Super Spiderman

My son loves spiderman! Yesterday at the store he picked out a spiderman costume for Halloween. He likes to wear it as much as possible. For a while now he's been perfecting his web slinging and fighting moves to get the monsters and the bad guys.

AGAIN!

HE DID IT AGAIN!
I went upstairs to check on him and when he heard me call for him I heard footsteps running which immediately worried me. I asked what he was doing and he said painting. I bolted upstairs and sure enough the paint can was open again and he had added to his work the night before including fresh spots of paint on my carpet. This time I couldn't get them all out. Luckliy they are small and I'll just have to trim the carpet.
Let me clarify that I did hammer the paint lid shut. When I walked in, I found the screw driver next to the paint can. Luke remembered, from watching me, how to pry the lid open with the screw driver. Smart kid.
Luke had his favorite spiderman slippers that he wears all the time put up high and he got yelled at pretty well while sitting in time out the entire time I cleaned again.
My bedroom door is now locked and will remain that way unless I'm in there and until I finish painting and everything is put away in the garage. . .ERRRRR!

My Sneaky Picasso

While Matt's been out of town, I've been working on a home project. We had painted our bedroom back in July (a color I picked out) and once the paint was up, I hated it. Regardless of how pretty a brown it was, I had a brown room. It's a color that would be better as an accent rather than the main color. We thought that we were picking a color that would go well with our new bedding we just bought - a nice deep red. So, I've been painting my room a nice pale blue. (can't go wrong with blue because it is by far my favorite color - any shade of it). Since I'm pregnant and just don't have a lot of energy, I've been doing it a wall at a time, no big deal. Then I take a few days break and paint another wall.

my work on the room

Yesterday I painted another wall. Luke even helped me. I showed him how to use a brush and even let him use the roller, but it was driving me crazy b/c I hate all the drips that happen with the kids and the uneven coating and worrying about them getting it on something that it shouldn't get on. (Matt's much better at letting the kids help with this kind of stuff than I am. I just don't have the patience for it.) I then banned Luke to sit on my bed and look at books while I finished up. Everything went fine.


That evening I put the kids to bed and was ready to watch some season premieres of my favorite shows and just relax. I heard Luke out of his room and put him back to bed. A few minutes later he called downstairs saying "My hands sticky. Need to wash my hands." So I had him come downstairs not thinking much about it. I saw his hands had a whitish looking gunk all over them. My first thought was, did he get into some old Desitin in his room or something? Then it hit me: His hands were covered in paint! As well as some splotches on his favorite new pair of glow in the dark spider jammies. I was afraid to see my room.

Luke's late night project

I went upstairs and saw the damage -- and freaked out! He had opened the paint can (which is my fault that I didn't hammer the lid closed) and gotten and brush and painted a 3 to 4 foot area on the wall across the room (no point in painting the wall that was already blue) dripping paint on my carpet all the way across. Along with at least 1 brush stroke on the actual carpet. I made that boy sit in the corner and watch my clean it all up all the meanwhile yelling at the poor guy! Like he understands that carpet costs a lot of money and paint doesn't necessarily come out. It took an hour, but I got the paint out. I sent Luke to bed and he just kept saying that he was good and he wanted to be good. So I assured him that I still loved him and sent him to bed.


Not exactly the way I planned to spend a relaxing evening.

Say what now?

For a couple of weeks now Luke has been asking for "pepperoni cheese" and Matt and I have failed to figure out what pepperoni cheese is. We have him repeat himself (sounds the same every time and we're still clueless), we open the fridge and guess and guess to no avail. One evening last week Maya asked for macaroni and cheese for dinner and Luke came up to the pantry and said "Yeah, pepperoni cheese!" It finally dawned on me: pepperoni cheese = macaroni and cheese!

My definition of perfect

It was just one of those evenings. Matt was on the couch next to me studying and the kids were playing nicely together - for most of evening! I took a picture of the moment. Maya and Luke were sitting together on the couch and Maya was teaching Luke how to write letters. It's the way we taught her. We dot out the shape of the letter on our magnadoodle and the kids trace over it. The kids are playing quietly and nicely and doing something educational. I was torn because it was bedtime, but how do you tell them to stop doing an activity like that. The only thing that would've made it a perfect evening is if this darn morning sickness would pass so I don't have to hang out in the fetal position anymore. Hopefully soon!

Luke's First Day

Today is Luke's first day of preschool. A friend of mine is doing a Joy school in her home (and it's not a coop thing, so I don't have to teach - perfect!). I signed Luke up for Tuesday and Thursday mornings - what will I do with all that time to myself?
Luke was pretty cute this morning. At first he wasn't all that interested in going to school. In his words: "I want to play smash brothers." (A video game he got to play a lot in NY and I haven't let him play since - not til he's potty trained.) Once I pulled out his spiderman backpack and started putting his school things in it he got very excited.
Before we left he got to say goodbye to Matt. (He's home on a very rare sick day.) He showed Matt his new T-shirt. He also said "I have a spiderman backpack. AWESOME!" Then gave Matt a high five. We went downstairs to leave and as we were walking out he kept saying "Awesome, dude!" It's just really cute to hear that come out of a 3-year-old's mouth. (Awesome and cool are his new approval phrases)
Joy school starts in the backyard, that's where we drop off all the kids. He was playing and at first didn't want me to leave. He really wanted me to watch him play on the little playscape and show me his tricks. I finally gave him a hug and told him I'd watch him for one more minute and then I'd have to leave and take care of daddy. That did the trick. He played and then I waved goodbye and he said "You gotta go take care of daddy" as if he were reminding me. A good start to his first day.
I wasn't sad to leave him, but I really wanted to stay and watch the cute things they'd be doing. The teacher is planning on taking lots of photos and posting them on the class website, so that will have to do.

