Huston - June 2017

Huston, somewhere between my last blog to you and this one, you have grown up. I can see bits of teenager in you and I know if I blink too long you will be driving. Your expressions, the things you say, your interests...there is no "little boy" left in you.

You have always loved dancing but now that you have found music videos on YouTube you have started begging me for your own channel so that can post videos of you dancing and singing. If I had to guess what genre you'd be I'm a little sad to say you be a mix of pop, rap and boy band. You do have a love for classic rock but I don't think I'm ever going to get you to like country music.

Your favorite subjects at school are reading, math and PE. Something finally clicked and you love to read, sometimes to the point that you ignore everyone around you. I don't know where you got the math gene, but I'm sure glad you did because I sure never had it! Your teacher is Mrs. Reeves and I think you may have your first crush. The other day when I asked you to tell me I was the prettiest girl in the whole world, you told me quite seriously, "But you're not. Mrs. Reeves is." I am just so happy that you love your classroom and school and friends that I let it slide :) This has been a great school year for you - you have so many different friends and are doing great in school and have lots of different interests. This summer you are going to karate camp.

You are such a sweet and smart little boy that truly has a kind heart. Sometimes you are a little too rough and mean with your brother and are still learning to adjust to being a "big brother" but I can see you starting to teach him things and I hope you always know how much he looks up to you. I hope that as you are older and reading these blogs that you and your brother are best friends. If you aren't, I'm telling you now to pick up the phone and call him. And me...don't forget about your momma!

I love you so much and love being your mom. 

Bad Momma

Boys, life got in the way. I'm so sorry! I have been a slacker on your blogs and and I promise to try and do better. I can tell you that you are both so funny and cute and smart and crazy and cuddly and amazing! I love you both so much with all of my heart and am so thankful every day that I get to be your momma.

Nolan - December 2015

Nolan,

You did it! You are potty trained! Just before your 3rd birthday. One day you just told me as I was getting you dressed. "I no need diaper, I wear underwear." And that was it. I am beyond relieved and you are still so proud every time you go and announce it to the world. You also can pretty much dress yourself now which kind of happened over night. Some mornings your brother will help you while I am getting ready and you are so happy "Momom, brother help me!"

Some of the cutest things come out of your mouth. One of my favorites right now is when you mess up, you say "Silly me." If you don't feel well instead of saying that, you say "I not feeling better." You are a little copy cat to your brother and anything that he does you say "I did xxxx too!" And first has become very important to you. "I did it first, I got there first, etc." And Bumblebee. Anytime you see a yellow car you scream loudly "Mommy I see BUMBLEBEE!" Another favorite is every time you wear this little Adidas athletic set you call the jacket your "running jacket". It's never just a jacket.

You are still at Oak Tree and you moved to up to the three year old room. You tell me all of the time "I in Ms. Sandy's room!" And "I friends with Talen, Nathan and ummm, I have bunch of friends." 

One thing I cannot figure out about you is how to get you to sleep. You are a night owl. Even though I put you to bed around 8:00 you will lay in there for hours and not fall asleep. You are sometimes up at midnight. When you finally do get tired you will come in my room and crawl in bed with me and pass out. Good news is that you don't seem tired the next day but man do I wish you'd fall asleep in your own bed. It's hard for me to sleep with your little knees and elbows beating me up.

As fearless as you are, I knew that it would happen but we had our first major injury. We've been to urgent care a lot for ear infections, viruses and the time you stabbed a drum stick in the roof of your mouth. But this one was a scary one. I was in the shower and Huston came in bawling because he "broke you". He was giving you a piggy back ride and you both fell into the entertainment center and you cut your head open just above your eye. I kept my cool and calmed everyone down, dried off and got dressed and took you to urgent care, luckily they were open for about 20 more minutes. You got 6 stitches. Once we got home I lost it becuase it sure is hard on mommy to see you hurt. You called it your "caterpiller". I don't think it will leave a major scar but you will get to check out that whole "chicks dig scars" theory.

