Panda-Monium

Hubs and I don't make much of Halloween.  The most we've done is carve a pumpkin and once we handed out candy to the maybe 8 kids who showed up.  In recent years, we've gone out to eat! 

But last year, I stumbled across matching panda costumes on clearance after Halloween.  So I bought them.  And when we visited the grandparents in MI this weekend, we had Halloween!

The fellas totally did NOT get the concept, aside from eating treats most of the weekend.  However, the suits were so DARN CUTE!  Here are a few snapshots of our Panda-Monium this weekend:

The guys were not interested in taking a photo with Mommy

Panda N needs a snack with Papa before moving on to house #2

Panda M is not sure of this trick or treating stuff.

At the fourth and last house, Panda M is getting the hang of this!

Playing with Great Grandpa's radio was the best part!

Panda N grabs his candy and runs! 

Mommy and Daddy and two little panda bears

How I Survived One of THOSE Days

1. I sent the very last check for my school loans.  Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, and Thank You, Jesus!  What a relief that's over.  Especially since that money really should go straight to a savings account for our children's  college education.  

2. I was at my wit's end with the fellas.  I don't want to bore you with the details, but it was 3:00 and I knew I had to get out of here the boys and I were going to survive this day.  So I loaded them up, not sure where I was going except to the gas station because Vanna was on E-E-E and in desperate need of a wash.  I knew that would give me enough time to think of something.  Something that would help me and the boys out of the crazies we were in this afternoon.  I called up a fellow stay-at-home mom who's the sweetest woman in the world (seriously! she's always asking how she can help me) and I knew today was the day she'd been waiting for: HELP!  Of course, she said, come on over!  The boys and I drove through McDonald's and I tried to make it a teaching moment: we're going over to Miss B's house to bless her and her daughter with a meal.  Which is true and far more positive than: we're going to Miss B's house to distract all three of us from each other because I'm going crazy today!  The five of us had some fine dining with cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets and a whole room full of "new" toys and a friend.  It was so refreshing and wonderful to know that God has put some wonderful women in my life who are true and loving even on my ugly days. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.  The boys are in bed and I lived to tell because of you.

A Few More Words

M talks a lot more than I realized!  I missed a lot of his words yesterday, including the most obvious:

"Hi!" with a wave to EVERYONE we see
"Bye!" with a wave, but usually AFTER we have departed
"Uh oh," usually said when food is being THROWN on the floor
"No-no," always said when he or his brother (or us, I suppose!) are doing something we're not supposed to be doing, throwing food on the floor, pushing on the screen door, standing in the bathtub...
"Zi?" said pointing an object, asking "What's this?"
"Buh Bo" for bubbles.  He'll repeat it until he wears you down to blow them, then walks away indifferently from you when you do.  Like he just wants them being blown in the background!
"Cah cuh" with a short "a" sound, this word means cracker or cookie, we're not sure because he uses it interchangeably.  I suppose it could also mean "snack!"
"Nay Nay," his name for his brother
"Diggle-diggle"  we think this came from our games of "tickle tickle," but he doesn't use it in that context.  In fact, it seems to be a general term for "I'm pretty happy doing whatever it is I'm doing right now,"

Pushing is better than riding by far

"Caaaah" think of our neighbor from Boston saying "car," and you've got it!  Seemingly there are 3 cars right now: a picture of one in a picture book and our two cozy coupe toys.  We've been playing a lot of "cars" this week since it's so nice out.

Look at that curl N has on his head!

I'll just keep adding to this list when I think of "Mo?" words.  Perhaps giggly little N will start talking "mo", too.

"Ba," used by both of the guys, is an over-generalized word for "ball."  Anything round is a ball, so it's pretty funny when we are at the grocery store and every apple and tomato is "ba! Ba! Ba!"  It's also one of M's mystery words.  One night on a walk, he was desperately signing "milk" and saying "Ba? Ba? Ba?" Maybe he wanted a bottle?  but he hasn't had one in several months!  

Blabbermouths and Yesterday's Pics

RRRRR!  Cement Truck!

