Gma B's Visit

When Ruth was in the hospital, Mom flew out to help out. It was such a gift to have her and my aunt and uncle here to live through the hospital week with us and then to pack up Ruth's condo. Because a majority of her time was spent in San Diego, her visit this time was a little different for all of us, but we did manage to have a couple days at our house where the boys got to enjoy quality time with her. 

One day we packed a picnic lunch and went to a park.  Grandma B was all about climbing up on the structure with them. Caleb wanted to do the "monkey bars" but needed a little help from his willing older brother.

The boys also enjoyed fixing the stages puzzle with her. This puzzle had three different sizes of pieces--large, medium and small--so there was a section for each of them to complete.

Putting in the final piece

We even got to celebrate her birthday with her and watched her open (and help) her presents after Ruth's memorial service.

Superheroes

Thanks to a friend, the boys have a plethora of fun costumes with which they like to play.  Here are a few pix of our little Superman and Batman.

"Up, up, and away!"

"Crime doesn't pay!"

Superman in action!

I especially love that they are each wearing a couple of their favorite shirts--Mario Bros. for Caleb and Lego Star Wars for Isaac.

Morning at the Fire Station

The Moms' Group at our church has been such a blessing and gift to me since having the boys. When Isaac was born and I first started going, we were a group of women who met in each other's homes to grow spiritually and to pray for each other. As we added more children and became too large for some of our homes, we started meeting at church and became an official MOPS group. When our group outgrew the space and childcare help available at church, we went back to being our own organized and run Moms' Group that continues to meet at church. The women in this group have become special friends and support to me, and their kids are some of our boys' best friends.

Normally, we meet at church every other week, but this past week we went on a field trip to a fire station. The firemen were so nice and very good with the kids. They gave each kid a fire hat, let the kids look in the ambulance and fire truck, showed them all their gear, demonstrated all the clothes they have to wear to a fire and even posed with the kids in full uniform, and let them look into their new thermal camera.

Before going, I had warned Isaac that he would probably be asked to help since he would be the oldest one there. When nobody volunteered to be hooked up to the heart monitor in the ambulance, the fireman immediately picked out Isaac to be his assistant. Isaac would have NONE of it and refused to help. (The fireman hooked himself up to it then, and a little later one of Isaac's friends volunteered to try it.) I think Isaac got a little panicked thinking about having to help because within a few minutes he came to me complaining that he was dizzy. At first I was annoyed with his clingy-ness but then realized something was wrong when he started gagging and I saw that his face was completely devoid of color! He got so worked up, he almost fainted. What better place to faint, though, than at a fire station surrounded by firemen trained to save lives?!? One of the fireman gave us a pretty pink dishpan and a bottle of water when he saw that I was holding Isaac's baseball cap under his mouth to catch any possible vomit. We went into the cooler fire station for a minute or two and then came back out. When we came out, he was still pasty white and his lips were grayish, but he recovered quickly and got back into the tour with his friends.

(Bad mom moment confession--one of the first things that went through my mind as I held the dishpan for him was that I was bummed that we would not get to go to the park afterwards to have lunch with everyone. He was completely better by the end so we were able to join everyone at the park for lunch. :-)

Football!

Caleb is a football fanatic. And that is putting it mildly. Each Sunday during football season he would set up his little football guys and moved them to match the plays happening on the tv, and it was so fun to see his joy as he recognized the different teams playing. (I am not sure who was more excited to turn on the football when we got home from church this year--Paul or Caleb!) He usually knew which teams were matched up against each other each week. His favorite teams were the Vikings, Chargers and the Crusaders (our school team) though he seemed to really like the "G's" (Packers--his name for them changed by the time the Superbowl came around). Now that the season is over, he is still asking who will be playing and when, and his little guys are still busy playing games each day.

Today was a good day for Caleb since Paul came home with some NFL stickers. Somebody asked Sandy if she knew of anybody who might like football stickers, and she thought of Caleb right away so she sent them home with Paul. Below is the video of Caleb and Isaac getting the stickers.


And here is one of Caleb telling Paul the names of each team according to their logos (got most of them):

Boys...

...will be boys. Life at our house can be a bit chaotic at times. My boys love to wrestle and throw balls and jump off things and be fast and the list goes on. Today was one of those days where it felt like they had a little extra energy.

Isaac had school today so Caleb and I had a peaceful morning together. We went to the grocery store. We made dessert for Paul to take to school tomorrow; Caleb loved smashing the Oreos just like he did for Gma. N's dirt cake. He helped make and get things ready for lunch before we left to get Isaac. The rest of the time he spent playing by himself with a variety of toys. My favorite thing he is doing these days is making imaginary conversations between his toys, and today was filled with his making his football guys talk to each other.

Random side note regarding Caleb: He is in the process of potty training (yeah, I know he is three, but he is a stubborn three and is going to go when HE wants to go) and has finally mastered #1. Today while going, he said to me, "I really like peeing on the big potty now!" with a huge smile on his face. He also informed me tonight that he really does not care for pooping on the potty; I did not tell him that we had already noticed that.

Okay, back to our day. We went to pick up Isaac from school, and the boys proceeded to start yelling and wrestling as soon as we got home. We had some tears (many very fake if you ask me!) and yelling and whining and tattling and some timeouts between lunch and rest time but survived until naptime during which both boys fell asleep for a few hours.

Like I said earlier, boys will be boys. It has been hot here (upper 80's and into the 100's) so they have been inside more than usual which is part of the reason for their squirrely-ness. After dinner while cleaing up, I heard a crash and a shattering of glass. When I went to the hall to investigate, Isaac was nowhere to be seen and Caleb was standing in the hallway with very big eyes and saying, "Sorry!" His throw to Isaac was a "bit" off, and he managed to hit some of my Delft from my grandma off our ledge that is between the living room and hallway. He felt bad, Isaac was quick to clear himself of any wrongdoing when he came out of hiding, Paul cleaned up the broken Delft, and I went back to the dishes thinking about where I need to relocate the rest of my surviving Delft.

Oh, the joy of boys! I would not trade them for anything! (P.S. Right now they are both in bed resting up for tomorrow's adventures...)