Author: kristennill

What I like to do with these posts that happen every year is to look back at what I wrote the year before. So I just went to look at my “Father’s Day 2016” post and realized, uh, there isn’t one. I thought hmmm that’s odd. But THEN I scrolled back in my camera roll and saw that I had had my ear surgeries a few days before Father’s Day last year and was in an anesthesia fog for a week+ afterwards. So that explains it. 2017 was better than 2016 for me based on that fact alone.

But Father’s Day isn’t about me. It used to be about my dad but has become increasingly more about Jason (sorry Poppy ). But now it’s really about the boys and THEIR presents for Daddy that THEY open because the presents are from THEM. Every single day, for a week leading up to it, they would ask “is it Father’s Day yet?” Their gift-radar was beeping, big time. (The radar isn’t perfect, it can’t distinguish the intended recipient, so the boys just open pretty much everything themselves regardless of who the gift is for. Ask Jayden. Or Owen. Or Kayleigh. Or Jason, in this case.)

Here’s the video of Ashton giving Jason “his” gift. Don’t you know, Jason is putting that on his keys whether he likes it or not 😉

The rest of the day we pretty much just putzed around. We had decided not to go to the beach because it was cloudy and kind of clammy out, so the end result was me cleaning/doing laundry while Jason mowed the lawn and then after lunch we went to the pool for a couple hours. Then, they watched the golf on TV. Jason had mentioned the US Open many times that day and said that all he wanted to do was sit down and watch it.

At one point Alex had had enough and wanted to watch Inspector Gadget and Ashton, fiercely protective, said “Nope! That’s IT! We HAVE to watch this Alex, it’s the LAST DAY of the contest! We are ONLY WATCHING GOLF from now on!” Alex cried while Ashton crossed his arms unrelentingly and Jason poured himself another beer. It was so un-relaxing 😉

We love you Jason! You are everything the boys want to be and the hero in their lives every day. Thank you for being you. xoxoxox 🙂

About 3 hours after I wrote that last post about Ashton having a loose tooth, things took a turn. It doesn’t seem accurate to say it fell out or he lost it. No, I had to yank it. I got home and it was pretty much hanging by a thread. Tooth 24 in the Universal Numbering System, your time had come. So I rolled up my sleeves, grabbed a tissue for some grip and went in. Ashton was surprisingly brave. As a matter of fact, so was I! We’re talking serious heebie jeebie territory and neither one of us knew what to expect. It took me a few tries and Ashton and I were both pretty tense, but when it finally popped out we cheered at the same time! We really did 🙂 He was so excited and proud! It was a great moment that I really hope he always remembers because I absolutely will.

He couldn’t sleep. He said “I can’t believe it’s Christmas.” I said it is not Christmas, you lost a small tooth so hopefully the Tooth Fairy will bring you a little bit of money but that’s it. No note, no presents, nothing else. Okay?? “Ok.”

I did not want to set any insane precedent for the Tooth Fairy because we have a lot of teeth left to go. And then I’ll have all of Alex’s. So Ashton got $5, which even seems like a lot. He was up at 6 am which of course is way too early but when the Tooth Fairy has come for the first time, it’s a little exciting 🙂 Big milestone – yay Ashton!

UGH. I mean, for real. The weather over the past 6-8 weeks has been nothing short of abysmal. Cloudy, misty, and completely unwarm. I think they said there were 5 total sunny days in May, whatever. Memorial Day was a washout, literally, and sometimes you wake up to blue skies and by noon HAHAHA just kidding.

Life goes on though, as it does. I guess the major announcement is that Alex is potty trained! Just like with Ashton, it took maybe…5 hours? He nailed it. He proudly tells me when he needs go and hops on the big potty like a boss (as he should at age 3.3!). He still sits to pee and the funniest thing is that when he is done, he balls up some toilet paper and drops it straight through his legs into the water. There is no purpose for this except that it seems to be his interpretation of what I do.

And then there is the art of the nature pee.

