Fall Begins...

Collin's first day of school after he rode the bus home. That smile says it all!

Collin waiting to be "sponged" back into the game. I don't know why he calls subbing sponging but he does. I keep reminding him that its sub not sponge so maybe by the next game....

Coach Daddy and Collin (#6).

So much has been happening lately and its been hard to find an extended period to sit down and write about it all. The biggest happening is that Collin started kindergarten. There was much trepidation leading up to this event, mostly on my part but a fair amount on his as well. It was all for naught. He seems to love it. His teacher is very nice and he has come home every day with a smiley face on his behavior chart. In typical little boy fashion, its like pulling teeth to get him to tell me about his day.
Me: Tell me about your day. What did you do?
Collin: It was good.
Me: Tell me what you learned.
Collin: Nothing.
Me: Ok, who did you sit with at lunch?
Collin: Jacob, Tackle and Mystery.
Me: Who??
I've met Jacob but I have no idea who Tackle or Mystery might be. He's come home with some new songs and several awards for good behavior which he is very proud of. I'll have to shoot video of him singing the "Tooty-Ta" song. It is hysterical. He likes school because its fun. I like school for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it has made bedtime a breeze. He goes to bed like an angel now because he's actually tired. I also like it because I only have to get one kid up and ready to go in the morning now so my mornings are easier.

The boys are both playing soccer and taking swim lessons again this fall. Nick is doing the junior striker program that Collin did at his age and I'm very impressed with how well he's doing. He is engaged and follows directions from the coach with absolutely no prompting from me. He was so excited to go to the first practice. Collin had his first game today. He is very excited because Tim is the assistant coach for his team. He calls him Coach Daddy. Their team got crushed today but they had tons of fun and I don't think they realized it because there is no official score. The other team had a little kid who probably could have played with the 7 and 8 year olds and fit right in. I was proud of our team because they all gave it their best effort and had a great time.

Collin is also starting Sunday school in a couple of weeks. Tim and I will be taking turns being the second teacher in one of the classes. I don't know if it will be his or not yet. We're looking forward to that as well.

Its going to be a very busy year for us. There is certainly more than enough to keep us busy! I will try to find more time to blog and keep things a little more updated than I have lately.

Happy Birthday to my little Man

We made cupcakes for Nick's birthday and invited the neighbors over to share them. They got all sugared up and ran around like crazy people. It got crazier when I pulled out the camera and started taking pictures. They are all such hams!

It's hard to believe that it was 3 years ago that my little Nicholas entered the world screaming his little head off and significantly larger than his brother had been. He's been expressive right from birth and continues to make his wishes known in no uncertain terms. He's got a bright beautiful smile as well as a quick temper. If he's not getting his way, watch out. He's also got a great sense of humor and is always telling jokes and playing pranks. I wish I could describe the glint in his eyes when he's teasing you. You can just see how delighted he is with himself to be trying to get your goat. Nick is also kind, compassionate and thoughtful. He never forgets to think of his brother and share things with him. Unless, of course, he's feeling competitive. Then its all about him and he can't wait to show his brother he's got something Collin doesn't. It has been such a joy watching the relationship develop between my boys. Like all brothers they pick on each other and fight but for the most part they look out for each other, play nicely together and are fiercely loyal to one another. When I got pregnant with Nick I had so many questions about what life would be like with 2 children. The scariest was would I be able to love the second one as much as the first. I couldn't imagine loving another child as much as I loved Collin. And then I had Nick. The moment I first heard that angry cry and held him close I knew I loved him every bit as much as Collin and all my worries were unfounded. Nick has been such a blessing in our lives. He makes me smile and teaches me new things every day. Happy Birthday little man! You make each day brighter and I'm so very proud of you and everything you've accomplished so far. I can't wait to see all your new discoveries and to be a part of all your new adventures in the next year.

Congrats!

