Double Digits

Luke is ten! It hardly seems like it's been ten years since I held my first little newborn baby so fresh from heaven. I love my little Luke, and even though he is a big ten year old he still sits in my lap and gives me hugs every now and then. I am so proud of him. Here are ten things that I love about Luke.

1. He tells me his opinion about everything. Every. Thing. I have a blue shirt with a little bling on it and cool designs. Every time I wear it Luke lets me know he hates that shirt. It makes me laugh and wear it more often. :)

2. Luke is very smart. He brought home all As last week on his report card. He is doing very well in school and has been responsible with his assignments this year.

3. He tries to do the right thing. I know that he will tell me the truth, not just about whether he likes my shirt or not, but about other things, too.

4. He is friendly. He tries to include the kids around him in his activities.

5. Luke likes to make things. He is obsessed with origami at the moment and has earned the nickname "Origami Man" because he makes his friends transforming ninja stars, ninja stars, fancy stars, boomerangs, cubes, frogs, birds, balloons, and spinning tops. He even made an origami Yoda once.

6. He is obedient (most of the time).

7. He is helpful. If I am in the middle of something and ask him to watch Natalie or Rylan, he helps me out, usually without complaint. He sets the table for dinner, helps with the dishes and helps mow the yard. He is also good about reading to Rylan and Natalie.

8.He gets excited about little things. He switched his school binder yesterday to a lighter version and was so excited about how much lighter it was. It's was a little thing, but I loved how happy he was about such a small convenience.

9. He tells us he loves us.

10. He is kind.

I feel so blessed to be the mother of such a wonderful son. I love you, Luke.

This year his birthday fell on a teacher work day, so he got the day off school. His friends Isaac and Seth came over during the day. Later that night we had a family party. He requested pesto for dinner and chocolate molten lava cakes for his cake.




Grandma and Grandpa sent him a very nice new fishing pole and some tackle.


We gave him a remote control helicopter.
Natalie wore her dress inside out and backwards for the occasion and sang Happy Birthday the loudest of all.

For Crissy

Today I got a message from my cousin, Crissy, "I keep going to your blog thinking something new will be posted, but alas, nothing new. :) How are y'all?"

Crissy, and all others who think we may have dropped off the face of the earth, this is for you. I have been a blog slacker lately for sure.

This morning Natalie and I attended Nursery Rhyme Time at Rylan's school. On this day all the kindergarteners dress up like a nursery rhyme character. Rylan wanted to be Yankee Doodle. He brought his little stick horse to school and wore a cowboy hat with a feather.

When he was getting ready this morning he was very concerned that he would be the only kid dressed up, so he must have felt a huge relief when he saw everyone was in costume today. (Does he really think I would play that sort of prank on him?)

Mother Goose shared some stories and games like jumping over the candle stick and three blind mice chasing the farmer's wife (one of the moms).


Rylan got to paint the spider from Little Miss Muffet, which he created from a tracing of his hands.


All this time Natalie watched contentedly from her stroller. I was amazed. She LOVES hanging out with the kindergarteners.


Then the three little kittens lost their mittens, but luckily the kindergarteners helped them find them. For this game they spread gloves and mittens all over the ground and the boys had to race the girls to pair them up and put them in a box.


The next game was a Humpty Dumpty egg race.



Then a picnic by the playground. Natalie was still hanging out in her stroller eating celery and carrots (smothered in dip of course, but still AMAZING). This is highly unusual behavior. I think she may be getting sick.


I finally let her out to play after lunch and she quickly found our little neighbor kindergartner, Addison, and followed her around like a little puppy. Addison was very sweet and welcomed her with open arms. I was impressed with how everything turned out. I heard Natalie in the backseat on the way home talking about Humpty Dumpty so the morning left an impression on her, too. She just walked past me with a handful of pepperoni she heisted from the fridge . . . that's more normal behavior from my little Natalie.

A Major Award (2)

Followers of our not too frequent blogging may recall Luke winning "A Major Award." It's way back in the archives but it's a good one. Anyway, we have a family tennis tournament coming up with Meghan's family and nominated ourselves to create the award... and here it is in all of its life sized glory!



I know, I know, take a number as I am sure these will be going like hot cakes.

Happy Independence Day

I Have to Pee!

Sunday was my birthday so on Friday night we went out to dinner as a family to celebrate. Right after the appetizer came out Meghan reached across behind Natalie, who was standing up, and realized she was not wearing a diaper. These days that is not a terribly uncommon thing as we have been potty training her and so far all she has caught onto is the part where she takes off her pants. Anyway, for once Meghan had no spare and when I ran out to the car there were none there either. When I had left the restaurant Meghan was talking about fashioning a linen napkin into a diaper so I knew she was sweating bullets and hopped into the car and ran to a nearby grocery store. When I got back with my carefully concealed diapers my bench seat was still dry and my entrée was still hot. Disaster averted, for now.

This morning I was giving Natalie a bath for church when I heard Rylan yell, “I have to peeeeeeeeee!” He ran in the bathroom, flipped up the toilet seat and got to his business. He peed on the floor, the bathtub, my leg and finally for good measure a tiny squirt in the toilet. He was mortified and not sure what his reaction should be since I was cackling so hard my eyes were watering.

I guess this is the year of urine. Happy birthday me!

Winners

The hospital puts on an annual 5k race called the Magnolia Meltdown to raise money for “Just Have a Ball,” a group dedicated to reducing childhood obesity through encouraging activity. I was in charge of all of the advertising and all of my staff volunteered for the event. Meghan took Natalie to a young woman’s conference and I took the boys with me to the race.

They had fun in the kids area while we got all set up and I took pictures but they were both psyched to participate in a kid’s one-mile fun run after the adult race was through. When the gun went off they both flew down the course ahead of most of the 50 kids that were participating. I thought, “They are going too fast, they will get burned out long before the race is over.”

At 8:52 Luke was about the seventh person to cross the finish line.


At 9:56 Rylan was about the fifteenth.


They were so excited to have done so well but imagine their surprise when later it was announced that Luke had come in first for the 8-9 age group and Rylan had come in first for the 4-5 group.


They were both excited but Rylan’s smile was a huge and the whole way home he gloated about his gold medal and kept asking if I had ever won a race like him (he was very happy to hear that I had not). Ah, the spoils of victory.

Eating Mudbugs

Please note, the following post contains many incomplete sentences. Meghan wants it to be known that this is offensive to her and she had nothing to do with its writing.

Our neighborhood is brand new and last weekend we had our first social to get to know everyone. In most parts of the country this would consist of grilling hamburgers or hot dogs... Not so in the South. Here they often do crawfish boils. I have never eaten crawfish (Andy) by itself so I was curious about the process. Here is what I found out.

You buy crawfish in large, partially frozen bags. Place them in a container and add water. As they unfreeze they start to move around. Rylan was not sure what to think about this.


Pick up unfrozen crawfish and try to gross out girls or get dogs to eat them whole.Rinse and drain several times to get them lively and clean. Add salt so they vomit up stomach contents then rinse and drain one more time. Mmm vomit.


Boil them all in a large cauldron borrowed from your local witches. Add spices, potatoes, onion, sausage and whatever else you may have lying around.


Once cooked throw them all on a big table with handy holes for tossing out the uneaten parts. Crack off the tails (and claws if large enough) and suck out the meat. Throw out the the torso. Supplement meal with aforementioned foliage and other meats.


Chow down on homemade ice-cream and cookies.