My excuses...

Hello, World.
Me again.  I've been a stranger... one with good intentions, but alas- not following through with them.  I sit and look at the date of the pictures on my last post and want to cry.  (9/24)  I am almost 3 months behind with posting and feeling like I'll never get caught up.  Maybe I'll magically get a day to just peacefully sit at the computer sometime??

Anyway- feeling the need to make up some excuses for why I'm so behind.  So, here they are...

#1-  I'm pregnant!!  We're expecting our third baby!  I'm due in June and am 3 months along now.  I've actually been fairly sick and pretty tired this time around.  (I think I'd probably be tired even if I wasn't pregnant with as active as my boys are!)   In the evenings after I get the kids to bed, I crash- no blogging for me!

#2- Luke is working a ton of hours.  To save some money, his franchise owner decided that they'd put him (and everyone like him in other markets) back into a store for awhile.  He had to fire a manager and is now running a store on top of trying to accomplish his other job.  So- two full-time jobs for my husband.  ARGH!  They've told him it will be 6-9 months.... I'm praying that it's less.   Running a store means for sure working Thursday, Friday, & Saturday from 9am-7pm.  He obviously works the other days also, and goes in on Monday nights to do inventory.  So- no weekends anymore.  No help from the hubby in the evenings.  I keep the kids up to see him for awhile after he gets home and then off to bed they go.  Then after they go to bed, I'm so wiped out that I go to bed, too!   I'm tired of us not seeing Luke.  (and pretty much, I'm just tired)   One month down... hopefully not too many more to go!   I'm trying really hard to be thankful-  thankful that he has a job, thankful that he's working so hard to provide for us, thankful that he has to work these hours in the winter when we're not going to be outside having fun in the evenings anyway, thankful that this might be over before the new baby gets here??   I have so much to be thankful for... maybe I'll just blame the pregnancy hormones for making me so crabby about all this!!  :)

So there you have it.  My top two reasons why I haven't been blogging.  Now- I'm going to go take a nap instead of working on catching up!!    

More September...

9/23- We got to go visit my friend, Kathy, and her kids today.  We had a great day playing on their acreage.  Leah & Ashlyn were such great friends to Boaz- they ran around and played together all day- we hardly saw them!   Kyler was nice and shared his tractors with Cainan!

 9/24- Blueberries for lunch... a gigantic mess for Cainan.

 9/25- Saturday = Football!   More Iowa football with Daddy today.  Go Hawks!

 And of course, when you watch football, you definitely have to play football!! 

 There's nothing better than watching Dad rough around with his boys.

 We were out in the kitchen eating lunch, when all of a sudden Boaz said to me, "It's that pig in that car!"  I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.  "Mom- it's that silly pig in that car!"  Luke overheard him and rewound the TV so I could see this pig...

I had never seen the commercial before, but apparently Boaz has been paying more attention than me when the TV is on!  We hit rewind a couple of times and let him laugh at that silly pig today...

Cainan is just starting to stand up on his own!  Won't be long before he figures out walking!

Playing football with Dad...

Cainan getting really excited about the football action....

September stuff

9/21/10- Boaz is pretty sneaky.  He hides things and makes me try to find them.  Can you find Bear & Elephant in this picture?? 

With Cainan's crusing around comes a lot of head injuries.  If I need to leave the room for a second, I've been putting him in his exersaucer thing to keep him contained!! 

Luckily he enjoys bouncing!

This is the most recent head trauma.  I'm a couple months behind on these posts, so I don't recall exactly, but I think this one happened when he cracked his face on the fireplace at Grandma & Grandpa Bartlett's house.   There are too many head injuries to remember for sure....   poor little man!

 Our neighbors are getting their window wells in their backyard redone.  The boys had fun watching this giant crane pour cement today!  It was pretty impressive!

The Uman-dome

9/18- Today we took the boys to a Panther football game in the Uni-dome.  (or as Boaz calls it, the uman-dome)  It was a late afternoon game, so we decided it was the perfect chance for them to experience Panther football for the first time.  I packed them special dinners in our picnic boxes...  (yes, we snuck food into the dome for our kids!)

 The boys enjoyed the game for the most part.  Boaz did think that Bob (the announcer) was a bit loud.  He liked TC and the marching band the best.  (of course!)   None of the noise phased Cainan a bit. 

 Justin played cars with Boaz to keep him entertained. 

