I could not love these two boys any more! They are my angels!

BFFs

Will has been going to his babysitter's (Chass) house on Mondays and Wednesdays for over 3 years now. Avah is there as well on those days and they are like 2 peas in a pod. They also play together at Open Gym. Recently on Fridays I've been watching Avah at our house. It's fun to see them together. They bicker like brother and sister but it's clear they're crazy about each other. Often when I pick them up from Chass' house Will will report: "Avah was nice today." (or wasn't) Here they are watching a movie together. - they would even take drinks at the same time. Playing on the back deck.

Our staircases are wider than most, so we had to get creative when we needed a baby gate to keep Dane from falling down the steps. Fortunately I married a very handy and creative man and he built a plexi-glass "gate" that slides back and forth between the banister spindles. Will and Avah had come up to the top of the steps and were waiting for me to let them in...

I was downstairs with the boys - they were playing and I was uploading some pictures - and I hear Will say "Me and Dane are going on an Adventure!!" I look up to see him dragging poor Dane along - somewhere. Thank goodness Dane is getting big enough so that there's not far for him to fall in case he is dropped.

Howl at the Moon

The Coyote is still in full swing around here. Will has never really had any obsessions before, so this is pretty entertaining. On Thursday mornings we go to Open Gym. It's at the Gymnastics Academy and they open up all the equipment for the little people to play on. You pay a small fee and your child gets to run around like a banchee, jump on trampolines, swing on bars and rings, play on all kinds of large cushions, jump in the pits, etc. What more can you ask for? Especially in those cold winter months. These days Will has most of the other kids involved in some type of coyote game. Whether he's the Coyote and they're all chickens and he's chasing them around, or he's the coyote and he assigns others to be a dog, a bear, an alien, etc. There are never any other coyotes besides him. This has been going on for weeks. He's even learned how to run on all fours. It looks kind of like a gorilla running, but it's pretty impressive. Tonight we ate dinner on our back deck. The boys were finishing up when I took my plate in to start cleaning up. Will came in and announced that "The Coyote is finished." I asked him if he ate all his grapes. Will: "The Coyote doesn't like grapes." Me: "Yes you do. You love them!" Will: "The COYOTE doesn't like grapes. Come see, I'll show you." He leads me out and points to his plate where one lone grape, kind of smashed, remained on his plate. Then he says "The Coyote coughed that one up."

Will has this train table out in the garage. A lot of times when he can't play outside he'll go and play with this. One day he was being especially quiet out there and had been playing for a good 15 minutes. All warning signs. I quickly went to check on him and asked if he was OK from across the garage. He froze, smiled really big and said yes! He held his smile and our eye contact. Hmmm, I needed to investigate further. I went over to see that he had dumped most of the bag of grass seed on his train table to make a construction worksite with it.

Oh Boy!

I looked out back the other day and I see my 3 year old son DRIVING A LAWN MOWER! He actually did really well, under Pa-Paw's close supervision. :) Which makes me happy because Luke and I agree that we want him to be the best driver by the time he turns 5. Just kidding - 16. And practice makes perfect....I guess...

Dane and Will both had fun playing with Dane's birthday present. That was kind of the point - getting him something that they would both be able to enjoy for a while. It's supposed to be sand on one side and water on the other. I'm not that brave yet. I opted for water on both sides to start out with.

Dane's "King of the Jungle" Party!

Dane's Birthday party was great! It was a gorgeous day, but I'm pretty sure it was the warmest day of the year so far - topping out around 85 or so - and also quite possibly the windiest. Most of our closest family and friends were here to help little Dane celebrate his precious first year of life. (sniffle)
Mr. Serious."I'd like to say hello to all my fans."

Happy Birthday to my Sweet Dane!

This is FUN!

Taking my little green monster straight to the bath!

I asked everyone to write a note to Dane in a journal. A wish, hope or prayer for him as he progresses through life. Then everyone wrote their messages on balloons and we did a balloon release. It was really neat.

Having a chat with Aunt Sandy.

My Helper

Will has been "helping" me a lot lately! We went to Macy's the other day - I was bra shopping - and he was helping me. I was shopping around and he all of a sudden got very quiet and close to me. (not characteristic at all) I asked him what was wrong and he pulled me down to him, pointed to a man sitting nearby who had white hair and a beard and very seriously told me "there's Santa!" Then, as we continued to shop he would take a bra off the rack and hold it up to my stomach encouraging me to look in the mirror, like you might do if you were shopping for a shirt, then tell me "that looks real nice!" while nodding his head. He was definitely the hit of the shopping trip - the older ladies who were working there were loving every minute of it.

