Merry Christmas!

Now we get to clean up a new kind of mess!!! Boy made and "Yellow" made:)

Some People's Kids ...

As the child of a photographer, I can remember seriously disliking having my picture taken. Luke has never enjoyed being photographed; even now, he tolerates family pictures for my sake. How, then, did we end up with a child who has to be in every picture we take?




A note about the rest of the picture ... this is a quilt I made for my Grandma who is in the nursing home. I always mean to take a picture of my finished quilts, and I typically forget. This time I remembered, but Ethan thought he had to be in one of the photos.

My mom tells me not to point out my mistakes to everyone, that they'd never notice otherwise ... so Mom, you may want to stop reading here. Because as I was getting ready to post this, I was looking at the picture of the quilt thinking, that doesn't quite look right. I ran down to my sewing area and checked the pattern; sure enough, I actually assembled it wrong! ALL of the outside and corner pieces are oriented wrong. Try to picture them rotated 180 degrees.

I could take the binding off, pull out all the quilting, disassemble virtually the whole quilt, put it together right, layer, baste, and quilt it again, and bind it again. But, that's just not gonna happen. I'll just have to hope Grandma enjoys it in the spirit it was given. I'll never be able to look at it the same again, though.

Uggh.

Our Family Grows!

We'd like to welcome Asher John Priebe into the world! He was born December 17th, he weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and he was 20 inches long. You can see he has lots of hair! We got to see him today, and he's so precious. Mom and baby are both doing well.



I love this picture. I think it's a great picture of Joe - he's such a good daddy! And isn't Jonas adorable? I'm sure he'll be a wonderful big brother!

Excerpts of Conversation

We have some interesting conversations in our house. Today has been a prime example of this.

We spent a good part of the afternoon making up a story based on a combination of the old show "Airwolf" (Luke and Ethan have been watching episodes of it, thanks to Blockbuster's DVD program) and "The Never Ending Story" (which Ethan has never seen). The plot was loosely borrowed from "Airwolf", and the story is apparently never going to end.

We take turns telling portions of the story, and no matter what I told in my part, the story continues. I can kill off the bad guys, and Ethan's portion then starts with something like, "Well, everyone thought they were dead, but really ..." And the story is revived.

So I won't try to reproduce that story here, but here are a couple of the other things we talked about today.

"This says "door stop" but it's really crack cocaine." (Said while holding a door stop.)

"No mystery can dissolve us!" (And yes, he knows what dissolve means. I asked him, and he defined it for me.)

"I live in a cabin all by myself, and my brother ... (brief pause while he comes up with a name) ... Tom lives in a cabin near me. It's actually like a duplex. A cabin duplex. But we both died.

Now, you may think that I'm taking these out of context, or that if I related the whole conversation, they'd make more sense. You'd think so, but no. No, you'd be wrong. It actually just gets more confusing the longer you talk to him, sometimes. And, truthfully, each of these statements were the beginning of the conversation today.

Honestly, a discussion is not going to a good place when it starts out using "door stop" and "crack cocaine" in the same sentence.

So now, I'm going to go sew in blessed silence, since both boys are in bed.

On the Bottom

"The bottom of the deep ocean is not an easy place to live. There is little food and it is dark and cold. Much of the seabed is covered with soft clays or mudlike oozes made of skeletons of tiny sea animals and plants. The ooze on the vast open plains of the abyss can reach several hundred yards thick. Animals walking along the bottom have long legs to avoid stirring it up. Some grow anchored to the seabed and have long stems to keep their feeding structures clear of the ooze. Food particles can be filtered out of the water, for example, by the feathery arms of the sea lilies ..."

*****************************************************************************

Are you confused? Wondering if you are at the right blog? :) This is from a book that Ethan brought to me one night last week. This is what he read to me! The bolded words he needed help with, but the rest he sounded out on his own. I don't know why he's able to read this ... we haven't gotten nearly this far with his phonics lessons. I can only assume that he got his natural ability from his mother ...

Alex Laughing

Alex has an infectious laugh, the way babies often do. In this video, he's laughing because I'm pretending to eat one of his toys ... until he notices Luke has the camera out. Then he stops laughing!

It actually took us several tries to get this video, because he'd clam up the minute he saw the camera. Luke finally was able to "sneak" a minute of him laughing before he noticed. After Luke stopped videoing, he told Alex, "Ha! We tricked you!" And Alex cried. Most likely because he was overtired, but the timing of it was still pretty funny.