(in a baby British accent) Ouch!  Charlie!  He bit me!  And it really hurts!

Charle Bit Me You Tube Video

I know that this is NOT the way the biting incident went down in the nursery yesterday, but if you've never seen the Charlie Bit Me You Tube Video, I promise you'll laugh today!  And N's wound is already healing - I doubt we'll be able to see it by Friday.  You can see the mark above his left eye.  And hopefully N and Biter will be at peace because we'll be seeing him every Tuesday.  My sister reminded me of that after she read the blog last night and told me that my niece was bitten by a Biter at her daycare for months!  Aaah! 

Hubs and I were talking this morning about the funny stuff the guys are "saying," so I thought I'd share what's coming from the blabbermouths:


Both guys LOVE pointing to the airplanes that fly overhead (we're in the "path" for the runway at MSP) and go, "ooh, ooh!" and I tell them, that plane is landing at the airport where Daddy works.  They both do an over-exaggerated "all done" sign when they're finished eating and I swear I heard one of them say "all done," the other day.
N says:
"Mo?" and makes the "more" sign
and "Eeee?" making the "eat" sign
he taps his head to make the "night night" sign and makes a fist for the "milk" sign  
"nnnnnnn" with a point to his nose is, of course, nose
"whuuu, whuuu" (really low!) is "woof, woof" for doggy
of course "Ma Ma," and "Da Da" for us
N folds his hands when we say grace at meals and our bedtime prayers

M is a real chatterbox!
"Mo?" and "Eeee?" (really high!) are two of his favorite words and signs as well. 
He mastered Ma Ma and Da Da as well
He also makes the milk sign and adds
"nye nye" to the  night night sign 
"nnnn" for nose as well as
"whuu whuu" for doggy
But he's expanding his vocabulary.  He says "choo choo" for every train-like thing he sees!
Truck seems to be "RRRRR" or "Whoa!" Either way, he's quite impressed.
M says "Ayen" when we say "Amen" after grace and bedtime prayers!

One Last Blast of Summer!

(This blog format looks kinda weird and I know it, but I'm going to leave it so I can take the boys outside while it's still nice. It snowed here on Oct. 12 last year!)

I hope that you are enjoying this week's return to summer like we are! The boys seem to have grown a bit since I put away their summer clothes, so I was able to fish out the outfits that were big on them. It was like getting new clothes!

We chose to spend every minute outdoors this weekend! We took the jogging stroller to Ritter Farm Park and went off-roading. It's a large park where people hike and ride their horses on grassy trails and it was just beautiful with the leaves turning. The boys seemed to enjoy the ride as long as we kept the animal crackers flowing! I wish we'd have taken photos, but, alas, I forgot. We didn't see any horses, either - just a gardener snake and some bugs. When we stopped at the grocery store on the way home, I remembered to snap this cute pic of the guys driving their double grocery cart, though!














On Saturday night, we had our friend B and his 5 year old son over for dinner and a bonfire. It was also the boys' first bonfire - for 20 or so minutes! Because we don't trust them for a split second, and also because they were freshly bathed, they enjoyed the fire from the confines of their pack and play, which they didn't seem to mind so long as we fed them graham crackers. Hm, I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

Here's Hubs and M grilling dinner.

B and E took a self-portrait at the campfire! Then E turned the camera on me!

Okay, not my best angle, but I'll give him a break because he's 5, after all.

We always enjoy warm weekends together as a family and spending time with friends makes them extra special! It looks like we're in for some more good weather this week, too. Hooray! After I wrap this up, the boys and I are going to take a long walk in the afternoon sunshine. I only wish that Minnesota weather were like this year round!

Snips, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails

That's what little boys are made of.

Yesterday I was marveling at how my babies really are boys.  They are fascinated by every truck that goes by, and make "woah," "oooh," and "rrrrrrr" sounds when they see them drive by or play with their truck toys.  How do they know how to do that? 

