Play-Doh

This is what Dane and Brandon make when Daddy plays play-doh. It's a car with wings and flames shooting out the back and a missle on the hood with wheels and headlights and a face. It's about 5 minutes away from actually being able to drive.

This is what Dane and his Mommy make when Mommy plays play-doh. It's a basket of rasberries. I made the basket all by myself. :) Dane made the rasberries.
What can I say? Artistic ability is not my gift. Sarcasm is my gift.

My Aidan

Okay, so I realized my last few posts have been rather "Dane-centric." So this morning's post will be about my sweet Aidan. Here are a few things about him I will probably forget after awhile:

At 2 1/2, he's talking so much right now. It doesn't always make sense, but there are a lot of words. Some of his most frequently used phrases: "Dane hit me" (even if he didn't). "I got poo-poo" (we're working on this one).

He insists on wearing underwear over his diaper. Otherwise, he couldn't be a Ninja Turtle. Obviously.

His favorite movie is Lion King, his favorite show is Diego.

He has a blankie with an alligator on it that he has to sleep with every night. At bedtime, he says a prayer on his own "for the GGs". The kids at church took a trip to a nursing home last year and handed out "prayer bears" for residents, and each child got a prayer bear also. The children pray for the people that live in the nursing home at night when they see the prayer bears. GG is what they call my grandma, so the prayer became "praying for all the GGs".

His best friend in the world is his big brother.

Aidan has weird eating habits. The only meat he will eat is chicken nuggets, and he prefers to eat fruits and vegetables. (How can this be my son?) He won't even eat hot dogs, ham sandwiches, nothing. We gave him a couple of Thin Mints (it's Girl Scout Cookie time!) yesterday, and he licked them and handed them to Brandon. What kind of kid won't eat Thin Mints? But he will eat dried blueberries and cherries by the handful.

He still naps in his crib, and when he wakes up, he plays and rocks back and forth in his bed until we get him out. We can hear the crib rocking against the wall from downstairs. He would do this all day if we let him. He's perfectly capable of climbing out of his crib and coming downstairs, like he has done a hundred times before, but he prefers to stay in after naps. He comes by this habit honestly. I am told that Brandon used to rock his crib clear across the room when he was little.

He's the cutest 2 year old in the world. I can't possibly be biased because I am his mother.

Conversation with Dane

Brandon picked Dane and Aidan up from school today. Here was the conversation on the way home:
Dane: Dad, did you know that some letters start with other letters?
Brandon: What?
Dane: Like "W". D-d-double-you. W starts with D like Dane.

I must admit, I'm a little confused myself. And I have been utilizing the letters W and D for several years now. I just hope Dane doesn't try to explain this to his classmates in Kindergarten in a couple of years. They'll never learn to read.

Picnic Surprise

Today (Saturday) was a BEAUTIFUL day. Not a cloud in the sky, with a temperature of 60. I love Houston in February. Brandon, the boys, and I started the morning off by cleaning the upstairs and getting the bathrooms nice and clean, and then we got the boys dressed and headed outside. They rode their scooters (Brandon's really gotten too big for his scooter), played basketball, and played on their backyard swingset for about an hour. We decided we would take a little walk around to our neighborhood park for a picnic and some more playground time. We loaded up the wagon with lunches, drinks, the blanket, and the little brother and headed off to the park. Dane rode his scooter all the way to the park, as he is too much of a man to be seen riding in a wagon like some pansy.

We arrive at the park, set up our picnic, and Dane is halfway through his Doritos when I notice peeking out from the leg of his loose little soccer shorts this item, sticking out the leg of his underwear:

I am not kidding. I almost choked on my turkey sandwich I was laughing so hard. What is this item, you ask? It is a battery-operated, light up magnifier that fits on a circa 1992 Game Boy. It's not super tiny, and it was hangin' out in Dane's underwear for half the day. He had ridden scooters with it there, played basketball, played on the swingset, and scooted all the way to the park with this in the back of his undies the whole time. This is to date the weirdest thing he has ever stuck in his underwear.
I guess we need to start checking him for random household items and electronics before leaving for church or school in the mornings. I wouldn't want to get a note from his teacher.

Do little girls do weird stuff like this, too?