Changing career plans

I suppose when you're five (almost six!) that career plans tend to change rather frequently. Lately Ethan has decided that rather than be a good pirate, he would like to be a helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard. (Specifically, he wants to pilot an HH-65 Dolphin.) Because we try to encourage his interests, whatever they may be at the current time, we got several books out of the library about the Coast Guard - its aircraft, boats and cutters, duties and missions, and so on.

We were reading tonight about the history of the Coast Guard, and learned that it used to be called the United States Revenue Cutter Service, and one of its primary duties was to fight pirates and smugglers along the Atlantic Coast.

Ethan's delight was tinged with regret that he was born two centuries too late to help the Revenue Cutter Service battle pirates. On the other hand, they didn't have helicopters in the late 1700's or early 1800's.

Alex's new skills

Alex has learned to do a couple of new things lately. Last Wednesday, he started giving kisses when you ask for them. If he feels like it, anyway! He doesn't like to kiss Luke - Luke's had a beard lately, and it prickles him I guess.

He's also started sitting up on his own for a bit, before he tips to one side or the other. He loves that! He likes being able to see what's going on better than he can when he's laying on the floor.

Here's Alex's big brother helping him sit up a little longer, for a better picture. Notice Ethan's hat hair - he's been playing outside in all our snow!

Christmas Ornaments

Saturday we made some Christmas ornaments - painted glass balls (you paint the inside! less mess!) and stockings that are cut on a fold to make pockets. Here's Ethan, getting ready to glue the cut edges of his stockings to make the pockets:

Here's the one of the stockings:

Here's the rest of our mess, including the painted balls. In the background, you can see Ethan laughing at the spit he drooled onto his sleeve. Crazy child.

Here he's painting the stockings:

And here's Alex, watching:

And we had garland and lights decorating the kitchen, a cd of Christmas music playing, and turkey soup bubbling on the stove. It all sounds and looks so idyllic, doesn't it? That's because I didn't take pictures of Ethan wiping glue from his fingers onto the table runner!, Alex fussing because we'd spent the morning running around and he missed his morning nap, Ethan telling me how bored he was after painting two balls, or me worrying about where Luke was because he was coming home from hunting in the snow storm. Ahh, now that's more realistic, isn't it? Oh well, we had fun in spite of all that!

Swinging

I realize that this slideshow probably just shows what a horrible photographer I am. There's a delay on our camera, and it makes it so hard to get good pictures of that boy! But indulge me ... because in my (completely unbiased, of course) opinion, even the goofy pictures are just adorable!

My Big Baby

Ethan was playing in the baby's high chair tonight, pretending he was strapping himself into a jet and preparing for takeoff. So I slapped the tray on and took his picture. He wouldn't wear the bib I wanted him to, though ...

I see the moon, the moon sees me ...

Luke took these pictures of the moon through the viewfinder of the telescope my parents bought him for his birthday/Christmas gift. He and Ethan have been having a great time looking at the moon and stars with it ... they can just point it out the livingroom window to use it. The pictures are cool, but they really don't do justice to the detail you can see when you're actually using the telescope.

My Quirky Child

Ethan likes numbers - he always has. He'll go through phases where he seems to favor certain numbers. Right now his favorite number is 9,203. That's how everything is measured. His Lego jet? It can travel 9,203 mph. The tower he built out of Tinkertoys? If it was real it'd be 9,203 feet high. Waiting for a pan of cookies to bake and cool sufficiently to eat? It seems like it's been 9,203 hours! Wondering how old people can get? Nope, they won't live to be 9,203. He's definitely my quirky boy.

He came flying out of his bedroom this evening after I'd put him to bed, telling me he was scared. I asked him what he was scared of, and he said, "Buffalo." Buffalo? Really? Well, maybe there were 9,203 of them. I guess that would be scary.

I'm not making a mess, Mama, I'm building something!



Yeah, and I'm watching!

Ethan's First Lapbook!

This year for History, we are doing something called lapbooking. (This wasn't in my original plan, but I really didn't care for the history book I bought for Ethan. So we're improvising!) Here's how it works - we read lots of books about our subject (in this case, the Pilgrims). Then we make "mini-books" detailing the highlights of what Ethan's learned. At this point, being in Kindergarten and all, I help him quite a bit. When we're done, we compile them all into the lapbook - a file folder that's been refolded. He's had a great time doing this, and he's retained a fair amount of information!

