Happy birthday dear Lukey, and other stuff...

It's been awhile so I'm including various pictures from the last month. Our church has a parent-child "date night", so I got to take Luke out. We went to the church and they had lots of sweet treats for dessert, and they took your picture and the kids made a picture frame to decorate. So I included a picture of Luke and I before our first big date; there was one picture of Luke with a more normal grin, but this one definitely is more of his real personality and better than the eyes squinted shut shot. There are several of the boys coloring/painting at the table. Luke likes to draw or color (which is really just more scribbling on the page, he is able to do more than just scribble, but his preference is to simply "scribble-scrabble" as he calls it), so Ben must follow suit. I bought Ben some special crayons at Christmas that are more difficult for him to eat, so that's what the toy-looking things are that Ben is rubbing on the paper. Well, Luke quickly decided this day that he wanted to paint, and so Ben was quickly unhappy with his crayons and wanted a paintbrush too. At first, I was just going to let Ben rub a dry brush, or at the most a dipped in water only brush, but then I thought why not just let Ben paint too? He enjoyed it and if you can see the painting at all, he did it all by himself! The only help I gave was when he occasionally tried to paint off the paper (oh, and I did put the paint on the brush for him, but the painting itself was all him!)

Next, but definitely not least, today is Luke's birthday! My oldest baby is now 4. We got him a bike for his birthday, his poor knees were bumping the handle bars of his tricycle. He did so good, and it's not just mommy bragging good, it's he can really ride a bike good. At first, he would push back on the pedals on accident and bring himself to a halt, but he figured out pretty quick to keep pushing forward. I still had to help him out to get up the driveway into the garage, and occasionally to get his feet pedaling again, but he almost instantaneously took off down the cul-de-sac. I even had to jog a few times to keep up with him! Aaron said he had one of those moments that are forever burned in your memory as he watched me and Luke take off down the cul-de-sac with him riding his bike, and thinking how big Luke looked and wondering how is already big enough to be doing this, riding a bike?!?

He's always been such a motor driven child, I've predicted he will be quite the athlete. I guess we'll soon find out because today was also our first soccer practice! We were late, because I pulled one of my rare, but true, airhead moments and had the time wrong. We were out riding our bike and my friend Andria called (whose son Braden is one of Luke's best friends, also pictured) and said "where are you?" I instantly knew I had messed up and realized I had the time wrong, so we missed the first 25 minutes of practice, but I still got a couple of pics. He was so excited he had to put his soccer uniform on when we got home and he wore it the rest of the evening.

Well, there will be birthday party pictures coming soon (party is this coming weekend), and I will include more soccer pictures after he plays a few games.

Happy birthday Lukey!

The things kids do.

Two stories, one on each of my children.
Ben: He's just now learning to talk and communicate, and is beginning to understand more of what we tell him. He's 15 months now, and will say "no-no, bye, hi, night-night, ma-ma, da-da" and he will sign: please (rubbing his chest), more (touching his hands together), eat (touching his mouth, or his nose), and all done/finished (waving his hands in the air). However, with the signing, we generally say the word first, like "are you all done?" and then he will sign. Well, today he initiated the sign and I couldn't resist. I'm not a morning person, I wake up slowly and it's not uncommon for the boys to wake up and be playing on the bed with me while I try to wake up. Ben's new thing is to climb off the bed and go explore the house, and lately he will empty his diaper bag and bring me whatever snacks he finds in there (because he wakes up hungry and wants me to fix him breakfast). This morning, as I'm being lazy and trying to wake up, he crawls off the bed and returns a few minutes later carrying a bag of fruit snacks. I said, "no Ben". He grunted and shoved the bag in my hands. I said "no" again and gave them back. After doing this 2 or 3 more times, he began persistently rubbing his chest, very fast and hard, in an adament signing of "please". He got his fruit snacks.

