First thing in the morning

The following conversation took place at 6:23 am between Kenan, Micah, and myself.

Me, as I enter their room, "Get back in bed. It's way to early to be up." Kenan: "Okay, I wish it was morning already." Me to Micah: "Lay down. It's not time to be up." Micah: Shakes his head no and stands there. I go and lay him down and tell both boys, "stay in bed." Kenan: "and play with cars." Me: "no, I can hear you, so you better stay in bed." Kenan: "how?" Me: "I know everything" Kenan: "uh uh not everything" Me: I know everything you do."

I have one wish that Micah and Kenan would stay asleep until at least 7. It was all going good until Micah discovered climbing out of the crib. He's the most chill little child, yet he's the only one of the 4 who's ever climbed out of the crib.

working together

How come it is that toddlers do something called parallel play when it comes to playing, but when it comes to trouble they are all up in it TOGETHER?! I am folding a basket of laundry in the dining room and the toddlers are happily chattering in the other room. Now when it's silent I know to go look and check on them but I figure happy chattering is a good sign. So, I'm folding laundry basking in the fact that my day is very productive, kids are all happy and I'm even considering the pool today. I go to put the boys' laundry away and what to happen upon? The closet doors in disarray and the track that the doors slide on hanging by one last screw! How did this happen you may ask? The box of rescue heroes is in the the closet. In that box is a police car that makes siren noises. A very popular toy amongst the toddler set. They succeeded in getting the box out of the closet and emptying it of it's contents. They forgot one minor little thing - slide the doors open first. I can't believe I didn't hear any unusual noises. I have to give them credit for their stealthiness. The track is original but most of the screws have been replaced with longer screws. Now two of the holes have longer and wider screws. The track is on there pretty snug, so hopefully it holds. Otherwise the hubby will be getting his fix-it hat on to either replace the track with a new track and new holes, or even wider screws. I don't know how much wider we can go.

It's 6:45 am

I've been up for 15 minutes. I got to sleep an extra 10 minutes after the hubby left before I woke up to Kenan waking up Micah. With Micah's new found freedom he loves being able to get up and not have to wait for mommy or papa come get him from his crib. Kenan has been sleeping in until 7:30 or even later lately, but he's been up early 2 days in a row! They are watching Tom and Jerry a.k.a. cat and mouse. I am getting a little quiet time before I start thinking about all I have to do today. Last night, Micah went to bed perfectly in his "new bed" It's not really a new bed. It's just his mattress on the floor. The crib broke yesterday. This is the second time it broke and I just feared that Micah's head would get caught. The 2 pieces (head of crib and side of crib separated. The head separated from the post where it's supposed to be glued. ) separated and one corner of the mattress sagged down creating a hole just big enough for a toddler head. Hubby and I decided taking down the crib was the best option since he climbs out of it anyway. Now it's time to look for a big boy bed.

Last night, Timmy and I went to the the end of the season party for the Yankees. His assistant coach hosted it, and everyone had a great time! They have a huge hill in the backyard. When the email said slip 'n' slide on the hill in our yard I was expecting a slight slope, not an actual gigantic hill! This is a huge sledding hill. It's at the edge of their back yard and slide down into the outfield of a baseball field. They had at least 100 feet of plastic sheeting set up for the kids to slide down. I didn't bring the camera or the video camera because team pics were already taken, and I thought "oh, it's just a little party". I was wrong. I really wished I'd brought the cameras. It was very weird seeing all the guys out of their uniforms. One assistant coach is going to coach next year, and he is going to try draft as many of the boys as possible next year. It was fun getting to know parents and chat, and reminisce about plays, kids on the team, or other teams, and little funny things that happened during the season. The Yankees are not done yet. Timmy is doing Fall Ball league. It's a new league that might be started if there is enough interest. The current teams/coaches will stay together as much as possible. Then there is no practices and there are double header games on Sunday afternoons. It lasts for about 5 weeks. Our head coach got an actual Richfield Baseball game ball signed by each kid on the team. He also got a picture of the entire team with their trophies and the kids signed that too. The assistant coaches got gift cards. The coaches gave the boys a certificate, big league chew, baseball cards and an article on team work and sticking together. It features the MN twins and has lot of good stuff in it for the boys to remember.