The cover represents why the Pilgrims came to America - it's a Bible with "Freedom to Worship" written inside it. I took a picture of the inside, but taking a picture of a piece of paper with penciled writing on it doesn't tend to work so well. :)



When you open the book up, there are our mini books! We have shaped books - the hat tells what the men's work was and the pumpkin tells what they ate. There's a pocket with a miniature Plymouth Rock in it with 1620 written on it, to commemorate the year the Pilgrims landed. There's a petal book with women's work listed on the petals, and a picture of the Mayflower with our summation of the Mayflower Compact. On the left is the Story of Squanto book, and a book that folds out telling what Squanto taught the Pilgrims in order to help them survive the second winter. There is also a map of the New England coast on the back, with Plymouth marked.

One of the neat things about a lapbook is that the student gets to show them off to the grown-ups in his life. And of course, everytime he does, he's actually reviewing all he's learned!

Stinker Baby

This is the face I got after I asked Alex if he was throwing soggy graham crackers on the floor that I had JUST mopped.


I think he knows what he's doing - how about you?

By the way, I'm typing this with both boys on my lap. That's a challenge for ya! But Alex is getting so grabby, the way babies do, and he keeps putting the caps lock on and adding extra spaces. Ethan is encouraging him and laughing his head off. He really is a stinker baby!

Say What?

The following conversation took place last night as I was reading Ethan a story before bed. One of the characters was named Uncle Booker T.

Ethan: (snicker, snicker)
Me: What's so funny?
Ethan: What you just said! (snicker, snicker)
Me, more than a little confused: What part of what I just said?
Ethan, laughing out loud now: Uncle Booger! Ha, ha! That's such a funny name for someone!
Me, also laughing now, because let's face it - Uncle Booger would be a funny name: No, it's Booker. With a "k".
Ethan, somewhat disappointed: Oh, ok.

So we continued to read, but Ethan continued to snicker and mutter "Uncle Booger" under his breath every time I read the name Uncle Booker T. I guess he just likes the sound of "Uncle Booger" better!

Shoes and Hats

Luke took this picture yesterday ... I thought it was cute! Big and small, I love them all! (Ha! Now you know why I don't have a future as a poet!)

The state of our living room ...

If you imagine this covering most of the floor space not occupied by furniture, you can understand the challenge it can be to cross the living room without stepping on toys that seem to be designed to inflict as much pain as possible on an adult foot. Some days, the mess also spreads into the kitchen, because Ethan's favorite place to play is in the doorway between the two rooms. It drives his father nuts! But at least Ethan is good about cheerfully picking them up each night.

Happy Birthday!

I know this blog is supposed to be about Ethan and Alex, but if it weren't for Luke, neither one of them would be here! So happy birthday to the best husband and papa we could wish for - we all love you a whole lot!

My Three Guys

Quote of the day

Ethan is very excited at the prospect of the weekend, because it means no school. His reason is very simple.

"If there's no school, then there's no waste of time!"

Not to lay blame or anything, but that's Luke's son talking.

Batteries

I didn't know this, but rechargeable batteries will eventually get to the point where they won't hold a charge any more. The batteries for our camera had been dying more and more quickly, and now they are completely dead all the time. It's very sad. It also makes for a slow week blogging, since I have no camera with which to take pictures of my adorable children.

So, if our batteries hadn't died, here's what you would have seen:
** a video (at least I was going to attempt to post one) of Ethan making Alex laugh - you can't help but laugh along!
** a picture of my living room floor, completely covered in Legos. Not because there is something unusual about having several hundred Legos waiting to be stepped on, I just thought you might like to see the typical state of my floor.
** Ethan's new haircut, which he has deemed too short. I think it looks great. (Thanks, Grandma!)
** Alex's face when I feed him cereal mixed with formula, rather than his preferred beverage. You'd think I was trying to poison him! I'm thinking his aversion to formula combined with his tendency to bite doesn't bode well for the future ...

So just use your imaginations ... and I'll be getting more batteries soon!

Shameless Mama Brag

My wonderful son, who usually delights in grossing me out, just delighted me tonight. He told me, "Mama, I know what 'betwixt' means. It means between."

