Farewell Bash!

Last night, we had a little block party in honor of the Collins family, who are moving this week. (cry) Everyone had a blast! My kids were even up until the unheard of (for them) hour of 10p.m!!!

We are all going to miss them TONS but know they will come back to visit plenty since they are not moving very far. :)

There was a vat of lemonade which Simon thought was just coolest because he could dispense it himself. Here he is with his 20th cup of lemonade. After that, he wet his pants three times over the course of an hour, at which point, we gave up and put him in a Pullup because the lemonade just kept on flowing...


My favorite picture, out of about 25 takes, of all the kiddoes, minus three -- one didn't want her picture taken, one family couldn't make it, and one was in bed at this point. Notice Simon has yet another cup of lemonade.


The three little brothers: Rube, Quinn and Simon. They are some of the toughest little dudes you will ever meet thanks to having big brothers. Seriously, no one crosses these kids... and BOY can they fight amongst themselves!


But they also love hanging out together...


Sophia and John a.k.a. The Bickersons


The husbands, minus one, who will need to be photoshopped in later. ;)


The big thing this year is to climb the big tree in the common area. Elise, John and Sophia have all conquered it. (this is Elise and John). Ben wants SO badly to climb it too, but he needs a couple more inches on him yet...


Quinn and Simon bobbing for Doritoes. I don't even want to estimate how many chips my children ate between them last night...


The late-night glowstick dance party... BOY did they have a blast. Video coming of this later. ;)

Happy Birthday to Simon!

I got the candle here.

Simon is Three!

Dear Simon,

Today you turned the big 3. I find this extremely difficult to believe because it feels like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital and yet now, you are the same age your brother was that day we brought you home.

So far, you are playing the part of a three-year-old quite well. Independent, opinionated and curious. The "whys" have officially started and they are constant. Why is Ben at school? Why do birds fly? Why does Davey meow? Why, why, why indeed.

You are a smart little guy, street-wise for your age, thanks to being the younger brother. You are daring, but not fearless, independent but still run to mommy when you get hurt, loving and snuggly, but still oh so rough and tumble.

You continue to be our total sports junkie. Something hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday as I was reading a post over on your Aunt Krystyna's blog about your cousin Anastasia being into princesses despite Aunt Krystyna never being a girly girl and never really being into princesses and such herself. Similarly, I really never saw myself as the mom of a particularly sports-oriented boy and yet, here we are... there are hardly any sports you haven't given a go and most you are pretty decent at for a three-year-old. We honestly did nothing special to push you into it or make you like anything with a ball (other than daddy playing with you and Ben outside)... you really just came out that way. It's been interesting to just stand back and observe and I have to wonder where it will take you and which sport you will eventually settle on.

We gave you your big kid bike last night and you were SO happy. You just kept riding back and forth out front saying, "I LIKE my new two-wheeler bike!!!" and then demanding for us to remove the training wheels. (umm... no)


This morning you woke up to a few more presents -- a pair of lacrosse sticks and balls and some knee and elbow pads for when you ride your skateboard. "I got 'cross sticks!!!" you exclaimed over and over again.

Then, on the way back from the busstop, your friends Trey and Quinn gave you a tennis racket and tennis balls. You were so torn and ultimately ended up bringing both the lacrosse stick AND the tennis racket with you on the ride to school. ;)

We celebrated with brownies for snack at school today and you were SO excited for your "party" and your candle.


You keep asking me when you can blow out the candle again and if your birthday cake is done yet... so the cake later on should be a huge winner. ;)

Happy birthday, Little Dude. I am so proud to be the mommy of such an awesome three-year-old!

Love,
Mommy

I Swear I am Not a Booze Hound...

This was pulled out of the backpack this morning...






I'm not so much embarassed that my six-year-old thinks my favorite food is beer, although, yeah, that's kind of embarassing. (and seriously, I drink maybe HALF A BEER when I drink one!!) But, Bud Light? Really?! C'mon kid, we have better taste than that! Well, except that these days for me, the beer of choice is the lovely non-alchoholic O'Doules...

