Last Monday, when the boys were off for President’s day, they all spent some time playing outside, swinging on the swings, riding their bikes, throwing the lacrosse ball around and kicking a soccer ball. The weather has been so random this winter, I think it felt Spring-like to them. Aiden came in and said, “do you want to know how happy I am?” Excited and revved up by his outdoor adventures, he drew this 100% happy picture:

And over to the other end of the spectrum, yesterday there was no Kindergarten for Aiden, a short day for Logan and Brady was allowed to skip (which I usually let him do when the other boys are home before his afternoon preschool begins). We had a pretty nice winter storm that left roughly 2-3 inches of the white stuff (on the driveway…where I wrestled with the snow blower to get it off). In the morning hours while Logan was gone, I brought out some paper and told Aiden & Brady to draw a “snow day”. This is Aiden’s:

He was mad because I gave him a piece of paper that already had some blue scribbles in the top corner. We worked together to make it into a nice cloud.

Here is our (apparently 4-story) house! Brady and I are downstairs, daddy is on the 2nd floor, Logan and Aiden are upstairs on floor #4. My (very mini) van is on the driveway and we have a nice fire going as you can see from the chimney smoke. I was quite impressed by Aiden’s house drawing…you would think we had owned a dollhouse before :)

Aiden’s snowman outside  

Here is Brady’s “snow day”. The square is our house. The red figure inside is Brady.

There is a terrible snow tornado outside. Kona (in brown) is rescuing a cat from the storm (cat shown in pink)  

There is a snowman of course and he has a brown pipe.

Logan’s most recent art work is in the form of cursive!They are starting cursive this year in 2nd grade and he was pleased as punch the other day to show me that he taught himself how to write his name. He wrote it on a piece of paper when he got home Monday and carried it around showing his brothers (who don’t know how to read cursive so I had to verify that it did indeed say Logan). 

I found this in his pocket Tuesday afternoon. Working on his last name now :)

I take loads of random pictures on my camera…and what do I do with them? Post them here – with captions!

This was taken in January. We’ve been sadly lacking in the snow department this year and Brady has tried in vain to make a snow angel all year (the last one he made was basically in frost and looked like nothing more than a couple bare patches of grass among the rest of the frost-covered lawn). We got a couple decent dustings in January and Brady begged me to take a picture of this one that he was able to make on the  driveway (see the grass in the distance barely covered?)

“See mom! I made one!!”

For some reason, the day before the boys went back to school from their Winter Break, I thought it would be SUCH a fun family thing to buy a puzzle! Aiden helped me sort the straight pieces for the frame and sort of hung in there a few times helping look for specific things, but for the most part, this became a me and Brian project. It sat on our table for about three weeks until one Saturday, we sat down for 3 straight hours in PJs drinking coffee while the boys ran rampant around the house and POWERED through it. It was actually a nice experience (for the two of us). On the various occasions when we would make tea / coffee / wine and sit working on the puzzle, we would share a common goal: overwhelming frustration that we couldn’t find the ONE THING we were searching for. This is what I learned:

1. I would do this again…maybe…but not on the dining room table because we had to eat at the counter for 3 weeks.

2. I would wait a couple more years – maybe gain a couple helpers

3. Brian and I tackle these sorts of things in very different ways. I would work on a section at a time, building in from the edges while he would create these sort of satellite groupings of puzzle parts that we worked in as I filled out the design. We make a good puzzle team.

I love the little grey sea turtle  

…and the little guy with the big eye! This puzzle was called “100 Turtles and a Hare” – there was 1 rabbit in there somewhere!

This is Logan doing what he loves: using Google to search for specific images, copying and then pasting them into MS Word, moving them around and adding titles. I think it’s a nice “my first word processing” type thing. We have about 10 “books” he’s started and never finished. Tonight’s book was entitled “Red Tailed Hawks” <—his current favorite animal.

This was a series of soccer “mini posters” he created one night. I believe the one he made after this had the title “We are a Soccer Family!” on it. He hung them all on the bulletin board on the wall by his bed. So cute! Don’t tell Nike we borrowed their logo! ;)

Kindergarteners in our school were each asked to create a collection of 100 items for their 100th day of school. My rainbow-loving Aiden decided he wanted to have 100-hand-drawn rainbows.