Now, I may be a bit biased, but I don't know that most 5-year-olds would know that.

See, this is why it's fun to homeschool, despite the fact that he tends to heave exaggerated sighs over having to practice handwriting.

Autumn Leaves

A time to laugh ...

Motherhood brings a lot of entertainment with it, I've found. Actually "parenthood" is probably a better term, since Luke finds at least as much humor in our children as I do.

Some things are funny right away ... it's really hard not to laugh when you find yourself saying something like, "Don't lick the cat!" Or maybe, like Saturday night while we had company, "Don't put your lips in your brother's mouth!" (And yes, I have said both of those. I wish I'd kept a list of all the things I never thought I'd say.)

Some things can take a few hours before they make you smile ... like learning that fabric shopping alone is so much more enjoyable than fabric shopping with a five-year-old and a four-month-old. Or having to cut silly putty out of the baby's hair. (Tonight was an interesting evening.) Or when your son mutters about how bossy you are because you expect him to go from the bathroom to his bedroom to get his own pj's, and ends his muttered monologue with the phrase "lazy woman!". (Yeah. That didn't go over so well.)

Then of course there are the times you're trying to discipline the child while you're trying not to laugh. This is further complicated if your spouse is around and also thinks the misbehavior was humorous. Not only is difficult to convince a child that they've been naughty when dad is literally shaking trying to hold the laughter in, but it makes it that much harder to control your own laughter.

And don't forget the things that you figure will take years before you can laugh much about them. Right now I really don't find the "rude noise, obnoxious boy" stage very entertaining, although I can see how others would. Maybe years from now, when Ethan is a refined gentleman (a mom can hope, right?) that memory will just be funny and endearing.

But I think my favorite entertainment is listening to Ethan and Alex laugh. You know those uncontrollable belly laughs? The kind that you have to join in just because it's so infectious? Lately I've realized it's even more delightful when the two boys are laughing about the other one laughing.

I'm so thankful for my sweet boys!

Mmmm!

It's hard for me to believe that Alex is big enough for solids, but he is! He can even sit in a high chair, as long as he's helped by a towel in the corner. Today was his first taste of rice cereal. Yummy! Or maybe not so yummy, if you look at the second picture ...

A captive audience

Ethan loves to talk. And at this point, Alex loves to listen. Because I have horrible timing with a camera I missed it, but just before this picture was taken Alex was gazing at Ethan with a look of absolute mesmerization. Apparently he really enjoys hearing all about the way a "rocket camper" works. It was so sweet.

Bandit Baby

Ethan has been playing with the baby again ...

Lego Man

Ok, to be perfectly honest, the only reason I'm posting this picture is that Ethan and I both think it's funny. Ethan has been playing with legos a lot lately - today we built a rocket camper! - so he perpetually has little men laying around. When I started taking pictures today, he asked me to take a picture of his little guy.

People are strange ...

There, do you have a song in your head now? (People are straaaange ...) Here's my favorite 5 year old being strange. We made the possible mistake of introducing him to Calvin and Hobbes ... you may remember that Calvin always made faces when he got his picture taken ...

Dr. Ethan

Ethan's stuffed dog "Goldy" has been sick. He decided she was born too soon, didn't have any hair, and had a big chunk of algae in her throat. (I'm not sure if the algae is related to her being premature.) So he put her in his sweatshirt, and has been operating and giving her medicine for the last week or so. Here's how they've been sleeping.

Since Goldy first started having health problems, there's been a rash of illnesses among his stuffed animals. Currently, three of them are wearing clothes in order to stay warm and get well. I figure pretty soon, his stuffed animals will generate more laundry than he does.

Soldier Baby to the Rescue!

This picture is courtesy of Ethan's idea of playing with Alex. He actually plays with him, as though Alex were a toy. Maybe it's the 5 1/2 year age gap? Anyway, Alex seems to enjoy it as much as Ethan does.


And here's our other soldier - although he's pretty adamant that he's not a baby ...

Monster Soup

If Ethan decides he doesn't want to be a pirate after all, he may have a future as a chef. Today he created a recipe for Monster Soup. I can't give you all the instructions - it took him about 20 minutes to explain it to me, so there's no way I remember all of it - but I can tell you it starts out, "Take one monster, and all the meat ..."

