Thanksgiving

We just got back from a wonderful Thanksgiving at my grandparents farm.  Colin and Joel both had so much fun. (And so did Brent and I) We love the farm.  And my family. Colin loved hiking through the woods and he told me when we prayed at night each night that he wanted to thank Jesus for the creek.  My dad took Colin on a walk to the creek to look for lions and then I think he went twice with everyone after that. Its always a fun walk down to the creek and I don't think we've ever been there and not gone down the path.  Brents dad joined us thanksgiving day and then on Friday my uncle David brought my cousins Capers and William as well as my cousin Cindy and her boys, Michael and Sam.  Colin thought Sam was so cool and just wanted to do anything he did. And somehow Colin convinced Sam to pull him around the yard with the wagon for a while.  Sam came in and said he was exhausted.  Ant Ant fed Colin chocolate pieces all weekend and my dad taught Colin to spray the whipping cream into his mouth!   Colin made Ant Ant sleep in the same room as Joel, Colin and I and Brent lucked out with a room by himself! Not sure if Ant Ant liked that but hopefuly she was able to get some sleep.   Mary and Sarah made pilgrim and Indian hats for us all to wear which was really fun.  Joel entertained everyone and smiled and giggled the whole time.  He loved all the attention.  And is even close to crawling.  He scooted in a circle several times and woudl smile at everyone. Not sure I'm ready for a 4 month old crawler though.  We need to start baby proofing.  It was a great relaxing Thanksgiving. I have such a fun family.

 

Friends from Abroad

The past week or so we have been having fun with some friends from Hungary.  Julie went to college with Brent and came on staff with Campus Crusade with Brent maybe 10 or so years ago and is now in Hungary working with their high school student ministry.  I remember once at our friend Lisa's wedding Brent pointed out Julie and whispered in awe "there's Julie" and then I don't think we were able to talk to her since we had to leave the reception early for a staff conference.  ha! and she's every bit as great as Brent said.  She and her husband have two boys - Eli (5) and Jasper (2) who are both just so sweet and cute.  They are here for the holidays and we are blessed to have Julie's dad living close to us.  Which means more time to play with us.  Colin is just in awe of Eli. When a 5 year old thinks you are cool and wants to be your friend then its pretty amazing.  Its been fun getting to know Julie better and I wish they lived closer.  Its always so encouraging to be around Julie.  I have a feeling we'll have to go fly over to Hungary one of these days and visit.  In fact Colin keeps asking where Eli and Jasper live and if he can go fly on an airplane and go to their house. We are going to be so sad when they leave.

 

When I grow up

Colin will tell you when he grows up he wants to be an astronaut. He loves his outer space books and can tell you random facts about all the planets.  I've been wanting to take him to the Air and Space Museum so on Friday we went. I had never been to the new building - I had only gone when it was at NASA and we'd go visit my dad for lunch.  So I was excited to check it out.  I had read that there was an exhibit open where you could try on a space suit and touch a moon rock...only when I asked about it the person at the front desk didn't know anything about it.  I just looked at the website and it was this weekend - the whole exhibit was open but the actual space suit demo was sat and sun. OH well.  Colin had a great time and it was the perfect time to go.  There was maybe 20 people in the whole museum so we got to take our time and Colin fell in love with this airplane they had. It was the whole airplane and Colin had fun sitting in all the seats and really loved playing in the cockpit. We played in that cockpit for HOURS.  At least 2. And since we had the whole place to himself he just played and pretended to fly us everywhere.  I tried not to think about all the kids whose hands have touched the levers and buttons and kepts sanitizing the boys hands.

I think if he was a little older the museum would be perfect because they have so many neat hands on exhibits. But the velocity of the wind and all those factors are lost on him. He just liked to push the buttons and make the wind tunnels go. 

Joel woke up a little afraid of where he was.  He woke up when we were in the Mars exhibit!   He wasn't to sure about where he was but he also loved the airplane cockpit and wanted to touch everything. Colin loved telling his little brother all about the airplane and planets hanging from the ceiling.

