Doctor Anecdote

Huston had his four year check up with the doctor today. When Clarke came home from work, I was trying to get Huston to recount for him how his doctor's visit went. He had to get a bunch of shots, give a urine specimen, and get a finger prick, and it was all quite traumatic. I said, "Tell Daddy about going to the doctor today."

Huston said, "When they shot me, I peed in a cup."

Clarke said, "Well if they had shot me, I probably would have peed in a cup, too."

Huston is 4!

We had Huston's 4th birthday party this morning, and my sweet boy had a wonderful time, which made it so wonderful for me. Leading up to his party, he kept talking about it and sounding really excited, which was such a change from the previous two years when he really screamed about it and would keep saying he didn't want a party. We did an "Up!" theme, since that was his favorite movie for most of the year.

I bribed him with chocolate dipped pretzel sticks to take his picture under the balloon wreath I made. That wreath took so many balloons, that I've decided it's going to be our new family tradition to put it out for everyone's birthday.

I made these multicolored cupcakes to resemble the balloons in the movie, and my mom made those adorable cloud cookies. I love how they turned out! Of course her cookies were delicious and I thought my cupcakes were rather failed, but at least they made for a cute picture. The little "Up!" house was an online printable that I carefully folded and glued together.

Melinda brought these cute old suitcases for part of the decoration and I printed out the Ellie and Carl plane tickets from online.

For party favors, we had M&M's wrapped up as Mr. Fredricksen's bow ties, and some canteens I got 90% off at Target that I decided to call "Russell's Wilderness Explorer Canteens" since I needed to get rid of them. :)

Huston got some glasses that looked like Mr. Fredricksen's along with some other glasses that seem to have renewed his interest in playing with glasses.

We didn't sing Happy Birthday to him, as he still doesn't like that, but we did get him to pose for a few pictures in front of his cupcakes.

He loved eating his Grandma's cloud cookies. Not so much his mommy's cupcakes. That's okay. I felt the same way.

Goofing around with Grandpa.

Arden had such a blast at the party. I think she thought it was her party. She played with everyone and had a great time. She loved getting Uncle Ben's hat.

I wasn't going to have Huston open his presents at the party, as he usually hates the attention, but he approached the presents on his own and started trying to peek in a bag. I asked if he wanted to open it, and he did! After more people started watching and taking pictures he started to get shy, but we took a few breaks, and Aunt Emily helped him open the rest. He got so many great things that perfectly fit one "hard to buy for" boy!

Sweet Caroline got all tuckered out from the excitement. Love that sweet girl (and her momma!).
Abby was so sweet to come to Huston's party on her actual birthday. Happy birthday, Ab! (You and Marta look so cute!)

My dad just got back from Turkey yesterday. Thanks for coming in spite of your jet lag, Dad. We missed you while you were gone! And I forgot to tell my mom that I really liked her haircut. (I like your haircut, Mom.)
Sweet friends. So thankful for them.

Arden playing with one of Huston's toys. She wore her cupcake shirt that Grandma made in Huston's honor. And she even had little bows that said "Happy Birthday" in them.

Huston and Wyatt pretending to "sleep." Such hilarious little boys!

A family picture (don't remember how I bribed him to take this one, but it for sure involved some sort of food).

Happy Birthday, sweet Huston. Mommy and Daddy love you and we're so proud of our big four year old!

Washing Dishes

This little boy didn't want to take a nap today. So the second time he came out of his room, asking if nap time was over, I told him he could stay up if he let me take his picture. I'm not above bargaining or bribing for a picture taking opportunity. He said "Ok," which shocked me, because he never lets me take his picture.

I can't believe this little goofball's going to be 4 years old in a couple of days.

He's so handsome.

Then he asked for a snack, and after he picked the M&M's out of his trail mix and then asked for a different snack, he was bored. So I told him he could help me wash dishes. He was pretty happy about that.

He pulled his little chair over to the sink, and asked me to put the water on the "spray." Then he used the measuring cup to rinse off the dishes. When he was done he asked me for some more dishes to wash. I hope he still likes this chore when he's older.

