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.