Easter

Easter was good this year. The current trend of better behavior from the boys is holding. Praise the Lord! Here are some quick pictures of the boys having a little Easter fun.

Blurry but a fun shot of Eli going all out with his loot!

Decorating Easter cookies. Or at least they were supposed to be Easter cookies. I goofed up the dough and they would not roll out. So, they are decorating regular sugar cookies with icing. Not that they noticed or cared. Sucking the frosting from the tube was way more fun anyway.

Eli, hollering and watching the boys dye eggs.

We dyed real eggs for the first time this year. The boys did ok with it. Aside from a few cracked eggs and red fingers, it was fun.

Some help from Daddy.

I wish I had time to reflect on how things have changed over the past year. But, one boy has refused to take a nap and has succeeded in waking the boy who was napping...so, nap time is over along with my time to post. I guess some things have not changed.

Recap

I haven't posted many pictures of the boys over the last several weeks. Falling down on my job! I thought about typing a narrative and describing all we have done over the past month but that would probably be really boring. Instead, here are some pictures of some things we have been doing. It's certainly not everything but I must have thought these times were important because I felt the need to pull out my phone and take some pictures. I had been boycotting my phone camera but it's all I had at the moment! After I loaded all these pictures, I realized they are in reverse chronological order.

Playing at home Monday morning. I'm probably one of the few people who love Mondays!

For a bike ride on Saturday afternoon. Nathan can pedal now but is not really interested in his bike yet. He loves sticks though!
Playing in the backyard on Saturday afternoon.

We have a walker now for sure!

Love this face!

One night recently we had some hail.

Nathan is still getting up very early. His usual time is 6-6:30. If I don't hear him get up and intercept him, he heads straight for the pantry and helps himself. One morning I was in the shower when he got up. By the time I got in there, this is what I found. Poptarts and Cheetos for breakfast. I'm sure his teacher loved me that day! We do have a child-proof doorknob cover but as you can see, it's not Nathan proof.

Luke had Bible Day at school and had to dress up as a Bible character. He chose Joseph. Here he is with Ms. Melanie. All Luke's teachers are great and he's had the best year at school. He's only cried once or twice when I dropped him off, compared to everyday at his previous school. The next day he also had to dress up but this time he chose to be a king. Too bad I did not get a picture!

I found this one night after the boys had gone to bed. I just thought it was so funny and wished I could have seen it in action.

Getting brave!

On a Sunday drive in late March. Too funny!

Ice cream in the backyard. Eli must have been napping.

Recently I took Nathan in to get his hearing checked. He was having trouble hearing and it turns out he has fluid in (on?) his ears. It seems to have gotten better lately. On the way home we stopped at Braums and had lunch together.

Luke has mastered the rope climb, something he could not do alone last year.

More playing outside.

Back around mid-March. Eli's first time to sit in a forward facing car seat.

So, those are all the pictures I have to post. It's been a busy month with work, school, some traveling and life in general. My semester is winding down and will be complete May 7, aside from a mountain of grading I'll have to do. Summer school begins June 7 so I'll have some time to prepare while the boys will still be in school. From now on my contract will be 12 months so I'll work each summer, 2 classes. I'm also teaching an online course for UNT, good to get a little extra money! The boys will spend the summer in school at FUMC Plano. HGBC does not offer summer care. But, the good news is summer classes are just as flexible as fall and spring so I'll have plenty of time to spend with the boys. I guess the big project for the summer will be potty training Nathan. We've sort of been working on it but will have to get it mastered before September. As I mentioned in the pictures, Eli is walking more than he's crawling now. It's so fun to watch but of course a little sad. It is a great sight to see them chasing each other around the house, especially at pajama time. Eli's down to one bottle, only at night. He is probably ready to drop that too. He's been drinking less and less of it each night. I guess he's getting what he needs at mealtime now. Big sigh, it will be good to get the counter space back I guess. TX Wesleyan is closed TH and F for Easter so it will be good to have a weekend with the boys, without having to work Saturday. We seem to be entering an easier period with the boys. It was so hard for a while, with Eli being so little, Luke being 3 and Nathan 2. Not that the boys are that difficult independently but they tend to feed off each other and sometimes create the perfect storm. Lately though, things seem easier. Of course it could be I have developed an immunity along with selective hearing. It's probably a lot of things in combination, I'm sure! And, I probably just jinxed everything so never mind.

Ten Trivial Things

So, here are 10 things about me the boys would never know, unless I just told them.

10. Went to 8 different schools, K-12.

9. Do everything left handed, except play golf but putt left handed. Not that I play golf very much but it's the only thing I can do right handed.

8. Growing up, and even into college, wanted to be an orthodontist.

7. Knocked out four teeth during the summer before 1st grade. Bike wreck. Did get $20 from the toothfairy and that was a lot to a 6 year old in 1981.

6. Favorite author is Anne Bronte.

5. Ran cross country and track growing up. Loved cross country and hated track. Don't know why I kept running track. Every year when I would run around that track I would think, why did I do this again?

4. Won a jump rope contest in 6th grade. Jump Rope for Heart, ironically the prize was a candy bar and a coke.

3. Always wanted to live in Montana.

2. Was very sad to part with my 5 speed after baby number 2.

1. Always knew I would have little boys and not girls. Was so surprised when the first doctor told us Luke was a girl. Not surprised when she turned out to be a he.

Mommy, at one year.

Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow is my brother's 38th birthday. Here he is in 2001 with my Dad. We were in Destin and were headed out to eat dinner. My brother is such a quiet and privately sad part of my life. But, regardless of all the sadness and regret, I want my boys to know who their Uncle Chuck was and is. There are a million things I could write but I'll save those for the posts in my head.

Happy Birthday big brother!