Party Animal

Nick is always up for a good time.  He loves to go go go.  Last weekend we attended a wedding reception and he was in absolute heaven.  Not only was the dessert table full of chocolate and at his height, but they had TWO drink dispensers that were also his height!  He has a blast filling up cups with water and drinking from the cups.  As the night wore on we had to move the cups to the center of the table to keep him from emptying the dispensers....but this kid is not so easily deterred.  He then went table to table collecting their cups, filling them up, and returning them to their table.  Chris and I were busy chatting with people and juggling an upset Xander so we were distracted and caught on to this pretty late.

We finally got him away from the dessert table with dancing.  This boy loves a good dance party!  Then they brought out balloons and his whole life was made perfect.  He ran, laughed, jumped, cool fell, giggled, and just lived it up for an hour.  

When we got home he was sound asleep.  He normally wakes up when we try to transfer him, but on this night he was completely out cold while I changed his diaper, put on his jammies, and put him in his bed.  I had to take a picture because he was so out of it he looked like he was in a drunken coma from all that punch he drank!

The morning after is a killer too......

 

Best Buddies

 Nick loves Xander.  He is always giving him kisses and laying down by him.  Every time I lay Xander on the floor to change his diaper, Nick will stop whatever he is doing and come and lay down by him and give him a kiss on the forehead and chat with him.  Nick calls him Baby, Man, and Hey Man.  It is so adorable.  I have to make sure to keep a close eye on him.  The other day Xander was crying and Nick yells, "I got it!" and tries to pick him up.  Nick is constantly checking on Xander and asking, "baby ok?" "Hey man!" "baby sleeping".  If Xander is sleeping Nick will go upstairs and check on him - which is cute - but Nick can't whisper so it normally ends up being the end of Xander's nap.  I've gone as far as having to lock my bedroom door to keep Nick away from Xander so he can sleep.  Oh to be so loved.....

Moving In - after a year....

In 7 days we will have lived in this house for one whole year.  In that year we have yet to put one single picture on the wall.  To be fair we moved in, got our stuff delivered, then I got sick and was in bed for 10 months - so, we have a good excuse.  Now that Xander is here and I've recovered it was time to actually move into this house!  The last two weekends we've done a bit of work and the kids have all told me it is starting to feel like our home now.  

Our first big project was to find a home for all the books we have.  Last weekend we installed these shelves and organized the library.  Before we were done all 5 kids were laying down somewhere in the house reading a book while I finished up.  It made me so happy to see how much they love to read!

We have these beautiful doors in the front of our house that lets in a ton of light.  Unfortunately they were being blocked by a couch so today we rearranged the whole music room.  I love it so much more!  The kids have been playing guitar and piano all day.

This kid has totally taken advantage of the fact that everyone is busy doing something and has gotten into everything.  Besides tossing our ferret in our AC vents, he drew all over his body with a marker, dumped out all his toys, sprayed all the kitchen windows-table-walls with a spray bottle, driven his motorcycles over every surface in the house, and has been dancing and showing off his cool falls in the music room.  

He was begging to go outside with Xander and go for a walk - but it is still too hot for Xander so Christopher took him by himself.  With how busy he has been today it's no wonder he fell asleep!

 

Chris even brought him inside and he stayed asleep.  He never does that anymore!  Unfortunately it was 5pm.  Uhg

And this baby is pure perfection and the best cuddle buddy.

 

Double Strollers

Grandma and Papa bought us a double stroller as a baby gift when Xander was born.  It has been a true lifesaver, and Nick's very favorite thing.  When the stroller arrived Nick wanted to get in right away.  He then pointed to the empty seat next to him and said, "Baby!"  "Man!" (He calls Xander "man" - probably because I call him Xander Man or Xander Commander)  He really wanted Xander to come sit next to him and go outside for a walk.  Nick wouldn't get out of the stroller, and since it was 95 outside with 100% humity, we weren't going for a walk outside - so we walked around the house.  When Zack got tired of walking him around he tried to get Nick out, but Nick wouldn't have it.  So he parked him in front of the TV and turned on Cocomelon.  Nick stayed in the stroller and watched Coco until he passed out sound asleep - then took his nap in his new stroller.  Needless to say, he loves it!

 

Yesterday I took Zack to his soccer practice and put both boys in the stroller.  Nick was giddy!  He couldn't get enough and kept patting Xander and saying "baby", "man", "baby ok".  I love how much he loves this baby!

