Ah-Ha

My kids love to take baths. What kid doesn't? The actual bath usually only lasts about 5 minutes and then they play until the water turns cold.

Lately, Max has been begging to take showers instead of baths. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why. I mean, they're not really that fun, we don't have toys in there and the boys are at the height where the shower spray hits them right in the face. But every time, Max just begs to take a shower.

Well, now I know why. Look what I found in the shower this morning.


Apparently, Merk has been giving them candy in the shower. I guess that's one way to get the job done.

Birthday Boy

It's been three weeks so I guess I should put some birthday pictures up. Luke had a super hero party this year, complete with a dozen friends in costume.

Here he is practicing his moves before the party. Actually we ended up buying a new bat suit the night before. We tried is old one on (the one he still played in constantly) and I discovered it was way too small. I don't know why I hadn't noticed. Anyway, his new suit has more "power" so he's pretty happy.


Everything was a battle. Bubble blowers were turned into guns and sticks turned into swords. They loved being "tough guys."


Merk put on a super hero training camp. He planned it out all by himself, down to the last detail. I think he had as much fun as the kids.


My proud six-year old.


Good friends.


I can't believe he's six. I can't believe he's almost completed kindergarten. I can't believe how much he acts like a big boy now. I'm very proud of him.

Happy Birthday Luke!!!

Scout the Adventurer

This is our dog Scout. She is almost 8 years old and couldn't weigh more than 100 pounds soaking wet. We love our dog, even though she is a Goliath. She's also an escape artist.

So on Tuesday when I opened the door to a strange lady holding Scout by the collar, I wasn't too surprised. This isn't the first time she's escaped. One time she got so far, a lady had to drive her home. You should have seen Scout when she got out of that minivan. She couldn't have been more proud of herself.

Well, this time was different. First of all, the stranger turned out to be my next door neighbor, who I've never met in the four plus years we've lived here. Not once. Four years. It's not that we haven't tried, but they are extremely reclusive. The won't answer the door, kids are scared if the ball goes into their yard, kind of neighbor.

So here she is on my doorstep explaining what happened and all I could think of is "Are you really my neighbor. You don't look so scary. Why don't you ever come out of your house?"

Anyway she turns out to be nice and Scout was returned safe and sound. The funny part is, this neighbor, who I wasn't even sure existed, actually rescued Scout from a ledge in the alley.

Here is a picture of the ledge.


Somehow, Scout climbed up there and couldn't get down. I wish I could do a reenactment and take a picture, but she does weigh a 100 pounds.

So, at the end of the day, it turns out I do have a nice neighbor who is willing to physically pull my enormous dog off a ledge. I also have a very tired dog who is still afraid to go near the gate. SCORE!!!

Not Kidding

This is how I found Max last night when I went to tuck him in. I can't believe he fell asleep like that. I guess he was just too tired to make it all the way into the bed.

The funny thing is, odd sleeping is not a new thing for him. Check out these pictures from the past few weeks...

Win Some, Lose Some

Here are a few of pictures of the boys from Christmas. I say a few because our camera went crazy right before Christmas and only one out of every ten pictures came out.




After the initial sadness of not having many holiday pics followed by a heated argument about how our old camera should have been replaced a year ago, Merk brought home a new camera. I wish I had a picture of it because look what it can do. When's the last time you saw him so happy?


Happy Husband. Happy Wife. Happy New Year!

Sleepless Christmas

The eve before Christmas Eve, my husband and I were given a priceless gift, an entire night to ourselves. Woohoo! The kids were sleeping over at their grandma’s. We gladly packed their Spiderman suitcase with more toys than clothes and sent them off.

With the kids safe and sound (and supposedly asleep), we decided to take full advantage of our short window of freedom. We called some friends and headed out to party like rock stars. Well, if you know us at all, you know we’re not that adventurous, but we did play Guitar Hero until well past one in the morning. And so, as we fell into bed around two, we were blissfully happy knowing we could sleep as late as we wanted without any middle of the night potty runs or water requests. That was the idea anyway.

The trouble started at 4 AM when my Mom called us to come get Luke. He was completely done with the sleepover and was coming home. So there I go, in my pajamas and slippers to rescue my five year old from the monsters that live at his grandma’s house.

He was so sweet standing there in his pajamas and coat, his eyes still red from crying. I couldn't be mad at him. So I grabbed him up and brought him home. Trying to salvage the night, I fell asleep thinking at least we only had one kid to deal with in the morning, no problem.

I realized I was wrong before dawn when Luke was wide-awake and very excited about Christmas Eve. In his mind, we had a lot to do to get ready for Santa. In my mind, I was desperate for sleep and couldn’t believe what was happening to our perfect night/day off.

Max joined us a little later but things weren’t quite right and they fought and fussed all day. It got so bad the “if you don’t behave I’m calling Santa” line was used more than once.

Finally, after they fell asleep during the Christmas Eve service, I called my mom and asked her when they went to bed the night before. “11:30” she said, as though that is the normal time for a 3 and 5 year old to go to bed. “What!” I screamed, my head spinning around about three times. “Why did they go to bed so late?” “We were just watching a movie,” my mom continued, confused that I was upset.

After five minutes of this, I gave up in defeat. I did, however, come to several conclusions.

1) No more sleepovers until Luke can drive himself home.
2) There’s no such thing as free babysitting.
3) I’m too old to stay out until two in the morning; I don’t care how much fun it is to play Guitar Hero.



How cool is this guy? I'm still smitten.

Christmas Standouts

When I think about the Christmases of my childhood, there are a handful of memories that always come to mind. Hanging the stocking with my name glued on in felt, putting silver icicles on the tree and setting up the manger scene with half a dozen sheep who only had three legs (it was ancient even when I was a kid). There was also the gigantic Santa we put on our front porch. No one else in the neighborhood had one, so of course, I thought we were pretty cool. Now it would be considered tacky, but I still have very fond memories of that Santa.


With my own children, it's interesting to see the parts of Christmas that stand out for them. For Luke, it has been the song Angels We Have Heard On High. He is obsessed with that song and sings it constantly. When he sleeps, we put his CD player on repeat so we don't have to go in there every three minutes and turn it back on.

Max has been obsessed with the Nativity. Merk and I collect Nativity scenes so we have about 15 of them set up this time of year. In early December, I put one in each of the boy's rooms. Max now has four in his room. He would have more, but I had to put them out of reach. It took me awhile to figure it out, but he was taking figures from different sets around the house and setting them up in his room.

This may explain his funny behavior at his preschool pagent this year. They made the mistake of putting Max on the end, right in front of the living Nativity (pre-k kids). He was overwhelmed. He spend the entire show with his back to the audience and staring at the "real life" Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus.




We thought it was funny. I'm not sure the other parents felt the same way.

Luke was also very concerned this year that our tree wasn't up in time. He literally wore us down over Thanksgiving to get that tree up. These pictures were taken on Sunday when we finally gave in. Notice that there's no staging in our tree photos. Normally I would put them in Christmas pajamas and take a lot of pictures. Not this year. After Luke asked for the 100th time, we just put the thing up.

In hindsight, I'm glad we did it that weekend. They both love the tree and take turns every morning turning it on. The both have to do it, so one turns it on, then the other turns it off and then on again.




So now we're down to only a few days until Christmas. This has been a very sweet season for us and I pray that it is for you as well. Thanks for keeping up with us and we want to wish a very Merry Christmas to our dear family and friends.