Redemption

The evening started out horribly. I picked up Ethan only to hear that he had given his teacher some major attitude about picking up a mess that wasn't his.

"Does this mean no Dino Dan?"

That's when he darted under the sensory table and sobbed huge crocodile tears. Once I finally dragged him out, the tears just kept coming. He was tired and grumpy. I know the feeling. Apparently he hadn't napped and had oh so needed it.

I thought the evening was a goner. I chalked it up to misery and mentally planned the guilt trip I'd give him when he turned 18.

But then we got home.

I bought Scrabble Cheezits and started a game where if he read the word I made, he could eat them. He did fabulously. He ate a lot of 3 letter words - even a few 4 letter. Then I asked if they'd like a bath - and they jumped right in.

That's when I knew the night had turned.

Chaos - Fun - and finally, Exhaustion

You boys are too much.

Lotsa Fun...

You know you had a good weekend when Sunday night ends in tears of exhaustion... "I am NOT going to bed. I am staying RIGHT HERE forever. You can't make me!" Sorry kiddo - I still can....
I found this picture from our playdate last Sunday with Alex and Kenzie... Funny. Poor Kenzie was getting an eyeful!

They really enjoyed finding the space behind the couch. Lucas was sooo proud to be back there!

The week was crazy - as most weeks this time of year are. I don't know what it is, but when it's dark by the time you get home, there just seems to be no time for anything! We ended our week by meeting our friend Nadia (and mom) at McDs. Fun for the kids, fun for us. Ethan played so hard we had to take baths when we got back - he was a sweaty, nasty mess!

The next morning we got a package from Grammy and Grandpa! New hats made by Grammy - so cute!

The boys were thrilled and spent a good 10 minutes in front of the mirror posing... After that I took Ethan to go try out a gymnastics class. It turned out to be the same place I went to back in the day when I did a little gymnastics. I was never any good - stayed firmly in the beginners class my whole career, but I liked it. I did break my foot there though and almost lost it when Ethan hurt his leg (not badly) on the trampoline. It all came back to me!

He seemed to have fun.

It was a lot of little circuits with a lot of independent time- not sure I liked that - but he really loved swinging. I think he was supposed to climb the rope, but as no one was correcting him, go for it kiddo.

We figure we'll let him do it for a month or so and then re-evaluate. He did enjoy it and it definitely wore him out! Next up was getting the house ready to show off to Nana and my parents - and to you blog friends! Here is the dining room and the kitchen....

And then showing how the dining room connects to the family room...

And the family room's connected to the... office/mudroom/laundry room....

That's all you get to see for now... I didn't think to take pictures of the bedrooms.... We had a fabulous happy hour and then it was off to Bainbridge for Ethan and me. We went to a planetarium showing for the program I teach. We saw a lot of my kids and a cool presentation on UFOs and such. It really was interesting, though holding a squirmy 4 year old in my lap the whole time was difficult. Ethan was especially impressed by the "astronaut pee" that was mistaken for a UFO. That led to a whole discussion about astronaut toilets and such... He talked about it the whole way back to my parents, where we spent the night. He also went through the show, trying to make sense of all the man had said. "Some planets need spaceships and some don't. And there's the puppy planet. It's big. And the aliens will give you an apple." I could connect it all to different parts of the presentation - it was funny to hear his recap. We snuggled in with Uma and Upa and had a relaxing night/morning before we ran off to pick up Brian and Lucas for church.

This afternoon we put on some boy band hits from the 90s on Pandora and rocked out while we played games on the wii. We hadn't done that in a while and it was amazing how much more coordinated Ethan is. I have to work to beat him now, and often don't. One exciting suprise was when he was reading his score to us - 95, 98, 99, 88. Who knew he could read those numbers? Crazy!

We had our friend come over for dinner and Ethan loooved showing them how to play his video games.

Lucas loved following Jillian around. They hunted for Kiki for a lot of the night - had a blast.

So it was a busy weekend - busy but fun! I'm glad it's a non-student day tomorrow. I could use the time to catch up and will enjoy the quiet. There's always plenty to get done, I'm excited to possibly feel caught up for once! And now I'm off to put my feet up. Because I can.