Ferrets and A/C Vents

We have two ferrets, Rascal and Fidget.  Rascal is older, balding, and has back legs that aren't working as well as they used to.  He is 7 years old and slowing down quite a bit.  Fidget is younger and always busy.  Today Ben took Fidget outside to run around a bit - and left Rascal in his cage. When it's too hot outside he doesn't do well in the heat.  I was busy working in the house, keeping a very loose eye on Nick.  He was busy in the kitchen playing with his cars when I hear him say, "Ferrets, IN!"  I look over and he is standing by an air vent (he has recently discovered the vents and has been found putting everything under the sun in them.  I need to figure out how to get that stuff out).  

I go over to the vent and can hear scratching noises and Nick has taken off the vent lid.  I run over to their hutch and search for a ferret hiding in their favorite blanket.  It is empty.  I ask Nick where Rascal is and he points to the vent and says, "Ferret".  Sure enough, he has thrown Rascal into our AC vent.

I panic and yell out that I need help.  Chris is putting Xander to bed so he doesn't come, but everyone else does.  Thankfully Ben keeps a cool head and reaches his long arms down the vent and is able to barely grab onto Rascal and pull him out.  Poor thing was covered in lint and dust and looked so traumatized!  I was so relieved to see him because I honestly had no idea what Plan B was.  Now I need to figure out how to lock this cage so Nick can't do this again!

Rascal has been sleeping for hours - I don't blame him....it's been a rough day.  Actually, any day Nick visits is a rough day....

 

Nationality

 Zack was over visiting our neighbor, who had company over.  Her brother asked Zack what nationality he was - to which Zack replied "Ohio".  Looks like we need to have a little chat about what that means...

Stories from the Week: Hey Google, find Tokyo

 This week brought another gem that exposed the quality of our public education system... or the failings of our education attempts as parents. It starts with story 1:

Zack is really struggling lately with maturing from coddled toddler to child with responsibilities. You might think he's a little old for this transition and you wouldn't be wrong. That aside we struggle to get him to do any meaningful work around the house. When he does do something, it usually consists of rearranging a mess rather than cleaning it up. But the part that really angers his mother is when he tries to cover up or lie about it. 

Zack has three main loves: his friends, his Beyblades, and his new bike (which he bought for $1.10). It's unclear which of these is greatest. About a week ago, Katie asked him to clean his room and then said he could go to a friends house. He very proudly showed off his cleaned room and happily went off to play. But when Katie entered the laundry room later on, she found the contents of his bedroom stuffed into nooks and crannies all around the laundry room. It was the last straw. He lost his friends, his Beyblades, and his bike. 

Beyblades, by the way, are simply little battle tops. He can have battles with his friends where the "spirits in the blades" fight each other. The idea that each top contains a warrior spirit falls out of the formulaic anime style cartoon whose sole purpose is to sell more Beyblades. 

At any rate, Zack has been pretty morose with those 3 loves of his life. I even made him list 10 things he was grateful for one day because he was being such a stinker. Eight of the 10 items were things he had basically lost until he regains his mother's good graces. All Zack really has left is occasionally (ok, daily) watching the Beyblade cartoon.

Story 2: Zack and Andrew were watching the Beyblade cartoon one day and I commented that it seemed weird that the Beyblade cartoon had a Japanese style animation. For some reason, I thought the toys were American in origin.

Andrew says: No they're Japanese.

Zack: Actually, they're made in Tokyo.

Andrew: Oh, huh.

I couldn't even begin to unpack this. Neither child realized that Tokyo was a city IN Japan?! How?! It's not like they're 3 and 4. They're 9 and 13! *Sigh*

Story 3: Nick just gets cuter and cuter. Katie tried to cut his hair and stopped halfway through - the curls were too much to overcome. Now she wants to fix it, but doesn't know how. He frequently goes up to a member of the family: "Guess what?" What? "Motorcycle." 

For 15 minutes driving today he pelted Andrew with "Guess what"... "motorcycle." It just doesn't get old. 

Zack has a Google bluetooth speaker in his bedroom and Nick loves to control it with his voice like Zack does. "Hey google! Hey google!  Hey google!" If only Google could understand him...

Also, he thinks our TV is a giant touch screen device. It's not even worth trying to clean it. 

Story 4: We went to a wedding reception last night and Nick had a blast. A low table full of food and drink that he could reach, balloons galore, and dancing! He loves to dance and him and Zack will go up and have a dance party in their room with the radio a couple times a week. Nick came home and just crashed from the reception. 

