Silly Brothers!

During nap time, the house is supposed to be quiet, right? Try telling that to these silly boys~

About halfway through nap time, I could hear giggling down the hall. When I went to investigate, I found that Nolan had climbed into Ian's bed and they were both jumping like little monkeys, just laughing and playing like they'd finally figured out what the bed was for.

Such Silly (and Cute) Brothers!

Valentine's Day 2010

I've decided that you may notice a trend in our blog: We tend to celebrate every holiday with something~ parties, presents, games~ something fun for the kids to get in to. It's kind of our tradition. Since Valentine's Day is about love (all types, not just romantic), we always celebrate with gifts of love to the kids (big and little).

Toys and suckers were the theme this year. Legos and video games for Don and Brennan, balls and cars for Ian and Nolan, and sparkly jewelry for me. As always, packaging is half the fun, along with wanting whatever your brother got.

Nolan got through his present extremely quickly

Yet Nolan only wanted to play with Ian's toy

Ian wanted to eat the tissue paper and bag and just forget about the toy

While daddy wasn't looking, Ian tried to steal some chocolate fortune cookies and popcorn.

Along with our family celebration, Don and I celebrated in our special way: dinner at The Melting Pot and a Broadway Play of "The Drowsy Chaperone", planned out by the hubby. I love you Don!

Valentine Wreath

As I was browsing the Internet last weekend, I came across this:

Photo courtesy of JustForRachel.com

On her site, she gave a very good tutorial on how to make it. Here's the link:

http://www.justforrachel.com/2010/01/valentines-wreath.html

Following her directions for a basis were great, but there were a few things that I changed that made things move along much quicker.

* Don't worry about looking all over Kalamazoo to find the heart shape. I just cut one side out of 8.5 X 11 paper, then traced and cut it out of another. I taped the two sides together to make a great heart cutout that fit the Styrofoam perfectly.

* While she says she used a tulle material, I tried with tulle and organza. Neither wanted to stick because they were too thin for the glue. I ended up gluing a lot of material to my table that way. Stick with 5 good cottons (or material like cotton). I used 2 prints, 1 solid pink, 1 solid white, & 1 sparkly white material. After I completed the entire wreath, I went back and glued in about 10 squares of organza to make it more girlie.

* I liked the look of everything squished together, so I kept them pretty close. I also didn't just glue on the top of the foam. Because my door is glass and I can see through, I had to make sure to cover the top, back, and sides as well. That added a lot of material and made it look super full :)

* I also found it much easier to lay out between 10-12 squares and apply the hot glue to them, allowing them to cool down enough so I wouldn't burn my fingers when I stuck them to the form.

* When she says you can make your own tulle ribbon to hang it from, don't believe her. I tried and failed miserably! I ended up buying a roll of organza ribbon and folding it a few times to make it thick enough that it would hold the weight of all of the material.

* To make both large hearts, I ended up using about 3/4 yard of each of the material cut into 2-2.5 inch squares.

What do you think? I like them so much, I've already bought the material and boards to make a couple of St. Patrick's Day wreaths!

Brennan's Birthday Bash

To Celebrate Brennan's 8th Birthday, he decided that he wanted a party at our local bounce house company, Monkey Joe's. Brennan's Birthday Bash at Monkey Joe's was supposed to include 16 friends from school and the neighborhoods, but due to Mother Nature's desire to dump a few inches on Nashville, only the truly brave dared to go out in it. That's the sad thing about it. The good? We had the entire place to ourselves!! Soooo quiet and lots of room to run and jump around, which I think made for a more enjoyable party.

The first hour was dedicated to letting the kids wear themselves out. Nolan was in HEAVEN running and playing with the few kids that were there. Ian was just content to walk around with Dad or Brande and take in all the fun.

Pretty much the only picture that turned out alright of him because I couldn't get the little stinker to hold still!!

Brande walking around with Ian

After the kids had their fill of fun, we corralled them into the party room, where Brennan had a blow-up king's throne to sit in. As you can tell by the picture, it was big enough to hold both Brennan and Gabe.

After dining on pizza and soda, the cake was brought out. Now, I have to talk about the cake. Brennan saw this cake at Publix about 6 months ago and when I asked him which cake he'd like for the party, he told me from memory the Publix SpongeBob Cake. Isn't it cute?

I didn't get a good picture before the cake was cut!

Brennan also mentioned a long time ago that he wanted to have the candles that re lit after you blew them out. I couldn't help but agree. It was so funny when he realized that I actually got the right ones and he had to keep blowing and blowing to get his wish!

Cake and Ice Cream were followed by the opening of presents, after which Brennan would say thank you and I'd say let's take a picture. For some unknown reason, Brennan kept flashing the peace sign.

With Brooklyn... Who does B think he is!?!?

After the presents, Monkey Joe came to visit everyone. He even brought Brennan his own special shirt to wear. The big kids thought he was great; Nolan couldn't care one way or the other.

Ian, on the other hand, thought he was going to DIE!! Isn't his face sooo sad?

To the Hansen's, Rippy's, Brande, and Brenna: Thanks for trekking through the snow to celebrate with us!

Nolan & The Terrible Two's

Nolan has most assuredly hit the terrible two's. I wouldn't say that he's insane all of the time; in fact, more often than not, he's a great kid. It's just those few times a day that try my patience.

