Wordless Wednesday

Kids Say the Darndest Things

It's been awhile since I have shared some of the things our kiddos say. But I keep track. I need to have something to embarrass them with later. Here are a few gems:

Both Will and Helen's first word, at age 11 months: "Hi!"

Helen

age 22 months - "Hap-py You You!" [said to the intonation of Happy Birthday to You]

age 2.5, when asked how old she is: "Twins!"

age 2.5, when told not to eat her boogers because it's yucky: "It's not yucky. I eat ALL my boogers!"

age almost 3, repeatedly when referring to herself and something she did: "Silly Goose!"

age almost 3: Me: "Helen, you're funny." Helen: I'm not funny." Me: "You're not?" Helen: No. I'm crraaazzzyyy!!!"

Will

age 22 months - "Nonny" [his word for "Helen"]

age 2.5, as his play vacuum runs out of power: "The batteries are running away!"

age 2.5, with a stuffy nose: "My nose needs new batteries."

Joseph

age 4.5: "Dad, does Maine have a football team?" Cort explains that Maine has a college football team, the Maine Black Bears, whereupon Joe says: "If you changed 'Bears' to "Berry,' you'd have a phone!"

age 5: "Can you tell me what happened to Yugoslavia?"

age 6, as we discussed the upcoming Go Texan Day for the Houston Livestock Show: "So. When is it going to be Go Wisconsin Day?"

age 6, to his brother: "Charlie, if you don't give me that ball I'm not going to be your friend anymore." [Charlie responds, "You're not my friend, you're my brother."] "Fine. Then I'm not going to be your brother anymore."

Charlie

age 6, as we are buying lift tickets (adult and child) to go skiing: "Mom, it's a good thing you have kids, so it's cheaper!"

age 6, when I was having trouble finding their Easter baskets for an Easter egg hunt: "If we can't find them, we can just use those plastic pumpkins from Halloween."

age 6, when discussing that he can get his driver's license at age 16: "But I'm not going to drive for real until I'm 20. Or maybe 21. Yeah, definitely 21. Because then I can have some beer!"

Naked living room skiing

Super (sick) Will

We woke up Monday morning to a sick little boy. Will threw up at least five times. When he wasn't throwing up, all he wanted to do was lay down on the cold, hard wood floor. At some point, he even fell asleep there. Sweetness.

The point of this post, though - the absolutely amazing thing -- is that each and every time he threw up right in the toilet. He pukes like a pro, and he's not even 3. This kid ROCKS.

Pinkalicious!

Gramma was in town recently. She gave Helen her very first manicure. Helen proclaimed her nails "pinkalicious."

Way Back When-esday

This "Way Back When-esday" photo is a picture of our old house. Our first house. The one that brought us to the Heights. The one that we loved so much that we couldn't leave, so we added on and remodeled to be just what we wanted. The one that we brought all of our babies home to.

The one that became too small when we had those last two babies. The one that we moved from over two years ago. And the one that we finally, today, no longer own!!!

Yes, we finally sold our house. It is bittersweet, definitely, but the fact that we made more in the sale than we paid for the house originally (pre-addition) is pretty awesome. And the fact that we no longer have two mortgages is really awesome.

We loved the house so much, though, that I couldn't stop with just one picture.


This is how the house looked when we bought it. A nice little Heights bungalow.

Then we did this, adding on a huge master suite, family room, carport and storage room, extra bathroom, pantry area, and storage closet. This is the upstairs master being built. We used to go up to the construction in the evenings with a glass of wine and watch the goings-on in the neighborhood below us.

This is where we lived while we did the construction. The dining room, with the dining room furniture pushed against the wall and the living room furniture squeezed into the remaining space. Pre-kids, obviously.

And here is the finished product, showing the addition in back.


This is the sidewalk where we brought all four of our babies home.

And this is our babies' first room. (Our first babies. Our second babies really never had a formally done room in this house, since we had moving plans when they came along.)

This is the new addition from the inside - family room with view to kitchen


And family room with view to stairs leading to master


Kitchen - the big kitchen is what first drew us for a second look at the house before we bought it


Our master bath

We definitely miss this place. Especially when we drop the boys off at school (did I mention that it is right across the street from their elementary school?). But goodness, it's nice to have it sold.

Math Whiz

What sort of things do mathematicians do, anyway? Because it is now official that Joseph is a math whiz. Here are a few examples of some things he has said to us in just the last few days.

