Boyisms

Last week we took the boys to get new shoes at Kohls.
Callum picked out these cute Sketchers and Taylor picked the same ones. It was kind of funny because I told them they could pick whatever they wanted and didn't have to get the same....but they still picked the same.
After they tried them on Callum was running around the store saying "SUPER STRAP, I never have to tie my shoes again"
I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked him what he was saying and rolled his eyes and said "Mommy, its my shoes! That's the commercial!"
I can't believe he remembered some random commercial.
Goes to show you that advertising geared towards kids WORKS.

They got to pick out some new PJs as well while we were there.
These adorable Carter's PJs were on sale that were dress up PJs. They had construction workers, race car drivers, doctors and astronauts.
The boys picked out the doctor and astronaut.
They were so cute.

The boys are really into me taking their pictures right now.
Mostly because they want to be able to view them right after I do them.
They like to pose or do crazy faces.
We sat on the couch last night for a while looking through all the videos I have of them on my camera.
They can both mostly pick out themselves in pictures. Every now and then they pick the wrong one. Now that Taylor has his Harry Potter like scar they can definitely pick out who is who.

I was watching the news getting ready for work yesterday and Callum was up sitting on my bed watching the news with me.
They had on the story about the twin astronauts. He thought that was amazing and told me, "I told you Mommy, we want to be astronauts!"
It's funny, every day they have a new profession that they want to be.
After shoe shopping Callum told me he wanted to be a farmer, Taylor said he wanted to be a cow! lol
Earlier this week Callum wanted to own his own restaurant. He said he'll serve tomatoes, "cause people like tomatoes"




while this looks adorable like they're holding hands, Taylor was trying to grab his brother's penis.







Taylor being pouty face


Callum being a crazy person!

What the boys are up to about now.

They are growing so fast.

It's just crazy.

Taylor lays awake at night because he is too busy trying to do math.

He'll call out, what's two two's? What are three three's?

Also, is a crocodile nocturnal?

They are both in love with math right now and it's so awesome to watch them figure it out. You can see the little gears moving.

They are both SO into Star Wars. My husband downloaded purchased all six scores from the movies. The boys were so excited. It really brought a tear to my eye to see them so passionate about it.

They were both bopping their heads and humming along and asking what the name of each of the songs were.

We are now rid of the baby potty's in the house and they are strictly using the little seats that go on the toilets.

We found seats that look like this , they're really great. The boys feel more like "big boys" using a big seat with their own little seat that magnetizes right up into the big seat. We get to be happy to not have little potties all over the house, or seats with Elmo, Diego and other characters in every bathroom.

We have also rid ourselves of pull-ups at any time of the day or night! I am really excited about this. Callum was hanging on there for a while and finally decided that he doesn't want to use them anymore. They were a crutch for him for a little bit. Taylor has been without the pull-ups since before we moved. Callum never wore them for naptime but felt he really needed them at night. So far so good!!

They've been on vacation from preschool for the summer spending a lot of time with their Nana and breaking my heart.

One of the mornings Callum declared that I must really hate to go places with them since Nana is always taking them.

Cue hearing my heart shatter into a million pieces.

I had to explain that this is why weekends are so important to Daddy and I. and this is when we get to do things with them. We have to work so that we can have our nice house and all of our fun things like our Wii and the games and toys we have.

I wanted to try to explain it without having to have the "well do you want a roof over your head?" mentality.

I still went to work with my shoulders slumped and my head hanging low.

It hurts to hear that, even if it is just because they're three and don't understand why you have to go to work everyday.

I didn't have off for the day after the Fourth of July, but did get to come home early so I made extra effort to tag along to wherever they were headed with Nana that day.

Thank goodness our town has great little water parks for kids all over.

They had a blast, I nearly got sun stroke but felt happy to be going out and doing things with them during the week.

I can't always go to the library or take them to the museum but I want to make sure that the time I do spend I try to consciously make it quality time.

