Saturday

Here are some pictures from our Saturday:

I only had 4 kids to watch during this week's soccer game.  We have a schedule the kids like to adhere to: during the second quarter it's juice-box-and-fruit-snack time.  I cannot resist photographing them when they are in a pile like this.

It's a bad picture but there is Luke in the blue jersey playing goalie.

Milo watching his Daddy.  He was shouting, "DADA!!! (two second pause)  DADA??? (two second pause)  DADA!!! (two second pause) DADA???"

During the third quarter we go down to the game room.  Every week they half-heartedly ask (hoping this week's answer will be different), "Can we have some money for the machines?"  The answer is always 'No.' 

The fourth quarter we play around behind the bleachers.  Here is the face Levi makes when he is pretending to be something fierce.  Right now he's a dinosaur.  Seconds before they were all puppies.

After the game we met Joel, Kelly, and the kids for brunch.  On the way into the restaurant Ruby and Levi held hands.  Aren't they sweet?  They just walked along happily like this for some time.

Milo managed to kidnap Luke's drink for awhile.  He was NOT happy when we made him surrender it.  Luke wasn't all that happy with the chewed, slobbery, bent straw he was left with.

Ruby and Ben came up with some kind of game to play with Milo.  He thought it was awesome.

"WHHEEEEEEEE!"

He played hard at the game and was pretty tired.  Not as tired as the girls, though, there were no female subs so Kelly and the others had to play the whole game. 

After rest time we went to Home Depot to return the scaffolding.  There was a large cement mixer parked out front and while Lucas took care of the rental details the boys and I studied it.  They were pretty impressed with how big the tires were.  If you are one of our loyal readers and for some reason have found yourself rendered an amnesiac, let me fill you in on something about my boys: they LOVE anything related to construction.  The bigger the better.

He swiped his brother's hat and was very proud to wear it.

You know, he was a really intense baby but has been mellowing.  I'm really enjoying this happy-go-lucky side that is emerging.

Hmmm, I guess he wanted to try  and look a little more hardcore?  You can take the boy out of the suburbs, but you can't take the suburbs out of the boy.

After Home Depot we ate at Chipotle.  When I fill up my drink there I always put lots of lemon slices in my coke and then eat them after my drink is finished.  On the car ride home, Levi saw me doing this and asked for one.  He's got my tolerance for tart tastes and ate most of his.  Well, if Levi gets something then Milo INSISTS that he have the same thing.

He doesn't care for the sour stuff so much.

"Why???  Why would you eat these things?  I don't understand you people."

Benji Has a Birthday

Nephew Ben had a birthday this past week.  He's 3 now and somehow getting cuter and more adorable with each passing day.  We were glad to celebrate him with pizza, cake, and presents.  Oh, also LOTS of party noisemakers.

What is the mystery present??

A trampoline!  Actually, it's a jumpoline if you ask Ben (that's what Levi used to call them, too.)

There were 9 munchins jumping, 'horning', and consuming sugar. 

"so let's see about getting me some cake, whatdoyasay?

Flashback Friday- Teary-eyed edition

My little sister wrote this for a school assignment in what I'm guessing was junior high.  It makes me cry but is also somehow reassuring knowing that my Grandma Rush could be an important influence even after she had passed on.  I know she is for me.

Transcript:

If I had the opportunity to interview anyone living or dead I’d definitely (sic) choose my grandma.  She was my mom’s mother and died 11 months before I was born.  I never got the chance to know her and I can tell that she was a special lady by the way my mom and family miss her and talk about her.  I would want to ask her what my mom was like as a kid and if my mom was anything like her.  I’d also like to know if she was alive now would she be proud of me and love me.  It’s weird.  I never knew her, but I still miss her.

Rub a Dub Dub, Two Boys in a Sink

We have functioning sinks, functioning toliets, a functioning shower, but no functioning bathtub right now.  To clean up, the boys get a shower or, their prefered method, a 'sink bath'.

Tonight was the first time we doubled them up.  It was funny.

They played with their boats even though there wasn't much water to drive them around in.

They were extra dirty tonight.  Milo had honey in his hair and both were covered in sawdust.  They've been collecting it into piles- our great room is currently a work shop

soapy faux mo'

Milo's is listing to the side but still super cute.

P.S. Regarding cute little bums sitting in the sink: we do disinfect the sink before and after bath time!

