Literally so literal

Hunter is smart. He reminds me of stories I heard about his Uncle Jason. Pop told Hunter to not throw his pajamas in a wad on the floor when he was getting dressed for school a few weeks ago...
Well, he did what Pop asked

Singin' like a birdie

Well, this year I signed Hunter up for the Alleluia choir at church.  You can begin choir once you are in Kindergarten and I will say, though he didn't want to do it at the beginning, by the end of the year he would jump out of the car and not look back.  It didn't hurt that most of his buddies at church were doing it with him, you got a jolly rancher at the end of practice and you got to walk to church dinner with a drum. They sang during church about 5 times during the year, but ended the year by doing a performance in Fellowship Hall at Wednesday Night Dinner with some of their best work.

I haven't taken our real camera anywhere in MONTHS (too much to carry already) so everything has been on my phone, which sometimes takes decent photos, but most of the time doesn't. However, it is still a memory I don't want to forget. Here is Hunter and the group watching the older kiddos sing.

The Alleluia (Kindergarten and 1st) choir, Gloria Choir (2nd-4th) and Jubilate choir (5th and 6th) all together. Hunter right smack dap in the middle on the front row. You would think as much as he does to get attention that he would savor this moment, however, I am not sure he did...BUT he did sing all the words and did a great job. He was the same way in church. I am not sure he loved being in front of the whole congregation but he did exactly as he was asked and sang great.

Sign language to "Jesus is my Shepherd"

Hunter and one of his big buddies, Minor, proud of their certificates (which I have no idea where that is now that I think about it!)

And I just thought these were cute/funny
Silly face (does this remind you or sorority pictures? Hilarious!!!!

And smiley faces

Bella vs. Opossum

Tweety, tomato, tomahhhto and teeth

My sweet Drakey is a very big boy with a very big heart.  We sometimes call him "the gentle giant."  Last Saturday he was at a birthday party and actually WON an animal out of the claw machine (never in my life have I ever won anything out of those machines!!!). But he won a stuffed owl that he is so proud of and has become super attached to.  He named him Tweety. I am talking he sleeps with him every night...

And when he is not sleeping with him, he took a nest I had downstairs I was using for and Easter decoration, dumped the contents out, took it up to his room and Tweety sleeps in his nest when Drake is away. Precious. I don't want my decorative nest back anymore.

After all this Hunter said to me:
"Mommy, Drake is kind of weird"
I said, "Well I don't think so Hunter."
He said "Ehh, Tomato, Tomahhto"
WHAT! Where did he learn that??? Too funny that little guy is.

Teeth: during Spring Break both boys lost their second tooth. Drake was first while we were at the lake. It was so loose that I thought he was going to swallow it while he was sleeping or eating. So when we were brushing his teeth I told him we needed to pull it. He burst into tears for several reasons:
1. It was bleeding because it was so loose
2. He didn't know if the tooth fairy would know where to find him
3. kyle wasn't there and he didn't want to lose it without him
But literally I barely pulled and out it came. I reassured him that the tooth fairy would know where he was so we decided to Facetime with Daddy and show him that he lost another tooth. As we were calling, Drake ran into the kitchen, grabbed a tissue to wipe his eyes and told me that he didn't want his daddy to know he was crying. Uh! My heart just melts some times! But that is why he looks like he was crying.

Now Hunter, once we got back from the lake he was determined to lose his second tooth too! So he wiggled it and wiggled and was determined to pull his own tooth. Kyle was able to get it loose enough that he was able to pull it out all by himself! And boy was he proud!

The tooth fairy even left a little fairy dust. The boys were happy a "boy" fairy came this time and left "boy" fairy dust.

Now back to Spring Break. The 3 little boys and I went to the lake for a few nights to see Grammie and Pop. Kyle sadly could not go with us since he took time off to go to Disney World (which I STILL need to do a post on that!) But we had a great relaxing time. The weather was cool and overcast just like in Nashville but they had a great time playing TONS of baseball when it wasn't too cold.

Pop and Drake built their cannon that they talked about building in Disney World (in lieu of buying a toy gun outside of Pirates of the Carribean) It was so cool!

And this might be the coolest picture I have ever accidentally taken! Drake's face is hilarious, and I guess I took the picture right when the ping pong ball was shooting out which makes it look like smoke.

And we even got to be with Pop a little on his brithday. The boys made him a cork board for his shop to pin pictures of all the things he makes with his grandchildren (which is a lot and often!)

And sweet little Ty happy as a clam sitting with Pop.

Posts, posts, posts!!

Well, between our work schedules, the boys schedules and having three children it doesn leave much time for posting anything, but a few new posts below (just for my record of our life really) 

PLUS, we JUST got back from Disney World!!!!

 We have tons of pictures from our trip so I wanted to make sure I got these out before posting anything on that.  But even before that, I have to brag on my husband for a minute...

 

Kyle has officially started his own commercial construction company!!!!! 

STEELHEAD BUILDING GROUP, LLC

He is very grateful for the time he had at his old job, but there was not much more he could do there and with the tremendous relationships he has created on his own, it was time for him to do his own thing.  He has a wonderful partner and they began in November.  They are both very hard workers and I have no doubt they will be hugely successful. 

While we are getting through these first few months (and maybe year), Kyle has the confidence, aggressivness but also kindness, work ethic, relationships, heart and honestly in all his does, grounded in his relationship with Christ that I know he has made the best decision for him and our family and we are so proud of him!

February

I just realized I never did a Christmas post...well, there are too many pictures from that anyway.   A new year, new posts right!  February flew by in our house.  I cannot seem to find all our pictures and just realized I never put up anything about sweet Ty in January, so here goes. 