Strep Throat

I'm sorry there have been no updates this week. It's been wet and rainy much of this week, and it's been pretty boring here in our land. The week ended with 3 of the 4 people in this house getting strep throat. (Thank you , Mom and Dad for having my tonsils removed when I was little.) Everyone has been appropriately antibiotic-ed and is currently non-contagious, which is very fortunate since Brandon will be preaching for over 700 people tomorrow, none of whom want strep throat.

One new thing around here--we have officially started potty-training Aidan. Thursday was not a good day for his Diego undies, but he managed to keep his Mickeys dry yesterday. We'll see how Spiderman fares today.

Dane picked out the movie at Blockbuster yesterday. DON'T EVER RENT DINOTOPIA. It's horrible. We knew it was going to be one of those super-cheesy dinosaurs-with-humans flicks, but the boys are very into dinosaurs right now. We did not realize it was 4 hours long. Apparently it was a miniseries at some point. Not a great way to spend a Friday night. No matter how much your kids love dinosaurs, this is just not worth it.

The Good Samaritan

A weekly conversation Dane and I have is "What did you learn in church today?" This was the response I got today:

"I learned about the man from far away and when he was walking he just helped the man who got beat up by the robbers with the big sticks. Nobody else would help him. And he took care of all of his boo-boos."

Should I be concerned that Dane sounded really envious of the guys who got to have the big sticks?

The Park and Valentine's Day

Wednesdays when the weather is nice we head out to the park with some of our church buddies. We live about 5 minutes away from this great huge park that no one goes to during the week. It was cool, so we bundled the kids up and headed out. It had rained the night before, so I brought a couple of towels out to dry off the slides they play on the most. Here's a shot of Aidan enjoying the newly dried off slide.
They played on this playground for a while, and everything was going great until they ventured onto another playset (did I mention it had rained the day before?) After about 5 minutes of play, I hear Dane wailing. A bit of explanation: Dane doesn't like getting super dirty/wet. There was the "soccer incident" when he fell into the mud on the field and started crying and his coach had to carry him off the field. Brandon was so proud. Here's a picture of Dane in the clothes we brought him to the park in:
The kids managed to find the 2 slides that I had not dried off, and they were soaking wet the first time they went down. Dane ended up with wet pants, socks, t-shirt, and sweatshirt, and insisted on taking it all off RIGHT NOW. While we were still at the park. The only "spare clothes" I had with me were a pair of sweat pants that were slightly snug on Aidan. So Dane wore Aidan's really-too-small sweatpants (think tight man-capris on a 4-year old), tennis shoes, and the knit cap. And that's all. He looked awesome. My apologies to the people in the parking lot who had to see us as we were loading up to go home. My kids usually don't look like that.

Yesterday, of course was Valentine's Day. Brandon and I kind of pride ourselves with not getting to caught up in this Hallmark Holiday. We laugh at the jewelry commercials, flower ads, and most of all, that Lexus commercial that shows the car with the big red bow on it. Because that's what I expect on Valentine's Day. A Lexus.

I worked a 12 hour shift in the ER yesterday, and all day long, flower guys brought in big, overpriced bouquets for my fellow nurses. (One girl did get one of those edible fruit-bouquets, which was pretty cool). One of my co-workers was even catching a flight to Las Vegas after work. I was not the least bit envious. I have a wonderful husband who shows me he loves me every day of the year, and I am very happy that he doesn't spend way too much money on Valentine's Day paraphenalia because the calender tells him to. (No offense to those of you who "do" Valentine's Day, we just don't).

I was about to walk out the door at work last night, when who do I see in the hallway but Brandon and 2 super cute little boys. The little boys were each holding a single rose. They had picked the roses out themselves on the way to suprise me, and Aidan's had seen better days (apparently he thought it was a nun-chuck and swung it around a few times in the parking lot). Dane had picked all the leaves off his. But I got the best flowers of the day. Mine had people attached to them. So we headed off to Double Dave's for some very romantic pizza and pepperoni rolls, and then went home. Happy Valentine's Day.

Morning Funnies

I know I've mentioned this here before, but our boys routinely wake up before we do in the morning, and feel no need to include us in their morning activities. Here are a few things they have been doing in the wee hours of the morning lately:

--Dane changed Aidan's diaper the other day before we woke up. Normally, Aidan wakes up waddling around in about 4 pounds of sogginess before being changed. The other day, he was dry. "Dane tanged my diap-o" was the explanation we were given. And he did a pretty good job of it, I might add. The offending diaper made it's way into the trash can, and the new diaper was properly applied, with the front in the front, and the back in the back. Pretty impressive.

