Joey's bath

Apparently we don't bathe Joey enough so he's taking matters into his own hands. This has now happened a handful of times. He's getting better at opening doors and his climbing is quickly improving. It's getting hard to stop him!  And this still makes me laugh every time! But then I have to clean up a child dressed in sopping, wet clothes.

Merry Christmas!

Just pretend I posted this a few weeks ago....

I didn't take that many pictures of all the Christmas festivities this year :( So sad. So many parties where the camera was forgotten. But I do have a few.  

Christmas Eve:

Trying to get everyone to pose...you know how it goes.

It is with reluctance that I post this picture below. So pregnant and chubby in my face...but my love for those other cute little faces overcomes my embarrassment. 

 

Joey grinning innocently at the scene of the crime. You see, every other year, we have a poorly decorated tree because every other year we've had an 18-month-old at Christmas time. Slowly we end up moving all the decorations from the bottom few feet of the tree to the top. At 18 months, Mikey and Luke definitely pulled at all the ornaments until we moved them. But they stopped there. Joey took it to a whole new level. He pulled at all the ornaments until we moved them...but then after that, he did not stop. You can see all the lights clumped together behind him because he was constantly pulling the lights down off the tree entirely and pulled the ribbon this way and that trying to get that off, too. Maybe it's sibling rivalry already?  He's trying to outdo them...?  Regardless, it was our saddest tree ever. But it's so hard to get mad at that cute little smile :) 

 

My homemade ornament wreath :)  

 

Christmas Morning:

Ready and waiting with the stockings

We finally got Joey to sit still enough to get a picture, too.

Joey didn't really get what was going on, but he sure ran around and had fun.

The New Year: 

Some of our best friends came and stayed with us on New Year's Eve which was so much fun!

Our two little (usually) trouble-makers where actually very well behaved the entire time--though not the greatest at posing for pictures. They were both facing me--we considered that a success.

The older kids, however, were almost too good at posing. What do you think? Prom...? Wedding dinner...? Such a cute couple ;)

18 Months for Joey!

I seriously can't believe that my baby Joe is 18 months old. Not only does 18 months sound old, but suddenly he is starting to LOOK so old to me! But then again, he is still my little baby!! I suppose I need to get used to it, though, because once the currently cooking bun makes her debut, I know now, from much experience that Joey is going to suddenly look HUGE and will no longer be the baby. So I'm savoring every moment of his baby-ness. I just can't get enough of his cute little face. I mean, can you blame me? Look at that face!

He is doing some pretty stinking cute things right now. First of all, there is this hat thing. He LOVES hats. He loves putting them on himself, or having assistance. Either way, he will walk all around taking a hat on and off. But what is great is how he absolutely insists on the hat being LOW. If the bill is in the front, he pulls it all the way down so that he can barely see. He gets mad if you try to pull it up. And as you can see in these pictures, even with the back in front, it has to be encroaching upon his vision. But he could see enough to know I was holding a camera and boy does he love the camera.

 He is adding words every day and it is so fun and cute. But one he is quite a pro at is "cheese." In all of these pictures, you might have noticed his "cheesy" smiles. That is because he is, in fact, saying "cheese" in all of these. It doesn't take much to get him say cheese to the camera. The video below is proof.

 His first real word (besides "no") was apple. He first said apple after we decorated the Christmas tree. He went over to the red ornaments and started saying "apple." He also says, "thank you," "night, night," "stuck," and "car."

Some of my other favorite things about Joey right now:

• Joey doesn't eat crayons, he chews them. Mikey ate a few crayons, most kids do, but he got over it. Luke actually never really tried them. Joey has eaten very few crayons. But CHEW them? Oh it's countless. It's like he thinks they are his own personal supply of gum. When he gets a hold of one, he will walk around chopping down on it. When I find him with it, there will be a little stub left and when I put my hand in front of his mouth, he just spits it all out as a crumbly, saliva-filled mass of crayon. He really NEVER swallows them. And if I don't discover him, he will find me when he's done, and start spitting them out in front of me until I assist in the clean up. 
• He does NOT like me doing dishes. If he sees the dishwasher open, he runs over and slams it shut. I seriously cannot do dishes with him in the room. In fact, even if the dishwasher is closed, if I am standing at the sink, he comes and pushes me away. 
• He is absolutely obsessed with shoes. He will put on any shoe he finds. If he has shoes on and comes across more shoes, he will do all he can to get the second pair on over the first (which actually works sometimes if he has on his own small shoes and comes across Mikey's shoes or any of ours.) He actually also really feels strongly about me having my shoes on. When he finds my shoes, he will come and find me and try to put them on my feet. Then he'll yell until I comply and help him accomplish the task. The cutest, though, is when he finds shoes he wants on and can't get them on, he brings them to me, hands them to me and then plops down on the floor and sticks his feet straight out in front of me. It's so cute. 
• And my all time favorite thing is how he insists on your attention when he's on your lap and trying to talk to you. If I am holding him and he is trying "to talk" (in his Joey babble) and I am not looking at him, he will put both hands on my cheeks and turn my head to look directly at him and hold it there until he is satisfied. And the other day, he did that just to give me lots of kisses. Oh, it is so cute. 

