TTT: Season 2, Episode 46

1. First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope your day is being spent with people you love...and food you love to eat! That's the plan at our house. And yes, I did manage to get everything done in time. Though I did just get a glimpse of the ceiling fan in the kitchen and it's sporting some pretty good dust on the edges. Oops. But everything else. All the outstanding orders from the shop that I needed to fill. All the deep-down cleaning that hadn't been done in weeks months, and even the painting of the boys' bathroom that I promised myself I'd have done by Thanksgiving when we moved in back in May. Like they say, there's no motivator quite like a deadline. And I was determined not to let that one slide. Though I'm nearly one hundred percent sure that no one would have cared other than me. Actually I'm pretty sure that no one even notices other than me. 'Cause really, it's only me that gets disappointed when I don't actually accomplish something I set my mind to. Maybe that's something I should put on the new year's resolution list of things to deal with in the near future. And no, I didn't paint it while the boys sat, watched, and inhaled the paint fumes. So thanks to my parents for taking them for a good chunk of time while I got that done! And now back to my previously laid back, non-hectic life. Oh, wait. Christmas is in just thirty-one days.

2. My boys have been cracking me up lately. Especially that Rudy boy. Man, has he been getting clever on me! We've always know that there's a lot going on in that brain of his, but some of the stuff that's starting to come out is just hilarious! A few nights ago, I made lasagna for dinner. After cutting it up into little bites on his plate, he asked, "Mama, what are we eating tonight?" To which I responded in a dramatic singing voice: "Green beans and lasaaaaaaaagna!" His response? "Lasagna in the hi-ighest!" I'm sure anyone reading that's Catholic knows exactly what song he was singing. And even some non-Catholics could identify a good "Hosanna in the highest!" This was just days after his awesome lunch time response after prayers. Every now and then we say the ol' "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food" prayer. He ended it with: "Mama, we aren't having yettuce for yunch. Yettuce is in salad." Sheesh.

3. Wanna know what I'm thankful for this year?
-God's presence and guidance in our family and our home
- my amazing husband
- my beautiful children
- our house
- being gainfully employed
- family
- friends, near and far
- the safe delivery of our third baby
- our health
- all the overwhelming support of our loved ones
- laughter
- the success of my little business
- all of the many, many blessings we have received over the past year. We are far more blessed than I can ever imagine us being worthy of. I pray God knows how grateful we are. And that we might spend the next year living as though we truly are thankful.

Yep. Painted the bathroom. And finally broke out the new shower curtain I bought on clearance months ago.

Kolbe got a new guitar for his birthday with the gift card that Papa Jeep sent him. A nice replacement since Dada accidentally snapped his old guitar while putting the stroller in the trunk a while back. Kolbe loves listening to Mark play and trying to imitate him. I think it's precious.

Grant has been sleeping in our room since he was born, but lately neither he nor I have been getting much sleep. So last week in the middle of the night after a second waking, I tried putting him upstairs in his crib. He slept in until 8! I could hear him cooing up there and told Kolbe to run up and check on him while I finished cleaning up the dishes. When he didn't return a few minutes later, I went upstairs and found this.

Speaking of the not-so-little guy...he's officially rolling over now! Though I got a kick out of this the other day. I laid him down while I was running the vacuum...apparently he got his hips turned over, decided he was comfy, and just called it a day right there.

Last Friday, the boys and I had fun making Thanksgiving turkeys. Fun with toilet paper rolls, paper bowls, and paint chips from Home Depot!

My mom officially managed to get Grant's stocking done before leaving on her Thanksgiving trip to Boise. I seriously don't see how she does these. By hand! I'd give up a few stitches in. I just don't have the patience. But she sure does know how to make them look beautiful. All the detailed stitching and beading on Grant's is just amazing! Looking forward to adding it to our collection when we put up our Christmas decorations...hopefully this week! 

