A Big Boo-Boo

You know you have a little boy when you have Band-aids and Neosporene in nearly every room of the house. Okay, maybe not every room, but there are definitely more than one package of each in my stash!

Luke had a nice "ooops" yesterday afternoon that resulted in a major boo-boo. Playing around like he usually does Luke fell and busted his lip. He didn't only bust his lip, but it looks like his teeth went through his lip. I haven't actually been able to take a good look at it, but having done it myself twice in my life I kinda know what it looks like. Poor baby! We tried to keep cold packs on it as well as frozen yogurt sticks, but alas, it's a big-fat-puffy lip!

2 Months Overdue...April Part 2

Here's a continuation of April...

* A Day Out With Thomas The Train! OMG! What an exciting day we had with the boys! John took the Friday off (April 17th) and we all drove up to Filmore, CA (northwest of LA) to enjoy a ride with Thomas and everything you could possibly imagine that was Thomas-related. I think I was more excited to see Luke's reaction when he saw the life-size Thomas than he was when he actually saw him! Of course we didn't tell Luke what we were doing or who we were going to see, he is certainly a kid of the moment. I believe he truly enjoyed his day seeing Sir Topham Hat, riding Thomas (only a 25-minute ride), jumping in the bounce-house, eating hot dogs and snow cones and everything else! Paden was such a trooper too, they both passed out in the car beautifully on the way home! John and I were certainly pleased with ourselves and the wonderful day we had as a family.

Luke's first ink!

Seeing Thomas roll in to the station -- too cool!

Family pic with Thomas

Boarding the train

Wow!

Mommy and Paden chillin' out during the ride

Isn't it cool how they even decorated the inside of the train?!

Enjoying the view along the way.

My happy boys!

Mommy and Paden enjoying the shade on this beautiful CA day.

One cool dude (new Thomas sunglasses)!

And he's out!

So is Paden! A nice quiet ride home for Mommy and Daddy!

* Paden's 3rd and 4th teeth made their debut (along with him pulling up to his feet and lots of vocalizations)!

This never happens! Luke passed out on the couch one afternoon before nap time, watching basketball with Daddy too! I think John's feelings were a little hurt that the little dude couldn't hang with the basketball game! Ha!

Paden loves hanging onto the baby gate and rockin' it like a crazy kid!

Playing with Luke's "old" activity table -- still interests the big kid too!

One very early morning...

Yummy Cheerios!

* We have a new nephew!! Kade Gordon Mizell joined proud parents Mike and Dawn and the rest of the Mizell clan on April 22nd. We can't wait to see him during our time in Austin in July!

And that wraps up April! Tune in for May's update and pictures!

2 Months Overdue

I haven't let myself blog because I have so many other things on my "to do list" that I saved this as my "prize" for getting them done. Needless to say I haven't gotten anything done and it's now been over two months since I've caught you up on our family.

I'll try to do a brief synopsis of these last two months with a few pics as well:

* April 3-6 found Grandma Ferne and Grandpa Walt visiting as they made their way to Australia. We filled that time with Paden's first swim lesson (and a refresher for Luke), an awesome Children's Museum in Pasadena, and of course plenty of play time.

* John sold his Trooper to our friends David and Krista -- that was one sad day for both Daddy and Luke!

* April 8th found Denise and I at the Aquarium of the Pacific with the kids, all by ourselves! Whew! What a fun and crazy outing...the things we do to entertain ourselves when we don't have our church activities for the week!

* We spent Easter Sunday with our good friends the Mills and Sidro. It was a small gathering, with lots of food and plenty of colorful plastic eggs (no candy for these kiddos!).


So that was the first half of April...here are a few pics...

Paden and Daddy after a cool swim.

Luke swimming under the tube...he certainly liked all the attention.

Tons of things to climb and jump off of at Kidspace Museum.

Oooohhh...what do we see?

One brave little lizard...didn't run away from the curious little boy and his momma!

Water, water everywhere!

Paden was one patient little dude while Luke explored Kidspace.

Run, boy, run!

Luke loved reading the Texas Magazine with Grandpa Walt!

Luke's last drive in Daddy's truck.

So Sad...goodbye Gonzo!

Our little crawler...loves to explore the entire house on hands and knees!

Anything in here for me to play with?

Hide and Seek -- Luke's favorite post-bath game.

What a face!

Bailey and Luke trying to pet the rays -- can you see Denise holding onto Luke's pants to keep him from falling in?! :)

Luke truly loving the "wet zone" -- and it was a perfectly warm day for playing in the water.

Paden and Laken hanging out while Luke and Bailey get soaked.

Not a dry spot on his body!

Two little boys...one toy...how's this going to work?

Bailey, Luke, John, Paden, Jonny and Laken...ready for an egg hunt!

Bailey and Luke ready to find some eggs to put in their big buckets.

Here's another one!

Paden and Daddy watching the older kids in action.

A Funny Thing Happened One Evening...

