TTT: Season 3, Episode 36

1. It's been a loooong day. And a long week, too! But a good one with lots to be happy about. First of all, my sweet little Kolbe started pre-school today! I really can't believe he could be possibly old enough to do anything but be my little boy. Forever. But alas, he's been getting the itch for a good year now and today was the big day. Pre-school! Granted, he's only going on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-2, it's still a big milestone for him. And me. This is the first time any of my babes have gone off to any kind of "school" whatsoever. I'll go ahead and say it went smoothly, though we did have just a little bit of a hiccup at drop off. Actually last night Kolbe got a little weepy after we put him to bed. I crawled in with him and asked if he was nervous about school. He insisted he wasn't and swore that it was because he was sad that I painted his room. Which happened months ago. This morning he woke up all chipper and ready to go. Mark had a morning surgery that he snuck out of early so that he could meet us at the church. All was fine and dandy, and even I was not feeling overly emotional when I dropped the dreaded words on him: "Give Mama a hug and a kiss." I squatted down, got my hug, and he immediately started his silent whimper. One of those I-swear-I'm-not-crying-please-don't-let-anyone-see-me-not-being-brave type of cries. And as if on cue, my tears had no problem appearing in an instant. He was so worried about his classmates seeing that he was crying that he refused to pull his little face back off my shoulder so we both wound up sitting on the floor for a minute or two until he gained his composure. Sure enough, once he got his little burst of emotions out, he did just fine. He was nothing but smiles and eager when-do-I-get-to-go-backs as soon as I picked him up. So overall, it was a great success!

I'd like to say that things went as smoothly on the home front but we pretty much bombed our projected schedule. Grant ended up taking two fifteen minute naps both in the car instead of the goal of one long nap at home from 11-1:30. Rudy took a one hour nap, but not during either of Grant's sleeping times. Grant did take another nap when we got home from picking Kolbe up, but of course, by then I was back to referring the shenanigans of two attached-at-the-hip brothers who had been separated for five hours. We made homemade pizza together and had a good time talking about the first day of school, but by the time they finally all went to bed, I was pooped. Must figure out a workable routine for school days or I might go insane! I've got to have at least thirty minutes to an hour a day of no babies. Seriously. It's for the greater good of all involved! Otherwise, Rudy and Grant and I did have fun together. Rudy tends to be the back-up singer to the show-stopper, Kolbe, so it's nice to get to spend some one on one time with him without "interruptions." Rudy is such a smart, unique, sincere little boy and his ideas tend to be drowned out by the big brother dictator. I love getting to see him as the big brother, the "boss", and the decision maker. This will be a big year for him as well.

2. This past weekend we went to Dallas to stay with Mark's brother and sister-in-law, Brian and Cristi, and meet up with Mark's parents as well. As always, we had a blast! The boys love the change of scenery and of course, getting to see their  grandparents and aunt and uncle. There's always no shortage of treats and snacks, and Aunt Cristi makes the best food whenever we go. She has become quite the chef! If only I had the time and lack of children hanging off of my legs, I'd get her to train me! We spent a fun day a local pool, went to mass, watched a little college football, stayed up way too late having normal adult conversations (yes, in our world that's notable!) and enjoyed countless Popeye the Sailor Man shorts. (Kolbe loves Popeye and Brian and Cristi have a DVD with 100 shorts on it....it's the only place he gets to see Popeye so naturally, it's his favorite thing to do at their house!) We're so grateful that Brian and Cristi are so welcoming for all of us to "meet in the middle," even when it was the weekend after the first week of school. (All of you teachers out there know how exhausted you are after that first week! Poor Cristi, having house guests! She's a trooper!) Such a fun weekend...can't wait to see everyone again at Thanksgiving!

Mark's birthday is on Saturday so more fun to come! The rest from this past week is in pictures!

Miss Lora surprised Mark with a cake from our favorite baker in Lubbock,  Kerry. Best. Cake. Ever. Though probably just over 2000 calories per piece.

Oh no. He's not looking much like a baby anymore. But man, he's got great eyes!

Making burgers with Aunt Cristi! Kolbe has always been a great sous chef.

Dada: sleepy. Grantness: ready to party.

My little Sunday napper. Anyone else jealous of those lashes!?!