This morning I was putting some greenery on top of our plant shelf. He wanted to help... As I was finishing up the placement, he said "but I was supposed to be your helper!" so I asked him to walk across the room and tell me if it looked ok. He backed up and said "it looks like a diamond."

Will Update

A few things came to my mind lately...
- How Will likes to eat "poptorn" He always wants to make poptorn with mama. :)

- Beabo (Bevo - "bee-vo") is his stuffed animal that Allison got him for Christmas 2 years ago and has become a permanent bed fixture. He's the UT mascot. He's huge, and I love that he calls him Beabo.

- He also has started to comment on how he sees things with his "glowin' eyes". This is consistent with coyote vision by the way.

My Sweet Boy Turns 1!

Oh my goodness is he sweet!!! I always want to be holding him and kissing him and loving on him. I want to be with him all the time, I absolutely can not get enough of him! He is just the sweetest thing in the world! He is (and I'm sure I'm not biased) the best baby ever!! I guess he's not really a "baby" anymore. He seems to be teetering on the edge of turning into a toddler, and I'm not pushing him. I am going to miss my baby like you can't imagine. I wish I could press pause on his little life and keep him like this forever. I know I can't though, and I remember from Will that as they continue to grow it just gets better and better. It still makes me very sad.
Dane is a fantastic sleeper right now. He goes to bed at 9 and gets up around 7:30/8. He hardly ever wakes up in the night. In fact, I can't remember the last time he did. Occasionally he'll get up around 6 or so and I'll bring him to bed with me for a while. When I put him to bed he just lies still and I cover him up and give him his paci and that's that. He's content to just put himself to sleep. When he wakes up in the mornings he never cries. He just sits up in bed and plays with his stuffed animals until I come and get him. I'm telling you, ANGEL.
He does this ADORABLE little giggle. When he's excited he does it, it sounds like a little gremlin, like Gizmo. It's so cute. I got it on video I'm just trying to figure out how to post it. He says Mama. Of course - as if I wasn't crazy enough about him! He will repeat mama, dada, baba and Uh-Oh (his newest word!) which he uses correctly. He also makes a motor sound when he picks up a car. He will wave bye bye and he can clap. He is just the most mild mannered, sweet natured little guy. Ugh, just writing this makes me want to go down and get him out of bed and hold him!
He is a pretty good eater although he's beginning to get a little more picky. His latest dislike was eggs. I gave him some and he picked them up and inspected them for a minute, then dropped them on his tray and held his fingers all fanned out with this awful expression on his face like he couldn't believe he'd even touched them. Some of his favorites are cottage cheese, string cheese, waffles, and all kinds of fruit. He's still taking 4 bottles of breast milk a day and then a bottle of formula before bed. He's an incredible traveler, I can't remember the last time he fussed in the car. He either falls right to sleep or babbles. He is cruising all over the place. He's not walking yet, but the other day he was standing up in our bathroom by a drawer. The drawer shut and he was left standing there. He was shocked, and just stood there for a minute, then fell down. He will cruise around tables all day but if he wants to go from point A to B he just crawls there - and FAST.
I will add that he does like to be held quite a bit, although he's getting better. In all fairness I take full responsibility considering that for the first 6 months of his life I toted him around all the time while down at the house remodel. Not like I could exactly let him down to explore at the construction site. Also, he's definitely no shrinking violet. If his brother decides to take something from him or if he's not happy about something, he will definitely let us know. Which I think is hilarious, considering he's so laid back.
We are so blessed with these amazing little boys! (ps: pics of the birthday party to come)

BACK DECK!!!

When we were building our house, one of the things that I really wanted (dreamed of!) was a back deck. Our back "yard" is incredible, it's just gorgeous and I really wanted to be able to sit out back and have meals out there and read my book (one day...). So we added a back gable and ceiling fans, etc. One day we will screen it in, but for now it's open. When they built it, there were just the top, middle and bottom rows going across to make the rail. The spaces were big enough that Dane could fall thru and it made me a nervous wreck whenever we were out there. My sweet husband added in two more rows, so there is no way Dane can fall through now! Yeah!!!! He did this on Saturday, and on Saturday night we had our first meal out there. First of many to come!

The next morning Will went out on the deck. He was out there for a while and I went out to check on him and found him reclined, enjoying the fresh morning air. Love that boy!!

Bath Time

Half yawn, half roar.

Last night I decided to let the boys take a bath together for the first time. In the next two pics, does it not look like Will is up to something? ...Poor unsuspecting Dane.

