Spring Break 2016

Some things never change.  I still can't remember what has happened in the past couple weeks.  Stay with me anyhow...?

William is really starting to improve at Karate.  He loves going through the form sequence and has it pretty well down pat.  His favorite part still seems to be saying "Ki-yah" at the end - but that's probably the most fun.  His sensei works really well with him and manages to get him to focus, stay on task, and use his manners.  Most of the time.  I'm super proud of him and enjoy watching him on Monday & Wednesday evenings.  Cool to see him learn and enjoy new things.

The Cat in the Hat came to the Springer Opera House a couple weeks ago and lucky for us, there were still tickets left for one of the last shows - so off we all went one Saturday night to see the show.  The boys did so well behaving and the show was perfectly adorable.  Apparently William has the book memorized because he kept telling me what was going to happen next.  I think we will definitely have to go see shows more often.  They've done really great at the few I've taken them to - granted they are ones geared to kids - but that's kinda the point right?!  Both monsters are begging to go to The Little Mermaid later this year - should be fun!!

We also went to Auburn for the day before the show, to eat at Niffers and walk around the downtown.  It kinda stinks that they have been to Auburn but never Athens... I'm hoping they will still choose Red & Black when the times comes, and not just for In-State tuition... but really... for in-state tuition.  :)  The three of us had never been to Niffer's before and it was delicious.  I had a burger with some kind of amazing yumminess (I can't remember now but it was gooey and awesome).  The boys got crazy with a hot dog and nuggets... but they had a great time with the blue fish bowl drinks for kids.  There were even red fish at the bottom!!  So cute.  Always surprises me how close a drive Auburn is.  I suppose I can NOT hate them... LOL  LYMI. ;)

This past week was William's spring break, the first half wasn't too exciting, but the back half was spent at the beach with my sister and her husband's family.  It was an 8+ hour drive, and I thought I'd be smart to start the drive in the middle of the night so the boys would sleep most of the way.  Yeah... best laid plans.  I put them in bed at 1:30 and they were awake the entire drive, we arrived just after 10am I think.   Wow.  2 coffees, 2 Monster drinks, snacks... it was a situation - but we made it.  

And then they wanted to go straight to the beach.  Of course.  The water is still very very cold in March (Atlantic Ocean) but they didn't care.  Right in they went.  So I stood there up to my ankles, freezing, to watch them.   They went back and forth in the sand, played with the styrofoam airplane, and just had the best time.  Finally convinced them to eat lunch and then have quiet time.  They didn't fight that too hard - told them 1.5 hours and then they could be done (2pm).  Yeah - they fell WAY asleep and took a good nap until 4pm.  I even got to snuggle with Patrick.  Not mad about it.

Without going minute by minute - we all had a really great time on the beach.  I took building a sand hole (fort) a bit too seriously - but it came in handy to block the wind so Patrick would stop shivering, and flying kites was SOOO much fun... Until the plan one went all kamikaze on me and now I've got a big ol' knotted mess to untangle  LOL  They used their manners, 99% great behavior, and we just had the best time.  The ride home was 9.5 hours with all the potty breaks, and I was sooooo sleepy when we finally rolled in.

The Easter Bunny made a stop at our house though, glad we didn't get skipped over.  :)  Because of the weather, eggs were hid in the living room and the boys were so funny to watch.  They would focus in on one and ignore the other 6 in plain view in the same area.  Silly monsters.  Patrick got new Batman pajamas and William got a friend for Hilbert.  He is Hilbert's twin, Humphrey, but William wants to call him "Bumpy".  I'm hoping that won't last.  We will see.  Off to church we went, the boys too too cute in their blue and green plaid, we even snagged a few pictures in between rain drops.

Loves.

Absense makes the heart grow fonder... after two years...

I haven't written a word for two years.  I didn't know what to say.  But, I've missed writing down the memories.  THere's a phone app (will we laugh about that in 20 years?!) that reminds me of all the funny things my children have said, things we have done, and I am sad that I couldn't do it for two years.  I am terrible about printing out pictures, I never finished the baby books, but if you put it on the internet - it lives forever.  An in this case, that's a good thing!  So.... I make no commitments, no promises, but I am going to try to start recording my sweet strawberries' lives again.  Here goes nothing.

I am amazed daily at how wonderfully sweet and kind and energetic William has become.  Patrick was hysterical on Monday (because I wouldn't let him put his trash in the window at karate...seriously), and William so very gently and full of empathy tried everything he could think of to help calm Patrick down.  I'm not sure any of it worked, but he had so much patience and was so kind o Patrick through all of it.  It was the sweetest thing to watch.  And then he did it again at bedtime, and even in the wee hours when Patrick woke up and was hysterical again.  I'm so glad he hasn't lost his sweet spirit.

