the joy of brothers

I know I just wrote a post about P potty training, but I just thought about this and have to share it too.  Sorry if you've had enough of the bathroom talk, but this is my life.  :)

Can anyone tell me why they want to tee tee together....at the same time...even if one didn't have to go until they saw the other standing at the toilet?  Really.  Anyone??

It's the craziest thing.  If one sees the other going, they run in and drop pants quicker than I can say, "Wait your turn!"

This was a true phrase C recently said to me as he stood next to his brother at the porcelain throne.

"We're having a warrrrr!" as he aimed for P's tee tee with his own.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Someone help me.  Please.  If they're not careful, they're going to start getting containers of Clorox cleaning wipes in their stockings instead of candy.

potty training...round 2 (or is it 3?)

I tried to potty train P in January (he was 1 month shy of 3 years old), but he had other plans.

 This is his first time in underwear.  His face says it all.

 I even had him throw away his last diaper.

 I even tried putting Thomas the Train undies on him, thinking he'd love them because he loves Thomas.  Nope.  No way Jose.  Still wasn't having it.

I spent literally all day trying to get him to go tee tee in the toilet, but he would bawl his eyes out every time we'd get in the bathroom.  By 5:00 I decided that wasn't worth it and wasn't how it should go.  I felt very defeated that day.  I did everything I did when I potty trained C a year and a half earlier, but P just wasn't having it.  He simply wasn't ready.  I decided to take a break and try again later...like, months later.

So 6 weeks later was Spring Break, and I thought this would be the perfect time to try potty training again.  It was so spur of the moment.  It popped in my head Sunday evening at dinner, and I told T that I was going to give it a shot again starting in the morning.  I cancelled everything we had scheduled for the next few days, so we could focus solely on getting this little boy to go tee tee in the toilet.  And guess what.  He did it!  That boy took to the toilet like a fish to water.  He was finally ready!  Woo hoo!

For the first couple weeks though, he did have some trouble realizing that it wasn't exactly acceptable for him to drop his pants anytime, anywhere.

If he was in the backyard playing and he didn't want to come in, he'd run to the back fence and go.  The only reason I'd know that's what he was doing was because I would see a bare bottom staring at me.

He got to be so fast at pulling his pants down that I was caught off guard by his exhibitionist ways at first...

Next to the park at the entrance to our neighborhood?  Check.

The front yard?  Check.  Twice.

The parking lot between cars when I turned for half a sec to grab his brother's hand?  Check.

The outlet mall next to the firetruck you put a quarter in to ride?  Half a check--I grabbed him just as he was looking down at it to aim.

The only problem (and remains) is that he refuses to poo poo on the toilet.  He still runs and hides.  Unfortunately for him, I know his m-o: run and hide behind the couch or run, slam his bedroom door, and squat next to the bed.  Unfortunately for me, he's super hard headed and I can't break him of it.

This boy has had some doozies for #2.  One time the boys were playing in the sprinkler on the driveway, and C said to me, "Mommy, there's poop over there," as he pointed to something brown on the driveway.  I replied, "No, that's just a rock."  I decided to take a closer look, and sure enough, that was a ball of poop.  And it wasn't the lone survivor in that mine field of little boy feet trampling all over the driveway as they jumped through the sprinkler.  I was shocked to see that neither of them had stepped on one yet.  You know how someone looks when they walk their dog and they stop, squat down, and with their hand in a plastic bag, pick up the dog's poop?  That was me.  But we don't have a dog.

Another time, I saw him walking funny across the living room.  That's a universal sign, people.  If your kid looks like they just got off a horse and there's not a horse in sight, you know they just took care of business behind a couch.  I scooped him up as fast as I could jump over four Spider-Man figures, a sippy cup, and a train track and ran to the bathroom with him in my arms.  "Yes!  I got him in the bathroom without any of this falling out of his underwear in the living room," I thought to myself as I was cleaning him in the bathroom.  I spoke too soon.  No sooner did I step foot out of the bathroom, I saw a trail...yes, literally a trail...of poo poo balls on the path I had run from the living room.  It was just like someone who would leave cookies on the ground to keep from getting lost in the woods, except this wasn't a delicious snack.  It was like a crime scene that spanned the length of 3 rooms.  And to top it all off, just when I thought I had picked up all of his DNA, I kicked something that went flying across the room.  I'm sure you can guess what it was.  Well the bright side was that it was hard and stuck together, I guess.

