Peek-a-Boo

Here's a quick clip of Jonathan and Brent playing peek-a-boo. He was laughing really great, until I got the camera. He giggles a few times in this one, but Brent couldn't get him going again like before.

Prayer Time

Every night, we read the boys a Bible story before bed. Then, we say prayers together. Usually this is a pretty quick thing, as they are ready to get in bed and we are ready for them to get in bed. However, sometimes Andrew gets a little longwinded while he's talking to Jesus.

Last night, Brent was with them when it was prayer time. They thanked Jesus for a fun day at church and several other things. Then they asked Jesus to bless our family. Then Brent asked if there was anything else they wanted to pray for. Andrew launched into a very verbose prayer of his own. Most of the time when they pray, the boys start every sentence with, "Dear Jesus, please help . . ." So Andrew prayed for I don't know what all, but Coleman was losing interest, and Brent began to sense that Andrew was really just stalling to avoid bedtime.

So Brent said, "Amen. Okay Andrew, time to get in bed." Andrew was miffed at being interrupted and said, "No Daddy! I'm not finished praying yet!" So Brent let him continue for a bit longer, then tried again. "Amen. Okay now it's time for bed." Andrew said, "But I'm still not finished!" Then he picked up with, "Dear Jesus, please help parents to stop saying Amen before their kids are finished praying. And dear Jesus, . . ."

Wordless Wednesday

Bowling

A few Saturdays ago, we took the boys bowling for the first time. It was hilarious! And exhausting! We checked in and got our shoes. To our surprise, they even had shoes for Andrew and Coleman's sizes. The boys were very excited about putting them on.

This picture does not look like they were very excited, but trust me, they were.

Jonathan was asleep when we got there. However, have you ever tried to sleep in a bowling alley? Needless to say, he woke up pretty soon after we started our game. He was very content to sit and watch from his pumpkin seat though. He is such an agreeable baby!

I told Brent he was not to take a picture of me bowling, so here's the only pic of me with the yahoos from the day.

The rest of the pictures are not in any particular order. Here's Andrew early in the game. The bowling alley had a ramp that the boys could use, and they put up the gutter guards automatically when it was Andrew or Coleman's turn to bowl. After a couple of frames, Andrew decided to bowl without using the ramp. But later on he decided that ramp was a pretty good idea.

Here's Coleman carrying his ball over to the ramp.

It was somewhere in here that Coleman decided to chase his ball down the alley. And then Brent decided he'd better chase Coleman. Anyone care to guess what happened? Yep. They both busted. Coleman banged his head on the floor and Brent was fairly sure he fractured his tailbone. However, he jumped right up making sure to smile in case anyone happened to see him. Cole cried a little, but didn't try to run down the lane again. I suppose some of us just have to learn the hard way.

Here they are watching Coleman's ball.

Here's Andrew trying it without the ramp. He has his eyes closed, but I think it just happened to be when I snapped the pic. It was after this that he decided he got better results with the ramp.

So here's the final scorecard. Look at frame 5 for Andrew! He got a strike!! And in frame 9 he got a spare!! Brent wound up winning, and Mommy made sure that the yahoos didn't lose. You might notice that I scored no points in the last two frames. I had some help with that. Just so you know.

And here are a couple of videos.

A Visit to Nana and Pop-O's

One weekend recently, Nana and Pop-O came and picked up the yahoos after Andrew finished school on Thursday. They took them home with them and we picked them up Sunday afternoon. They packed a ton of fun into three days, and here are a few of the pictures.

They visited Heritage Park and saw the Vietnam memorial.




feeding the neighbors' horses


playing on Mow-Mow



visiting the train


They went to Noah's Ark, a zoo of rescued animals. Here they are with a llama.


But the biggest hit was going to the ballpark. Saturday Mrs. Nancy invited them to come to the ballfield and play with Jackson. They got to have lunch and a snowcone. Nana said as soon as they opened the doors of the car, Coleman took off running at full speed. Both of them said this was their favorite activity all weekend.




Thank you Nana and Pop-O! They had a super fun time!!

St. Patrick's Day

We started off yesterday with some fun cards and stickers from Aunt MerMer and Uncle Roger! The boys love making sticker pictures right now, so this was a happy surprise at breakfast.