I can't remember the last time I got to take a snooze with my Rudy. Ahhhhh. Felt great!

Rudy cuddling up with his G-ma.

Nothing like a Texas road trip sunset!

I finally finished putting our "new" room together, though you can't really see it all. I have turned this house upside down trying to find the charger for our normal camera and I can't find it anywhere so I'm left taking not-so-good cell phone pics. They don't do it justice, especially because this room is so hard to photograph with the wall full of windows, but oh well. I painted the entire room, made new pillows for the bed, made a new 133" curtain rod, made full length curtains that can close across all of the windows, oh and a room full of new furniture that you can't even see in the picture. Mark and I both love it!

And I finally finished painting the nasty trim in the bathrooms too! Mark thinks I'm crazy, but he's also color blind so he doesn't count. I took the picture above to prove I'm not crazy. You all can see what I'm talking about, right? There's nothing like crisp white with a light blue wall. The cream/off white/beige/yucky had to go. See? Not crazy.

My oldest babe. I just want to reach in to this picture and grab him and squeeze him and force him to stay just like this forever. He really is that adorable.

Kolbe and Dada outside of his school. He was so excited that Dada showed up to drop him off for his first day, even if it meant leaving surgery just to turn around go right back. Kolbe loves his Dada. And Dada is so proud.

TTT: Season 3, Episode 35

1. I have been looking forward to this week for quite some time: my "home improvement" week. And now, with just half of one day left, I'm ready for it to be over! I set out with lofty expectations of making curtains and pillows, shopping, assembling furniture, re-organizing my sewing area, making something new for our mantle, painting the master bedroom, painting the trim in the half bath and boys' bath, cleaning out the pantry, and cleaning the whole house. I'm happy to say that I was (mostly) successful! The pantry still looks the same and I only got the trim done in one bathroom instead of two. Oh, and I'll be spending tomorrow morning cleaning the house and putting the finishing touches on our master bedroom. But otherwise, I accomplished all I set out to do! (toot, toot!) But I have to admit that I'm completely exhausted. Doing all of these things while still taking care of my babes...so in other words, doing all of these things during nap time or with them "helping"...isn't easy work! They, of course, had a great time helping and loved getting to try out all of the tools, but let's be honest: they don't exactly expedite the process! Anyhow, there's been many a day where I've sat sewing orders for customers and wished I had time to squeeze in a project here or there for my own home. Now I just can't wait to sit peacefully and work on orders instead of all of this manual labor! (Though I do love the results of everything I've worked on.) I might just have to squeeze in a home improvement week more often.

2. My husband tends to get a little nervous whenever I decide to break out the tools. He's prone to say things like "Please don't try moving anything that's too heavy" or "what in the world are you trying to do?" And his favorite: "You're going to do too much and cause yourself to have a flare up." It's true; I've done that before. More than I'd like to admit. But I guess I'm kind of to the point that I really don't care. I'm too bullheaded. If I set my mind out to do something, I'm going to prove to myself that I can. Luckily, it's Thursday night and I managed to get through the week without a flare up, despite lots of moving, lifting, building, drilling, etc. So thank the Lord for that! But I didn't escape completely unscathed. On Monday I took our headboard out to the garage to paint. I propped it against the garage wall and took a good four or so steps away from it. My back was to the headboard as I panned to room looking for my paint when all of a sudden I got nailed in the back with the headboard. I'm really not even sure what happened. Was it not propped up well? Did something under it slip? Had I been a little closer, it probably would have just hit my upper back/shoulders and I could have caught it, but I was so far from it that the sharp, squared corner hit my lower back and left me with a pretty big gash and nice sized bruise. I've got to say, though, thank God that it happened the way it did. Thank God the boys were on the other side of the garage playing with rocks and not standing close by. It has been a bummer to deal with, but it could have definitely been much worse!

3. I won't go in to huge details, but our barely-a-year-old mini-van had to be towed to the car dealership on Monday. After having to be jumped twice on Sunday, I called Monday morning to take it in for service. After fetching a neighbor to help jump it yet again, we discovered that it couldn't even be jump started any more. Luckily, it's still under full warranty with Toyota's road side assistance so they payed to have a tow truck come pick it up. Somehow, after just over a year and a little over 15,000 miles, it already needed a new battery. Not very impressed, Toyota. (though I was very impressed with their customer service) We still love our van, I'm just praying this little hiccup isn't a sign of things to come. Lord willing just a fluke!

