A Birthday, Cupcakes and My Little Tornado

My little man, Kenz, turned 6. I can't believe it!!!! He is growing up and it is killing me. Thank goodness he is still my snuggle bug. There is not much he likes more (atleast near bedtime) than to snuggle next to me while drinking his milk and clicking my fingernails (a whole 'nother post)
This year he decided to have a bowling birthday party. Everything I do lately is last minute and his party planning was no different. I waited so long to get it together that I never even sent out invitations - usually I get real cute printed ones. This year I decided I would just use the ones that the bowling alley gives as part of your birthday package. I drove all the way out to the bowling alley on the Tuesday before his Sunday birthday party (which was a week after his actual birtday, by the way) to pay the deposit and to get the invitations that needed to be addressed and mailed that night. I paid the deposit and they got out the invitations for me. I watched them count them out and place them on the counter. I left. I got home. I realized that the invitations were left on that counter. DANG!!! So I called all the parents. Luckily the party was great. Kenz had a fantabulos time and so did all the other boys. The party was not too short, not too long. Active, but not crazy. A perfect boy party. Whew!!!





Kenz had a few extra cupcakes from his party. We shared them equally and Kenz got the extra one. So the next day he got that extra cupcake out and put it on the kitchen table. He left the room for a few minutes and came back to find his sister enjoying his cupcake - ALOT. Kenz was very good-natured about it all and let her eat (destroy) it. My blog buddy Tricia would be so proud!!!




CiCi's new favorite place to go while I'm working/blogging/on the computer is under this little built in desk in our kitchen. The bottom drawer contains all the boys art supplies (crayons, glue, stickers) for homework and other projects. Well it used to contain these things until I found CiCi coughing with a crayon in her mouth that she had obviously taken a bite of and most likely swallowed a small portion. They are non-toxic, right?



CiCi also likes making a mess. It is truly her favorite past time :)
It is amazing how quickly she can destroy our kitchen.







My little men competed in a regional chess tournament this past weekend. The top 8 chess players in grades K-3 in our region get to compete at state. Arby came in second and Kenz got so close. If he had won his last game he would have made it, but he ended up in 11th place (out of 24 kids in grades K-3 and he is a kindergartener so that is pretty awesome). We are so proud of Arby and I can't wait to go to one of my favorite places (Cookeville, TN) next month to watch him compete for the State title.

Three Cups of Tea

Read this book!!!!!! The dedication of one man to the plight of children, especially girls, is truly amazing. The work he has done building schools in the most rural areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan is both fascinating and inspiring. Greg Mortenson is truly a hero and he absolutely encompasses the best of America. As I read his book I was blown away again and again by his dedication and perseverance. I also couldn't help but think of all the other places around the globe that need a Greg Mortenson to speak for them and care for them and provide them with the one thing that has the ability to change lives, status, poverty and terrorist/gang/thug behavior.
I also kept thinking how much I would love to give back to CiCi's birth country. There are many people already working to provide the means necessary to attend school. One of these groups is Mayan families (listed on the left side of my blog). By donating $120 you can send one child to school for one year. It is an amazing program, but I also want to do more in the future. I want to be physically involved and I want my children to be physically involved. I am not sure what we will do, but I know we will do something. I am inspired!!!!

Miserable and The Happy Drunk

I am miserable. Today I had to have two cavities filled. I do not like the dentist. I do not like the noise of the drill. I don't even like to hear a fork scrape against a knife, so you can only imagine what the sound of that drill does to me. One of the cavities was a bad one - the whole time the possibility of a root canal kept me near tears. So I guess the good news is that I don't need a root canal. I did however have to hold my mouth open for two hours. Now it hurts!!! And for a long time I couldn't feel my tongue and I kept biting it. I have bite marks all over my tongue and it hurts.

At almost 15 months CiCi is finally really trying to walk. She is hilarious. She walks with the biggest proudest smile on her face. Her excitement usually causes her to wobble and she inevitably ends up falling over or reaching/falling towards me way before she has actually made it to me. Thus my present (unspoken) nickname for her. It is so stinkin' cute!!!


Arby has really enjoyed helping CiCi learn to walk.



CiCi loves walking back and forth between us






It is so much easier for her to crawl that whenever she really wants something, she will still crawl to it.



And some sibling love

More pics from the Christmas Party - and do you like my new look???

I've got an extremely cute new look!!!!!!!!! My blog was looking pretty lame compared to all of you who kept spicing yours up, so I had to get mine jazzed up a bit, too. Very excited about showing off my new look, so PLEASE let me know you like it by delurking and commenting on my blog. I am feeling so UNLOVED!!!!

I still haven't figured out how to post more than five pics at a time and how to post a pic then write something, then post another pic and then write something else. Having to create a double post just to post my pictures is driving me crazy, so if ANYONE can help me out!!! PLEASE???
I promise to get out of December soon, but I still have Christmas with the family pics so bear with me a few more days and then I promise to join 2008.
If you think I am bad with this, you should see my scrapbooks.
I am years behind.

