New Hair Do & Josiah-isms

Rarely do a post just a photo of me here on the blog. However, I got a new "do" here recently and decided to share. My friend from church (Christy) highlighted and cut my hair this last Saturday. It was an early b-day gift from my mom. I really like what she did, it looks really nice and I have less bulk now to deal with in the back! Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday! We went to my parent's house for the feasting and thanking and had a nice time. I stayed the night there with the boys and David drove back that night 'cause he had to work that night a bit and the next day. It was interesting to say the least to try and stay the night there. We had two pack n' plays for the boys, but they were none too happy to be out of their routine and didn't want to go down at the normal time of 7pm. After Caleb's screaming bloody murder fit for about 20 minutes, mom suggested we take them for a ride in the car. They proceeded to blabber to each other in the car and make raspberries the entire drive and finally we asked them, "Are you hungry?" and indeed they were! I thought they had eaten more that day, but apparently not. We stopped at a Shell station and got them a snack that they scarfed down on the way home. Then after drinking some milk in the high chairs, I put Daniel down at 8:30pm, then got Josiah down around 9pm and then retrieved Caleb from my Dad who was very subdued by that point and he was down and out by 9:30pm! Needless to say, the next day when we came home, they went down much earlier than the norm and slept for 11 hours....a new record! My mom's comment to me as we were leaving was, "You're amazing....I don't know how you do it." My response to her was that at our home we have it childproofed a bit more, and that our routines are established here and though it is still not "easy" it is easier than trying to work with them elsewhere. Just as a fun side note, while at the parent's house, the various blips in the child-proofing defenses were as follows: salt and pepper poured out onto the dining room table and in the living room when Caleb smuggled it in there, Daniel pulled a mug of coffee pulled to the kitchen floor (thankfully luke warm), Daniel also knocked a pop right out of my hands all over my clothes and some got on the couch, the computers were turned on and off numerous times, the lamp in the family room was knocked over frequently (though not broken thankfully), & the dishwasher was often started by Daniel and then promptly turned off by one of us. Fun times! The parent's were glad to have us over though and I am sure were breathing a sigh of relief that they are the grandparents and got some peace after we left as well.


The countdown to Christmas begins! And as usual, I will likely do our gift shopping the day before Christmas! We don't have that much to purchase, just some gifts for the kids, so that is pretty easy to find at the last minute. And any new toy to Josiah is the coolest thing ever, and the twins don't know any different, so it will be a fun year I am sure. Josiah has only asked for Lego sets....oh and most every "boy toy" commercial he has seen on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel when he sees them. It is funny. And for the girl toys, he either says, "We should get that for Hailey" (a friend's daughter) or now he will say, "When the baby girl gets older, we can get her that!"

While on a Josiah note, his new thing of late is to say, "I don't want a baby sister anymore. I want a KID!" I tell him that all babies grow up into kids. He still emphatically states that he doesn't want a baby sister and then says he wants another brother. I usually say something like, "We don't get to decide if the baby is a sister or a brother, only God decides that." He then in a mad voice says, "Then I am going to leave this family. I am going to go live with Grandma and Grandpa." When he said this to Daddy, Daddy just laughed and said, "That's silly, you can't leave this family....God gave you to us!" He also added that Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't be able to keep up with him. Josiah said, "Grandpa can run!" Daddy said, "No actually Grandpa can't run." (He has had some problems with his foot of late.) Josiah said, "Oh yeah." Good old 4-year-old logic...we can usually talk him out of things! Other times though, he does want a baby sister and he regularly hugs and kisses my belly and talks to the little girlie. Sometimes he will sit still to feel her kick too when she is really going at it and he has felt her a few times. The twins also say, "Hello baby" to my belly and kiss it, but I think they are just mimicking their big brother. They don't really get the concept that a baby is living in my belly!

Another cute conversation I had with Josiah today went something like this:

Josiah: When the baby girl grows up, I can marry her!

Mommy: No, you can't marry your sister, you have to marry somebody outside our family!

Josiah: Well, I have to marry SOMEONE!

Mommy: (chuckling to self) Sweetie, there are lots of girls out there to marry! Daddy and I will pray that you will meet the right girl for you when it is time to marry someone!