--We have a container of change that has been on our kitchen counter for a couple of weeks now. There are 3 or 4 rolls of coins, and some more loose change in the bottom. This morning, Brandon ventured downstairs to find every coin unwrapped and on the living room floor. The boys were very excited about finding money to play with and put in Dane's treasure box. They got in trouble for that one.

--Dane knows how to put a show on to watch TV in the mornings. This doesn't sound like much of a challenge, except when you consider it involves 2 remote controls, and finding the show he wants to watch on the TiVo list and playing it.

On another note, Aidan had his Valentines Day party at school yesterday. When I asked him what he did at his party, all I got was "I got candy." He has no idea what Valentines Day is (I'm not entirely sure either, come to think of it), he just know's there's candy involved.

I haven't been able to get spell check to work for the last few days. Sorry.

Wedding Weekend #1

We made a trip up to the Dallas area this past weekend to participate in a wedding of a sweet young lady who used to be in our youth group. (We are getting OLD!) This is the first wedding this year that we are going to--there will be several others. Here is a cute shot of the personalized Jones sodas they had for us at the Rehearsal Dinner. What a creative idea! We had a great time at the wedding, which is suprising, because sometimes we go to be polite and then can't wait to leave. (That was not the case this time). It was so fun to see so many familiar faces, and to have a chance to get caught up with some old friends who we haven't seen in a while. Good food (I love it when there's the little rolls and the guy slicing meat) and good fellowship. Can't beat that. And I didn't even have to dance. There's perks to having the reception in a Baptist Church! The wedding and reception was at First Baptist Dallas, which is a really cool, huge building. Renovations have been done over time, so they have just added the "new part" to one of the outside walls of the old building, so when you're walking around, you see the old brick outside part of the old building as one of the internal walls. And Brandon and the guys got to go exploring instead of pretending to be excited about cake-cutting and boquet tossing. Built in entertainment for the guys! Thank you Stewart and Hemmings families for including us in the special day.

We also had a chance this trip to see some old friends of ours, Tommy and Rhonda and their 2 kids, Josh and Maegan. Brandon and Tommy have been close friends since middle school, and they all went to school with Rhonda, also. Tommy was the guy I ended up dating for a while in high school, so it's kind of funny that we are all still friends! We had a great time visiting and eating and seeing their new house, and Dane and Aidan got to play with Josh quite a bit. As you can tell from this picture, Aidan's face gets a wee bit chapped every time we leave the 90% humidity that is Houston. He's just not cut out for dry weather!
Here is our attempt at getting a picture of the 3 boys on the couch. Picture time was much easier about a year ago when everyone was just a little less mobile. Brandon and Tommy are still trying to figure out how we can all live in the same town when the boys are in high school so they can all play on the football team together. I think it would be funny if they all got older and wanted to be in the marching band. (They wouln't be allowed to.)
There was also a special treat for Dane and Aidan from Andy this weekend. TOMAHAWKS! Yay! I love it when my boys' collection of "weapons" just grows and grows! (Andy, Dane wants to tell you he's sorry for rubbing your head and waking you up Sunday morning mere hours after you had gone to sleep. At least he wasn't kissing you while you slept this time.)
We also got a chance to see Grammy and GranDoug this weekend and go to church with them and have potluck lunch. We had a great time, and a very busy and tiring weekend. Hope you had a great weekend, also.

Baby Beans and Baby Puppy

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Mandy. Mandy had a little doll she slept with every night. It was her most favorite baby doll, and her name was Baby Beans. She was very small, had a yellow outfit with a matching bonnet, and was filled with squishy bean-bag beans. In a word, she was perfect. One day, when the little girl was in college, her well meaning mommy was cleaning out the attic and threw Baby Beans in the trash. Mandy found out and she was very sad that Baby Beans had gone to live with the fishes.

FAST FORWARD EIGHT YEARS

My brother calls me to tell me he is in town and has something to give me. IT"S BABY BEANS!! Through the magic of e-bay, Baby Beans has been ressurected.

Now, Dane has a lovie that he sleeps with every night and every naptime. He is Baby Puppy. He is a very small, soft brown puppy, and Dane loves him. In a word, he is perfect. I think he was acquired at a baby shower at some point. A couple of weeks ago, Baby Puppy got lost. He wasn't left at school, or in the car, or under the bed. He wasn't even in Aidan's bed. Bedtime became a time of lip-quivering "I'm trying to be 4 and not cry for Baby Puppy" sadness. It was horrible. We tried every replacement we could think of. Dane had no interest in Dinosaur, Daddy Puppy, Woodstock, Turtle, Elmo, or any other "non Baby Puppy substitute".