Now I need to think about laundry and what to do to get ready for our family's first camping trip this weekend!

I need my scream back

This morning I was awoke by lots of footsteps. Kenan and Micah came downstairs. Micah climbed out of his crib (again). I turned on Tom and Jerry and Micah laughed and laughed! Now the little people are out and Curious George is on. Micah is waiting for breakfast so I'll make this quick. When the boys came into my room this morning, they climbed up on my bed and cuddled with me. Kenan tried to scream. He has a cold and his voice just isn't the same. I call it his sick voice. So he hasn't been able to scream for couple days. He was just checking to see if he could. Thankfully he couldn't since 6:45 am is awfully early for screaming. Kenan says to me "Mommy, I'm going to need a shot." I said, "Why will you need a shot?" Kenan says " I can't scream and I need my scream back." Oh Kenan!

Faith Like Potatoes

Hubby, Hannah, Timmy, and I watched Faith Like Potatoes last night. Wonderful movie! Here is a trailer of the movie. What a great message of faith! A great quote from the movie: "The condition for a miracle is difficulty, however the condition for a great miracle is not difficulty, but impossibility.” I definitely recommend that you see this movie if you have not. It really challenged me to really trust God. Not that I don't trust God, but how many times to do put my trust in him when all else fails? Or how many times do I take matters into my own hands instead of trusting God first?

the end

Baseball season is over. The Yankees hung in there and made it all the way to the consolation championship game. They lost to the Rockies yesterday and we beat them today in the loser bracket semi finals. Talk about a confusing bracket. This is how play offs started. The top 8 teams after playoffs go to the quarter finals and are reseeded by playoff record. If there are ties, they are broken by runs scored and runs allowed. Then the winners of the quarterfinals go to the winners bracket of the semis. The losers go to the losers bracket of the semis. The winners of the winners bracket go to the champion ship game. The losers of the winners bracket play for third place. The winners of the losers bracket play for the consolation trophy. Hubby was sick so he stayed home with the little boys. It was nice watching the games on uninterrupted. The first game we played the Giants. They were tied for first with us and the tie was broken by coin toss. Pretty lame but hey, we won the championship trophy! The giants beat us 10-2. In the second game today they played the Rockies and Timmy got a hit! He hit the ball over the pitcher's head and made it to first. They fielders fumbled a minute with the ball so Timmy started for second. Halfway there he had to head back to first since he was caught in the middle of the ball and first base. The first basemen tagged him out. It was a good try for Timmy. He got a hit and allowed the tying run for our team. Because of Timmy's hit we tied the game 3-3 and ended up winning 5-4! Pretty awesome win! 10 minutes later we played the consolation game. That is the game we got creamed 16-3. I have an issue with a coach insisting their players steal bases when they are so far ahead. I mean come on man! It's not like we are going to catch up when there is a 5 run rule in the first 5 innings. Our guys were so tired! They played as good as they could considering they'd been playing ball all day! So the season is over with the team party tomorrow night. That will be a fun celebration of an awesome season! I'm tired and so are Hannah and Timmy. I also sun burned. I did put on sunscreen but I never reapplied so now my shoulders and ears are a tad red. What a beautiful weekend for baseball!

On a different note, Micah is on the verge of needing a big boy bed. He was climbing out of his crib at naptime and then he stopped. Here, I thought it was because I kept talking about a big boy bed. Just when I was going to take down the crib, he stopped climbing out. Well, tonight of all nights, he decides it's funny to climb out of bed at night. The night when mommy is tired and just wants to chill. Well finally after a clean diaper he stays in bed. It is time for a big boy bed. Now we just need to decide whether to do bunk beds for Kenan and Micah and then give Timmy Kenan's bed, or just get a twin bed for Micah. I'm leaning towards bunk beds, though I can envision K jumping off the top bunk and Micah climbing the ladder. On second thought, I think we'll just do a twin bed until Micah is a bit older. I'd rather my boys not break their necks.

One question - why do umps grunt when they call a strike? I mean they really put their all into grunting strrrrriiiiike!!!!

