Pleasantly Surprised

Though I feel terribly behind on updating the blog, I am happy to discover, I'm not doing as bad as I thought! It's just been an action-packed couple weeks around here with birthday celebrations, a county-wide festival, parade float building, puppy training, and even a bit of Locks of Love donating!

Technically, it's past my self-inflicted bedtime, but today has gone nothing like I planned . . . from forgetting my "alarm" phone in the kitchen and relying on E's dad to wake me up by knocking on the front door (oops!), to overlooking the boys' double well-child check (not more than an hour later), last minute emergency diaper changes, navigating new construction at the doctor's office as it started to rain, and well, the list does keep going . . . if you talked to me today, you know the scoop. I am a big fan of Scarlett O'Hara's "back on track tomorrow," (my paraphrase of course :)

Now for the deluge of pictures and information . . .

Cute and Sweet to Boot!

With naturally curly hair, not enough to look consistently curly, but just enough to be ever-so-tangley, Gabbers decided she was ready for a new style. Her decision cemented when she learned her locks could be given with love to people needing wigs through the Locks of Love organization. She thought giving her hair to help a child with cancer would be "so cool."

Knowing that daddy had some trouble with my short chop a few years ago, she was nervous that he might not be on board. But, knowing this meant something to her, Daddy agreed.

It was a whirlwind affair . . . she decided on Saturday, talked to our hairstylist on Sunday, and by 1:00 this afternoon, her lengthy locks were cut adorably short!

Dad has only seen the new do through a picture text, but he made her day when he said she looks very beautiful, and much older. Here's her before and after :)

It turned out to be a big day for all the kids in one way or another . . . the boys, as I mentioned before had their well child checks. It turns out, just as we've known for several years, Graysen is a moose :) 95% in both height and weight, according to his stats, the kid as an almost perfect square. Brennen, is also above average (75% for weight, 85% for height), but is built like a string bean.

While I was there chatting with our doctor, I mentioned that Caelan hadn't reacted to gluten during our loooooong trip this spring. She's been asking if we could retest. Dr. A gave the go-ahead. She ordered labs for whenever we can get in for the blood draw . . . following two weeks of normal diet. I can hardly even imagine. We have been so careful for almost 9 years! Just hand her a piece of bread? Let her eat pizza from restaurant? Whatever cereal she wants? Birthday cake or cookies with the other kids? Pasta! It blows my mind. We are going to wait until next week, because we have company coming this weekend (and don't want her to be miserable if this doesn't work out the way she's hoping). The last set of tests we did when she was not even 2 yet. And even then, she hadn't been exposed to gluten, so (we've learned) they weren't super accurate. The upper-endoscopy did show that she was all flared up after some exposure at 2, but since then, we've just been managing by her reactions. I just hope she doesn't fall in love with "real" food and end up back where she started. Augh!

The Kind of Kid that Stands Out in a Crowd

I get such a kick out of the fact that my barely 11-year-old brother is already taller than me . . . and I am not a short person (maybe for competitive sports, but let's face it, I've never excelled in any of those :).

Yesterday, we went to watch both boys play in the pre-pre-pre-pre-pre NFL. They look so cute out there in their little shoulder pads and helmets, and I know that is a very un-manly description of them, but they were picture-perfect cute!

After watching a few plays, Brennen caught on to the manliness of it all and started asking, "When can I start football? I want to play!" I told him, I honestly have no idea when football starts . . . I think I realized it existed somewhere around high school :)

We caught a smidge of CJ's game, but he gave me the full play-by-play when the final whistle blew. His "almost interception" put stars in his eyes. And his ability to remember yardage and who did what and how many downs and all that boy knowledge stretching back through the last three games, just amazes me. How do guys do that?!

The Lo-man tends to get a response from the crowd. From a distance, it looks like somebody's dad suited up and walked to the line. He's still a gentle giant when it comes to competitive instinct, but shoot, when you are his size, just looking at the knee-high kids is enough to make them run the other way :)

Because Buck was working, I shot some footage on our camera (hoping it would delete all the pics like it did on Graysen's birthday :( ) In the brief few seconds I caught, he had all kinds of analysis . . . from doubling up on the socks to tightening the shoulder pads. Impressed. Guys and sports impress me. Cheers to the next generation hitting the field!

