What we've been doing...

Well, Jack had his first haircut, so people who tell me what a pretty girl he is anymore! Also, Shelly will not be shaving Jack's head tomorrow -- which he was threatening to do if I didn't have his hair cut. Jack has also had a vocabulary explosion over the last few weeks. He now not only says names (Mama, Dada, David, Tilly, Doggie), but he says pretty much everything you tell him to, unless he is not in the mood, and then he just says "no" (picture vigorous head shaking). So far we've had poop, cow, moo, baa, quack, duck, puppy, baby (which is applied to any child whether they're larger or not:), nose, eyes, ears, mouth, tummy (all of which he points to as he says them).

David now can identify and tell the sound of most letters in the alphabet, which makes me think we are very close to reading basic words!!! Yea! David is also NOT scared of Halloween this year. He has worn his costume several times without a problem, WITH THE MASK!! (he is being Optimus Prime from the Transformers). He has also watched every preschool cartoon show's Halloween special, and I asked him if they were scary or silly, and he said silly!! Yea! Huge progress for David.

ALSO, David has just completed his first soccer season! They lost most of their games (except for two towards the end of the season), but there was marked improvement over the eight weeks. He usually played goalie for one quarter of every game, something about which Shelly was immensely excited!

Shelly had about 3 months in the Fall where he was home every weekend, but now we are about two weeks into 8 weeks of away rotations in Dallas and Corpus Christi.

I have started work on the golf tournament (held in April), and we've had a couple of donations so far. I've still got TONS of work to do to pin down some serious donors. I'm sure that's going to keep me very busy through the next 5 months, so if updates here are sporadic, or pictures only, you'll know why! These pictures are the four of us at Love Creek Orchards, a fun pumpkin patch in Medina, TX that we visited a few weeks ago -- we had a blast and got to taste VERY fresh unpasteurized cider. IT WAS GREAT. If Medina weren't an hour away, I'd buy it all the time! It tastes like eating an apple! I'll post some soccer pics soon!

This morning, David decided he needed to poop, and since Shelly and I were getting ready for church, he went in our bathroom, which has abundant reading material in it. So, David spent about 30 minutes going poop and perusing the latest issue of Motor Trend (I wonder whose reading material that was?!) When he was done, I went in to help him clean up, and he showed me a picture of a bright green Lamborghini saying that it was a "really cool car" and proceeded to ask if we could get one. I told him that we couldn't because it was way too expensive for us and we couldn't all ride in it. His response: "Ok, well I'm going to buy a Lamborgini. I'm going to buy a Lamborghini next week when they go on sale."

Someday, maybe David will be as much of a car buff as his daddy, and he can appreciate how funny that statement really was!

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/exotic/112_0808_2009_lamborghini_gallardo_lp560_4_test/index.html

Pictures just for Erin

I keep promising to send pictures showing how skinny Tilly is since her thyroid replacement, so here they are!

More funny things, and an important lesson for cooks everywhere.

You know how so many times we hear the phrase: "I have good news and bad news..." Imagine this coming out of the mouth of a four-year-old and what might follow that phrase. It is great! Of course neither the good news or bad news is usually good OR bad, and occasionally they are flipped, but he says it, and it's funny every time! (and he is well aware that we think it's funny, unfortunately). Frequently these conversations go like this: "Mommy, I have good news and bad news." "Oh yeah, what is it?" "Well, the good news is that (LONG pause) the transformers are the good guys and the bad news is that they are not coming to our house." "Really, well that's interesting, why aren't they coming to our house" (because what else can I say to that???) And usually the conversation ends there, because David hasn't put any more thought into this and has been distracted by actually playing with a transformer, his current obsession.

We've added to funny things that come out of children's mouths with Jack, now. He has said doggie (his first word) for a while and mommy and daddy and David, but now he's added a few more: OH NO!, oops!, Doggie, NO! and NO! BAD! Are you noticing a theme? Jack has now learned how to be defiant (such an endearing trait in one's offspring...), and so I spend a lot of time (an unacceptable amount of time) correcting children and the dog, and so I suppose it is understandable that this particular array of words has been added to his vocabulary. The best part of these words is the drama with which he says them! If I can get them on video, I will post them, they are pure entertainment!

Finally, I have a public service announcement for cooks everywhere: Don't put a cup of water into a glass pan in a 450 degree oven, as it will explode.

Yes. I did this. I swear it was in a recipe! I decided to follow a different method for roasting a chicken, one from Real Simple magazine from several months ago. It's very basic: rub some olive oil on the chicken, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 450 degrees for 20 minutes, add a cup of water to the roasting pan and roast for 40 more minutes or until the temp reaches 180 degrees. VERY basic. Normally I just roast for an hour or so at 350 degrees, but I thought I'd mix things up and maybe get a crisper skin.

Now, to be fair, I did think that 450 degrees was pretty hot for using pyrex, but I already had the chicken in the pan and figured that since it didn't say NOT to use a glass pan, that it wouldn't matter. Clearly I am the reason there are silly notices telling you there might be a hot beverage inside a coffee cup! Anyway. I put the water in the pan and it IMMEDIATELY exploded, and that is NOT an exaggeration. There were little pieces of glass EVERYWHERE. Thankfully, the chicken was salvageable, and so I just stuck it in a different pan and waited until tonight to clean up the mess inside the oven, but it was a huge mess. I'm actually not going to finish the clean up until tomorrow. Hey, it does force me to clean the oven, though, and it did need it!

