On this snowy day...

...Mike and I got some of the carpet up out of our bedroom. We hope to get the rest of it yet tonight, but tomorrow is another day.

...I made pizza with Adam for supper. Adam had just put on his snowsuit to help Mike shovel, and Mike had finished and was coming in. Adam was a little disappointed, so he told me he was GOING to help me, since he could not help daddy. Adam still had his snowsuit on and he got a little flour on it. He said, "good thing I am still wearing my snowsuit." That's right Adam find multi-purposes for things. I look forward to the day that Paula Deen or Rachel Ray says, "All my aprons were dirty so I wore my snowsuit." :)

...my boys got into the swim gear. I think they are as eager for spring as I am...then again, I'm sure I am more eager.

Why, may you ask, were they in the swim gear. The gear was in my closet. Since our room is being re-done, everything had to come out! Thus, they found it. There is, actually, going to be a polar bear swim at our local pool tomorrow. I thought about going, but may have a problem getting my suit on with snow on the ground. It would be so cold coming our of the pool. (the pool does have a dome over it, but the outside air will be cold!)

***Carol, I posted this one for you. You mentioned my house looked neat in the header picture-that was nothing short of foresight. As you can see, half my closet is in the chair, and hanging in 2 doorways. You cannot get to my front door, and the laundry hamper is the hall, and 2 baskets of shoes (why do I need so many shoes? I always wear the same ones!). About a third of the rec room is now storage until we can get the bedrooms put back together. I thought about posting this and then replacing it with another picture, but maybe it will be a good reminder one day of how we got through doing these bedrooms!***

...I baked cookies. Warm chocolate chip cookies are wonderful on a snowy day! I added some M&M's to give them color. Can always use some color on a snowy day. The boys were very excited to have warm cookies after dinner.

I thought I might take some to a meal at church tomorrow. If that is cancelled, I need to take to food to a teacher that just had a baby, if they last that long!

It doen't matter what day it is!

Yesterday, we were watching the weather. They said that there was a chance we might get some snow. It really depended on who you were listening to as to the amount. I heard anywhere from flurries to 8 inches. Austin heard that there was snow coming and asked if there was going to be school today. I said, "Well, no there won't we school tomorrow..." He got excited and started doing a little dance. The I said, "...tomorrow is Saturday." He did not care! He was going to be out of school and there would be snow.

In our area, we do not a lot of snow. And when we do, it is often not enough to merit our school system to close. This year we have had a couple of delays, but only one closing. So, even though it was Saturday, he was happy to be home with snow.

my deep thinker

Adam has become my deep thinker. After I put him to bed, I will often call my mom and tell her his latest thought, that I am sometimes baffled to know how to answer.

Last night, he asked, "When I die will the angel come out of me and go to heaven?" I told him, "There is not really an angel inside of you, you have a soul and your soul will go to heaven." Adam, got a thoughtful look on his face and said, "What will happen if I cut my soul in half?" I reassured him that he cannot physically cut his soul in half.

This morning, he was watching Sesame Street and they had something on there about chicken eggs. He asked me, "How do you know if the egg has a baby chick or not?" Well, being a city girl, I really did not know. Luckily, my mom had not left for work yet, so I quickly called her to find out. I left off the rooster part of the answer and just told him that the momma hen knows and she gets very protective of her eggs, just like I am protective of him.

I will love to see what Adam does with all this knowledge one day.

Oh, how my mind wandered

It's funny how sometimes I will be thinking of one thing, and somehow-even one little word-can trigger a totally different thought.

Adam was singing a song this morning. It goes like this:

Kenny Kangaroo

and Kitty, too

can fly a kite

and kick a ball

and play a big Kazoo

Then he tried to add different names into the song. Instead of Kitty he tried Candy. My first thought was that Candy does not start with a K. But, then I thought, Oh, I guess it could. For some reason then, I started to think about my cousin Rod and his wife Candice.

Rod and his wife live in Alberta, Canada. The summer of 2008 he was a truck driver, and would often come to the states in his routes. Very often during the summer, Candice would join him for a trip. My sister, Lana, was getting married that summer so he asked if he could have a route that would bring him right through our area over the date of her wedding. (This happened to be the 3 week trip that Candice joined Rod on.)

This picture popped in my mind, when I thought of Rod and Candice.