Speaking of Size

Chauncey, at last weigh in, registered 54 lbs. Now, he just turned 5 months old last week. He officially outweighs both boys, and is closing in on the girls. Unfortunately, he has also started shedding. Why, I am not sure. But if he is trying to loose weight, this is not the way to go about it. I have been vacuuming him, which . . . he tolerates. But then, he also thinks he is my child, so any attention paid his direction is fully accepted and basked in :) He hasn't realized yet that snatching freshly baked goods off of my children's plates, peeing on the carpet in my bedroom, and chewing up the gas meter are things frowned upon in this establishment. He will learn though . . . . right?? (Somebody tell me I am right! :)

Here are a few pictures to give a perspective on our cute "little" puppy's growth over the past three months that he's been ours.

 Then

 Now

 Then . . . aww so cute!

 Now!!

We love a parade!

I've written before about all the parades our town has each year . . . so much fun! Well, here we are back at our parade corner enjoying the Homecoming crowd march and drive by :)

We met up with our annual parade-going buddies (you will see them in the last few years' pics too). And we added a new face . . . Little E! He may or may not have been a bit overwhelmed by the fire engines, drums, horns, shouting people, proximity to the road . . . (okay more on the "may have been" side :)





But he was really confused when his mom popped out of the procession to give him a quick kiss, before disappearing back into the swirl of color and noise. Ha! What a doll :)

Who got the tooth out? Who, who, who, who?

Brennen got the tooth out, whoohoo! We visited the dentist two weeks ago, knowing the bottom two teeth were wiggly. But she discovered the adult tooth was already through B's gumline, behind the wiggly baby tooth. Our shark tooth boy, as we decided to call him for the week, was to wiggle that little tooth like crazy or the dentist would be the first to pull a tooth from his mouth (can you see it in the picture to the left?)

Well, he did it! With a little help from his dad :) I got a picture texted to me at violin lessons that was so cute it made me cry . . . his first tooth gone! We joke about the tooth fairy taking out a second mortgage, but with three of them now losing teeth . . . whew!

Sometimes you have to make a mess to get organized

When Buck and I first were married, I decided to build a binder of our family's favorite recipes. I thought, "Someday I will make copies of this and send the kids off to college with all their favorites plus cooking tips altogether in one place." This also gave me an organized way to save the new ideas I saw in magazines, found online, or gathered from friends.

Well, the binder is pretty much falling apart and there were dozens and dozens of recipes that I maybe tried once and then just skipped past . . . week after week . . . year after year . . . while meal-planning. With a thick stack of new ideas waiting to take their places, I decided to "clean house."

At first I just dropped the discarded menu possibilities to the carpeted floor. But it didn't take long for the kids to take notice of the growing pile.

"Mom, can we . . .?"

"Sure, why not?"

What happened next was a shredded paperfest, blizzard of pieces, falling like snow then bursting back into the air. It kept them entertained for almost an hour. Of course, our little schoolyear buddy, E thought this was the best thing since sliced bread (which he may or may not have actually tried eating yet :) He got right into the mix and shredded paper with the rest of the crazy crew . . . he may have even been intentionally buried (think sand on the beach) by the older ones.

As lunchtime approached, I called for clean up . . . to my delight, Gab dashed to the kitchen, grabbed four plastic bags and declared a race to see who could clean up the most paper the fastest. Sweet! Within minutes the floor was paper free, the mess was in the trash, and my recipe binder was 2 inches thinner! Good times :)

Where have I been . . . Part II . . .

This funny little thing called school got started about six weeks ago . . . and this year the academy has grown to three students! (With a little hopeful added to the mix :)

Brennen is keeping busy reading his My Father's World words, illustrating pictures for his Animal Tales book, and zooming through Math (he likes to do 5 or 6 lessons a day instead of just one :) He's intuitive about his lessons, even reading the directions aloud without my assistance (there are so many days when I wonder why I even hang around, they are so grand on auto-pilot!). "Circle the blue cat. Put an X on the green square." Color me impressed!

GabberDoodles is loving the Thomas Kinkade Art program we sprung for this year. Dad is their art instructor (while I'm at Bible study), but I've watched a few of the DVD sessions and Mr. K is a very good teacher. Of course, he can say, "Draw this line here, this line here," and boom, he's got a realistic-looking lighthouse with live seagulls fighting to get through the window to land on it! I've still just got this line here and this line here :) Oh how quickly my children are surpassing my talents in the arts (don't even get me started on violin . . .) :o)

Caelan is finding that her 4th grade books are a bit more intimdating than the skip easily through 3rd grade material she zipped through last year. She's having to do outlines and highlight information, and it is actually making her think and draw her own conclusions instead of filling the blank in a sentance that was taken directly from the reading material. She is enjoying the Bible CD Roms we threw into the mix, and most of the time likes the Spanish Rosetta Stone program we are working through (Brennen again is instinctive. He just picks up the lessons like he was born in Spain--I wasn't even going to have him start til next year, but kid flies through!)

