Christmas

Every year, Christmas celebrations start the evening before the big event-the boys get to open two presents each on Christmas eve. One gift is always pajamas, and the other is something the whole family can enjoy. Jake is still a tiny bit too little for some of the family activities so he opened a book, while Hayden opened Sorry Sliders. After Jake went to sleep we all played our game (pretty darn fun, by the way) and watched "The Polar Express". Hayden had a VERY hard time getting to sleep this year. He ended up sleeping in bed with Mommy and Dad was kicked out to Hayden's bed. We all fell asleep around one in the morning. It was very stressful because he was concerned that not being asleep by midnight meant that Santa would pass us by, but luckily it all worked out.

The next morning the kids got to open the rest of their gifts. Boy oh boy did they get a lot of stuff. I'm not sure what Santa was thinking. Jake's favorite things were the snowman sippy cup and Elmo Chatters toy.

Jake thought that maybe Elmo would enjoy some of his jelly beans.

Hayden's favorites were this plasma ball (his favorite place right now is the Planetarium and he saw one there-Santa really paid attention) and the game 'Mind Flex'.

Notice the shock and glee on his face. I love that face.

We are so lucky to have such beautiful (sorry, I mean handsome) boys. Now we are in a month long off track period with Hayden. That's good and bad. Jake loves Hayden and spends much of his time following him around. I love not driving him to and from school. But Hayden misses his class and gets bored a lot. A lot. All day long. He even tells me he's bored while he's actively engaged in a game. It's nice of him to alert me that he's going to be bored, in case I got too comfortable with the idea that he wasn't bored. Wish me luck!

Playing is Hard Work

They are tired after ten minutes of playing in the snow. It took longer than that to get them dressed to play in the snow.

German Man

This week in class Hayden chose Germany as the country he would like to learn about. He was supposed to learn some of their Christmas traditions and decorate a paper doll to represent that country. He chose Germany because there are a lot of people speaking German in the online game he plays. He wants to communicate with them. Daddy thought it would be a better plan to say that he wanted to learn about Germany because it seemed interesting. We found shots of lederhose (I have no clue if that's spelled correctly or used in the correct tense) and created his clothes. Didn't he do a good job? My favorite parts are the H on his chest and the lovely sock/shoe combo. We are so proud of how hard he works in class. It's hard to live in a house with such a smart boy. He makes us all feel inferior. Love ya Hayden!

Turkeys Wear Hats, Right?

Thanksgiving this year was at my house. It was pot luck, thank heavens. I put myself in charge of desserts, mainly because pie isn't my favorite so I wanted options. It was a good plan, but I executed it poorly. I did have a pumpkin and apple pie (from frozen, but no one wants to eat any kind of pie I'd try on my own). Also, I made chocolate chip cookies, homemade Kit Kat bars and lemon blossoms . Now the lemon blossoms should not have been difficult. You can look at the recipe and see that it seems easy. The problem I had was overfilling the mini muffin cups so the cakes came out not looking like this............

...........but more like this. Little mini fedoras. So I put one on my stuffed decorative turkey. Pretty dapper if I do say so myself. Enough of them did turn out and everyone seemed to like them. Bigger isn't better when dealing in mini muffins tins- lesson learned.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I never remembered to serve the homemade Kit Kat bars. They were my favorite so I'm not certain it was an accident. That's all I'm going to say.

Jake Likes To Do Everything That Hayden Does

Jake watches everything Hayden does. This is both a blessing and a curse. Lately, Hayden has noticed Jake's interest in the things he does and he's decided to teach him a few things. Jake wants to play guitar on 'Rock Band'.

He tries to teach Jake how to do puzzles.

He also has tried to get Jake to read. I just listen to Hayden talking to him. It's just too funny. Today he told Jake," Let's read about David. Do you see the 'd'? This is from the book, 'David Goes To School.'" I love that they have a relationship now. Hayden understands almost everything that Jake says (he interprets for me now sometimes). He's never mean to Jake. I don't know how much longer they'll get along so well, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Oh Jake........

