Visit from Mr. Caleb

My cousin Caleb came through Dallas this week looking at grad. schools. It was great to see him and visit. The boys love having a visitor. Caleb was such a good sport to play trains with Luke. Luke has all these rules about which trains can touch etc. Sitting down with him is not for the faint of heart!

Titus and Luke decide that Mr. Caleb needs to hold them at the same time.

Caleb-Thanks for dropping in when you were coming through town. The boys were sad when we got back from Bible study and you were gone.

Get Away!

We did a short vacation for our 8th anniversary. The agency gave Micah a few nights at a resort in San Antonio. My mom watched the boys for us for four days! Dad came up for part of it too. Thanks to both of them for watching Luke and Titus.

Here are some of the highlights.

On the way to San Antonio we stopped in Austin to find a small business on South Congress called Hey Cupcake! They have great cupcakes and sell them out of a trailer. I got the red velvet and Micah got the snow cap (chocolate with a vanilla top). There is some great people watching on South Congress too!

The rest of Saturday we went to the outlet in San Marcus, did our traveling and we went out to dinner after unloading at the resort.

Sunday we went to church a Oak Hills Church. It was truly a mega church. I've never been to a church that large. It was neat to hear Max Lucado preach. After lunch we went to get pedicures together. Micah is such a good sport! The Spurs game was on while they worked on us. It was neat to get pampered together. As you might imagine, Micah had not had a pedicure before. He liked it, but now he says his feet hurt. I guess it is because all of those callouses are gone!

Monday, we headed downtown! We saw the Alamo and enjoyed a perfect day on the river walk.

Fajitas for two! We ate so much Mexican food :)

Tuesday we just headed back. We stopped at the outlet mall again in San Marcus. My favorite outlet anywhere is there. They have a pottery barn outlet that is really an outlet. It also has William's Sonoma things there too. It is a really fun warehouse type store.

The boys were happy to see Micah when we got home. They always run to him! They eventually gave me a hug too! Thanks mom for watching the boys.

"Favorite Puppy" faith builder

Luke's favorite stuffed animal is "Favorite Puppy". Today, Luke came inside telling me about this horrible thing that happened:

Favorite Puppy stuck in the gutter on the roof

My first thought was about how to get the puppy down because there was no way a three year old can get something off the roof and that eventually I would have to get it down, but I decided to have a little L&L (Love and Logic) fun with it because I've enjoyed seeing Luke think through his own problems and figure out the world lately.

Me-Oh No! How sad!

Luke-Mommy can you get him down?

Me-Do you think he's cold up there?

Luke-I think he's scared too.

Me- What are you going to do?

Luke-I'm going to call the fire department and they will help me and bring a ladder too.

Me-Luke, you're welcome to call the pretend fire department, but I'm not going to let you call the real fire department because (he knows that) favorite puppy is not real and they have real fires to go to and real people to help.

Luke goes on to call the pretend fire department with the phone in his playhouse. He pretends for a while that they are on their way. After a while, he busts out with "Jesus will get him down for me." I encourage him to ask Jesus by praying. Luke looks up to the sky and says something like "Jesus, will you please get favorite puppy down from the roof for me? In Jesus name, Amen"

Now a million thoughts are running through my mind. The biggest two are probably

• How can I/should I sneak the puppy down? When will we do it?


• Maybe I can explain that God works through people???

I did decide that I needed to explain that Jesus could work lots of ways to get the puppy down. I told Luke that Jesus could send a big wind or use Mommy or Daddy to get it down. He was pretty sure Jesus was coming personally to do it. I just said my piece and left it at that.

Micah comes home. Luke immediately shows Micah. I tell Micah not to get it down. We pray about puppy at dinner. Luke has to go to bed without puppy. We pray about puppy again at bedtime.

Micah and I were upstairs discussing lots of boring "grown-up" stuff. The wind had been blowing pretty strong for a while. I ask Micah if he thinks Favorite Puppy has blown down. He walks across the room to check on Favorite Puppy. He's still there. As Micah is looking out the window, Favorite Puppy blows down.

We go get Luke and take him to get Favorite Puppy.

Favorite Puppy after being blown down

Luke after being reunited-He looks wired, but he is barely awake.
I know that was a long story, but I just have to add a little more. I was resigned to the fact that in the next day or so Micah or I would get the puppy off the roof, but it really bothered me how unsure I was that Jesus would really get the puppy down. I wanted to give Jesus a chance to get him down and WHY am I so utterly shocked that he did.

The other point I would like to make is that Favorite Puppy being stuck on the roof was a really big deal to my kiddo. I'm sure lots of the things we pray about seem just as silly to Jesus, but if they are things that matter to us then they matter to him.

God bless you all tonight.