You can't win 'em all

The Yankees lost their third game of the playoffs this afternoon. They are 2 - 1 and do move on to playing in the quarterfinals tomorrow. They played their hearts out and played a great game of ball. Both teams did! The rockies scored that run fair and square. This is the first time this season that I was really upset with umping. Yeah, there were other times during the season that the umps made a bad call or two and their strike zone was the size of a pea, but today the ump had a strike zone the size of the batter. I'm not kidding you! He was calling strikes on our guys when the ball was eye level or higher. Some balls were around the ankles and, sure enough, they were strikes. The ball could go outside the plate by a foot and it was called a strike! I so badly wanted to yell out that we needed a better ump, but what kind of example is that for the kids? I kept my composure until the end of the game. When the ump was within ear shot I said as loudly as I could to my husband, "that was bad umping!" I know he heard me. I was walking behind him to the concession stand, not purposely mind you, but I said loudly "what kind of strike zone was that?!" I was talking to my daughter who agreed. Then there's the boy who was up last for our team. In one respect I feel bad for him, and then again his behavior was a little embarrassing. He struck out and swore, and threw his bat down on the ground and was just about to throw his helmet down when the coach helped calm him down. He did have a lot of pressure on him. First he's been groomed to play ball. His parents put a ton of pressure on him and he doesn't get treats from the concessions if he didn't play well. Second, it was the top of the 6th and we were up to bat. We were down 1-0 and if we didn't score this time we were done. The bases were loaded with 2 outs, and it was a full count. Talk about pressure. I don't think you can get much more pressure than that at this age. He struck out and that was the end. You've got to hand it to both teams. It was 0-0 until the 5th inning. The Rockies really played hard and improved so much from the last time we played them. We beat them that night. The yankees lost one game in the regular season and tied 2. This is the 2nd game they've lost in 19 games. That is pretty darn good! I'm proud of our boys for playing so well. Timmy summed it up very nicely when he said that the game was a lot of fun! It was. I just couldn't help getting upset with how unfair the ump was. Oh well. You win some and you lose some. That is just the way it goes.

There are more games tomorrow. Quarterfinals at 10 am. If we win those we are in the winners bracket of the semis. If we lose, we are in the losers bracket. Then at noon we play the semifinals. The winners of those teams move on to the championship, third place and consolation rounds. I'm looking forward to another great day of baseball! Go Yankees!!!

Waiting, waiting, and more waiting

Today Timmy's team played their first game of the playoffs. It's actually game 2 but the Yankees won by forfeit on Wednesday because the other team never showed up. They played well and they hung in there. It was early, 8 am, so it took an inning for the Yankees to wake up and play ball, but once we took the lead we kept it until we won the game in 5 innings 12-6. We never did play 6 innings since the next game had to start at 10 am and it was 10. Timmy was so pumped to play baseball today that he could hardly sleep last night. He went to bed at 7 pm and woke up at 11 and said he couldn't sleep. We prayed for him, turned on his sleep cd and sent him back to bed. Sleep still eluded the boy so we suggested he read for bit. Timmy didn't want to read since Coach insisted the entire team get their rest. We suggested praying because when I have trouble sleeping, I usually start to doze off mid prayer. Finally we let him sleep on the couch in the family room and he did sleep better. He popped right up at 7 am this morning and was ready to go in like 10 minutes. He has one more game this afternoon at 4 pm so he's been waiting and waiting until it's time to go. We have him on the couch watching The Bee Movie. That will kill a couple hours and then hopefully it'll be time to go. Here's to another good game by the Yankees later! I will post pics of today's games later too.

commitment - whatever happened to it?

Okay, so Timmy's baseball team took first place in the regular season. Wednesday was the first game of a 3 game playoff series. There is a boy on the team that I've only met once. Timmy said this boy never comes to any games because he signed up for something else. In fact the only time I've ever seen this boy was at a game where he and Timmy each got a blizzard from the coach because of something they did at the practice that weekend before. Said boy has played in about 2 -3 games out of 16 regular season and he still gets a trophy. Then his mom tells the coaches last night that he'll be at all the games this weekend. Why? Because there is another trophy involved? They paid the money for him to be in the league. Then they are never there. To me that's teaching your kid that it's okay to quit in the middle (well not even the middle) of something, and that it's okay to back out on your commitments. I think that integrity is something to be valued and we need to instill this in our kids. If they've committed to something then they need to fulfill that commitment. Timmy joined flag football when he was in first grade. He ended up not wanting to play and he'd sit on the sidelines or stand there out in the field in a daze. When game day came he didn't want to go but we told him that he signed up and committed to this team and he can't quit now. If he doesn't like it, he'll never have to sign up again. So we went to every game and stuck it out until the end of the season. Turns out he doesn't like football and has no interest in signing up again, which is fine with me.