Cute little boys just can't be beat!

 

Again, it has been far too long since I have posted here, and we've done a LOT of things.  Most importantly, Jack is now walking, and even attempting running!  I am so proud and it is SO funny to watch.  He's got quite a belly on him, so he looks sort of like a pregnant woman.  He had been almost walking for so long, just holding on to things, and he pretty much crossed the threshold the second we got to KY on 5/21.  I now get to chase him all over God's creation, and I am NOT kidding.  Today I took them to Barnes and Noble (i.e. the "train store" -- wander into the children's area of your nearest B&N, and you'll see what I mean) and ended up having to leave after only about 10 minutes, since we were about to have the front doors of the store locked since I had already lost Jack!  Thankfully, he reappeared, and that was unnecessary.  But the point is that walking has been a mixed blessing.

As for David, he is still as cute as ever.  He is having a rough time, though, with being a brother.  Since Jack is more active and more interested in toys (and can get to them more quickly), David's toys have become coveted playthings for Jack.  Usually, Jack will grab some toy of David's, David will realize and come over and snatch it out of Jack's hands.  Frequently, David follows this with some kind of hitting/punching/knocking over of his clearly insolent smaller sibling.  So, David gets punished, A LOT.  We have had several conversations about this, and it is slowly improving, but I did spend some time tonight, showing David (by going through the events of our day) that I don't dislike him, or like Jack more, in fact, I choose to do a bunch more things that are fun for David than for Jack.  But you know, I think that this might last a while, so I am preparing for a long haul with this thing.

However.  David now says the funniest thing:  "it just popped into my head to..."  you fill in any old 4 year old activity - petting the dog, building an airport in the backyard (!), making a lego city...  It's so hilarious to hear him say this, and tonight he made it even better by telling me that the idea (I don't even remember what this idea was) went into his toe and shot like a rocket up his leg and through his tummy and just popped into his head.  Gotta love the graphic description.  Now, I know that he learned this particular phrase from me, so every time I say that I am going to be picturing how it came in through my toe and shot up through my body to get to my head.  Interesting to say the least!  

Well, that's all for now, I think Bedtime is in order for me!  PS the picture is from Jack's first birthday when we celebrated in KY

Jack has found a new use for the giant dump truck!

And his middle name is danger.  Just so you know.

I thought I'd share some family fun.  It's so exciting that the boys play together now.  Not all the time, but, for instance, Jack now appreciates David's lunacy.  Right now, David is running around the playroom like a total maniac and Jack is laughing his fool head off!  

Is it crazy.  Yes. 

But I am getting things done, the boys are entertained and most importantly, no television is running in the background, so behavior for the evening should be good!

Kids say the darndest things

OK, so I think I spelled darndest wrong.  Not going to fix that, although it would probably have been faster than typing all this...

Anyway.  Yesterday, while Jack was napping, David asked me to read him a favorite book:  The Berenstain Bears and the Week at Grandma's.  We've read this book approximately four billion times, however, he took note of something new.  At one point Brother and Sister bear comment that Gramps and Gran are "sort of... old" and so David asked why were they old.  I told him they were just older than Mama and Papa Bear and so the cubs thought they were old.  

This did not satisfy, so I then asked him if he thought GranGran and PawPaw (my parents) were old.  He said "no, but Granny (Shelly's grandmother) is old".  I asked why he thought this, and he didn't have an answer, so I asked him if it was because her hair was gray, and he looked at me with wonder and said "yeah".  For no particular reason, I told him that he would never think that GranGran was old then, because she'd probably never have gray hair.  David asked "why", and I told him that she colored it, and his response...

"Does she color it with CHOCOLATE?"  

This produced major laughter from me.  And him.  Although he clearly did not get why this was so funny.  And honestly, the funny was magnified by the fact that GranGran's hair is not brown.  It is decidedly blond.  This does, however, hearken back to an incident about a year ago when David was insistent that I purchase brown eggs instead of white.  The next morning, he INSISTED that I cook him a brown egg, and was subsequently quite upset that the yellow of the egg was still yellow, not CHOCOLATE!  Child logic is SO AWESOME!

Oh, and Jack can wave...  and dance...  both with serious gusto!

It's been quite a while, but I thought I ought to write a little more regularly.

So, the boys are getting very big. David is 4 years old now, and very busy. His favorite activity right now is his Monday swim lesson. He is doing SO well! He can already jump in the pool, roll over onto his back, breathe, swim the side and get out all by himself!!! He just started the lessons in January!

John Raphael "Jack" was born May 20th, 2007, 5 days after his due date. The labor was QUICK if nothing else! Thanks to Shelly and my doula, Pat for getting me into a room before he was born! Jack is now 10 months old and on the cusp of walking. He is a very busy baby and a FAST crawler.

Just tonight, the two boys were full of giggles during bathtime and wrestling afterward, they are very funny to watch.

Shelly and I are keeping busy. This is my busiest time, as the golf tournament I am working on is on Monday. Shelly is excited because tomorrow he starts a week of leave. We are going to drive up to Ft. Worth to see the Dinosaur State Park and the Ft. Worth Stockyards (which sounds stinky, but is actually a "town" style museum!). We are definitely looking forward to some extra time with Daddy.