Luke: He is potty trained, and has been for almost 2 years now (he trained very early and easy, the only thing he's done that hasn't been a battle in his whole life!) He will take himself to the bathroom, but is not yet able to wipe himself for #2 , so it's not uncommon for me to be across the house and suddenly hear Luke yell, "mommy I'm done!". Well, today I was in the middle of getting Ben dressed, and he was screaming his head off for no apparent reason except he didn't want to be lying there, and Luke comes walking bottomless down the hallway, "mommy, look at my bottom". I reply, "what's wrong with your bottom", and he responds by bending over slightly so I can see that there's a mess there that I need to clean up. I said, "OK, go back to the bathroom and I'll be right there to wipe you." He goes and a few minutes later returns carrying some soiled toilet paper and said, "mommy look at this mess". I figured he attempted to wipe himself, because we've been working on it, so I told him to go put the paper in the toilet and I would be right there to finish. When I go into the bathroom to make sure he's clean, he tells me there was a big mess on the wall but he cleaned it up. Instantly, red flags go up. "Luke, on the wall or do you mean on the potty?" (there were some traces on the seat lid, so a valid question). His reply, "on the wall". I'm getting worried now but he assures me he cleaned it up. I said, "where on the wall" and he points to a spot, where I can see very slight traces of a mess (he did a pretty good job of cleaning it). So now for the real question: "Luke, how did poop get on the wall?" "Cause I go like this..." and he bends over and shakes his hiny a little. Apparently, he bent over and rubbed his rear on the wall. Why, I don't know, and didn't really bother to ask. I'm just glad that 1) He told me. and 2) He cleaned most of it up. I just had him wash his hands again and instructed him not to do that again.

Oh the things kids do.

Cowboys and Superheroes

The boys had cowboy day at school a few weeks ago, so I got a couple of pics with them in their duds. They were pretty cute if I do say so myself. Also, the boys got into Luke's costumes this past week. Luke changes from Batman to Mr. Incredible, and on this night he was Mr. Incredible. Well, here comes Ben carrying the batman cape and hands it to me to put it on him. He was so funny walking around in his diaper, a tiny one year old in a 4T batman cape! Then, a few days later, he comes carrying the Mr. Incredible costume. So I managed to pull the arms and legs up best as I could on his tiny frame, and he walked around very happy to be Mr. Incredible. It's amazing the things that he wants to do because he watches big brother Luke.

Ice Day and black eyes

We had an ice storm a few weeks ago, and the schools were out because of icy roads; therefore, Aaron didn't have to go to work that day! I took a couple of pictures of Luke and Aaron out on the ice. Also, I had to document Ben's first black eye. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It's been black for over a week now and is still not completely healed yet. He was walking and fell right into the corner of the piano bench; it immediately got really swollen and bruised (it was right on the bone at the outer corner of the eye socket). Amazingly, he didn't cry very much; he cried, but not nearly as long as he'll cry if Luke hits him or takes a toy away. The bruise extended all the way under the eye, and though the picture is not great, it was the best I could do. We were lucky it didn't break the skin worse and require a trip to the doctor's office. He's going to be an easy bruiser like his mommy!

Such big boys!

Here is some photo evidence of how big the boys are getting. Luke sat down for breakfast with his bowl of cereal one morning, and Aaron had left the paper sitting there. Luke reached down and picked up the paper like he was reading it and eating his cereal. He can also work the computer by himself now; or should I say, he can play a computer game by himself. He's enjoyed the games for awhile now, but I had to help because he didn't know how to negotiate the mouse (doesn't help that he's a lefty). Well, for Christmas, his Nonni gave him a v-tech computer game, and he has mastered the mouse. We hadn't done computer games in a while, and one night he wanted to play, so I pulled the game up for him. He immediately grabbed the mouse and went to playing like he'd been doing it forever. It was very cute and grown up all at the same time. I also like the picture of Ben sitting at Luke's little table and chairs. Ben climbed up there all by himself and grabbed the paper, again like he was reading it or something. He thinks he is so big just like his brother, and gets very proud of himself when he does something like that. I also included one of us reading Ben's favorite book, Goodnight Moon. He'll pull it off the bookshelf himself and carry it to me to read it. They're both growing up so fast!

Must DO NOT SEE movie

Now for the do not see. If you're like me , when you start hearing of movies nominated for awards, you get interested in seeing that movie because of the buzz, curiosity, whatever. One of Aaron's co-workers gave Aaron a copy of one of these movies, so we gladly sat down one night to watch it. Well, do NOT see Changeling with Angelina Jolie. It is a very good movie and deserving of the nominations it received, but I feel it my duty as a mother and especially a parent of two boys to tell anyone who has children, especially if you have boys, to NOT see this movie. Halfway through Aaron admitted he would not have watched it if he would have known more about it, and asked if I wanted to turn it off. At that point we had seen the worse and so we finished it out. However, if you have children it is too disturbing and not worth it so don't bother. If you are also like me, and get too curious and want more information as to "why", email me and I'll be happy to tell you why (my need for the answer to "why" drove my parents crazy growing up, and now my husband, but I'll gladly answer your why if you want it). But for those of you who need only a warning, you have been warned.