I rarely get one on one time with the boys, but Patrick and I manage to make the most of the time before & after I drop off William at school.  The other day we pulled up next to a dump truck and I asked Patrick what he thought was in it.  I had suggested monkeys, but he said no!  ROBOTS!!!  And they were black, like the cover on "brudher's seat!"  Love that boy.  We also have agreat time jamming to classic rock so his animals can dance in the backseat.  I figure, if there is going to be noise and non-sense, it might as well be a good musical education.  ;)  Though, occasionally I do wish for Sirius and  Kidz Bop channel so I Don't have to screen the lyrics as much.  Haha!!

William is clearly advanced for his age - he had to have his six year molars extracted because his thirteen year molars were already coming in and 'eating' his teeth!  So crazy!! He was hilarious on the "happy gas' and had the dentist dying in laughter.  He told her something about the Sugar Bugs on his teeth ending up in his poop.  I wish I could remember exactly how he phrased it because she told every person who came in the room.  William was very very brave through the whole thing and was rewarded with red Knox Blox, lots of icecream, and so many mommy snuggles.

William like to pray before all meals now, which is absolutely precious.  Today's breakfast prayer included thanks for our wonderful life, a wish for snow, and closed with thanks/wish for a wonderful future.  I am going to have to start recording these.  He is so genuine and it's adorable.  Love that monster.

I realize that I'm 100% bias, but Patrick is really shining in school (probably thanks to being a good year older than his classmates, thank you September 1st school cutoff).  He can write his ENTIRE name, loves to have me spell words for him, is great at numbers, and is generally a smartie pants (but the good kind).  Ms. Phyllis, remember her?! Only Williams' most favorite teacher of all time.  Yep. She says that he is coming out of his shell and we both hope that next year his Pre-K teachers will find the right way to gain his trust.  He's so cute and funny and awesome when he trust you - it just takes a good long minute for him to be comfortable.  We shall see.  Fingers crossed.  Pre-K is coming up way too soon, and even after getting an extra year of him being "little", I'm still not ready to send him to real school.

Atleast this real school is still at the TLC>  And then I suppose, there will be the perk of both boys going to the same school.  That sure will make drop off/pick up simpler.  Yeah.  Ok.  I can come to terms with that.

They are both still relatively picky eaters.  Patrick more so than William.  I have gotten them to eat pork chops by calling them nuggets or just chops - they haven't figured out it's not chicken yet.  They will eat broccoli, but only raw and with ranch.  I only really like broccoli roasted with olive oil & garlic, so that one is a little less fun to model.  They love sausage and noodles, but I was informed yesterday that they prefer penne over spaghetti noodles.  Oh excuse me!!  But tortelini is always a winner.  LOL  Applesauce will always reign supreme, and Patrick has decided he does like apple slices and even occasionally will eat pineapple.  He does not like blackberries/raspberries in his smoothies.  William loves ALL fruit - no surprises there though!!

OH!  The dog!!  Santa and his elf helper, Silly Willy, brought the boys a puppy a week before Christmas because of their great behavior and asking so sweetly.  :)  She is a beagle mix and her name is Sadie.  She is perfectly adorable and totally destructive.  The boys aboslutely adore her!  William totally and emphatically believs that she is  a North Pole puppy and desperately wants to take her to school to show everyone.  Just the cutest.  They love to give her hugs (when she's still), take turns holding the leash when she walks, and teaching her new tricks.  She is 5 months old (3 months when we got her) and is ALL puppy.  She drives me bananas but is very sweet when tired and likes to cuddle and loves to sleep under my covers.  Silly dog.  She is the best worst decision ever.  Haha!!

Finally got rid of the bunkbeds a couple weeks ago.  Patrick was starting to hit his head regularly and I was just kind of over the bulky thing.  So now they are side by side and I think they like it!  I like it because now I can easily kiss them both goodnight and they have learned how to make their bed.  There is less floor space for playing, but the back room has become their playroom, so they aren't really losing too much there.  They keep waffling back and forth between wanting a Pokemon or dinosaur room.  I think I'll end up doing Pokemon (mostly because when they first agreed I went ahead and bought 8 prints off etsy...so there's that).  Oh - catch up - William has been obsessed with Pokemon for atleast a year.  His 6th birthday cake was Pokemon, everything he got for his birthday was Pokemon, and we are still watching it on Netflix multiple times a week.  I know a lot about their powers and forms and well, yeah.  Haha!!  Patrick LOVES dinosaurs though - so maybe I'll do something in the playroom with that.  They flip flop.  Silly monsters.