A New Game

"So that looked like fun... you tied Upa up?"

"Yep. It was hard work. We tied his hands, then his feet. Haaaaard work mom."

Oh did they love that game! My parents had the boys last night so that I could go to a meeting. They had far mre fun than they have here at home. As evidenced by the fact that Lucas did NOT want to come home today - wanted to go to Upa HOUSE!. Sorry kiddo... Actually, he was crying since the minute I picked him up. His teacher had gotten out the snacks, but wasn't serving them yet, so he didn't get any. He threw a class act tantrum, so of course I couldn't ask for any then. Then we had to go get Ethan - still screaming.... Sometimes it's embarassing to be a good mom.

I really think he's just overly emotional as all his teachers are moving to another center. Lucas is just so emotionally sensitive - this is hard for him. Hard for me too, to tell the truth.

Actually, though, it's been a great week so far - not that I've gotten much done around here, but I've had fun at school and the boys have been charming in the mornings... Of course now that I've put that into print, I'm sure tomorrow will be a nightmare. I should stop while I'm ahead! I'm going to go back to snuggling the boys while they watch yet another episode of Dino Dan. And maybe another...

Busy busy days....

When the week starts off with mommy throwing her back out and a full moon, one might think the whole thing doomed..... But, when there are two adorable boys there, it all works out. Highlights were a playdate at McD's, watching our friends Alex and Kenzie at their house, and then our crazy busy Friday... First was the bookfair/ice cream social at school. The boys, of course, picked out the neon ice cream with m & ms and ate only the candies... They also picked out a bunch of books - Ethan's favorite was a comic book about "Loud Boy". He loves that book... What little boy wouldn't?

After the ice cream was movie night at church. We built forts and brought blankies and I just about fell asleep watching Shrek. Lucas was great until the last half hour - then he was just running around causing trouble. Ethan was a little freaked out by the movie, but made it to the end.
Brian's been gone since Friday night having fun with his buddies in ID, so the boys and I decided that Saturday night would be a good night for a sleepover at Uma and Upa's. Ethan was super excited because he and Upa could be "Cooker Mans!" - and so they were. Even Lucas helped. They had a blast following Upa around and snuggling Uma. It was great. I even got to go out with a friend! AND THE BOYS SLEPT TILL 7:30 THIS MORNING.

That my friends, is a miracle. Bad news was that wasn't enough time to get to church. Good news was that meant we could go to Costco when it opened and miss the crowds. Bad news was that meant I was actually calm as we went through Costco and bought way more than I probably needed to. Good news is we won't have to shop for a month. In the words of one of my students "It all balances out - good and bad, it's how you look at it." So true.
So now I better go bark at whichever child is pretending to sleep but really playing with the trains... GO TO SLEEP.

Oh Brother...

"Ethan, that was quite the hug you gave your girlfriend today."

"Yep, long and hard... I love to kiss her."

"NO. You don't need to be kissing girls yet."

"So when mom, when I live with them?"

"No, when you marry them. Or maybe when you're sixteen."

"I'm going to marry that girl."

"Are you? She is definitely cute."
"And nice mom. She's really nice."

(Lucas) "Asassly! Asassly is cute!"

Ethan told me about a birthday party for one of the teachers tomorrow...

"Mom, it's Miss Cindy's birthday. She's turning a really big number! Like one more than you! Really old mom! Like one more than a hundred!"

Then later... "I remember - Miss Cindy is turning 21!"

If she's 21, I'm 10. I'm just saying.

The ups and downs and all arounds...

"Mommy, our car is all growed up. That's why it's bigger than all these other cars..."

Friday afternoon Ethan had a program at daycare! Uma and Brian got to go and watch - very cute! Ethan was, as always, extremely animated and quite the show-stopper. I don't know where he gets his dramatic flair from... not at all... That boy does love being on stage!