I told him I would make a page and he could draw, say, 20 rainbows and we could copy it, but he insisted that would be cheating. So…he drew 100 of them by hand on square grids I made for him. He did, however, follow my “efficiency suggestion” and draw the red on each square, then the yellow, then the orange (oh – this boy KNOWS his rainbow color order!) It took him about three days, but he didn’t complain once!

Brady brings home some super cute projects from school. If he’s got something special in his bag, he usually tugs it out on the ride home and says something like, “you’ve got to see this COOL thing we made today!” This was a rain shower! His enthusiasm made it all the more adorable.

Brady also brings home some cute projects that mommy does NOT quite love. I save all the artwork the boys bring home from school, pile it around my house and eventually take pictures of it to make books. All cuteness and cleverness aside, ANYTHING COVERED IN GLITTER IS IMMEDITAELY THROW AWAY. I hate craft glitter. I learned this lesson LONG ago when I let a then 3-year-old-Logan play with it and subsequently banned it from my house. Dental hygiene lesson – good! Adorable teeth craft project – great! Glitter?! Oh heck no! In the trash you go!! Case in point, after I took this picture, I had to clean the counter top in the kitchen, the floor, Brady’s backpack, Brady’s face, my hands, my face and my cloths. I’m not going to post here what I call glitter…it’s not for public consumption! ;)

Here’s the set up for Valentine’s Day morning. Yes, 2 posts in 1 day – amazing!!!

As I always do, I gave the boys a choice this year between making Valentines or buying them. They all chose “make” (I think we all understand that this means: I find the design or concept, they approve, I do the making part and they sign their names). I think we’re all comfortable with this relationship ;)

I wanted to think of something kind of special for each of their personalities. I found this laffy-taffy with jokes idea on line for Aiden who fancies himself the class clown and LOVES nothing more than to make people laugh. The woman who originally posted the idea was WAY more ambitions than I. Hers were all packaged in adorable hand-make paper boxes which Brian expressly forbid me from making. I’m getting pretty lazy people! I even skipped the cricut cutting this year (p.s. the cricut will be hence forth known as the Zing because I got a new cutter that works with my computer software for Christmas – yeah me!)

I created a two-sided, business-card-style design in Microsoft Word complete with a rainbow (a very masculine one) for my rainbow-loving boy. There were 4 total jokes

• Knock, knock! who’s there? Frank! Frank who? Frank you for being my friend!
• Q: What did the chocolate syrup say to the ice cream? A: I’m sweet on you!
• Q: What did the boy Octopus say to the girl Octopus? (this one’s my favorite by the way!) A: I want to hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand!
• Q: What do you call a small Valentine? A: A Valen-tiny!

I think two of those were from the idea I saw, but I researched more kid-friendly jokes that would fit on my cards…too bad I only remember the 4 I used ;)

 

Logan is my cool, sometimes-doesn’t-participate-in-silly-stuff-because-it-might-make-people-laugh-at-you kid (so opposite from Aiden!) I thought these subtle Valentines were good for him! Again, I found an idea on line and modified it with my own little creation – a similar, double-folded label that we printed, cut, signed and stapled on to packs of Pop Rocks.   

And for Brady…the same Valentine’s he took to preschool last year (and when I say same, I mean the VERY SAME ONES). Last year, I wasn’t fully aware of the “no candy” rule in preschool. These felt fortune cookies were previously filled with Hershey kisses (which I checked and cleared on all the allergies in his classroom). However, despite my pleas of food safety, I got a call literally minutes after I dropped these off with both Aiden and Brady that I needed to come take them away. I was pretty upset.

Annnnyway, new preschool, same rule (MUCH more clearly communicated this year!), same Valentine’s, different…non-food treats inside. Last year the “fortunes” said “you will get a kiss on Valentine’s Day” to go with the Hershey Kisses. This year, they say “hope you have a ball on Valentine’s Day”. This, Brady informed me, makes no sense. He didn’t catch on even after I explained the play on words. Oh well…I’m sure the parents will get it. ya??

