause)  "Do bees make peanut butter?"


"Someday when you are big like Micah, you will lose your teeth and new teeth will grow in."
"Yeah.  I'll lose my teeth and get new ones.  Then I'll lose my arms and legs and booty and get new ones."

Introducing... The Big Bed!

Moving on up...

and getting it all figured out.

Did I ever tell you about how I was a nanny and potty trained a kid in an afternoon?  No?  O Bear is showing major interest, but I'm learning that an afternoon is pretty much hitting the ball out of the park in potty speak.

Today O Bear tells me he needs to pee.

"I pee.  I pee."
"Do you have to pee?  Do you want to sit on the potty?"
"Yeah!"

We take off his diaper (dry!) and get settled in.

Then he remembers he has the attention span of an almost two-year old.
I spend the next few minutes running between his bedroom full of toys and the parked potty, trying to get him to stay sitting for a few more minutes.  In the process he drops my phone in, a reminder that we can all be thankful for dry potties at times. 

S-Man wanders in and has great words of encouragement.
"Owlie, Owlie, say 'uhhhhh' (the universal bathroom grunt).  It help.  Say 'uhhhhhhh' and then you pee."

To O's credit, he does try this.  Still nothing. 

"Done!" is declared.  We put the diaper back on.  O Bear stands, rests his hand on the back of the potty for support and immediately has an immense look of relief on his face.

"I pee. I pee."
"Did you pee?  Do you want me to change your diaper?"
"Yeah!"

Sure enough. 



Someday when my kids are huge I will probably read this again and kick myself for encouraging my babies to grow up so fast, so I need to throw in this caveat.  I only stick him on the potty when it is his idea!