Chicken nuggets

I just love the way Kenan says "chicken nuggets". It's adorable! When Timmy was younger I loved the way he said cold and cookie. His first big word when he started talking was applejuice. If he couldn't get it out right, he'd start over and over and over until he could say the word correctly before moving on to the rest of what he wanted to say. Both Timmy and Kenan started talking when they were about 2 1/2. I'm guessing that this fall/winter is when Micah will really start picking up on the words. By talking, I mean saying things that aren't mama, ball, papa, nana! He can say down and done. He also say moon and balloon but I think only we understand it. I was just talking about this yesterday with my sister. How Lucy talks to her and no one else, not even her daddy. Her daddy thinks that Sarah is making all the talking up, until she made him go stand in the hallway and listen to Lucy to talk to Sarah. She did. I told Sarah she never talks to me either, but maybe she's been talking and chattering all along and I just don't understand it because she's not my kid. I remember when Hannah was a toddler and starting to talk. Her daddy and I could understand every word very clearly, but when we were out and she'd say something people were like "what did she just say?" I'd translate, all the while I'm thinking "how could they not understand that?!" Then I came across a toddler that belonged to someone else and all of a sudden I couldn't understand a word she said and I looked to the mom for translation. So, maybe Lu bear is talking to me and I just don't know it. I could've swore she said something like "see the big shoe" yesterday. :)

I just love hearing these little ones talk and express themselves in new ways!

Yikes!

Lately I've been trying to catch up on years of scrapbooking. I'm very behind but that's okay. I'd like catch up on Hannah's birthdays 6-8 this weekend if I can. Like I said I'm very behind. Anyway I needed some supplies and went to Michaels to get some. I did that came home and instead of scrapbooking I cleaned the laundry room. Usually the top of our Dryer gathers everything that we doesn't have a home, or we are too lazy to put away at the moment. It was beginning to pile up so high that there was strategy involved in putting stuff on the top. Anyway the laundry room is tidy now. Of course it's not my dream laundry room, but at least it's tidy, stuff has a home and we can walk through it without tripping over something.

Hubby took to finishing up his chore of cleaning the window wells today. Over the past few years he's been in school. So between that and family and relaxing time we just put off some of the unimportant maintenance of the home. Actually I guess it's all important. Anyway...cleaning the window wells was just one of those things that never got done. We also bought some rock to put at the bottoms of them so the dirt doesn't fly up onto the windows and get the so dirty so quickly.

I'm also in the process of starting a different blog. I'd like one that is more organized and lovely looking. Something clean and simple, yet fun. Right now I'm messing around with wordpress and a different blogger layout. Stay tuned...

Learning letters

So my latest undertaking is to prepare our 5 year old for Kindergarten. He is smart as a whip and comes up with deep and creative thoughts. He is very outgoing and social and has no problem making friends. He has a wonderfully creative imagination and can entertain himself for hours. As far as the academic stuff goes (you know - reading, writing, arithmetic) he has it in him just waiting to come out. It's in there. We know it is. We just need to find the "on switch." That thing that makes it all click. We know that he will get it and kindergarten is the place for that. Kindergarten has changed so much since I was a kid. I remember learning about sharing, playing in the sand table, coloring at the tables and doing paper mache'.

We went to the kindergarten information meeting and they would like kids to know how to write their name before they come to school. That's fine. Kenan is progressing and learning. But the fact that I'm mom, and he is very independant makes for a struggle at times. Then since it's no going how I envision, I worry and think to myself, maybe we are making the wrong decision. But slowly I am reminded that he is only 5 and it's kindergarten for crying out loud! It's not the SATs. I am also reminded that his big brother was in the same spot academically before he entered Kindergarten as well and by the end of the school year he was reading and writing more than his name! Kenan will get there, I just need to rest in that and not fret about everything else.