Afterwards, I met them to celebrate at the foffee shop and then we headed to pick out some Christmas presents from our Nana at Barne's and Noble. Lucas picked out his books quickly and then sat patiently at the stage- waiting ever so desperately to sit on the actual stage chairs...

Unfortunately, the kids there were not giving up their prime real estate, and we eventually gave up, but in the meantime, Lucas was really into his books. Ethan was running around everywhere changing his mind every 20 seconds about what he wanted to pick out. Don't know where he got that habit either.

We headed to dinner and Ethan started really complaining about his ear hurting. He'd mentioned it before, but now it was at the point where the boy could do nothing but whine and fuss... He was a mess. And so, we headed to the Urgent Care. We decided to get Lucas checked too, as he'd been complaining the day before.

Ethan was horribly infected - that's 2 since his tubes fell out... And Lucas has fluid, so he'll probably be soon. The doctor was really great with them, but got them so wound up that bedtime was a bit of a mess.

The next morning all were feeling better, so I zumba-ed, we got our furniture delivery (yay!), and off to IKEA we went. There were a few more things we wanted that only that store could provide....

Lucas really loved this cart. Problem was that if there was anything on it at all it was too heavy. So he was pushing around an empty cart through the crowds of people. People loved us. When we finally got to the last thing we were picking up, we came into a bit of a problem that one might have thought we'd have thought of already - how do you fit 7 ft shelved into the car? I thought of a solution, though the end result was painful - the boxes (about 160 lbs) had to rest on my knee so as to not push the gearshift into neutral.

We were excited because we thought this would keep the very tired and cranky boys from bickering each other. Nope, not the case. They discovered that they could poke each other under the boxes.

We made it home and started assembling... I wish I had pictures of the "after" to show, but you'll have to wait. We've been busy and are still putting the finishing (well, more like middle) touches on. I will say, however, that it is 100% awesome-r in here. Very cozy and warm. So I'd predict very soon I'll have those pictures. Maybe tonight, though I'm not so sure. My to-do list for this day off just keeps growing. The more I do, the more I remember needs to be done. At some point I'll get ahead, right?

I will say that we've done a lot to get ourselves back into order. We're eating healthy, I'm exercising, and we're keeping up with the housework. I think we're finally out of vacation mode and back to reality. A good thing. And now back to my list. This is one thing I get to check off - yay!
Below is the video of the program - it's only a few minutes long. Ethan's in the middle, second row, behind the girl that refuses to melt. If you're reading this in email or facebook, you'll have to go to the actual blog page for it to work - www.spraguedrama.blogspot.com

I love this boy!

A Song...

to the tune of Frere Jacques...

"Allosaurus, Allosaurus

Fast and Strong, Fast and Strong

He was happy to meet you...

Because he wanted to eat YOU!"

And Lucas' version -

"Allofovus allofovus

I eat you! I eat YOU!"

Thank you Miss Helen! My new favorite song!

sNOw Day

Where were all these snow days when I was growing up? Well, I remember a few, but they were mostly for ice, not snow! Alas, today was a snow day... 4 or so inches when we woke up, but all gone by lunch time... It was too yucky and slushy to play in, so we celebrated my way...

"Foffees!" Lucas' new "cheese" face. He takes himself very seriously and no kidding, this same expression comes for every posed picture now. A philosopher...

We made No Pudge Fudge Brownies - yum! And you can make single servings in the microwave. The boys loved mixing their own - though Lucas got confused and took a big bite before I cooked it.

"These are not squares! Crazy!"

"I go round. Round round round."

And then my favorite.... after baths, while I attacked the dishes...

It was first a race course over pillows....

Oh the giggles...

Excitement built....

Back and forth... back and forth...

No tears, just laughs....

"Come on Lucas - this way!"

Brothers working together to make it BETTER!

"Let's try it this way. Here Lucas. Do it here."

"This is the best in the whole right world!"

But we all know that eventually....

Laughter leads to crying...

It didn't last... and the jumps got better and higher!

The giggles got louder..... until it was time for more planning....

"Traffic Jam! Watch out for traffic Lucas!"

"CRASH!"

Every now and then they work together, play together...

And my heart smiles.