Lizzards and Snakes

Just another love and logic Luke story:

We're at the dollar store trying to pick out a valentines present for Aunt Cara. Luke picks out a couple of things for Cara and then does the typical kid thing and starts whining for a bag of lizzards and a bag of snakes. He puts them in the cart, he whines, but finally I try some of love and logic.

Me-Luke you're welcome to buy those with your money.
Luke-I think I will do that mommy.
Me- Luke do you have some money?
Luke-I do have some money.
Me- Well you'll just have to check out after me.

I know that he has no money, but I decide to let him figure that out. I check out, push the cart quite a distance away from the check out line, but stay in earshot. I hear the beeps of the scanner and then the lady asks him for $3.25. He reaches into his pocket and holds up a palm full of nothing. The lady looks confused and looks off at me. I shrug and shake my head. She asks him if that is pretend money. He looks embararasssed and shakes his head, yes. She explains that the store doesn't take pretend money and that he has to give her real money if he wants to take the toys.

The whole way home he was just talking to himself and processing everything. "Stores need real money." "Pretend money will not buy the toys."

I have no idea if this will translate to fewer fits, but that day it did and I got a kick out of seeing him figure out the world for himself.

Girls' weekend

Last weekend I headed to Searcy for a girls' weekend. We had dinner out on Friday, a spa day Sat. am, a dinner out in Little Rock Sat. pm and church on Sunday morning. It was such a shot in the arm to have time away from the kids and girl time too :) Also, If you've never had a facial, I'd highly recommend it!

Becky was my roomate for all 4 years at Harding. Amy was across the hall Freshman year and a suitemate after that. Both of them were bridesmaids in my wedding. These girls are such dear friends. We decided that it was time to get together!

Becky (with baby Braden), Me and Amy

The Harding swing picture!

Becky's parent's cabin-what a nice get away from Dallas!

It was just us out there, so we had to take our own picture! It was really nice to get out of Dallas. I forget how many stars there are.

Thanks to Micah for keeping the boys! I kept calling to check on them and they were always out doing something fun. Luke liked that it was "just the boys!". I was glad to see all three of them when I got back.

Those are your choices!

This morning as I was getting ready, Luke was running around. In an attempt to give him something to do, I asked him to get me some socks. He goes and looks in my sock drawer for a minute and comes back. Standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, my little boy says "Halloween or Santa Clause, those are your choices mommy" I had to try so hard not to laugh at him :)

We've been doing Love and Logic and I'm bombarding him with choices so that he feels more control over his world creating fewer battles of will. Do you want to walk on my left side or my right side? Do you want to walk or ride in the cart? What would work best for you Luke, to go to Sam's first or the post office? I decided to humor him. For the record, I picked Santa :)

Sandbox

Papa (Alan Wonders) made this sandbox for the boys. It's awesome. It has a ledge to sit on, a big heavy lid to keep rain out, lots and lots of sand and awesome construction trucks to work in the sand . We were in Longview earlier this week and it was the first time they got to play in it. As you can imagine, they LOVED it. Thanks Papa for the awesome sandbox.

Luke loves it, but what is Titus doing?

"Mom, I was just eating some sand."

Hmmm... Titus is still too little for the sandbox.

Luke and Grammy play with the dump truck.

I could do this all day!

Titus gets a cape and Micah's awesome

I put a post about Titus's cape up on my sewing blog, but I thought I'd put a couple of pictures up here. I need to get a picture of both of the boys running around "saving" everything.

Watch out, here I come!

Hey ducks, I might feed you...maybe I'll just eat the bread myself :)

I think I can, I think I can...

I also wanted to send a shout out to Micah. He's so great to help out with whatever needs doing around the house. Here he is changing one of many diapers. Thanks Micah for all you do to help out. We all love you very much!

Mr. Potato Head

I guess it is more like Mr. Mashed Potato Head!

I think there is as much food beside his plate as there is actually on the plate.

Toddlers are SO messy when they eat. I get a little jealous of my friends who have dogs. There is usually little to no mess under the chair after a meal. Hmmm...maybe we should get one.

Where is he?

I know every baby likes to play this game, but it is so fun when it's your baby.

"Where's Titus"

"There he is!"

Oh man! I could do that game all day.

Love and Logic and a Playdate

Love and Logic-Whew! We're doing the class on Friday mornings at my Bible study. One of the things we do a lot with Luke is the Uh-Oh song and room time.

Well, when my good friend Giselle and her kiddos got to our house one morning for a playdate, Luke was fussing up a storm in his room. Luke was totally testing me to see if he would get to come out just because company came. He was so surprised that I let him stay in his room and throw a fit while we had company. He said "Mommy, but Molly will hear me fuss." Me-"She's been hearing you and she's worried about you. Are you ready to be happy?" When you set limits be prepared to be tested in every way.

