Circus: "Over The Top"

Having two little boys who love elephants made the circus a perfect choice for a family outing on March 21st. We were able to arrive an hour before the show to watch the clowns perform and see an elephant paint a picture. It was exactly what the title suggested: "Over The Top". At times it was almost too much stimulation and you didn't know where to look or what to watch. The ponies, dogs, horses, tigers, and clowns were all a big hit; however, the two favorite acts were the motorcycles in the round cage and of course, the elephants!

The elephant painting a picture.

Clowning around.

From the moment we walked in the door, both boys started asking for popcorn...

...and they wouldn't stop shoving it in their mouths long enough to take a picture.

Mikie says...

It's been awhile since I've posted one of these:

I'll start with a saying that he has just always said: When pushing a truck/car backwards he'll say "I have to Beep Up" (instead of back up...I guess because some trucks beep when they back up)



While playing with his leapfrog touchpad, one of the questions I heard the book ask was: "How many brothers do you have?" Mikie responded "Three" So I ask him why he said three instead of one and he promptly tells me, "You're going to 'lay' two more" (Gee...let's hope not!...although that does fit in with the prediction my mom's friend did with a wedding ring which revealed 4 boys + 1 girl)



Mikie enjoys looking out of the car window and telling everyone what type of clouds are in the sky. One day he saw the really big ones and said "God lives in the cumulonimbus clouds" I too remember thinking that God lived in the clouds when I was a kid.



Recently, I've been trying to convince him that he still needs a nap (which he really does!) but he's been fighting it hard. So, I've told him that on the days he takes a nap he can stay up until 8:00, but if he chooses not to take a nap then he has to go to bed at 7:00. Strangely he cannot seem to remember if indeed he did fall asleep or not. So, one night as we were driving home from dinning out, Mikie pipes up from his car seat in the most serious of all voices "Oh NO, it's 7:08...did I take a nap?"



2/25/09 At the intersection of Route 1 and 17 while stopped at a red light, the boys spot the car dealership to the right. Zachary is pointing at the balloons and saying 'pink'. Mikie told me that Zachary wanted a balloon and I explained that they were not giving those balloons away. That didn't stop him from saying: "Maybe we can get one of those balloons with a car attached to it." (yea, if it were only that easy....Excuse me, sir....my son would like a balloon with a car attached to it...a pink one please.....and could you make sure the car that comes with it is a Mercedes.....thanks!)



Here's a funny story that didn't need any cute sayings:

Mikie (usually) doesn't get a lot of tv time each day so when he does get to watch something he is really focused on it and hates to have to miss any of it. In the middle of a very interesting Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I see him push pause and jump off the couch. I ask him what he's doing and he tells me he has to go potty. I then watch him run for the kitchen while looking over his shoulder to make sure the show is still paused. All the while he has his thumbs poked into his pants getting ready to pull them down to take care of business. I decide to keep watching because the bathroom is in the opposite direction from where he is headed. With his eyes still focused on the plasma screen he opens the refrigerator door and starts to pull down his pants before he realizes what he is doing and then shakes his head and laughs as he runs to the bathroom. I was laughing hysterically for minutes! This immediately brought back "the fridge" incident while we were potty training him 2 1/2 years ago.

The Fridge Incident (2006/07 while potty training Mikie): When Mikie was 19 months old, he asked me what I was doing in the bathroom one day so I told him I was going pee pee on the potty. To which, he replied "Mikie go pee pee in potty" From that day on, he would go whenever I went. To speed things along, we let him go naked from the waist down while running around our house and he'd usually do a great job remembering to "hurry hurry" (as Boagie taught him to say). On one of those "naked" days I was fixing lunch with Mikie underfoot in the kitchen. I opened the fridge to get out a needed ingredient and Mikie reached in to get his milk. I didn't think much of it and even watched the door swing closed only to be stopped by his little legs and backside. After lunch and nap (a significant time had passed) I went to the fridge to begin to prepare supper and reached for some type of condiment on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator door....when I saw it....a cold, hard poop nugget! Mikie hadn't been playing in the fridge, he had been so quiet and still because he was pooping in the fridge!

