Conversation with Charlie

Today Charlie and I had the following conversation:

Charlie: Mommy, look at me do this puzzle. I so smart!

Me: Wow, you're modest, too!

C: Hey! Don't call me that word!

M: What can I call you?

C: Call me Charlie! That is my name!

Soap Bubble After Party

After Noah's party Sam and I helped with the clean up. Sam started the dishwasher...

In his defense, the dish soap (right bottle) bottle DOES look a lot like the dishwasher soap (left bottle).

Happy Birthday, Noah!

Happy Third Birthday, Noah! We made it!!!

My two three year olds

Trick or Treat

This was the first year the boys went trick or treating. Folks in Adel take it VERY seriously and many of the houses had a line just to get candy. I am not sure we will participate next year, because I have a hard time waiting in line just to get a sucker. The boys had a good time, and that is all that matters!!

Out with the old, in with the new

Well, Sam got his truck. After much debate I realized that we should do something with the Escape before it has a major break down, as it has had several smaller problems in the last few months. We found a good deal in Ashburn, my dad's hometown. The salesman actually graduated with my dad, so that was kind of funny. If Sam was excited to get a new truck, Charlie was off purely gleeful to get a truck.

Noah thought it was pretty cool too.

With any luck, our plan is that this could be the boys' first car...by the time Charlie can drive it will be 12 years old!

Edit: Sam wants me to include details. It is a 2012 Chevy Colorado. Four door crew-cab.

Sam fixed the upload issues! Yay! Here are pictures from Noah's party:

Missy and Maddie. This girl got lots of love!

Opening gifts

About to blow out candles

Lunch...

One of our friends made balloon animals for the kids...Maddox and his sword

Maddie holding Maddie

This picture cracks me up...lots going on!

Stone Family (minus Maddie)

Christy and Grant

Nannie and Madison

Caden

The little boy table.

Maddie!

Nan and Savanna

Sam grilled up burgers and hot dogs

Noah and an armful of trains

Grandpa!

I must be telling Katie something good...

The cake! I dreamed about it one night and had to figure out how to make a river. It is just piping gel dyed blue.

Noah's Third Birthday Party!

I am still having issues uploading pictures, but this was my favorite one of Noah from his party. I love how his eyes are cutting over to look at his cake.

Thank you to Curt and Marla for the use of their house! We had it filled up with little boys (and little sisters). Grandpa Kovac even came down from Ashburn! It was a good day all around!!

Noah's 21 Egg Salute

I am so excited. Noah is turning three next week.

This is a big milestone for me...this time next week we will have two big boys! I have survived going through two years, back to back, with a two-year-old boy in the house!! I am really enjoying the boys growing up. I have dreamed about this day.

To celebrate, we are having our first combined friend and family party on Saturday. I am in the middle of making the cake right now. I have a yummy recipe that calls for 5 eggs and 3 stick of butter...and I have to make three cakes to put together into one big cake for the party. Not that I mind at all, because have I mentioned the cake is for Noah's THIRD birthday?? To make the

party planning even more enjoyable, this week my in-laws stopped by with my Christmas present:

Could I receive a more perfect gift? (THANK YOU CURT AND MARLA!!!)

After whipping up the first cake and popping it in the oven I started on the second one. I had creamed my butter (all three sticks) with the sugar and had put four eggs in. As I was adding the last one I dropped the shell in the bowl. I tried to turn it off so I could pick it out...but I turned the switch the wrong way and turned it ALL THE WAY UP. Have you seen a KitchenAid going on high? It pretty much shattered the shell into a million pieces. I had to dump it out and start over, and I was so flustered when I was getting the new eggs out of the refrigerator that I dropped one.

I made the cakes, but it took me 21 eggs. I am 12 sticks of butter into this cake and I have not even made the frosting yet. Not that I mind at all, because Noah is turning THREE!!!

What I want to remember about this weekend

Sam bought me a new camera this week. It is tiny and cute and best of all it fits in my purse. All week I have been taking cute pictures of the boys with every intention of posting them...but blogger is taking FOREVER to upload pictures! After waiting half an hour for it to upload just ONE picture I decided I would just post a list of what I want to remember about this weekend. (I tried to send a message to the Blogger folks about my uploading issues, but I got an error message!! NICE one Google!!)

-Charlie is a Mama's boy. I was going to go shopping on Friday night and Marla offered to watch the boys, and Charlie insisted he come with me, even after his grandma offered him pepperoni pizza.

- The boys tend to go nuts after 8:30 pm if they are still up.

- Lark Park has a very clean Wendy's.

- According to Charlie we don't say "potty." He is now calling it the ambulance or the post office depending on his mood.

- Noah still will not eat anything yellow and gummy.

- Missy's house is still the best place to spend Saturdays.

- The Sonic in Moultrie does not have a public bathroom, but they will let Charlie go post office there. You just have to step over about twenty pairs of roller skates in the bathroom.

- Noah eats at other people's houses like we do not feed him at home. I promise I feed him 6 meals a day.

- I have some pretty amazing friends.

- Toys from Roses don't last very long.

- Noah has to dig through the stack of pull-ups until he finds the one he wants to wear. They are all identical.

- Some people will never be happy so they don't want you to be happy.

- Charlie and Noah have grown up so much in the last few months. Noah did not qualify for speech at the Primary School (he scored a 103% on the test, and had to have a score below 80% to receive services) and Charlie is doing well enough that he is getting dismissed from his program, so after this week we will be DONE with speech!