It was fun and I'm sure we will go back, especially when the boys get older.

The joy of fall

Thankful

This morning I was in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast (joel is the messiest eater as he likes to grab the spoon and try to feed himself. Everything usually needs to be wiped down afterwards) But Colin was in the other room watching tv and one of the commercials between shows asked "what are YOU thankful for?"  And Colin very sweetly said to the tv "ME MOMMY!!"  After I wiped the tears from my eyes I left the messy kitchen and snuggled with my big boy on the couch while Joel napped. 

This little guy can be so serious one minute and then giggling the next.

I just love him!

Us construction guys

We survived the Nor'easter we just had.  We now have a lake in our backyard and lost power for 25 hours but overall it wasn't bad.  And the best part is that our swing that my dad and I build never budged even during the 60mph winds!  Anyone want to hire us to build a swing set?  ha!  We just a lot of mess to clean up.  I am glad we got our big tree trimmed this summer :)  Brent had a few days off due to the rain and removed a wall and tried to fix a clog in our drain pipe from the washer. The clog is still there despite his attempts and Rod graciously came over in the middle of the wind and rain to help.  They are going to attempt it again tomorrow and think it could be tree roots in our drain.  But Brent and Colin removed the damaged wall and half of it is back up tonight and looks really good.  You're not goign to be able to tell there was any damage once we paint it.  I'm excited about having an excuse to paint the room since I wasn't always crazy about the paint color when we moved in.  That'll take a few nights after the kids go to bed.

Ready for demolition

 Inspecting the damage

This makes me laugh since it looks like Brent is smelling the insulation.  Dont worry he wore a mask for most of it.

My mom came by this morning and brought my bead completers to work on and had fun playing with the boys.  Joel really wanted to look at  eat this book.  Its a spider man letter book and Colin told Mama-maa that he beat spider man in a race and that makes him a super hero too.  

Food

Today was a rainy, windy day. Brent was off work which was good because we realized Sunday night we have major water damage behind our washer. The drain pipe is clogged and leaked under the drywall in the garage and also the wall behind it to our backroom. We need a new wall and we'll see about new carpet - depending if we can dry this out and get it cleaned.  So we were busy trying to figure out how to fix the mess.

I made cookies and let Colin frost and decorate them.  He had a blast and did a pretty good job.  I was in the other room and Brent told me to come in the kitchen and look.  Colin had decided to dump all the sprinkles on the table and was rapidly shoving the pure sugar into his mouth as fast as he could. 

Joel has decided what is good enough for us to eat must be good enough for him.  He would rather eat our food than the rice cereal we've started giving to him.  He knows there is a difference.  And he's fast.  You have to watch him or he easily succeeds. 

So Colin ate sprinkles for lunch and Joel had spaghetti for dinner.  Maybe we'll balance it out tomorrow...

Playing together

Tot Trot

This post will have a lot of pictures but I think the pictures tell the story so much better.  Yesterday we went to watch Colin in his first race.  He loves to race us around the yard and wanted to run in a real race.  He kept asking so I signed him up for a tot trot.  Kids 6 & Under ran 100 yard dash.  I wasn't sure he was ready for a kids mile run yet.  Colin was so excited he almost didnt sleep the night before.

When he got to the starting line he started to get a little nervous.  I love how the big kid next to him is sizing him up.

If you notice - Colin is looking at SpiderMan.He was running in the race too with the kids.

The big kid is still sizing him up. (Colin beat this kid by the way)

The race was really disorganized. They were still getting the kids lined up and ready when the dj said 1 minute to go. Well a kid heard Go and took off so the rest of the kids started running too.  Colin was still at the starting line waiting for them to say "ready set go" until I told him to run

 

He really does love to run. 