So yeah - there's been a decent amount of change in the past two years.  Just the three of us now, plus the evil cat, and a crazy puppy....  But we're good.  Atleast according to William's prayer this morning - we have a wonderful life - and I couldn't agree more.

Loves.

Epic Fail. I know.

So clearly I took a "bit" of a break from the blog.  I could probably come up with atleast 7 dozen somewhat decent reasons why I punked out for 2.5 months but that would be pretty boring when I know you just want to hear about the super adorable things the monsters do on a daily basis.  Now, granted, I'm not even going to be able to come close to remembering 10 weeks worth of pint size amazing-ness - but maybe I'll give you just enough not to throw tomatoes at me.  Which I would appreciate it, because unless they're cooked, the texture weirds me out.  Just saying.

Patrick got his first haircut in January.  He wasn't happy about it.  I wasn't happy about it.  And I'm pretty sure Walter wasn't happy about it either.  I miss the baby curls.  He never even got the curly baby 'fro before he got a haircut.  Insert sad face.

I went to London in February, which I only bring up in order to say.... I swear my children grew overnight.  Or atleast over that week.  I came home and Patrick was TALKING!  Yeah yeah - I know I know - he has been talking for awhile now... but Y'all.  Seriously.  He was talking in sentences!  Words I'd never heard him say before.  And it was easy to understand the words he was saying!! Especially, if you caught him in the 2.5 seconds he doesn't have a paci in his mouth. (yeah yeah... I know about that too.... leave me alone)  It was just the craziest and most awesome thing to come home to such a big boy.

And William was no different.  He seemed so much bigger as well!  I didn't even know what to make of it.  He seemed more mature.  Atleast he until he pitched a fit because he didn't like the airplane toy I brought home.  He wanted a Swiss Air one like the trip from last summer.  Nevermind that they don't sell Swiss Air planes at Hambly's in London.  The red double decker die cast bus wasn't cool enough either.  Oh well.  I told him that what he is supposed to say when given a gift, is "ThankYou".  Need to work on our manners a bit more apparently....  but still - super cool big kid.  How'd I get so lucky?!

It snowed at some point since the year changed to 2014 - and that was super fun.  William was SUPER excited about the snow!  Patrick was pretty jazzed but nothing like William.  I felt kinda bad because I still had to work - so they went to school.  Two of maybe 8 kids total....  parenting fail.  But gotta bring home the bacon... ahhh bacon.  Anyhow.  We did play in the evening.  Put some plastic bags on their feet like any good momma, and we threw snow piles, filled up dump trucks, and had a generally awesome time.

 

Patrick has decided that his favorite food is mac & cheese.  Not even kidding - we get most of the way through the SAMs club bundle in a surprisingly short amount of time.  And I had to make a second box the other night!  They are becoming bottomless pits.  I don't have the slightest idea how I'm going to keep the refrigerator and pantry stocked as they get bigger.  Guess I better get faster at cookie making to keep up with the grocery budget!!  hahaha  I'm happy they are swallowing food though, so I'm cutting myself a break about it being Kraft.  I mean, it's kinda awesome.  Especially if you ignore the processed bit about it.  I'll get it together and make real dinners again at some point.  This year.  But right now, I'll take happy boys and a ten minute prep meal.  

Probably in the same week, the sun came out, it warmed up and it was finally time to rake up the leaves from the fall/winter.  Yes.  You read that right.  I didn't do it at all.  Either season.  I blame the water oak next door.  There's no point.  It drops leaves the whole stinking time.  But whatever.  I bought the boys kid size rakes and we had a great time getting the leaves in to piles.  Jumping in the piles.  Raking them up and bagging them.  William was actually a really big help.  For real little helper.  And I totally appreciated it.  I think Patrick got bored and went back to watching Mickey Mouse.  I don't blame him really.  There's a reason I put it off for so long.  Unfortunately, I still have to do the backyard.... lame.

William ran his first "race" not that long ago.  He was so so so excited!! And to top it off - He won!!  Ok Ok - it really was just a little Tot Trot, and probably not even 50 yards... but the kid was focused.  Which impresses me.  I thought he'd go total squirrel on us.  And he could've been faster, but he kept looking back to make sure that he was still in the front.  He was so proud of being the fastest and getting the medal.  He then said that he wanted a trophy, because he came in first and winners get trophies.  I swear to you - I've never had that conversation with him.  Though, I agree.

So yeah.  There you have it.  Cross your fingers I don't take another 10 weeks to blog again.  I know you are all having the withdrawal shakes.  LOL

Loves!