We are headed Dallas this weekend! We found out that Mark's parents were going to go down for Labor Day weekend and decided to crash their visit to Brian and Cristi's so we could see everyone too. Plus, Mark is off on Monday and not on call either, so with a three day weekend, we'd be crazy not to go. Though I haven't packed a stitch of clothing yet, we're really looking forward to it!

Rudy has been in rare form lately. A few nights ago, post bath, I sent the older two off to their room to get their pajamas. I headed to Grant's room to get him dressed for bed. A few minutes later, Kolbe (the typical oldest child) came in and said, "Mom. You are not. going. to be. happy." "Why, Kolbe?" I responded. "Rudy just took all the books off the book shelf to make a mountain." Um, he was definitely right. Not happy. (Note: young children do not know how to put books back on the shelf properly, therefore, Mom ends up doing it all. And we have a lot of books.)

My awesome back injury, day one. Hard to tell, but it starts just below my bra buckle and goes down to the top of my pants. To be honest, it looked worse the days following because all the bruising set in. Not one that I'd like to repeat again. Ever.

My new mantle "artwork" that I made. It was a pinterest idea, of course. I need to hunt down who to give credit to since that's the right/polite thing to do in the blog world. But I'm too tired right now. Basically two fence posts cut in to three pieces each and built out like a mini fence. I ended up just spray painting it, sanding it a bit on the edges and then hand painting the lettering.

Grant. Grant. Grant. He's trying to help out Dada's bid for new shoes, apparently. Now that he can walk really, really well, he's in to everything. And is really in to shoes right now. Just like Kolbe was at this age. He is mirroring Kolbe in so many ways! 

Rudy is the hide-and-seek master around here. The kid comes up with the best spots and is a total expert at playing the game. (keeping silent, not moving/giggling) A few days ago he went in his closet with the light out, wrapped himself in an egg crate mattress topper and stood there in hiding for a good ten minutes. I even opened the closet door, looked in there and moved on without him giving himself away. I finally gave up and he revealed himself. In this picture, Mark and I had just finished emptying out some old dressers. He managed to climb in this drawer and have Kolbe close it for him. Most kids would be terrified but he obviously doesn't have a problem with claustrophobia. I was totally freaked out when I found him there. (What if he got stuck!?! What if the dresser toppled over!?! Can he breathe!?!) He's such a fun, clever, brave kiddo!

TTT: Season 3, Episode 33

1. Ok, peeps, I'm going to try to make this short and sweet. I'm having a flare up in my wrist from my lupus so typing makes it hurt and probably makes it worse. It's horrible at night which is why I'm posting this morning instead. Grrr.
Anyway, it's been a good week around these parts, minus the flare up, and we had a fun family weekend. Haircuts for the boys...including Grant's very first one!...our first trip to the roller rink, and our at-home kiddie Olympics added to all of the excitement. I love when Mark is not on call and we can actually make plans and do fun things with the boys. Even though he is on call this weekend, we should still have fun...it's our sixth anniversary!

2. One major thing that we worked on this week was transitioning Grant to just one nap. I know it probably seems kind of early, but I have my reasons! First of all, during his morning nap lately, he goes in there happily (he has never complained about being put down for any kind of sleep) but I can hear him in there just rolling around. Sometimes by the time I go in, it's as if he hasn't slept at all. And maybe he hasn't. The second reason is that Kolbe starts his little Tuesday/Thursday program in a few weeks. We are very excited that it's at the Catholic Church but kind of bummed that it ends at 2:00pm. So in order to pick him up on time, we'll need to be out of our house by 1:30pm. Grant's used to laying down for his afternoon nap right at 1:00pm so that's obviously not going to work out. We've switched it up this week and he's be stretching out from the morning nap and just going down at 11:30am. I figure I'll wake him up at 1:30pm on school days and then let him sleep longer on the five remaining days. So far, so good! He hasn't skipped a beat. I'm the one trying to get used to it!