My prayer for today is that God would give me patience and gentleness, and that I would see the progress Kenan is making rather than what he hasn't attained. After all it is only kindergarten, not the SATs.

By the way, today we are reviewing Kk, Ee, and learning Aa.

Strawberry picking

Yesterday our family went Strawberry Picking. It was a lot of fun. I used to go as a kid and thought it would be a great thing to do while hubby had a couple days off. We went to Lorence's Berry Farm. We spent about an hour there and we picked about 17 lbs of berries. Kenan picked 1lb, Timmy picked 2 lbs, Hannah 3 3/4 lbs, Jeff 3 1/2 lbs, and I picked 7 lbs. Lucy and Micah spent their time wandering around and helping put berries in the buckets. Lucy and Kenan chowed on berries as well. We came home and began washing, slicing and eating fresh picked strawberries. I tried making a pie crust. It took me 4 times to finally get it right. Jeff and Hannah made two runs to the store to buy ready made pie crusts. I made 2 pies and they turned out delicious. The home made crust was from my Betty Crocker cookbook and the pie filling recipe was from a website I found. I gave that pie to my in-laws along with a bag of strawberries. The 2nd pie we kept and we still have 1/2 of it. It's so yummy! As a kid picking strawberries, all we did was help my mom pick the berries. Then we came home and she made jam while we sat outside eating a bucket of berries. I didn't realize that it's such a big deal and an all day process. What a fun thing to do as a family though!

silly boy

Last week Micah wanted to take a nap on the floor, so we put the crib mattress down on the floor for him to nap on. I figured that if he was really ready for a big boy bed, this was a good way to get him used to it, before buying a big boy bed. That way if he doesn't like it, he can just go back to sleep in his crib. Well, nap time went perfectly. Bedtime comes along and we gave him a choice and he chose to sleep on the floor again, so we kept the mattress on the floor for him. About 2 am I heard a couple thumps on the floor so I went up to check on Micah. I thought the thumps were Micah walking around so when I found that he wasn't on the mattress or next to it, I started to look though the entire house. I got worried but for no reason. I knew no one broke into the house and I knew Micah couldn't get out of the house, so I knew he was somewhere in the house. Suddenly it dawned on me to look under the crib. After looking through the house. Why didn't I think of that first?! I looked and saw a little tiny hand peeking out from under the crib. I lifted up the dust ruffle and there he was laying perfectly parallel with the crib under it. The thumping I heard was Micah bumping his head up and down on the floor. He usually does that on the mattress when he's trying to fall asleep. So I put the mattress in the crib and put him in the crib. I would've taken a picture but it was 2 am, I was tired, and I didn't want the flash to wake him or Kenan. It was quite cute!

Oh, Kids...they attempt to be so convincing.

A few weeks ago I was at Target with Kenan and I let him pick out a box of popsicles. He picked a box of ice age popsicles. The kids were so excited until they bit into them and found a gooey center. Needless to say, the rest of the box went uneaten. Fast forward a couple weeks. I threw the popsicles out, and last night Timmy comes and tells me that he wants to try them again. Apparently he saw a commercial advertising these very popsicles and the gooey part is supposed to be an acorn. So you didn't like them to begin with, but now that there is a gooey "acorn" in them that means you will like them? Hmmmm.....I'm not buying it.

About a week ago, Kenan was sitting on the couch upstairs Jeff. Kenan really wanted to go downstairs and watch cartoons. Jeff said "No Kenan. How about we stay up here and cuddle for a bit?" Kenan, who was very disappointed, said in his most convincing and enticing voice, " well, papa, did you know there is a big soft comfy couch downstairs?" It still didn't work but hey, he tried.

The other day Kenan was at the dining room table playing starwars guys. He uses his imagination which is awesome, and he had his crocodile playing as well. Lucy came up to see what Kenan was doing and Kenan and her conversation went something like this:

Kenan to Lucy: "Lucy do you want to kiss the crocodile?" Lucy just stares at Kenan. Kenan in his best enticing voice, "You'll turn into a princess. If you kiss this crocodile, you'll turn into a beautiful Princess Leia."