And here's another for ya.  P's speech teacher brought him out to me in the waiting room and told me she thought he needed to poo poo.
HER: "He said, 'Go poo poo' .  Does that mean he needs to go?"
ME: "Yes, it probably does.  But he won't go here."
HER: "Why?  Because it's not his toilet at home?"
ME: "No.  Because it's a toilet.  And he refuses to actually do that on the toilet at all."
At this point, he ran away and was shimmying his way under a chair.  I grabbed his feet and pulled his little body out before he could get all the way under the chair.  It was too late though.  He had already taken care of business.  As I thought about taking him in the bathroom to change him and then sending him back in with her to finish his session, I noticed that his butt started growing.  The bulge in the back of his pants was literally getting bigger and bigger.  I called it a day then and there, and we quickly said our goodbyes as his teacher, the receptionist, and the other moms in the waiting room were rolling in laughter.

Look, I am so thankful that he does it in his underwear and doesn't strip before squatting in my house somewhere, but I'm over cleaning that stuff out of his underwear.  I know from experience that this whole poop issue could take a while to resolve, but I'm still hoping it will on the sooner rather than later side.

So please pray for us.  For me.  For P to start doing his business on the toilet before school starts back in August.  Otherwise, I think I'm gonna be stocking up on gallon size baggies for his teacher.

Spring in Texas

If you're from Texas, you know it's not odd to pull off the side of the road and plop your kids down in a field with the simple instructions, "Smile!" as they're immersed in wildflowers.  Taking pictures in the Bluebonnets (our state flower) is an annual tradition around these parts, and because I missed it last year being in Korea, I was adamant about getting out there...to a roadside somewhere in the country...to do just that.

As we drove home, we found a field with Bluebonnets AND Indian Paintbrushes, so we had to do a u-turn and frolic there as well.  :)

Thank you, Lord, for these gorgeous wildflowers and these handsome super heroes of mine!

family & fajitas

Family & fajitas...Now that's a good mix if you ask me.

We got a wild hair to invite family over for lunch on Sunday at the last minute, and we were so happy they were available!  Who am I kidding?  Free fajitas and our company for a couple hours, I'd hop on that too!  ;)

There was a lot of baby lovin, a few naps snuck in, loud boys, and lots of laughter.  That's my kind of Sunday afternoon.

 Holden is getting to be a chunky monkey, just how we like them!

 Love this little priss!

 Barrett & Connar Spider-Man

 "Smile Parker.  Put your teeth together."

 sister sister.

 

 

 

 

 

 I must've pulled out three board games and even more puzzles for them to play with...

 

 

This is just a priceless video of C reading to Barrett and P.  I love that P joins right in singing and how both C and P turn every now and then to look at Barrett to make sure he's following along.  They even stop briefly sometimes to give Barrett a chance to say the word (since it's repetitive, they figure he should know the words at a certain point)....too funny...think they've had someone read like that to them??  :) I love (1) catching them reading, and (2) when I see them read the way I've modeled for them.  :)

 

 

I love my family.  :)

Mother's Day 2014

So, because I'm getting caught up on past holidays & events from the past handful of months, these posts will be out of order. 

Mother's Day this year was just lovely.  :)

I took my mom to lunch the day before, and I honestly can't tell you the last time I went to lunch with adults only.  For real.  Can't remember.  Needless to say, momma ordered a mimosa and went potty alone.  That's a win in itself.

Mother's Day morning, after I slept in (can I get an amen?!), I was greeted to a little boy saying, "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"...(This was said just like Anna says it to Elsa at the beginning of the movie when she's trying to get her out of bed.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you clearly haven't watched Frozen enough..or at all)  After I teared up at the homemade card my boys made me (Connar signed his name for the first time on a Mother's Day card for me!  Priceless, am I right?!), my hubby and kiddos took me to breakfast at Harris County Smokehouse (yummy!!).  Then we came home and while I sat in my bed and read magazines, they made me a cake.  It was delicious!  I sat in the rocking chair on the back porch that afternoon as Daddy ran around chasing the boys (it was such a pretty day!), and for dinner we had Rudy's BBQ (man I love those sandwiches and corn on the cob!).

All in all, a fab day was had by all, especially this momma.  :)

I'm more than blessed to call these monkeys mine.  All mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas 2013

I feel kind of weird writing about Christmas seeing as though it was nearly 5 months ago, but I want to be sure to document it as that's my favorite time of the year (and I want to share our fun with you!)!  We had so much fun being back in our house this Christmas, and even though life was still really crazy at that point because we hadn't been back home too terribly long from Korea, we had a great time being with those we love.