Happy Fourth of July

ER Visit #2

We had our second trip to the ER today.
This makes the second trip for Taylor, the first one because we thought he had swallowed a penny. He had ended up swallowing a little sequence that didn't show up on any xrays or anything.

I got a call at work today from Nana that Callum had thrown his cup and hit Taylor in the face. He was bleeding and it had split his forehead open.
She had stopped the bleeding but wasn't sure to tell me to come home for it or not. She wasn't sure if he would need stitches.
She ended up bring the boys to my work so I could take a look at it and see what we wanted to do.

I took him back to the bathroom to clean up all the blood off of his hands and take a look at it once they got to my work.
I wasn't sure if it needed a butterfly suture or stitches so we made the trip to Kosair Children's Hospital downtown.

I could barely find a parking spot in their huge parking garage. I was in tears when we finally found one at my second go around the garage.
Taylor was totally calm and munching on cookies in the back seat. Nana had me follow her and Callum there since I wasn't quite sure how to get there from where I work.

Once we got in there was NO one in the waiting room
The staff was super nice and got us in really fast. They were all really great.
Taylor was a total trooper, Callum freaked out more about the blood and was so apologetic about hitting him with his cup.
We had a long talk about why we ask them to not throw things at each other or hit each other because things like this can happen.

We went back to a room and the ladies came in and put some cold numbing gel on Taylors cut and we sat and waited for more than a half hour for it to really set in.
I wasn't sure what they were thinking we were going to have to do, but it ended up being stitches.
When they thought it was good and numb they took us to a room across the hall.
They told me that they would have to papoose him and asked if I wanted to come with him.
I of course went since they let me.

I helped them get him in the papoose thing and stood down by his midsection to hold his waist and rub him and tell him how proud I was of him.
He cried while they cleaned the wound out, I think mostly because he was really unhappy about them squirting water on him and it rolling down into his eyes.
He hates that.
He cried a little while they did the stitches, but he was such a brave guy. I was SO proud of him. He got a total of FOUR stitches.
The doctor that stitched him told me they needed me working for them with how calm I was with him and trying to help them keep him in the papoose.
If I was in my right mind I would have been like HEYYY, looking to go to nursing school here wanna pay?! lol

Once they were done he was up and running.
They brought him and Callum both popcicles, stickers, crayons and coloring sheets.
Taylor wanted to go and visit Mammaw and show him her stitches so we stopped by her work for a little before we came home for him to nap.

Every time Callum sees his stitches he keeps apologizing to him over and over. It's sweet.
I really hope this helps to sink in why they shouldn't do these things that we've asked them not to....over and over.

I figure this won't be the first or last set of stitches with having two boys that love to wrestle and act crazy. I was so glad that he was so amazing and took it all like a trooper....and that I could hold my cool.



This is after the admitting nurse bandaged him up so he wasn't bleeding everywhere



He was in great spirits and playing "Star Wars" with his fingers! lol



He was stoked to get the syringe to play with that they had used to clean out his wound.



I took the bandaid off while it was still numb so it wouldn't hurt. This is enough to break your heart.



Looking all TUFF

Lightning Bug Hunters

Things are moving along nicely with us getting settled in.
We still have lots of things to hang and find a place for everything.
The boys playroom is still in disarray. We need new storage shelves for everything.
I love having so much more space.
It's been really weird getting used to the creaks and noises at a new house.
The old house I would walk through in the pitch black and feel totally comfortable, I'm not quite there yet with the new house. I'm a big chicken and I still get jumpy.
The first week or more I kept one of the kitchen lights on if I was up late so I could have a light on when I moved from the downstairs family room to our room upstairs instead of being in the dark.
The boys started yelling at me about a light being on downstairs so I had to buck up.

Because we live next to a huge empty field we have SO many lightening bugs at night.
The boys favorite thing is to go out at dusk and collect a few each in a container we've poked holes in.
They like to have them in their room up on a dresses to blink through the night.
My mom bought them little bug catcher things but there seems to be a way for them to get out. Each morning when we go to release them there aren't any left in there.
We've got a good catch and release program going on.
Except some have escaped and are hiding in the house somewhere.