TTT: Season 2, Episode 45

1. I can't believe Thanksgiving will be a week from today! It certainly doesn't feel like it around here. I'm not kidding when I say that I wore a tank top and jeans yesterday. With sandals, of course. Most of the time I don't mind the weather being "pleasant" but it's really hard to get into the spirit of the holidays when it still feels like summer. We had gotten so used to chilly temperatures and often times even a snow or two by Thanksgiving. Guess we'll have to pray that happen while we're up in Lubbock at Christmas-time. I did set up my little "fall extravaganza" (as my mom calls it) on the front porch, hoping Mr. Scarecrow would bring in a little Thanksgiving cheer. But what looked so full on our porch in Lubbock looks pretty puny on our huge porch here. Guess I'll just have to add to it in seasons to come.

2. Mark was off call this past weekend so we had plenty of time to do things as a family. I'm not sure if I've ever come out and said this on here, but Mark is only off-call two weekends out of the month. So in other words, he works every.single.day.of.the.month except for four days. Four days. It's something that all of us are having major issues with right now. As in something has got to change ASAP. But back to what I was saying...when he is home on the weekends and we're not constantly waiting for the pager to go off, we always have a lot of fun together. And we managed to squeeze in a lot this past weekend. Work around the house, a family trip to Target, mass, Los Cucos with my parents, pancake breakfast at church, a trip to the hardware store, and a fun children's festival. Everything is much more fun...and manageable!...when Dada is along for the ride!

3. Little Grant is becoming so much more of a baby and less of an infant. And it's killing the boys that his face is animated as if he's participating in our activities, but physically he can't do what they're doing. Kolbe especially cannot wait until Grant is able to sit up on his own, grab and hold toys, etc. Right now he's got the grabbing part down, he just doesn't know what to do with the targeted item once it's in his hands. Or how to hang on to it for more than a few seconds. So I usually hear: "Mama! I gave that to Grant and he just dropped it on the floor!" Haha! Soon enough, I tell them. One thing he is really good at that the boys just love is his ability to socially laugh. If we're all sitting together and they boys start laughing, Grant will laugh too. Even though I know that he has no clue what the laugh is about, the boys get a kick out of thinking he does. It's so fun to see these little guys together.

And here's the week in pictures!

Rudy celebrated Veteran's Day by rocking his Air Force jacket!

Trying out Kolbe's new t-stand that he got for his birthday

I never get tired of pictures of the boys cuddling together

Hide-n-Seek has been quite the popular game around our house lately. And Rudy is definitely the champ. He seriously makes absolutely no noise at all when he's hiding. There's been a few times I've gone right past him and had no idea! And then there are other times where he  thinks he's hidden simply because his eyes are closed. Haha!

The other day I was trying pants on Kolbe (he's finally gotten taller!) and I asked Rudy to show Grant some of the baby toys to keep him entertained. When I turned around, this is what I found. I guess he got to see them all.

Oh, except for the one Rudy decided to wear bull-style on his nose.

The boys got the get their faces painted at the children's festival. And of course both of them chose baseballs.

They had some fascinating chalk painters at the festival too. Kolbe instantly picked up a piece of chalk and tried to do his rendition in the kiddie section.

My favorite picture of the boys yet. Man, am I ever blessed!

TTT: Season 2, Episode 44

1. Feeling kind of 'blah' this week. And it's quite easy to pinpoint the culprit. Sleep! I'm sure this is the story of most peoples' lives, right? It's amazing how sleep can factor into so many aspects of life. If I don't get enough sleep, I feel bad physically, seem to have a much shorter fuse, and just tend to get that 'stressed-out' feeling way more often. It's funny, because after a baby is born, all those natural hormones kick in and getting up countless times in the middle of the night is no biggie at all. But at some point that all wears off. Grant had gotten to the point where he was sleeping pretty soundlessly through most of the night. Like asleep by nine or ten and out until five or six. But over the past few weeks he's gradually gone to waking more frequently throughout the night. And this past week it's been the exact same routine every. single. night. Dead asleep at eight...can't do anything to stretch it out longer...awake at one and awake again at four. Like right on the hour. And we're not talking the 'I'm kinda hungry, feed me and I'll go right back to sleep'. It's the full-on, baby babbling, hey-mom-how-ya-doing awake. I think this started happening with Reagan but it was more around eight months instead of four. Anyway, my goal is to try a few tactics this weekend and see if we can fix the sleep situation before I come down with the inevitable sleep deprived cold or flu or lupus flare up. Snore.