Allergy FREE

After six months of being on a milk and egg free diet, Zachary went in for more allergy testing on March 4th. We were surprised to hear that he had outgrown his allergies and went back the following week for a milk challenge. He was suppose to drink small amounts of milk in slow increasing increments at the Dr. office to see if he had any reactions. It was a long 3 hours stuck in a room with Lincoln Logs and a T.V./video player when the weather outside was begging for us to come out and play. Unfortunately, Mikie was very sick with bronchitis and on the nebulizer so he just sat and watched 3 hours of Dora, Veggie Tails, and Blues Clues while Zachary screamed about being held captive against his will. How ironic is it that I was at the "Allergy and Asthma Associates of Fredericksburg" for Zach's allergy testing, but Mikie was the one sitting in a chair getting a nebulizer treatment every 4 hours. Everyone looked slightly confused as to whom they were suppose to be treating that day. The nurses truly felt sorry for me and I think they sped things along because they could see how torturous it was on all of us. Of course, just as I suspected, Zachary wouldn't cooperate and drink any of the milk; so, I had to shoot it down his throat with a syringe every 20 minutes. I was honestly suspecting a runny diaper by the time we got home, but alas, he didn't have any reactions and is truly Milk allergy free! Praise God and I am now a huge believer in "probiotics" (HMF powder). Seriously, they have turned little Zach's life around completely...no more ear infections, gaining weight (slowly), and only 1-2 stools a day verses the 6-8 a day that he averaged until he was 18 months old and got the super high dose of the HMF powder.

Immediately I began trying to get Zachary to drink milk to no avail. The 19 pound 20 month old has a will that even a drill sergeant would spend months trying to break before giving in to his inscent crying. He absolutely refuses to try anything new. I did everything I could think of to get him to like milk. Here are a few things I tried: a new sippy cup with Thomas on it, a fun cup with a straw, a cup without a lid, his juice sippy cups switched to milk, fruit smoothies, chocolate milk, 1/2 chocolate 1/2 white milk, organic strawberry milk, milk flavored with Boagie's strawberry jam, milk mixed with his juice, and banana flavored milk....I think that's it....but I could be missing something. And after each and every sip that I actually fooled him into drinking before he wised up and pushed it away, he would say "ick." I really hoped he would like drinking milk (just like his big brother...he copies everything else he does!) so that he could start gaining some weight, but it is NOT going to happen. He avoids anything dairy and even refused to eat his oatmeal that I started making with whole milk instead of rice milk. There may be a small glimmer of hope because this past Monday he had an ice cream cone for the first time in 6 months and seemed to enjoy it (after saying "ick" for the first 3 bites). I also got a tip from a friend (and mother of 4 boys) that perhaps he doesn't like the thickness of whole milk and I should start with skim milk and slowly increase it to whole milk. I plan to try that as soon as I make it to the store. Any other ideas are always welcome! Please post them as a comment.

So, since I was pushing the milk so hard this past week, I had given him 3 crackers and a strawberry for a snack along with 3 types of milk and some water. I was fascinated as I watched him exhibit OCD behavior with the things on his tray (he's his father's son!):

Notice how each snack has it's own cup scooted next to it. Great matching, Zach!

What he lacks in size, he makes up for in his fearlessness and boundless energy. In the video below you can see how he practices his "donkey kick" from gymnastics. (that's my mom's voice on the phone in the background)

He also has a great memory, but just cannot verbalize and articulate very clearly. In this video he names all of his monster trucks (ignore the crying child in the background who is sitting in time out and is ready to: "say my 'apologize', Mommy")

Zachary Says....

On a beautiful day last week, the boys and I were playing in the driveway when Zachary looked up and saw the moon in the bright blue sky. He said: "Ball, Ball" Yep...it did look like a ball was stuck in the sky. I just had to laugh.

On that same day, we were blowing bubbles and the breeze was taking them up over the house. Zachary would run after them and then say "Bubbles Back!" He was a little disappointed that I couldn't make them come back.

Zachary loves to play duck, duck, goose or any game that even closely resembles it. Mikie wanted to play sea lion, sea lion, shark (same game...different words). Zachary was all too eager to play with us and when it was his turn to be the "ducker" he patted Mikie's head and said "Sea lion" then patted my head and said "Sea Lion" then patted his own head and said "SHARK".

National Zoo in DC

Winter to Summer in just 5 days!