I’m not proud of this but it is very convenient to have boys.

So now I’m saving all kinds of money on diapers AND Alex will be seen in the same swim trunks as Ashton. I’m obsessed with them.

I dug them out for him to try on pretty much instantly 😉 You just can’t pull those off with a swim diaper underneath.

Alex also loves worms lately.

 

He told me he wanted to bring them inside and give them a bath. I said, “Uh, no. We are not a worm spa.” “But YEAH Mommy! Da worm needs a TUBBY cause when I dirty dat’s what I haf ta do!”

The boys love bugs in general. They get plastic containers and go outside and get ants, roly polies, etc. and build them little habitats with sticks and leaves. It’s really cute, until their new friends go on the lam. Do you know how many times I find the [open] containers somewhere in the house with ONLY the sticks and leaves still in them? It’s not a good feeling.

I forgive them though, because this.

They just walk around and hold hands sometimes and I think my heart will explode. Or they scooter side by side.

Yes they are still in their pajamas in that one. We start early.

What else…the big thing in Ashton’s world right now is he has two loose “wiggly” bottom teeth, so the Tooth Fairy’s first visit is imminent…and shaping up to be a lesson in disappointment. He mentioned that perhaps he would get a hundred dollars. That should be interesting, you know, when he doesn’t.

I have saved the best for last. It took a month, but my campaign for this monstrosity was finally successful.

This bounce house has, so far, been the single most amazing thing that has ever happened in our backyard. We got it last Friday and bedtimes all weekend long were on average 45 minutes earlier. That’s what they call a win.

And with that, this newsy newsletter post of a blog is concluded. I’ll leave you with a picture that pretty much sums things up lately.

Those are tire tracks on a banana that was innocently resting on the counter. I’m considering doing a blog post entitled “things I have found in the laundry”, because it would really show off how random life with these boys can be. For now, the banana.

This project is pretty self explanatory! We have a heavily used side entrance to our house (where both the mudroom and kitchen exterior doors are) and the deck, well…it was red and also the wood was not in the best shape. The top step board wiggled when you stepped on it and a lot of the other planks were cracked with chipping paint. Not the best look.

So we checked the calendar for a good rebuild date that worked for my dad. If you’ll recall he helped completely replace the deck at our old house, and this project was really peanuts compared to that. “We can do it in a day,” they said.

And in a day they did! Approximately 9 am until 5 pm yesterday our driveway looked like this:

The boys’ tools are scattered in there too. Obviously.

I was a little nervous about the color Trex we had picked because I didn’t have time to special order anything from Home Depot or Lowe’s – I had to pick what was in stock which was not a lot. Ultimately I am so happy with it though! My before and afters are a tad off, I’m out of practice, but here are the winning shots!

 

Ta-dah!
This morning the deck was already in use.

Pretty often when I go get my hair highlighted, when I look in the mirror afterwards, I’m like WHOA! I had no idea how old and bad-looking I’d become until I saw myself fresh and new! This porch was kind of like that. And of course now I want to replace our entire back deck with the same stuff (which is Trex in the Clamshell color) because it too is suffering.

Anyway, a huge thank you to Jason and to Poppy and Mema for coming to visit so this could happen! I love my new porch and did practically nothing to contribute to how awesome it came out. My favorite kind of project! 😀

Another Mother’s Day has come and gone – my 6th one in fact. Honestly I don’t have much to say about it this year. It rained all day- seriously over 12 hours straight. Jason worked. GG was down for a visit so in the morning we went to Target with the boys and then a fabric store. She left after lunch and then Ashton, Alex and myself did nothing special. I took care of the laundry, made dinner, and said no to “Ninjago” on Netflix approximately 12,000 times. Frankly it really wasn’t a great day at all. We were a little stir crazy, the boys were not at their best and neither was I. I’m just going to leave it at that.

I have one picture but we all look so bad that I’m not going to even post it. We had just woken up and the boys were making faces.