And then I finally got my little coyote in the act of howling.

When we lived at our old house we kept Rosco's water bowl on the back porch. For anyone else who has horses you know that the water-drinking process can practically flood a room. When we moved into this house we had to come up with something different so we decided a great place to keep Rosco's water bowl would be in our walk-in shower. That way when he drooled it out of his mouth all over the floor, it would just drain out. Dane decided to crawl in the shower yesterday and have some fun. He dumped it out ON himself - he was sopping wet from head to toe and then played in the aftermath- even putting his rubber ducky in the bowl. He was having a grand time! And it's hard to see, but these are his sopping wet tracks he left after crawling out of the shower - it reminded me of a snake slithering along.

Sleeping Angel

I think the way Dane sleeps is so cute. He'll curl up either under or on top of his blanket, with his paci, and his legs tucked up underneath him like a little bug. The other night I told Will I was going to try and get a picture of him sleeping like that. He begged to come with and I told him ok, but only if he promised not to be loud. I snapped this picture and as I looked at it, I discovered a few things. First, I was surprised to see Dane's eyes are open and also do you see the hand sticking through?

A few things lately...

My Will.. We had very strong winds over the weekend. I was sitting out on the back deck with the boys when I heard an awful metal banging sound. I went down and around and saw this... Part of our soffet had come off the roof!! Apparently it wasn't secured properly in the first place, so our builder came out and temporarily fixed it for us and told us he would order us a new piece and then replace it.

Like father, like son... :)

My sweet boys...

Dane was having a snack, and Rosco was not taking his eyes off the opportunity for any slip ups.

This morning Will woke me up by walking up to the edge of the bed and yelling "BOOOO!" I'm pretty sure I ricocheted off the ceiling.

my Dane

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Giving Thanks

This past Sunday Luke had to leave for work on Sunday evening. I decided I would take the boys to church that morning so Luke could get a little extra rest before leaving. This was my first attempt to take them both by myself. Fortunately my mom and Chuck were going to be there plus I was armed with a bag of toys and snacks. I was feeling pretty confident! We all settle in the pew (Tricia and Jon were there with their 1 month old baby as well) and immediately Dane starts babbling, Will was telling me he didn't have enough room to plow, and little Madalynn (J & T's baby) started fussing. Uh-oh I thought. Madalynn quickly fell asleep for the rest of the service, but my boys didn't stop. It was non-stop chatting, bribing and babbling. The people around us who looked our way were quick to smile at us but it still was so stressful for me. Then Will announces he has to pee. I decided to take them both out for a few. I walked Will out the back of the sanctuary, where we came in from outside. He must have thought we were going back outside bcecause just before we were "in the clear" he asks me if he was going to go pee outside? I ushered him out even more quickly - thankfully not too many people heard him. Turns out the sermon was just beginning so we stayed out for that portion. When we came back in it was more of the same. Dane was happily babbling and Will chatting away no matter how many times I asked him to PLEASE be quiet!! I'm not sure I heard anything that was said. By the end I was literally near tears. We were well on our way home before my blood pressure returned to normal. Needless to say, I will NOT be attempting that again, ever. On the drive home I was thinking about what I was thankful for... At that point, my list mostly consisted of things like "That we made it through without anyone screaming or crying" (me included) and "I'm thankful for the nursery and Sunday school options for parents..."

Bears and Coyotes, Oh My!

I never envisioned having to tell my son the following, but tonight I was telling Will to "please stop barking!" Lately he's known in these parts as Will, The Coyote. He barks, howls, paws at things, (occasionally tries to) eat like a coyote. He brings me things in his mouth, sometimes refuses to do things because "coyotes don't do that." I've had to get creative in managing my little coyote's behavior. I explained to him that coyotes must follow the same rules as little boys and Rosco and he's not allowed to bark, growl at me, or claw at things in the house either. And, if Rosco does act out of line he gets a time out, just like little coyotes will too.

Recently I've started letting them play downstairs for short periods of time by themselves. Sometimes I spy on them from the top of the stairs to make sure they're playing nice. (aka: Will's not bullying Dane) Last night I was in the kitchen and heard Dane start to cry. I ran downstairs and Will The Coyote was already hiding in his tent. I asked him what happened and after a few "nothings" and a time-out threat he finally confessed.. A MOUSE had run right across the room and knocked Dane over!

Today we were sitting at the table eating and The Coyote informed me that last night he howled out the front door and a bear ran down the street, right past our house and into a field!! hmmm...

These boots are made for walking..