It's hard to believe that just five days after our big 8 inches of snow, we would be spending a beautiful Saturday at the National Zoo. When we heard that it was going to be 70+ degrees the first weekend in March, we drove to the metro, hopped on board the blue and red lines, and spent an afternoon finding the remainder of the animals from Mikie's sticker book which he saved from preschool playgroup last year. The highlight of our trip was hearing a lion roar for about 3 minutes. He was walking around his enclosure and letting us all know that he was there. We had a good time, but the boys were fighting off colds so it wasn't as fun as it could/should have been.

Can you spot the animal in the background?

The last time we were at the zoo, the elephants were inside the barn and put on a great show for Mikie by stepping on the scales. Of course, he remembers that and wanted to go directly to the elephant house to see how much they weigh this time. Unfortunately, the one and only elephant was outside for the day; so, no numbers this time.

Like I said, neither of them was feeling 100%.

This was my favorite part: The Rainforest! The animals roam free in this exhibit and we were lucky enough to see a monkey crawling across the vine above our heads in the canopy.

Zachary on the forest floor

"I'm touching the understory"

Time to take this little monkey home.

Dr. Seuss Day 1 & 2

"All that deep, deep snow...

all that snow had to go!"

-Dr. Seuss from The Cat in the Hat

It's as if Theodore Geisel himself was doing the weather report on the day of his very own birthday. As I mentioned in my previous post, we received 8 inches of snow on Sunday night which completely shut down our area the following day (March 2nd). Since there was no way the 4 other mothers from my MOPS group were going to bring their kids over for a Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Day Birthday Celebration, we rescheduled for Friday and Mikie and I spent the day in true Dr. Seuss form.....making messes:

Since we had just been to Seussical the Musical the night before, Mikie asked to read "Gertrude McFuzz". In this story, the bird only has one feather but isn't satisfied with her plain tail and wants a bigger & better one. She eats a pillberry and immediately a bright feather pops out. She continues to eat 3 dozen pillberries and now has an extravagant tail. (You'll have to read the book for the rest of the story) So, here is Mikie with his Gertrude McFuzz complete with a beautiful tail and 36 pillberries (he insisted we have 3 dozen!) which he thought of, not me. Perhaps there is some creativity in his little body after all.

Next book: Barthalomew and the Oobleck

Synopsis: The King is tired of the 4 elements that fall from the sky and summons his magicians to create something new. The result is a sticky green substance they call Oobleck. Which can be replicated using 1 1/2 cups corn starch, 1 cup water, & Green food coloring. I wasn't sure Mikie would even touch the stuff because he hates to be messy, but he played with it for about 45 minutes and loved it as you can see in the video below. It's not quite a solid and not quite a liquid. Michael described it as something similar to mercury.













Not pictured: If I Ran The Zoo with a mixed up animal flip book activity.

Dr. Seuss Day 2009

The day was a huge success and all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. We decided on 3 stories with 2 activities per story. We divided up into pairs and each planned an activity to correlate with the chosen book. It was so nice to have 8 different ideas/activities for the kids and only have to prepare for 1 of them. We had 5 moms, one grandma, and 10 children at my house to celebrate a day of rhythm and rhymes.

The Sneetches

Activity 1: Pin the Star on the Sneetch:

Activity 2: Painting Personalized Sneetch Beach Bags:

Zach loved painting/stamping the green stars on his bag.
So did Mikie, but I don't have a picture of him. This was my planned activity so I didn't have a chance to snap any pictures (not to mention my hands were continuously covered in paint).

I Wish I Had Duck Feet

Activity 1: Assembling a Which-What-Who using a picture of yourself

Zach's Which-What-Who

Mikie as a Which-What-Who

Activity 2: Turn yourself into a Which-What-Who with antlers & duck feet and then decorate and eat some duck feet cookies (Mikie's favorite part)

Zach's Antlers

Mikie eating his duck feet cookies

The Cat In The Hat

Activity 1: Make a Cat Hat Snack using cookies, frosting, and life savers

The fun was spilling over into lunch time and we still had one more book to get through so I nuked some Schwans Chicken Fries and called them Cat's tails. Here's Mikie with his life saver hat.

Activity 3: Color & Assemble a Cat In The Hat

The hat was suppose to be an AB pattern. Somehow this one became very unique. Coloring inside the lines is not of any interest to Mikie.

