bumper bowling is rad

My office doesn't close for Veterans day, but luckily it fell on one of my normal days off so I still got to play! Ryean-Marie had a great idea to celebrate with a good round of bowling!

If one game consisted of 6 frames instead of 10, I think it would've been a perfect day. The last few frames weren't horrible, but Andrew turned crabby (according to Kai, Andrew was not having a good time) :) and Mason realized he could escape. Overall though, it was a lot of fun! (And they all looked so cute in their bowling shoes!).

This is Andrew helping to make sure Mason was out of the way for Mayli's turn.

And here he is showing off his new fancy move -- he carried the ball by the holes and tried to throw it the right way! It was actually very stressful! He didn't really give it a good toss so we were waiting for his ball to stop halfway down the lane pretty much every time. Ryean suggested that we all blow to help it make it to the pins and Andrew thought it was hilarious. He asked us to blow on his ball the next few turns. :)

Such a fun little group of friends we have!

Real quick, I think it's important you know that Kai's dad is 30. When he heard we were on lane 13 (he heard 30) he looked right at me and let me know that's how old his dad is! Smart kid. :)

pack pack

On our last visit to Ellensburg, Andrew scored a bunch of cool new toys. He loves to bring his suitcase/backpack so Matt had him pack up his bag for the trip. As we were getting ready to leave we told him to pack up his suitcase with the toys he wanted to have in the car, so he filled it with his favorite new toys. And then we left the suitcase at grandma and grandpa's house... He doesn't forget about things like that, so of course he asked for his 'pack pack' and we had to break the bad news. Luckily for Andrew, his grandma loves him a lot and came up with a good reason why they needed to head over this way and delivered it to him today.

They got here just in time for lunch, so we enjoyed an Applebees full of Veterans. :) (Applebees is giving all Veterans free lunch, in case you missed that). Thanks for lunch and for delivering the goods! He's currently napping with 2 of the rescued toys!

And I love this picture. :)

thank you, Veterans!

This is our way of saying thank you to all the Veterans and their families - by dressing in red, white and blue and being cute. :) We really can't say thank you enough for all you do/have done for our freedom!

God bless America! :)

bath time

The boys love bath time! As soon as I start the water, Andrew takes off his clothes and tries to beat Mason and Mason runs and tries to climb in the tub with whatever clothes he still has on. Mason usually gets out first, but tonight Andrew wanted to get out early so he could watch a movie. They had so much fun splashing as the water was draining. I got my camera at the very end, but it's still cute if you ask me!

sparkly teeth

Our dentist office has a couple massage chairs in the lobby. I turned to see what coffee options they had and when I turned back around he was in the chair and had figured out how to turn it on. He just learned how great they are at a recent visit to Brookstone. :)

I brush his teeth at night and we let him brush them on his own in the morning. I told the dentist that to make sure that was a good plan and she said he's doing a great job! It was cute though - she had him show her how he brushes his teeth. He brushes like a crazy person and we usually have to remind him to get certain areas. Here, she's showing him that if he brushes the top teeth first, then the bottom teeth, he'll know that each tooth is nice and clean. He didn't take her advice. He brushed like a crazy person tonight, like usual. She said he's doing a good job though, so I'm not too worried.

I am, however, worried about Mason's first trip to the dentist... He instantly started crying when we got back to the room. :( I'm sure it reminded him of the doctor, which reminded him of blood draws, which reminded him that doctors suck. Hopefully we'll be able to work through that before long, otherwise, his first dentist appt is going to be a tough one!

boys

Andrew has always done things in a very 'boy' way. When he was about two, we were at my nieces house and he found a wagon full of stuffed animals. There was one doll tucked in the middle and he pulled it out and tossed it before pulling the wagon around. He's been boy-ing things ever since.

Here his is playing with a Barbie camper. He saw it and said 'oh look at that semi truck!'. Then when grandma asked him if he wanted a doll to drive it, he just kind of looked at her with a blank stare. Then she told him there was a boy one and then he decided it'd be a good idea. So I dug though about 30 Barbies to find the 2 Kens down at the bottom. :)

This was Mason's first attempt to ruin some of grandma's things. Luckily the highlighter he got away with was all dried up! That could've been bad news!

Andrew went out with Matt and grandpa to move some tractors and came back with a rock, a stick and a big rusty bolt.

And Mason's second attempt to leave his mark. He was carrying a bag of pretzels and decided to dump them out. Then he spread them around, then stepped on them. I guess it's a good thing he's cute. :)

I had to throw this picture in here for two reasons. One - it's cute. Two - Andrew is playing with a transformer! We went through Matt and AJ's old toys and the boys scored some awesome new toys (tractors and tow trucks made of metal!). They're taking over our whole house so I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures to follow.

loss

I'm not good at finding the right words to explain what I'm thinking. I never have been. I'm happy to steal other people's way of saying things when they say it perfectly, although I usually keep them to myself because what is meaningful to one person is not always so for another. And then I feel the need to defend my quotes, and that's a weird thing to do. But every once in a while, quotes and other people's writing make their way on here. This is one of those times. I think this is a beautiful way to explain grieving a loss, especially as a Christian. It's not either/or, it's both/and.

This was taken from team-ewan.com.

I hope I'm able to communicate in those moments that grieving Ewan (that grieving any loss, really) is not a black and white matter; it's not either/or, but both/and. I can trust that he's in heaven and rejoice in that, and I can acknowledge that we will be feeling the loss of him acutely for a long time -- probably our whole lives. I can rejoice in the truth that he is not suffering anymore, and weep bitterly over the reality that he isn't with us, that we did not get nearly enough time with him. I can be happy that he doesn't have to be sliced or poked or taped or stitched ever again, and desperately ache for him to be back here with us. One reality doesn't cancel out the other. We hold them in tension, with all the uncomfortable complexity and unfathomable mystery that such nuances create.