Now... Sit back and try to imagine the smell of a fresh Christmas tree as you look through a very condensed version of Christmas 2013 for our family (and yes, this is condensed if you consider it's a lot of December)...

Dash, our Elf, came to visit the boys again this year!

 And boy was he up to some silly stuff and get into some predicaments...

 

We decorated our first gingerbread house this year, which was super fun!

We used this reusable house that my mom gave us (it all snaps together and you just wash all the stuff off when you're ready to break it down and store it), and it worked like a charm!

 

 There might've been a few candies missing here and there by the time Christmas rolled around.  Every now and then I'd catch one of the boys up on a chair "admiring" it.  :)

 I got to spend quite a bit of time on several occasions with these lovely ladies: one sister in law, one better-be-sister-in-law-one-day-or-we're-gonna-have-a-problem, and one sister.  :)

(Anddddd Spencer and Holden were there too in their Mommas' tummies!)

 I love being with them.  :)

We went to Zoo Lights at the Houston Zoo.

 We had my dad over for Christmas at our house, and the absolute BEST thing about this visit was that our sister, Savannah, came to see us!  It had been 2 1/2 years since we had seen her last, so this was a pretty emotional visit for me.  I love her so much, and I wish she never moved so far away from us.  I pray that one day she'll be closer to us, and I mean that in more ways than one.  She's very dear to us, to say the least.

There's nothing like a sister.  Period.

Christmas at my mom's was full of ugly sweaters (and maybe an ugly hair piece and jewelry too!).  So fun!

Hilarious!  When they stood next to each other (and Kaylon up on a stair), they created a Christmas tree with their shirts.

I made the three boys' ugly sweaters:

Ho 1, Ho 2, and Ho 3.  :)

We had the greatest idea this year.  Instead of either buying everyone gifts or drawing names, we said everyone had to buy something for $3 or less for every person's stocking.  There were 11 people other than yourself, so at the very most you could potentially spend $33.  Not only was it great cost wise, but it was actually fun to see what everyone decided to give.  My sister gave me a picture frame of herself (ha!), we got a lotto ticket (T and I actually both won on each of ours), our favorite candy, and even a roll of designed duct tape.  This was genius!

My mom gifted me with two huge scrapbooks from my wedding.  I got married 8 years ago, people.  Hey, better late than never.  :)  I love them, Mom, and they're so special, because I know how much effort and time went into them.  Thank you!

The family that plays together, stays together.  I think the chosen game this year was Battle of the Sexes.

On Christmas Eve before we snuggled the boys into bed, we made sure to sprinkle our Reindeer Food on the front lawn so Santa and his reindeer would stop at our house.

They also laid out their treats for Santa.  We're so lucky that Talton knows exactly what kind of treats Santa wants every year...because it has been known to change from year to year.  :)

Connar also wrote Santa a note.  This is the first time he's ever signed his own note to Santa.  Precious.

We couldn't forget to tell our elf, Dash, goodbye until next Christmas before we went to bed.

C was not pleased with saying goodbye.

But P kissed and hugged him.  :)

After the boys were in bed, Mr. & Mrs. Claus set up Santa gifts and stockings.

I get giddy every year when we do this.  I love this tradition and knowing that our parents once did this for us and theirs for them.  :)

We're taking advantage of how we can get away with small, cheaper Santa gifts while we can.

This Bat Cave is the one thing C asked Santa for.  How easy is that?!

And Mrs. Claus knew that P would love his own Thomas the Train track.

Don't you just love a Christmas tree all lit up at night?

Just standing there with my boys in bed and Santa having already visited made me excited to get to bed myself so I could see my kids' faces as they rounded the corner in the morning to see their new toys.  Isn't it funny how you can get the same excited feeling on Christmas morning to watch your kids open their presents as you use to when it was you opening gifts as a child?  Love that.

Santa even left a note for them!

Our family picture on Christmas morning.  Classic.  That's our life though, right there in that picture.  Silly boys.  :)

Poor thing was just asking about these glasses like two days ago.  We're now in May, so these babies are long gone, dude.  He did have fun using them with his GrammE though.

We like to stay home on Christmas (we don't like the idea of asking the kids to sit in a car driving to various places and leaving all their new toys behind), so after opening presents, we had our annual pancake breakfast and played lots of games together.

It was a great Christmas!  It's hard to believe that we'll be back at this same time in 7 short months.  Crazy how time flies!