After they ate, I gave them a bowl of Froot Loops to use to make a rainbow. I was amazed at how well Andrew used his glue. He traced a little bit of the line with the glue bottle and then covered it with the same color Froot Loops. He really had much better control of the bottle than I thought he would. He did the entire line of red froot loops by himself. After the red stripe, he took a little break and then came back to it later. For the sake of full disclosure, the rainbow did not turn out like I'd hoped. He sat back down to work on it while I was occupied somewhere else. At that time, he decided to make a huge glue puddle on the paper. Much more what I was expecting from a 4 year old with a glue bottle. I was still pleased with his effort on the red line though. Just wish I'd have been there when he started to work again.



We also made rainbow cupcakes. This was pretty fun. We divided out the batter into six equal parts, and then added food coloring to each part. Coleman stirred the green and purple, and Andrew picked red and orange.

Then I spooned a small amount of each color into the cupcake pan. They baked up really cute! We put a small white icing "cloud" on the top, and they got to have one after supper.

Here's Coleman looking at the inside and seeing the rainbow.

This shot shows off the inside pretty well. They were a fun treat that I'm sure we'll make again.

And here's the Littlest Leprechaun and his daddy.

Wordless Wednesday

Birds' Nests

Last week the yahoos and I made some edible birds' nests. We had a fun time making them, and they loved eating them!

Here's Coleman stirring the melted chocolate and peanut butter into the noodles. You can see that, even though we have just started the first step of the recipe, both yahoos already have chocolate on their faces.


Then we formed the noodle clusters into nest shapes. This was impossible to get a picture of. It was nearly impossible to get the nests made without them being eaten, or at least sampled repeatedly. When we finally got our nests ready, the boys got to put three robin's eggs in each nest. Again, I thought this might not happen as they were extremely eager to sample the eggs.


Andrew was telling me that he was going to put five eggs in this nest because that is how many eggs are in a pteranodon's nest. I suppose he is learning something when he's watching Dinosaur Train. About this time I noticed that Coleman was salting and peppering his nest with the cute little bird shakers I had out. Had to put down the camera for a minute.

Here they are, all finished and about to go into the fridge to harden up.

The boys asked all afternoon if they could have a birds' nest yet. I told them if they ate a good supper they could have one for dessert. I think I could have served creamed spinach and beets and they would have tried their hardest to eat it. However, being the kind mommy that I am, I fixed tostadas and so of course everyone got a nest after supper. They were so proud of their work and super excited to show Daddy.

Glimpses of Home

So I am going to attempt something new. Hopefully, this post will correctly "link up" to another blog. Chatting at the Sky asked for a "glimpse of home" and for bloggers to add their post to her list. When I first saw the post I thought it was a neat idea, and I looked at lots of other entries. But I couldn't think where in this house I saw home. There just didn't seem to be that one spot that summed up home to me. I think it's because we're still pretty new in this space and we're still making it ours. However, I was walking down the hall this afternoon and saw this and knew it was the shot I should post. Wherever the yahoos are, that's home to me.

A 'Pooky Visitor!

One morning I had a 'pooky visitor stop by. He was wearing one of Andrew's sheets, and he kept saying, "Booooooooo!" He wandered around the keeping room for a bit.

Then he tripped on an anywhere chair.

Uh oh! I think I see his arm!

It's Coleman!!

Silly boy!

I love you Coleman Joe!

Wordless Wednesday

Keeping Busy

This winter I have found the opening lines of The Cat in the Hat very appropriate.

The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house

All that cold, cold wet day.

I sat there with Sally,

We sat there,we two.

And I said, "How I wish

We had something to do!"

Just change the name from Sally to Andrew or Coleman and this has summed up our existence the last few months. We have actually done pretty well staying busy and not getting a horrible case of cabin fever. Here are just a few of the things we've been up to.


lots of art projects - here the boys are doing a scissor practice exercise making mittens



We made the snowmen too. The finished mittens are hanging below. Andrew's is on red and Coleman's on green. One day when Gigi and Papack were here, Andrew showed Gigi his mitten. Gigi asked him if it was a mosaic. Andrew looked at her and said, "No Gigi. It's a mitten."

a little firetruck

painting on our easel

We've played lots of games. This is Don't Break the Ice.

That Lite Brite from Aunt Mer Mer and Uncle Roger has come in handy!

And we have done lots of baking. I can't tell you how many loaves of banana bread and various muffins we've made. This particular day we made pretzels. We go to the library once a week and had checked out Walter the Baker, by Eric Carle. I found Alton Brown's pretzel recipe and we tried it out. Despite Coleman's silly face in the last picture, they were really good and not too hard!

watching the yeast bubble

rolling out the dough - no idea why Coleman is shirtless

tasting the pretzels

Hopefully most of our pictures will be outside in the sunshine from now on! Come on Spring!!