Chaos Is A Friend of Mine

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a great Valentine's Day at our house. The boys made me "the biggest Valentine EVER". They also gave me baked heart shaped sugar cookies that they baked with Travis. Apparently they did this Sunday morning while I was sleeping off a cold. I didn't hear or smell anything!

West saw these nesting owls at Urban Outfitters last month and fell in love with them. I'm not really sure why. He talked about them all the time and was desperately trying to save up his tokens to buy them. We went ahead and gave them to him for his Valentine's Day present. He was thrilled! He played with them the rest of the night and tucked them in to his bed by wrapping them up in a burp cloth.

Cash loved his LilKinz bluejay. He named him Blues.

After gifts, it was time to eat our heart-shaped pizza. Yum!

We wrapped up the night with some very serious Webkinz playing.

The Very Lonely Puppy

Our family watched the movie Ramona and Beezus last night. This was the first live action movie Cash had ever watched and he had a lot of questions afterwards about how movies are made. And of course he wanted to make one himself.

Today, Travis helped Cash make his first short flim. Cash wrote and directed the film and Travis edited it for him (under Cash's watchful eye).

Kid Konnection: Beezus and Ramona

Cash, my six year old, has really gotten interested in chapter books in the past couple of weeks. The first one we read together was Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. Before we were even halfway finished with it, he declared it his favorite chapter book ever. Did I mention it was the first chapter book we read?

I thought it would be fun to have Cash review each chapter book we read from a kid’s point of view and I’ll review it from the parent’s point of view. I just started with three simple questions for Cash this time. If you can think of any more, I'd love to hear suggestions.

Cash’s review:

What did you think of this book? It was good.

Who was your favorite character and why? Ramona because she does silly stuff like put her doll in the oven.

What was your favorite part of the book? When Ramona put her doll in the oven.

Mommy’s review:

Four year old Ramona is always messing stuff up and driving her nine year old big sister Beezus crazy. This book was published in 1955 and has stood the test of time. I remember reading Ramona books when I was little and loving them so I was thrilled when Cash wanted to read this book. He loved it. He can relate to Beezus because he has a four year old little brother who can be pretty ornery just like Ramona. I can relate to Ramona’s mother feeling exasperated and not knowing what to do with her at times! This was a really fun book to read together – Cash was literally laughing out loud. In addition to being entertaining, this book has a very nice message about how it’s okay to not always feel loving toward your younger sibling when they are driving you crazy and offers hope for the older sibling that things will get better as the younger sibling gets older. I highly recommend this book.

(Every Saturday, Booking Mama hosts a feature called Kid Konnection -- a regular weekend feature about anything related to children's books.)

Halloween

Our Halloween weekend did not start off as planned. Around 10pm on Saturday night, Cash got out of bed and called to me from the top of the stairs, "Mommy, I have something to tell you." and then he barfed all over the staircase. Nice. Then at midnight, West ran into our bedroom screaming and covered in his own puke. Very nice.

The next morning, which was Halloween, the boys were both still a little shaky and each threw up at least one more time. They took a long nap in the afternoon and seemed to be feeling better. We decided to go ahead and try to go trick or treating. As soon as Cash finished putting his costume on, he barfed all over it and Travis's shoes. I quickly threw the costume in the wash and instructed Cash not to eat or drink anything else. After the costume was dry we went out to a few houses. Cash wanted to carry his puke bucket with him but I vetoed that idea. Although a knight carrying a bucket of puke would have been pretty scary!

I wish I could post pictures of the babies. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you that they were the cutest babies ever! Cute-Bomb was Winnie the Pooh and Chief was a peapod. They were adorable trick or treating in the double stroller.

Pumpkin Carving

This year the boys drew the faces they wanted on their pumpkins on a piece of paper and then Travis traced them onto the pumpkins and cut them out.

West is trying to make a scary face like his pumpkin but I think he actually looks more constipated than scary:

The finished results (Cash designed the first two and West designed the last one):

 

First Day of Kindergarten

My sweet boy Cash started kindergarten today. He was so excited - he's been talking about it and counting down for weeks!

 

Walking to the bus stop (West is the yellow speck running ahead of everyone else):

 

 

Bye bye!

Busy Trains Work All Day

Cash is really into trains right now. A couple of weeks ago when Aunt Jenny babysat, they made a train book called Busy Trains Work All Day. Cash did all the illustrations and Aunt Jenny transcribed the words that Cash wanted on each page. I think he did really good job:

 

Happy Mother's Day

Today was a great day. Travis cooked a wonderful shrimp dinner and his sister made a great chocolate caramel cake for dessert. My baby brother even brought a salad and bread! I love this chalice necklace that Travis gave me. Travis designed this chalice for our church a couple of years ago.

We continued our annual photo shoot tradition and the boys held up their end by acting like maniacs yet again. Here are links to our 2008 and 2009 shoots.

On to 2010!

First West wanted a picture of just him and Mommy. This is the smile he makes when he's trying to be super sweet:

 

Then it was time to get Cash in the pictures as well. West's tongue is blue because he put blue food coloring in his apple juice.

 

 

 

Before this one was taken I said, "Last one guys. Let's put on our best smiles.":

Fishing With Granddad

Travis and the boys went fishing with Granddad at the neighborhood lake. They (Daddy) caught three fish. When they brought them back to the house to cook, I looked at them swimming in the cooler and made the mistake of muttering something about how it was a shame we had to kill them. West heard me and had a complete meltdown, sobbing about how we couldn't kill his friends the fish. Meanwhile, Cash - my budding sociopath - was dancing around the kitchen singing about how he couldn't wait to eat them after we killed them. This did not help West calm down. I finally sent Travis and West and the cooler with two of the fish in it back to the lake. While they were setting those fish free, Granddad cleaned and cooked the remaining fish for Cash. It ended up to be about four bites. Cash loved it and luckily had eaten it up by the time Travis and West got back home.

Safety first when fishing - always wear a helmet!

Indiana Egg Hunt

Granddad and MaMaw had an egg hunt for Cash, West and their cousin Lorelai in their backyard. The kids all had a blast and the boys loved getting to play with Loralai again.