A couple of nights ago we were experiencing our usual post-dinner craziness -- trying to get P settled down for the night and trying to wrangle Luke into the bath. I handed the boys off to John for a few minutes so I could clean up the kitchen. As he took the boys into Luke's room to play John took a phone call from a friend. You can just imagine the craziness that began! I could hear screeching and laughter coming from the bedroom with Daddy's voice trying to speak over it all. Less than a minute later John drags the boys out of the room pleading with me to take them (they apparently were cracking each other up, getting louder and louder, making it very hard for Daddy to be on the phone). Being the wonderful wife that I am, I told him to suck it up and get back in that room! Surprisingly it was rather quiet within a couple of minutes. I could hear John talking...but nothing from either of the boys. After a few more minutes I was rather curious to see what was going on -- mostly curious to see what happened to the boys. This is what I discovered...
Curious as to what it is? A+D Ointment! Yes, that's right, Luke was putting diaper rash cream all over Daddy's head! And John just thought it was regular lotion. Oy! That's what the man gets for talking on the phone rather than playing with his son! HA!!

He's Crawling!

One Last Thing...

6 years ago yesterday (Sat. the 28th) John asked me to marry him. It is so hard for us to fathom that we had just begun this journey only 6 years ago. But yes...6 years ago...

...I almost didn't let him come to Dallas for the weekend.
...I told my sister that if he asked me to marry him I'd say "no".
...I was late picking him up at the airport.
...we ran through Chick-fil-a, Bass Pro, and the Gap with a "strange tension" in the air.
...we were alone in my apartment as I was packing my bag to spend the weekend at my parents'.
...I walk into my bedroom and find John holding something in his hand.
...I looked closely and realized that it was a diamond ring he was holding as he took to his knee.
...I fell to my knees asking "Did you talk to my Dad?" "Are you serious?" "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
...I said "yes"!

John -- I still say "Yes"! Every day I say "Yes"! I love you. Thank you for asking me to marry you.

One Wacky Weekend

Our lives are not that quiet with these two boys and it's never boring around here. But this weekend was one crazy weekend! OY! We had some great plans to check out the children's museum in Pasadena on Saturday...enjoy dinner and games with some friends...do the church thing...and just enjoy another beautiful weekend. Most of that got scrapped when P began to "wake up" at 3:15 on Saturday morning...off and on the crying went until 6:00...and sleep was all but impossible for those 3 hours. I think our great "plans" went out the window before we even started the day!

Poor little guy was not himself this weekend. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that he had his vaccinations on Friday morning. Yippee. After our "rough wake up" I decided to ditch the road trip and museum and just spend the morning at home so P could take a good nap. It wasn't just a "hang out" morning -- by 7:00 we were all loaded up in the car on our way to the grocery store (forgot to buy syrup the day before -- hard to have pancakes without syrup), Starbucks and the youth garage sale at the church (they helped us unload of some unneeded baby items and such -- purging before the move). Thankfully he did take a good 2 hour nap after our "outing".

Luke and Daddy enjoying some play time during P's nap.

A happy baby even when he doesn't feel well.

Instead of finding some games to play outside, or head off to the park - we decided to have a family outing at the mall! What the heck were we thinking? (Oh wait, Mommy really needed to have her eyebrows threaded.) We opted to enjoy the food court for lunch and wrap up our time at the mall with a little "lookie-loo" at the Disney store. Luke must have been tired because he road the stroller throughout the store and didn't even seem to recognize any of the Disney characters that we watch constantly. Hopefully our trip to Disneyland will prove more exciting than that!

So...(my diatribe will continue)...naps came and went (thankfully they both took good naps so we could get our taxes done)...and the madness continued. Our friends David and Krista were joining us for fajitas and a game of Wizard -- usually a festive get together...but the craziness continued. Before dinner Jonny came over with Bailey and Laken so we had all the kids in the driveway. I prepped dinner, bathed the baby, put the meat on the grill and changed a big-girl diaper -- while the "boys" chatted in the driveway. (I believe my "Super Mom" cape is at the dry cleaners now after that one!) We convinced the Mills to join us for dinner -- and the rockin' fun-mad-house continued! David and Krista always joke that hanging out with our boys is good birth control (really it just fills his need to hold a baby and play with kids), but having two 2 year olds (who were running around, screaming, fighting like husband and wife, laughing, you name it...) and two babies came close to pushing their 5-year plan into a 10-year plan! (Here is my props to parents of twins!) We finally got the big kids bathed and the Mills sent home, frozen yogurt picked up, Luke in bed, and we were able to sit down to our game...only to have P wake up and need some loving. Did the day ever end?!!

Bailey and Luke having their fun in the bath -- this photo is going to haunt them one day!

So...here we are to Sunday (I'll keep today's diatribe shorter). P is tucked in bed, Luke is bathed and ready for books, all while Mommy and Daddy are somehow staying sane. Not a normal weekend needless to say. Crazy but fun. Luke pushing every button, but cracking us up at the same time. Paden feeling the effects of his shots, but happy just the same. Basketball brackets totally busted, but do we really care? And one tired, but happy set of parents!

Polliwog Park is one of our new favorite outings...

Luke is "selling" "donuts" to Daddy...thankfully we gave up baked goods for Lent!

This is what I did part of this Sunday afternoon while we watched our Elite 8 bracket get busted...

...and this is why I do "what I do".