Star of the Week

I snuck into school with Ben this morning and snapped a couple quick photos of the Star of the Week wall. :)

Baby Blog Address...

Three's blog is temporarily here:
http://www.babyhumanthree.blogspot.com/

Star of the Week!

Ben waited TWENTY TWO VERY LONG WEEKS to finally be chosen for Star of the Week at school. (it's randomly chosen most Fridays) It was killing him. Every Friday he'd come home and lament that it STILL wasn't his week and that he'd never get to do it. He's even had his favorite book and stuffed animal picked out since October in preparation.

Anyway, so yeah, this is finally his week and BOY was he excited on Friday. And then, practically bounced out the door yesterday with his five photos of himself in hand for the SOTW wall. He said when he got home that his classmates and his teacher all thought his baby pictures were funny and that they all laughed.

So to say it was a good day at school for Ben would be an understatement. I think I may email his teacher and see if I can stop in tomorrow morning during dropoff and take a picture of his photo wall. He'd get a kick out of having that.

Today he brings his favorite book and he's taking his Star Wars Lego Encyclopedia.

Oh, and my favorite comment from him about his Star of the Week status?

"I think I'm going to make the BEST Star of the Week ever because I'm already a star!"
(yeah, no self esteem issues with this one)

Future Tony Hawk....

Ugh. This is what I get for uttering the words, "No child of MINE will ever own a skateboard."
He LOVES this thing though... he even talked about it in his sleep last night.

Simon Says...

In the bathtub last night...

Simon: I know why there is a penIs on my bum. (this made me realize he thinks the entire below the waist region is called his bum)

Me: Oh really, why?

Simon: Because we got it at the penIs store!

(Of course, the penIs store, duh. Where else would you get one of those? Oh wait... how about the penIs factory that is clearly my reproductive system?)

Toothless Wonder...

So, for those who weren't following my Facebook status tooth saga, Ben finally lost the most disgusting dangling loose front tooth ever. It fell out when I barely touched it with a toothbrush yesterday morning. When this happened, he freaked his freak out and immediately took a deep breath to let out a huge scream of panic.

That's when the tooth disappeared from where it had fallen into the bottom of his mouth and flew into the back of his throat with all the suction of a top-of-the-line Dyson vacuum cleaner.

It was all a blur after that. The screaming. The freaking. The tooth was gone. Eventually, he recovered and was a much happier little guy since that uncomfortable loose tooth was finally out. I sent him to school. At some point, it occurred to me that if he HAD actually inhaled it, that that might not be good. A few quick Google searches confirmed this.

Crud.

I had to get Simon to school though so I waited to call the pediatrician until we we got home. I was hoping for a pat on the head and an assurance that it was no big deal, he was fine. WRONG. The pediatrician said that, while it was unlikely he had actually inhaled it and not just swallowed it (because he recovered so quickly without much coughing), he still needed to know for the all the reasons I had encountered in my Google search.

Tom ran him up to Advanced Radiology around 4:30, where they don't think they saw anything. But the doctor will let us know on Monday.

At this point, I'm sure he's fine. BUt still... for the love of PETE. Who knew a loose tooth could cause this much DRAMA?!?!

Teeball, Schmeeball...

So my husband is extremely exasperated with teeball. Turns out it's way too much administrative nonsense for him, frankly. I think the last straw came the other day when he got an email from the league commissioner saying he had received an email from a mother who was upset that Tom had ended practice early. (he didn't and she showed up a half hour late) Yeah, he's regretting this volunteer effort BIGtime. Honestly, I'm not even sure Ben will play next year because this is ONE heckofa long commitment. It started in early April and goes until the END OF JUNE. In fact, the last game is the day before we leave for vacation.

Sheesh.

He says he'd rather his kids learn to play golf anyway, if he had to choose one sport. I'd prefer it too... it's way more flexible, there's no set commitment and it's something they will actually still play in their adult life.