Stuck Inside

So, it's like really hot outside. So incredibly hot that it makes me want to curl up and die. We've been mostly stuck inside recently except for a few morning excursions, a few swimming days, and a trip to the museum. One day when we were running errands, Huston said his nose was watering. He meant "sweating" but it was so cute.

I've been doing my best to come up with more creative, structured things to keep the kids busy and actually teach them stuff. Considering that I was a teacher, you'd think I'd be better about that, but I've been terrible. I just thought it would naturally happen, but the truth is, I have to be intentional about it. I'm discovering that's true for just about everything with parenting. Parenting on Purpose, Intentional Parenting, Parenting with a Vision. Whatever you call it, it takes effort and planning. And sometimes I'm just lazy. But I'm trying not to be.

Sooooo... we've done a few things lately. Nothing mind blowing. We've played felt board stories to go along with Brown Bear Brown Bear (Arden loves this book). We've been doing a Bible story a week and a letter a week. Last week we read books about Creation and made a little book about the 7 days of creation. We also did the letter A. The kids got on Starfall.com on the computer and Huston clicked around on the different activities. I downloaded a few toddler/preschool apps for my iphone and ipod and let the kids play with them. Arden likes to say "boop, boop" every time she hits a button. Huston likes to select all the wrong answers first and laugh hysterically, then pick the correct one when it's the only choice left.

Our friends, the Casburns, are in town. When they came to our house to play, Arden freaked out over their sweet baby, Elise. She kept saying "baby, baby, hold it, hold it, touch it, touch it." She realllly likes babies.
In pooping news, I think Huston has turned a corner. He pooped on the potty four times this past week and the most recent two episodes were perfect (no mess involved). Hallelujah! I think I prayed more about his pooping than about any other single thing in my life. I cannot tell you what a relief it is that he finally seems to be willing to do this. At some points on this journey, I really thought the day would never come.

Now that I've started rambling, I think I'll continue....

Ever since Kid's Kamp, Huston has been obsessed with watching his Kid's Kamp dvd, which has all of the skits from the week on it. He has been walking around reciting lines from it, many of which are scripture, to my delight. One day we were in a store with other kids around, and he started saying, "You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. Honor your mother and your father." It was awesome. And hilarious. At lunch this sunday he picked up and separated the two sides of his hot dog bun, held them up so they looked like the two stone tablets Moses held, and started reciting the 10 commandments again. It was also awesome and hilarious.

Arden is talking a lot more in sentences these days. Her ability to learn new vocabulary words and string them together is just unbelievable. I haven't been able to record the words she knows, because she knows so many. She'll say, "More, more! Water please!" or she'll read a page of Brown Bear Brown Bear by saying "Purple Cat Purple Cat. See. I see Froggie... me." She loves to do everything her big brother does, loves to try to count (she says 1, 3, 5! but can count in order past 5 to about 8 or 9), loves to play in the bathtub, and loves reading stories. Both of the kids continue to love watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and during the intro, Arden will shout all of the characters names as they appear: "Daisy! Donald! Goofy!"

I've been getting a bunch of boxes of the kids' old clothes down and washing and tagging them to sell in the JBF sale this fall. It's making me sneezy (because there's a lot of dust, I guess), weepy (over their tiny, tiny clothes... oh so very weepy), and achy (from hunching over and pinning and folding and typing). The house looks like a children's clothing store exploded in it.

Oh, and the other morning I looked out the window and saw this:

It was pretty freaky. Of course, since we're city folk, I called someone to come and pick up the snake in case it was poisonous. It wasn't. So I guess we payed $160 to relocate it to the lake for nothing. I hope it appreciates our efforts.

Roll up to the Splash Pad 10 am...

Anyone else singing "It's a Dad's Life?" That's a favorite song in our house and I can't help but sing it every time I hear the words "splash pad."

The kids and I tried out a splash pad near our house with some new friends that we met through Kid's Kamp. It was a hit, and even I had fun. It was one of the few days we've been outside that I've actually felt cool. I think we'll definitely be making another visit there before the summer is over.