Chrissy and Max

Leaving St. Bernadette's

The Sisul Cousins

Collin and Gracie (Ring Bearer and Flower Girl)

Chrissy and I

Collin and Nick

I have been very busy the past few weeks and have sorely neglected my blog. I apologize but I had good reason. I've been very busy with preparations for my sister's wedding. Last Friday she and Max were married in a beautiful ceremony at the church we grew up in. The ceremony had moments of levity like when my dad walked her down the aisle and handed her to Max only to turn around and step on the train of her dress. We also got a chuckle out of the bridal party forgetting their part during the ceremony, standing up, sitting down and being told to stand back up. You'd think we'd never rehearsed it before. Aside from that, it was a perfect ceremony on a beautiful day. The reception at the Sheraton in Columbia followed the ceremony. I can't believe how fast it went by. I swear it was over in the blink of an eye. It was one hell of a party. My boys and Gracie (the flower girl) claimed the dance floor as soon as they arrived and didn't leave it except to eat until the night was over. They were very entertaining. It was so nice to see all the family we don't see very often and to visit with old friends. My sister was a beautiful bride. I wish them a lifetime of happiness and good fortune. Congratulations to the newlyweds!

Myrtle Beach Vacation

We spent the last week visiting Grandmom and Granddad in North Carolina and had a fantastic time. Uncle Chris came up for a visit while we were there and got a real education in life with small children. Collin and Nick LOVED hanging out with Uncle Chris. Everything thing we did, they wanted to make sure Uncle Chris was coming too. We did all kinds of fun stuff like going to the beach, fireworks, a picnic, the Dixie Stampede and a water park too. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the charger for our camera battery so we're kind of short on pictures but here are a few from the week. The video is of Collin doing this cool jumping thing that we were too cheap to let him do last year. This year we paid the $8 and seriously considered spending another $16 so we could each try it because it looked like so much fun! The boys both loved the beach and it took nothing short of an act of God to get them out of the water to go home. Darn it! I just realized that the video loaded sideways. I'm not sure how to change that, but you get the picture. It looked really fun and Collin LOVED it!

My daredevil son wanted to do this again as soon as he finished his first jump!
Here he is running around on the beach.
I think Nick was getting ready to do yoga on the beach. Think Warrior Pose.
Here they are playing nicely together in the water. Far too busy to smile at their mother.
Here's Collin Jumping waves.

My sidways video. He had so much fun doing this!

Pictures from the day....

Collin did fairly well at his sleepover last night. He did not want to come home this morning but reluctantly agreed when we promised him he could play with his friends later because we were planning a backyard BBQ. We dragged out the grill and had tons of great food. We were out there for the majority of the day. The boys had a great time just running around and playing. Even the dogs came outside and ran around. Morey only disappeared twice so we thought he did pretty well. Plus, he came back both times so it made us really happy. He still enjoys his jail breaks, but clearly he's happy here with us and that makes us happy. The boys love him so much, I don't know what we'd do if he didn't come back. Anyway, here are the pictures from all the fun we had today. Enjoy.

Pictures

We had the boys pictures done by Love Life Images last weekend. I don't have them all back yet but a couple were posted on the photographers blog. I am so pleased with the way they came out and I'm dying to get the rest back. I don't know how I'll ever choose between them. Here are the ones that are posted on the photographers blog. I love the one where Collin is playing peek-a-boo!

New Pics of My Guys

Friday night the boys and I went on a "date" to the mall for haircuts. 3 hours later we arrived home with nice haircuts and a few pretzels and a half of a lemonade. Since Collin got his first haircut, its become tradition to stop at the pretzel stand and get pretzels and a lemonade afterwards. We get a bag of pretzel bits and we eat some and bring some home to share with Daddy. Friday night we checked in at 6:30 and were told it would be about a 35 minute wait. OK, that sucks but Nick was so bad when we went to a regular hair cuttery that I decided I would go back to Cartoon Cuts so he could watch cartoons while they cut his hair. I was hoping and praying things would go better. At 7:00 the second lady who had been cutting hair left and 3 more people who had apparently signed in before us and waited in the mall somewhere returned. They told everyone after us that they were closed and not taking any more clients. That should have been my first clue. By 7:15 I was irritated and leaving nasty notes about only having one person working in the comments box but I'd waited that long, I wasn't leaving without haircuts. We left Cartoon Cuts at 9:00 and hit the pretzel place before heading home. The boys were tired but looked great. I've decided that since Nick was as bad, if not worse, at the Cartoon place, I'm going back to the cheap place. Here are some pictures of my boys with their nice short haircuts.

