Rude Awakenings

This is what happens when impatience meets inexperience.  Sometimes the smoothie you hungrily reach for on the countertop above your head doesn’t have a lid on it yet and you get more than you bargained for!

This makes me laugh every time I see it!

Happy Birthday To An Amazing Woman

We celebrated Gram’s birthday this past weekend with a little picnic at a country park near our house.  She and Dad drove up to spend some time with all of us, and we were happy to have them come.

Elijah carried around his piece of cuban bread nearly the whole time, constantly eating off of it.  He fits into the family well because we all LOVE cuban bread!

Uncle Jesse and Caleb taught Josiah, Savannah, and Nathan to throw acorns at each other.  Boys!

 Grandma and her grandbabies.  Notice Elijah’s bread in every picture?

Nathan was so photogenic…the only one who would pose!

Always running!

Savannah convinced Josiah to be “It” in hide-n-go-seek.

But he cheats!

Gram really loves brownies, so she bought some for her and Savannah to make for the party.  Savannah wouldn’t do it, though, insisting she do it with her Daddy as a “surprise”.  So, Savannah was in charge of bringing the “surprise birthday cake”.  Gram wanted 3 candles for the past, present, and future.

All done!

  Saying goodbyes.

I’m not sure what he’s doing here, but it looks like Karate moves!

Queen of the cousins!

      I taught Savannah to drop kick the ball.  She learned quickly.

We all count ourselves blessed to have Gram in our lives.  She is such a strong, capable, generous, and loving person who’s birthday we look forward to celebrating for many more years.

Potty Time With Queen Bee

I’ll preface this post by saying Jacob’s response to it was “people are going to think we are weird, Abby.”  Um….too late.

Admittedly, this is weird.  And I had a hard time getting decent pictures due to so much movement, but I couldn’t resist posting.

We came home late one evening and Josiah was doing his nightly potty time when Jacob noticed that one of the queen cells emerged (a queen bee hatched).  He had a few cells in the house that he had left over from splitting some hives.  Jacob wanted to show it to Josiah, but since it was already late he decided to do it during potty time.  That explains the timing.  Also, before you get nervous about what dangers we expose our kids to, you should know that queens don’t sting and we explained to Josiah that most other bees will sting, so be careful.

Here’s Josiah checking her out:  

Yes, we have some interesting times in our home!

Kids and Guns

Jacob has been very diligent about teaching Josiah not to hit or shoot people with “weapons” (toys), even if just pretending.  I’m not so good about it.  I love to fake my death when he shoots me with his McDonalds dart toy as he giggles uncontrollably :)   The other day he finished me off with a head shot.  I’m a bad Mom, I guess.  I’ve been coming around, though, and am now trying to back that stance.  I guess Jacob has taken it more seriously because he is the one trying to teach Josiah gun safety when he helps Josiah shoot his BB gun.  That is where it matters, but I see that consistency is important.  Not to mention that Elijah doesn’t fare as well against head shots as I do!

Anyway, the other night we were watching World News and they were covering the war.  They were showing footage of soldiers shooting guns.  Though the targets were not visible, Josiah asked if they were shooting people.  Stunned, and unsure if we should lie, Jacob and I just looked at each other.  He answered, yes, they are soldiers and they are shooting at people.  Josiah looked very confused and wondered why.  Jacob proceeded to try to explain that soldiers fighting wars against bad men have to do that.  But why?  How do you explain such a complex thing while differentiating it from hitting or shooting people outside of war.  Jacob tried to explain that soldiers love our country and are protecting it from bad men.

Aside from a few very innocent conversations about death and heaven and why we wouldn’t be seeing Deda again, this was our first heavy conversation with Josiah.  The heaven discussion, other than being so sad, was fairly easy because a positive twist could be added, but the ugly nature of war and why they are fought – how do you explain that to a 3.5 year old?  I’m sure we’ll have our fair share of difficult conversations to come.

Best Kid Wedding Ever

My cousin, Michelle, got married this past weekend on a dinner cruise (not sure if that is the technical name for it) out of Clearwater.  While it was a beautiful wedding for a lovely couple, I have to say it was also ideal for kids.  Michelle told me ahead of time that she planned it with kids in mind, since there would be plenty of them there, and to feel free to bring them.  We hesitated in bringing Elijah, but we knew Josiah would love being on the boat.  In the end, we decided to bring them both and they did great.

Beautiful bride!

We, of course, headed to the top deck after the wedding while we waited for the meal to be served.  Josiah had a blast!

Handsomeness!

More handsomeness!

  There was a big speedboat race that day, so there was plenty of activity to watch.  Elijah was enthralled by the barge crane, too.

Josiah did a lot of what he likes to do most – run!

    Josiah had fun playing with a few distant cousins he’d never met.  I just missed the picture of him looking like he was proposing while showing her something on bent knee.  It was cute!

Some speedboats: My dad used to be a STIHL dealer. The kids loved watching all the activity…then they were off and running again!

Though not a great pic of me (it is the only one), this is the beautiful couple.

Uncle Tommy dancing with the flower girls!

Grandmother of the bride.  We all love her dearly!

  While Josiah made one last trip to the top deck with Grandpa, Elijah stole his seat and happily played with his toys.  He just kept smiling.  It was so cute!

Now, a few days later, Josiah is still talking about going back to “that boat someday”.  I told him we probably wouldn’t be going back to that boat, but maybe we’d do something.  He said “maybe a little boat” while pinching his fingers close together.  Yep, maybe we’ll go on our little boat soon :)

We wish Michelle and Preston a happy marriage!

Elijah’s 1.5 Year Stats

I took Elijah to the pediatrician today for his 1.5 year wellness check and he checked out great, aside from his black fingernail, skinned knuckles, multiple bruises on his shins, and a few mosquito bites, that is.  She was asking me about his mobility to be sure he was developing well.  She wanted to know if he climbs and maneuvers and I said yes, just enough to get himself in trouble, see the evidence?  (Josiah also has a bruise on his face, so we are doing great lately!)

Josiah always hates taking Elijah to the doctor because he is very concerned Elijah will get shots.  He always spends part of the time assuring Elijah that he’s ok.  So sweet.  Well, Elijah did get vaccines this time, but they both got to get stickers, so he was ok with it. 

Here’s his stats for today:

Height                   32 3/4”              60%

Weight                22# 12 oz             15%

Head                     46.6cm               20%

He’s still a light weight, percentage-wise, but he’s trucking along on his own growth curve!

He was a bit on the fussy side this morning before his appointment, then he started to cry when she measured his head (go figure) and that open mouth cry helped me to see why…all 4 of his canine teeth are just under the surface!  It could be a long week!  He did great for the rest of the exam and just cried a bit for the vaccines.  A quick lunch with Daddy brightened him right up, then he was off to nap.

Let’s hope there are no more doctor visits until his already scheduled 2 year visit.  Fat chance! :)  It is always my goal, though.