They both beg Tom every evening to go hit golf balls these days, so I think he's well on his way to completely indoctrinating them. Ben got his first real set of clubs and a golf bag last weekend and Tom wants to take him out on the course to play a few holes one day soon. Simon, of course, was not left out and also got a few new clubs made by Pap. ( I should add that these Pap-made-clubs are real clubs too... but something about buying Ben's set at the golf store and them being all shiny and looking like a set and having a matching bag made it extra cool for him) ;)

Now... just counting down the days until teeball is OVER so our Saturday mornings are free again!

Address Change....

Blogger is discontinuing FTP service on 5/1, which stinks because that's how I publish this blog AND my baby blog. My choices are to either go back to a .blogspot address or switch all my sites/thousands of posts over to Wordpress (or some other publishing platform)

Seeing as how I have had NO time to figure out how to do the latter this month, I will temporarily be doing the former... so when this site disappears on 5/1 (which is when they claim they are turning off the ftp service), just add .blogspot back to my address to access this site.

So this will be http://www.taleofababyhuman.blogspot.com
and my other one will be temporarily something else entirely that I have to figure out still... hopefully http://www.threeof3.blogspot.com if it's available.

I guess I'll also be depassworded during my (hopefully) brief stint at the blogspot addresses. Bleh.

Irked does not even begin to describe how I feel about Blogger right now.

Bigfoot...

I just measured Simon's feet with the handy dandy Stride Rite printable ruler thingy and he's an 8.5 DOUBLE WIDE. Sheesh.

He has been wearing a pair of Ben's extra shoes (size 9's that still actually fit Ben) for awhile now just because he found them in the shoe basket and liked them. Oddly, they did kinda seem like they fit well.

So yeah, my six-year-old and three-year-old now pretty much wear the same size shoe. Unless of course, Ben has grown... I guess I should measure HIM again soon too!! Yikes!

Mini Golf...

The conversation this morning went something like this:
"Simon, what do you want to do?"

"I want to take my driver and my golf ball and go outside and hit balls in the side yard."

"All right, let's go."

"Wait a minute, I need a golf hat!" (followed by him bounding up the stairs in search of said golf hat, declaring he couldn't reach it, me going up to see where it was and him pointing to Tom's Titleist hat up on the dresser.

Then he asked that I take pictures of him golfing so he could look at them later.

I'm just following orders. ;)

Looth Tooth...

This morning Ben's second top tooth is hanging by the thinnest of threads and he is very upset over it. I am resisting the temptation to just hold him down and yank the sucker out because it's causing so much drama!!! Getting him out the door to school this morning should be interesting..

Simon's Birthday...

...is fast approaching. And I am trying to figure out what to get him and what to put on his list. It's REALLY hard because he basically just plays with pretty much everything Ben plays with and most of that stuff, we definitely don't need two of.

So far, I *think* we're getting him a tennis racket and a set of lacrosse sticks, both things that, I kid you not, he has asked for repeatedly. (seriously, he is such a jock in the making) There was also the idea of the 12" bike (which is only just over $30 at Walmart so isn't really going to break the bank). I think that's a good one and then I really think that's plenty from us. But what do I tell other people?!

What do you get a three-year-old who think he's five?

The Summer of the Two-Wheeler...

Over the weekend, one of Ben's neighborhood friends his age started learning to ride a two-wheeler... or rather, he kinda just got on and did it and is now officially a big-kid bike rider. His other friend followed suit and now Ben's interest is piqued. He's not ready for us to actually take the training wheels off of HIS bike, but he does try out John and Sophia's bikes whenever he gets the chance and when no one is really paying attention.

So I think this is going to be THAT summer... the summer he learns to ride a bike, which is kinda cool and momentous. :) I'm even considering getting Simon the smaller version of the bike Ben has for his birthday because I'm sure once Ben gets going with it, he'll want to try it too and how nice would it be to get a two-for-one-deal on teaching them how ride?