Love, love, LOVE him!!!

Merry Christmas!

Here is our beautiful, Christmas-ie house :)  I LOVE Christmas lights and, luckily, Lance LOVES putting them up ;)  Okay, maybe he doesn't LOVE it. But at least he loves the results (and me :) enough to do it. But this year it was a particularly sacrificing act of love.

He got the first line of blue lights up on a warm day just before Thanksgiving. (The roof line has a line of blue light and then a light of white icicle lights.) Then two days after Thanksgiving, as he went out to finish with the icicle lights, the whole cat-stuck-in-the-drain-and-Lance-sacrificing-his-fingers-to-save-it thing happened. (See most recent bloody post) After enduring those torturous first days after that event, we weren't sure if he was going to be able to finish. But two weeks later, he got out there and (carefully) did it, broken fingers and all!  Thanks, baby, for making our house so beautiful! :) (I should note that the pictures really don't do it justice, but that's to be expected when trying to take pictures of lights.)

Seeing Santa

The time has come for the annual visit to Santa. This was Joey's first visit and he did great. He may not look thrilled in the pictures, but he was at least intrigued by the big, jolly man and not at all scared so we count it as a success. And Luke and Mikey were very prepared with their lists.

 Luke: A bow and arrow

 Mikey: A remote control helicopter, a remote control car, and "the biggest toy gun my mom will allow."  (This might have stemmed from our conversation we had when he was talking about the MASSIVE gun he was going to ask for. I told him Santa wouldn't bring him a gun bigger than what the mom in the house would allow.... Well, you should have heard how big of a gun he wanted!! I had to do something!)

NO GOOD DEED - THE AFTERMATH

Well, for those medical types among you, thought you might want to get a behind-the-scenes look at what actually happened to Lance's fingers.  Enjoy.

And now for the grand finale - where you can really see the damage.

Yup.  There are supposed to be two bones there - not eight, or however many there are.  Stupid cat!

No good deed goes unpunished

Viewer discretion is advised! ('cause this is totally gross)

Gutter storm grate + cat = scared, trapped, crying kitty

Scared, trapped, crying kitty + two little boys playing close by = dad to the rescue

Dad to the rescue + scared, trapped, crying kitty = happy, free kitty

Gutter storm grate + dad's hand = 

I know, doesn't it seem like yesterday that we were looking at other pictures of Lance's mangled hand? 

Well, it wasn't yesterday, but it was almost exactly a year ago. I'm going to start confining him to the house while sitting on his hands this time of year.

Poor Lance. Last Saturday we were in the throws of getting Christmas out. The tree was up and boxes of Christmas decorations were strewn about. That afternoon, Lance went outside to finish with the outdoor Christmas lights. As it was a nice warm day, the two older boys went out to play help. A little while later, Mikey comes running in and bids me come look what they found. Sure enough, down under the drain in the gutter there was a cat. 

So the mission began. I went back inside to be with Joey, but Mikey would periodically run in to ask for something else. They tried a little bell, which nearly worked, but the cat just couldn't get all the way out. Lance managed to lift the drain cover (you know, those huge,  heavy, iron things) and hinge it up against the gutter.

Of course, then the cat started running further into the hole and under the street. So after sticking his head in the drain and going to the other side of the street and almost getting the cat, he finally sent Mikey into the house for a can of tuna. That did the trick. Kitty came out.  Yay!

When Lance went to lower the grate, it was much heavier than he anticipated. The one hand pulled it down and because of the shock of the weight, he put his other hand down to brace himself. And down came the grate. With his left hand in the wrong place.... Poor Lance.

Mikey came running inside saying "dad pinched his fingers." I stepped out to see Lance jumping around the front porch and blood everywhere. Our wonderful neighbor down the street was at our house in like 30 seconds and we were out the door.

Lance was in excruciating pain for probably a solid two hours before we were at the hospital and they were able to numb it all up (half hour to the hospital, then lots of waiting). Diagnosis: Both fingers broken right on the tips. Biggest concern: the nails growing back. The doctor actually took off one nail, stitched it up underneath, then sowed the nail BACK on. Didn't expect that. (Apparently the hope is it will work as a template for the new nail to grow in.) And the other fingernail, he just lifted up like the hood of a car, stitched up, and put it back down. All that blood was actually just pouring out from under his nails. Thankfully he had gloves on so there weren't actually any lacerations.