Since I've been reading "Bringing Up Boys" by Dr. James Dobson, I've been a little more thoughtful about being a mother to boys lately, too.  So when we were loading up to leave and the cement truck was in our neighbor's driveway, instead of ignoring it, I took it as an opportunity to let the boys watch men work.  We sat on the steps and watched the cement being poured.

Then on our walk yesterday, a little toadish looking frog was hopping across the path.  Rather than ignore it, I stopped and picked it up to show them.  M got a hold of it and put it to his lips!  Not to be outdone, N did the same!  I told them that God made frogs, too - we'd been talking (I'd been talking) about how God made the trees and how they change in the fall.  I was about to tell them we don't eat God's creation, but stopped - because we do!  So I just said frogs aren't for eating.  I wasn't going to mention that frog's legs are a delicacy in some places.

The frog and the cement truck are things that I wouldn't have stopped to look at even a couple weeks ago.  But the fellas aren't babies anymore and they let me know all day every day that they are boys.

Today was another example.

N got bit.

Yep, in the church nursery.  By another boy.  I should have known it was going to happen someday, but I've yet to see either of my sons try to bite each other or anyone else.  (Except for the one time N chomped down on Daddy's special parts....and then when he was nursing....so perhaps there are tendencies, but....anyhow...)

Fortunately, he was the bitEE, not the bitER, and the other mom and I were able to exchange apologies and forgiveness.  N is just 16 months old, so does he even understand what happened?  I explained to him that what the boy did was not nice, but that when someone does something wrong to us, Jesus teaches us we need to forgive them.  Then I took him with me into Mom's Group and fed him a banana and juice.  All was forgiven, it seems, after that...and some Peekaboo Barn game on my phone.

(I've tried 3 times to upload pics for this entry, but for some reason, I can't get it.  I hate technical difficulites because I am NOT a technical person.  If it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, then I don't know how to fix it.)  I wanted to show you the bite because I want to know - will this go away by Friday, when we are getting family photos taken?!  The skin is not broken, so I hope it will fade away and not bruise.  Or that my photographer can edit it out. 

It seems as though I've turned some kind of corner as of late, from being a new mom to little babies, to being a mom to BOYS.  I like the cement truck and frogs, but the biting?  I hope I handled it with enough grace that I'm not sent that test again!

"If you throw food one more time..."

I've been working all morning on uploading a video, but alas, I give up again.  I really don't know how to do it!  Now that Hubs has an i4 (is that what you call it?), I thought it would be easier to upload, convert files, whatever you call it when you try to put a video on your blog, but apparently I need a video blog lesson. *Sigh*  Either way, by the time I get it figured out, the video will be so old that the cute thing they're doing (climbing down the stairs on their bellies and giggling all the way) will be old hat. That was two weeks ago, and truth be told, it already is.  Now they're trying to walk down the stairs feet first!

So I'm settling for the two pics I took yesterday, which are cute funny food pics, and a confession in the middle.

Here we are yesterday mowing down on chicken nuggets and mac and cheese at E's house.  This is only half the story!  There was another set of two-year-old boys and an 18 month old boy there, too!  Amazingly, lunch was quiet while all 7 boys ate.  I must say I'm proud of my boys for NOT throwing food on E's floor.  They've learned their lesson.  

This is where I have to confess: I'd had it.  Really, really, had it with the grinning, snickering, "I'm gonna throw this food on the floor" game they (M) were playing.  "If you throw food one more time, I'm going to have to vacuum.  That's what happens when the floor gets messy," I said, removing the vacuum from the closet.  M did it again, N following, because they are like lemurs.  So I vacuumed. 

Not the vacuum!

And it worked.  Since yesterday morning, only a pea and one Kix have hit the floor.  They're so happy with our new arrangement (throw food and Mom vacuums), they've discovered a new and different way to be messy.  Okay, let's be honest, M has discovered a new and different way to be messy.  N was clean (he's serious about food most of the time: put it where it belongs!).  But this is what M did with a small handful of Lucky Charms and vanilla pudding that I was feeding him (not himself!)

See the blue and yellow marshmallow smear?  They're magically delicious!