2. We celebrated Kolbe's fourth birthday yesterday! FOUR years old! I can't believe it. Have I really been doing this mom thing for four years? Like a lot of monumental things, it seems both longer and shorter. I remember much of that day like it was yesterday. After all, it was one of the best days of my life while also being the most physically painful day of my life. But when I glance across all that has happened since, it seems like we've lived a whole lifetime since that day. I can't even imagine how we'll feel four years from now when he turns EIGHT! Kolbe is a fantastic little boy. He's so smart and clever. And man, does he ever have a mind of his own! He's definitely a boy to the core. He loves sports. Especially baseball. Give him anything physical to do and he's happy. He also loves to color, cook, and read. That is, when he's not busy bossing the whole house around. He literally gets upset over things like Rudy not finishing his lunch. Such a 'big brother.' I see him being class president some day. Or heck...United States President! But only if his goal of being Albert Pujols falls through. He's still itty-bitty teeny-tiny but has more than enough personality to make up for what he lacks in size! We sure love this boy. More and more every single day.

3. If you're like me, every year you have grand aspirations of being on top of the holiday season. It seems like early every October I start thinking of all the stuff I want to get done before Thanksgiving and before Christmas. And then as the days and weeks pass, I begin to panic and I realize that I'm failing miserably. This year is no exception. Have I done any of the little things around the house that I wanted to get done before Thanksgiving? Nope. Not a single one. And Lord knows I haven't tackled a single Christmas project either. Maybe everyone will understand if I don't come through with my typically creative ideas/projects/gifts this year. But knowing me, I'll somehow figure it all out in the eleventh hour. One of these days I'm going to manage to make it happen in, oh, say the eighth or ninth hour. But something tells me that will be at least eighteen years from now when there aren't more important matters to tend to.

My little napping Rudy...he always has at least two items in the bed with him. This time, a football and a sword. You know, just in case he gets to play catch or slay a dragon in his dreams.

Time to bathe the shar pei.

Kolbe has become quite the fierce Memory player. He can legitimately beat me at least once a week in our quite-time matches!

The boys have definitely gotten used to having baby Grant around...except for when Dada has him. Then a little jealousy kicks in and they have to go vie for his attention. I'm sure Mark loves having all his boys to cuddle with!

Opening birthday gifts! Kolbs got lots of baseball themed gifts...an Albert Pujols shirt, a real T-stand, bases for the yard, and the much desired PF flyers. But in this pic, it's his super cool new grill that they're tearing in to.

The boys stepped foot in a Disney store for the first time ever yesterday on Kolbe's birthday. (Pinkie and Pa took them.) They were SO fascinated with everything and managed to walk out with these sweet new pajamas.

My four-year-old boy. I'd be thrilled if he stayed just this way forever.

TTT: Season 2, Episode 43

1. Last Thursday, shortly after doing my weekly blog post, I'm ashamed to say I gave my pretty new car her first boo boo. I knew it was inevitably going to happen. I mean, really- brand new cars should have a large red target painted on their sides. And I literally drove around town feeling that way most of the time. Knowing it was going to happen and just wondering when. I tried to be uber careful all of time, but my munchkins in the back seat managed to get the best of me. And in my own driveway, no less! You see, we have a two-car garage but with a divider in the middle. This makes the individual doorways pretty narrow. Like to the point where we usually roll the window down and pop in the rear view mirror to make it easier to pull in and out of the garage. I was in the process of backing out and had managed to get the widest part (the mirrors) out and just that those last few feet of the front of the car left to back out when Kolbe yelled from the back: "Mom!!! Rudy messed with the light switch back here!!!" In our car that's a big no-no, so with one hand on the wheel, I jerked around to see if the light, in fact, had been turned on. Unfortunately, my hand decided to participate in the turning action and a second later I froze as I heard the massive scraping sound of the left front side of my car scraping the frame of the garage. Ugh. Actually, I'm pretty sure a curse word might have escaped my mouth. Oops. Of course, I made it out to be far, far worse than it actually is, but still! The shame of having to call Mark and tell him when we've tried so hard to keep this car in wonderful condition was just awful. But like I said, it was inevitable, I suppose. I did it to my brand new Camry back in 2004 just weeks after I bought it. I guess big black just needed a little character charm to add to her beauty. Just add it to the list of things I'll never live down.