Butterflies

So, everyone probably knows that Ike is storming through Texas this morning. Houston is getting pounded, but 3 hours away here in San Antonio it is a beautiful day. The monarch butterfly migrates through Texas each year, coming up from Mexico. This year it was a little insane. I guess they knew the storm was coming (or else bad weather in Mexico drove them up here, not sure which) because on Wednesday and Thursday there were thousands of butterflies flying through the area. At first, I thought it was leaves blowing in the wind, but the leaves don't fall offf trees here until November/December. I realized it was butterflies all going the same direction. Maya had football practice on Wednesday afternoon and as we went to the park for practice, butterflies were everywhere. I felt bad driving because there was no avoiding them. No exaggeration, there were thousands of butterflies. I saw more butterflies on Wednesday afternoon than I have the whole rest of my life combined. I tried taking video footage of it but they're small butterflies so they didn't really show up. I tried to see if any of the local news networks had a little story on it, but Ike has been trumping everything lately.
Anyway, it was really cool to see, the kids loved all the butterflies around, and if I find a little video of it I'll post it because it was a really cool sight to see.

Tagged again

Alright, I'm supposed to tell about 6 quirks of mine (What quirks??) This is going to involve some thinking. Once I get going maybe I'll have trouble stopping and then I'll have issues. . .just kidding around. Let's see. . .
#1 - When I chew gum, I snap it. I hope it doesn't annoy anyone. (I know some of my brothers and sisters have issues with loud chewers of any sort - I don't think I chew the gum obnoxiously, I just play with it.) Most of the time I don't even realize I'm doing it. No bubble blowing, just snapping.
#2 - I love flip flops! I wear them all the time - I can wear them all year round down here in Texas. I love to wear other shoes too, but I hate shopping for anything for myself with the kids in tow, which is pretty much always, so my shoe collection is pretty pathetic right now. But flip flops are easy and I love them!
#3 - I am very much a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl, but my jeans have to be plenty long. I don't mind the bottoms getting all ragged so long as they are plenty long. I can't wear cropped jeans no matter how trendy, b/c I just feel like I'm wearing high-waters. When I sit down I like my jeans to still reach to my ankles at least.
#4 - I get anxious about phone calls. I don't know why, I just do. I'm terrible at calling people. I'll happily email or text, but for some reason I get nervous to call people. I'm afraid I'll interrupt or bother them. I realize this is silly (right??) but it's the way I feel. So if a long time has gone since I called, don't think I'm upset with you or forgot about you. I'm just afraid to call you.
#5 - I feel naked without my rings on. I wear my wedding ring on one hand and a birthstone ring of one of my children on the other. If my getting ready for the day routine gets out of whack (which it does sometimes with kids just absolutely needing you right at that moment, or fighting kids) I sometime forget to put them on. I usually don't realize they're not on until I'm out doing something and can't get to them. My fingers feel very naked without them. It's not a showy thing, it's a sentimental thing.
#6 - When I'm pregnant I LOVE ice cream. When I'm not, I can take it or leave it. It's not very tempting to me. But when I'm pregnant, man it's good stuff!
Hope you've enjoyed reading about some of my craziness, or er . . .quirks.

Officially blognouncing it (Blog + announcing)

Not that it's been a secret or anything, but I'm officially announcing here on the blog that Matt and I are expecting our next baby. ( I can't keep it secret b/c people need to know why I spend six weeks or so on my couch constantly sick.) I'm 11 and a half weeks along and had an ultrasound today - everything looks good. We've got ourselves another wiggler - the baby didn't want to hold still, which I love to watch. I have ultrasound pictures, but I'll wait until the next one, where the pictures will be easier to read, to post them.
I'm due on March 22nd. We'll start taking bets on if people think it will be a boy or a girl. Your guess is as good as mine.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUKE!

Yesterday was Luke's 3rd birthday. He's still as crazy as ever, but he's gotten a little more polite about it (if he's well rested). We weren't able to celebrate it until about 8 at night b/c Matt had to work a little late and then we had to take care of something at church. So, by the time we got home it was past the kids' bedtime (Maya has to be up at 6:30 ish to get ready for school and to the bus by 7).

Luke fell asleep on the car ride home. The party is ready to go, but he's not.

He's slowly waking up in Matt's arms as we sing him happy birthday.

(Decorating that cake drove me nuts - not that I was trying anything fancy, but the bag of icing I was writing with kept popping open and spilling icing all over the cake - you can only scrape icing off of portions of the cake so many times)

It took us a little while to convince him to blow out the candles, but he finally came around.

After Luke played with spiderman stickers instead of eating his cake and ice cream he got to open his present. The beauty of a 3-year-old mind - you can take him to the store the day before and have him pick out his own present. We left it in the car, he forgot about it until he opened it the next day. Easy to surpise.

I know I'm always saying how crazy he is, but in reality he is such a sweet boy who loves his family and loves to give his mommy kisses (which I love!). I'm sure he ("super spiderman" as he calls himself) will continue to protect us all from the monsters and make us laugh and smile everyday. Happy Birthday, Luke!

My manly men

What better way to spend the Labor Day holiday than doing manly labor around the house. Matt put up crown molding in our front room and hallway back in July before he went out of town. He was working on the finishing touches yesterday and Luke needed to help Daddy do all that manly work.