You are my crazy, sweet, cuddly little man and I just love you so much. You are a complete handful but no matter what you throw at me, you can always make me smile.

Huston - December 2015

Huston,

We have big news. Since my last blog you have finally lost a tooth! Two actually. To you this was far more exciting than Christmas, birthdays or learning to ride a bike. You also learned to tie your shoes and the way you are reading and doing addition just blows my mind. I see flashes of a teenager and less of my baby boy every day. Every year I think that this is my favorite age and even though I miss my squishy baby, boy do I love this age even more. Seeing how smart and caring you are becoming makes me so proud of you.



The Pokemon craze has hit. You are totally obsessed with cards and can tell me all about each one. You go to the YMCA after school program now and have found other friends who like to trade and it amazes me what all that has taught you. You do your research to know which ones are the "good" ones, you have learned to compromise and when to say no (and tell me the whole story every day on how you got each one) and you've learned the value of saving up your money so you can buy more. One morning you woke me up telling me you vacuumed the living room, made Nolan breakfast and offered a back rub...all as "chores" because you needed money to buy a pack :)

We did the Westwood Running Club this Fall and it was so much fun to spend that time with you. I got to know a lot of your friends and the other parents and it really made me feel a part of your school. I love being your homeroom mom but it was fun to meet people from the other classes as well. You were very proud of your toe tags that you earned each week and we ended with a color run which you thought was the coolest thing EVER.

You have added some pretty big words to your vocabulary and have picked up some funny expressions. It's alway fun to hear you use them. Some of my favorites are "holy smokes", "seriously", "actually", "appropriate" and for some reason you love the word "jalepeno" even though you would never actually eat one. Weekends are "home days" which I think is absolultely adorable. You also like to call me M-O-M (spelled out) and will occasionally slip in "old lady" or "Lisa".

One thing I have to brag on you for is how much of a helper you are becoming. You clean up without fighting me at all, you are working on your patience with your brother and you are becoming more thoughtful of others. During the mornings when I'm getting ready you will help your little brother get dressed. This is a huge help to me and it makes his day and he always shouts "Momom, brother help me!" He adores you so much.

I guess I should have known with your love of dancing that the music would follow. And although you love some classic stuff, you do not like country at all. But you LOVE pop music. Specifically Katy Perry. I don't know what to do with this. Nothing like that is in my library so we just YouTube it and play it for you.

You are starting to figure out fantasy/make believe and real life and have lots of questions. You are also playing with "what if" and making up stories. I can usually tell when you've added something to a story by the look on your face but we've had to start talking about what a lie is and how it's wrong. Figure starting early can't hurt. One thing that concerns me is that you are very concerned about what your friends think. So much to the point that your teacher has even brought it up. I hope you always know that your thoughts, ideas and feelings are just as important as everyone elses and that you are always yourself and not who you think people want you to be. You are such a sweet, fun, smart and caring boy and I hope you don't ever doubt that. I love you so much. Just the way you are.

Trick or Treat 2015

Mummy and Son Dance (with Gavin, Conner & Kaden)

Wild Thing Day at school

Nolan's party

Navy Seal & Bumblebee

Nolan - August 2015

Nolan,

I used to describe you as my sweet boy. Now you are my sweet, goofy boy. You have found your silly side and you love to pretend that you fall down, you have a crazy fake laugh and your newest favorite phrase is "nanny nanny boo boo". It's super cute because you don't quite do it to the same beat that it's typically done. But to be fair, you are still my sweet boy. You love to cuddle and I probably get an average of 3 hugs and 2 kisses per hour. You have finally broken your brother down and he will cuddle and hug on you some too. But no kisses. That's too much. You adore your big brother and copy his every move. Now that you are older you are growing on him two and I love watching you two play together. Your giggles and wrestling and chasing and hilarious conversations are one of the best parts of my day.