2. We spent most of Saturday morning doing some much needed cleaning around the house. By the time lunch time rolled around, I don't think I had sat down other than to feed Grant all morning. I was pooped and looking forward to taking a nap while the boys napped. But just as I was getting the boys to sleep, there was a knock on our door. Our neighbor's oldest daughter (roughly 9) had been sent over to fetch Mr. Mark. The younger daughter (4) had fallen and was bleeding. Mark went over and checked her out and told her mom that she definitely needed stitches. He would have gladly done it himself, considering he does stuff like that in surgery all day long, but he didn't have a suture kit on him. So instead, we inherited older sister and older brother (6) while Mom went to the ER. No nap for me. In fact, no nap for anyone. Of course the boys heard all commotion, knew that the neighbors were hanging out downstairs, and abandoned nap time quickly. While the loss of a much desired nap was sad, I have to admit that it was kind of neat to have the neighbors turn to us in a time of need. It's something we had hoped for when looking for our new house: a neighborhood with friendly neighbors who care for and support each other. 'Cause really, I know our turn is probably just around the corner. And it's comforting to know that if something happened and I had no one to help me out, I could easily run out and grab any one of our neighbors and they'd be right over. We didn't exactly have those kind of neighbors at our house in Lubbock. Adds a nice sense of security.

3. On Sunday we made our first big trip to the zoo. We've been planning this trip for quite some time, but with the unmerciful heat down here, the days from late May to early October were pretty much off limits. Especially with a newborn. That is, unless we all wanted to die of heat stroke. We chose to go on Sunday because it was a rare occurrence of both Mark being off-call and my dad not being gone on a trip. Unfortunately we didn't get the memo that Sunday was Boo at the Zoo...a big Halloween themed day. Most of the people there were dressed in costumes and it was packed. I'm sure if we had gone a random week day it would have been less crazy, but it was a beautiful day, nonetheless, and we had a great time. The kids were fascinated by the animals. And I'm pretty sure Mark and I were too! It's interesting how animals seem so cool when you're a child, but when you're an adult, it's more of a feeling of awe. They really are amazing! We didn't manage to see the entire zoo...it's really big and the kids were getting pretty tired.But I'm sure we'll be back many more times in the years to come! All of us loved it.

I went a little overboard with pictures again this week...

this was actually supposed to be with last weeks pics...his 4 month head shot!

I know, I know.  The majority of you want to strike me down for this shot. But really, my dad is a HUGE Cards fan. We had so much fun following the post season with him this year...all the way from the final game of the Cards regular season where they beat the Astros to make it to the post season (we were in attendance at that game) to game 7 of the World Series. Kolbe truly fell in love with baseball. And really, we would have been happy to see the Rangers win too. We're Texans after all! But Pa just had to pick up these Cards hats at the St. Louis airport. And they look adorable on the boys.

You want to squeeze his fat little cheeks, don't you.

hark! A rare photo with Mark and me in it! Checking out the elephants at the zoo. I have no idea why Rudy isn't in this shot. Kolbs was getting tired.

Pumpkin carving time!

Trick or treat! And me in not just one but two pictures this week! (thanks for forwarding me this one, Dad!) I really think this might be my only photo of me with my three boys. I need to change that soon.

Weren't my little dwarfs adorable? Who knows...this may be the last year where my heavy persuasion of what they should be for Halloween wins out. Though they just had to choose the two dwarfs who not only look very much alike but wear red as well. Kolbe picked Doc so he could wear glasses, though he refused to wear them low on his nose. Rudy picked Grumpy 'cause it was the closest to looking like Kolbe's outfit. And the result of the Doc and Grumpy selection...two kids that look like they're dressed as Santa Claus for Halloween. Oh well. At least Dopey was pretty spot on. He got that one on default so I didn't have to mess with a baby beard.

Cutest Dopey ever.

My dad seriously loves these boys. Most of you who know my dad know how easy going he is. He has the patience with them that I dream of having some day. They really have become his best buddies. And he, theirs. This is them in his backyard where he set up his camping tent so they could hang out in there together. (while I ran to the grocery store. Alone. Yes!)