20/20!

Nathan's eye is now 20/20! From here we begin decreasing his patching time and hopefully his eye will stay strong as we do so. He is thrilled! In fact, we are all ecstatic!

$2 Tuesdays

Tuesdays in August were $2 Tuesdays at Thanksgiving Point, so we took advantage of the rockin' price and took the boys to the Museum of Ancient Life. For those who have never been, this museum is actually very kid friendly. Here are a few of my favorite pics of the boys doing their stuff.

Proof

You'll have to listen closely, but Matthew was kind enough to cooperate with the camera so he could tell everyone about the lightsaber.

Can't We Just Skip Two?

In the midst of my bliss concerning the fact that school has started again is the thorn of a two year old who gets so very bored without his two older brothers here to entertain him. And at two, bored=naughty. And to add to the fun, two is also the age at which most children catch a serious case of I-Want-To-Do-It-Myself-Itis. Matthew has been no exception. So I have spent the past three weeks attempting to keep him entertained enough to prevent too much serious damage to himself or the house. Just to highlight a few of his finer moments:

One morning while I was getting dressed, Matthew decided to pour himself a second bowl of cereal instead of asking for help. The good thing about Kix is that they roll so instead of having a mountain of cereal on the counter, we had Kix all over the kitchen.

Matthew has learned about time outs due to his enormous propensity to play with the DVD's, T.V. and computer. One day he actually got a new movie in for himself and I didn't notice until I took a moment to survey the cases because he had switched one Thomas DVD for another. The fact that he can now run the DVD player by himself is not a good thing. And not only did I have to put the child latches on the computer cabinet, but I have to do them up tight or Matthew can still get them open.

One afternoon last week Matthew got ahold of a bottle of Windex that the big boys had left out. He didn't spray it into his mouth like Nathan did when he was two, but he did repeatedly spray the back of his head giving himself a fabulous new hairdo.

Matthew frequently gets in the fridge (because he can't get in the pantry) to get himself a snack. On numerous occasions I've come back from the bathroom to find him sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor having a picnic. I guess he really is serious about second breakfast.

No matter what spoon I give him, it is the wrong one. And he can't use the same spoon for two different foods at the same time. If he has cereal and applesauce, he has to have a separate spoon for each. And his favorite spoon? My blue measuring spoon, the tablespoon. It can't be easy to eat out of that thing, but he does.

Yesterday Matthew got his milk out of the fridge. It comes in a 2-quart carton with a lid and a spout on one side of the top. He tried to put it up on the counter (ummm, way too short), getting just the bottom balanced on the edge, and then while the carton was still vertical with the spout on the bottom, he decided to take the lid off. By the time I realized what was going on and took the two steps necessary to get to him, he was spluttering through the milk pouring down into his face looking completely surprised. He was pretty upset when I made him take off his Lightning McQueen shirt because it was soaked.

But along with all the eye rolling behavior, two has been pretty entertaining as well. Matthew has had a language explosion and has started saying some pretty funny stuff. He helped me make his oatmeal for breakfast and after tasting it, instead of saying "Yum!" like a normal two year old, he exclaimed, "It's tasty!" When we got in the car after being out in a slightly chilly day, he told us it was "cozy." He knows what a lightsaber is (He's the third boy. There was absolutely no hope of him not knowing about stuff like that at an early age.) but he doesn't call it a lightsaber. It is a "Lightsaver, ffft, ffft." The only thing I can figure out is that perhaps the "fffft, fffft" is the sound the lightsabers make. And for this last one, you'll need to know that 1) Matthew is a gasmaster and 2) around here we call passing gas toots. Yesterday Kev came to find me, smirking, and informed me that Matthew had just announced, "My toots go uphill!"

When I Grow Up . . .

On the way home from my parents' house this evening, we drove past a jeep. Nathan informed us that when he grows up he wants to get a jeep, the kind where the doors come off. He then proceeded to tell us what he wants to be when he grows up. He wants to be a doctor, a firefighter, a cop, a helicopter pilot, an ambulance driver, a person who works at the theater handing our snacks, a bug sprayer (we told him these guys are called exterminators but he still calls them bug sprayers), a pizza maker, a taxi driver, a teacher, a semi driver, a store manager at Lowe's, a bishop, a person who helps people in the temple, a Sunday teacher, and a paleontologist like Daniel. Keep in mind that this is a partial list.

