CMB

Abric was late for school today, and I wrote "crazy morning breakdowns" under the reason in the excuse card that I had to fill out when I dropped him off this morning. Is that really a valid excuse? It might not be, but today was one of those mornings that I know I will laugh about in future years. So, for now, I'll let the school figure out where to file that excuse. And I will go about my day, continuing to make it better and better, bar any breakdowns from a certain two year old who is on the cusp of potty training.

Photo courtesy of said two-year old.

Moments

This morning was one of those

~baby is up all night teething
~child number four runs into our room, announcing he has to barf
~poop smeared all over the boys bathroom (what?!?!)

kind of morning.

It is times like these that I have to remind myself that Motherhood comes in moments. This, all of this, is just a moment. It will pass and there will definitely be good moments ahead.

Daddy comes home...

With Andy's job change to Chase, we are lucky enough to have him work from home occasionally.  He has a little office (i.e. table and chair) set up in our unfinished basement.  The boys are always willing to help him seal envelopes!

Crab Pickin'

We bought a bunch of crabs to eat for the last night of the family reunion…. tradition.  Abric decided to try them for the first time.  He didn't like eating them, but he sure loved banging the crap out of their legs with the tiny wooden mallet.

Wild!

Abric sporting some red hair!  Amy brought some temporary red and blue hair dye for all the little cousins to try out.

Mornings

Morning play time. Isla always sleeps the last half of the night with us. The little boys love to come up and play with her when she wakes up.

Spider webs

When Abric says, "Mom! Come look at my spiderweb, I should probably go right away. Guess I'll be untying knots out of the blinds all afternoon.

Cold Season

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"Abric begged me at 11:00AM to carry him to bed. You know a 3 year old is sick when they ask for a nap! Zane is home sick today. Looks like the cold and flu season has officially hit our household. And thank goodness it is just colds and not the flu!"

Wiped Out

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"Abric sleeping through church. Yesterday was a big day."

Yesterday was such a long day.   We woke up at 5AM (EST) to catch our flight at 7AM.  Thanks to gaining two hours, we all arrived in SLC at 10:30AM (MST).  We grabbed some lunch, went home to Mom and Dad's house.  We showered quick and changed clothes for the funeral.  The funeral was at 3PM.  We went to the church house about 5:30 PM for a dinner that the ward had prepared.  We visited with our cousins and then came back to Mom and Dad's.  Connor and Logan came over and the boys played and played while we visited with Jens, Tiffany, Zach and Stacie.  The boys got into their jammies and were in bed by 8PM.  Technically we had all be up since 3AM (MST).
This is why Abric slept through most of church today.  

Nutella!

I went upstairs to take a quick shower this morning and this is what I had found when I came back down.  Abric had helped himself to a snack.

Our one of a kind Abric

Sporting for church:

• one faux-hawk
• one nice-looking bruise
• one Ed Grimley pose

Waiting for Mommy

I went out for a run this afternoon because the weather was GLORIOUS! Andy was home for lunch, so he stayed with the boys. Guess who waited for me to come home and cried himself to sleep?

Like Father, Like Son

Andy had to do something quick on his lap top on his way to work, so he just pulled up a chair and went away.

Abric had to go grab his laptop so that he could be just like Dad.

Hoping?

Just before Abric broke his collarbone, he had been doing really well on the potty. So well, in fact, that I had taken him to pick out his own package of big boy underwear. I made sure to get the 2T-3T, but these knickers are ginormous!
Seriously? If I hadn't have rolled them, they would be useless. They are the same brand I had bought before for Ewan, but these seem like twice the size.

They don't even do justice to the term tightie whities.

Anyway, I digress.

Abric had been doing really well at going to the potty, until the collar bone incident. Now, I can't lift him onto the potty, unless I hold him by his hips, which is really awkward. It hurts him to climb onto the potty.

Until today.

I was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I hadn't seen Abric for a while, so I was beginning to wonder where he had wandered.

Then I heard, "Owie. Owie. Owie." coming from the bathroom.

I opened the door to find Abric, pant-and-diaper-less, sitting on top of the potty to go pee.

I was speechless,

so of course I had to run and text Andy immediately.

Then I praised Abric and gave him a lollipop for his initiative, despite the pain.

He is such a big boy!

I'm not planning on him being potty-trained right away,

but here's to hoping!

One little monkey jumping on the bed. . .

. . . he fell off and broke his collarbone.
I was lying in bed this morning, watching the Today Show. Abric came upstairs to snuggle with me. Of course, snuggling for a 2-year old means 10% snuggling and 90% jumping. He took one awkward bounce and went right over the edge.

