Female Pattern Baldness ...

Hmmm, where to start? Well, the boys have been insanely active since about last Thursday. Seriously, it's like they were already cruising along in 5th gear at a pretty good clip, then all of a sudden they somehow discovered a turbo booster injector switch or something and revved it up even higher! They are into, on top of, and behind everything! We love them dearly, but seriously, we are trying to find a moment's peace somewhere during our day. To top things off, with the sun staying up later, it is impossible to get them to bed before 9:00. This is an entire hour later than usual! Unfortunately, the loss of sleep is not slowing them down at all. Don't get me wrong, I am so glad they are energetic and inquisitive -- that's far better than them being oblivious little couch potatoes. However, when you see me next, please don't laugh too hard at the thin patches of hair on each side of my head. Hopefully the barren spots will fill in nicely once I stop pulling my hair out in exhausted resignation.

PS - I do have some great pics to share of their non-stop adventures and mischieviousness, but haven't gotten them downloaded yet. Hoping to find the time soon = )

An Oops, A Great Weekend, and the 3 Year Check-Up from H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks ...

Ok, so when we were in McPherson a few weeks ago, Grandma and PaPa Huber sent home a birthday present for Riley to open on his special day. So, first thing we did when we got home and did our unpacking was hide the present so the little munchkins wouldn't find it. Well, we hid it so well, we forgot all about it! Thankfully, Corey remembered it the day after Riley's birthday and Riley got the pleasure of opening another gift. Both he and Gage LOVED it! It is actually quite funny because when Marilyn was telling Corey about the present she explained it as some kind of rocket thing. Well, lo and behold -- it is not just any ol' rocket thing -- it is THE rocket from Little Einsteins. Score! Actually, this beloved rocket caused a few tears to fall and a few new battle wounds as the boys both wanted to play with it and not share this treasure with the other. Little did Grandma Huber know how well she had chosen = )

The weekend was gorgeous and we enjoyed each spare moment outside that we could. Riley rode his new bike outside and is really getting good at it -- and fast! His bike is still his prized possession riding it to bed at night and to the kitchen in the morning for breakfast. He wants to take it everywhere we go. Ahhh, the joys of a boy and his bike = )

Gage attempting to blow bubbles -- it's harder than it looks!

Riley practicing his kickball power kick.

Gager, my basketball star.

Working on the soccer moves with dad.

Gage just being his cute little self!

Riley playing with a long piece of recently cut Pampas Grass. Pretty cool stuff!

We spent a lot of time outside taking care of yardwork and just general tomfoolery. Bubbles were a big theme. I'm not sure who had more fun with them, though ... the boys or daddy! Check out this photo for yourself = )

Monday I had the pleasure of staying home with my boys as daycare was closed. We had a pretty great day for the most part. We started out playing with umbrellas doing a "Rain Rain Go Away" dance to ensure we could enjoy a sunshine day at the park. It worked = )




We headed to the doctor for Riley's 3 year check-up in the morning. Once again, we waited for 45 minutes before we actually got to see the doc. That is an eternity to be inside when you are a 3 year old with a new bike at home just waiting to be ridden! Anyhow, I'll start with the statisitics: Riley is 40 inches tall (95th percentile) and weighs 34.8 pounds (60th) percentile. Everything went along pretty well until it was time for the doctor to check Mr. Riley out. When she attempted to listen to his heart and lungs with the stethoscope, saying he freaked out would be an understatement. He acted like a wild animal! Grunting, growling, kicking, hitting ... I was horrified! And embarrassed! I have never seen him act like that and was truely at a loss at what to do. As soon as the doc would back off, he would be fine. He just did not want her to touch him. We talked about it a lot at home later and he kept saying he was scared of getting a shot. I don't know. I've talked to several people about this and I think my mom described it best as he was acting on survival instinct trying to protect himself. But still, it was not appropriate and I will try to better prepare him next time as I never want him, nor anyone else, to go through that again! Look at this sweet boy ... ornery yes, but sweet just the same. This is the boy I want him to show the doctor next time!

Yippeee! Look who's 3 = )

Hooray! Riley turned 3! He woke up at 5:30 totally wound for sound. There was no doubt he was sooooo excited that his birthday had finally arrived. He really wanted to get into his birthday cake first thing. He kept saying, "I want to stick my finger in my cake!" Cute, but not gonna happen. So, he settled for the next best thing ... spreading leftover chocolate frosting on his toast = ) So that started the day out right. Next we got ready and headed to Gloria's. We took our poor little misshapen treats for him to share with his buddies.