I’m off to set up the breakfast area with buckets of candy and other fun stuff. I’m changing the screen savers on the boys’ minis to be Valentine’s-related and bought them all a new Valentine’s book for their Scholastic e-book aps. Oh the gift giving of the technology-filled-age we live in :) Logan is also getting a little soccer trainer thing you strap on your waist and Brady is getting a little car he wanted. Aiden is getting an, “IOU a small thing because I couldn’t think of a small thing you wanted” I think I’ll be making heart-shaped pancakes so I might go mix up the batter ahead of time as well!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

Yesterday, I went to volunteer in Logan’s 2nd grade classroom. When I arrived, he was holding a heat pack up to his left ear. His teacher said that he had been to see the nurse, had no fever, and was complaining of an ear ache. I had my suspicions about it all, but according to his teacher, he rarely complains. I ended up taking him with me when I left at 2:00 (school is out at 3:40). Annoyingly, the first doctor’s appointment I could get was at 7:45PM so I made Logan run errands with me including shopping for groceries. The following is a list of sweet things Logan did during our brief hour together before Brady had to be picked up from school:

• He helped me find the items on my list and said, “this is fun…next time you go shopping, can I come with you?”
• He put himself in charge of picking out snacks for the school week while making sure that the things he chose were 1. healthy and 2. did not contain nuts since he, “has to be careful with nut allergies” in his classroom
• At check out, I had to pull out my ID. It was laying on the counter in front of Logan while I loaded some of the bagged groceries into the cart. He looked at the picture, which was taken right after he was born about 8 years ago, and said, “mommy…you look like 20 in that picture!” Then he looked up at me and said, “you still look a lot like that picture!” The girl checking us out said that was about the nicest thing she’d ever heard (me too!)
• When we got home, I carried in some of the groceries. When I went outside to get the rest, Logan was trying to carry in ALL the rest of the bags – he managed all but one and said, “there mommy…only one thing left for you!”
• After thanking and praising him, I told him we had only about 10 minutes to unpack everything before we needed to go get Brady. He clapped his hands together and said, “Ok…let’s do this!” I started putting things on the counter and he put them away! It took us like 5 minutes!
• Before we left the house to get Bray, he shut off the kitchen and laundry room lights because we, “have to conserve energy” <—this was something he picked up at the Aquarium last week when the dolphin show MC was explaining different ways to help the earth and ocean animals.

Even after we picked up Brady, Logan continued to be a sweetheart. We had to sit at a CVS minute clinic for over an hour to get his ear checked out. He did his homework, goofed around in the toy aisle, and generally kept himself and his brother (Brady) entertained. Never the less, it was a long ordeal for all of us. At the end of our wait, Aiden and our friend Dylan were dropped off at CVS as well (long story, but they were at soccer practice with my friend Anne). At that point, I had 4 little boys in the doctor’s tiny room with me. Aiden, goofball that he is, immediately climbed up on the exam table to do a dance…twice. Seriously?! We boogied out, took Dylan home, drove by our pharmacy to see if Logan’s prescription was ready (yes – ear infection confirmed!) and ended up sitting at Walgreen’s for about 10 minutes waiting. Logan got out of his seat, came to the front of the car, and said, “I know you’re tired mommy,” then gave me a hug. I was tired ;)

It was a weird, long day with the “sick kid curveball,” but I was thrilled with Logan’s behavior through it all. He can be a pill for sure some days, but it makes me happy to know that, no matter how he acts on occasion, he has a good and kind soul. I couldn’t be more proud of my sweet Logan.

It’s that time of year again – time to print the blog into a book and plop it on the shelf with the others. This will be my 5th book representing 4 and 1/2 years of blogging. So, it’s not really-exciting, world-changing, funny or insightful blogging…but it’s an accomplishment for me. Honestly, I’ve been very stressed out lately about keeping up on all the posts I should be doing (and not doing). I have debated repeatedly about giving up and cutting out the anxiety of falling behind. When I asked Brian about it one night, his answer surprised me. He said that it’s a very special thing for our family and for our boys in the future and that I should by no means stop.

So…here goes 2013 I guess ;) Before I close the chapter on 2012, here is a SLEW (slew!!!!!) of pictures from the Holiday season – purely so that they can be included in my 5th book!