Christmas Party - a great Tradition

Each year my parents' best friends have a Christmas Party. They invite family and friends - old and new. I have been to this party many many times since I was about 7 years old. It is laid back, relaxed and fun. Every one mingles and eats finger foods and appetizers. Nothing is extravagant, nothing is lacking.
Then this musically-inclined family leads us all in Christmas carols. We sing all the favorites sometimes with a piano, or a guitar, or a violin. We are singing, of course, for Santa Claus. and Santa always arrives with a thud that we actually hear on the roof and then a knock at the door - which has always cracked me up. All the kids eyes light up and then they all get to tell their Christmas wish to Santa. My boys never know what to say - which I love. I have never encouraged them to ask for anything. Kenz asked for two special things which he whispered so quietly Santa had to ask him to repeat himself twice. Arby just said to surprise him. It was very sweet. CiCi wasn't much into Santa this year. She liked the singing though and as soon as Santa left we sang some more. The finale song each year is "The Twelve Days of Christmas". We break into groups and are each assigned a day. It is the highlight!!!!!!!!!
This year Christmas carolers just happened to be roaming their way through the neighborhood and knocked on the door. I think they were quite shocked to see all of us right there already singing when they walked inside - they joined in for a song and sang one on their own. I thought it was pretty cool - I've never actually had a caroler show up at my door.
Oh and CiCi found a little chair. She claimed it as hers and crawled between the chair and me all night. Basically she would want to sit with me, but if any other child went anywhere near her chair she would crawl to it and sit in it so that they would not. It was soooo funny watching her be so possessive.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Yes it is now late December on my blog and we are putting up our Christmas tree. CiCi had a ball. I normally pass out the ornaments to the boys and then they put them up. CiCi decided that my job looked like a good one so I passed her the ornament and told her who to give it to and she gave it to one of her brothers or her daddy. Not until after Christmas did she ever touch a single ornament on the tree, but lately (since our tree is still up) she has been playing with ornaments and hiding them in her favorite hiding places. Too cute.
Normally we take down the tree right after Little Christmas. Tradition or Procrastination? I am not sure, but this year Little Christmas is long gone and our tree is still standing... so Procrastination it is!!!!!!!!
Supposedly, we will take down the tree tonight. We'll see!!!

Because I am now pretending it is mid-December

the pictures above are from the Christmas program at Kenz' school. I wish I could show you the pics of his class so that you could get the full effect, but for the fun part of the program they performed "Rocking around the Christmas Tree" while decked out in red poodle skirts for the girls and the greased back look for the boys. I thought Kenz looked adorable!!!!!!! He also was the innkeeper in the manger scene, but I don't have any pics of just him so I can't really share them here.

Kenz goes to a Catholic school with a dress code. He has always worn his hair a little long. This year they have chosen to make an issue out of it. Soooo every 5 weeks or so he is told he has to get his haircut. My funny boy realized that with his hair all slicked back he was within the dress code rules and asked me if he could wear his hair slicked back until Christmas break so that he could keep his hair longer during the break and wait to cut it until January. I let him finish out the week with the slicked back look and then nothing was said to him the last week of school. We both felt like we got away with something. Too fun!!!!!

The One That Made It

Christmas Card Takes

Pretend it is Late November.
Then notice the date I actually took this picture.
Then understand why I am just now getting around to post about it.
Sums up my Christmas Shopping experience this year.

Notice... the pigtails

They are kind of hard to see. But you must look. This was the only day I have ever been able to get CiCi to sit still long enough to attempt pigtails. And they really looked cute. And they were gone within 15 minutes. Oh well!!!
8 years of raising only boys and whenever I had a difficult day and all my other friends (all moms of girls) seemed to be breezing through mommyhood I found comfort knowing that while my time was now their, time would come.
And then CiCi decided to shatter my boy vs. girl beliefs.
She is a mess!!!!! She gets into everything!!! She opens every drawer and counter she can reach and she proceeds to empty the contents. She shoves things in random places - between cushions, under couches, in toilets, in air conditioning vents. Never did I buy safety latches and other seemingly important items for my boys. They were not necessary. Once I placed those little outlet covers in the outlets in our den. Before that day my oldest son had never even noticed the outlets. Once he saw those things he found a new game. Picking the plugs out of the outlets. From that point on I decided there was no need for all those safety things. Neither Arby nor Kenz ever gave me a reason to doubt that theory. I never even put gates up. With Kenz we lived in a house with stairs. He was walking at nine months and his room was upstairs. I had Arby teach him how to crawl down the stairs on his tummy. I was not about to put a gate up at the top of the stairs. All I could envision with a gate was Kenz climbing over it and flying down the stairs. Or me forgetting it was there in the middle of the night and flipping over the darned thing. Thankfully this worked with CiCi as well. She has been climbing up and down the stairs for months now...yet the little stinker won't walk (she is getting close now..finally)
A while back I created a post about CiCi signing. I mentioned that she, deliberately and for a reason only known to her, sticks her finger in her nose and that I knew it meant something. Well we have noticed a pattern. Whenever my DH or Arby (and sometimes me)say something to her that she doesn't like she sticks her finger in her nose. Talk about thumbing your nose at someone. It takes a lot of will power not to burst out laughing whenever she does it. My DH gets such a kick out of it, he now says things just to see how she will respond.
She is also very good at letting us know what she wants. When she eats she grunts for stuff. We take our best guess at what it is. If we are right, we are rewarded by her eating it. If we are wrong she pushes our hand away - with force. She might want that next, but right now she wants that.
She is also very quick. A while back my DH took her out to eat and a waitress stopped by their table to give them a drink. She was on her way to another table with an appetizer for that table. Apparently CiCi thought it looked tasty. In the two seconds that the waitress stooped to handout drinks to my DH, CiCi swiped a handful of food.
Speaking of food..is it at all normal for her to really enjoy butter? Not butter that is cooked in with food. But butter - in packets. Because she really does. And she can be very persistent in the way that she tells you how much she wants that butter. So we let her have it. And she eats it. And it is so gross. So I taught her to dip her food into the butter. Tonight she ate carrots dipped in butter. It is the first time we have ever been able to get her to eat carrots. That's a good thing, right???
I could go on and on, so I'll save it for another post. Enjoy the pics. Christmas ones are coming...next???

More Pics from "Home-6-Months-Anniversary-Day"

My little ham!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the previous posts' pictures all being sideways.