Lastly, it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss, blow out the candles, and eat some Star Shaped Sneetch Cake (which was so yummy with bananas & strawberries inside...Sabrina, please share your recipe). I happened to find red plates with white polk-a-dots that looked exactly like Horton's egg from Horton Hatches An Egg and one of the girls told me the napkins looked like beach towels from the Sneetch story. Perfect, I didn't even think of that!
It was a fun, fun day filled with many great ideas and a lot of hard work. We're already marking next year on our calendars and there is always room for more to join us.

Now, all day long I couldn't help but be reminded of my first and forever favorite Dr. Seuss Day with my mommy friends in Oak Harbor. Here you go, WA girls...enjoy:
Photoshow from Dr. Seuss Day in Whidbey Island

Snow Days

We had about 8 inches of snow overnight on Sunday March 1st and when we woke up we couldn't wait to go out and play in it. The first day the boys played in the driveway and front yard. The next day we anxiously awaited for Daddy to get home from work and then went sledding on a hill that is at the middle school behind our house. Both boys enjoyed riding down the hill on the sled and Mikie didn't complain too much when he had to climb back up. After 45 minutes of being cold, we were ready to walk home and warm up....however, we would have to endure the weather for another 1o minutes while Michael (dressed in a black ski cap) would "break in" to our house that got locked with the proper set of keys still hanging inside. He managed to only ruin the window screen and didn't have to break any glass to get the window shimmied open. (I'm not sure I feel safe in this house anymore since it was so easy to break in) Mikie got the privilege of saving the day when we hoisted him in through the opening and coached him on how to unlock the door.

Since it only snows once a year around here I see no need to buy snow boots that would only be worn once. Can you see how we improvised? I remember my mother doing this to us when we didn't have snow boots available.....two plastic ziplock bags held tight by a rubber band and then inserted into tennis shoes. (Amanda, how's that for thrifty?)




Zachary didn't really care to be outside. He wanted to be held the entire time; probably because the boots we had for him were double the size that he actually needed and the layers under his poofy coat were making it hard for him to move. He did help scoop a little.

Mikie thinks he needs to help daddy shovel, but instead ends up eating the snow and kicking it back down into the already cleared path...the path that has been cleared with a very small dirt digging shovel. A few minutes after I took the kids inside, I looked back out to see Michael had given up shoveling the driveway and was working on unburying his truck so that he could drive to Lowes and buy a proper snow shovel. Now that we finally own one, we'll probably never live anywhere that we'll ever use it.

Not only does Mikie not have any boots, he also has no gloves (see reason stated above). So, I let him wear mine and he didn't seem to mind....until they fell off and were too cold to put back on. We went directly in the house as soon as this picture was taken.

SLEDDING

Monster Jam Madness

Now, most of you know that I really love to stay busy and squeeze as much fun into one day as humanly possible, but....WOW....even I have to admit that this past weekend I think I may have packed a little too much into the short 48 hour time frame....and the endless amount of pictures on here will only give you a small sampling of our never ending weekend.

We were jumping from one thing to another beginning with the marriage retreat on Friday night. We hired a baby-sitter to watch the boys while we ate at The Bonefish Grill and then headed to church from 7:00-9:30 for part 1 of the marriage conference. What a great date....eating dinner with 2 hands and finishing all of our sentences without catching flying crayons and sugar packets, without having the ice cubes and lemons snatched out of our drinks by ketchupy fingers, and without people staring judgingly in our direction. In fact, as we left holding "grown up" hands, I'm pretty sure no one was mentally applauding our exit. A date, ahh yes I remember those and there needs to be more of them!

Bright and early the next morning we headed back to church (this time with the boys) for part two of the retreat from 8:30-12:30 (which ran over by 15 minutes setting us back just a tad). We quickly gathered up the boys, drove through Hardees for lunch, and made it up to Stafford for Mikie's friend's birthday party, only slightly late. The boys had a blast at the Monster Truck themed birthday bash and I am stealing several of these ideas for Zach's party in July. (Awesome job, Kelli!)
After a quick change of clothes in the bathroom (because when you're 4, birthday cake just doesn't taste all that great unless you get it all over your outfit), we strapped them into their car seats and enjoyed the 1 1/2 hours of silence (they slept! I should have slept!) on our drive down to Richmond. With only a short nap to recharge, we stood in the cold drizzle for 20 minutes waiting to get into the Monster Jam Pitt Party (yes, you read that correctly....we did indeed subject ourselves to yet another night of loud engines and redneck roughhousing). When I realized that this was the last time the trucks would be in this area until July, and considering how much fun the boys had at the last one, I couldn't wait to go again and this time we were even going to be able to walk right up to the trucks during the pit party. I knew they would love getting so close to the trucks and meeting the drivers, but my main goal was to get a picture of Zachary with Monster Mutt (the dog truck) so I could use it for his birthday invitations. SUCCESS!!!! The picture is adorable, don't you agree?:


Are you tired yet? I'm only half way done..........The Monster Jam Rally didn't end until 10:00 and we didn't get home until after 11:30. We no sooner shut our eyes and then had to open them again to go to church and teach our Sunday School classes in the morning. From there, we grabbed some lunch at O'Charley's and headed to the last "to do" event on Tracy's overly planned calendar: Suessical The Muscial. I'm really sad that I didn't have my camera, as it was a terrific production and Mikie enjoyed getting the autographs of four of the actors (Horton was his favorite). Zachary was enthralled with the lights, costumes, and music for the first 5 minutes, but alas his little battery did finally die out. He slept on our laps throughout the entire 2 1/2 hour show (including intermission when he raised his head long enough to be passed from Daddy to Mommy and then slipped back into his exhausted coma once again).

To end the night, I ordered up a giant snowstorm that would add an extra 20 minutes to our drive home and cause a 15 minute detour to the grocery store for some milk & sausage. When we finally arrived home, both boys opted to skip supper and head straight to bed at 6:30. Thankfully, due to the 8 inches of snow that fell, we were happily stuck at home for the next 48 hours to recuperate from the weekend.

Now if you are still reading this: THANK YOU, the fun part is next......pictures and videos!


Lenny's 5th Birthday Party (more details & picts on Kelli's blog)

Mikie & Lenny
Tire Ball Bounce (stealing this idea and the tires)

Race Track for Remote Control Truck (stealing this idea too)

Mikie drives the track

Video of reckless driving. Let's hope he improves in 12 years.

Pin the License Plate on the Monster Truck (yep, stealing this idea too)

The Cake with Great Bite the shark truck





These are two videos of a game that Zachary just loved! Very, very creative and educational, Kelli! I LOVE IT!

Zachary makes a sign to cheer for Lenny while he blows out his candles

Go Lenny! Blow them all out!

Zachary loved the ramp!

Lenny & his mom, Kelli, who organized this fantastically fun party! (Seriously, Kelli, keep it all. I will be borrowing it, PLEASE :)


Monster Jam Truck Rally in Richmond

BAD HABIT

Mikie next to the large tires.

ERADICATOR

Learning about the engine.

In this video, Zachary sees "Mon Mutt" and "Ave Igger"

Monster Mutt's driver, Whit Tarlton, signs Zachary's Monster Mutt shirt that Boagie made for him.

Doggie Kisses!

GRAVE DIGGER

BACKDRAFT

This one had flashing lights just like a real firetruck (Tate would have loved this one!)

MARTIAL LAW
(Every time this one came out Zachary would say "Blue" I think he thought it was Blue Thunder..Mikie's favorite truck)

After getting up close to the trucks, we had about 1 1/2 hours before the show started. We ate some hot dogs and bought the boys 2 new trucks. They killed the time by pushing them around while I tried to keep them from tripping people walking by.

When the amount of people increased, they were banned from the floor and decided to play on this register instead. This is a great picture of the cute shirt Boagie made for Zachary. If you click on it, you can enlarge it to see the ear, tongue, and tail. He loves the little Monster Mutt on the sleeve that he can look at. He shows it us all the time. We love it. Thanks Mom!

Time for the show to start. I'm starting to get annoyed at how Mikie can't focus long enough to take a picture. That shutter delay is just a huge inconvenience to his Monster Truck watching time.

Our little Frankenstein.

And you can't have a show without Popcorn!

The highlight of the show is when Monster Mutt ran into the wall after a slap wheelie and put a good sized hole in the brick structure. In the video, I stopped recording just as the truck slams into the wall with a loud bang. Sorry I missed it!