After the wedding, it started raining. Towards the end of the reception, Adam laid by the door to watch the rain. Then Rod joined him. How cute is that picture??

I was just going to have that picture in my post, but I noticed other "wedding pictures" and thought, "I should add that one too!"

Matt and Lana had disposable cameras at the tables. If they did nothing else, they kept Adam busy! How often do you get a picture of a 4 year old taking a picture of the photographer? Somewhere in Lana's archives of wedding photos, I'm sure she has one of her photographer-taken by Adam.

So, what do you do after a wedding when it is raining? If you are this 7 year old boy you...


...SCOOTER! He got soggy, but he had fun!

His job, at the wedding, was to hand out programs. He looks like he had fun.

It's funny how Adam singing a song about the letter K made me think of all this, but I enjoyed looking through the photos.

One way to wake up...

The other morning, I was still in bed. I was awake, but just not ready to crawl out of my warm, cozy blankets yet. Adam came into my room and said,"Mommy, I am going to the bathroom. I need to turn on the light. So, keep your eyes shut tight." As kind as it was for him to think of this, if I had been sleeping my eyes would have already been shut.

Things I love about Austin.

Now, for the second part of this post. Some of the reasons I love Austin...

~Austin has a contagious laughter. I noticed twice lately, that he will be laughing really hard, along with Mike and I, about something, then stop for a minute and say, "What did he say?" That often makes me laugh even harder, it seems he did not even know why he was laughing! :)

~He often transposes his favorites onto us. He has been enjoying some old Tom and Jerry episodes lately. The other day he came to me and said something like, "...your favorite old show." I had to ask what it was, because I really was not sure. When he told me, "Tom and Jerry." I realized it was really HIS (current) favorite old show.

~I love that Austin still loves to snuggle with me. He is allowed to snuggle with me after 6:00am. Sometimes when I have to get up to get ready for work, we miss this snuggle time. More than once I have been getting ready and he comes to the bathroom with tears in his eyes because we missed our snuggle time. I will often crawl back in bed and snuggle (only for about 2 minutes)-I don't lay my head on the pillow for fear that I will fall back to sleep, but we snuggle. It really does to seem to make a difference in how the day starts, if we have this time. I do know that this won't last forever, so I am enjoying it now.

~Austin has a way of making me feel like the best cook in the world! The other night for supper I made hot ham and cheese sandwiches. He ate one and said how much he enjoyed this, and asked if we could have it again the next night. Sometimes, I will make certain dishes and he proclaims that I should be a chef! Talk about a boost to my ego!

~Austin always tries to make sure that I hug and kiss him before either one of us leave the house. Sometimes, he is almost out the door to go to school and he will turn around to get his hug and kiss. Again, this will not last forever, so I will enjoy it.

~Austin has a great sense of humor. Adam's teacher is a Redskins fan. I found a Redskins folding chair and bought it for him as an end of the year gift. Austin said, "What would happen if we had the Redskins cover, but inside was a Cowboys chair?" Mike just told him that would be a cruel joke, which is true. However, I am not a football fan, so I kind of thought that it might be funny. :)

There are so many things that I love about Austin. These are a few that I just jotted down. God blessed me when he allowed me to be Austin's mother.

We got the 1st one!

Yesterday I was excited to find a package between the doors when I got home. It was a small package, actually just a padded envelope. I got even more excited when I saw who it was from! It was from the publishers that is doing Mike's book! We now had a actual book!

The boys were excited about this as well. They liked that Daddy's name was on the cover.

I think he did such a great job on the illustrations. This is a gift that I have not been given, so I am always amazed as to what he can do!

The boys were able to sit down and read the book this morning before school. What a great feeling to have the boys reading a book written by their Daddy!

Things I love about Adam...

I started to think about some things that I love about my boys the other day. I jotted some down, so I could record them. I decided I would do them as different posts. Tonight, I am posting Adam's.

~I love how Adam says dinagolly for diagonally.

~I love how Adam interprets things. Last week Adam's teacher was out one day, then was only there for a 1/2 day the next day. Adam was telling us about this and said, "Mr. Kline was there in the morning, but he got bored so he left." I really doubted that this was actually the case.