(notice the proud look on his face)

Jake is now a complete and total toddler. Today, as you see above, he decided to hurry into my bathroom and graffiti my mirror with my squeeze tube of eye cream. Later, he pulled my neatly folded towels out of the laundry basket while he shook his head saying, "Oh no no no". He enjoys climbing onto the dining room chairs with a handful of Froot Loops that he throws over the railing to the family room (and dog) down below. Whenever I open the refrigerator he grabs the nearest condiment from the door and runs to the front room, screaming. He always grabs the only glass bottle within reach (he's managed to break open a soy sauce on one of his rampages). Water bottles are another favorite toy. It's so much fun to open them and jump in the puddle you create on the tile.

But despite all his shenanigans he manages to melt our hearts every day. He sings the 'Elmo's World' theme song whenever he watches Sesame Street (he more screams while Elmo sings, but whatever). He turned to Brandon the other day, smiled and said, "Hi Dada". He's awesome at putting himself to sleep at nap time and bedtime. When he is done eating at the counter, he feeds his foot. I know, it makes no sense. He just throws his foot up on the counter and pushes food onto his toes.

Jake is dangerous, active, quick and loud, but he's also sweet, smart and loving. I keep reminding myself how sweet he is sometimes while I'm carrying him out of a restaurant as he screams "NOOOOOO" at the top of his lungs. One day I hope to look back at this time and smile, but not today. Right now I'm too busy keeping him from plugging the headphones into the outlets.

I'd Just Like To Say A Quick Thank You.............

..........to my '97 Camry for not breaking down this morning as I drove Hayden to school, looking like this (and that's just the bottom half-top half was just as bad).

Pickin' the Punkins

We are in my favorite season. I love sweaters and crock pot dinners, pumpkin flavored desserts, the end of yard work, wassail, Halloween and pumpkin picking!

I Guess It's Too Warm For His Footsie Pajamas

This is how we found Jake yesterday morning. He had taken off his one piece, footed pajamas by himself in the middle of the night. That boy has skills.

Update

I love it when Hayden is off track. We just seem to be able to do so much more. We also love sleeping in and wearing pj's for much longer into the day. Here is some of what we did.

Here is a shot of Hayden and Brandon enjoying the new telescope. Hayden looked at the moon, Jupiter and the Big Dipper (Brandon would like me not to have included this shot because the flash is making quite the bald spot on his head)
We enjoyed the last warm night of the season by playing with Bandit in the backyard.

Jake thought that being outside in the dark was fabulous.

We love Baskin Robbins! It is a tradition to have their cakes for every birthday. There's nothing better than a tiny, tiny cone.

Jake is 18 months old! He's been a little grumpy the last couple of months, and now we might know why. He grew 2 and a half inches in three months. He jumped from the 77Th to the 96Th percentile. Yikes. His poor body must have just ached. He now weighs in at 25.46 pounds (44Th percentile). His head continues to be large, in the 98Th percentile (big Thatcher noggins).

Happy Birthday Hayden!

Today, my little Hayden turns 8! I'm so happy that he is my kid. He is a joy to have around this place. Every day, he tries to be the best brother, son, friend, grandson and schoolmate. Brandon and I agree that he's smarter than us. I can't wait for him to get home today from school so the celebration can begin!

p.s. We took this picture on April 1st, printed it out and hung it on the inside of the toilet seat in my bathroom with a sign saying "Ha Ha! I seeeeee you! April Fools!" Brandon thought it was very amusing when he came home and found it.

I Only Do It Because I Have To

Jake has a blanket that he drags around all day. He sleeps with it, eats with it, watches Dora with it and rides in the car with it. It is the single most important object in his life. Blanket gets filthy. I cannot wash blanket without causing much distress. I cannot wash blanket while he sleeps because he sleeps on top of it. So I have him help me put it in the washer, and turn it on, but as soon as the door locks he is devastated. So he watches it spin around with his other blankets and waits.