(These are a bit of an embarrassment ... the cake is supposed to raise over the cones to look like ice cream. Apparantly, I over-filled them and my oven must not be level because as they overflowed, they each fell over to the same side. Thus giving them a melted ice cream look. Not really what I was going for, but the kids loved them just the same = )

Riley got to pick out his own special birthday supper. His choice was: corn on the cob, mac-n-cheese, and chicken. Good choices, but pretty time-consuming for a weekday meal. Thank goodness for KFC!

Gage approved of big brother's choice. You can't tell from this picture, but that is his 2nd piece of chicken on his plate. This boy loves drumsticks = )

Ok, so Riley wanted a Racecar cake for his birthday. Well, you know me, I had to try and do it myself. Let's just say that my cake decorating skills definitely have some room for improvement. But, Riley loved it nonetheless. I guess that's the important part!

Here's Riley wearing his camo bike helmet and shooting his new cork pop-gun shotgun. He loved this gun. I use "loved" in the past tense because not only was this used as a shotgun, but also as a hockey stick. Unfortunately, this $2.99 gun didn't survive it's alter ego as the hockey stick. A few too many smacks on a rubber ball and the stock went flying as the barrel remained in his hands.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!



This was the favorite present of the night -- his Spiderman bicycle! He rode it in circles in the kitchen until we were dizzy from watching him. He even became proficient enough to ride it around the house on the carpet. This won't last for long, but we couldn't deny him riding his bike on his birthday. And since Mother Nature didn't play nice, this was the next best thing! When he got up this morning he even rode the bike from his bedroom to the kitchen for breakfast = )




Here are the boys looking at the new dinosaur book. This was a big hit and has already been "read" at least 20 times!

This is one of the great puzzles that Gloria and the daycare family gave to Riley. This particular one with several different dog breeds is Gage's favorite. He has claimed it as his own! It was so cute listening to him point to all the dogs and say, "Hi doggie! You say rrrrrrruff rrrufff!" He even made varying degrees of "ruff" sounds for the different dogs. Too cute = )

A pic of the birthday boy with his momma. What a great day!!!

Chocolate Raindrops

Chocolate Rain Drops? What? My thoughts exactly. This morning while making breakfast for the boys, Riley asked me if he could have some chocolate raindrops with his eggs and sausage. I was thoroughly confused. I told him he could have a couple of M&M's, but that wasn't good enough. He specifically said, "No mom. No M's. I want CHOCOLATE RAINDROPS!" I asked him if that was something his dad had given him and he said, "No mom. Geez! I got 'em at store with you!" He was obviously getting frustrated with my ignorance and obliviousness. Then it finally clicked. We had run out of milk last week during dinner. The boys cannot survive without milk during their bedtime snack, so Riley and I made a run to the convenience store down the street to pick some up. Since he was being such a big boy I let him pick out a treat. His choice? Hershey's Kisses. I can't argue with his description too much. Chocolate raindrops indeed = )

Fun with the 'rents ....

Well we had an exciting, fun-filled weekend visiting both my parents and Corey's parents. The boys always love getting to spend time with their Gwamma's and Papa's as well as Aunt Tracy! Here's a few pics of the boys adventures ...

"Turkey" hunting in the backyard

Sighting in the new gun

Celebrating netting an imaginary fish

"Fixing" the trolling motor

Smelling a plastic worm -- just because, that's what Gage does

Adjusting the time on the clock in the park for Daylight Savings

Fun on the slide

There were several other adventures that we didn't capture on film, but I wish we would have. For example, me climbing my big ol' booty up into the McDonald's Playland when Riley was stuck at the very freakin' top. Good times! Or Gage falling down the stairs not once, but twice. It wasn't funny at the time because it scared us all so, but his little body sure does tumble fast!

Also, the boys investigating the big ol' historic red barn at Gma and Gpa Hubers. I'll definitely have to capture that last one during our next visit.

All in all it was a great weekend with the family and we were even able to fit in a nice dinner with our good friend's the Bruce's.

As a matter of fact, we all had so much fun, we were just pooped by the time we headed home on Sunday. I think this pic of the boys on the drive back says it all ...

Short and Silly Quotes ...

