This past Monday, Aiden stayed home from school. He had been up all night with (yet another) tummy ache. The real person who needed a day off was mom who didn’t get any sleep from 10:30 until almost 2. Poor (ACL-surgery-recovering) dad took the shift at 2 and ended up downstairs sleeping on the couch for the night once poor Aiden finally dozed off. He was actually feeling fine in the morning, but I was worried about sending him given that he’s been to the nurse around 5 times in the past few weeks with stomach aches in the afternoons (the pediatrician thinks it’s his body getting back to normal after a bad bout of tummy issues 2 weeks ago and we’re trying a variety of things including no milk & sugar for a while). Anyway, I told him that he was, by no means, spending the day on the couch playing video games. I was VERY pleasantly surprised by how he spent his day.

• Aiden and Brady built trick-tracks in the front hallway for most of the morning
• Aiden played in the playroom with magna tiles and other toys for a while alone
• While I went to volunteer in Logan’s class (daddy was at the house working), he took Kona for a walk, played outside in the back yard and was making himself a waffle snack (sugar-free syrup and peanut butter) when I returned:

• He built this floor puzzle for a while and then worked with the activity book. For a kid who LOVES LOVES LOVES his ipad and minecraft, this was quite an accomplishment. I don’t think he even touched an electronic device once all day! Go Aiden!

I’ll go ahead and include this picture here because, on Aiden’s day off, Brady had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon to have his eyes dilated. He is *slightly* more far-sighted than other kids his age (who are all apparently far-sighted because their eyes are small and still growing). The doctor wanted us to come back after we had his initial screening last week and have his eyes dilated to see if internal structures looked healthy (which they do). No glasses needed for now and hopefully he outgrows the issue. Because the eyes don’t return to normal for at least 3 hours, they are very sensitive to sunlight and, therefore, require the use of these super-awesome space wrap-arounds! I have to say that Brady was VERY brave. His doctor (Mr. “no chair-side manner or personality WHAT-SO-EVER”) failed to mention that the first of 3 drops he gave Brady in each eye, “feels like soap in your eyes”. Awesome!!!! Thanks for the heads-up on that one! Brady was quite sad about the stinging and asked in a small voice to go home while wrapping his arms around me and clinging on for dear life. After a couple hugs and some reassurance that the worst was over, he powered through the next 2 drops and did GREAT!

For the past few months, Brady’s preschool has been having “mystery readers” 2-3 times per week where parents can sign up to go into the class and read books to the kids. The whole thing is a big surprise. When you are the mystery reader, you give the teacher 3 clues that are read to the class. While the kids are guessing, you stand in the hallway until the “big reveal”. I’ve been mystery reader 3 times now and I have to keep coming up with new clues. I try to make mine somewhat ambiguous…like “my child’s name has an A in it” or “I have brown hair”. Yesterday I was scheduled to be the mystery reader, but hadn’t given the teacher my clues. After Brady climbed out of the car at drop off, the teacher and I quickly brainstormed a few. She said, “I’ll say that you’re a twin”. To me, that was a dead give-away…Brady would obviously know right away that it was me and I doubted that any of the other kids had a twin in their immediate family (I could be wrong). Anyway, my other two clues were “I drive a mini van” and “my child likes soccer”.

So there I am standing in the hallway yesterday, waiting to be called in. I hear Ms. Mary explaining to the kids, “so that means that our mystery reader has a brother or a sister who is just like them…they were born on the same day to the same mommy”. And this is what I hear Brady say: “Oh! My cousin’s mom is a twin!” So Ms. Mary says, “Ok! So who is your cousin’s mom’s twin?!” and Brady says, “I THINK it’s my mom…I THINK.” He said it in the, “don’t quote me” voice. The preschool administrator who had walked me back was standing there listening too…and we both started snort-laughing. 

Every year our school does Spring pictures. They’re kind of cute, nice to see the growth from the beginning of the year to the end, but they aren’t really used for anything “school related”. I usually buy one, but this year, Aiden’s picture wasn’t in the pose we selected…and it wasn’t all that great (not the “real” Aiden smile in my opinion). The thing I don’t get is that they send you home like 5 sheets of the pictures, magnets and all sorts of stuff that you can buy if you want them. Whatever you don’t want, you just send back to the school. Kind of wasteful if you ask me. The only ones we ever bought were the ones where kindergarten-aged Logan (snuck) his brand new fedora hat (6th birthday gift) into school and wore it (because apparently no one at the school questioned such a thing) for the picture. It’s legendary.

Oh my goodness, how stinkin’ cute is that?

Here are this year’s pics:

Logan in the mountains (ha!)

Aiden in a forest (although he requested going to the mountains as well!)

The other night when I was putting the boys to bed, Brady whispered, “mommy…I have a secret for you!” I leaned over playing like, “oh really?! What is the secret?!” And you know what he told me? He said, “the littlest one is always the cutest!” then he flashed his standard Brady grin and nodded very earnestly…like “believe me – it’s totally true!” I think that kid is on a mission to see how many times I day I laugh and devour his little face with kisses because he SO cracks me up!

