Morton Madness

I know I say this EVERY month but I really cannot believe how fast this time goes by. Sophia LOVES shoes and putting on her pj's over her clothes these days. She can put the pants on but puts both legs in one hole. She is talking so much now and trying so hard. She LOVES baket baaaal (basketball) and still growls when she hears or sees a dog. When she sees us put shoes on or grab our keys, she walks to the door and says, "car car, I go car car". She usually cries when daddy leaves for work because she wants the car car. If you ask her where body parts are she can point and tries to say the word. Hair, forehead, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, chin, cheek, stomach, goolie (bottom) arm, hand, fingers, leg, knee, foot, toes and elbow. She still will not let me put her hair up for more than 15-2o seconds. She follows Jonah and Luke around and gets so excited when they come into the room she is in. They are awesome big brothers and love her so much.

Monday morning Justin got up at 3:30 so he could leave the house at 3:50am to pick up a coworker and catch the red eye out to Houston. This is after he has been working literally 72 hours strait. He was doing some contract work for a friend from 8:00pm until 7:00 or so the next morning Thursday and Friday night after putting in a full days work for GE. He would catch a couple of hours through the night but for the most part worked. He was exhausted and really did not want to head to Houston. He sent a text at 5:50 that morning saying they were pulling away and would let me know when he landed. Another one shortly followed with they are heading back to the gate for mechanical problems. I get the boys off to school and when I get home at 7:45 he sends another text saying they are now boarding the plane. Needless to say he was a little tired from getting up at 3:30 for no reason. The day goes on and I notice it getting a little warm in the house and just figure its re...

Meet the teacher night was a little crazy... we went to both the boys rooms and Sophia was screaming to get out of her stroller and wanted to touch everything and I was not paying close attention to what was on whose desk. I just grabbed the stack of papers and would go through them when we got home. When we got home I went through the stack and there was a brown paper bag with instructions to fill it with three things that tell something about you. Now, there is only one problem. Whose desk was this on? I asked the boys if they remembered and of course they did not so for some reason I thought it was on Jonah's. Jonah went upstairs and grabbed a lego ship he built, a Wii game and a Pokemon card. Well, come morning I thought about it some more and remembered Jonah doing this in first grade so I thought for sure it was Luke's bag. I then took Jonah's items out and Luke filled it with his items. Off to school we went! When I asked Luke's teacher if the bag a...

My little babies are growing up.

This morning the boys were actually excited about school. I decided I better wake them up early so they could get moving. That was a mistake... they were ready within 20 minutes and wanted to leave the house. We decided to walk to school this morning for some crazy reason... it was already 85 degrees at 7:10 in the morning and the humidity was about 90%. By the time I got home I needed another shower! The boys went right into their rooms and were actually smiling unlike a lot of the other kids who were already sitting at their desks. I asked if I could take their picture and got a big fat NO so I did not want to ruin a good thing. I cannot even believe that one of my children is wearing a BUTTON DOWN shirt WITH a collar! Who is this kid? He is still telling me that his pants are too tight and so I have to undo all the adjustable waist and let them sag. Here is to a great 1st and 2 nd grade year boys!

Justin has been talking about getting a new shotgun for a few years now. I have NO idea why he has not done it but FINALLY today he went out and got one! This is one happy man with his new Browning shotgun!

Today Luke had an eye doctor appointment to have his eyes rechecked from his six year appointment. We were there for over an hour for them to tell us that everything was fine and there was NO concern! I must say I am relieved because the night before we went Luke told me that he wants red glasses!

The boys got to meet their teachers last night and were actually excited. When we got to the school it was nice to hear everyone calling out Jonah and Luke's names. Jonah was Mr. Joe Cool and high fivin' everyone and saying, "what's up". The boys saying hi to Luke would just keep saying his name. Luke has Mrs. Norris and when we walked into the room she said, "hello Luke". My response, " uh oh". :) She laughed and then asked Luke if he remembered her from the bus line. That was a sigh of relieve for mom and dad. ha ha ha He has a few friends in his class so he was excited. Jonah has Mrs. Edwards. I think she is new to the school and his classroom is in the old science lab so he is not in the second grade pod. He thought that was pretty cool. He knows a couple of people in his class and seemed OK with it. We of course had to stop by and see Mrs. O'Connell and Mrs. Hilliard. The boys were excited to see them and Luke th...

