Trains

It's been a while since we made a giant train track!





The boys loved it so much I didn't even make them clean it up last night, and I probably won't tonight either.

Avery's Battle Wound

12 days after The Chainsaw Incident, we took the butterfly bandage off and here's what's left. It's smaller than Carson's was, but closer to the eye.


And what's the point of taking pictures if you can't make funny faces?

Playtime

Avery has been giving Carson a lot of horse rides lately




Occasionally, Carson says he'll give Avery a ride, but he always lays down to do it


Here's Emmett having way too much fun with Lightning McQueen and Mater


Carson and Emmett really like playing in the window sill.


Emmett discovered a better use for the punching bag


and Avery and Carson had to join in




Such silly boys

Ma

I finally exist in Emmett's vocabulary!
His first word was "here" but after always hearing us respond with "thank you" he eventually stopped saying here in favor of thank you. That has been going on for several months and it took a while before anything else understandable came along.
As it now stands, I rank below:
Tank oo (thank you)
Da (Dad)
dree (drink)
draw (drop/dropped)
that (blanket/monkey)
hi
saw (sock)
That's right, I even rank below sock.
But that's okay, because two days ago when Emmett finally called "Ma" to me, it melted my heart! For the rest of the day he called to me a variety of "Ma" "Mom" and "Ma Ma" and it was so sweet.
When he wakes from naps I usually let him chat it out until he decides he's done and starts screaming before I get him. Yesterday, I didn't wait to get him because (it was so cute!) he was calling for me,
"Ma! MA! ma. ma. MA!"

Open Up

Sunday night we had Kevin and Katrina over for dinner and some Wii fun (and the Chainsaw Incident). Emmett is fascinated with little Julie. He was (repeatedly) trying to be a helpful boy and give Julie her pacifier. Repeatedly meaning he would remove it so he could do it again. Thank goodness Julie was so patient with him!


Emmett decided he needed lap time with Aunt Katrina too!


Emmett also tried to pick up and hold Julie and would lay on the ground with her when she was. He was very sweet with her and it was too cute!

An Eye for an Eye

Avery got to tell his teachers in preschool today that his brother cut him with a chainsaw.

Last night (right before we we're going to sit down with Kevin and Katrina for dinner) Carson ran into Avery with a toy chainsaw that Grandma Hunsaker had bought for Carson only the day before. Avery was hit just right and ended up with a good little split below his right eye. Of course it wasn't funny that he was hurt, but I couldn't help but laugh at the location. "An eye for an eye, I guess!" Why? Because just over 11 months ago Avery nailed Carson with a golf club in almost the same spot and the cut sizes and orientations are almost identical. (read about that here) However, this time we didn't go the stitches route. We started dinner while Avery laid his face on a cold pack at the table and Travis went to get some butterfly bandages since the only ones we had left were too big.
I didn't get a picture of the cut because I was busy cleaning up dinner when Travis took care of Avery, but here he is today after we took the band-aid off.

Pizza

This morning I noticed Avery working hard rolling the kids' punching bag over his Transformer blanket.
"What are you doing?"
"Rolling out my dough for pizza"
"Oh?"
"Yup."
When he finished "rolling his dough" he laid his Pooh Bear blanket on top, then ran around collecting balloons that are still around from his birthday. And there you have it: dough, sauce and toppings.
Avery's giant pizza.

Lounging with Daddy

My boys sure love their Daddy!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve means yummy eats! I made two kinds of chocolates.


Cheese fondue is a must at New Year's and we also have a chocolate fountain. The chocolate fountain isn't actually Travis or my favorite, but I do think the best way to eat a strawberry is with chocolate!


Emmett didn't need chocolate, he was stealing strawberries all night! I kept having to snag the stems from him before he could eat them.


Avery and Carson had fun playing with a bucket full of cars that were their Daddy's and Uncle Kevin's when they were little.


My Dad had to come back down for just a one night stop-over and he couldn't stay up all night. It worked out great for us because that meant I could take Carson and Emmett home for a decent bedtime and let Grandpa stay with them. Avery we let stay up but with the warning that it would be really late and we didn't want to hear any whining about it. Of course he got tired, but he didn't whine. About 11:45 he came to me and in a tired voice that was full of 'wow, this is hard, I'm not sure I can do it' tone started with "Mom..." and since I could tell where he was going I interrupted him.
"It's tough staying up late, huh?"
"Yeah." feeble chuckle
"Well, I know you're tired, but it's almost done."
"Okay"
Since it was too wet, we couldn't really do any fireworks like in past years, but some guns were shot and the cannon was lit once. With such a short end, I can see why Avery thought it was rather anti-climactic.
"That's it!?"
You could tell he was wondering why a New Year merited staying up so long just to do that.


The funny thing is, Avery's always saying "I'm gonna stay up all night long" or if the boys are up late and we tell them it's really late he always wants to know "is it the middle of the night!?" There's something mythical about the "middle of the night" for him. So when we got home and got Avery ready for bed, when Travis suddenly said, "Avery! Guess what? It's the middle of the night!" Avery's face lit up like that was the coolest thing ever. He did it. He finally made it to the middle of the night. Who cares about New Years next to that?