re-entry

What do you call a deer with no eyes?
No-eyed deer.

What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?
STILL, no-eyed deer.

What do these lame, life-of-the-party jokes have to do with my blog?
Nothing...they're just my ice-breaker to help get my fingers moving across the keys again. Shwooooo, it's been awhile.

So, what's new with y'all?

Here's what we've been doing since September:

We've been sick a time or three...here they are keeping hydrated on their "floor bed."  

We made a big day out of the Texas Renaissance Festival again this year. The boys traded in their pirate garb from last year and decided (well, Henry decided...James just copied, obvi) to be knights.

 James enjoyed many, many pre-school days home with mommy and daddy. While big brother is at school, James loves to sit in Henry's chair at the kitchen table (the blue and green one) and play with all of Henry's toys. He may enjoy it a little too much, to be honest, but it's hilarious...so we roll with it.

 Mr. Bigs had his very first school picture day. This is a shot I got of him as we were leaving the house. He is growing up so fast, and I swear he gets more handsome everytime I look at him. He is still really loving pre-school, and his teachers and school have been such a blessing to all of us in more ways than I can recount here.

 Henry had the best time at his school's Halloween Parade and class party. Here's our little knight (note: his costume got upgraded and accesorized from RenFest...all credit to daddy for keeping our guy authentic)...

 Here he is playing Pin the Tail on the Cat during the party...so cute. His class has 9 girls and 4 boys, and 6 of the little girls were princesses this year. That said, I find it notable that Henry's favorite girl at the Halloween party was the one dressed as a dinosaur, and his second favorite was dressed as an true-to-life Dora (backpack, short brown wig, and shorts and a tee).

 We played super hero in our street A LOT. Most of the time, we had pants on...of course on the day I had the camera out, we were in our skivs. Oh well. Art imitates life, and you all already know we have a very undressed house in the toddler department.

 We trick or treated. This year will go down as the one that Henry "got" Halloween. He didn't try to eat each piece of candy as it was put into his pumpkin this year, he wasn't ready to go home after three houses, and he said thank you at every single door! James did almost as well, but he was absolutely done after three houses. After that, he just wanted to go play with everyone's yard decor and yell "Happy Weeeeeeen" from the wagon. Following the trick or treating, our boys both had a ball handing out candy to the kids that came to our door late. Henry sat outside on his big armchair calling kids over "Candy over here, everyone!! Come get your candy!!!" and his festive mood was only sullied when we finally ran out. He was sure to save everyone a trip up the walk to find out that we were out, too..."We're all out, folks...no more candy this way!! Try again next year!!!!!"

 We've gotten enormous since September. At least an inch taller each...

 ...and James has discovered the wonder of big-boy underwear. Of course he's a total poser and still wearing a diaper underneath them - anything to look like big brother. Here he is paying homage to his favorite cartoon on Nicke.lode.on..."Um.i Zo.omi"...he's showing us his "belly, belly, belly screen!!!"

 And the brothers spent a lot of time just brotherin'. This pic is adorable from this angle, imo, but if you turn it around, you can actually see that James is not making the happiest face. He's totally annoyed that Henry is on his blankie. As we are all learning around here, personal space is a hot commodity. :0)

Okay, that just about catches us up for now. I'll try to do better...with the holidays fast-approaching, y'all know we'll be out and about and hopefully, I'll have my camera on-hand to capture some of the fun.  

is it over yet?

In the past 7 days, the following ridiculousness has transpired:

Henry slipped and bumped his chin causing his teeth to slam down on his tongue. His sharp canine tooth dug in extra hard and came as close to going all the way through his tongue as you can imagine. Profuse bleeding, gaping wound, sore mouth...what next?

Just as we were recovering from the tongue-piercing, Henry slipped off of the bench seats of my parents' hot tub into the 'deep' part in the middle, and he panicked as his head went under. I was right next to him the entire time. Although he didn't breathe water, he was scared half to death. As I was fishing him out.................

James slipped on the steps next to the outside of the hot tub and bumped his chest on the bottom step. I was holding a screaming Henry still, so my mom raced to James. By all outward appearances, he was fine. Oh, except for the fact that he wasn't breathing. He got the wind knocked clear out of him. After more than 20 seconds, he took a breath. About 20 seconds after that, he took another one. Holy scariness. Normal breathing resumed shortly thereafter......are we done yet.....................no.