Pick your nose Tom Hooter! Tom Hooter is Nina's uncle I believe and when they would catch him picking his nose that is what they would say. It has kind of stuck around all these years and now we say it to our kids. We have big brothers to thank for this new trick she has learned. They love making her do things that she should not be doing :)

Sophia is a little monkey these days. She is JUST like big brother Jonah. We had to put the kitchen table chairs on their side because she was climbing on the table. As I was blogging the other day she is in the boys bathroom directly behind me and I hear the water come on. I turn around and see this. I of course had to grab the phone and take a picture. She got up on the stool and then used the cabinet to give her the extra boost. Maybe I should look into getting her a helmet!

The boys came down stairs this morning telling me that there were ghosts in the house. They were telling me all kinds of things that the ghost has been doing. They opened their closet and the blue sleeping bag moved without them even touching it. Jonah even told me that the ghost gave him chills twice by running his hand down his back. The proceeded to build a fort and said that we will know if they have been here while we are gone because it will be knocked down. Jonah asked Luke if he had touched his pillow pet and when Luke said he had not Jonah said the ghost must have done it. They say that the ghosts are easy to see because they have a gray outline. I cannot wait to see how many more stories I get to hear today. I love their imagination! So later this afternoon the boys come over to the balcony and Jonah says, "mom, we figured out what was cursing us." He then holds up a figurine of ET and pretends to shoot it and throw it over the balcony.

I woke up at 5:00 this morning because I heard a strange sound. I laid there for a minute and thought surly that is not what I think it is. I finally got up and went and looked out the window and saw RAIN! WOOHOOOOOO I wanted so badly to wake Justin up and tell him that it was raining. I could hardly stand it. I went back to the bedroom and grabbed my phone to look at the radar and saw this. It was a sight to see. I think we went a month and a half with NO RAIN and our yard is dead and we have huge cracks in our driveway. The street even buckled at Legacy just north of Lebanon due to the heat and no rain. I am not sure how much we got but we will take it!

You fall off your bike you get right back on... So last week Luke ate the concrete with his face but was willing to go back out... and ride his scooter that is! Oh well, he will get back on eventually, right? So they boys were wanting to ride and so Justin dusted off the cobwebs from his bike and got some air in the tires and hit the pavement... wearing flip flops. So they take off for a bike ride and I stay home and put Sophia down for the night and sit down on the couch to relax and about 20 minutes later Jonah comes in boohooing. He said he was hurt bad and held up his arm to show me. I ask him where dad and Luke are and he said that he left them at the pond. I asked him if daddy knew he was coming home and he told me that he did not know. I calm him down and let him take a bath so he can hold his arm up and get him bandaged. By that time Luke comes in and I throw him in the shower and get them in jammies and teeth brushed and then in walks Justin. SERIOUSLY dude? His ...

We were bored to death and it was way too hot to go outside so I got online and looked for some crafts that we could do. I found a how to on Duck Tape (This is "duck" tape, not duct tape) wallets. We were off to Hobby Lobby to find the colors we wanted and here is what we came home with. They both have pockets and the boys love them.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPP Justin and I have NEVER jumped out of bed as fast as we did this morning at 3:00! I knew that it was the beep that meant you have about 20 seconds to disarm the alarm before it goes off. I ran to the front door and looked at the keypad and the red lock and number 3 were lit up. That meant that a door opened and I knew that station 3 was the garage door into the house. I did not even think twice before I punched in the code to disarm the alarm. Not once did it occur to me that someone could have actually been in the house waiting! Justin went to the laundry room and opened and closed the door and I went back to the bedroom and noticed the wind was blowing so I figured that one of the boys just did not shut the door good behind them. Of course now we cannot fall back to sleep and I can't even close my eyes, I am watching the door like a hawk. I kept thinking maybe someone is hiding in the laundry room and what if... Needless to say it was a sl...