I think he might need to live until he's nine hundred to fit it all in. But at least he has ambition.

Let's Go To The Fair!

Today we went to the county fair with Kev's parents. The boys have never been to the county fair and it's been a few years since we hit the state fair, so it was all new to them. We saw the animals, including those in the petting zoo. Matthew was pretty nervous and I can't say that I blame him. If I was face to face with a pig five times my size, I'd probably be nervous to. And he didn't last long inside the petting zoo, but liked looking at the animals from outside the fence.


The boys also got their first taste of amusement park rides. They had a blast and have started asking when they can go to Lagoon. Since I think of Lagoon as one enormous opportunity to vomit, I'll leave that one up to Kev.

(You'll have to click to the big version of this one so you can see the look on Nathan's face. He was having a blast!)

They were even more interested in the exhibits than I thought they would be. I was, however, surprised to see Lego creations entered in the visual arts department. That was something I had never seen before. Daniel, of course, was thrilled. Both Daniel and Nathan seemed interested in creating something for the fair. Now we just have to see if it gets funded for next year . . .

It's Not That Easy Being Green . . . Or Red . . . Or Blue . ..

The first Monday of every month is free family day at the Museum of Natural History so for family home evening we hauled our boys out to see the wonders of nature. The special exhibit right now is frogs and let me tell you, there were some strange looking frogs. You know those frogs that get smashed flat by a car and then bake in the sun until they take on the aerodynamic qualities of a frisbee? We saw a tank full of things that looked just like that . . . until they moved. Creepiest looking frogs ever.

But Nathan thought they were cool anyway.

Matthew discovered that his good pal Kermit was at the exhibit, so after chattin' him up, he attempted to get Kermit out.

There were some fun props that the boys enjoyed climbing on.

Even Matthew cooperated long enough for us to snap a few pics.

There was also an exhibit of bugs which included lots of creepy, crawly goodness. Daniel was kind enough to cry out, "No, no, no, Mom! Don't see this!" just before I rounded the corner into the spider section. Good boy. Knows his mom. I sat on the bench and waited until they came around the next corner. We also spent a few minutes looking at the dinosaurs and the rocks and had to promise Daniel we would come back so he wouldn't break down when it was time to leave. So on the first Monday in September, when the boys just happen to be off track, I imagine we'll be headed back to the museum to spend some quality time with the dinosaurs.

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?

Over the past four months, Kev and I have repeatedly been reminded that after all the stress of trying to find a house, we have landed in the right spot. We love our house, our street is populated with little boys, and we have the best neighbors ever. They are friendly and have welcomed us from the very first day. They include our boys in their activities and parties. They have given us much needed advice on how things grow in the soil out here. They helped us move in and have let us borrow lawnmowers and other yard tools as we struggle to get the lawn to come back. In fact, one afternoon I heard something in the back yard and peeked out the window to find one our neighbors (the one who moved in about two weeks after us) attacking our enormous weeds with his weed eater. This same neighbor welcomed Nathan when he came begging for a lawn that wouldn't poke holes in his brand new slip and slide.

We knew that we wouldn't be able to afford to buy all the equipment to care for the yard right away and our neighbors have been wonderful enough to offer to let us borrow lawnmowers and edgers. But the thing that really confirms for me that we have great neighbors and that the Lord is watching out for us through them is the fact that fact that we now own an edger, a lawnmower, a snowblower, and various brand new sprinkler heads. All of these items have been given to us by our great neighbors. The edger came from a neighbor who had three and never used this one. This same neighbor has also given us an assortment of spare sprinkler heads he had left over from job sites so we can replace our broken ones. The lawnmower came from another neighbor who bought a new one and felt like we were doing him a favor by taking his old one off his hands. And the snowblower has been promised by another neighbor who is moving into a townhouse and won't be needing it. Kev had offered all these neighbors money for their various items, but all declined. And everything is still in good working order as well.

Our neighbors are the best. I'm glad we're here.