Thinking of AJ.
_ _ _ _

One quick story. Matt will often tell Andrew stories about uncle AJ. When he was younger I think he would get confused and think they were about uncle Ed, but he knows now that they are different uncles. :) Anyway, the other day after one of Matt's stories, Andrew told him it would be awesome if uncle AJ had a really long rope and could come down from heaven. So sweet.

This day is a tough one. It's especially hard these days as I think about how much fun he and our boys would have together. One of the last conversations I vividly remember is AJ telling me to be happy with how much money I'll be saving because he'd have all the cool toys and our kids would always go to his house to play. I love the thought of that.

Mason

Mason is starting to really show his personality these days, and he's goofy!

One of the fun things about having two boys is comparing their personalities. Mason does a lot of things similar to Andrew (he loves holding handfuls of little toys, carrying my makeup brushes and brooms, wearing headbands and sunglasses...), but he also does a lot of things that are purely his own. My favorite is he loves to sit in my lap. If I'm on the floor he usually brings over whatever he's playing with, turns around and backs into my lap. His dance moves, laugh, and favorite toys are very different. I love it!

record heat

We broke a record for the warmest start to November. I think the official temperature was 76, breaking the record of 70 degrees in 1970.

It's hard to believe it looked like this outside but was too hot to even wear a sweatshirt. It was great.

Here we are enjoying the crazy heatwave.

Andrew found his first little worm. He got very excited and asked me if I wanted it. I've been dreading these days. I'm fine with him touching gross things but I don't want to be part of it. Please.

dragons

The boys love to play dragons with Matt. Matt will hide in one of the rooms and the boys walk down the hall and get scared to death when he jumps out. It's a fun little game...

A quick video of their fun.

brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug

I think we're lucky to have boys that get along so well. Even at daycare they comment on how cute they are together and that we're lucky (usually followed by 'enjoy it while it lasts' but I chose to ignore that part). Anyway, I love these pictures of them being cute together.

Andrew likes to talk for Mason a lot. And he's usually right. He told me Mason wanted to sit with him and watch a show. :) He doesn't care about TV yet, but he definitely liked sitting by Andrew.

Andrew also does things to Mason that I think are going to upset him, but instead make him smile or laugh. Basically he can do anything and Mason just loves that he's playing with him.

Here they are playing dragons with Matt. It's so fun to watch because Mason is actually scared but also can't stop laughing. The game usually starts with me holding him and then he warms up and will brave the dragon.

And here's a little video of them dancing to the Wiggles. I'm glad to see Mason is a fan! :)

'on an empty stomach' sucks

The only challenge with Mason's medicine is that he has to take it on an empty stomach. Other than that, it's a piece of cake - in fact, he (unfortunately) knows the word 'medicine' and when I tell him it's time, he walks to the kitchen and gets ready for it. But the empty stomach thing is tricky. I have a pretty good system in place, so most days it's not a huge deal, but there are always those odd days where the timing gets messed up and it throws everything off. It's little things like making sure he gets his medicine before he takes his nap, making sure Andrew eats at the right times too so Mason doesn't see him eating at a time he can't eat, etc.

The other day I ran into one of the mixed up mornings because Andrew decided to sleep in. Mason had just had his medicine when Andrew was ready for breakfast. The solution? I pulled out Andrew's special box of things that we have to keep away from Mason. :) It totally worked! I think I'm going to make a special "keep Mason occupied when other people are eating" box with fun things that are a little safer...

PS. I'm not complaining. I know we're very lucky with the fact that his medicine is once a day, inexpensive, tastes good, etc. I just want to remember our day-to-day life stuff and this is a big part of it.

maybe he really just doesn't like leaves

You'd never know it from this picture, but Mason doesn't seem to care about the beautiful falling leaves. :) I've tried to get pictures of him playing in the leaves (or with the leaves, or near the leaves...) a few times now, but he's just not interested.

Andrew has fun raking and jumping in the piles for a few minutes. Yesterday he was pretending like the piles were his houses. I didn't know that until I was raking and he told me I just ruined his bathroom. :)

trick or treat

We went to the Tuomisto's to do our trick-or-treating this year.

This was my first attempt at a group shot. It turned out pretty cute but we were missing a few so we tried again outside.

Success! (sort of)

Andrew was a pro this year. He didn't need any tips and even remembered to say thank you. Mason was ready for bed but I did get him to go to one door. He instantly won the grandma & grandpa's hearts over. We picked a good door! :)

Unfortunately Ryean-Marie had to fly out to NY unexpectedly so was unable to join in the festivities. I thought this was too cute, and something that needed to be captured for RM!

Andrew had a blast until all of a sudden he was done. Of course I waited to take a family picture until that point...

Thanks for another fun Halloween!!

happy halloween (updated)

This was the first year that Andrew picked his costume. I asked him what he wanted to be and he told me he wanted to be something scary. I asked him what he had in mind and in a scary little whisper he said "a tiger - a scary tiger..."

A while later we were at Old Navy and I saw a tiger costume and asked him if that is still what he wanted to be. I started looking for his size and couldn't find it. He looked at me like I was crazy and reminded me we have a tiger costume at home. :)

Matt's mom made this costume for Uncle AJ when he was younger. It wasn't a Halloween costume though, it was a mascot costume for Thorp high school! It's such a great costume and it was a lot of fun to see how much Andrew loves it.