Taylor & Nana capturing bugs



Taylor's Catch



Callum's Catch



Snuggling in bed with Nana with their buddies for the night

Happy Birthday Nana!

I try to make sure that my mother in law knows how much we appreciate her as often as I can. In my opinion I can't tell her enough, and I'm sure that I don't.

She's amazing with the boys and they absolutely adore her.
She has made our lives so much easier having her around. Things aren't always easy raising your children with another woman in the house. Things aren't always perfect, but I definitely lucked out with her as my mother in law.
I couldn't have wished for a better one.

Happy Birthday Nana!! We Love you!

Lightsabers

The boys are totally obsessed with Star Wars right now. Hence the new Star Wars room!
They play Star Wars Lego on Wii as often as we will let them and are constantly asking to watch Clone Wars. Nana took them during the move and bought them lightsabers to play with.
They are only allowed to play with them outside and have a blast running all around the backyard yelling and pretending to be different characters.



Callum



Taylor

Climbing out from under the boxes

We're moved into the new house.
It's been pretty insane the last few weeks.
It's starting to hit me, this huge financial obligation of owning your own home.
I think we'll do well, but we definitely have some budget cracking down to do.

The boys and the dogs both are loving the bigger house.
More room to run and play.
Hopefully we'll get more settled in as the weeks go on.
I can't wait to start using our big yard and having bbqs and stuff over the summer.
There is so many things I'd like to do. We just have to pace ourselves since we're in this for the long haul.

I think the small changes we made before we moved in have definitely helped make feel more like home.
We painted over wood paneling in the family room since it felt like a dungeon.
My arch nemesis the wallpaper is gone. The bathroom upstairs looks so much better without it.
We still have lots of pictures to hang and things to put up, we've told ourselves we'll do a room a day and start getting it all done.
Living with tons of boxes is really driving me nuts, its all part of the process I suppose. It still makes me crazy.
We have things to still get from the old house.
Thankfully since we were renting from a family friend she is in no rush for all of our crap to be completely gone.
I didn't make any trips over there last week. Josh and his mom have been going over every day to grab something.

I haven't made any use of our Y membership that Josh got me for mother's day. With all the moving there just hasn't been time.

The boys last week of preschool is this coming week.
Nana wanted to keep them part of summer instead of us having to pay for them to stay where they are.
That will be a huge chunk of change saved.
JESUS preschool is expensive.
If we hadn't stashed money away for it there would be no way that the boys could have gone.

I get to go this week and get them registered for public PreK. I have no idea what the cost is of that, but I'll find out soon enough.
Just the thought of them going to an actual elementary school already is just insane!!

Here are a few pictures of the house. I've posted some on facebook so I am sure some of you have seen them already.
I'll do some before and afters.
Unfortunately I didn't take ANY of the bathroom fully wallpapered! I have no idea how I forgot!



During the peeling process





This is a piece of the wallpaper



new bathroom! I also painted the vanity black



Living Room Before



Living Room after and still in process



The boys room is looking amazing. My sister is doing such an awesome job in there.
She painted the Millenium Falcon Saturday night. The boys are so excited about their Star Wars room!


Our room looks barren! We have two dressers our bed and two side tables and we have SO much room, I don't know what to do with it all!

Moving Day

This is what the boys did on moving day.

Let me tell you, I would have much rathered to spend the day in the sprinklers with them!

New House

It's been so long since I've posted!
Things have been crazy on our end.
We've moved into our new house over the long weekend.
Hopefully I'll be able to upload photos soon. As soon as we have our internet at home back up and running so I can get our pictures uploaded.

The boys LOVE the new house.
My sister has been painting them a Star Wars room. They are beyond excited about this.
She has painted a bunch of the Star Wars planets and has one ship up so far.
They didn't even care that they were sleeping in a new house since they were so psyched about their new room.
They now refer to their room as their Star Wars room and not just their bedroom.