Tooth Fairy

 

Andrew will be turning 6 in a little over a month, growing way too fast for my personal taste!  As you all know as you turn 5-6 your baby teeth start falling out and you start getting your "big boy/girl" teeth.  Andrew lost his first tooth back in October while we were visiting family in Alabama.  I would love to say it was a fantastic experience but truth be told we spent most of the day looking for that first tooth.  He was jumping on the trampoline with Eli and stopped suddenly and ran to my brother holding his mouth.  Uncle Stephen asked him what was wrong and Andrew uncovered his mouth to show a missing tooth.  He had jumped up and somehow managed to get his tooth caught in the net and when gravity played it's part the tooth was pulled.  It was a little loose so it wasn't so bad.  The bad part was that it was his first tooth and we couldn't find it.  So we wrote a note to the tooth fairy and had him cut out a replica of his tooth to place under the pillow.

Needless to say we were not going to loose the next tooth!  Whatever it took.....we were going to have a bottom baby tooth....call me crazy if you must!  For a mother (or just me) the first tooth is like the first haircut, you keep the lock of hair.  So I wanted that tooth...not so much for him, but for me! The other night the time had come for us to take action on the next tooth!  It had been loose for a while but that night it was coming out!  Don't get me wrong, it was ready to come out and just hanging on by a thread.  So Jesse reached in and pulled for a few seconds until he got a good grasp.  Eli was sitting next to Jesse and was hiding his face behind Jesse's back.  All of a sudden the tooth comes out, cheers go up from Jesse and I, Smiles from Andrew and this screeching scream from Eli.  He was terrified and had tears streaming down his face and a look of horror!  Immediately we start asking "what's wrong Eli?".  Through his screams  and sobs we hear the broken phrase "I...don't.....want....you...to....pull... my.... tooth....uh, uh, uh...sniff"!  So we spent the rest of the night reassuring him that his tooth was not ready and that we were not going to pull his tooth.  All drama aside....we have the tooth and the tooth fairy came....WHEW, another disaster averted!

Oh Eli!

On the drives to Eli's school in the morning I am often laughing at the things that are coming out of his mouth and this morning was no different.  These questions and statements always seem to come out of the blue and catch me way off guard.  So this morning the question was:
"Mom, did you and Dad see God when you were making me".
You can imagine my surprise/shock/panic!


After laughing and stumbling over my words (and pulling myself out of the gutter) I tried to answer but he rephrased his question...."you know, when God, you and Dad were making me....did you see Him". Really sweet!

Prayers

Jesse and I have been trying to teach the boys how to pray...I mean really pray.  Last night after their Bible story Jesse said "okay boys, daddy is going to pray and I want you to listen and hear what I say to Jesus".  So then Jesse starts his prayer with Jesus, Thank you so much for..... and then goes through praying for everyone and says please forgive me for the times I've failed you and so forth.  After he was done he said okay boys it's your turn to talk to God and tell he what you want.  With that Andrew starts his prayer "Dear Jesus, I want spiders, scorpions and snakes all in different cages so they won't sting and bite each other",  Eli chimes in "Dear Jesus, I want the big Optimus Prime Transformer".  HA!!!!


 So this morning Eli gets up and says "I think that Jesus left the Optimus Prime Transformer for me down stairs".  Jesse did says for them to pray for anything they wanted....maybe we should rephrase the wording!

Out of a 4 year old's mouth

The other night I told the boys to go get in the shower.  After a few minutes I went in to check on them and to wash their hair.  When I poured the Shampoo in my hand the boys said "mom, we already did that".  I replied, "when did you guys get so big?  I thought you were going to stay little forever for me".  Eli replied in an apologetic voice "mom, I wanted to stay little forever but God said No".


This morning Eli comes to me while we are trying to get ready and says "Mom, I'm going to obey you today".  I said "that's great Eli",  He then said "but Andrew is going to unbey you".....HA!

The "Magic" of Disney

This year we decided to surprise the boys and take them to Disney World.  They had been asking to go for about a year, but Jesse and I wanted to make sure they were old enough to enjoy it.  I booked the trip in February and we were so excited.  We decided to keep it a secret and just show up there and then tell the boys.  We were so proud of ourselves for keeping it quite for so long.  We drove down to Birmingham and dropped off Payton with my parents.  This way we could really enjoy just spending some time with the boys.  Then early the next morning we woke the boys up and told them we were going somewhere great and they needed to get ready.  They were so sleepy that nothing registered.  We arrived at the airport around 6 a.m. and the boys hadn't even asked where we were going.  All they knew is that they were going on vacation.  Eli feel asleep on the plane and Andrew colored and Jesse and I had the excitement building as we neared Orlando.

