Way to go Collin!

Check out my big boy riding his bike without the training wheels! It all started on vacation when the tire on his bike went flat and needed a new tube. The training wheels had to come off to get the tire off and they stayed off. It was tough at first but Collin kept at it. He almost got it while we were still at Grandmom and Granddad's. I let go and he kept going until he realized I had let go. Then he promptly stopped and fell and lost confidence even though I pointed out he was going just fine until he realized I wasn't hanging onto him anymore. Tonight Tim took him over to the school to practice riding again and he did fantastic. Tim said that there were even people cheering him on as he mastered his bike. He also met some new friends and got to play on the playground for a while.

Wowza

Who knew one sleepless night would end up costing so much money? I am banning HGTV permanently! After I watched Design Star one night I couldn't sleep for hours so I began mentally redesigning my entire house. The next day I floated the idea of looking for a new couch by Tim and he said go for it so I searched craigslist and found a cream colored couch and love seat for $250 that was just what I had in mind. I thought that plus a coat of paint would be perfect. My quick little project has quickly snowballed. My amazing husband put crown molding up this weekend despite the best efforts of our builder 30 years ago to make that task impossible. Studs are supposed to be every 16 to 24 inches on center, yet we have runs of 3 feet or more with no studs. The walls aren't flat either. And the corners? Forget those. We ended up with the cheater corners and I think they look awesome so I'm glad we did. The ancient ceiling fan that the idiots couldn't be bothered to install properly by running the wires behind the walls has now been replaced by a new fan. Tim even ran the wires behind the wall for me. That's been one of my pet peeves since we bought the house. We bought pergo flooring that we are planning to install shortly and we'll be replacing the baseboards and installing a chair rail. The new furniture is a much better scale for the room so we'll be re-arranging everything and I think we'll need to buy a new entertainment center because the TV will no longer hang above the piano. When its all finished I think it will be gorgeous and I promise to post pictures. I can't believe how far this project has come from my initial coat of paint and a new couch. It's needed though, especially the floor. If it were up to me, I'd get rid of all the carpet in the whole house. I hate carpet! The kids are always spilling something on it and the dogs are constantly shedding all over it so I really have to vacuum much more often that I'd like to. Pergo is easy to clean up. So I'm excited to finally finish this project. It's one of the few rooms in the house we haven't really re-done yet. Now that we've done all this, I really don't want to even think about moving and having to start all over again making the house the way we really want it.

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.

My boys are sick

My kids are sick, both of them. It started about 10 days ago when Collin got a cough. It wasn't a particularly bad cough and it didn't bother him much so I left it alone. Then on Sunday Nick came down with a fever. On Monday it was 101.8 so we stayed home and went to the doctor. Collin has bronchitis and they told me Nick had a virus. Lots of rest and fluids for both of them and an antibiotic for Collin. Last night in the middle of the night Nick woke me up breathing like Darth Vader. I laid there with him debating whether or not I needed to take him to the ER but he didn't seem to be in acute distress and the logistics of that would have been a bit hairy so I decided to watch and wait. I made another appointment with the doctor and as soon as I described Nick's symptoms the doctor informed me it was croup. He said I can expect 2 more nights like last night and the fever will probably last that long too. If its not gone by Friday I need to go back to the doctor, again. I am praying that this is the last night of this and that the fever breaks soon because it was really scary to lay there and listen to him last night. He acts fine during the day when the Motrin has reduced his fever but when he falls asleep or gets really relaxed he sounds awful. Despite being worried about my kids, I've actually enjoyed being home with them the last couple of days. It looks like I'll be staying home again tomorrow too unless by some miracle his temperature isn't 101 again tomorrow morning.

A night with my kids

Where has the time gone? It feels like just yesterday I was bringing home this tiny, helpless, little baby. Today I took a very independent young man for his kindergarten assessment. He was nervous at first but by the time they were through he was having a great time, probably because it was all stuff he knew. They asked him about the alphabet and did some numbers and simple math like which picture has more things. He was also given a list of site words and he knew quite a few and the ones he didn't know he tried to sound out. Some of the other tasks included writing his name and listening to a story and being able to tell the teacher what happened. He came out and told us everything the teacher asked him he knew the answer to. The teacher didn't have too much to say afterward. She wanted to know if he went to preschool and when we said no she seemed pretty surprised and said we must work with him a lot at home. She also mentioned that he told her he uses flash cards. Mostly what she said was that he was more than ready for kindergarten and he will do just fine in the fall.

