Birthday Boys!

Born a month apart (working forwards), the boys have the monopoly on fall birthday celebrations. Throw in cousin C, and we've got shindigs worth digging!

We began with a community-wide celebration and parade for Mr. G's 4th! Cousin C also partook in the celebratory revelry that included a mile long parade! At one point, the girls jumped into the parade and got to enjoy floating along, waving, and handing out candy. What an adventure! Graysen was happy to drive the motorized monster truck around and around and around the yard. Exactly what he asked when Maga called for birthday wish list ideas. A month or so later, he especially enjoys driving it around and around and around the dog, who despite his size, is really an overgrown baby :) Oh how Graysen giggles. It practically throws Chauncey into fits of hiccups (which he still gets ALL the time!)

Fast forward a month or so, and it is nearly time for Brennen to hit the birthday candle day on the calendar. The weather has been stunningly beautiful, so trick or treat night proved a fab opportunity for my sis and her crew and my mom and her two to scoot our direction for a candy-gathering fest and early "happy to you" party.

In the midst of all this, Cae is on a full diet, wheat/gluten inclusive. She's eating pizza, cake, big soft pretzels, any cereal she wants . . . that Atkins fella would shake his head in dismay :) So far, she's been fairly unsymptomatic. Her emotions are mostly in check, though she's a touch more sassy, bossy, and dramatic than usual. Buck sees a big difference, I think she's just a little extra caught up in the excitement of being "normal." :) Bloodwork will tell us in the next couple weeks what her future dietary outlook might be.

 

Wow, that was a long way from "Birthday Boys!" Just letting my thoughts flow through the keyboard, I suppose. I just caught up a month in one post (well, sort of :)

 Pics I nabbed from my sis, for whatever reason, my camera deleted all the birthday party pics I took.

 This is supposed to be a beach ball made out of dots as G requested :)



The older kids made G a StarWars poster for his wall. Very sweet and thoughtful, and he loves it!

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 :)