Earlier in the day today, Daddy shared some Smarties candies with Josiah and it was a fun treat. Later, Josiah did something good and I remarked, "You're so smart Josiah!" He replied, "That's because I ate Smarties!!" And that explains it I guess!!

Mommy & Her Three Boys!!

My husband took an opportunity this morning to capture this precious moment. We like to cuddle up in the morning and read "tories" as Daniel calls "stories" and amazingly, everyone is looking at the camera and has a cute look on their faces. The only downside is Mommy still has morning hair. Oh well, you win some and you lose some!

Super Glue Scare & Our Resident Hero

Our little Caleb-ee just as predicted was our very first 911 call here recently. I left the boys at my friend's house while I went to the doctor to get a check-up for baby girl and a half an hour later when I came back, I was walking up to her door with the firemen and paramedics!! I just KNEW it was one of my kids! I was a little worried at first until I was able to assess the situation and see that he was OK. I thought because she hadn't called me yet that it was such an emergency that she was still occupied helping the injured child. As it turns out, she was just still on the phone with poison control. Caleb found a drawer that had some small, sealed tubes of Super Glue and while my friend was in the bathroom for less than a minute, he took one out and started munching on it. She was afraid it would go down his throat and make it so he couldn't breathe or something and so called 911 immediately in case he needed transport to the hospital. They sent the team over and also connected her with poison control to remedy the situation the best she could from her end. They told her to make him drink some milk as that helps neutralize the properties of the glue and so she poured some into his mouth. Also she was told not to peal it off the skin as it could take some skin with it if not careful. It was coming out in big chunks though and even though it got stuck to the roof of his mouth and the back of his teeth, in a few days it all came off! They told me to have him eat crunchy peanut butter and things with fat in it to help get it to come off naturally. Thankfully also, the tube was so small that it didn't have enough toxins to hurt him in any other way if ingested. It just mainly presented a choking hazard if big pieces of the dried glue were swallowed and we got the majority of it out right away. Earlier when I was visiting with my friend before my appointment, I saw Caleb discover the Super Glue in the drawer, but I saw that they were sealed tubes and didn't move them because I thought I could distract him well enough from them and that he wouldn't be able to get into them anyway. I should have known better with my curious ones! Oh well, live and learn!

As a side note, the check-up for baby girl went great. Her heartbeat was steady at 140 and I was measuring properly and all that, so all is well!

At MOPS, they were giving away some free costumes, and I thought Josiah would enjoy dressing up as Buzz Lightyear for playtime. He was very excited when he saw the costume! He said, "I'm cute in this!" He also giggled at himself in the mirror and when showing Daddy he giggled a lot too. Whenever he wears it now we address him as Buzz Lightyear and it isn't until he removes the hood that we "recognize" that it is really Josiah! :) I hope to pick up a few more costumes for him to play in at some point! Oh and at one point we got him to say, "To 'finity and beyond!"

Gorgeous Sunset!!!!

The other day I was teaching and happened to glance outside and was just taken aback by how beautiful the sunset was! I asked David to go get a few pictures! So pretty!

This is a close-up and if you look very close you can see a chinook helicopter in the middle of the picture also.

Late 18-Month Well Child Visit & More "Sleeping" Capers

I have still been struggling a bit to get the boys to sleep for their naptimes and one day, they just took to falling asleep on the couch together. They didn't sleep as long as I would have liked this day, but such is life. The newest naptime arrangement is to put Caleb in the pack n' play in the living room, which he absolutely loves and Daniel sleeps in his room in the toddler bed. What is kind of funny is that David's mom told me that when he was little, he absolutely INSISTED to be in the center of the action all the time too (like Caleb) and she also had to set up a playpen in the kitchen area where she was for him. Like father like son I guess! The other day, I fought and fought with Caleb to sleep in his room and poor Daniel was looking at me like, "Get this kid outta here so I can sleep!" After a while, I got the idea to try him in the pack n' play and low and behold that was the ticket! He stopped fussing RIGHT away and nuzzled his head in the corner of the pack n' play and was asleep almost immediately. The interesting part also was that he slept MUCH longer (about 2 hours) and he slept through a piano and a flute lesson being conducted right next to him. Works for me! I'll take it! Daniel is pretty easy to get to sleep. If he falls asleep in his high chair or the car, I can just transfer him easily to his bed and he continues to sleep for a good long time also.