Here is some proof I may have my own Jekyll and Hyde:

The Good: Nolan loves to load and unload the dishwasher.
The Bad: Nolan doesn't know when it's clean or not and will load dirty dishes with the clean or put the dirty away in the drawers whenever he feels like helping.

The Good: When Nolan gets in trouble, he knows how to say "Uh-oh, sorry mama."
The Bad: Nolan is still 95% non-verbal and gets extremely frustrated that he can't communicate so there is a lot of screaming, yelling, and pointing going on in our house.

The Good: Nolan is learning to pick up. He likes to clear his dishes off the table and throw away the garbage in the garbage can.
The Bad: Nolan usually ends up throwing away a glass or two every few days along with various other items.

The Good: Nolan is beginning to share. He likes to give Ian books from the bookcase and toys from the living room, and stuffed animals to anyone upstairs.
The Bad: During his sharing, he manages to take all the books, toys, and animals out of their proper places and makes the rooms appear to have spewed forth the objects around the house.

The Good: Nolan likes to help me load the washer and dryer.
The Bad: Nolan has started throwing other things in with the wash, ie books, toys, paper, crayons, garbage.

The Good: Nolan loves to play with Brennan & Ian.
The Bad: When he feels he's not winning or getting enough laughs out of it, he throws the biggest fit ever!! Kicking & screaming included!

The Good: Nolan loves his daddy.
The Bad: Nolan knows exactly the right look to get whatever he wants from him. Just one little start of a frown and Nolan gets to spend the night in our bed. And heaven forbid there are tears! Luckily, I seem to be immune to his charm or the entire house would be in peril.

The Good: Nolan still takes a nap.
The Bad: Nolan refuses to go to sleep at night. When I check on him before I go to bed, he's in his room, sorting through the books or stuffed animals, more often than not laughing. You have no idea how weird it is to hear laughing at midnight. It's kind of freaky!

Some other stories to keep you laughing:

* After refusing to eat breakfast, I asked Nolan what he wanted. He went to the pantry, climbed on the stool and got a cup of Easy Mac. He came back into the kitchen and threw it at me with a look that said "This is what I want, stupid!". I made it and he ate every last bit.

* As Nolan was trying to clear his bowl of cereal from the kitchen table, he accidentally spilled it all over the kitchen floor. He looks at me with his puppy dog eyes and says "Uh-oh. Sorry mama." I said it was okay and he just kept saying "sorry, mama". It was soooo cute!

* Nolan wants to help me whenever I do anything in the kitchen. One morning, I was making scrambled eggs. I managed to crack the eggs, and while I reached over to the fridge to get the milk, Nolan grabbed the bowl and spilled the eggs all over the floor. That clean-up was followed by a broken root beer bottle in the pantry and spilled coke in the living room. Seriously one of the longest days of my life!

* Nolan has gotten it into his head that once he sees something in one location, that is it's permanent location. Example: I put my glasses on the foot board of my bed so I could play with the boys on the floor so now Nolan thinks that is where they belong. If he sees them laying on the night stand or counter, he will move them to my foot board. Such a silly boy!

* Nolan really loves his teacher at the Hope Enrichment Learning Preschool. Ms. Helen and Ms. Ana can get him to do practically anything. They even tell me he's a happy and laughing kids while he's there. He really loves to color and sing.

Now for the pictures of my boy:

Nolan stacks EVERYTHING!

He's all about sharing TROUBLE with his brothers

Typical Nolan look. "I'm not doing anything Mom"

He cleaned out the drawer so he could sit in it and watch TV

He's really into dancing and singing. Don is jumping to the music and Nolan's trying to keep up with him.

The Great Pantry Cleaning

You know the drill: Every year, after the holidays have come and gone, you realize that your house has, as my mother would say, "Gone to Pot." Where that saying came from or what it originally meant, I have no idea. But for my use, it means a once lovely place has been neglected and is a in a very sad state!

Let me give you a quick preview of my messy pantry: hidden behind the door lies in wait sprouting potatoes lying on the floor, birthday cupcakes ground into unrecognizable crumbs, cereal & cookie boxes stacked very precariously on the top shelf just waiting for an unsuspecting short person to fall on, water bottles and soda liters rolling around, empty boxes and packages of snacks that Nolan had devoured in the pantry, moldy bread that could be considered biological warfare material.... I think you get the picture. If not, take a peak of this picture:

Yes, I realize I'm a bad mother for letting my baby sit in the middle of this mess. I kept plucking him out, but he would just crawl back into it. I couldn't fight him anymore, so I just made sure he didn't eat anything that would cause permanent damage.

If you have ever cleaned with children, you know that a job that would normally take 20 minutes gets turned into an hour or two, or in my case, nearly three. Why? Who knows. But I think the results speak for themselves.

So much better, right? I can see the floors, the kids can no longer get into any snack they want because they found their right homes in the containers, and the bio-hazards no longer exist! Yippie! I do love me a clean and organized pantry.

I shouldn't be too happy though. As every mother knows, when you take one step forward in cleaning your house, your kids make you take two steps back. Hence the picture below.

Oh, well. At least I made a little progress today. Rome wasn't built in a day. So, when are you going to jump into your spring cleaning?

I can do it!

Ian can feed himself!

Now remind me again.... when do they learn how to clean up?