This summer has been a scorcher! We have not even been swimming a lot because it is so stinking hot. They are saying that if we go a couple of more days with temps over 100 then we will beat the record back in 1980.

We have been trying to get Luke to ride without training wheels but he never wanted to try. FINALLY tonight he wanted to try. Why not? It's only 105 so lets do it. I walked him out front and had no shoes on so I went in to get some shoes and Justin went down the street with him and he got it THE FIRST TIME! WOOHOO Lukie! He was so excited. I came out and snapped a picture and some video and came back in and 5 minutes later I hear Luke crying so hard and Justin telling him that it is OK and happens to everyone. HE ATE THE CONCRETE FACE FIRST! Thank goodness for his helmet. Of course his palms were scraped and his knee messed up. We told him that he could take a bath instead of a shower and he was pretty excited but still crying. We got him all cleaned up and bandaged for the night and then I told him the story of when I fell off a moped and was all scraped up and bandaged and it was the first week of my freshman year in college. I even told him that some of the foo...

About three weeks ago I noticed two little red dots on Sophia's knee. I thought they were just bites so I did not think anything about it. So a couple of days pass and there are three more of the same dots on the other side of her knee. What is it? Justin put some Cortizone cream on it and we went about our business. A few more days pass and it is OUT OF CONTROL! It is all over her knee and working itself up her leg and now on the other knee. I noticed it turned red when she got hot. She was not bothering it so I just kept putting cream on it. We left for Austin and the few days we were there it got worse. I decided to cut my trip short so I could get her to the doctor. I took her in and drum roll please....... MOTHER OF THE YEAR once again (and am very sure not the last time I will earn this title) She has Strep! I told Dr. Kaplan that I had been putting Cortizone cream on it and he said that it only makes the rash spread. Fabulous! So he gives us a prescriptio...

I knew that one day I would either forget that Jonah wore his pants under his armpits or that he would NEVER believe me... so I of course took pictures. So the other day he was running around with no shirt on and I could NOT believe what I saw! So of course I took a picture. Not only is he "saggin'" but his undies are showing AND they are adjustable pants that he did not want me to tighten. I really thought I would never see his belly button again.

Justin decided it was time to take Jonah out to shoot skeet. They headed out Sunday morning with Chad and Jonah was super excited. Justin said that he did better than him. Jonah has still not stopped talking about how much fun it was and how he cannot wait to shoot a duck!

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY! Just once and yes, that is ALL I ask, just ONCE can I ask Luke to take a shower, brush his teeth and put his jammies on without him whining and throwing a fit? How old are you dude? SIX I am not even exaggerating people. We do the SAME routine EVERY single night and it is an hour long process and in the end there is A LOT of yelling and my blood pressure spikes! He could have showered, brushed his teeth and put on his jammies in 10 minutes if he would just DO IT the first 35 times he is told. I dread night time and feel horrible when I yell but talking, telling, asking and bribing do not even work. It is a NIGHTMARE I live every single night and I am SO over it. I will take any suggestions because I might become an alcoholic just to deal with his fits. I have even thought of just letting him not shower and sleep in the same clothes and not brush his teeth and see just how long he would go being so dirty. As you all know, that will never happe...

The boys have been asking all summer when we were going to Austin to see Aunt Amy. I kept telling them that I have to see when she was going to be home because she is in El Paso all the time now. We finally came up with a date and I did not tell the boys because I wanted to surprise them. It worked out perfect, Justin was going to Wisconsin for work and Aunt Kelly asked if the boys could spend the night the day before we left. After the boys left with Aunt Kelly I started packing and got the car loaded ready to hit the road that next morning. I got to Kelly's a little before 10:00 and the boys were so sad that I was there so early. I told them that I had to be because we were GOING TO SEE AUNT AMY! They were super excited. We had asked Kelly to join us but she could not make it work. We got in the car and Jonah said, "this day just keeps getting better and better." Two hours into the trip Luke says, "mom, are we almost to the airport?" I told him we we...