He's doing pretty well now. The first half of Sunday was pretty rough as it seemed like all the swelling in the tightly wrapped bandages was preventing the medication from reaching his fingers. But the pain management seems to be going better now. 

We're very grateful that his still has all his fingers and Lance is at least grateful to get out of diaper and dish duty for awhile. ;) 

And here are a few more just to add to your pleasant dreams:

Importance of toenail polish

Last Monday night, we were having Family Home Evening. Lance was in the middle of the lesson with Mikey at his shoulder, trying to focus on the lesson. Luke was on my lap, playing and not even trying to pay attention (despite my efforts). All of a sudden he yelled at me, "Oh no, Mom! You're turning into a boy!"  I said, "ummmm, what?" He said, "Look!" and pointed to my toenails--specifically the smaller ones where the toenail polish was all but completely gone. I admitted to him that I did need to take care of that.

So there you have it, ladies. Keep those toenails polished or else you just might turn into a boy. 

Pets

Now and then we take the kids to the pet store as kind of a quick and easy zoo-like visit. We did this recently. Before getting out of the car, we gave the whole, "we are only doing this if you promise not to ask for pets." (I know, silly to think that speech would actually make any difference.)

Before I continue, I should explain one thing. I love dogs. I'm not against having dogs and will one day consider it.  BUT, my rule is that only when our last child is potty trained can we talk. (There are various reason for this, some are for the benefit of the child, some the benefit of the dog...and some for the benefit of MOI!)

Anywho, back to my story. So of course, we enter the store and the kids start in on asking for pets. Luke was asking for all sorts of pets.  And of course, the mother-load of all pets is the dog. And of course, the humane society was camped out with a few cute little things there up for adoption (which we were trying to save from Joey and his attempts at ripping their ears off--one of the afore-referenced reasons for waiting on the dog).

So Luke started pouting even more and begging for a dog. I started trying to explain to the boys that we just can't have a dog right now, because we don't have the room with the little kids in our house and with the baby coming, blah, blah, blah.... Then Luke looked up at me with the biggest puppy-dog eyes I've ever seen and said, "Pleeease, mom, can't we get a dog?" It was the hardest "no" I've ever given! But I did it, I said no. Then he put his head down and mumbled, with his grumpiest, poutiest fact, "I don't WANT a baby. I want a dog!"

Ohhhh geez! One day I hope he'll change his mind about that! (But I accept that it may be awhile.)

Nintendo and Their Flying Rodents

So, Lance was out running errands, and he ended up at BestBuy with all three boys (there is an extremely high probability that the world would end if I were to ever set foot in a store with all three boys in tow, but because I love him, I insist that Lance do any and all shopping thus triple laden).  Anyhoo, apparently Nintendo had a little booth to which a new 3DS was quite literally chained, but which could also be played by passers-by.  As if that weren't enough, for the smaller guinea pigs, they also had a gimmicky set of ears and a tail.  As each of the boys took his turn playing the thing, none could be talked out of doing so as a raccoon (I guess that's what that is).  Too cute.  P.S. This was written by Kristy, NOT Lance.

School pictures

We recently got the school pictures back for both of our sweet older boys. I love the pictures, but why do they have to make them look so grown up!!

Mikey, Kindergarten

Luke, Preschool

Happy Halloween!

Of course the boys have all been counting down to Halloween for a LONG time. So it was a good thing we had numerous opportunities to get all dolled up. We went with the whole Star Wars theme this year. Dad: Anakin, Mom: Queen Amidala, Mikey: Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke: Luke (hee hee) Skywalker, and Joey: Our little Yoda.

I know, a lot of these pictures are of Joey doing different things. I just couldn't get over him. He was the cutest thing ever in his little costume. Most of my pictures couldn't quite capture how cute he was, but some come close. And he was surprising good at a keeping his costume on.

First up
Mimi and Bampa's Halloween Party:

Anakin and Yoda: (See! Look how cute!)


The whole Star Wars clan:

The Jedi Knights:
Yoda finally got a hold of a light saber:
The dip I provided (it was actually ridiculously tasty):
Now onto event number two

Ward Halloween Party:

You should have seen Joey running around the gym in that robe. So cute.



The Young Men and Young Women were in charge of the activities. Lance is one of the leaders and came up with a Plink-O game. So they made him made him make the board. It turned out great and everyone loved it! (And someone has already borrowed it for a party they were having.) That's my talented husband, folks. :)

Here's Mikey taking his turn:
Joey wouldn't leave Lance's side through the whole game, whether it was the game or dad (or both), who knows.
Luke taking his turn:
And finally
Trick-or-Treating:

What a good-looking group :)

Did I mention how cute he was in his costume? So cute :)
Everyone else took pictures on our front steps, so I figured we should, too.

Happy Halloween!!