- Madison has a third little boy that calls her Mimi.

- I love it when Sam is off on Sundays and can hep me with the nursery.

- We have lost Emily. Noah has been looking for her everywhere.

- I ran over a cat.

- I am so excited my Noah is turning three next week!

Thomas Love

Charlie and Noah love Thomas. It might even border on an obsession. Noah always has Thomas, or one of his friends, in his hands. Right now he is stuck on Emily and has worn the paint from gripping her all day.

The boys have a collection of Thomas books, too. We read them at least once a day and we all have them memorized. They will even act out the stories in the books with their trains. This morning it was so sweet to see Charlie and Noah cuddled up on the couch together with Charlie “reading” the books to Noah!

Why I left Facebook

You may have noticed I am no longer on Facebook. Nothing dramatic happened. I didn’t have a stalker…no public falling out…just decided it was time to pull the plug.

I started using Facebook when I was living in Texas, far, far away from my family. I used it to keep in touch with my family out of state and feel connected to other people because as you know, I hated living in Texas. When we had the boys, Facebook gave family the opportunity to get daily updates on what Charlie and Noah were up to.

Now that we are all happily located in Georgia with the majority of “my people” I am feeling the need for Facebook less and less. I am still planning on keeping the blog and updating it more often as a more formal record of what we are up to.

Also, I feel that picking up a phone or visiting face to face a better way to keep up relationships. This commercial gives you the general idea…

C-H-A-R-L-I-E

Last night I was tucking Charlie into bed and we had the following conversation:

Charlie: Mommy, how do you spell Charlie?

Me: Charlie is spelled C-H-A-R-L-I-E

Charlie: (Clapping) Yay Mommy! You spelled Charlie!! Good Job!

When is a toilet bowl brush not a toilet bowl brush?

When you are using it to scrub your brother's head!

Earlier today I had my friend Tonya and her cutie newborn daughter Natalie over for lunch. While I was feeding and cuddling Natalie the boys were playing upstairs. I didn't think much of it until we heard the water running in the upstairs bathroom. When I went up to investigate I found the boys, naked, in the tub. Charlie was scrubbing Noah with the toilet brush. BOYS!

Inspiration

So…it has been two and a half months since my last post. The reason for the lack of posts this summer hasn’t been because Charlie and Noah have not been up to doing cute, blog-worthy things. They are as cute and rotten as ever. The combination of being abnormally busy this summer and just not being in the mood to sit down and write are the reasons I have neglected to post.

This afternoon while dusting I was hit with inspiration.

What is that? That would be Noah’s yellow fruit snack.

Noah HATES yellow fruit snacks. It is just one of his quirks. Instead of eating them, he scatters them around the living room. It is kind of a scavenger hunt for Charlie to find them instead of just giving them to him to eat. Noah is probably one of the strongest willed toddlers you will ever meet. He challenges us every day. One thing that comforts me is knowing that as he grows up, he will never be pushed around or peer-pressured by the other kids!

Other news: we had to get a new vacuum. I vacuum two or three times a day, and ours dies last week cleaning up two pounds of powder sugar Noah dumped in the living room. I like that the new vacuum is green, the boys in the house (all three of them) like the retractable cord. Charlie and Noah played with it for a while this morning. Each time the cord whizzed into the vacuum Charlie told me how awesome it was.

And more random news for the week: Isn’t this cute? I made it this week to hang on the front door. Also, I will be going to Michigan at the end of the month to see Corie and her baby girl, due next week. I have had my ticket for a few weeks and it was going to be a big surprise for my parents…but I spilled the beans while talking to my mom last week. Maybe I can surprise her with a visit five years from now.

Jacksonville Trip: Part Four

This morning we took the boys to the Jacksonville Zoo. I have lots of pictures like this of the boys looking at the animals:
We got to go on a train ride around the park:
...and feed the giraffes:
...and look at some snakes:
It was actually a little concerning how much the boys loved watching the snakes. Noah giggled like they were the funniest things ever. We even got to see one eat a mouse.

Over all, I think the elephants were the biggest hit. Noah picked out a stuffed elephant from the gift shop (Charlie picked out a penguin, but we didn't go see those, it was getting hot and approaching lunchtime. Charlie impressed Sam by telling him penguins are birds that walk and swim.)

Jacksonville Trip: Part Three

After our trip to Mr. Crabs house, we walked to the beach. We stayed right on the beach so this was very convenient. The water was all choppy and Charlie LOVED it!

This random dog decided it wanted to play fetch with us.

Noah HATED the ocean. He screamed every time Sam got close to the edge of the water and was clinging to him.

Charlie and Sam tried to talk Noah into sticking his toe in....but he would have no part of it!

Charlie really loved the big waves and pumped in and tried to splash back. He didn't want to leave!

Jacsonville Trip: Part Two

By the time we made it to our hotel, Charlie was happy to get out of the car and looked like this:
Our poor Noah baby was worn out and looked like this:
...so we decided we would try to get them to take a nap. Yeah, right. They were ready to keep going! We decided we would take them to an arcade/water park place. We tried to get them to play putt-putt, and they got the general idea that the ball goes in the hole, but failed to participate in an orderly game.
Later, we took them on the go-carts. They both really seemed to enjoy going fast...we will have to find some closer we can take them on.
We went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, which Charlie called Mr. Crabs House and kept asking where all the characters from Spongbob were.