Connell Christmas Party and More

The Connells had a fun Christmas party at their house over the weekend (Thanks for inviting us!). Santa even came! Most of the kids were really to be Santa. Noah was even caught up in the excitement jumping up and down for the jolly man. Joshua on the other hand was hiding behind me hugging my leg. After watching the other kids sit in Santa's lap and some coaching he was excited to talk to Santa - but only if he could go before Noah. Actually while we were waiting our turn, Noah was so excited that every time a child left his lap, Noah would say "My turn, my turn" and run towards him. Also whenever Santa asked a boy/ girl if they'd been good, Noah would answer "I been good! Hey Santa! I've been good!" When Santa called on Joshua, here's how their little talk went:
Santa: And what would you like for Chrsitmas, Joshua?
Joshua: Star Wars Legos
Santa: Oh, Legos are fun.
Joshua: Not Legos. Star Wars Legos - it's different.

Waiting to talk with Santa

I forgot to mention it but one of the perks of going on the Polar Express at the start of the month was that our Elf on a Shelf, Zoopy, hitched a ride back from the North Pole on the train. The boys have had so much fun waking up to find Zoopy and see what kind of mischief he's gotten into. Noah's favorite Zoopy mischief has been the time he took a bubble bath in marshmallows. Joshua's favorite Zoopy appearance has been when he woke up to find Zoopy and Mr. Penguin playing chess, or "chest" as Joshua likes to call it. He's been asking Daddy to teach him to play "chest" ever since then.

Let me share a Noah story. His favorite stall tactic these days is to repeatedly say "I have a question." When I finally say "What Noah? What is your question?" he'll giggle and say, "Um, I don't know. Do you have a question?" Grumble, grumble. :)

In my last post I talked about Joshua's art work. This past week or so he has diverted his focus to drawing Star Wars characters and Superheroes. He made me smile when he showed me a picture of two superheroes he had made up: Whatever Man who can be whatever you want him to be and Toot Man who can make the bad guys fall down if he toots on them.

One last Christmas story, we have a couple decorative nutcrackers in the kitchen which Joshua keeps calling cracker-nuts!This has definitely made mommy and daddy laugh.

Noah and our Christmas Ham

Santa visit

It has been a fun Christmas season. We had a great time decorating the Christmas tree. Also Matt and I have enjoyed the perks of having family in town. We have had to opportunity to pawn the children off, err... I mean have the boys spend quality time with their grandparents while we unpack the house, decorate for Christmas, and go shopping. Joshua got an extra special surprise on Friday when my dad, J's "fishing buddy" picked him up from school early so they could go fishing. I think they had a great time. And Noah's too young to realize he missed out on anything (and took a long nap at day care) so it was win-win for all.

Both boys really like their new school. They are learning a lot and are happy. They get happy-grams frequently sent home from school telling us some of the good things they do, i.e. reminding their friends about the rules, helping their teacher, etc. Also we are often told how well they have adjusted to the transition. We had a bit of trouble when Noah was bitten twice in his class. Once on the forehead which looked vicious and once on the wrist. His teacher told me that rather than fight back,he teared up and waved his finger at them saying "No biting! No bite!" That's my sweet Noah!

Joshua's artwork has exploded recently. He loves drawing pictures and you can really tell what they are. He's becoming quite the artist. One of his favorite things to draw is his Daddy and himself playing soccer or Joshua and Grandpa fishing. He drew an awesome picture of his Daddy - he was all brown except for the bluest eyes and what appeared to be a blue tail. It turned out the "tail" was actually Daddy's badge from work. Feeling a little jealous I asked Joshua if he could draw a picture of me. He sighed and said "ok." The next day he came home from school and handed me a picture of what looked like 2 people playing soccer. When I asked him to tell me about his picture he said it was a picture of Mommy and Daddy and Joshua and Noah playing soccer. When I asked who everyone was pointed to one person and said "That's me." Then pointed to the other person in the foreground and said "That's you. Daddy and Noah are behind you but you can't see them behind your big head." OK, so no more asking for pictures of mommy. :)

So far Noah has no fear of Santa. Joshua likes talking about Santa but doesn't really want anything to do with him. Fortunately Noah was willing to sit with Santa so Joshua decided to as well. We went to the Galleria and while the Santa looked the part, we missed our photographer and Santa from Pensacola. All in all it was a good Santa visit. Merry Christmas!