~I love how Adam is wanting to read, but still needs help. One evening, Mike and I were in the kitchen, and Adam was looking at a book. He saw something he could not read, so he said, "what's this spell, a-s-i-a-n-l-o-n-g-h-o-r-n-b-e-t-t-l-e? Mike and I looked at each other. With such a long string of letters we had no idea what he was trying to read. So I went over to him and looked at the word. It was actually, Asian Longhorn Beetle. We would understand it so much better if we knew where the spaces were. :)

~I love how Adam expresses himself. On Friday of last week, the boys were out of school due to ice. The roads were pretty good by noon time, so we had gone on a short outing. When we got home, Adam decided he wanted to break off icicles. Before long, he was knocking on the door to come in, I thought he would say that he wanted to come in because his hands were cold (he didn't wear gloves!), but when he came in he said, "I'm tired of working!" I didn't even ask him to do that!

~Adam is a really deep thinker. I will love to see what he does some day! Tonight as I was putting him to bed, somehow we got to talking about dying. He asked if dying hurts. I answered "I do not really know, because I have never died. But, God will be with you." That did not fully satisfy him, but what else could I say? Then he wanted to know "What will happen if I die too much and cannot go to Heaven?" I told him, "I have never heard of anyone dying too much, but God loves you, and he will be with you." When we were reading our devotion tonight, it talked about feeding people, but not with food. I asked Adam if he understood what that meant. He said, "my Sunday School teacher says that there is water, so that you will not go thirsty anymore." Adam really listens, and he really makes me think. He makes me not only understand my faith, but try to put my faith in childlike words, so he can understand.

There are so many things that I love about Adam. God has blessed me with Adam, and he is such a joy to have as my son!

Painting

Austin's room in coming along. Some days, more gets done than others. Today, we got the closet painted. Since this is not an area that many will see, I thought it might be something that I could do. Austin wanted to help me paint. I was hesitant at first, but then thought, if he wants to help in his own room, why not let him?
I let him paint the shelf for the closet. First, I gave him a paint set brush. That way he could paint pictures or designs on the board first. Then we upgraded to a painting brush. Before it was all over Austin took the roller to make sure it was all covered in blue.

Here is the proof that he gets into his work! It was a messy job, but someone had to do it!--and I'm glad Austin joined me for this job.

I know it's cold...

...but this is ridiculous! Last night, I was getting Adam ready for bed and he said he was cold. He got out his slipper socks, which he usually wears to bed. Then proceeded to get mittens and a hat from the basket by the door. He wore both to bed, but when I checked on him he only had the mittens on. He must have warmed up!

Time for a change

When Austin was 2, and Adam was on the way, he moved out of the "nursery" and into the "big boy room." I found this construction border and had Mike paint blue above and a light brown below. Then my sister, Lana, came and add a special touch to the brown to make it look like dirt. She dabbed it on with a crumpled up plastic bag. I loved the effect it gave the brown.

In this bedroom and in our (Mike's and mine) there is UGLY, green shag carpet. I'm almost sure that this is original with the house, seeing it was built in the 60's. This carpet is HORRIBLE! So, for my Christmas gift, Mike agreed to let me have the carpet replaced. Of course, that also means painting, and hopefully working on the curtains as well.

I started working on removing the border on Christmas day. After the excitement of gifts were over, and we were at a lull, I started to work. It took me almost 2 weeks, and several declarations that I will NEVER do anything like wallpaper again or WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?, but it was finished. My Dad came to the painting for the new and improved room.

Today, he came and did the orange. Austin wanted blue and orange. He wanted a darker blue, but as little as his room is, I told him that would not work, it would only make it feel smaller. I think this turned out pretty nicely--thanks, Dad!

There is a reason that I only took a picture of the corner. The carpet has not been done yet, and the whole room is torn apart!! Whenever someone walks in there, I hope and pray that they do not break their neck! I hope to get a finished picture when everything is done and in place.


Now, on to our room...

He says it's for practicing...

to kill flies! Adam took these stencils and taped them together, and put them on the basement stair railing so the shadow would shine on the wall. Now, he can practice hitting them all he wants. Watch out flies!!

Then, Adam proceeded to take the ring that came off the milk jug and put it on my dish drainer. I'm not exactly sure of it's purpose, but he did mention something about balancing a potato on it.

He did all this, and I had to think, "I wonder what your house will be like one day!" Then, I continued with, "Your wife needs a lot of prayer-already!"

visiting Grace

This weekend, we went to my sisters house to be with her while her husband had to be out of town. We were so happy to say we would come and help her with this darling little girl!