Ashton made me a necklace out of clay beads:

If you remember my last post, it was about two giant cardboard boxes in our living room that became a fort. I named it Naples. I predicted my Friday night would be especially easy with Naples around and she did not disappoint. Disaster nearly struck when I could not find any mini flashlights for the boys to take in there. Usually there are at least 20 of them in the junk drawer, but of course, Friday night, there were none. And our big flashlight takes a D battery, I mean who has D batteries on hand. Not me. So we went foraging into Jason’s work bench and ta-dah! Headlamps!

They went to work right away coloring the inside.

Look at the random creepy face Ashton drew.

Like what is that? He told me it was a cave monster.

Then they covered the roof with “hot lava” (?):

But you know what, as long as they are entertaining themselves, bring on the molten hot rock (imaginary only).

Saturday and Sunday we went to Long Island for a quick overnight to celebrate Owen’s 5th birthday. The boys did this the entire time, much to Grandpa’s dismay 😉

Those are their remote control Raptor trucks on the pool cover. They whizzed around for hours.

Anyway it was my first solo trip, and my first time just staying one night, but we had a great time! And I got one of my most favorite pictures yet of the three cousins:

Ironically the last one I took out of about 500. Happy birthday Owen!! We loved your party and really loved the goodie bags 😉

Stay tuned for Kindergarten orientation this Friday!

I’d like to begin this post with an observation. My blogging has obviously fallen way off, and it’s because the urgent need to document everything is fading fast. In the beginning of the boys’ little lives, it all happened so quickly. Ashton was born and all the big things, like first steps and his first birthday and first words, well they came at a rapid pace and as such, blog posts came pouring out of me. Just as that was slowing down, we moved, and our Watertown house kept us busy until shortly after, when I got pregnant with Alex. There was that whole round of excitement, another set of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them milestones plus lots of fun house projects, and then we moved again. Looking back, I was still a well-oiled blogging machine until about 6 months ago. Lately I just haven’t had any dramatic before-and-afters, we aren’t moving, and there are no more babies coming. We’ve settled in to life, you know? And part of me is sick of doing the same post every year. For example, we just had Ashton’s annual allergy appointment, which I should write up because of all things, it’s great for me to have to refer to, but I can’t muster it somehow. And I do have a post on our guest room I suppose I could document, but the days go by and I don’t take the pictures. I’ve had the blogging blahs.

I will say, Sunday April 16 was probably one of the most beautiful days imaginable. Warm in the sun, a slight breeze…it was outside-all-day weather and that’s where the boys and I spent it. I’ve kind of had the blogging blahs, so I made a special effort to document our day so I’d have lots of good photos for my Easter post. We flew kites, dug in the sandbox, swung at the playground, went for a bike ride, a walk, another bike ride, another walk, and both lunch AND dinner were on the back deck. By the end of the day, the boys had no shirts on and ice cream dribbling down their faces, a most welcome sign that summer is on its way! I got some really cute pictures of my two little bunnies having a great time.

So then, on Monday morning, Alex came into my room and made off with my phone. Both he and Ashton love to sneak in while we are sleeping and steal it to play an app or something. Well somehow, he reset it and the last iCloud backup I had was Saturday night. As I restored my phone, I realized this would mean that every picture I took on Sunday was gone, vaporized into the abyss.

Luckily, Jason had snapped a couple in the morning during the egg hunt and basket-opening before he left for work, but it’s a far cry from what I planned to post. Oh well

I’ll admit, by the end of the day we were a taaaaaad bored. So I packed them up and we went to Walmart because I knew they were open, and the water guns that had been in their Easter baskets had broken instantly (I suspect the Easter Bunny shops at the dollar store). So Ashton and Alex each picked out a new magnum super mega-soaker something or other and we came home and had a good water fight (with warm water from the sink – hey, the sun had gone down!).