Each day the boys seem to say something that strikes us as comical. Whether it be a mispronunciation or an odd use of a word, their emerging language skills elicit numerous smiles and giggles from their mommy and daddy = ) Here's a couple of our favorites:

Gage:

"My need Booze Booze" - (Wow, he's starting the teetotaling early! Nope, he's just requesting his beloved Blue's Clue's)

"My need Happy Happy" - (You may see a pattern here ... Gage NEEDS everything. Anyhow, his Happy Happy is acutally Laffy Taffy)

"Eggo" - (Not the waffle -- Diego the cartoon character)

"Gonka" - (Veronica - his little girlfriend at daycare)

"New You" - (Love You. Not sure about this one, but it's cute just the same)

"My wike it"/"My don't wike it" - (Gage makes sure there is no question about his likes/dislikes, this phrase is typically spoken in regard to food)

"How doin'?" - (He uses this as his catch all phrase for: How did you do that? What are you doing? How are you doing? etc.)

Riley:

"Where's my hooker?" - (Yikes! A little young, hmmm buddy? He's actually requesting the pirate's hook from Gage's Halloween costume)

"Sarah Tops has 1, 2, 3 horns!" - (Triceratops dinosaur, the big fave of the dino's right now)

"Tysaurusex has big teeth!" - (Tyrannasaurus Rex - I actually think his way is harder to pronounce!)

"Hmmm, let me think ... " - (He says this when contemplating any little thing while looking up at the ceiling and scratching his chin. Where does he learn this stuff?)

"Bronka" - (Also Veronica at daycare. Poor girl, neither of them can get it right!)

"Love you, too!" - (He has basically started saying his "I love you's" this way every time, regardless if he is saying it first or responding back to you)

Well, that's all for this list for now. I could go on all day, but I think I'll save some of the others for another list another day. Hope these little sayings made you smile = )

A Week of Uggggh (and a few bright spots ...)

Well, this dang old head and chest cold that the kids started with last week decided to claim Corey and I as victims as well. Oh joy. We have all been a mostly intolerable bunch without much energy to do anything more than gripe at each other. There have been some good moments, but unfortunately, they deteriorate all too quickly. Bummer.

It snowed a ton this weekend, so we were pretty much homebound the entire time. Yay! Just what we wanted after a week+ of illness! Thanks Mother Nature! (Yes, that was said with much facetiousness.)

Anyhow, we braved the blizzard first thing Saturday morning to grab a few groceries. While there, we picked up new Spiderman plate, bowl, and cup sets for the boys. They had their choice of Spiderman, Sponge Bob, Mickey Mouse, Cars, or Dora; and they both quickly and certainly made their choice yelling "Spiderman!" in gruff gravelly voices. I have no idea where that came from, but their sound reminds me a little bit of Christian Bale's Batman voice. Interesting.

So, from there we headed back home and that is where we remained until Monday morning. The weekend was pretty much filled with cooking and eating. The boys were great helpers as usual. All of the cooking was basically a big science experiment as we discussed textures and chemical reactions as well as cause and effect. First, we made homemade chicken noodle soup. (I typically make chicken salad along with this, just as my mom always did ... but, little Riley and Gage loved the boiled chicken so much they didn't leave enough for chicken salad. Seriously, they ate both drumsticks and about the equivalent of a whole breast!) Next we made dinner rolls from scratch. This was probably the most fun. The boys got a kick out of punching and rolling the dough. However, they were quite impatient waiting for the dough to rise. They thought they could just stand there and watch it. That's obviously not the way it works, so mom had to come up with another project in the meantime. I spied some bananas that were well on their way past their prime, so we started mashing them up for banana muffins. Actually, I think that may have been the most fun part. The slimy mashing elicited numerous excited eeewwwws and pooeys! But, there were no complaints once they came out of the oven. Yum! There were several other little concoctions that we created along the way, but by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, Riley must have been tired of cooking. I say this because he saw a Pizza Hut commercial on TV and promptly announced, "I want that guy to bring pizza to my house!" Corey and I having had our fill of clean-up, graciously agreed. The boys were so excited they clapped and cheered, "Yay, Pizza!" when the delivery guy arrived at our door. Too cute = )

Well, that pretty much sums up our weekend. We're still all sick, but I think we are on the upswing. Hopefully the next post will be much more fun and include some cute pictures. I did take some along the way this week/weekend, but everyone is dopey-eyed and snot-nosed in every one, so I'll save you from that not-so-lovely sight. Pray for health = )