Poop Issues

I would apologize for writing so much about poop lately, but it's just such a big issue right now, that I don't think I will.

Huston pooped in the potty (the normal one - not the little potty) for the very first time on Saturday, July 23rd. Write that on your calendars, people. I might just celebrate that day every year. It could be bigger than Halloween. Probably just under Thanksgiving, but for sure bigger than Valentine's Day.

This poop occurred after a week of holding it in. I really don't think he had gone the entire week. Scary, I know. He had multiple incidents of little poopy smears in his underwear that were driving me crazy and on Saturday at a birthday party he let a little poop come out in the kiddie pool. These are the things they don't tell you about when you sign up for motherhood. That one day you will have to scoop your 3 year old out of a pool at a crowded party while he's screaming "Some poop came out! Some poop came out!" and leave your one year old in the hands of someone else while you rush him to your nice hostesses' bathroom and scrub his swimsuit out in her sink and try to rejoin the party as if everything were perfectly fine.

I was so fed up with all the poop that was coming out at inconvenient and inappropriate times and places, that I put Huston on the potty when we got home and told him to sit on it until the poop came out. I may or may not have been mildly upset and yelling in the car about how he was going to poop on the potty, which caused Arden to happily repeat "No, No! Poop! Potty!" and other words that I was saying in all seriousness, but that on her tongue sounded hilarious.

So he sat. And sat and sat. Think two hours or more. He screamed and cried at first, wanted me to join him in the bathroom, said no poop was coming out, etc., etc., etc. I was feeling incredibly defeated. Eventually I just told him I had to take a break and I walked out of the bathroom. Literally 30 seconds later, he yelled, "Mommy, the poop came out!" I didn't know whether or not to believe it, but I ran to the bathroom, and sure enough, there was poop in the potty!

And not just any poop. A big, loooooooong poop. Clarke said it looked like it came out of an NFL linebacker. I guess that's what you get when you hold your poop in for a week. As I was giving Huston his bath that night, he was talking about how great it was that he pooped in the potty.

And then he said, "It kind of looked like a beanstalk."

And it kind of did.

Red River

We just got back from a weeklong vacation with Clarke's parents and grandparents in Red River, New Mexico. The cool temperatures were so refreshing and we made some great memories! Here's a rundown of our trip:

Saturday (July 9th): We were on the road by 6:30 am. Huston got excited before we even got on the highway, yelling "Look, a new gas station!" as we passed a very familiar, not at all new gas station. About 1.3 minutes into the drive, he said, "This is taking a long time," and I thought, "We have more than 11 hours left. This might have been a bad idea." Huston, however, ended up doing great on the drive. After we got back he told us that he liked the long long long ride to New Mexico, and indeed, he did seem to enjoy just looking out the window. He never really played with any toys, but on the way up he held his new bubble machine (seen below) for almost the whole trip and kept saying, "I can't wait to get to New Mexico so we can play with my bubble machine." Arden was mostly awful on the drive. Nothing kept her entertained for more than 30 seconds, so there was lots of screaming and unhappiness. It was a relief to finally make it, and much joy and giggling ensued when we arrived to find Mimi and Grandpa and Granny and Papaw, and when the bubble machine was finally opened.

Sunday (July 10th): Relaxing day around Red River. Huston immediately became fascinated with the ski lift and he loved watching it go up, watching the wheels move, talking about why it was stopped, talking about what time it turned on and off. He figured out that he could see it perfectly from our bedroom window, and spent the rest of his nap times just staring at it. We kept telling him we were going to go on it and he seemed scared and didn't want to, but his fascination got the best of him and at the end of the day Sunday he finally announced that Bear Bear wanted to go on the ski lift, which was the plan for the following day. We had lunch in Red River at a not-very-good place called the Old Tymer's Cafe, walked around to a few shops, and I went with Clarke to a park nearby to play a few holes of disc golf. Unfortunately, he couldn't play most of the course, or the course at the top of the ski lift, because the mountains were closed due to extreme fire danger. There's a random picture below of Arden with her shoes off. She kept saying "rocks, rocks" and "dirt, dirt" and wanting to play in the random piles of dirt and rocks. She stripped her own shoes off so she could really experience it.