Snow Pictures

Today we had our first real snowfall of the season. I HATE winter! But as I watched Nick staring in amazement at the snow coming down this morning, I almost liked it. Had this been a Saturday I might have actually enjoyed it. However, it was 6:05 and I still had to get Nick in his car seat and drop the boys off at daycare before going to work, I didn't have time to let him admire the snow too much. This afternoon however, I left work a little early, picked the boys up and let them play in the snow. They loved it! They had such a good time trying to make snow balls and snow angels. Here's a couple of pictures. This is the picture I took the other day of Collin giving Nick a hug.
Collin was trying to make his own snowballs.
Nick finally sat down to play in the snow.
Here's both of my boys hanging out in the snow.
Collin is making his first snow angel.

Finally Finished

Last January we took a trip to Disney World. When we got back I made my parents a beautiful scrapbook on the computer and had it printed. Then I set to work on my scrapbook. It took 3 scrapbooking weekends with the girls but it is finally completed. I am pretty proud of it. Most of the pages turned out really great. Having said that, it took a lot of time and probably money too. I haven't figured out exactly how much it cost to do the album, but between materials and the money spent on weekends with the girls (which is money well spent) it was way more than what I spent on my parents album, which was equally great, just different. I think this year, I will scrapbook most of my stuff on the computer as each event happens. MyPublisher (get the software through Costco) is a great program. It's easy to use and doesn't take much time at all. Especially if there is only a few photos at a time. Snapfish also does this sort of thing. I'm still going to scrap some stuff the way I've always done because I really enjoy my weekends away with the girls, but I'm going to try to do more of the computer stuff. Maybe that way I'll be able to stay more current. The next time I go away (and don't worry Tim, I don't have any plans for another weekend any time soon) I'm going to be working on Nick's baby album. When I left off he was 6 months old. I'm a whole year behind already!

Look Ma!

Nick found Collin's swim goggles the other day and couldn't resist trying them on. He was just delighted with himself to be wearing them. I guess I'll be getting him a pair this summer.

Meet Morey

A couple of weeks ago Collin started asking for Sadie to sleep with him. We tried putting her in his room and she was fine for a few minutes but then she would bark because she wanted out. As soon as she got out he would cry because he wanted her back in. Tim's been talking about getting a second dog and I've been poo-pooing him because that means twice the poop to clean up and twice the vet bills. It also means twice the joys of having a dog. So when Collin started asking for Sadie to sleep with him and she wanted nothing to do with that I mentioned that maybe we should get a second dog. That was all Tim needed to hear. We were at the animal rescue the next day. The first dog we really liked was a puggle (pug/beagle) named Nicholas but he already had an application in on him so we didn't get him. We also looked at a husky and a husky mix named Max and Bella but they were way to high energy for our household. So a couple of weeks came and went and we hadn't found the right dog. This past Tuesday we went again. I'm pleased to report that almost none of the dogs that we saw there the first time we went were still there, they'd all been adopted and there really weren't a whole lot of new dogs either. We looked at a really cute hound dog but she'd clearly been abused and we thought she was too timid to live with Sadie. We also looked at a cute little puppy who jumped all over Nick and caused him to cry. Cute, but way too much energy and it was clear Nick hated her. Finally we played with "William". We knew right away that he was perfect for our family. He was playful but not jumpy and the kids seemed to really like him. The next day I took Sadie to meet him. I don't know what was wrong with her that day but it didn't go as well as I had hoped. Perhaps its because before we owned her, she got out of the house and was picked up by animal control and did some time before her owners claimed her. Perhaps it was because she could sense I was nervous about being there by myself with the two kids while the dogs met. Whatever it was, she was not herself. She peed all over the floor and was completely uninterested in "William". Every time he came near her, she growled and walked away. This is not how our dog behaves so Tim took her back to try again the next day. Everything went just fine so Friday "William" was neutered and we brought him home. So far, so good. He seems to be house broken and is getting along very well with everyone in the family. The only one I'm not sure about is Jackson who has been relegated to his cage until I'm sure he won't be eaten.

