Photo Shoot

We know Super Boagie can save any birthday party with a quick phone call, mend any garment with her sewing machine, and has more energy than a 3 year old and toddler...but did you know she is also a fantastic photographer?

What follows are just a dozen of the 70+ pictures she snapped of our family in an attmept to try and get the perfect pose for our Christmas cards:

Mikie did a great job cooperating (most of the time) but Zachary could not be controlled!!!

There he goes again!

Can we capture a smile while he is dancing?

As if corralling Zachary wasn't hard enough, I decided to add the cat too!

After 20 minutes, hysteria breaks out!


If you overlook the fact that the tops of our heads are missing, this is a really good picture.

Finally, a great picture of our entire family.

Let's try a different pose....Yee-Haw, Giddy up, Mommy!

Oh geesh, Mommy, aren't you statisfied with one yet?

Yes! We got it!

THE END!!!

Jacob's Dinosaur Party

In November, while Boagie was here, we went to Jacob's fourth birthday party. Kim did an excellent job with the theme. These pictures don't even begin to portray how awesome it was! It looked like this throughout the entire first floor! Upon arrival, the boys could play with dinosaurs, dino puzzles, dino books, dino bowling, and they could stamp dino's on a thank you card. Every food had a dino label and fit the theme perfectly.

The highlight was exploding the volcano! They each got a turn scooping in the baking soda and then pouring in the vinegar to make it fizz. Even Zachary got a turn. He had no trouble putting in the soda, but didn't want to pour in the vinegar. I think he had watched it enough times and knew that is what made it fizz and probably thought it was hot or could hurt him in some way.

Time to pop dino balloons for a dino surprise inside!

Next, crawl through the dino tunnel to the excavation site for some diggin' fun!

Kim had dino shaped cookies for the kids to decorate and chocolate chip cookies with toothpicks for them to "excavate" their chips out of their cookies. She even provided them with magnifying glasses to aid in the digging. Mikie said making and eating the cookie was his favorite part of the party.

Finally, time to blow out the candles on his adorable T-rex cake. We had so much fun at the party that it didn't really matter that our take home gift was the stomach flu! I know with 2 boys I will eventually have a dinosaur birthday party and I will be using ALL these ideas! Great job, Kim!

Zachary's 1st Hair Cut

They're all gone......his pretty curls in the back are now in a plastic bag in his babybook.
Boagie gave Mikie his first hair cut around 18 months so it was only appropriate that she be the first one to give Zachary his at 16 1/2 months. As you can tell, he did NOT like it at all. With all the testing that he has had to go through, he HATES being held down and touched. Add on top of that the fact that he was not completely over his stomach flu, and you have one really ticked off little boy who won't sit still. We tried turning Barney on TV, but that seemed to make him more angry because he couldn't just sit and watch it without being bothered. Anyway, once the first snip was taken we had to continue, so after a lot of screaming and a few snips later he was curl-less and looked like a cute little boy.












His big boy hair cut.

Thank you, Boagie! We love you!

Boagie's (Extended) Visit

My mom may have felt like her decision to visit her grandchildren was spur of the moment since we bought the ticket on Thursday and she flew out here on Saturday, but God had this planned all along. I'm convinced that He knew I would need my mom at this particular time and you will find out why later in this post.


We picked Boagie up from the Richmond airport at noon on Saturday and headed to Short Pump Mall to eat at Firebirds, ride the little train, and throw pennies into the fountain. The next day we all went to church and then to Mikie's friend's birthday party. A day and a half later....we all woke up with a bad stomach flu. It hit Zachary first and then Mikie a few hours later. By morning, Michael and my mom were sick. I must have willed myself to stay healthy long enough to steamvac the vomit off the floor and start some loads of laundry before finally giving in to that icky feeling in my stomach and spending the rest of the afternoon and evening on the couch. Michael started feeling a little better and had to fly to NC for a conference. About the time I started feeling bad, my mom was feeling better; but, everytime I stood up I felt like I could pass out. This is why I am convinced that God sent my mom here to take care of the boys so I wasn't going through this alone and fainting on the floor. Since my mom obviously wasn't getting on a plane that evening, she postponed her trip home until Friday giving us an extra 3 days with her. Thanks for being here mom. So sorry you had to get sick!



While trying to get over the stomach bug, most of our time was spent hanging around the house in our pj's. Here are a few pictures of Mikie's new pajamas that Boagie bought at Target....even though they were girl jammies she just couldn't resist buying him his favorite animal in his favorite color: PINK ELEPHANTS!

You can see how happy they make him! They even have pink satin on the inside!


Once everyone was feeling better, the boys opened their Christmas presents from Boagie and Grandpa. Mikie got accessories for his Thomas Track and Zachary got this cute puppy that barks and walks when you put the ball in his mouth. I think it startled him at first because he didn't know it was going to take the ball and walk away with it, but now he really likes it. If you'd like to see how the puppy works you can watch Zachary on video by clicking here.

Gymnastics

Both boys take a gymnastics class for 45 minutes on Mondays. Mikie seems to really enjoy the repetitive routine and he is learning to take direction from other adults (I think). While Mikie is in his class, Zachary and I go in the back room for a mini-tot gymnastics class. This has been really fun and gives me a chance to work one on one with Zachary on his colors and shapes and following simple directions. His favorite activities are doing somersaults, sorting balls and hoops and jumping/running on the trampoline.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mikie. Mikie loves jumping into the foam pit, but Zachary can't wait to climb out of it! He would rather use the foam blocks to build a tower and then knock it down.