I just hope Tom realizes he'll be doing all the holding on to the seat and chasing behind them while they learn because, yeah, I did that for about five minutes two days ago and I can tell you right now, I am not going to be able to that all summer in my current state. LOL.

Nearly Two Years in the Making...

We decided it was time to give church another go this morning. Not that we haven't wanted to be going on a regular basis -- we love our church -- but Simon would NOT stay in the Sunday School. I was more than happy to bring him to the services with us and keep him entertained, but for some reason, the whole darn building freaked him out and our attempts at church in the past year and a half or so have resulted in us basically dropping Ben in Sunday School and then spending an hour wandering the halls with Simon. Yeah, not exactly fun. After the last round of this, which was, gosh, I guess maybe last summer, I decided we were going to give it a rest until after he got into preschool and AFTER they started with "separation time". (which was in January) He has done wonderfully with separation, no tears or freakouts at all, so today was the big day. At first it wasn't looking good... but then he told us he wanted to stay and play with the toys and kids instead of coming to church with mommy and daddy. And stay he did! And he stayed the whole time! And when we picked him up, he was HAPPY!

Whew.

This is *two* kids that have put me through this now. I told Tom with this next one, we have GOT to start him in the infant nursery, which isn't something that thrills me, but if it means we'll avoid taking a year and a half off of church, it will be worth it.

Tee Ball...

Simon and I went along to Ben's teeball practice this morning. Mostly, I had to entertain Simon on the adjacent tennis court, but I did sneak in a couple shots of big brother. :) Coach Dad is pretty awesome. ;) It was funny to hear all the other parents talking about him too. I heard things like "what an improvement over LAST year's coach!" and "he MUST be a teacher, he's so great with them!" LOL. My husband and his brothers do have quite a way with kids and it's pretty amazing to watch them respond!





Also, Ben is on the verge of losing his second top front tooth! He's going to have that adorable 6-year-old smile soon!

Easter Recap...

We had a busy and fun-filled (and candy-filled) Easter this year!

On Good Friday, we headed over to my parents' house for dinner and the Annual Amazing Aunt Debbie Egg Hunt. This year, there were two separate hunts, one for Simon and one for Ben.




Simon so kindly took a moment off from golfing to humor us and hunt for eggs.



Then it was Ben's turn. His hunt was an "Amazing Race" through the 50 states to find eggs and prizes SO cool. And now he has added all 50 state flags to his ever-growing flag collection. ;)




As usual, the hunts were amazing and the kids had a blast! Aunt Debbie rocks! ;)

On Easter Sunday, we surprised Nanee and Pap by meeting them at their church. Simon's still kind of a no-go for Sunday school at our own church, so we figured we wouldn't be missing much there since we'd have to wrangle him in the service with us. He surprised us all by being perfectly quiet and well-behaved during my inlaws' church service though!

Speaking of surprises, BOTH of my kids were super-cooperative for pics in their Easter outfits before we left for church! I posted my favorite, but I also loved this one. I got a record total of five decent photos of them in about 45 seconds.


After church and a rest time at home, we headed to my inlaws' house for dinner and more egg hunting. I entertained myself trying to capture the elusive photo of all three cousins together and looking at the camera. Bonus points if they all were at least KIND of smiling.


Egg hunting ensued...












And so did the quarter counting and candy-eating...


Did I mention, Ben got a haircut on Saturday? Doesn't he look TWELVE all of the sudden?!


No, seriously.. twelve!!!


Simon insisted I take pictures of him shooting baskets so he could look at them. I guess he wanted to check his form or something? ;)


Ben's turning into quite the basketball player too, as a matter of fact... with some help from his daddy and uncles...


And more attempts at a photo of all the kiddos...





And thus, wraps up Easter 2010. Next stop, birthday-ville -- Husband, brother, BILs and Simon!

Happy Easter!

It's a....

CB#: 4102185434

Everything looks perfect! And...it's...a... sorry, this has to wait until i get home...;)
CB#: 4102185434