8 months in January!!!!  He FINALLY slept through the night!  It is definitely not consistent but I know he can do it atleast.  He is trying to crawl and pull up on just about everything.  He still LOVES his bath, his Sophie giraffe (more teeth coming in for sure!)  and is still the happiest baby.  I just cannot say enough about how sweet and happy he is.  Dont get me wrong, juggling three is not easy, but he has made it about as easy as this transition could have been (aside from not sleeping very much) 

He loves to eat.  And he will eat ANYTHING!  He grabs at anything on the table or my plate so you have to watch out.  But he of course loves any baby food but will pick up food with his little pinchers and is good at it too!  Aside from baby food he loves turkey, chicken, pizza, spaghetti, cheese (any cheese, he has even tried and liked Feta and Blue Cheese), cottage cheese, yogurt, any beans, and really I could go on.  There is nothing he has tried that he hasn't loved!  He says, Mama, Dada, Baba and laughs when yo usay bye-bye and wave your hand.  This sweet little guy is just a little light in all our lives!

I love his little toofies (as we call his teeth)

Yes, poor guy ends up just staying in his jammies most days.  I just run out of time in the mornings usually before I have to get the boys to school and get to work, plus it has been so cold that these are warmest with a coat anyway. 

Here is trying to crawl...quite frankly I do not want him to and I know my life will get tremendously harder and the chance of him choking on something goes up dramatically, but he really really wants to get going! 

The boys and I went over to a friends house to play and the little girl there was so sweet and kept bringing Ty some of her toys to play with...

plus I think she enjoyed him because he is like a live babydoll:)

The look on his face is priceless, plus there is a lot of pink here which I am sure he has never seen before until now!

Valentines Day!

The boys helped me make a cake and we fixed pork tenderloin, twice baked potatoes, salad and dessert as a family.  We celebrated all together!

Both boys celebrated 100 days of school in February. 

Sadly I do not have a picture of Hunter's, though he had to bring in 100 pennies, 100 of a snack, 100 of anything else he wanted and it was a very very big deal at school.  I know his teachers are taking tons of pictures which we will get in a book at the end of the year so I am not too worried.  He did make a book at school and one of the questions in there was:

"What is something your mother says 100 times a day"

I was hoping he would say "I love you"

But no, apparently I say "Brush your teeth" 100 times a day! 

{maybe if he would do it the first time I asked I wouldn't have to say it so much}

The kindergarteners also paired up with a second grader and had to write the numbers 1-100, and count to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s.  It is quite impressive I must say. He is learning so much that most days I feel like he was just a baby and is too young to know the things he does.  But I suppose that is a part of life!

Drake had a Science Fair at school.  It was the CUTEST thing and I was so impressed with these pre-schoolers!  Drake's experiment was about air.

A real scientist came and had them demonstrate their experiement and...

Drakey got a gold star!  Sadly his partner, Frances, got sick and was not able to be there with him, but Drake manned his station just fine. 

In his experiment he stuck a paper towel up into a plastic cup and showed that when you turn the cup upside down into a bowl of water and bring it back out, the paper towel stays dry!  Way to go Air!

It really was neat as they had to write out the steps and they wrote down what their guess would be and then what actually happened. 

There were about 16 stations set up in the room with 2 children per experiment.  It was fun walking around and looking at everyone's.  Ty was having fun at the "gravity" station.

Ty got to ride in the grocery cart with his big brother for the first time in February.  He was LOVING it!

The big boys entertain us with some dress ups every now and then.  We had some friends over for dinner a few weeks ago and they kept parading downstairs in different outfits. 

It was kind of like "dinner and a show!"  These pictures are not from that night, just a random night about 2 weeks ago.  They get so tickled

Tyty eating some turkey, cheese and peas

And like I said, he looooves his bath and looks forward to it every single night!

Both boys played basketball this season so I need to put up some pictures of that too.  We dont slow down in this house!!!

January

Well things have been super busy around here in 2013!  Hunter lost his first tooth on January 8th.  

Ms. Roxie in the school office pulled his first tooth, and she is the same lady who pulled several of my teeth when I was in elementary school.  She is one of the sweetest ladies on earth and I love that she is still there and Hunter and I can share some of the same memories.

Hunter had bootcamp during P.E. in the fall and so we now use some of those same exercises as punishment these days.  And believe me, we have to use them a lot!!!  Here they are doing wall sits. {**I highly recommend this type of punishment for boys.  Most of the time they get into trouble because they have so much energy they need to expend that is gets used in the wrong way.  So with this, they get a consequence AND burn energy:} These boys are a HANDFULL, and that might be putting it mildly.

We got one little snow this winter.  Not enough to stick all day, but enough to coat the ground for the morning.  Bella never knows what to do with it.  She tries to play with it, eat it, sniff it...she is trying to figure out what in the world to do with it! 

The boys love playing in our woods behind our house.  And I think it is great for the two of them when they go back there.  But what never dawned on me was to make sure they didnt open our neighbors gate and let their DOGS OUT!!!!!   Why on earth would Drake do that?  It is things like that, that you dont think you have to tell them NOT to do.    He casually mentioned it while we were eating dinner that night.  Needless to say we called our neighbors to make sure they had their dogs and to let them know it wasn't a robber...just our 5 year old.  Luckily our neighbors are very nice.

SO Drakey wrote them this note.  

**Another good consequence for my boys.  Writing it out means taking time out to apologize and really think about what they did was wrong (and hopefully never do it again). 

 Plus they can work on handwriting:!**  Believe me, we have tried every punishment in the book so if you are ever in need of any ideas, we have plenty as we have to use them very FREQUENTLY with these two.