And if you notice Colin is now in SECOND place.  He had come from that far behind to almost win.  If it was any longer I think he could've taken the big boy in blue :)  He freaked out at the end because he didn't see Brent and ran back to me crying because all the people at the end cheering yelling at the kids scared him.  He was also disappointed he didn't get first place but when we told him he beat spiderman all was better.  Because you must be a fast runner if you can beat a superhero like spiderman.

  Telling Joel he beat Spiderman.  Joel was very impressed!

Ant Ant came to watch and cheer on her favorite little runner.  Colin and Joel are both sad she had to go back home this morning.

The best family picture we can get for now

It was a great morning and the after race party was amazing. All the food you could eat.  And there was crab cakes, macaroni grill food, cookies, donuts, shrimp salad, barbeque,PF changs,  you name it they had it.  Colin loved all the chocolate chip cookies and chocolate donuts. Brent just ate :) We might have even convinced Brent to run a 10K with us in the spring! he wants to do it just for the food. Colin wants to run another race and I'm glad.  I wanted him to have a good experience and I also think that coming in second was good for him to learn he doesn't always win.  Even though there's not doubt if he had started with everyone he would've won.  Thats my boy!  Keep it up and we'll be looking at a free ride to college with his scholarships! 

Turkey Time

Last year before our Thanksgiving dinner we had at our house I put Colin to work making these turkey cookies.  They were so easy to make and he had a lot of fun making them.  So today we had RJ and Lucy over to help make some.  Lucy and Joel just played and watched their big brothers gorge themselves on candy.  The turkey cookies turned out really cute and I think we'll be making these a lot this month.  Colin only wanted to make a few which is just perfect for him to eat the rest of this week.  I did catch Joel roll himself over just so he could touch Lucy's hair.  He then spent the next minute just stroking her hair.  Lucy didnt seem to mind.  Thanks RJ and Lucy for spending the morning with us.

dr update

We went to the doctor today for a follow up for Joel from his ER trip and we also combined his 4 month checkup in this visit too so we wouldnt have to come back in a few weeks.  Its hard to believe he will be 4 months next week.  But everyone is doing well. The doctor checked out Joel and Colin and they both have recovered very fast.  Colin still has some fluid in his ear but the doctor said that would be gone soon.  Joel got 3 shots poor guy but it didnt seem to bother him at all. Probably not as bad as what he experienced in the ER and he just smiled and charmed the nurse the whole time. I think the nurse had a harder time giving him the shots with him just smiling and cooing at her. Colin is even starting to like our doctor and just possibly starting to think all doctors aren't so bad. Since his stitches he's wanted nothing to do with them.  I'm not really wanting to see our doctors bills for the past 2 months - esp since the Tamiflu cost us $200 but it was worth it.  Good thing we made our deductible with giving birth so it'll just be a matter of dealing with the insurance which is always a pain and takes forever.

 

But Joel has also gained weight since Thursday night.  When they weighed him in the ER he was 12lbs 2oz which surprised me because at 2 months he was 12lbs 12oz.  I knew he hadn't been eating much and throwing a ton of it up but I wasn't expecting him to weigh less than he did at 2 months. But he has gained his appetite back and now weighs 14lbs 6oz.  (thanks to him wanting to eat every hour)  And thanks to him wanting to eat every hour and me also getting the swine flu my jeans feel looser this morning.  Thats one good thing that came from this! (And as a side note I think my tailbone is starting to get better. Finally. 4 months is a long time and its nice to be able to sit down again. Although I do still sit on a donut most of the time.  I have started running again and that doesnt seem to hurt and I did find a double jogging stroller someone was throwing away last week on my run, just needs a new tire, so i'm very excited about that!)

Joel has also discovered the joy of rolling over.  He can roll from his stomach to his back and now has learned how to go from his back to his stomach.  Last night we all watched as he rolled from one side of the room to the other.  Colin thought it was great last night but today when Joel reached his firetruck and started to slobber on it he thought differently.  I told Colin that any toys outside his room was fair game so we'll see how that goes.