You are soooooo close to being ready for potty training. You do a great job at school but it's hard to get you to go at home. You also had a melt down the one time I tried to take your diaper off and you cried diaper for about 10 minutes straight. And, along with potty training comes with nudity. You love running around naked and if anyone, including you, has any article of clothing missing you say "YOU NAKED!!!!"

This summer you loved playing in the pool, having brother at daycare with you and being outside. But you LOVED the fireworks on 4th of July. This is the first year you really really noticed them and you were amazed. You just kept yelling "FIWERWORKS POW POW POW!"

You still have a great appetite and will eat pretty much anything. You also eat nonstop. Even at night. When we get up in the morning I can almost consistently find some wrapper or crumbs from something you got up and ate in the middle of the night. 

You know all of your colors, most of your shapes and are starting to be interested in counting. You typically start at 6 and it goes something like, "6, 7, 9, 3". You went from barely talking at all to knowing what seems like hundreds of words and talking nonstop. It's great that you can communicate now, but I think silence is a thing of the past.

One thing everyone notices about you is your laugh. You have the deepest, cutest belly laugh. You laugh with every bit of your body and you do it often. You also still have a sweet little bitty voice. Don't get me wrong, you can scream. But your natural voice is so soft and sweet.

Nolan, it's crazy to believe that you are almost three years old. You will always be my baby but there is very little baby left in you. I love you so much and cannot ever tell you that enough. You are sweet, funny and crazy and ornery. The perfect little bundle of joy.

Huston - August 2015

Huston,

We had a great summer with lots of fun in the sun. You spent the summer break with Nolan at Oak Tree and made lots of new friends. Nolan loved having you with him all day, he worships his big brother. I love watching you two play and giggle together and hope that you are always best friends. 

In the evenings when you get home you spend a few hours outside playing with the neighborhood kids. We took off your training wheels on your bike and the pride on your face made me realize why this is such a milestone for parents.

When you aren't outside you are building legos. You are really good at following the instructions and pay a lot of attention to the small details. But I also like to see the things that you build without instructions, you are really creative! You also like to play Minecraft and Legos on your Xbox but thankfully so far you are not obsessed with it.

Your vocabulary gets bigger every day, but you still have a few quirky little things that you say that I just love. In the morning when you get up you say "Mom, it's good morning, time to get up." You never just say "morning" you always add "good morning". You fit the word actually in as much as possible. Things are "desploding" instead of exploding. But I think the best one happened at school. I went to pick you up and three different teachers were waiting on me and I thought, oh man what did he do? They were all wanting to tell me the same story. Apparently another kid was poking you during circle time and instead of a simple, "Please stop." you raise your and and tell the teacher "He's limiting my learning can you ask him to stop?" What a ham. You have also already learned to start manipulating your brother. You'll ask him to throw away your trash and if I tell you to stop you'll say "Mom, I'm helping him learn." You also tell me you need "alone time" when you want your brother to leave you alone.

The one thing that really gets you upset lately, is that you have not lost a tooth. You are convinced you are the only kid left to lose one and we check all of the time to be sure that they aren't loose.

So, with summer ending....that means it was your BIRTHDAY! I can't get my head around that you are SIX years old. I know you'll be sixteen before I know it so I'm just trying to get as many cuddles as I can now before you won't let me anymore. You had a great birthday party with lots of friends and Nama came in just for your party. You also had a surprise guest...Captain America! You've been working out make believe and real and have lots of questions around it. You decided that wasn't the real Captain America, but he was hired by Captain America to be there.

You are about 3 days into the First Grade and have already determined that you like your teacher, you have about 2 friends in class but "know lots in other rooms" and come home singing silly songs and telling me random facts. You are also back at karate camp after school and ask me every day if it's your day for a lesson.

It hit me this year that I've been a mom for six years now! I always knew I wanted to be a mom more than anything in the world...and you will always be the one who made that come true for me. I love you so much baby boy and my heart flips a little at least once a day over how proud I am of you or how sweet you are. We do have our moments where you are learning and testing your boundaries, but for as many of those moments you have double or triple of sweet, giggling and cuddling.