Bear Badge

Trenton recently completed the rest of his requirements to earn his Bear badge. He's a Weblo (sp?) now! Way to go bud. Thanks for working so hard to finish your Bear book!

Prayer

I love listening to my kids pray. A lot of times their prayers are so sweet and sincere, but sometimes they are just laugh out loud funny, except you're not supposed to laugh out loud because, well, it's during the prayer. Plenty of times I've had to try and pull off the fake cough that starts out as a laugh. (I know, I need to work on my reverence.) We were sitting down to eat lunch today and Vivi volunteered to pray and bless the food. She started out saying things like, "We're grateful for this day", "We're thankful for Jesus", "Please bless the food"... and so on. Then she starts talking about how she's thankful for her family and that she ".. loves Preston, and even if he is a turd, she'll still forgive him." Word for word. Are you allowed to call you're brother a "turd" during the prayer? At least she's honest about her feelings... I guess. Maybe we need to help her think of some nice things to call her brother. She recently dubbed his nicknames "Meanie" and "Messy" for crying out loud. Maybe if he hears things like, "darling boy" "so sweet" "tidy tot" and "you're so gentle" he would start to act that way instead? (Hey, it's worth a try, right?) Who knows maybe he just needs a little positive reinforcement ;)

Projects

We've been projecting this last week. Well, I guess I should say we've paid people to project for us. We had the whole inside of the house repainted, baseboards, trim, and everything. No more crayon colored on every wall, (until Preston finds a crayon that mysteriously hasn't been put back in its place), gone are the greasy handprints on all the walls around the kitchen table (until Colson leaves the table without washing his hands), and no more scuff marks on the baseboards (until four little children I know decide to run their Hot Wheels cars along them, etc., etc., etc.,). Yes, everything looks brand new (for the moment, anyway). We even rearranged all the furniture. I love changing things up in my house. What fun! The best part is that now we have plenty of space to do cartwheels in the family room:)

Silly Girl

Trent's mom came and got Vivi and Preston today to take them out for lunch and a little outing. They ended up at the fountains at Southlands after lunch, and in no time Vivi was soaked. So where do they end up? Just up the street at Children's Place of course. Any excuse to go in a store and do a little shopping. Vivi, like her grandma, is a serious power shopper. She could go all day and still not want to stop. Well, she ended up with a darling new swimsuit, and sunglasses to match, which she picked out all on her own.

While on their little outing, Vivi informed her grandma that she has 4 nicknames. (I thought she only had 1... who knew?) Her first and favorite is of course Princess Pie (that one I knew), her second is Eve (from Wally), third is Tinkerbelle, and fourth is Beeeeeauuutiful! (Where did I get this girl?) Then she proceeded to tell Janet that Preston only has two nicknames: Meanie and Messy. What?! I guess we now know what she thinks of her little brother.

Apparently the sun and water wore Vivi out. I left her downstairs watching a movie while I tried to get the upstairs cleaned up a bit (key word being, tried... I just can't seem to keep up these days) and came back down to find her wrapped up in her blanket like a burrito, totally crashed. (I thought things seemed a little quiet!)
She's still lying there, totally zonked. I love how peaceful my kiddos look while they are asleep. So sweet. Thanks Janet for wearing the kids out for me! It has been a very quiet and restful afternoon. I needed one of those.

Double Digits!