When we exited the plane there were Disney and Sea World stores everywhere in the airport and the boys stopped at the Sea World store staring in amazement.  So not being able to contain the secret any longer I said "Do you guys want to go there?".  They slowly turned and we told them where we were and where we were going.  Andrew turned around and ran up to Jesse hugged his legs and said "thank you Daddy".  Did I forget to mention that I booked, fretted, made all the reservations and planned this vacation?  How come he gets the credit????  Anyways, Eli starts jumping up and down and we just knew we had done a great thing.........until we got started at the parks. 

Day 1:  We arrive in Orlando and go directly to Sea World.  We just knew the boys were going to love it.  We pulled up, got out, put sunscreen on and head into the park.  We rent a stroller (another story, but I won't air any grievances here), and go to the sting rays.  Andrew has the map and keeps saying he wants to go to number 8?  We start walking from one thing to another and decide to go to the Dolphin show.  Just then a little kid walks by with a Shamou sucker.  Eli sees it and as you can imagine he wants it.  We had just had dip and dots so I said "not right now....later".  So right then and there, in the middle of Sea World, we have our first of many melt downs!  He wants a sucker and with his shoulders slumped over and tears streaming we head into the Dolphin show.  It was amazing and Jesse and I both were fighting back the tears.  We had all this energy, emotion and excitement built up and the Dolphins were flying through the air, birds were going crazy...it was just spectacular!  Halfway through the show Eli wipes his tears (still for the sucker) with his arm only when he did this he managed to rub the sunscreen in his eye.  Needless to say he wasn't happy and I spent the rest of the time trying to wash his eye out.  The rest of the day was alright, they settled down and started enjoying SeaWorld.  We were even nice enough to get that sucker for him.

At the end of the day we went to see Shamou and the boys were excited.  They were calling the whale Shambou all day and couldn't wait to see it.  Jesse leads us to the slash zone seats and the boys are pumped.  Eli was so excited and couldn't wait to get splashed.  I decided that it was probably best if I take a seat in a dryer section since I was sporting a white shirt.  So I left all the boys and went up to take pictures.  Halfway through the show I can see Andrew getting a little agitated.  I didn't know what was happening until after the show was over.  Jesse explained that Andrew decided that he didn't want to get splashed and he wanted to go sit with me.  When Jesse had told him he didn't know where I was Andrew became disturbed....very disturbed!  To make matters worse, right about that time 4 whales start swimming in their direction only to lift their tales and splash the crowd repeatedly.  To sum this up....Andrew lost his mind!  He didn't want those whales to splash him and now we was dripping wet!  Did I mention that the water was a whopping 52 degrees?  We decided to call it a day and headed to the resort.  The boys were amazed when we arrived and wanted to go swim immediately!

Day 2:  We planned on Hollywood Studios for the next day and headed in that direction.  The boys were excited to see Indiana Jones (their hero) and Star Wars.  The thing about a 5 and 4 year old is that in their head everything is real.  So as things are blowing up around Indi, I had to explain (this is just a show) and when we boarded the star ship ride in Star Wars I had to explain that we were not actually going into space.  As we walked toward the Pixar place to see Lightening McQueen we saw this cool looking building and decided to go in ignoring the sign that read "may frighten children".  It was the Chinese Theater and all it was, was  a slow ride through all the past great movies.  So we passed through 'Singing in the Rain' and 'Mary Poppins' all was well until we came to the Alien movie where they had a creature that came out of the ceiling.....how were we suppose to know?  Both boys were screaming and crying and saying I want to get out of here.  We were stuck.......and I have to say, cruel as it sounds...we laughed a little...just a little.

We got them ice cream afterward and headed to see "Queen Car" as Eli calls him.  This is Eli's idol, he loves the movie Cars and I have had to buy at least 4 copy's because he keeps wearing them out.  They get their ice cream and all is right with the world again....until Eli decides that he wants the kind that Andrew has.  By this time we are in line to see "Queen", so being  a reasonable parent I said "no".  I'm guessing that's not what he wanted to hear judging from his reaction.  Before you judge my kids please remember we made them get  up the day before at 5:30 am and they are exhausted still!  I finally get him calmed down right about the time to get their picture with "Queen Car"......so this is what we got:

We ate supper at the 50's Prime Time Cafe and headed to the hotel to let the boys swim, because that was all they wanted to do all day!