The Polar Express

We finally were able to take the boys on the local version of the Polar Express called the North Pole Express at the Train Depot in Calera, AL. I say finally because I've tried for the last two years to get tickets and finally was successful (thank you Erin Coram!) by getting the tickets in July. We prepared the boys for their surprise trip by watching The Polar Express.  The downside of that was my safety conscious Joshua wasn't sure a ride on the Polar Express would be a good idea. In fact when we talked about it the conversation went like this:

Me: Joshua, would you want to ride on the Polar Express?
Joshua: No.
Me: Why not?
Joshua: It seems kinda dangerous.
Me: What did you not like?
Joshua: The part when the train was on the ice. That was not safe.
Me: What of the train didn't cross the ice?
Joshua: Hmmm, that might be ok.
 
My first hurdle was getting Joshua to wear pajamas to dinner. I asked him to try on some new pajamas when I got home from work. They were green and red and had Santa on them. Joshua was so excited he asked "Do you think Daddy will let me wear these to dinner?" I told him perhaps if he asked very nicely he would say yes.

My talented sister, known as Aunt Stoppie, made very authentic looking golden tickets so the boys could ride the train.We hid the tickets in the boys jackets. When we got to the train station we told Joshua to put on his jacket but he didn't want to because he said his new pajamas would keep him warm. And it's true, it wasn't that cold outside. Matt told him "Well why don't you just hold your jacket?" But Joshua threw it on the floor of the car insisting he didn't need a jacket. Then Matt said "Why don't we open our jackets to see if anything is inside them? I think I see something inside mine..." Finally  Joshua opened his jacket and saw the ticket and said "Wow! I have a ticket. It's Christmas magic."

Our very excited boys waited patiently to ride the train. Our group was big enough that we got one end of a train car together. There was music, singing, cookies, and chocolate milk. After a short ride to the North Pole, Santa and Mrs. Claus came aboard and took pictures with the kids. The windows had some condensation on them so the elves on the train gave us some paper towels to wipe them off. When Santa walked into our car most of the kids went crazy. I asked "Joshua, don't you want to say hi to Santa?" He replied "Um, I think I'd rather wash the windows." And proceeded to wipe them off. We did get him to pose with Santa. Noah is a good sport and doesn't seem to have any reservations about Santa the way his brother does. We are excited about a fun-filled Christmas this year.

Noah getting on the "good" list.

Our best picture of all the kiddos together.

Update

So much has happened since my last post. Joshua and Noah have turned 4 and 2, respectively, we moved from Milton to Birmingham, we went to Disney World, and celebrated Thanksgiving. I plan to go back and update these items but rather than remain months behind, I'm going to catch up now and fill in the past as time allows. For my faithful followers, the way you'll know I updated is that something will show up on the ticker to the right for months Aug - Nov. Now, I'll catch you up with our Christmas activities

Growing Up

This past week has been a week of growing up for the boys. First I was playing the "kisses" game with Noah where I ask "Do you need more kisses?" and he laughs while I plant kisses all over face. Anyway I was kissing on Noah and asking him if he wanted more kisses and he answered "No ma'am" and waved his mommy off. While I appreciate his manners little boys should never say no when their mommies ask them if they want more kisses!

Joshua is truly Mr. Independent. He likes to do everything by himself especially pick out his clothes. Whenever his lack of style starts grating on my nerves I think about all the childhood photos of me where I dressed myself and two things came to mind: 1. This is hereditary. and 2. One day he'll outgrow it and dress like a "normal" person.

Noah was moved to the 2 year old class this week. I can't believe my baby is getting so big! We'll really miss his teacher Miss Cheryl. And Noah is so excited to be with the "big" kids. Of course some of his friends are moving up with him, most notably his friend Kyleigh. Whenever we smell a dirty diaper I'll say "Noah, do you need a diaper?" And he always answers "No. Kyleigh poo-poo'd." It's so cute the way he says it.

Lastly we had fun going to a Pensacola Blue Wahoos baseball game. At the end of the game there was a fireworks show. Normally this would be a good thing but given the sea breeze, all the soot and some embers from the fireworks fell on the crowds. At one point Joshua was saying "My eyes! My eyes! I can't see." He still had a good time. We all did.