 Cainan enjoyed walking around the bleachers.     I ended up leaving with the boys after the 3rd quarter to head home and get them ready for bed.  They'd had about enough of sitting in one place and were ready to leave.  Even though we didn't make it through the afternoon, it was a fun afternoon for us all!

Cainan 11 months

 9/16- Cainan is 11 months old today!  It's getting harder and harder to keep him still for these pictures!

 And as always- this photo session turned into another wrestling match....

 These brothers sure do love each other!

 "I'm not sure I like this anymore!"

 Cainan is a mover and a shaker... nothing in our home stays in the same place during the course of a day.  He is an active little guy and is constantly on the move.

 He loves Boaz very much and wants to do everything big brother does.  Boaz often traps Cainan out of an area so he can have some peace.  Cainan squirms and wiggles his way in most times...

Cainan LOVES food.  We taught him sign language and he did well with it for a bit.  However, with child number two, my attention isn't as focused and I'd often miss his signs.  Now Cainan grunts- and grunts loudly, to tell us what he needs.  We have to have his plate completely prepared before we put him in the highchair because he is so anxious for his food that he screams.  And he can outeat Boaz anyday!  Cainan- we love you!!

And here's a video of Boaz- he's getting into drawing these days.  Here he is explaining his drawing to me...

the Scarecrow at Menards

9/15- The Scarecrow... We went to Menards today for a few things and walked by the Halloween decoration aisle.  This would have been a fun thing, except they had a little wall of decorations that had motion detectors.  When we walked by, the scarecrow started flailing his arms and legs and saying something.  What he was saying wasn't audible, as a two-year-old boy's screaming and crying overshadowed all the noise.   Boaz FLIPPED OUT and ran away screaming.  All of Menards could hear it.  We finally got him calmed down and continued our shopping.  We asked a worker if they had any little kids' hammers (Boaz brought some money to buy one), and he led us to an aisle where he thought they'd be if they had any... of course, we followed him right by that same darn scarecrow!  And Boaz flipped out again.   Poor guy.  That scarecrow was all he would talk about for days afterward- scarred him for life.   He is now afraid of all decorations- thinking they are going to move or talk at him.  Ugh.  Here's a video of him retelling the story of  'ElmoDarns.'   (what he called Menards that day)

9/19-  Since he's been super scared of every decoration outside the last couple of days, I decided we'd try to conquer those fears by making our own nice scarecrow.   Here's Boaz getting all the paper wadded up. 

 Stuffing the pants...

 Getting him all put together...

 And the finished product!!   It's a pretty sad attempt at a scarecrow, but he did his job.  Boaz wasn't as afraid of things after we spent a couple days talking about how nice our scarecrow was. 

 And here are some more failed attempts at pictures of the boys together...   :)

pretending

9/13-  I've written this before, but I'm continually amazed at Boaz's imagination.  He is always combining objects to turn them into other things.  Today's 'new' toy was a microphone made out of a funnel and a ball.

 Cainan is still napping in the mornings, so Boaz and I will often go outside and enjoy the weather.  Today Boaz wanted to be Superman.  We got out his kitchen apron for a cape- and he picked out the boots to complete the ensemble.   We got some funny looks from passersby, but Boaz sure did have fun pretending!

 Boaz has also discovered a love for photography lately.  (Pretty much he just wants to touch all our electronic stuff.)   He took this photo of Ozzie all by himself!! 

pictures & panthers

9/10- Boaz's art for the day.  This is 'Boaz playing the trumpet with the sun.'   He's getting really good at seeing pictures in his scribbles.

Speaking of pictures... why do children's stories have scary pages?  This book is a great one (Just in Case You Ever Wonder, by Max Lucado)- about loving your kid forever, no matter what.  But it includes two pages that I should have skipped tonight...  "When you see monsters in the shadows, call me."  "What's that in the trees, Mommy?  Why is there a scary man there?  I don't like that man, mom!!" 

 "Remember I'm here for you.  On dark nights when you hear noises in your closet, call me."   "What's in that closet, mom?  Is that another scary man?"  (no, it's just a hat and coat hanging up)  "They're making noises?  Why is that girl scared?  I don't like that hat, mom!!  That's a bad bad hat."

 So- since we read this book tonight (mind you, this is about the 100th reading of the book, but for some reason these scary pictures made sense this time)... we now have a brighter nightlight in Boaz's room, and he insists on sleeping with the lamp on dim- so he doesn't see too many shadows. 

9/11 - Panther Nation!  It's Panther gameday again... here are the boys dressed up for game watching.

 And this is how all of our photoshoots end up lately....   :)     I love having boys.