One night, when Daddy was gone and Mommy was in charge of bedtime, an idea formed. The tears ceased at the first sight of Mommy's precious Baby Beans. From that night on, Baby Beans had a new sleeping arrangement tucked in next to my Dane. Needless to say, Brandon was not thrilled. His tough, soccer playing, football catching, Ninja Turtle son was sleeping with a DOLL. Dane loved it. He loved Baby Beans, and he would not go to bed without it

Friday morning we were leaving on a road trip to come up to my parents' house. We gathered up the appropriate blankies, Aidan's bear, and Baby Beans. All of a sudden, Brandon had a new mission.

We had to find Baby Puppy NOW. The kids are loaded in the van, the bags are packed, the van is running. And Brandon is not leaving the house without Baby Puppy. His son is not leaving the house with a doll in tow. Needless to say, Baby Puppy materialized rather quickly. It's amazing how fast you can find a beloved puppy when your eldest son's manliness is in question.

Dane Quote

"Mom, I like ladies."

--Dane Christopher, Mr. Heartbreaker 2021

Super Duper

Best Super Bowl EVER. Loved it. The only thing that would have made it better would have been seeing Tom Brady cry. There's always next year, though. And My Peyton's brother is the MVP. Best Super Bowl EVER.

We went to Val and Izzy's to watch the big game tonight, lots of fun and food and assorted dips were had by all. Dane, Aidan, and their new friend Keaton spent the evening playing hide-n-seek with Val. This is where Val hides under a blanket, or under the pool table, or in Joel's closet, and 15 minutes later when the kids have remembered that they are playing, they find her. Then they start all over again. And Aidan decided to try a sip of Val's homemade Sangria when he was alone in the kitchen. He, too, thought it was the Best Super Bowl EVER. He just doesn't remember why. (Calm down, it was just a little sip he snuck from the kitchen counter. It wasn't like we fed it to him during commercial breaks. By the way, the commercial where the girl's heart jumps out of her chest and bounces across the office--disgusting. And I'm an ER nurse.)

Tomorrow Baby Joel is coming over to play while Val goes to work, so we will play a rousing game of "Don't Squish/Hit/Tackle/Run Over/Feed Baby Joel" all day. Pray for him tomorrow.

Aidan's First Haircut Part 2

Here are a few more pictures from our haircut day yesterday. So what was Dane doing while Aidan was screaming in the chair? Playing video games, of course. He is his father's child.

Not one to be left out, Dane also got a haircut yesterday. My grandmother called me yesterday ("GG"), and Dane proceded to tell her he had gotten a mohawk. He did not, in fact, get a mohawk. He got "cool daddy hair". He was almost as excited about having "hair gel like my dad" as he was about the TCBY afterwards. My children live in a house where their father uses more hair product than their mother does.

Part of the reason we got Aidan's haircut was so that he would look less like a little girl. The jury's still out on that one. In the words of my husband, "He's got Sally hair!" I think the pictures speak for themselves... He may not have her brown eyes, but the child has got the Sally hair.

Aidan's First Haircut Part 1

Well, we decided it was finally time. Our baby boy was 2 years, 5+ months old, and constantly being mistaken for "Dane's cute little sister" by random strangers everywhere. His long, flowing "angel hair" (as one older member of our church referred to it) had seen better days. It was time for the long overdue First Haircut. A milestone usually exclusive to the one-and-younger crowd. And Aidan. We had been hesitant to cut the hair, because we knew that it was probably bye bye to his cute curls he had enjoyed up until today.

This was Aidan's hair when he woke up this morning. SCARY BED HEAD!


We went to a "Kids Kool Kuts", thinking he may be agreeable to the unfamiliar haircut if Sponge Bob was playing chairside. Wrong-O. Aidan just kept screaming "No haircut. No haircut!"
He was, however, pleased with the end result. And we were suprised to see that his little curls had sprung up all over his head again.
After the haircut, we went around the corner for a little TCBY. Aidan had forgiven us for putting him through the haircut trauma by that point.



This is Part 1 of Aidan's Haircut Day, more to come, Blogger is not being cooperative at the moment. Have a great weekend!