12 days of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

12 Broken Ornaments

11 Nights of dancing

10 Online orders

9 Christmas movies

8 Carols butchered

7 Rounds of Egg-nog (Brent makes a killer froth)

6 Trips to Costco

5 Sleepless nights

4 Opened gifts

3 Returns

2 Two-year-olds

And a pretty baby Ally

We hope your December has been as crazy (in a good way), busy and blessed as our family's has been.

Merry Christmas!

Mockery

I had hoped to avoid it for at least 10 more years. But sadly, I am mocked several times daily by my offspring.

Last night at dinner I was trying to keep Keith and Cole from putting their feet up on the table when Keith pointed his index finger and said, "I said no!" and smiled.

Cole finds it funny to hit Ally on the head or bang a maraca on the blinds and then ask, "Go time-out?"

Keith believes it hilarious to ask if he can kick Ally or throw food from his plate and then say, "Go time-out?"

If I say, "yes" to either request, both boys answer with an upbeat, "Okay" and put themselves in time-out.

If I ask, "Do you want to go in time-out?" they answer with, "yeaaah" and put themselves in time-out again.

The funny thing is that once they are in time-out they cry. Needless to say, I stopped doing time-outs when it became a game several weeks ago. But they find it hysterical to taunt me and honestly, they crack me up.

Clearly something is not working here. It would be a lot easier if they weren't so clever and comedic. If anyone out there has any ideas on how I can not fail at disciplining, send them my direction.

Even sweet little Ally has to get her digs in. Yesterday was her 4 month check up and she is in the 95th percentile for height. Considering her mother spent the majority of Junior High under 5 feet tall and was kicked out of more than one roller-coaster line, it is unclear from which gene pool she swam. The good news is that I might just have a basketball star on my hands. The bad news is that she may catch her brothers soon. She could end up protecting them from the "bad guys" that they pretend to fight, instead of the other way around.

Fight Club

From the moment Cole wakes up until he goes to bed, he does nothing but talk about who is fighting whom. For example:

"Monkeys fight gorillas?" "Bad guys fight hyenas?" "Mickey Mouse fight elephants?" He ends these phrases with a question mark because he expects an answer.

"Yes, Cole. Of course monkeys fight gorillas and bad guys fight hyenas."

He will continue to repeat each phrase over and over again until you repeat it back correctly. If you do not understand him and you try to repeat back to him what you are hearing, HE KNOWS. Don't try to fake it. (Did I mention that I am now fluent in toddler? I'm thinking of adding it to my resume.)

Occasionally, Cole changes up the fight scene to include members of the family:

"Dada fight T-rex?" "Mama fight penguin?" "Baby Ally fight monsters?"

And recently he throws in a few festive favorites: "Keith fight Santa Clause?" "Donkey fight Wiseman?" "Baby Jesus fight Snowman?" (Nativity characters are not off-limits in his world of combat imagination.)

Keith has decided to push buttons by testing out who he can hit, kick, and pinch. For example: "Hit Baby Ally with baster?"

"No, Keith. We don't hit Baby Ally with the baster."
(At least he asks first, right?)

"Hit Mama with baster?"

"No, Keith. We don't hit Mama with the baster."

"Hit Spiderman with baster?"

"Yes, Keith. You can hit Spiderman with the baster."

I've decided that I can't say "no" to everything. So, whenever Keith suggests bodily harm to an action figure, animated character or inanimate and disposable object, I let him dream big. The sky is the limit. I hope there is no limit to my patience with repetitious toddler phrases and boyish fight-scene imagery.

Little Ally just turned 4 months. She smiles constantly, especially when her Dad tells her that she is pretty.
She often puts up a pretty good fight before bed, but we still can't get enough of her. I think she's just a budding socialite who doesn't want to miss out on a thing.***

***Disclaimer: The reasoning behind the unfair ratio of Ally to brother pictures is purely practical: Ally can't move very far and the boys can't stay very still.

Wild Things

Keith and Cole LOVE the story, "Where the Wild Things Are". I don't really understand why, but they do. For their birthday (more on that later) honorary Aunt Debbie brought them Wild Thing capes and a video of the story being read. Let me tell you, I've literally seen that 10 minute video 3,000 times in just 6 days.

Last night Cole was begging to watch it. Since I hadn't let him watch it all day, he thought he would try Brent when he got home. Normally, this tactic works since Brent is the most monumental marshmallow known to man when it comes to his children...

The conversation between father and son went like this:

Cole: "Watch Wild Things?"
Brent: "No, buddy."

Cole: "Watch Wild Things!" "No watch football!"

What does that tell you about our house and my husband? Technically, Brent was trying to find the World Series. But it's rare that anything besides football plays on our TV between Labor Day and New Years Day. Even little Coley knows that by now. Brent's concerned that Cole will begin to resent football and hurt his chances of future stardom. I'm not worried. I fully expect to have a house full of football fans while Ally and I hit the mall.

Keith

Cole

Double Whammy

Sweet Thing

Is there anything sweeter than a Father and his daughter? I love this picture. I know I'm a bit behind but I'm finally posting pics of Ally's blessing from October 25. It was a very busy and very good day. We had lots of family come for her big day and Brent gave her a very beautiful blessing. Perfect for a beautiful little girl.


















I wish we had a better family pic than this one, but the boys did not want to stop the backyard games for a photo session and Ally was hungry. Bad combo. I'm hoping someone in the family got a better pic than we did.
















Amid all the chaos at our house, Brent was put in charge of feeding the boys. Imagine my surprise when frosted brownies were at the top of the menu for two hungry boys still dressed in their Sunday best. I was thrilled to remove chocolate stains and lasagna sauce from their new white shirts.














Evidence of Cole's brownie-fest remain on his cheek as he gives his sister loves.














Overall, it was a great day. Thanks to all who made the effort to come.

Smile

Looking at these pictures completely changes the angle of my post today. We've had an interesting past few days full of sickness and sleeplessness. But it's not worth focusing on that when I have these little faces to remind me of why I'm doing this.
I truly have wondered lately how my mother did this. How did any of our moms do this? They must have looked at a lot of photos or just had a gift for recognizing what's really important.



For example: Is it really a life and death situation if I let Cole completely dismantle his cookie in search of M & Ms and devour the pieces off the kitchen floor?


And is it really so bad that Keith and Cole love their sister so much that they practically squeeze the life out of her?



And isn't it okay that every stick or similar item is turned into a weapon? Isn't that what boys do? (I did draw the line when the boys wanted to take the sticks to bed with them)



Yep. I'm learning to let go of a few things and only focus on what is important and necessary.








These 4 are it--the 4 reasons why I got out of bed this morning and remembered to smile.