The boys loved this as much as I did. Before they were even out of the car they were saying how much they love Grace!

When the boys were younger, Carol and I started having their picture taken about every year for Mom. Now that there is a new cousin, we had to do an informal shot, just to make sure she was in one. I'm sure we will have several of these over the next year, since Grace will be changing so much from one time to the next.

The year that Shannon and Austin were born, we had a picture taken at Mom's house where Carol had the oldest grandchild (Eamon), I had the middle grandchild (Shannon), and Lana had the youngest grandchild (Austin). We decided that it was time to update this picture as well. However, since the boys are so big now, we could not hold them, so we sat behind them! :) It worked out well that the boys were able to sit in chronological order and by family. It was nice to add Adam and Grace to the picture.

He's always listening

Adam has eczema on his legs. Lately, I noticed some bumps on his eczema spots. I called the nurse at the Dr.'s office and she suggested that I bring him in to look at it. Today was his appointment. It turned out that the bumps were molescium contagiosum (the spelling may not be correct.) (it is a virus that takes care of itself in time. )

While I was there I asked the Dr. about his weight. I weighed him the other day and found that he had only gained about 1 pound in the past year. That seemed alarming to me. The Dr. was not concerned. I asked if I should be giving him some sort of supplemental drink. He said that they generally do not taste good, but I could always add ice cream to it and make a milk shake.

During this time, Adam is crawling around the room looking at things and I thought he was not paying a bit of attention to our conversation.

We came home and had supper. He asked for dessert. I gave him the half of the ice cream bar that he had not eaten the night before. Not too long after this, he comes upstairs and said he wanted dessert. I said, "Adam, you just had ice cream. I really think that is enough." He said to me, "Mom, the Dr. said I should eat ice cream for my weight. That was my weight dessert. Now, I want my real dessert."

What a problem to have!! And, what a rude awakening he will have when he realizes that he is not allowed to have 2 desserts, just because of his weight!

this and that...

There have been some things here lately, that I thought, "oh, I should blog about that." But, never did. I decided I would put them all together and do 1 post. So, here is what we have been up to.

Over the Christmas break, Adam discovered he had a bit of flexibility.

Mike got a picture of of him being a contortionist.

Austin tried and tried, but he just could not get his feet to his head.

There are just some things that Adam can do, that Austin cannot and vice versa.

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Austin is in 2nd grade. And sometimes, I feel like I am right there with him! They have been studying the first Americans. Yesterday, he brought home a paper for a test that they are having on this--on Friday. They need to know the tribe names, food, occupation, transportation, region, and type of housing. I was thankful for Mike taking the boys out for a little last night, so I could study this, try to learn it, in order to hopefully help Austin study.

I never thought I would be going through 2nd grade, again, at my age!!

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Adam is still taking speech through the school twice a week. There is another boy in his class that goes with him. They have a group type lesson. The first thing that tickles me about this, is that Adam does not call his speech teacher by her name. He calls her, "my tutor." Secondly, when we talk about his speech time, he always gives me an update on the other boy. Last night, he reported, "he is done with his "v" and has gone onto another letter. But, I am still working on my "s." ("s" is the last sound that Adam needs to work on, so I am pleased that we are getting close to the end of this road.)

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While the boys were out of school for Christmas break, Adam became interested in playing "SORRY." This game is not really a favorite of mine, sometimes it seems that the game can go on and on and on. But, I willing played for Adam...until he added another part to the game. Not only did we play this long game, but I was suppose to guess which number he drew each time. Talk about a long game becoming longer!

He was, also, interested in playing Mancala. We had been playing it a few weeks before school was out. However, we were playing it wrong. I learned the correct way, and we had some really good games!

On Saturday, he got some puzzles out. He did the 24 piece puzzle, and the 48 piece puzzle, then he pulled out a 100 piece puzzle (note: it was a Spiderman puzzle there were only about 3 colors to it!) He asked for help. (note: I hate puzzles!! My theory is if you want a picture-don't cut it up!) So, I helped him do the border, then we started to work on the inside. After a bit, he said, "Mommy, I'm kind of bored. I think I'll go play. But, you keep working. You can do it!" (Doesn't that lat part sound like something his mother would say to him?) I was determined to get this puzzle done. It took some time, but I did it. I told Adam that was a true labor of love!