That made me keep track of his silly comments for a few days. I wrote them down somewhere, but I can’t find the paper. Here is what I remember:

On the ride back from one of my workouts last week (during which Brady hangs in the corner like an angel with his buddy Cole), he was practicing his counting by 10’s. We’ve been struggling with that one lately. He doesn’t have “the flow” like the other boys did. Suddenly, it was like a light bulb went on over his head. I like SAW it happen. He exclaimed, “OH – it’s like counting by the REAL numbers, but the ones with zeros after them!” I’m thinking…”wow – that’s all I had to say to make it work for you?” Then he told me that he, “did the counting by 10’s when he was sleeping so he could do it better at school”. I asked, “you practiced in your sleep?” He then claimed that yes, doing things while you’re sleeping is very good for remembering how to do them when you’re awake. Who knew!

Last Friday my friend Anne and I took Brady and his other little buddy Matt to the park. While we were there, Brady excitedly said to Matt, “let’s go play on the tater totter!” They ran off to the teeter-totter while Anne and I died laughing. I am SO not correcting him on that one, way too cute.

Cousin Jack gave us some of his old costumes:

Brady makes me smile every day. I’ll miss my little buddy when he goes off to full-day kindergarten next year!! I wish I could find that list I wrote down…what I really need to do is take a video of him sometime talking in “Brady talk” - it’s a sight to behold…makes you want to devour his little face in kisses (ok…maybe that’s just me)

We didn’t take many pictures on Easter this year because when we got to Memaw and Grandpa’s house, we (Brian) realized that we (me) left the card for the camera in the computer. Oops. Typical stuff: hunt at home, get ready, go see the local family, eat, eat, eat, have dinner, eat, egg hunt, get candy, more candy, eat all the candy, go home with left-overs and giant amounts of candy. Awesome as always!! There was a little back-yard lacrosse this year with the cousins so that was fun. I played too ;)

Baskets waiting from the Easter Bunny. Logan got some football cards, Aiden got a “cut the rope” ipad guy, Brady got a cap gun (he’s been obsessed with them and has broken like 4 of them already…so the Easter Bunny knew he needed another one…spoiler alert, that one got broken as well…delicate little things! Well, that one he taped to his bike handlebars and the biked tipped over and…smash).

There was a note. It said each of the boys should find 26 eggs. Kona found a few for them. This year the bunny left: jelly beans, mini kit-kats (sweet!), nerds, laffy taffy, and robin’s eggs (gag…although everyone else around here…gag…loves them…gag)

Aiden: 6

Brady: 5

Logan: 8

Why did I note their ages above? Because this time of year always makes me remember my first ever blog post – Easter 2008!

Logan: had just recently turned 3 and was newly potty trained! Look (same basket)…scroll up again and look at him now – sick! We had the old carpeting in the living room!

Aiden: almost 21 months, still in a crib, lovin’ the peeps. The office was still a playroom!

Brady: 3 months, couldn’t hunt for ‘nuthin and barely had any hair…just happy to suck on his own hand! Love it!

• Planning your vacation day-by-day as you’re doing it is actually exciting, but requires a smart, fun-loving husband with really really good ideas (plus lots of phone calls and hotel points don’t hurt!)
• Traveling with three boys aged 5, 6 and 8 is WAY fun…sometimes it’s nice that they are getting bigger and growing up (sometimes)

 

• The submarine exhibit at the Museum of Science is great, but only for about 15 minutes…after that, it’s time to move on

(the title of this picture is Aiden’s dream comes true – he turns into a rainbow)

• Having a father who is currently working for 7-11 and scores coupons is AWESOME. There is nothing better than dinner at a hotel with hotdogs and chips (except for the excellent Mexican food mommy and daddy picked up for themselves, but again, a matter of opinion)
• Books on CD are pure GOLD for car rides with the boys. There were HOURS of peace on the ride to and from Wisconsin.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are a chuckle for everyone.
• The best indoor hotel pool of all time is at a Marriott in Middleton, Wisconsin

• Just because you (ah-hem, Logan) start your very first ski lesson crying in frustration does not mean that you’ll willingly leave the ski hill at the end of the day once you’ve gotten the hang of it. It also doesn’t mean that actual runs aren’t in your future a mere day later

Brady

Logan  

Aiden

Brady again (just threw himself down the hill each time kamikaze-style)

• Cabins are awesome! Hot tubs are great, but don’t provide as much entertainment for young children as you would think (short, but sweet dips in before they ultimately decided it was a pool or started climbing around on the seats)

• Our third trip to the Tannenbaum in the past 12 years proves it’s still a great place to get away, but probably due for a carpet update!

 

• If a family of 5 ties their snow-tubes together and ends up running into a good-sized (12ish) child who slid onto the end of the run when the family was part way down and then paid NO attention and didn’t get out of the way, that child will fly out of his tube, do a complete flip, land in the middle of the family face down then slide off. He will then jump up, run over to his dad and they will exchange a high-5 for the full flip while the mother in the family of 5 tries to regain a normal heart rate. seriously.

• snowball fights after tubing are awesome (when the ski area is closed that is) <—Christmas Mountain right down the street from our cabin.

 

• I can actually get down 5 full ski runs without falling.
• Logan does NOT need his mommy to be anywhere near him; he’ll wait for me at the bottom if I insist on going less than top-speed :)