3. I'm really looking forward to my little week off of "work" coming up! I've worked up a list of everything I'd like to accomplish, and though I know I have lofty goals, I'll definitely give it the good college try. Here's what I've come up with:
- paint trim in the boys bathroom and half bath (actually, the whole house needs to have the trim painted but that would require several weeks in and of itself. Our trim is not white. It's off-white. And to me it looks dingy. Especially in bathrooms where the cabinets are white. I didn't fully notice it until I painted the half bath and boys bath walls a light turquoisy blue. I couldn't figure out why it didn't look as clean as I wanted it to until I focused in on the trim. And in the boys bathroom it looks like the trim has been touched up with a slightly different colored flat paint too. Yuck. It's a project that will have to gradually be completed over time, but I'll start with those two little rooms.)
- make curtains for the master bedroom
- make pillows for the master bedroom and family room
- trip to Ikea
- assemble anything that needs assembling that makes it way home from Ikea
- re-organize my sewing area
- paint master bedroom
- new mantle artwork
- clean out/ re-organize the pantry
- clean the whole house
Like I said, lofty goals. And I'm sure you noticed what got placed last on the list. Ha! We'll see how it goes...surely all of this can get done in one week, right?

Grant's first haircut! It was an experience! He absolutely freaked out every time the hairdresser came near him. We alternated between the juice cup and the dumdum sucker I had in my mouth to keep him under control. The clippers were off limits. (he's terrified of noise making things...vacuums, blenders, dust busters...) So needless to say, not much got cut off, but at least he's a little more evened up.

Handsome new haircuts!

No weekend is complete without a nap with Dada

"Mom, these skates make my legs real heavy."

Kolbe was a champ at the rink! Sure he had his share of falls, but he bravely hopped back up and went for it again. Rudy had a much harder time getting the hang of it.

One event in the Asmussen Little Boy Olympics! Kolbe won the Kleenex pull, but only by a few tissues. They had so much fun with all of the crazy games we came up with.

But their favorite part was standing on their podiums, getting their medals, and singing the national anthem. Love my little American boys! And man, if either of them ever does make it to the Olympics, won't this just be the money shot! ha!

Mr. Irresistible climing the steps to the slide at the pool. I could just gobble him up!

The boys are really in to coloring right now and Grant likes to think that he can join right in. He has become a pro at climbing up into the boys' chairs and sitting there like a little future schoolboy.

TTT: Season 3, Episode 32

1. We had our first bout with summer sickness this week. Everybody gets a little sick at least once each summer, right? Like a little summer cold. No? Well for us it was a fun little baby virus called Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. It typically only afflicts littles aged six months to four years, and wouldn't you know it, all three of mine fit in to that category and all three picked it up. Grant was the first and the worst. You know this fella is sick when he actually sits with me and lets me cuddle him. When he's well, our cuddles last no more than five seconds. He woke on Friday morning with an obvious fever and nothing more. Poor guy, you could just tell he couldn't get comfortable. I went ahead and got him a doctor's appointment since it was Friday and I didn't want to get stuck on the weekend with an ER trip if things got worse. And sure enough, by the time we went to his appointment, he had a noticeable rash all over his feet, legs, hands, and even a little around his neck. The doctor swabbed him for strep but when it came back negative and his ears also looked fine, he checked his throat (which wasn't hard at all as Grant was wailing in sheer terror over the fact that I laid him down on the exam table) and he confirmed that is throat looked just like the rash he had elsewhere. By Saturday Reagan was also running a fever, though no rash. The two of them were finally cleared up by Monday and I assumed that Kolbe had dodged the bullet. But on Tuesday he too had a fever that just lasted one day. Now we are all finally cleared and healthy. And after a week and a half absence, we made it to the pool today! Call me selfish, but a summer illness that mama doesn't have to worry about getting isn't too bad after all!