This Happens A Lot

"Mom!  Mom!  Don't drive out of the parking lot yet.  Let me watch!"

"Ungh!  Erg!"

This is what we watched for a good while.  Men, hardhats, heavy machinery, noise, drilling...it never gets old for them.

Out at the Park

We had a really fun morning at the park today.  The weather was perfect and the boys were even game to pose for a couple of snapshots. 

You love your first born so much and then the second comes along and your heart just expands that much more.

Is it any wonder I'm always trying to land a kiss on their faces??

Milo doesn't say much but does have a handful of non-words he utilizes.  For instance there is a strange gutteral noise that he makes when he sees an animal.  Also he smacks his lips together when he wants a kiss or sees someone kissing.  He has a different kind of lip smack indicating the act of eating.  The boys were playing in the mud.  Levi was writing his name with a stick and Milo was pretending to write with a different stick.  He got his fingers dirty and came over to me holding them up to my face and with an impish expression made his eating-lip- smack sound.  He was going to feed me the mud!  He grinned so broadly when I said, "Ewwww, yuck!"  I think this was his first joke.

Cousin Time

You know we like spending time with cousins.  Saturday evening I took the boys to Joel and Kelly's to hang out with their kids while Joel was helping at our house and Kelly was running some errands.

After Milo woke up from his nap, Ruby hoisted him up on her lap and started reading aloud to him.  ADORABLE!

Can you tell he's not quite awake?  He sat on her lap for the longest time.

They Ruby read to the big kids.  I am so impressed with her skills.  She just turned 5 last month and can read 2nd grade level books!

I can't remember what was going on in this shot but he is clearly trying to tell me something.

Just between you and me, I don't think he really knows how to do the rubix cube.

Renovations

We continue to work busily on our house.  I have not been doing very good about updating our other blog but am planning on doing better from here on out.  Check in over there on Mondays and Thursdays for updates!  I've added a hotlink at the lefthand side under the blogs list.

Enjoying the Weather

It was a rainy weekend but this morning we had beautiful weather.  The boys and I headed to the farm park. 

After visiting the playground, digging in the sand, and talking to Olive the cow, Levi requested we sit in on the dairy movie.  The cow barn has a small theatre that plays a 10 minute movie on a loop.  The boys always want to sit in the very front row.

Don't you love those seats?  Where could I get my hands on some antique tractor seats?  I'd love to transform them into bar stools.

Outside the cow barn we always have to stop and ring some cowbell.  Milo gets so excited by this.

More cowbell!

Flashback Friday- Grandpa Corzine

I have a vague sense that I've used this picture for Flashback Friday before.  Does anybody remember?  My record keeping system for this little endevour has broken down and if I want to get this posted before it has to be called Flashback Saturday I won't have time to look back through old posts.

Anyway- this is a picture of my Grandpa Corzine and me.  It was taken on the front porch of our house in Atlanta.  I think they had come to visit to meet Joel for the first time so I would be about 2.5 years old here. 

We've had a productive evening working on the house.  There are currently two 12 foot scaffolds here.  This weekend's project is putting up a planked ceiling in the great room.  I know I've terribly neglected the sugar sugar house blog but I have plans to rectify that and soon. 

Milo at 18 Months

Look at who is now 18 months old!  Milo had his well-baby check this morning and all is well.   His stats: 34 inches long (91%), 27# 7.5 oz (69%), and 19" head circumference (60%).  Levi's stats at this age were nearly identical (34", 27# 10.5oz, 18.75")

Milo has been feeding himself with utensils and using a regular cup, climbing increasingly taller heights, and has really been enjoying books.  He loves beeing read to and also spends quite a bit of time just looking thru them on his own.  His current favorites were some of the ones Levi loved most, too: Cordoroy's Day, God Made Me, and The Very Busy Spider.

Dr. Hilary is still not concerned with his lack of talking since his hearing is ok, he responds to his name, follows directions, makes eye-contact, and interacts non-verbally.  We'll get him a speech evaluation in a couple of months if he doesn't start talking by then.

WHO REPLACED MY BABY WITH THIS BIG BOY???

Hanging out in the doctor's waiting room. 

They are excited for the lollipops that await if they make good choices during the visit.

Milo seems to have forgotten (for the moment) that sometimes his visits here culminate with some shots.  Thankfully today he only recieved one: the flu vaccine.

Sitting on top of the chairs got boring pretty quickly.