Pirate Party

Some friends of ours from church had a pirate themed birthday party for their kids at the beach. We had so much fun dressing up as pirates and saying "Arrgh mateys!" Happy Birthday Jaydon and Kadon! On the way home Joshua said something that surprised me. He said "Mommy, I want a Spiderman birthday, then a pirate birthday party at the beach, and then a class party at school. Wait last year I had 3 parties when I turned 3 years old and this year I'm turning 4. Does that mean I get 4 parties!?!" I'm surprised at what he remembers, but I told him we'd keep it to 3 parties (friends, family, & school). Noah had fun at the party as long as he didn't have to wear his pirate hat. He did agree to wear his white sunhat which I thought made him look like a delightful first mate. Joshua loved being the captain - he gets that from his mommy!

I got a surprise from Noah today. Apparently he decided to stuff a chocolate graham cracker in his shoe and then wear it all day. You can imagine what semi melted chocolate graham cracker looks like on a white sock so let me say never have I been so relieved to find graham cracker inside a shoe!

Lastly here is a picture of Joshua watching all the other buccaneers dig for buried treasure. He preferred to watch them work, then share in the rewards. It was funny that someone moved the "X" for the X marks the spot so the kids dug and dug and dug before the party planner said "Hmm, let's try digging over here. We've never lost the treasure before..."

Movie Night

Matt and I have missed our sweet babies this week and yet we still tried to make the most of our child-free time by doing something unusual - going to the movies. Matt and I both wanted to see The Avengers but didn't think it was age appropriate for either of the boys. We called around and found one movie theater that was still showing the movie. We did our homework and watched Captain America which was out on video the night before. Then we bought our tickets and selected our choice seats in the center of the theater. As the movie started it became apparent we were going to be the only ones watching. Matt made me laugh when he leaned in to tell me "You know I paid extra to rent out the whole theater..." Ha! We enjoyed the movie and had a fun night, although we were pretty tired. We aren't used to being out after 9PM!

The next night we went out to the Grand Marlin at the beach for dinner. It was a fun evening. We sat on the patio and listened to a guy playing the steel drums. Then we sat on the beach and watched the sun set. Peaceful and relaxing.

I have a Pensacola story to share. There truly is a small town feel to Pensacola in that there isn't much traffic and wait times at restaurants generally aren't that bad. Anyway in Pensacola there are 3 hospitals. Two of them have recently started advertizing wait times in their emergency rooms on electronic billboards that update every 30 minutes. Well we recently drove past a sign and it was advertizing a 1 minute wait time for the emergency room. Matt joked that he felt the need to break and arm or a leg just to take advantage of such a short waiting time! I couldn't imagine UAB hospital ever having such a short wait time.

Since we worked on July 4th and the day after we didn't really do anything to celebrate so here is a picture of the boys on July 4th in their new shirts. Thanks Granddottie and Jerry Pop!

Wind in my Booty

Joshua recently said something that was so funny we will torture him, um, I mean retell the story forever. We were in Birmingham and staying at Granddaddy's house. Granddaddy's house is different than ours in that his HVAC has registers on the floor whereas our house has them on the ceiling. Anyway, Joshua was getting dressed and bent over the register while the air was running and got a surprise. He stood up quickly and said "I have wind in my booty!" The surprised look on his face was absolutely classic. And from now on his Indian name is "Joshua Wind-in-my Booty Chatham."

We had a fun trip to Birmingham. We stayed with Matt's dad and he took us to the McWane center. The boys enjoyed everything there, especially the Dora and Diego exhibit. I wasn't sure we would ever leave that section. Afterwards it was a quiet drive home because we left the boys in Birmingham/Huntsville for Grandparents Camp. This was really due to the fact that most people observe Independence Day on July 4th but our work decided to observe it on a Friday instead on a Wednesday which clashed with the daycare. That's my version of events - of course if you ask the grandparents they heard "blah blah blah a week with the grandsons! blah blah blah." Thanks for taking on our wild children!

How to Put on My Shirt

Here is a picture of my happy boy showing me how to put on his shirt. He's so helpful (and extra cheery this morning)!

My Super Heroes

My boys (especially Joshua) love to dress up in costumes. We have a variety of costumes at our house and sometimes we'll go through 6 outfits in a half hour, but if it keeps them happy and protecting their mommy from the bad guys, that's probably not a bad thing.

I recently took Joshua to see Madagascar 3 and the best part was when the title sequence was playing and Joshua said "Look Mommy! It has a 3 just like me because I'm 3 years old!" And for anyone who saw it, I'll be singing "Afro Circus" for weeks!

Recently I was getting really frustrated with the swype function on my phone because it was terribly misspelling every word. Then I realized Noah had changed the language setting to Spanish. Aha! Now I'm not crazy and the phone is not a piece of junk! But I probably need to watch out for my happy, button-pusher.