Day 3:  Today was the day I'd been waiting for...Disney World Magic Kingdom!!!!  I was so excited for them to see the big castle and we talked it up all morning.  I'll keep this one short for you guys....they weren't feeling it!  Note to all parents:  Disney World is not the best place to take your young children during Spring Break!  It was so crowded and the lines were so long that we only made it to a few rides.  I think we only saw a 3rd of the park......until they were ready to go and at this point Jesse and I agreed, we weren't feeling it either.  So that night we had reservations to go to Mickey's Backyard BBQ, which was fabulous!  The boys had a great time dancing with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Chip and Dale!

 Day 4:  Animal Kingdom was on the agenda and I have to say I wish we had started off here!  The boys loved it and we loved it! We went to Africa, Asia, and Dino World.  We also took the Safari and Andrew was very concerned about the "poachers" and that is what he talked about for the rest of the day. Only bad thing was we had to leave for the airport at 2:00.  By the time we had to leave the boys were begging to stay and wanted to go back to Disney World and Sea World.  We thought they hated it, but at the end they loved it!

I just gave you guys the highlights of the bad times (I have to have something to write about)....but we really did have a great time!

Easter and all it's pictures

I think we all know how important Easter is.  I mean, it is all about Jesus giving birth to the meaning of Grace.  We celebrate the death and resurrection of our Christ and stand amazed by His sacrifice.  Aside from the Easter story, the second most important thing is the Easter outfits (I'm kidding, but just go with me).  We spend countless hours perusing the stores to find the perfect dresses, outfits and accessories for us and our children.  Mother's always have it in the back of their mind of how beautiful their kids will look and what great pictures they will have from these "Easter outfits".

Our church has 5 services on Easter so most of the time we pick to go to the Friday night service.  By making this decision I know that I will have to dress my kids up on Easter just to get the pictures I have envisioned.  There is no way that I have spent all this time finding coordinating outfits and not get a picture...it is just not happening, so come rain or shine, crying or no smiling.....we are getting a picture!

So yesterday (Easter), I dress my lovely children up in their precious outfits.  We march outside and start snapping away.  We have to take a lot of pictures because with 3 kids you never have them all looking in the same direction or smiling at the same time.  We wrap up with the boys (who know by now not to even question the process) and send them on their way.  Now it is time to take baby girls photos!  Oh, there is nothing that makes a mom more proud than dressing up their daughter in her Easter dress.  I mean, we have shoes, tights, dress, cardigan, and the bow.......anticipation builds of the photos we will have of this beautiful girl.

We take a few outside, but Payton decides she is not digging the whole photo session so I decide to give her an egg.  I had given her the egg during the photos of all the kids just to keep her still so I decide that this is the best solution again.  I really wanted a photo of her standing up but she has to be holding onto something still to accomplish this.  So we go inside and I am going to take some of her in there.  I put her down in the office and go to grab something in the kitchen.  This is when I hear Jesse exclaim "OH NO", and I come running.  You see, that egg I gave Payton still had the candy inside.  Not just any candy....foil wrapped chocolate.  She not only got the egg opened, but she also squished the melted chocolate through the wrapper and was eating it.  Don't forget she is still in her beautiful dress and she is now covered in melted chocolate!  I felt a sharp pang in my gut.....oh my!  To make matters worse, when I removed the dress and I'm reading how to clean it, I see the words I dread most "DRY CLEAN ONLY"!  Better luck next year!

REPRIEVE

I surrender!!  I don't know where I ever got the idea that this precious girl of mine was going to be my calm child.  Apparently it is molded in my kids DNA to see exactly how much they can get into.

I was busy with chores the other day and Sissy was crawling around the house.  I saw her go down the hall and I figured she was going to her bedroom to play.  I took a load of laundry to my bedroom and put it away and when I walked out I started to call Payton.  At first she didn't answer, and knowing from previous experience from the "Red's" that if it's quite somethings up.  So I called again...this time I got an UH...."Payton"...."UH".  So she gave away her location which was now in the kitchen.  When I walked to the kitchen I see a stream of toilet paper running from the 1/2 bath in the hallway to the kitchen.  I followed the stream to the bathroom and see she had been having a little fun for the few minutes she had to play.  Can you all pray for my sanity......she has gotten into more already than my boys did at this age.  I can't imagine what the next years will hold......probably a lot more stories!