December 10th – In preparation for being “Star of the Week”, Aiden built one of his famous magna-tile creations. I don’t know if I’ve ever posted one of these before although he always asks me to take pictures of them.

I don’t know if I already mentioned this, but Aiden requested that, during his “star week” at school, he have his big brother come read to the class. We picked out about 5 Shel Silverstein poems for Logan to read. Both of them had such a blast! Look at Aiden’s smile! His teacher took these pictures and sent them to me.

My kids are obsessed with this video on youtube (ug). I thought this note in their lunches one day would make them laugh (obviously this was a PBJ day)

Aiden getting ready for Brady’s Christmas concert…early December!

My girlfriend, sitting further down in the auditorium during the concert,  sent me the text message “look at the cool guy strutting out with his hands in his pockets!”

 

I didn’t realize he was gonna be showing some undies ;)

 

Polar Express! We had to wait for like an hour to get on a trolley…totally worth it! Here are the boys in the group playing ball in the hallway of the “train station”.

 

The goody bags I made for Logan’s class. Both Brian and I worked the party – it was so fun!

Decorating cookies :)

See Brian in the background? His first school party – how cute! ;)

 

One night we gave Kona and early Xmas gift – I wrapped it with treats inside so she would tear at the paper. It was pretty entertaining. The gift was a soccer-ball squeaky toy.

One night, the boys built these little forts for themselves in the basement out of floor tiles. They brought down pillows & blankets and wanted to watch a movie. Daddy moved a small TV down there and hooked up his ipad for them. It was adorable.

 

If anyone remembers Drago the lizard, you’ll be sad to hear that he left our house for good on Christmas Eve. Mommy was a bit fed-up being the only one who fed him and we NEVER took him out of his cage. I sold him to a mother who was SO excited because her son had been saving up for a bearded dragon for quite some time – this was his Christmas gift! I’ve received updates and Drago is LOVING his new life. The little boy who owns him now kept the name Drago and lets him ride around on his shoulder (seriously!? he wouldn’t even let us touch him! We were such un-fit lizard parents)! On the day that Drago left, we bought this little tree and put it on the boys’ bedroom dresser where the GIANT terrarium used to be. We bought some decorations for it and…well…look how happy mommy is in this picture! hahahaha  

Reindeer food on Christmas eve!

Christmas-eve tree!

Santa brought Wii-U

  Brady’s favorite gift: flippers for swimming!

Logan requested the entire, 8 book collection of Captain Underpants books (as of this writing, he is on book 6)

Brian found these really cool things called Bitsters for Aiden – you put them together in different ways to create lights, motion and other stuff.

The gifts the boys made in class: an ornament, a calendar and a tile with a thumb-print tree

everyone (except mom) got soccer flip flops (“slides”)

Minecraft Creeper Shirts!

There was one more gift waiting upstairs under the boys’ small tree – the big one from mom and dad! 

minis!

Brady got a build-a-toolbox set from Memaw and Grandpa. Here are Brady and daddy a few days after Christmas putting it together!

Logan (finally!) got soccer goalie gloves

basement action shots!

On Thursday, December 17th, mom’s side of the family arrived for Christmas party 2. We did another big celebration on the 28th. GG and GGpa gave the boys some beautiful books. Logan got his all-time-fav, Edward Toulaine.

Auntie Denna got them all tee-shirts with their favorite Bear’s players.

And then…we actually had some snow! A bit of a (delayed) white Christmas!

Male-bonding time everyone! This is: Ryan with ipad, Aiden with mini, Logan with mini, Daddy with ipad and Papa with phone.

Everyone left Sunday and we hosted the neighborhood New Year’s Eve party Monday night. It was a stashy event!

We forgot our camera, but the morning after New Year’s we decided to skip town. We madly cleaned up after the party, packed a cooler with food, threw some cloths into bags and set out for The Wilderness Water park in the Wisconsin Dells. We even called for our reservation from the road on the way! We spent 2 & 1/2 days there playing in water, playing laser tag, walking on a crazy ropes course (only Aiden and daddy could finish!) and chilling in our room.