Cort: "What is half of 1/4?"

Joe (without missing a beat): "1/8."

(Much later, we asked him what 1/4 of 1/2 was, and he correctly answered 1/8 for that as well.)

Joe: "How tall am I?"

Me: "46 inches."

Joe: "So, 3 feet 10 inches."

Joe: "3 times 4 plus 2. That's 14 right?"

Cort: "What is 1/2 plus 1/4?"

Joe: "3/4."

Me: "How did you know that?"

Joe: "Because. 1/2 is 2/4. So 2/4 + 1/4 is 3/4."

The kid is in kindergarten. How in the world does he know this stuff?

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend started out early with a parade at Cathedral House:


Helen marching in the parade with her class


Will enjoying himself at the parade

On Saturday, we dyed some Easter eggs.


Outside, in PJs, with hope of minimizing the mess!


Diligently dying the eggs


The finished products!

On Easter morning, the Easter bunny had come. It had also rained, so he hid all the eggs on the driveway instead of the grass. Smart bunny.


Ready for the hunt


Joseph hunted with vigor, and he found the most


Charlie enjoyed the hunt as well


Helen raced around and found many eggs


Will didn't like the ones that were wet


But he had fun anyway


Showing off their finds

We got dressed in our Easter finery and headed off to church.


But first we got a GREAT picture of all the kids together


It wasn't much trouble at all to get that picture (yeah, right)


We got a cute shot of the big kids together


And of the little kids together too

After Easter lunch, they also got to enjoy huge lollipops, courtesy of the Easter bunny.


Yum


Yum


Yum

Happy Easter!

And Epcot!

On our off day from baseball games, we once again spent a day at Disney. We've decided that this is how we are going to do Disney--one day each year. Unconventional, but it works for us.

This year, we took the boys to Epcot. We thought that they would like it, and they did. They even proclaimed it better than the Magic Kingdom. We agreed - the rides in Epcot are really, really cool. The all-around favorites were Soarin' and Test Track. They really liked the countries too. We didn't actually do much at most of the countries (just the small rides in Mexico and Norway). But the boys got passports that they could get stamped in each country, and they LOVED doing that. We knew that they would.

We can't wait for next year. We're considering Animal Kingdom. Then in 2012, when Will and Helen join us, we'll make our way back to Magic Kingdom and start all over.

Ready to take on Epcot (oh, they loved the park maps too)

Joseph waiting to go on Mission Space (a pretty cool ride too)

Charlie in his 3D glass waiting for Honey I Shrunk the Audience

It was a neat show, but freaked them out a bit

Mom and Dad got to ride a Segway

Once we got the hang of it, it was really fun

The boys with a viking in Norway

But perhaps the favorite attraction of all -- the whirlpool bath in the hotel, complete with multicolored lights (!) and bar soap (which they used to play hockey games in the tub -- they loved how slippery it was)

Second Annual Spring Training Trip

A couple of weeks ago we took the boys on our second annual spring training trip. Boy, do these guys love baseball. And their dad is in hog heaven to have an excuse to make his dream of an annual spring training trip a reality.

We really had a wonderful time. Having a little one-on-one (well, two-on-two) time with the big kids--no annoying 2-year-olds to disrupt things--is really special. And the boys are really just a lot of fun. Plus, there is the added benefit of Uncle Rick (Cort's brother) living in Florida, and he drives over to meet us. The boys love Uncle Rick.

Once again we had great seats -- right behind the bullpen for the first game and right behind the dugout for the second game. The boys got tossed a few balls by the players. And this year they really got into the autograph-seeking. Last year and this year when we first arrived, Cort had to direct them and prod them a little. But by the second day they left Cort far behind and were taking it upon themselves to talk to the players. Charlie even got Roy Oswalt after everyone around said he was not signing autographs. How could he resist such a cute little guy in a Roy O. jersey? Of course, after he signed Charlie's ball the floodgates opened and the poor guy had to sign for everyone else in the stands. On a related note, my two new favorite players are catchers J.R. Towles and Jason Castro. They were both so nice to the boys. I hope at least one of them ends up with the team!

The boys with Uncle Rick and Dad outside the stadium

Hanging out watching the game from left field

Charlie enjoying the day

Joseph and Mom

Getting J.R. Towles's autograph

Charlie with Jose Cruz

See how close we were to the bullpen?

Silly baseball boys