2. As I've mentioned many times before, my shop has taken off this year in a way that I never could have anticipated. And due to it's growing success, it has really left me with very limited time to do projects for our home. We moved in last May, just weeks before Grant was born, and over the past fourteen months, I've spent the majority of my time caring for a new baby, taming wild animals raising two young boys, and managing my growing shop. Needless to say, though I look around my home day after day thinking of all the things I'd like to do to improve it's 'homey-ness," nearly all of it has gone un-done. Partially due to money, but largely due to time. (Not every home improvement project has to break the bank!) In fact, several of the projects I've been planning have already been bought and paid for...just remain incomplete in the form of cans of paint, piles of fabric, etc. I've already picked the colors, bought the supplies, and yet it sits undone as I certainly can't do it while the kids are awake and free time during the day is all spent filling orders from my shop. So I've decided that it's time for a little break. My little helper, Angelina, will be going back to school in two more weeks, so I'm going to utilize her help for the time being and then shut down shop for a week to tackle some projects. Hopefully by next week I'll have a clear outline of all I want to conquer, but for now, I'm just looking forward to actually doing some of the projects I've had planned for quite some time.

3. A few more days and the summer Olympics will be over. And, thankfully, I'll be able to return to my normal bed time! One of my favorite things that I've loved noticing in our boys as they've watched the games is their observations of the athletes. While they do take note of certain features such as long hair, baldness, tattoos, etc, they have yet to ever point out the color of someone's skin as his/her outstanding feature. For example, Rudy tells me the other night, "Hey Mama, that guy with the brown head is real bald." (referring to Usain Bolt...so obviously he's aware that Bolt is Black, but finds his baldness more notable.) And then from Kolbe: "She has a long pony tail like yours." (referring to Allyson Felix) My parents raised me well. They raised me to never ever even notice or consider a difference is a person based on their skin color. We lived in Germany, San Antonio, TX, Columbus, MS...plenty of places where we were exposed to people of different races. None, of course, can quite compare with our time in Mississippi. I remember walking in to a Burger King on our very first trip from Lubbock to Columbus and suddenly becoming very aware that the people in my family of seven were the only white people in the entire building. I told my mom "Mom, we're the only white people in here." And she replied with, "That's okay. That's just how it is in Mississippi." And that's just how it was. I quickly learned that not everyone was raised the way I was. In fact, most weren't. They were raised from very early on to notice a difference. To assume a difference in color meant a difference in quality. Lord, I am so thankful that I was raised to know better. To know more. To respect life in all shapes, sizes, stages, and shades. To know that people are people and my opinion of them should be based on their actions and words alone. And oh, I pray that my babies will feel the same way. So far, it makes me so happy to see that they quickly point out the fact that someone's accent sounds funny instead of the fact that his eyes aren't shaped the same as theirs. I'm certain that in time they will be exposed to opinions from others that don't matter, but I just hope that we will have raised them well enough to recognize the ones that do.

Snuggling with my sick guy...at least he still knows what "Say cheese!" means.

We had a nice rain shower on Sunday afternoon and once the thunder and lightening passed, we took the opportunity to play in the summer rain. The boys had a blast!

My handsome crew

Does this say 'summer fun' or what!?! Grant loved making mud pies!

Listening to thunder on the front porch...I can't believe my baby is almost five.

Even Grant has gotten in to the Olympics!

Working on their synchronized diving routine

My future Michael Phelps!

Kolbe, my little artist, loves working on pictures during his daily quiet time. After finishing a picture this week, he showed me where he had written "Pa" at the time, as Pa (my dad) was to be the lucky recipient. I told him we could hold on to it until the next time we saw Pa but he told me that he wanted to mail it to him instead. Thus begain our first lesson in envelope addressing. He was so proud of his first piece of out-going mail! I think I better stop by the post office and pick up some more stamps...he's ready to send Kolbe-grams to everyone!

TTT: Season 3, Episode 13

1. Another busy, but fun week! I've been struggling to get my posts done before the Thursday hours expire each week, which means there's been so much going on that I haven't had a chance to write-as-I-go like I used to do. One major project that Mark and tackled this week was replacing our kitchen sink. It's something that we've wanted to do since we moved in nearly a year ago (eek!), but just A) haven't had the funds and B) haven't had the time. But a nagging leak behind the cabinet doors finally made us pull the plug on our builder grade cheapo sink and faucet. We "fixed" it several times, but the parts were rusted out and inevitably, we'd either be paying a plumber a lot to come check things out probably just to find that it needed to be replaced. Since we wanted to do it anyway, we just decided to go for it. That is, after we cleaned out the puddle our cleaning supplies were swimming in. Now, I say we were planning to replace the sink. But when I say "we," I mean "me, Mark, and the friendly installation team from Home Depot or Lowes." But when the salesman informed us that installation was $300 plus another $60 for delivery of our items, we decided it was time to get brave and do it ourselves. And I must say, we seriously underestimated ourselves! The hardest part was lifting the cast iron sink and setting it in correctly. The whole process was far easier than we thought it would be. Really, people. Everything you buy comes with instructions. And there's oodles of videos online to help, too. That, and working on a house that's only nine years old as opposed to our Lubbock house that was over thirty years old makes a huge difference. As Mark says, I'm the brains behind the operation and he's the brawn. After a few hours of work while the kids took naps, we had a brand new shiny sink, faucet, and disposal. I'm one happy lady, and considering Mark does the dinner dishes every night, he's a pretty happy fella too.