Trenton turned the big 1-0 on Sunday! I can't believe he's ten! Where has the time gone? I know, that sounds totally cliche, but seriously, where did it go? It seems like he just started Kindergarten, and here he is, finishing 4th grade in just a few short weeks. I am so grateful for Trenton. He brings so much joy into our lives. He is such a happy-go-lucky kid. He brings so much lightheartedness, laughter, and fun into our home. He has a great love for his grandparents and loves being able to spend time with them. Trenton is a very responsible kid, and a lot of times takes the initiative to get his responsibilities done, without being asked. He has an amazing imagination that comes through in his writing, paintings, and the various things he builds with his Legos. Trenton is truly wonderful and amazing, and Trent and I feel so blessed to have him as our son.
Of course we had to start the day off with the traditional homemade whole wheat waffles with homemade whipped cream and homemade syrup. (Trenton requested that everything be homemade.) What birthday would be complete without a waffle breakfast?
Trenton shares a birthday with his uncle Sean, so after church we had the whole fam damily over to celebrate. Even Ziggy came! Trenton chose breakfast for dinner, (one of my personal favorites) so we made quite a spread, including: breakfast burritos, bagels and cream cheese, homemade raspberry muffins (thank you Martha Stewart for the yummy recipe), fruit salad, and yogurt with granola. And to top it all off, my mom made her amazing carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for the birthday boys. (I'm salivating just thinking about it.)It was so fun to have all of the family together. It is always a treat to be able to spend time with them.
After cake, ice cream, and presents, the two birthday boys wrote their wishes on their balloons, and then, 3, 2, 1...
Take off! I think this is my favorite birthday tradition. We continued the birthday celebrations on Monday by going up to the school to have lunch with Trenton. He of course chose Good Times. (My boys LOVE Good Times.) After school, Trenton's grandmas came and got him and took him shopping to use the gift cards they had given him for his birthday. All in all, I think we did an okay job at helping Trenton to feel extra special on his birthday. Happy birthday kiddo! We love ya!

Father Son Camp Out

The father/son camp out. My boys look forward to this night all year long. What could possibly be more exciting than playing in the fire with sticks, roasting marshmallows, eating s'mores, playing in the fire with sticks some more, roasting hot dogs over a fire, listening to scary stories around the campfire, and playing in the fire with sticks? No wonder they love it so much. Everything they do is centered around fire!
I bet I know what Colson is thinking here... "When do I get to light these suckers on fire?"

Potty Time!

I found Preston in the bathroom the other day, stripped down, and trying to climb on the toilet. Oh happy day! So he sat there for a while and he actually peed on the potty! I couldn't believe it. So I was changing his diaper the next day, and he started freaking out when I went to put his diaper back on him. After wrestling with him for a while, I gave up and let him go. (He's a strong little bugger!) He ended up running straight to the toilet and peed yet again. While it is all very exciting (it's amazing the things I get excited about any more), I don't know if I dare get my hopes up. I guess I'll take the lay low approach, and let him do his thing.

Hmmmmm...

Is it mean that I fed my children cold cereal for dinner, then went and bought Chipotle for Trent and I?

Oodles of Noodles

Vivi requested spaghetti today for lunch. Well, I should say she asked for "homemade" spaghetti. So I secretly opened a jar and, voila! Spaghetti. (I don't know about any of you, but the closest I get to a homemade lunch is grilled cheese.) Anyway, there was an awful lot of slurping going on. My kiddos love spaghetti. I think they would eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I let them. (BTW, we had it last night for dinner.) The best was watching Preston load up his fork. He was really intent on what he was doing. It took him about two minutes to load each bite.
Here's the loading.

The funny thing is, after taking all of that time to load the fork, more than half of it would fall off on the way to his mouth.
Yumm! Yumm!

Ziggy

We had a visitor today! Meet Ziggy. Isn't he the cutest dog you have ever seen? I love his long floppy ears. He used to belong to us, but now resides in the home of Trent's younger brother, Sean. Our older boys are very allergic to the environment, and unfortunately Ziggy brought a little too much of the environment into our home while we had him. The boys would go to bed every night swollen from head to toe and itching like crazy. Well, Sean is out of town this week, so we are peeking in on Ziggy to make sure he has plenty of food and water and that he has been getting outside enough. Tonight when we stopped by, he was so excited to see all of us that we decided to bring him home for just a bit. The kids loved being able to play outside with him this afternoon. They miss their puppy. I'm so glad he just lives a few minutes away and they can still see him fairly often. The best was seeing Trent's face when he saw Ziggy! (I think out of all of us, he misses Ziggy the most.) He has had a very stressful few days, so I was glad that our spontaneous decision helped to brighten his day.