In the midst of recovering from jet lag, we (meaning Mark and I) muddled our way through two birthdays. I think the boys managed to have good days.
Bryant’s sixth birthday was first.
He asked for a birthday cake with ice cream layers. It was good!
He ran around the house yelling, “I super man! I super man!”
Okay, I know they say the “Terrible Twos,” but we don’t really believe it. Bryant does enjoy trying to assert his independence, but for the most part he is pretty obedient. He says, “Yeah, ba’am” when I have to correct him. That’s “yes ma’am” in Bryantese.
If you look back on Bryant’s growth (easy to do by clicking on his “label” on the sidebar), you’ll note that he’s done quite a lot of things early. Teeth at two months. Crawled at five months. Etc. Well, he is, by far, our most verbal two year old. He also understands a lot more than he can communicate at times.
For his birthday, he requested at “hootball cake.” He didn’t just ask for it one time but multiple times. Over several months. We’d say, “Bryant what do you want for your birthday?”: “A hootball cake,’ he’d reply, “Happy Birfday Myant!”
Oh, and Myant is what he calls himself. He’s such an important two year old that he speaks of him self in third person. He’s been doing this since about March. Sadly, as August approaches he’s growing out of it and it’s more of “I do dat.” Instead of , “Myant do it!”
Aha! All you peeps out there who didn’t understand toddlerese. This is a “hootball cake.” Known to you and I as a football cake. Yay for cake pans that are in the shape of a football.
He cleaned his plate!
Bryant’s also our animal lover…especially horses and dogs. We were so excited to find a big stuffed horse at a consignment sale this past year. He was thrilled to have it too!
And, we all would like to thank Papa and Grandmere for the harmonica. No, really. We’re also grateful that you volunteered to hold it for us until we come to visit.
Bryant also fell in love with Josiah’s Captain America doll action figure that he received from Ge and Granddaddy. So, after two days of Bryant following Josiah around, I requested one for him. Ge and Granddaddy were thrilled to comply and Bryant walked around with his own figure for several days!
Spring rain brings fun in the puddles. We didn’t quite make it out side when it was raining but once I pointed out the puddles and mud, they were set!
They enjoyed slinging mud at each other. Until Ace came out and they decided to attack the castle with mud bombs. Needless to say, the castle lost in the siege!
One morning Bryant and Ceili Rain were oogling over Malachi. He was awake and “sort of” looking at them. “Malachi, meet your partners in crime…Ceili Rain the Tornado and Bryant the Hurricane,” I announced. Ceili Rain then began to call herself the “Tormado” and Bryant the “Hurricane.” This picture is part of the “Hurricane” at work.
After we got home with Malachi, Bryant grew like a ton and was no longer a toddler boy!
We also went to the park where the splash pad was. It was 75 degrees and we scared away all of the preschool moms and their tots while simultaneously receiving dirty looks from them.
If eyes had darts…I would have been full of them. Apparently, they thought the splash pad would not be on for some reason.
My children turning it on was not part of their plan. Bryant, obviously, had nothing to do with the splash pad. They need to groom toddlers like Bryant.
when mom has a baby!
Third non-epidural birth…sixth induction. Yeah, I know. But, this time, he was four days past due date with an approaching kid’s birthday and Dr. J scheduled for vacation in a few days, we opted for the induction again.
Here’s Bryant’s birth story!
A couple of weekends ago, I braided Zoe’s hair in small braids so that when she woke up on Sunday and took them out she had wavy hair. She loves that! Ceili Rain saw it and asked for braids too. Braiding a two year old’s hair in tiny braids…um, yeah, she doesn’t stay still…wasn’t happening. So, I curled it in sponge rollers instead. And while she fussed at night, she didn’t take them down. And this was the result. Too precious!And it stayed curly for two days.
Wednesday’s trash day. It doesn’t matter where Ceili Rain and Bryant are, when the trash truck comes through they come running to our school room and sit at the window. And sometimes, they get along and do this! Josiah’s pretty excited to watch too but not as much as the Destructo Duo is!
We started the weekend off like we normally do…cleaning the house. I know. That’s really exciting.
However, Saturday afternoon, the women at our church (and my dear “little sister”) helped us celebrate Malachi’s coming arrival with a prayer shower. It is such a blessing to gather with women and know that they are there to pray for our sweet baby and to celebrate how God has already blessed us with him! So much fun!
Right before Zoe, Ceili Rain and I left on Saturday, Mark got a call from work. He texted me to let me know he was on alert but didn’t have to go in. Now, it’s very, very rare that he actually has to go in, but it can happen.
I was very thankful he did not have to go in at all on Saturday. Because…when we got home from the shower, I was showing Mark all the sweet gifts when Ceili Rain and Bryant apparently took off with the baby bath soap…you know where this is going right?
