Sweet and Sour

Andrew must be a classic two-year-old.  We have so many funny and precious moments when he’s being the sweetest little thing.

Hey, check out my belly button!

I see you!

Scott was napping one afternoon after a long business trip, and Andrew covered him up without waking him.  He also crowned him with Joe’s “100 days of school” celebration crown.  Daddy didn’t know about that until he saw the picture!

Andrew even tucked his feet in very tenderly.

One day, with no prompting at all, Andrew decided that mommy needed a nice meal.  He laid out the tea towel on the coffee table, got down a bowl and spoon, pulled a chair over from the dining room table, and asked daddy to help him pour me some cereal.  “Mommy, you sit here.  Wanna snack?”  It was so precious because it was unexpected and totally out of the ordinary for him.

Another day, Andrew tried to help me “make mac ‘n’ cheese”.  Scott must have recently made a milkshake because Andrew decided that using the blender was the way to go.  He poured in the uncooked macaroni and wanted me to “turn it on”  Yum yum!

But, in the last few weeks, the terrible twos have reared their ugly head.  For a few days, I thought he had lost his mind completely.  He wasn’t even himself.  It wasn’t just mere tantrums.  We deal with lots of those is this house, even after the twos are over.  It was his baseline personality that was changed.  Usually, he’s sweet and accommodating, but lately, it was grouchy, grouchy, grouchy.  He even woke himself up at night being grouchy.

Maybe we’ve turned the corner and maybe we haven’t yet.  Time will tell.  I miss my sweet little boy, though!  (and, yes, I’m fully aware that I’m wearing a 16 year old shirt in the picture above.  It’s great for when I have to cut hair!)

One quick story:  Andrew called to me from the bathroom one morning, “Mommy!  I spilled the toothbrush!”  Yes, he ‘spilled’ the toothbrush into the toilet.

Grammie and Granddad Visit

 

Luckily, we had plenty of snow for their trip.  The boys made a snowman.

Grammie reads Andrew his favorite:  Miss Fizzle (from the Magic School Bus)  He looks like he’s gagging here, but he’s just being goofy

Story time is a little chaotic.  Joe and Pat get the stadium seating (necessary in a big family!) and Joe probably just kneed Luke in the head.  Typical!

Thanks for visiting!

Love is in the Air

Let me first say that I find it completely ridiculous when parents promote little ‘romances’ with their young children.  ‘Crushes’ or ‘having a girlfriend’ have no place for little grade school kids!

So, when Joe’s teacher told me that Ella and Joe ‘liked’ each other, I wasn’t sure how to approach it.  When he would talk about her (which wasn’t very often) we would say things like, “Yes, she’s your good friend.  Who are some of your other friends at school?”

This Valentines Day, Joe made a special Valentine for Ella, handmade with rainbows and everything.  I tried to encourage him to make handmade Valentines for everyone in his class, which he did.  But, at school, one of his projects was to make this heart:

The middle says “Who Loves Me?”

In case you can’t read it, it says things like God, Dad, Mom, Brothers, ‘Ants’, Uncles, and way over in the corner, written very small, is the name ‘Ella’ 

When he showed us the heart, Scott pointed to it and asked him, “What’s this?”  He was clearly embarrassed in a very sweet way. 

We’re trying not to talk anymore about it, but it was a precious display of emotion.  Oh, and confidence… he must be pretty sure she loves him for him to put it on a school project!

Dells!

The boys had a three day winter break at school, so we headed to the Dells for an overnight stay.

Patrick

Joe on the Lazy River.  He wanted to stay there all night!

Patrick and daddy on the Lazy River.  Patrick and Luke are good enough swimmers this time that they could do by themselves.  They were even tall enough to stand in the water.  The problem was that when they were inside a tube, you couldn’t see the tops of their heads and they couldn’t see in front of them!

Joe taking a break and showing off his smile that’s down a tooth.

Patrick really enjoyed the fountains.

Um, well, in case you can’t see the spray coming out from behind Patrick, he’s standing over a fountain.  There’s something a bit unseemly about him using it as his own personal bidet, but that’s a boy for you.

Before the water parks were open the next day, we played 3D mini-golf in the arcade.  The 3D glasses didn’t last long, but the boys got a kick out of the neon paint and the black light.

Andrew showing his muscles

Pretzel Patrick

Andrew is ready to head down the green slide for the 400th time.  Scott sent him down a little bit bigger of a slide, more for kids about 4-8.  I was at the bottom to greet him.  He had no expression on his face when he landed and got up.  I asked him if he had fun.  His response, while pointing severely at the slide:  “I did NOT like that.”

Luke

Happy Birthday to Mom

Scott and the boys insisted on making a cake for me all by themselves.  I must say, that it went a little worse than I expected.  Scott was trying to mix it only using the spatula.  I tried not to interfere, but I just couldn’t help telling him that cake really needed a mixer.

Then, they tried frosting the cake.  I think you can see the issues there.

Finally, I did try to assist the efforts, but parts of the cake could not be salvaged.  Andrew did the ‘marsh-la-low’ decorations (which happened to be left over from Christmas.  yum).  A thing of beauty for any mom!

Scott took the boys to the Milwaukee Bucks game the next night.  Of course, they had to wear their Packers gear in anticipation of the big game tomorrow.  Go Pack Go!

Funny story:  Scott was using the company’s tickets for the evening since they were not reserved for any company business.  They were fantastic seats, only a few rows from the floor and right at center court.  Just a little while into the game, the boys were clamoring to go to the top of the arena where they wanted to watch the game from the nose-bleed seats.  Come on boys!  You have every other game in your life that we will have to pay for to watch from the cheap seats!  It just reminded me of the time that we had just enjoyed a wonderful, slaved-over Christmas dinner when Luke came up to Grandpa and asked when we could go to McDonalds!

Blizzard

We get a lot of snow here, so that’s nothing new, but last night, we got a true blizzard.  Snow + high winds = huge snow drifts.  We didn’t get that much snow, it just landed so crazily.

This is our garage.  We had to shovel off the top so that a snowblower could even begin to do it’s work.

Seriously crazy:  Just a few feet in front of the mountain blocking my garage, you could see bare pavement on the driveway.

 

The drifts were so big, they covered the outdoor swimming pool in my neighbors back yard.  They also covered the bottoms of the swings.

After being cooped up for the morning, the boys wanted to go out in the snow.  This didn’t end up being such a good idea.  The snow was so deep, that the boys kept loosing their boots and whatever toys they brought out with them.  I had to ‘rescue’ Patrick from the picnic table under the slide (can’t even see it, can you?) because he couldn’t find his boot and his foot was about to freeze off.  When the snow is above their waist, we shouldn’t even bother.