And ever since they've started gymnastics, my cushions spend more time on the floor than on my couch. (See videos below)

Mathematician

I don't really know for sure when it started, but Mikie is obsessed with numbers. The earliest memory I have of him learning a number was when we stayed in room number 8 at the hotel in La Push, WA when he was only 18 months old. After that, whenever he saw the number 8 he would point it out, so it's no surprise that it quickly became his favorite number and until recently remained his favorite number. Now, his favorite number changes daily...today it was 4. One day last month, it was a 5 digit number that I wish I would have written down because it was amazing that he remembered it all day long and told it to everyone we met. Most of the time the number of the day is triggered by a number that he has seen or heard that morning. Sometimes, it just a multiple digit number pulled out of that intricate brain of his.

Hotels are Mikie's idea of a number heaven! Not only do they have numbers on the doors, but also on the elevators. He is always standing right there with his Daddy when we're checking in so that he can find out what number our room will be and then goes running down the hallway until he locates it. He loves staying in hotels so much, that when we asked him what his favorite part of our vacation to Maine was he replied, "I got to stay in room number _, _, _, " and proceeded to list them all.

Most 3 year olds, when given a pencil/crayons and a piece of paper, draw pictures or scribble pretty colors...not Mikie...every paper from Sunday School, every place mat from a restaurant, and even coloring book pages have numbers written all over them. While at a MOMS club event, Mikie was suppose to make 5 fingerprint pumpkins sitting on a gate, which he did quite neatly...that is...until the moment I turned around to help Zachary make his project...next thing I know the pumpkins were accompanied by the digits 5-15...and there would have been more if I hadn't stopped him.

His love of numbers is both a blessing and a curse. We often use his addiction as a reward. For example, when he is well behaved in a store then he gets to choose the number of check-out lane we go to. It helps him have self control and be on his best behavior, but he always seems to choose the one with the longest line. Then there are the gas pumps...we've gotten more than one strange look from people in the car ahead of us while waiting for them to fill their tank at the chosen pump number. They have no idea why we just don't go to one of the other available pumps....it's simple really....a tantrum would ensue. There was a particular incident that is worth noting: After discovering our fuel gage was near empty and pulling into the closest gas station, Mikie requested pump number 8 and of course that was the only one with a vehicle at it and not just any vehicle...a vehicle with handicapped plates....so what did we do? We waited! We waited for about 10 minutes while a man in a wheelchair pumped his gas, got back in his van using his lift, and then took another 5 minutes to eat and drink before finally pulling away. I can only imagine the words he was mumbling under his breath at the psychos in the mini-van behind him.

What does a mom usually pull out of her diaper bag to entertain kids in a waiting room? Books, crayons, toys, snacks....well...if I want a guaranteed 20 minutes or more of uninterrupted conversation with someone all I have to do is pull out Mikie's pretty pink calculator. He loves to add and subtract numbers; but his favorite thing is to just add 1 over and over again to see how high he can get the number to go before I say it's time to leave.

On our trip to Maine, I pulled out an addition workbook and expected him to ask me how to do it. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when he started writing down answers and teaching himself how to add past 10. He is also very creative at showing higher double digit numerals...for example: He'll hold up 4 fingers on his left hand and 3 on his right and tell me it is the number 43.

He truly does have an amazing gift that I was able to capture in two videos. The one below is a short video of him completing a math packet that I used in my kindergarten class in Hawaii. The other video I had trouble uploading so you'll have to go to this link and view it on dropshots. It is about 7 minutes long but it certainly does capture his amazing talent and you'll get to see how he adds with his fingers. Mikie's Amazing Addition (click here)


We just might have a future Mathematician on our hands.

Belevadeer Farm

Since we returned from Maine about a week early, we were able to make it to the local pumpkin farm the day after Halloween. It was a perfect time to go, because there was hardly anyone there. It was a little on the warm side, but nice and sunny. The only down side to going so late in the season is that the corn maze was trampled so much that it didn't really feel like a maze anymore.

The boys loved this pipe slide and went down it at least two dozen times. We also fed the goats and saw the pig races. Mikie got very upset at the races because he wasn't chosen as a volunteer so we had to leave before the last race was over. He quickly got over it when he saw the zipline (see video below).

Here is Mikie on the zip line. As you can tell from the video below, it made me a little nervous! At first, I was frozen in fear and forgot to move the camera along, but after seeing that he could handle it just fine it became fun.

And of course, Zachary wanted to try it too! (video below)

They had a zip line with a seat for the babies. This amused Zachary for a little while, but I think he liked the one for older kids better. He just wants to do everything his big brother does.

We had a lot of fun playing in the hay in the barn. Zachary really enjoyed swinging (video below), but Mikie wouldn't even try it.

Instead of a sandbox, they had a pebble box which the boys absolutely loved. We spent a lot of time digging and scooping rocks since it was under a tarp out of the hot sun. Mikie also enjoyed 3 popsicles on this hot afternoon. The little peddle tractors only held their interest for one time around the track, but the larger ones for adults proved to be a big hit until Mikie decided he wanted to try it himself and then a melt down insued. We tried to distract him with the duck races using the water pumps, but that just led to more crying and it was time to leave! I guess there are just some days when he still really needs a nap!