I’m taking tags off and sorting and showing and we hear this blood curdling scream from Bryant. The Destructo Duo had struck again. They had gotten the top off of one of the soaps and was in the bathtub where, Ceili Rain felt it was her responsibility to bathe her brother. With his clothes on. She dumped about half a bottle of baby bath soap on his head. Which trickled down. Into his eyes and on his face. She even got some on herself as well. They got their baths early and praise God…yet again…no one was seriously hurt. And Ceili Rain now understands that it is not her job to bathe her baby brother. I’m not entirely sure that Bryant didn’t help her out a bit on the whole opening and dumping thing. I apologize that we didn’t get pictures…it was a bit of a crisis moment, but I wouldn’t be a good blogger if I didn’t think throughout the crisis that this was going to make for a good post.
Then Sunday rolled around…Mark got a call before church that the same problem was going on. Again, we praise God that he didn’t have any problems during church that would cause him to go in but he as soon as church was over…well, he got he call. And he had to go in. We even had to turn down a pizza invite from a visiting family and everything. (who really turns down pizza???)
The other problem came in that I had a pass to attend a pre-sale for a “friend shop” at a semi-annual children’s consignment sale for Sunday. Now, I could have just gone with the crowds on Monday but noooo, stubborn me wanted to get it over with today. We had a gracious friend who willingly went with me. And all six kids. We divided and conquered…and found some cute cheap outfits to boot!
And we shopped…for three hours (including standing in line to check out). And the kids were awesome. Well, as awesome as they can be when they were plum tired and hungry.
When we all got home (Even Mark was able to get home at a decent hour), we cooked up hot dogs and settled in to watch a movie. Now, I’m not saying that Mars Needs Moms is a bad movie…just that I’m wondering, as I type this on Sunday, how many of the kids are going to come in to our room tonight to check and see if I’ve been beamed up to another planet.
And we capped off our busy weekend with Zoe (the one who doesn’t get sick) feeling congested and a bit feverish…hmmm.
I’m very grateful to have busy weekends to pass the time before Malachi comes…wonder what we’ll do next weekend?!
Welll, this was an issue we started discussing as soon as we found out Seven was really Malachi. So, I went to trusty Pinterest to gather my thoughts all in one place. We started with these ideas:
Fabric sample
Another fabric sample.
And an idea for beds to include this:
And this:
Our decorating and color ideas came from this bedding that we already had:
But before any of that could work in a room with five boys, we had to paint…and before we totally took the room apart, we remember pictures!
Sorry about the spots, not sure what was up with the camera.
Totally ignore that disheveled looking closet, the curtains for it will be coming later. Ugh, I cringe when I look at that. It does look much better now but still not fun to see every time you come in a room.
Before all the painting started, Mark and Granddaddy put their heads together to come up with bunk bed plans. Granddaddy got the wood and cut it and even pre-drilled the frame and delivered it on Piano Recital day (cause he rocks).
I’m tempted to stop here and make ya’ll all wait until tomorrow to see what took place but then I think someone would come up with the cyber version of rotten tomatoes to throw at me so I won’t!
And this started…
Mark and I realized about an hour into bunk bed building night that two people, one of whom was in her third trimester were not really adequate enough to hold up these sturdy pieces of wood to build two levels. So, reinforcements were called in by way of a neighbor down the street (he always comes to help…we really are wondering why he hasn’t ran away far far from here now). So, thanks, S for helping with the project!
Not going to show the finished project yet…I had some art up my sleeve to do as well as a bit of refinishing. And while I worked on canvasses, three very sad looking male faces appeared and requested ever so sweetly to paint one. I couldn’t resist those big blue and brown eyes so an afternoon of painting commenced on their very own canvasses.
As you enter you can see that beat up dresser all done. Mark did add the knob to the door. We kept the solid wood sturdy big dresser we already had and got rid of (well, it’s sitting in the schoolroom right now) the beat up smaller dresser. We took the knobs off of that dresser and put them on here. I already had the fabric for the boys’ beds and we had plenty of paint leftover from painting the previous dressers. So, total cost was $35 for the dresser! That’s my spaceship canvas that I freehand drew from looking at the pattern on the boys’ crib.
Bryant helped with the photo tour and please ignore any toys, this was prior to clean up time. This is Josiah and Liam’s bunks.
And this is Bryant’s and Ace’s. See the sweet little head peeking out. Bryant got his mattress this past weekend and has transitioned pretty well to his big boy bed. (This is the part where I don’t admit that we tried to give up paci but Mark nor I could stand the screaming so he still has that and it’s probably a big part of the transitioning well. Yeah, it’s going bye bye before Malachi is born though.)
We put gutter bookshelves on the footboard of each bed and a push light (which is battery operated and they have to buy the batteries…some of them are already in need). At the headboard we put their name canvasses that I did with their life verses on them. Have I shown those yet?
My other canvas that I made…freehand…yay me.
This was the boys’ artwork. I thought it turned out really well. In an effort to control the art, I did sketch off the ship they wanted and outlined it and they did the rest. I resisted any desire to control how they did it but I did limit their color choices to what we were using in the room. Really, I did! The end of the legs of Liam’s ship is fire coming out. And my control of Bry’s hand was mainly to keep the paint on the canvas not on the house or me.