So we pretty much did nothing except hang out. There was no brunch, no bowties, no church. But I was so grateful for the beautiful weather that even though the clock moved verrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwwwly, the day was really relaxed and the boys could not have been (seriously, COULD NOT have been) more excited to open all the eggs they had found. With his mouth full of jelly beans, Ashton said repeatedly, “This is the best Easter EVER!” and then added “but not better than Halloween. There’s even more candy at Halloween” and then both boys started chattering about what their costumes would be. On to the next, I guess 😉

Not sure why I got started with the Spanish. Odd. Nevertheless, this is the last in the “Alex is 3!” series. Let’s break him down!

Height: 40 inches (85th percentile)
Weight: 37.4 pounds (92nd percentile)
Overall a hair smaller than Ashton was.

Shoe size: tricky! His Bogs are an 8, his sneakers are a 9, his cool high tops are a 10. But since this is the official record I’m going to say a 9.
Clothes: 4T
Diapers: Size 6
Naps: 1, occasionally, but he can usually make it from wake up to bedtime with no real issues
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Hazel! A common misconception about Alex. His eyes are not blue.

Crib: Gone. He has been in a big boy bed since Thanksgiving.
Monitor: Gone. Can’t remember the last time we used it. It’s dead anyway.
High chair: Gone. He never really liked being confined. We’ve had this handy thing on the bottom of his seat for almost a year now and it works great.

Idol and hero: Jason. Obviously.
Best friend: Ashton

School: Miss Tammy’s, 2 mornings a week

Current favorite toy: If you had asked me last week, I would have said his doctor kit. He got it for his birthday and freaking loves it. His is a huge Doc McStuffins fan so he goes around singing “Time for your check up! Time for your check up!” a la the theme song and asks you if you are sick.

Ashton: Owex [Alex]! I am not sick!

And on it goes until you admit you are not feeling well so he can take out all his doctor tools and cure you.

But that was last week. This week it’s specifically Lego ninjas because that’s what Ashton is in to. Oh and reusable stickers.

Poops on the potty: If I had to guess, a few dozen, and only when he decides he feels like it. I have not pushed the potty training so far. Ashton was 3.5 and I knew he wasn’t ready until then. I’m not about to beat my head against the wall and clean up pee all day just for the sake of getting Alex out of diapers. It’s not time yet and something I feel absolutely no urgency for.

Behavior: In turning 3, Alex is a toddler no more. Which is funny, because there are still an awful lot of toddler behaviors that do not magically melt away at 36 months. He can still scream like a little banshee if something isn’t going his way. He loves a food one day and hates it the next. Juice in the red cup is preferable. Sometimes only Mommy can change his clothes, sometimes only Daddy can. There is really very little predictability and most 3 year olds aren’t exactly easy going – Alex is no different there.

Speech:  This, by far, is the biggest ongoing element of Alex’s little life. All done with EI, we went through the extensive evaluation process at NPS. Observe the error chart that was included in the resulting 9 page report:

In addition to the substitutions, you’ll note that most of the last column is just a zero/omittance. He just flat out doesn’t say a lot of sounds and substitutes like crazy. For example, his favorite substitute letter is H. So:

“firefighter” is “hirehighter”
“family” is “hamily”
“so silly” is “ho hilly”
“song” is “hong”
“dinosaur” is “dinohoar”

He also hates the d’s, s’s and the z’s. So he wont say “his”, “snake” is “nake”, “house” is “howe”, “nice” is “nie” and “hold my hand” is “ho my heh”. “Hatty birday” is “happy birthday”, “You’re welcome” is “you’re weltum”, and “I spilled milk” is “I pill mill.”

That’s probably enough examples but there are many, many more. The technical terms for his errors are Final Consonant Deletion, Stopping, Fronting and Gliding. He has a great vocabulary and speaks in long sentences but since his articulation is terrible, he qualified for one 30 minute speech therapy each week at Lilja, our local elementary school. I might push for two, we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully his services will start in April.