The next morning, both of them were sick with a cold. Green noses and coughs. Of course, it was our first assigned day to work in James' Sunday School class, so I had to go on to church to work while Jared stayed home with the sickies. I told J that if he brought them outside, the humidity would probably help loosen up their stuffies. I got to church where not one single 18-20 month old soul showed up for my class, so I was given the go ahead to clean up and leave. It's a good thing, too, because 5 minutes later.....are you ready for this.....................

Jared called to tell me that he had taken the boys outside, and Jamesies got stung by a bee. His finger swelled up twice its size, but Jared was able to keep the reaction under control by dosing quickly with Benadryl and keeping it iced. He didn't seem to be having trouble breathing, so Jared was pretty sure we weren't headed for anaphylaxis. Lovely.

On Tuesday, Henry had to miss school because he was still sick with the crud. After we had been trapped inside just about all day, I decided we should go outside for an evening ride in Henry's truck. Henry was driving and James sat shotgun. Normally, we only drive in straight lines. On that particular day, we were driving in the street when Jared arrived home from somewhere. Henry was beyond excited to go see him, so he accelerated to our driveway and whipped that truck right in behind his daddy. Of course, as they are turning in, James chooses that precise moment to look over his outside shoulder to see where I am. So, after a tongue-piercing, a head dunk, a breathing cessation, and a bee sting,..........................

James toppled head first out of the side of the truck. He didn't land hard, but he gashed his head open on the ground. When I picked him up 2 seconds later, there was just a tiny cut visible....within 5 seconds of that, the cut started GUSHING blood. Words cannot explain how much this thing bled. As I passed Jared running into the kitchen with James' head and hair covered in blood that was dripping down my arms and legs at this point, I heard him say (trying to convince himself, I think), "don't panic...he's going to be okay." The bleeding was under control quickly, and I had my mom come over to the House of Accidents to help me decide if we needed to get stitches. She thought it would be more traumatic than beneficial, and based on the tinyness of the cut, I agreed. So, phew, we thought we were done.......................

But, alas, one more for the scrapbook...

This morning, as Jared was holding Henry in his lap to help him put his shoes on for school, Henry decided he wanted to play with Jared's phone. We weren't in a hurry to get to school, so Jared let him. A few seconds later, Henry pushed some buttons that made the kid program close down on the phone, so Jared told him to 'let daddy have it to fix it.' Henry pulled it tight to his chest. Jared reached his hand in to take the phone from Henry, and the H-man screeched and jerked the phone away from Jared...in an upwards and backwards direction...right into Jared's front tooth...which abruptly cracked in two and fell into Jared's throat.

All that said, Bosephus my sweet hubs and I would like to calmly warn all of you to steer clear of our place. We've got a black cloud overhead this week. The only good news around here is that it's almost Friday.

June, Part I

I have the best job in the world. It might come with long hours, no pay, and an extremely fluid job description, but it also allows for a certain freedom-of-movement that no other job offers.

One day last month, Jared came in the door and told me that he would be traveling for two straight weeks. Two. Fourteen days and nights. Which meant, obviously, that for those fourteen days and nights, me and the munchkins were on our own. Fourteen bedtimes. Twenty-eight naptimes. Forty-two mealtimes. Is your head going to explode yet? Yeah, mine too.

And so it came about that I decided to take my little boys on a roadtrip. An epic roadtrip.

We left town less than two days later and headed east for sunny Florida. Inlaws and old friends...seemed like a perfect place to go. I made arrangements to stay a night with friends in Biloxi on the way there. I was worried that here to Biloxi would be a stretch for Baby J, as he normally doesn't believe in sleeping in cars. Normal went out the window this trip.

On day 1, to my delight and disbelief, both boys took normal naps the entire day. Nobody shed a single tear the entire day. At one point in the trip, I needed to hold them off for about 20 minutes while we made it to a good food exit, so I gave them each a book to 'read'. For twenty straight minutes my 15-month old and my almost-3-year old 'read' quietly in the backseat. Yes, I'm serious. I called my spend-the-night friends as we flew by their house to say, "I'd be crazy to stop now...these babies are doing great!!" Three hours later (12 hours on the day), we stopped for pizza and hoteling. It was nothing short of amazing - the twelve perfect hours, the cute little hotel we found for less than $80 a night, and the fact that Hungry Howie's delivered thereto for a special hotel guest price. Henry still talks about our 'pizza hotel'.