Daniel does really well in his toddler bed and at night both the boys settle into their room pretty nicely. The new "fun" thing to do however sometimes when they aren't super tired, is to turn on the light and wreak havoc in the room. The funny part is there isn't much to destroy, but they find and destroy it anyway. We have two dressers of clothes in there and even with 2 heavy bins of books on top of one of the dressers, they still manage to turn it around and pull out all the clothes from time to time. Another little trick they discovered this morning was to pull off the childproof lock on the door and come barging into my room at 5:15am. UGH!! It was bad enough that I heard them turn off the monitor at 4:30am...they reach into the crib that I have left in there (and created a roof for, see previous post) and pull on the cord they can get and get the surge protector near them and then pull the monitor cord and turn it off and/or switch the channel number. David jokingly now calls them "Pinky & the Brain" and says that like those two, they are a very ingenious combination of intellect and risk-taking/crazy behavior.

At the well child visit today, Daniel weighed in at 28 pounds 14.5 ounces (60th percentile) and was 36 1/2 inches long (above 100th percentile), and head circumference was 20 inches (also at the 100th percentile). (Note: Daddy has a big head too and I am convinced that equals lots 'o brains in there!) Both boys had to get 4 vaccines today, so that was not super popular, but I believe necessary to protect their health. One funny thing that happened though during this was that Josiah misheard the nurses who were talking about "hibs" (the haemophilus influenzae type B hib vaccine) and chimed in, "The babies already have BIBS." Too funny! I guess it shows he is listening though, right? Daniel took a great leap in his height this time!! He went from being under the 50th percentile to over 100%! Crazy! Though they did say that perhaps they got the measurement wrong last time. We haven't been in for a long time though, so I guess it is possible to see such a leap over a long period of time.

Here is sweet Caleb who for some reason always ends up on the floor at night when he is in his room with the blankets over his head. I go in there before I go to bed and check on him and move him back to his bed for the night and make sure both boys are covered up in their comfy beds. I am not sure his infatuation for sleeping on the floor exactly, but it has been a pattern for a few nights in a row that he does this, so I am sure he has his reasons!

Caleb is our smaller one of the two (always has been too). He weighed in today at 24 pounds 13 ounces (20th percentile), was 34 1/2 inches long (60th percentile), and head circumference was 19 1/2 inches (75th percentile). His head is not as big as Daniel's, but it is close!! When the doctor looked at Caleb today she said that his throat was pretty red, so we had him tested for strep just in case, but he didn't have that thankfully! Not sure what the deal is with the red throat, so we will just need to watch him for the next couple of days to be sure. He doesn't act sick at all, so I am hoping it is nothing!

The boys did pretty well at the doctor, but due to a last minute change in my child care plans, I had to bring Josiah with me, which was a little stressful. He of course was the most noisy and difficult when I was trying to talk to the doctor, which was frustrating. He calmed down eventually though and we got through the whole visit, shots and all. They had 2 nurses to help with the shots and such, so that was good too. Overall, the doctor was pleased with their progress and she didn't see anything to be concerned about (other than Caleb's red throat as I mentioned before). I told her about the amount of words they have and she thought it was just fine for their age right now. Speaking of which, here are some of the new words they say now: "ungry" for hungry, "eee" for eat, "ree" for read, "tory" for story, "nana" for banana, "lie" for light, "claw" for clock (like big brother Josiah used to), "siah" for Josiah, "naniel or daniel' for daniel (but neither will say Caleb yet), and they say "A, B, D, T, P" consistently for letters and "1, 2, 3" as well. I am sure there are a few more words that I am not thinking of that are new, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. They are doing really well with all the animal sounds now and they have the following down: cow (moo), sheep (baa), owl (hoo), cat (meow), dog (oof, oof), rooster (oo, oo, oo, oo, Oooo), pig (funny throat sound for this one), & horse (neigh, neigh) are the ones I can remember offhand.