It also has ham, electrical frosting (he explained it to me, but it still doesn't make sense), carrots, maple syrup, and m&m's in it. I'm sure there are ingredients I'm missing, but you can tell from this list that it's a very interesting dish indeed. Here are the final instructions:

"If you want it to be poisonous, put in a weeny drop of poison. Otherwise, add a cup and a half of sugar and beat for 10 minutes. Then pop it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Well, an hour. Then it's all done!"

Dinner, anyone?

Alex, and my thoughts on gross little boys

Here's my baby ... he's getting so big already!




And here he is again ... I guess it's been a long day!



Now, just to be fair, I took a picture of Ethan to post, too. He doesn't change as fast, but we don't want the baby to get all the attention, right?

I won't be posting the picture, since it ended up being one of him with his mouth open and his partially-chewed dinner showing. He thought it was very funny, and that I should definitely put it on our blog.

I doubt you'd find any mention of it in any milestone charts, but little boys definitely become gross at some point. They go from being sweet, adorable little angels to rude-noise-making, fascinated-with-any-bodily-functions, let's-see-if-I-can-gargle-with-my-own-spit BOYS. To illustrate my point, Ethan is currently alternating between wiping drool off of Alex's face and wiping it on me, and making a stuffed animal "poo" on Alex. Both of these activities are extremely funny. To him, anyway.

Now, I know this is normal. And that, hopefully, he'll outgrow some of this behavior. (But I want you to know that it's a lot easier for you to say that. After all, you're not the one with slobber wiped all over you!) In the meantime, you just may not see as many pictures of Ethan. Unless, of course, you actually want to see what a chewed-up grilled cheese sandwich looks like.

Edited to add: I read this entry to Ethan. He's laughing hysterically over his own grossness. He especially enjoys the mention of gargling spit.

Real Pirates Don't Suck Their Thumbs

Wednesday is "Talk Like a Pirate Day"

Did you know there was a day designated to talk like a pirate? Neither did I, until my wonderful Aunt Ginnie emailed me this link. (She's a librarian, and she always knows about the coolest things for kids!) If there is a little person in your life who likes pirates, it's well worth your time to visit the site. There is a downloadable pirate kit with lots of fun activities, and some great suggestions for pirate-related reading. As you may imagine, Wednesday is being anticipated with great relish in our house! Aargh, mateys!

Oh, and in case you need more pirate websites, here are some others.
Blackbeard! Lots of shooting games, and some other stuff
Information on the Whydah galley, a pirate ship that sank off the coast of Massachusetts in 1717
Match pirate captains!
Pictures and detailed descriptions of pirate weapons

Our Little Soldier

We went up to Mackinaw City this week for a family vacation. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Fort Michilimackinac. Ethan had been anticipating going there since last summer, when Luke and I brought back pictures - we had been there celebrating our 10th anniversary.

Ethan very carefully chose what he deemed to be appropriate clothing, and took his tricorn hat, muzzleloader, and canteen. Apparently he also had a number of scenarios he wanted to play out, since all of these photos except the last one are posed according to his directions. He would run around the catwalk that surrounded the fort, dramatically drop down to shoot at the enemy, then turn and ask Luke, "Did you get a picture of that?" Unfortunately, he was moving so quickly, we missed a lot of photo opportunities. But you can still see he was having a great time!

He likes me! He really likes me!

Smiles

Alex is a very happy baby - he often spends a good part of his "awake time" talking, cooing, and laughing. But as soon as we bring out a camera, he typically becomes very serious. (My theory on this is that his smiles are very responsive, and when our smiles disappear behind a camera, his smile disappears too. I have no idea if that's a valid theory, but it's mine.) Today though, Luke got a pretty good shot of him smiling.

Seven Days

Seven days. That's exactly how long it took Ethan to go from being wildly excited about school to saying, "I wish I was graduated already." There were also a few comments about how unfair it is that Alex doesn't have to go to school, how he wishes he'd started school later, and how much work writing letters is.

Life is hard when you're five and in kindergarten.

Family Weekend

We went to my aunt's cottage up near Mercer this weekend. Ethan was so excited about going ... he thought Friday would never arrive. He had a great time playing with his cousin Jonas, kayaking, riding the jetski, swimming, riding 4-wheeler, and numerous other activities. Grandma Cunningham held Alex for most of the weekend - it was so fun to watch her enjoy him!

We always have a great time when we go up there - Ginnie and her family are gracious hosts, and the time spent with family is so sweet!