Graysen, although not officially in school, is majoring in comedy nonetheless . . . I've been saving up a list of all his straight up goofiness. No time like the present to share, right?

1. He is really growing up, and becoming more verbal. He came in the back door today after being tattled on for putting the downspouts up to his elbows to form robot arms (again). As the door slammed behind him, he balled up two little fists at his sides, squnched up his nose, stomped his foot, and said angrily, "I am so far-us-ter-ated!" Sometimes it is soo difficult to keep a straight face and be a good parent :)

2. My brother, CJ, was telling a story about two neighbor kids who were out cruising in their little battery powered Jeep. Somehow the driver hit the gas and ran CJ over! CJ described being pinned beneath the toy car as it high centered on his back (waiting for mom to come to the rescue). Graysen was absorbing the story with wide eyes. Then he asked CJ--who, remember, was telling the story-- "Did you die?" Hee-hee :)

3. He calls the wet & stick tatoos . . . "tick-tack-toos." :)

4. For months, Graysen has struggled with staph infections that pretty much leave his little eyes swollen and sometimes even bleeding. (This has gotten soooo much better since a lady at church wrapped his bleeding fingers with bandaids, which G insisted on wearing every day for the next six weeks! Finally the skin healed, the entry point of all the infection was eliminated, and he kicked the habit he's had since the ultrasound pictures showed his little fingers in his mouth, whoohoo!) So anyway, we were watching So You Think You Can Dance (can you tell how long I've been away from the blog? :) and G saw a girl with dark stage makeup all around her eyes. He looked at her sympathetically and said, "She has red eyes like me."

5. We got this dog . . . oh how Graysen loves this dog. Now does the dog love Grayen? Ehhhh . . . G will either drive this dog crazy or the dog is just going to eat him for a snack one day. So far, puppy nibbles are all he's experienced, but Buck saw Graysen literally grab the dog by the tail to keep him from running outside, like that's the stop handle, oh boy! Well, about three weeks ago, we took the puppy in to the vet. He climbed up on the scale, got down, and Graysen climbed up on the scale...it was a tie! 4 month old puppy and almost 4 year old boy--both 44 pounds! We've joked about how this dog could grow "as big as a horse." Graysen apparently misunderstood. He told me one day, "Mommy, I can't wait til our puppy grows up to be a pony!" He thought the dog would actually become a horse when it grew up :) Another day, he threw his arms around Chauncey and declared, "You are the best dog in the whole, wide . . . town." Didn't want the dog to get an even bigger head, I guess :)

I have to throw a dog one in for Brennen too . . . I was explaining to the kids that Chauncey was going to the vet for a few days to have a surgery. My hope was that blending this into a conversation about my mom having her knee surgery at the same time would distract the kids from asking too many questions about what Chauncey would be having "fixed" at the vet. Yeah, didn't quite work out that way.

"So Chauncey needs to get his knee fixed too?"

"No."

"Then why does he have to be gone for three days? I will miss him, what is his surgery for?"

"Well, you know how at the end of The Price is Right, Drew Carey says, 'Have your pets spayed or neutered?' Well, we are being good listeners."

Blank stares.

"Okay, umm, well we want to make sure that Chauncey doesn't have any puppies."

Brennen in amazement: "Boy dogs can have PUPPIES!!?" Oh dear.

"No . . ." (we haven't had "the talk" with our kids yet, and this was not how I wanted to launch it :) "We don't want a mommy dog to show up at our doorstep with a box full of puppies that look like Chauncey someday, who wants to go outside and play?"

"I want a box of puppies!"

"That would be awesome!"

"Let's go outside and play!" :) Aughh!! Suffice it to say, there will be no puppies that look like Chauncey, and the birds & the bees will have to wait for another opportunity (when mom and dad are both prepared and present :)

Busy with Projects

Two quick school projects . . . Caelan was supposed to build a sculpture out of food and this is what she came up with :) Very colorful and the rest of the kids were very generous in their praise of her culinary efforts and the delicious flavors that she included (it was very sweet :)

Gabby used magnet words to write sentances. She only needed a subject and a verb, but she threw adjectives and "color" into her assignment as well . . . I thought they were quite good for a quick project :)