Summing him up: Alex is a love. He just is. He smiles all the time, is goofy, silly and so endearing. He is liberal with his affection. The most common phrase I hear (and I swear, multiple people with no connections to each other have said this on separate occasions): “He’s just so damn cute.” If Alex has your attention, he shines in it. His quirky little voice and pronunciation combined with his spiky blonde hair and hugs really melt you. I almost feel awkward writing this glowing paragraph! People just respond to him. At the second evaluation at NPS, the speech pathologist (not immune to Alex’s charms) said to me, “god he is just so cute” and I said “oh thanks, you don’t have to say that!” She said “I really mean it” and I said “well thank you, yes Alex has quite the fan club actually” and she didn’t miss a beat and replied “I’ll be president.”

A few of my favorite recent photos…

In the last one, he is managing all his texts and emails. It’s hard work to be so popular 😉

So we threw our little Alex a party last weekend! We sort of had to. It has turned out to be an insane month for birthdays (oh and we did the math – guess which June holiday we have to thank? FATHER’S DAY! Helloooo second children born in March! LOL we were dying laughing when we realized).  Anyway, we literally got 8 other invitations this month and Alex started to really grasp this whole birthday concept. Let’s just do something small at the house, we said. It will be easy, we said.

BAHAHAHA.

Actually it really wasn’t that bad besides a guest list that turned out to be double what we planned on. We have a lot of neighbors and friends I guess! So we had 19 kids and 20 adults for a quick and dirty 90 minutes. I hired a musician to come play for 30 of those, thinking he would have all the children hypnotized in the front room while the parents drank in peace in the kitchen. Well he was a total bust but it wasn’t really his fault. All the kids wanted to do was run around like headless chickens and hit the toy box. Which was honestly fine. I think us grownups were still able to enjoy ourselves despite the complete chaos that was happening at 3 feet.

The party was otherwise simple. I sent an Evite, which goes against every fiber of my being as I love paper products and stationary, but as I said, “simple”. Decorations were balloons and streamers of all colors that did not match. There was no theme, no goodie bags, and no gifts. Probably the most high maintenance thing I did was rent kids tables and chairs. One trip to Party City, one trip to BJ’s, done and done. Oh and I did order a vegan cake from Quebrada. Not that this was about Ashton, but the look on his face at parties when he can’t have the cake (due to the egg) is heartmeltingly sad. All he ever wants is to have a piece just like everyone else. He cries about it sometimes. So he and one other boy with a dairy allergy benefited from this decision and no one could even tell the difference 😉

I did attempt one Pinterest-y decoration that was strips of plastic tablecloths with balloons in the middle.

Alex helped me with the rest of the set up. He walked around all morning wearing his crown and saying “I’m the VERY happy birthday boy, yep, I am!”

We did a big cheese board and chips and guacamole (<– best recipe you'll find) for snacks, and served the kids pizza and fruit for dinner. This is an actual representation of said dinner:

The blur is real.

General party pics:

 (The little girl next to Alex is Addie our neighbor, we went to her 2nd birthday party the next day!)

AND THEN it was time for cake. You don’t know what trial by fire means until you’ve had to cut, plate and pass out cake at a kid’s birthday party. Dozens of sets of little eyes are fixated on you and your every move. In particular, I’m trying not to relive the moment where they all realized there were gummy bears on the cake and I WANT A GUMMY BEAR WITH MY PIECE! A RED ONE! CAN I HAVE TWO GUMMY BEARS ACTUALLY?? And suddenly my ears were filled with shouts and demands and my own husband telling me to “go faster“.

It’s a special kind of pressure and it’s intense. They could probably make a TV show out of it. In a strange twist, Ashton was the only one who waited patiently.

6 pm and that’s a wrap everybody. We did have some neighbors stay until more like 6:30/6:45 pm just chatting which was great. After they left, clean up was really a breeze and Alex opened a few cards and that was it! It was a [crazy wild and hectic] success that took a long time to come down from haha.

Alex, you were the perfect little master of ceremonies! You knew it was your party, you blew out your candles and shared all your toys and only cried once. Happy birthday, we love you!!