When Tim picked the dog up he was told that "William" is not his real name so we decided to change it to Baltimore and call him Morey for short. He's learning to respond to his name. We start obedience classes in November so we'll be learning lots of stuff in the near future. Something else we learned tonight is that he was at the animal shelter because he ran away. How do we know this? Well, we'd had him less than 24 hours and he'd run away twice! We brought him to my parents so they could meet him and put him in the back yard (which is fenced) because he still stinks and we can't bathe him until tomorrow. The first thing he did was get out through the back gate and go into my neighbors yard. Then Tim blocked the back gate and he somehow got out while we were inside and Tim had to take the car clear around to the other side of the neighborhood to find him. Finally, as Tim was watching him, he squeezed through the slats in the gate and went running across the street. I've never seen Tim run so fast! He caught up to him and brought him back. After that, we went immediately to Pet Smart to get a tag so if he gets out again, at least someone will have our number to call. He's about 2 years old so he's still pretty energetic when he wants to be. When he's inside, he's very chilled out and relaxed. I keep finding him lounging on the couch. As long as we keep him on a leash and keep the disappearing acts to a minimum, things are going to work out just great. The kids love him and Sadie really seems to enjoy having a friend around to play with.

Webber's Farm

We've made a couple of trips up to Webber's Farm with the boys this fall. First we went with our friends Jane and Scott and their kids Trent and Brady and then we met our friends Matt and Cheryl and their kids Elijah, Emily and Sawyer for some more fun. This is a great place to take kids. They have a moon bounce thing for the kids to climb through, goats to feed, a huge slide, a larger hay maze for the bigger kids and one geared toward toddlers. Nick was particularly fascinated by the peacocks, the turkey and the ducks. There was also a water thing where you pumped the water to race rubber ducks to a tub at the end of the tube. Collin couldn't be pulled away from that. Our camera died shortly after we got there the first time so there aren't too many pictures from that trip. We made sure to bring it along the second time and although it died at the end, we got a lot more pictures.

Webbers Farm 2008

My Boys October 2008

Pictures from this week

Nick has no problems getting in the pool all by himself, he's using the steps here but he's perfectly happy to hop in the deep end as well.
He can also get himself out of the pool. He does better at this in the shallow end but that doesn't keep him from trying in the deep end.
Here he is hanging out in the deep end of the pool. He's standing on his tip toes because the water comes at least up to his chin.
Collin played in the moon bounce for a while before his friends arrived.
It's a little boring to bounce by yourself and Nick is too small so Daddy got in to play too.