So we took him to Rita's afterward as a reward for trying hard and we let him play a little wii because he found a new level that I'd never seen before and he wanted to show his Dad. You'd think he'd be good the rest of the night right? Ha! At some point during his bath (I didn't bathe him tonight) he dumped an entire bottle of body wash down the bathtub drain. And it wasn't a little bottle, it was one of the giant ones you get at BJ's. Apparently if you dump an entire bottle of body wash down the drain and then flush the toilet the basement toilet and tub fill with bubbles! We had no clue what was going on. All we heard was this gurgling sound and when we went to check it out we found the basement toilet gurgling and full of bubbles. Tim googled the situation and came up with the possibility of air in the lines. That's when he found the empty bottle of body wash. Collin fessed up when we confronted the boys about it. Thank goodness my husband is so smart and patient because he figured things out and spent quite a bit of time running water and flushing toilets to get rid of all those bubbles!

Then it was bedtime. I put them both to bed no problem and went downstairs to watch Dancing with the Stars. It wasn't long before Nick came down. I sent him back up then Collin came down. I sent him back up. Then I heard Collin say he couldn't sleep because of Nick's nightlight. I told him to shut his door. This conversation was followed by a series of screams and both children coming downstairs. Turns out instead of shutting his door, Collin removed Nick's nightlight. I took them both back upstairs, plugged in Nick's nightlight again and told them both if they got out of bed again I was going to shut and lock their doors. On the way out of Nick's room I happened to glance at the wall. "What's this?" I asked of the lovely green scribbles now gracing Nick's wall. "A bird" he replied. Of course it was a bird, why wouldn't it be a bird? He answered so innocently and proudly as if there was nothing wrong with drawing a bird on his wall in green crayon. I reminded him that we don't draw birds on the wall, we draw them on paper. That's when Collin fessed up, again! He had drawn a person with a box in a bubble on his wall in green crayon as well. What the hell were my children thinking tonight? So it was 9:30, they were both still up and they had defaced their walls. They will be scrubbing their walls in the very near future. Maybe not tomorrow because we have appointments at the eye doctor and a t-ball game tomorrow, but very, very soon.

Collin's T-Ball Game

Collin's first t-ball game was one of the most entertaining things I have ever seen in my entire life. It loosely resembled a game. Every kid on the team got to bat, there were no outs and the last kid up each inning hit a grand slam and cleared the bases so that each kid got to go all the way around the bases and score a run. Half the kids would barely hit the ball, the kids in the fields would rush forward to get it only to have the batter pick it back up and put it back on the tee. Collin had one really great hit that went over the head of the three kids playing short stop. His coach called it the hit of the game. He also got to play catcher for an inning. I couldn't have been prouder helping him suit up to play my old position. He did a good job too. Not that he actually had to catch since the ball sits on a tee but after every hit the first baseman throws the ball back to the catcher and its his job to put the ball on the tee for the next batter. When he was paying attention (which was most of the time) he did a good job stopping the ball and putting it back on the tee. Did I mention he plays for the Yankees? I have never cheered so hard for the Yankees in my entire life. He had such a good time he's looking forward to practice on Wednesday and playing another game this Sunday. I was going to add pictures to this post but realized they are on the other computer so I will have to post them later but they are available on facebook if you just can't wait to see him.

My funny kids

Tim called a family meeting when we got home today because he couldn't find his iphone anywhere and he'd already torn the house apart looking for it. Neither of the boys claimed to have seen it. Then I thought back to last night when I went in to check on Collin. He was snuggled up under his covers and didn't want me to move them. It made me suspicious and of course I moved them. When I did, I could have sworn I saw the glow of the iphone but when I went looking for it in his bed it wasn't there so I decided I must have been wrong. The family meeting made me rethink that and I called him out on it. He fessed up immediately and told us it was in his drawer under the pants so it wouldn't get broken. Sure enough that is exactly where it was.

Collin also now has a favorite song: Hey, Soul Sister by Train. I have it programmed into the xm radio so I know when it comes on and we listen to it all the time. He knows the refrain by heart now. It came on in the car tonight and Collin started singing it. Nick piped up with "not this again!". I couldn't help but laugh. When we got to Rita's Italian Ice the song had just ended but that didn't stop Collin for singing it. The girl serving us got about halfway through our order before she stopped and laughed and said "I just realized what he's singing" then she sang with him as she finished getting our italian ices. It's really quite funny to hear such a grown up song from such a little boy. I'm not sure why he latched onto that as his favorite song but he really does love it.