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!