Also at the reception... Andrew asked a girl to dance. What?! Not even kidding. It was pretty surreal to look up and catch both my sons dancing at the same time. I even managed to get Katie so sway on the dance floor for a minute or two. Ben danced close to his girlfriend while Andrew looked like he couldn't get farther away, but he was still holding it together. Kallie danced with Nick, but there weren't any boys around her age. It was a good night.

Pillows and Blankets

One of Nick's favorite things to do when he gets tired it to pull lots of pillows off the couch, grab a blanket, and cuddle in to watch a video.  If he is tired he will come up to me and say "pillows and blankets mom!".  The other day Xander was just hanging out and Nick suddenly yells "Baby!  Pillows and blankets!!!"  He got the whole set up ready and made me put Xander down for him.  It was so sweet these two boys hanging out.  When Xander is just laying on the floor kicking Nick will bring him cars or blocks and line them up for Xander then say "baby, play!".  I love how much Nick loves his little brother.  He is always giving him kisses and bringing him things.  I love watching them together!

 

Xander is one month!

Xander had his one month appointment yesterday.  He weighted in at 9lbs 8oz.  We are still waiting for his most recent PKU results to figure out why he keeps failing this test.  He can lift his head, follow us with his eyes, smile, talk, and is still the noisiest baby we've ever had!  I don't even have to go check on him in the night....I just lay there for a few minutes and without fail he will make some kind of sound that lets me know he is ok.  He loves to be a part of everything, carried around facing outwards so he can see, and loves to go for walks in our stroller.  He hardly ever cries and loves his baths at night.  He sleeps like a champ and is just simply the worlds best baby.  What would we do without this sweet boy?!

 

Cuddles

Nick is, hands down, the best cuddler in the family.  If anyone is laying down with a pillow and blanket, he heads on over and cozies on in.  I love it!

 

Hair Gel Hatred....

This kid drives me crazy.  School has started back up and I just want him to do his hair - with gel.  I can get him to brush it and style it, but he will only use water, not gel.  I ran him down on the first day of school with gel in my hands and did his hair for him.  On day two I tried it again and this stinker went outside and hid in the garage so he wouldn't have to have gel in his hair.  He is so dang handsome when he does his hair!  To date I have purchased him 4 different types of gel, mouse, pomade, and hairspray hoping one will smell ok for him - so far I have failed 4 times.  

 But do you blame me for trying?  He's such a handsome kid when he does his hair and isn't covered in mud from riding his motorcycle!

Stories from the Week

Let's try a new segment where we tell a couple of stories from the past week. Just to get back in the habit of writing blog posts. 

Story #1:

Ben has a girlfriend. Actually, that in and of itself is probably a story. Guess who went from super embarrassed when his siblings teased him about girls to straight up owning it? That's right, Ben. NOW it's ok. Insert eye roll.

He's actually really cute with her... in a way that's going make him single sooner than later. You know, stuff like never calling her by her real name when introducing her to people. Yep, that's what Booboo does. In reality, eventually he's going to beat her at a video game and that will probably be the beginning of the end.

Anyways, Burt's girlfriend and her sisters frequently come over: the other two are friends with Kallie and one of them happens to be Andrew's age. They also have an older sister back from college for the summer.

One afternoon, the youngest is hanging out at our house while Andrew keeps on eye on Berry and his girlfriend in the basement. Younger Sister is chatting with us and suddenly turns to me and says, "Hey, my older sister wants to meet you!" 

This caught me off guard, "why?" I asked. She didn't really have an answer to that, but I said, "sure, why not?" Fast forward a week and a half to last Sunday. I'm standing at church messaging Katie on my phone between meetings when Older Sister and her mom walk out of the chapel. 

Mom: "Oh, hi! This is Older Sister. I heard you really wanted to meet her!!"

This is one of those moments when you wish you knew what you're own face looked like. Hopefully, I kept it neutral. Luckily, I'm saved from having to respond immediately because mom is a talker. Too bad I wasn't quick enough to come up with a quirky reason for REALLY WANTING TO MEET HER. The best I could do caught off guard was ask her about how college was going. 

Now I'm thinking it was a pretty clever, and funny, bit of social engineering by Younger Sister to create an awkward moment. We shall have to retaliate in as clever a manner...

Story #2: 

Kallie has been doing Marching Band Camp leading up to school starting and needed some white clothes for changing in and out of the band uniform at school. Why you ask? Because apparently schools these days are prudish to the point where you can't change in front of member of the same sex in the locker room. 

