Insight into M's mind...

While trying on a pair of Mommy's shoes...
M: Can I wear these to walk to grandma's house?
Me: No sweetie, it's too far to walk to grandma's house.
M: I can clip-clop all the way there! (demonstrates...)
Me: I'm sorry honey, but grandma's house is too far away.  We can't walk there.
M: We can drive?
Me: No, it's too far to drive.  We have to fly there.
M: But we don't have flying WINGS!
Me: No, we have to go in an airplane.
M: But we don't have an airplane! Someone give us airplane so we can go to grandma's house.
Me: We're going to go in someone else's airplane to go see grandma.
M (in a panic): I stay with you mommy?!
Me: Yes sweetie, you will stay with me the whole time we're on the airplane.
M: We can go on a birdie! They have flying wings!
Me: Hmm...
M: I have my pink, butterfly wings?  I fly grandma's house!
She has now be running around flapping her arms in a panic that she's flying to grandma's house.  :-)

I think she's a little excited about our trip this summer!

Oops

Well, we're still alive if anyone is still checking this. It has been a crazy year and I can't believe it's been a year since I've posted anything! My only defense is I got nervous about pictures online after reading a couple of crazy stories and didn't want to go through the effort of downsizing my pictures and then my computer stopped reading our camera's memory card so the point was mute. Anyways, it's December again and we've got a ton going on that I'm going to attempt to blog about so I'll remember it. :-)

To the Champaign Library staff, if you still check this a couple months later after you commented...
We miss you! Going to the library for all of your programs and constantly having new books was always the highlights in our week. Our entire library here is smaller than the dvd section in Champaign and every time we go, I remember you all and how wonderful you were to me and two small boys.

If anyone else is reading this, we now have two readers and a two-year old that is only happy if being read to. So, English books would be a welcome gift! We're not picky, but we are getting tired of our selection.

Hopefully we'll figure out the camera situation soon so I can post some pictures!

Christmas Dinner

Due to complete exhaustion of our entire family, I didn't get Christmas dinner prepared on Christmas Eve. I chose to spend Christmas enjoying my family instead of stressing about getting everything ready for a big dinner. Well, life continued to move on at it's break-neck speed this week so we had Christmas dinner for New Year's while watching the Rose Bowl Parade. It was a wonderful ending to our holiday break. As, I've created a tradition of taking a picture of our Christmas meal, here is this year's. Complete with sinful potatoes since I begged my mom to send us some Velveeta with Makenzie's birthday cake pan.

On a different note, as much as I have LOVED this break having my entire family together for two whole weeks, I am SO ready for Monday and school to start back up! I have gained a new appreciation and awe for kindergarten teachers this year. I can not imagine a class of 25-30 of my boys. This is the three of them exercising - getting a head start on everyone's New Year's Resolution. The boys have been on a sugar high since the 3rd and have kept Makenzie wound up with them.

Wowza! What a crazy weekend!

So, December is always a crazy month. After Xavier was born in December, it got a little crazier trying to make sure he gets a non-Christmas birthday party, but still wanting the decorations up long enough to enjoy them and make them worth the time. After Makenzie was born in December, I just mentally prepared myself for on nutso month. So far, it's living up to my expectations. In our little ex-pat family of close friends over here, we've got a birthdays on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of December (We also have 5 November birthdays, but those have been survived for the year). This year the kids turned 1, 2, and 5. Not close enough to have one big party, so our kids have been spiked on birthday sugar since Thursday.

Adding to the fun of December is a gymnastics competition the first Sunday and the church Christmas program the second Sunday (with a practice the Saturday before). Sadly, its all caught up with Ezekiel this morning so he's at home for the day with Makenzie and me.

My posts are going to be in pictures and I'll try to caption them, but with two kids home today and a party to prepare for on Saturday, if I don't get the pictures up today it's just not going to happen. That will make grandmas and grandpas sad, so here goes.

I hope you all are able to take the time this month and remember why we're celebrating!

Conversations with Xavier

Xavier's been making me laugh most days while we're eating breakfast/lunch/dinner and I want to record some of these conversations so I don't forget!

While discussing how far behind we are on dishes and why we're having an easy dinner that doesn't create many more:
X: Wouldn't it be fun if we could just put them in the washing machine? But, they'd break, so we better not do that.
Me: Did you know that there are machines that wash dishes like the washing machine does for clothes?
X (and E): Really!? How's does that work?
- It's conversations like these that remind me how little the boys really were when we left IL.

Scene - Dinner, discussing behavior charts at school, time-outs, fights or not on the playground, etc.
X: We started playing a new kind of tag today! (they'd been playing freeze tag for a week or so)
Me: Really? What's that? (expecting toilet bowl tag, or some other crazy variation)
X: The girls were it and they were trying to kiss the boys! I didn't get caught.
- M.M., I doubt you read this blog, but I will never forget the night that I told my dad we were playing this game on the school playground. He was not pleased. We were about the same age as X.

Scene - U left the table to get M cleaned up and ready for bed
X: When I'm a daddy (he meant grown-up), I don't want to have a baby, but I'm going to have to.
Me: You don't have to have a baby if you don't want, but that should probably be something you want to talk to you wife about before you get married
X: But then I'd have to TALK to her!
- Won't that be a fun story to remind him of when he's begging to go on a date in 10 years?

That's all I've got for now. Makenzie turns 1 tomorrow! I can't believe it. Birthday pictures to come this weekend!