The old basic-of-the-basics sink. And in barftastic condition.

Mr. Fix-it, hard at work.

The new beauty! We have white corian counters, so we could have gone with an under mount sink, but it would have required refinishing the counter top edges as well. And I've heard mixed reviews on those, as it is. And I know that stainless steel is all the rage, but I really just wanted to go classic since we have the white counters and white appliances. It's very clean looking. And clean is good. I especially love that it's extra deep and has the lower divider in the middle. Great for washing pans!

2. My little nugget turned nine months old this week. It's going by way way way too fast. And I have to admit that eight to nine months is my favorite age. He is just so cute, loveable, hugable and happy. Full of life, full of adventure, full of excitement, this guy is ready to take on the world every waking second. When I say he's all over the place, I mean all over the place. He's obsessed with trying to get on the stairs. As I've mentioned before, the bottom to stairs on our staircase have no walls so the gate is on the third step. He climbs those bottom two, stands with his hands on the gate and just looks over waiting for someone to spot him. As soon as I holler out a long "Graaaaaaaant..." he bursts into a smile as if to say, "Heeheehee! I got on the stairs again!" He's got two shiny teeth and even though he only gained two pounds since his last check up a few months ago, he's still in the 85th percentile. He's thinned out some but is still so squeezable and fluffy. He's developing great friendships with his brothers, especially Kolbe. They love to play together and Kolbe is so patient with him. Grant is eating more and more new foods and isn't afraid to try anything. Pickles are still his favorite when I let him get ahold of one. He's still a barfer. But like two to three times a day instead of two to three times an hour. And he'll even let strangers hold him now without freaking out. We love this little guy. He's fabulous. If all babies were like him, I can't imagine anyone being afraid to have children. :)

My doll baby

3. Today I got to do something really cool in my books. One of my high school girlfriends who now lives in Nashville was in Houston with a Christian band that she travels and plays with. We made arrangements and the boys and I drove to the school she was performing at to meet up with her. I haven't had a chance to see any of my high school buddies in ages. When you move several states away to go to college, not many people can just meet up for lunch from time to time, if you know what I mean. Bethany and I were friends through our show choir, The Front Line, which was the cool thing to do at our high school. And I'm not being sarcastic. Seriously. It was. We've stayed in touch via Facebook through the years, and while our lives have taken different paths, they've also remained the same in many ways. I know that if we lived in the same city, we'd still be close friends. It was wonderful to see her! And other than Rudy wetting his pants in the car, causing us to divert our travels to  the nearest Walmart for new undies and shorts, the boys did fairly well too. (They perform well for an audience.) Hopefully when Bethany comes through town in the fall, we'll be able to meet up again...maybe sans kids for a little shopping! Who says long distance friendships don't work!?! And all my other high school friends, if you're ever near Houston, please let me know!

An oldie-but-goodie...me with my sweet friend, Bethany D!

The church had an Easter egg hunt for the kiddies on Sunday, complete with face painting. We made it home with two cute little bunnies.

We discovered that Mr. Blue Eyes is great at using a straw! He loves sipping water while the boys eat.

Ever need to burn ten or so minutes with the kids? Teach them how to play paper football. The boys love it. Please excuse the gnarly kitchen table. It's a good 25 some odd years old and falling apart.

Last night we celebrated Pinkie's birthday, even though it's not until April 5th. She's leaving for Lubbock for 2 weeks so we had to celebrate early. Pay no attention to the candles...she's actually 39....again.