Frankly, I don't get it. I don't think I have a single memory of ever entering the boys locker room in my high school without seeing a naked body. We started changing in front of each other in 7th grade, if I recall. For the most part, everybody figured out we all had the same equipment then went back to peeing on each other's towels to show dominance and immaturity. OK, maybe I see the reasoning now...

Either way, Kallie needed clothes so that she could change her clothes without taking off her clothes in a weird scheme designed to transfer the sweat and smell of one set of clothes to a perfectly clean set of clothes. Because the band uniform is white, her "not underwear" clothes also had to be white.

Well, Katie bought her a pair of white biker style shorts. She didn't like them, but she did wear them for 5 minutes with the tags still on to get through official picture day. Then she hung them on her door in a plastic bag for Katie to return.

In the meantime.... Nick had been stealing, eating, and hiding as many Hershey Kisses as he could find from Kal's birthday. We believe this led to the following scenario:

Katie approaches Wal-mart returns counter. As she pulls the shorts out of her bag it suddenly becomes obvious to everyone that a huge brown smear exists across the crotch/bum area of the white shorts. 

Katie: "Ummmmm, we definitely DID NOT notice that when we bought them."

Lady: rants about how could someone let this happen, which store did she buy them at, they are going to chase this down and make sure it doesn't happen again. 

Lady proceeds to gingerly pick up the garment between two fingers touching as little material as possible and flings them to the back of the customer service area. If you ever thought Wal-mart sometimes looks like the inside of a gas station rest room, we are the reason why.

First Day of School

These cute kids had their first day of school today!  They were very un-excited about starting school "in the middle of summer".  To be fair, in England they just got out of school two weeks ago!  They were good sports and put on a happy face anyways.  Last week was crazy with back to school nights, school shopping, and trying to figure out schedules and graduation requirements.  Crazy that we have a kid graduating in 2022!  Zack is in 4th, Andrew 8th, Kallie 11th, and Ben 12th.

Christopher and I drove Zack to school to drop him off.  It was so strange to see Ben and Kallie driving in the car ahead of us on their way to seminary.  I miss the days of driving them to their first day of school!

The buses were having a really rough morning.  It took us over an hour to drop off Zack to his school, with the lines circling the school.  It was nuts!  We left at 7:25 to get him to school before his start time at 7:45 (the school is about 10 minutes away).  We didn't drop him off till 8:30....and we weren't the last car!  Andrew was going to take the bus this morning with an 8am pick up for his 8:40 start of school.  When we got back home around 8:40 he was still waiting - so we drove him to school too.  We made it back home by 9:20  and the middle schoolers were still standing out in front of their homes waiting for the bus.  It was nuts!  But I was happy because I was able to snag a few shots of him walking in to his last (and first) day of middle school!  Crazy that Andrew will be in high school next year!

Now what do I do with these two crazies all day?!

 

Nickels and Dimes

Andrew frequently puts his foot in his mouth. We feel bad for always picking on him, but he really brings it on himself. For example, driving home from surprising Kal at Marching Band Camp, Katie and I were talking in the car and Andrew was sitting in the back seat. I mentioned to Katie that it was a shame that Andrew was witnessing us making big deal about Kal's birthday because it wouldn't happen again when he turned 16. Katie in mock surprise yells, "wait! no one's in the car with us are they?" 

Of course, Andrew is sitting in the back of the car with earbuds in and only becomes vaguely aware that he's the subject of the conversation with a, "huh?" Curiosity has the best of him and starts tuning in as I tell Katie that Kallie frequently rolls her eyes at how oblivious her brothers are to the world. I said, "if I had a nickel for every time Kal rolls her eyes at Andrew, I wouldn't have to work anymore." 

To which Andrew pipes in, "that'd only be like $4, dad!" 

Katie: "Andrew, that's still a lot!" Me: "Andrew, how many nickels are in a dollar?" 

Andrew: "Like... a hundred." (this from my honors math 8th-grader) 

Katie and mercilessly hound him over this while he tries to come to the real answer. Just as he gets it his mother asks, "Andrew, how many dimes in a dollar?" 

Since he's a beat behind, his original answer arrives first, "there's twenty!" 

Now he can't live it down at all. Luckily, he figured out there 80 nickels in $4 dollars before we got home. I've already drafted a strongly worded letter to the schoolboard regarding the quality of their mathematics curriculum.