Monday (July 11th): We rode the ski lift in Red River! It was all going so great. Huston was being brave and holding on to Bear Bear. Arden was not squirming too much, which was good because I was terribly afraid of her falling. The weather looked beautiful and we were having a really good time. Then, as we approached the top of the mountain, the freezing rain hit. And I don't mean freezing as in cold (though it was), I mean actual frozen pieces of hail. We were stuck on the lift for a few long minutes, as our children screamed and cried and as we got good and drenched and there was nothing we could do about it. It was a relief to make it to the top, where we got out and had lunch at the restaurant at the top while we semi-dried out. After lunch, Arden pooped and I hadn't brought any diapers (not having anticipated these events), so I cleaned her up and put her pants on with no diaper. I told her, "Arden, don't pee," and she said, "K." The next thing I knew, I was picking her up to go back down the lift, and she had peed all over her pants. It was quite an adventurous morning to say the least. In the evening we took the kids back to the same park where Clarke had played disc golf so they could play on the playground. There were tons of adorable chipmunks running around, which Arden started calling "munk chips."


Tuesday (July 12th): Clarke and Truitt and I went on a white-water rafting excursion. I begged not to go, but Clarke really wanted me to, and I'm glad I did. For some reason, I was really fearful about it, but it turned out to be fun. No pictures of this event yet (though I might buy some).

Wednesday (July 13th): All-family excursion to see the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and then to have lunch and go shopping in Taos. Arden was not that impressed with the bridge or gorge, but Huston seemed to like the view as he said, "I've never seen this before."

Thursday (July 14th): Date day! Clarke's dad went on another rafting trip, and we left the kids with Melinda and Granny and Papaw and headed off to Angel Fire, where Clarke had discovered there was a disc golf course that was actually open. We rode the ski lift up (so much more enjoyable without worrying about holding onto your small children) and I had fun following Clarke around while he played. It was just gorgeous. It ended up raining on us most of the time, but it wasn't too bad until the end. He had to give it up around hole 16 and we had to take a bus down the mountain because we didn't want to wait for it to stop raining. We had lunch in Taos and a delicious triple chocolate pie for dessert, found a cool toy story called Swirl where we spent a long time, and saw a movie (Horrible Bosses) before we headed back. Such a fun day!

Friday (July 15th): We ended up going back to Angel Fire to play the same disc golf course, this time with Truitt and Melinda tagging along. Huston got a bit exhausted from all the walking, but Arden loved touching and examining every tree and rock and flower we stumbled across. She is such a nature lover! As we were finishing the course, Melinda got a call from Granny saying that we were being kicked out of our condo, even though we had expected to stay until Saturday. Silly me somehow didn't make the right reservations or forgot what day we were supposed to leave or something, so we had to drive back to Red River, pack up the condo in a huge rush, and get out of there. I felt absolutely terrible! We ended up eating lunch around 2:30 and not leaving town until after 3. The kids took a nap, which was nice, but we were trying to make it to Abilene before we stopped and Arden wasn't having it. Just outside of Abilene she screamed so hard and worked herself up into such a fit that she threw up all over herself. We had to stop and clean her up and then we stopped at McDonald's for dinner at 9:30. Praise the Lord that after all that mess, both kids slept the rest of the way home. We didn't end up getting back until 3:30 in the morning!

One of my favorite parts of this trip was the good family time. Huston loved waking up and having breakfast with Granny and Papaw. Arden loved playing with some beads and jars that Melinda brought and reading books with Granny. Clarke and I loved playing "fishbowl" with his parents and grandparents. It was just good, quality, slow time together. When Huston woke up at home the Saturday morning after our trip, he started crying and saying that he wanted to go back to Red River. He keeps talking about going back there someday and playing with "the three remotes - the one from my room, and the one from Mimi's room, and the one downstairs." Apparently our remotes just can't compete with Red River's.