My negociator was working an angle the other day.
Me: What did you do at school today?
Joshua: I did a lot of thinking.
Me: Really? What did you think about?
Joshua: I was thinking maybe we ought to go bowling. So can we?

One final story... Last night Matt was picking on Joshua who was in our bed at bedtime and Joshua sighed and told him "Everybody's being quiet, and everybody's laying down and not talking and doing what they are supposed to EXCEPT you!"  I think Daddy was one "laying on Joshua like a pillow" away from going to time out!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to a great Daddy! The boys enjoyed opening the presents they gave Daddy. And he enjoyed watching the boys open his presents. It was a fun day! Here are some pictures of the bubble fun we had.

Tales From the Car

We spend a lot of time in the car and as a result, I have a lot of funny stories about car trips. Here are a few recent highlights from my boys.

Joshua loves for me to "Turn on the maps" i.e. use the Navi system while I am driving. Here's how a recent conversation on Woodbine Rd went:
Joshua: Look Mommy, that's Alligator Lake
Me: Wow! That does look like an alligator. Good job!
Joshua: We don't want to go swimming there.
Me: Because of the alligators?
Joshua: *sigh* No, because of the sharks!

Our favorite cd to listen to in the car these days is Bare Naked Ladies Snack Time. It's a very entertaining cd. I like the Ninja song, Noah likes the popcorn song and the howling at the moon song, and Joshua likes 7, ATE 9 and the bad day song. All in all it's very entertaining and I recommend it to parents and children everywhere. Thank you Aunt Stoppie for this awesome cd!

Noah continues to take off both his shoes and his right sock when we are in the car. I still want to know why???

Joshua made me a very happy mommy the other day. While we were driving home from day care he told me "When I'm big, I'm going to be an engineer!"

Noah's new favorite saying is to say "I'm a happy!" I'm so blessed to have such a sweet, good-mannered little boy (actually two, because Joshua's a sweetheart too).

Both my boys love to sing. Joshua was recently in the car singing "I'm sexy and I know it" which was both funny and wildly inappropriate. Mommy's going to have to pay more attention to what is on the radio! Now to make up for that last story I'll share this one. Joshua was riding in the car and we were listening to k-love on the radio and a song came on that said "Jesus rise from the grave" and Joshua was like "Oh, I like this song, 'Jesus ride the waves..."

Summer boys

We are really enjoying the summer weather, well maybe not the weather so much as the long days. We recently took the boys to the blueberry farm. Noah had a lot of fun because he created a game where he would take one blueberry from mommy's basket and put it in daddy's basket and vice versa. It entertained him endlessly and he ran off some energy so it was win-win for everyone. Joshua enjoyed picking the blueberries though he really doesn't mind picking unripe berries. We are working in that!

We recently bought some water guns so we could have a water gun fight and play in the sprinkler. Of course Noah would have none of it. He played at his outdoor water station while mommy, daddy, and brother got wet. Now that summer has started they have started having some water play days at school. I find it interesting that neither of my boys enjoy this to the point that they will sit on the bench by the building rather than play on the playground so that they don't accidentally get wet.

Matt and I recently had one of those "we must be parents" moments. Joshua was refusing to brush his teeth and we ultimately got him to do it by singing and dancing two versions of the chicken dance. It was like "Did we really just do that? Well at least it worked..."

Mommy's Helpers

Here are some pictures of my big boys helping me make brownies.... Ta-dah!

Teamwork!

Look at all that choc-o-latey goodness!

Use the Force, Noah!

We did it!

AWANAS

Joshua and some fellow Cubbies from AWANAS

Joshua receiving his certificate

Daddy and other AWANAs teachers

This year Joshua participated in AWANAS as a Cubbie and Daddy was a teacher for the TNT - Truth-n-Training group (3rd - 5th grade boys). I was so proud of both my boys for their commitment at memorizing scripture and growing in their faith. It truly made an impact on Joshua who loves quoting scripture and talking about God and Jesus. Mommy stayed home with Noah who was too young to participate but when he is bigger I'm sure he will follow in their footsteps. Joshua got a certificate for completing his book. And Daddy was appreciated for volunteering to help. The week after appreciation night, there was a family night with pizzas and water slides. It was so much fun!

Joshua was genuinely surprised when there was a pool at the bottom of the slide.

Bubbles! Bubbles!

Wheeeee!