He tries to pull out the storage drawer on the bottom, hoping to use it as a step to reach the cancel button to free his blanket. It's hard to watch, but it must be done. I hope he doesn't hate me too much.

The Class Pet Survived!

Inside this lovely carrying case was our visitor for the holiday weekend-Bugsy the class guinea pig. Hayden was thrilled he was chosen to take Bugsy home on a three day weekend, not just the boring old two days that most of the other kids get.

I've never been a fan of pets that live in cages (rodents, snakes, lizards all kind of freak me out), but guinea pigs are actually really cute. He's pretty chill. He was happiest sitting in the log in his cage staring. That's my kind of pet.

When we took Bugsy out for some free time, Jake took his chance to treat Bugsy like he treats our dog-with aggressive love.

But we caught him in time and Hayden showed him how to give the guinea pig "soft loves".

The train table doubled as a guinea piggy play pen, and my boys couldn't have been any happier. The boys are BIG animal lovers like their dad so having another one was a treat. And it was good for me because he went back home last Tuesday.

All in all, Bugsy was fun. The only place large enough for his cage, out of the reach of Jake and the dog, was on my kitchen island. On day three of our time with Bugsy, I was cutting carrots for Hayden's lunch on the counter across from him. Suddenly I could hear little squeaky, chirpy noises and Bugsy was attacking the corner of his cage trying to get the carrots. Hayden thought that he could only feed Bugsy his guinea pig food so panic set in when I gave Bugsy a carrot. I had to spend twenty minutes looking up the care and feeding of guinea pigs on the Internet to show Hayden that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for them before he calmed down. So Bugsy survived. And now I'm a little less frightened of creatures in cages.

More of Hayden's Pictures

I love finding pictures that Hayden takes with his camera. It's always interesting to see everything from his perspective. This first shot is his view when he's lying in bed.

The trees in our front yard
Yesterday he told me, "Mom, did you know some people in my class stick out their tongues when they are coloring?" Now, this is something he does all the time-when he's coloring, doing homework, building Legos and now apparently when he takes photos-but I didn't tell him that. I just told him, "Wow that's an interesting thing to notice."

"What? What's that you say? Speak up, I can't hear you."

Oh the Joys of Being the Mother of Boys

Hayden learned a new trick this week. He is now literally climbing the walls.

Here is a shot of his dismount

Safe landing!

Jake has found his new favorite thing-trying to splash all the water out of the tub.

(The water isn't dirty, that's just the shadows of the drops)

Putting an unframed canvas painting in a bathroom was a bad plan. I guess it looks more homemade with the water stains.

The Lovely Noises Toddlers Make

When did my baby turn into a pterodactyl? Listen to the noises he makes when he gets to the other side of the chair.

Dogsitting

We are watching my sister's dogs while she and her family are out of town this week. They are well behaved dogs, but we were concerned about how they would get along with Jake. Toddlers can be pretty hard on dogs. They all couldn't be happier though. Jake loves two more doggy mouths to feed and the dogs think goldfish crackers are awesome. So it worked out well. Jake took his blanket and thumb to try out the doggy bed.

Here is Hayden trying to make the dogs attack him (my sister's dogs are the two farthest from the camera).

Jake loves playing anything that Hayden is playing so he just sat on the bed and screamed at the dogs. I don't think Jake's smile could get any cheesier.

Here are the dogs. Rocky is in front and the little one is Tiki. My dog, Bandit, is in the back. He's just doing what he always does-watch the other dogs and try to figure out how to play. He's such an only child. He doesn't have too many skills on how to play with others.

They go home tomorrow and I know all of my boys will be sad. We have had a great time with them, except for the Rocky running away thing. Sorry about that guys. But he's back! We'd love to have them anytime.