After everyone slept like a dream in the hotel, Day 2 was just as easy breezy as the one before it. We woke up leisurely, ate breakfast at the pizza hotel's resaurant (a hot/cold breakfast bar in the lobby), waited for James to take care of his morning diaper, and away we went! The kids, again, did great. Everyone ate, slept, pottied, etc. as if nothing were different about their day. And, once again, not a single tear shed. I could hardly believe we were already there when we pulled into Tampa later that afternoon.

First up on our big adventure to the sunshine state -- a visit with Nina (Jared's mom) and a rendezvous with Heather at her castle. Details and pics coming up in the next post. For now, I leave you with the two secrets I discovered for flawless roadtripping by yourself with two kiddos under 3 -- stop once every two hours and let everyone out for at least 15 minutes (even if you have no other reason to stop) AND don't be afraid to use a dvd player to get through the long, boring stretches.

June, Part II - tomorrow.

A picture post...

On Super Bowl Sunday, we booked it up to the Big D to try and see the Pack play. Here we are all laden down with cash and feeling pretty optimistic.

 And, here we are, 9 hours later, giving up. Apparently, the price of SB tickets doesn't really go DOWN as game time approaches. At least we tried. And, at least the Packers won anyway (we were solidly convinced that they literally could not win the game unless we were in the stadium to see it). Lack of entry into the stadium aside, we had a really fun time in Dallas on our last-second-completely-spontaneous getaway. 

Sweetface eats spaghetti...it's one of his favorite foods these days.

 

He also swings.

Henry loves building huge towers with his blocks. The Jared Chesser School of Architecture and Design is clearly a top-tier institution.

Speaking of the daddy, here he is showing James where the fishies live. James can say "ishie," and we all think that's pretty adorable.

And here's the big man...with the even bigger man...trying to catch those darn fishies. Henry says they're all sleeping. Also, in a fun potty-training moment, he announced that he 'cannot go pee-pee in the water because it will land on the fishies' backs and they don't like it so it will make them cry.' I will have you know that trees, car tires, mommy's bathroom floor, and our back patio do not cry at this offense.

Happy Tuesday, one and all.

If the sun would ever come back out...

...for more than 10 minutes at a time, I'd venture further than my own doorstep to snap a few photos of these ever-growing babies o' mine. Today was James' day to get all dudded up - Henry got to stay in his pajamas. Of course, James kept his sleepy, PJ face on...and Henry was ready for a professional headshot. So it goes in my house...

Here they are - James (10 mos.) and Henry (2 1/2)

 Baby J looking a lot like his daddy.

 What has two thumbs and is the happiest baby in the world...

 A little blurry and underexposed...but so sweet of my bitty baby brothers.

 Anyone see the Jared resemblance we have going on here?

 Sweetface

 And, he's done...

 It's so much more fun to eat leaves than have your picture made, mom!

Next up (for another post, of course)...the big bro. Come on sun, throw me a bone! 

someone...

Here we go again with a post so far behind the last one that I couldn't possibly catch up on ALL of the goings on betwixt the two. So, instead, some snippits...with pictures from the past 5 weeks or so...
A few someones in our family have a few new favorite things. Someone in our family has 8 teeth and wavy hair and is about to (ohmygosh) walk! Someone in our family was introduced to cheese puffs this month...he calls them 'cheesy poops' and we just about die laughing everytime he says it. "okay, jus' one more cheesy poop, mommy...jus' one more poop." Someone in our family put in a 2-week notice with his company...because that same someone earned himself a sweeeeet new gig. Three someones couldn't be prouder.Someone in our family has apparently been paying attention. Someone in our family scared the crap out of his mom today...and now has antibiotics and an inhaler to show for it. Someone in our family gave up pajama days for 2011. Two someones in our family like to splash...and it turns out the littler someone may be the tougher of the two. hehehe. Someone in our family decided that pants are optional...I do not approve of this decision when playing outside, but my camera was already on, so I went with it. Blackmail for later... And, finally, someone in this family thinks the New Year is off to a great start...inhalers, bare hineys, job transitions, awesomely entertaining mispronunciations and all!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and whoooooweeeee, how is it already the 6th?!?!