I was so embarrassed to have my kiddo throwing a huge fit while we had company, but I was so glad it was Giselle and not someone I barely knew. I just explained what we were doing with Love and Logic and said sorry about the screaming kiddo. I'm pretty sure I would have chickened out if it had been someone I had not known better.

As you can see, Luke decided to be happy :) After we got it together we had a great time with Ms. Giselle, Molly and baby Sam. First we went to feed the ducks. Titus is out front eating the bread and not really feeding the ducks.

Then we walked on over to a park. They did the teeter totter together and then they both wanted to ride bouncing toys.

I LOVE this picture! I don't know how well you can see, but Luke ran into a flock of birds and they went flying :) What a fun little boy thing to do!

Headed back to our house. The babies are in a wagon with me-in case you were wondering. How sweet!

Thanks for coming to play Molly and Sam!

Weiner questions

Today Luke was bombarding me with questions about his weiner. I tried to answer a few, but finally, I said "You know Luke, I don't have a weiner. If you have questions about your weiner, you're going to need to ask your daddy. " Luke replied "Well, you need to go to the store and get one." SO FUNNY! Me-"I need to go to the store and get a weiner?" Luke-"Yes mommy, you need to get a weiner."

Nap Time Projects

I don't know about you other moms, but one of my biggest surprises about being a mom was the decrease in productivity. I'm a list maker. I always have been. After Luke was born, I would make lists of what I was going to get done that day. I would get 25% to 30% of the list done daily. Now, I just try to do one or two things in a day.

Although it is frustrating, I don't push to do too much. I am fully aware the boys will remember going to see the ducks and feeding them bread and although I think it's awesome to have new curtains...the only part either of them thought was cool about that was the power drill and that "Mommy is Handy Manny!"

These days, if a project can't be finished during a nap time, I don't even attempt it. These are two of last weeks nap time projects.

Here is the super simple rectangle valance that I made for our bathroom window that is over our tub. It is really a big rectangle hung by pinchy rings.

It is actually two fabrics. The brown with the swirls is sheer and there is a bronze polyester fabric backing it.

I wanted to do a neat trim, but I didn't for two reasons.

1.) Trim adds up. It can cost more than the fabric.

2.)Micah can't stand trim. He says it looks like a"Gypsy tea room".

The stool was a hand me down from my mom. It was covered in a floral tapestry. (Love ya mom, but ewww.) One day I'll get a nicer stool, but it was fun to give it new life by recovering it.

Best wishes to all you moms out there trying to complete your own "nap time projects". :)

Together time

At our house from about 5 pm until Micah gets home gets really crazy at our house. I do not let the boys watch TV during the day, but at 5 or 5:30 I turn on some sort of DVD most evenings.

Otherwise Titus stands at my feet and fusses for little bites of whatever I'm cooking and tries to pull whatever he can reach off the counter top. So, here are the boys having their "together time". They always want to sit right by each other :)

Christmas 2008

We made Luke wait until Aunt Cara, Grammy, Papa got over from Cara's house at 7am before he could come downstairs to open the presents. He didn't understand about Santa. First he went into the room where the Christmas tree was. I had to explain to him to go look by the fireplace where we hung our stockings and left the granola bar and Little Debbie Christmas tree cake.

Here's the family as we come downstairs to see if Santa came. It's a little dark in the video b/c the sun is not up yet!

Opening Stockings and Santa presents:

Santa must have gotten Luke's letter b/c Luke got a Coke in his stocking. Luke knows not to ask mommy for a Coke, but it looks like Santa came through. Mommy will NOT be giving him another one anytime soon. I decided that as I watched him just jump up and down in one spot for a while after drinking it.

Titus didn't really enjoy opening presents this year. He got to the yougurt raisins in his stockings and just enjoyed those. Here he is eating one of the marshmellows out of Luke's stocking while sitting with his daddy.

Luke got a big magnifying glass from Santa. He wanted to find some bugs immediately.
Aunt Cara, Grammy and Papa laughing at the kiddos.

Grammy helping Titus

After breakfast, we head for the Christmas tree:

Like I said, Titus really just wanted those yogurt raisins.

After present festivities:

The boys went on a walk with Grammy and Papa. They went to the park and fed the ducks. Those ducks know when they see Titus's blue car coming that they're getting a snack and they come running. Papa is always great to take them to the park!

Football and napping for Micah! May I add that he is resting comfortably underneath a blanket that was custom made to be long enough for him. The blanket is over 7 ft. long and he can tuck it under his feet.

Playing with toys and calling family that we couldn't be with on Christmas.

Dinner and bath times-What a fun day! Christmas is so much fun when you have kids :) They are a joy.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!