I flew out of the bed and just watched him. If anyone knows Abric, he is tough. He usually gets right back up and runs around. This time, he just lay there and whimpered. I wanted him to move on his own, because I didn't know if he had hurt his neck or not. He finally rolled over a little, then I carefully held him against me while I comforted him. I laid him back on our bed. He wouldn't move himself for over an hour. He just whimpered and said, "Owie." He wouldn't point to what hurt. I kept going over his head, shoulder, collar bone, arms, back, etc. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I figured he would be screaming if he had broken a bone, but he was just lying there, favoring his right side.

To make a long story short, I called the doctor, and they referred me to an orthopedic urgent care.

They took an X-ray and there it was: a broken clavicle.
He has to wear this backpack brace for the next 4 weeks. (Over Christmas…. yay! Not!)

We have only been home for an hour and he has already taken it off twice. This is going to be fun.
I was just saying the other day that we had never had a broken bone yet, and how crazy that was with having 4 boys. I should have knocked on a bigger piece of wood. I would have thought it would have happened to one of the older boys, not my two-year old! One thing I did learn, though, is that this kid must have a super high pain threshold!

Hit me in the head with a hammer

Sure, he's cute, all right.

But something has set his biorhythmic clock off.

He naps during the day, he goes to bed at night, but he is up at night.

He is up for the day around 5 every morning~screaming and screaming.

(He used to sleep until 7.)

Is he having nightmares?

Does he have to pee?

Is he just being ornery?

Is he just being 2?

Please let this pass soon!

*****UPDATE**********

We found the culprit! Hooray!

He wasn't eating enough of his dinner at night. (You know how toddlers do the bird thing).

We have started making him a pb&nutella sandwich and milk before he goes to bed. He is back to sleeping in until 7 now.

Hooray!!!

Nap time

Have you ever had a toddler who learned how to open the door and come out of his room during nap time?

Have you ever had to lock the door so said toddler would stay in his room and take his much-needed nap?

Have you ever wondered what he does in the room before he falls asleep?
He gets into his big brother's underwear drawer and puts his 'sleeping cap' on.

Field Trip

We had a field trip for Ewan's preschool co-op: a group of 6 moms with 4-year olds who rotate teaching each week. Ewan absolutely loves his 'school'. We went to a local farm that had a kiddie corn maze and other fun stuff for little kids. Better than that, it only cost $2 and grown-ups were free!

The kids really loved the 'sand box' made of feed corn and soy beans.
Abric rode that horse like The Man From Snowy River.

The kids really loved the sand box.

They played on the wooden tractor.

They ran on top of the hay stacks.

We saw Scottish Highland cows, among other animals.

But Abric liked the cows best.

It was all I could do to keep him from climbing the fence.

Super Soccer Saturday

Sometimes you have a day when the stars align, kismet happens, and the day turns out AWESOME! We began our post-birthday festivities with our second-to last week of soccer games.
Abric and Ewan ate Teddy Grahams while we watched Harrison play.

Don't even think about touching my crackers!

(This is the stink-eye he gave someone who tried.)

Harrison in action.

Right after Harrison's game ended, we picked up our stuff and moved about 3 fields across the park for Ewan's game. Andy has been his coach this season and they have had some great bonding moments. Ewan asks every day, "Do I have soccer today?" He is the little #17 with the great big, white shirt.

Today, of all beautiful days, Ewan scored his very first goal.

On the way home from soccer, we randomly decided to stop at Toys R' Us because Harrison and Zane both had $3 gift cards from the birthday club.

Toys R' Us had a FREE build your own Lego car. Score!

The boys picked out Tech Decks (those tiny skateboards) which are $3.29. Double Score!

Knoebels 2010

The annual Knoebels trip is always something that we look forward to! Ewan wanted to ride the 'big boy' roller coaster.
He didn't like it too much and was moaning/groaning around every corner. Personally, I think this roller coaster is jerkier than the big one.
Ewan's got the ticket! This was his first time where he could actually ride a ride.

His first ride with his cousin, Bryce.

Ewan and Morgan had a ball!

Watch out ball-pit, here come the 'C' cousins!!

Ewan ventured out from his comfort zone and rode a ride by himself.
One big happy family. We were talking that in a couple years, Harrison, Zane, Alexandra, and Isabel will probably want to go off on their own and ride the bigger kid rides by themselves. Why do they have to grow up so fast?
We told Harrison and Zane, meanwhile Michael and Sarah told Alexandra and Isabel, that we were going to take them to the R.C. We knew they all met the 42" requirement. We rode the Phoenix. Andy told Zane, "Tell me if you like it or hate it." The whole ride I heard Zane behind me yelling, "I hate it! I hate it!" We couldn't get him to go on the Twister, but we somehow managed to get Harrison on it. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't even keep my eyes open. The look on Harrison's face: priceless.
Ah…… don't we all remember that very first BIG roller coaster ride? Isn't it some sort of rite of passage into tweenhood?