Vacation Story

We spent last week visiting Tim's parents in North Carolina on a much needed vacation. While I couldn't wait to get down there and see Tim's parents, the idea of spending somewhere between 7.5-9 hours in a car with two small children was enough to give me nightmares. I have to say that while there were a few moments when I'd have given anything to be there already (like 15 minutes into the trip when Collin asked "are we there yet" for the first time), for the most part the boys could not have been better behaved. They really surprised me. We had tons and tons of fun while we were there. We ate crabs, went to the beach, the pool and the Dixie Stampede, rode rides, and did just a little shopping. We packed a lot of fun into one short week. The boys really loved the beach. Nick preferred playing in the sand but Collin took to the ocean like a little fish. We couldn't keep him out. The water was beautiful, it was 80 degrees. The neatest part was that we saw tons of little fish swimming around our feet and I managed to catch two little hermit crabs to show the boys (we let them go after a little while of course). We even saw a mollusk, a blue crab and a jelly fish. I can't remember ever being at the beach and seeing so much marine life. Tim, Collin and I worked together to dig a hole that was deep enough to have water in the bottom which Collin thought was really neat. All the sudden he said "Watch out, here comes the Collinator!" and jumped in. We made lots of trips to the ocean to get buckets of water to make the water deeper. I'm proud to say that as much time as we spent in the sun, none of us got overly burned. I turned a little pink but my boys are just nice and tan. I can't imagine a munchkin with a sunburn, it would be miserable. We rode rides at Broadway at the Beach which Collin absolutely loved. He couldn't get enough of them. His favorites were the boats and the race cars that are like the whip from my childhood. They also had a really cool area where kid could play that Collin calls the "volcano water" because it shoots up out of the ground. Both of my boys ran around and got soaking wet in it. I was really proud of Nick because even though he was intimidated at first, he got over it and really enjoyed himself. He was the smallest one out there. Friday afternoon Tim's Aunt and Uncle joined us for dinner. It was really nice to see them again. Collin was anti-social but Nick was perfectly happy to be held and played with. We left early Saturday morning and I must say that as good as my little guys were on the way down, they were even better on the way back. Nick slept most of the trip and Collin was perfectly happy to chat with us and listen to his CD's. They had just a couple of moments. I think my favorite was Collin informing me that he had to go pee. At a McDonald's. And get a happy meal. Oh, they're still serving breakfast? I can wait. Manipulative little stinker isn't he. When we got home we went to Red Robin for dinner because who wants to cook after driving all day long. Here is a slide show of some of our photos from the week. Check out the boys playing in the water. Nick gets absolutely dumped on!

Hershey Park Pictures

We got our picture take with the Reese Cup guy when we first got there but the boys weren't too excited about it.


Collin insisted on taking a train ride. I love this picture of Nick and I that my parents took.

Here's Collin on the swings. You can hear his squeals of delight!

Collin rode the airplanes 3 different times. He really got the hang of making the plane go up and down.

The dizzy drums would have been more fun if an adult could have gone on to spin the drum too. Neither kid had a clue how to make it spin but they had fun anyway.

Don't anyone laugh. There were plenty of other adults riding this stupid ride with their kids. Collin insisted on going on it and he wanted Mommy to come too. Lucky me...

Proof that I will do anything for my kids... I hate rides that drop you straight down and that's exactly what this one did. Granted its for little guys so it doesn't take you too high or drop you too far, but it was enough. It didn't help that I'd just eaten a hot dog for dinner. I truly thought I might lose my dinner afterwards.

Aunt Bella will do anything for her boys too. These stupid lady bug cars made our rear ends hurt but the boys really enjoyed the ride.
Ah yes... The flume ride I waited an hour to take Collin on only to find he'd fallen asleep just as we got to the head of the line. This picture was taken AFTER we went down the hill and got splashed!

The Flying Falcon was very cool. I'm so proud of Collin for getting on it with me. He was such a big boy and he loved every dizzying minute of it. Each pod of Falcons is spinning and the thing in the center is spinning as the ride is climbing.

This picture gives you a little better perspective of how high up it went. Definitely not for those with a fear of heights!

And finally, it wouldn't be a trip to an amusement park if we didn't play a little Skee Ball. I love this game and couldn't wait to introduce Collin to it. At 25 cents a pop, I think we probably spent $1.50 and he didn't score more than a total of 30 points, but he loved every single minute of it. It was kind of a rip. You had to score 240 points to earn a ticket! That's hard to do in just 9 balls. I did it on my first try, by sheer luck and could barely break 100 every try after that. Between the 5 of us we managed to get 6 tickets so we were able to a stuffed Scooby Doo for Collin and a little stuffed puppy for Nick. What a day. Can't wait to do it again sometime.