Totally Random

Two recent, but totally random pictures of the boys. My camera's batteries need charging before I can upload anything else...and I keep forgetting to do that!

Cat Nap

Here's our cat, Hobbes, all snuggled up with Max's (and coincidentally Liam's) favorite baby toy! It's a plush butterfly with "crunchy" wings. You know, the wings are filled with that crinkly paper? The paper that sounds like you're trying to open a butterscotch candy during the quietest part of church when you touch it? It also still plays "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," which I'm constantly amazed by considering the frequency (read 1,000 times per day) with which we had to push the button to keep Liam entertained.

This photo will most likely cause my mother to anxiously wring her hands, as she dislikes any co-mingling of the animal and child world. She dreams about our cat attacking our kids (when the closest he comes to the kids is to smell them on occassion), and was terrified that he would sit on Max's face while he was asleep in his crib. Now I know this has actually happened to babies before, but I can assure you that if I was at all worried about this we would have given the cat away long before Max arrived.

That being said, we do like Hobbes, and he is a very good cat, but (cue my mom singing the "Halleluia Chorus") he will be going away soon. We just can't give him the attention he needs with two kids in the house, and we think he'll be happier with someone who has more time for him. He's going to a very nice girl who will spoil him and take good care of him. We'll miss him, but I think he'll be just fine.

Thank you, God...

We've recently added a new prayer to our bedtime routine called "Thank You, God." Liam has "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (Hi-Ho)" and "The Lord's Prayer" memorized, so we decided to add this new one to give him a chance to say his own prayer at night. He usually says "Thank you God for having a good night..." and then might add one or two other legitimate things before moving on to things in his immediate line of sight (curtains, lamp, etc.).

Last night he did his usual "Thank you God for having a good night..." and then added, "and thank you God that Max is sleeping."

HAHAHA. Yep, buddy, most days mommy is pretty thankful Max is finally asleep, too!

Pseudonyms...

This morning in the car Liam asked me:

"Mom, can you call me Eagle Trot?"

Ummm...sure, buddy. But I hope this isn't like the time I wanted to change my name to Shannon Miller...

Ole!

Hi-Ho!

Liam has a pretty set bedtime routine. He takes a bath, puts on his pajamas and brushes his teeth. Then he dances around in the living room and remains fixated on whatever is on the TV for about 5 minutes (FYI this is not an official part of the routine). We read a few books and then settle in to say our prayers. After prayers are songs, and after songs it's bedtime. It sounds time-consuming, but we don't mind it and it usually only takes about 20 minutes or so.

Anyway, Liam usually requests the same songs from both Aaron and me each night for two or three months straight. Awhile ago it was "The Rainbow Connection" from Dad and "Jesus Loves Me" from Mom. Now it's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" ("and can you rub my back?") from Mom every night and "Hi-Ho!" from Dad. He thinks "Hi-Ho!" is the most hilarious song ever and even tries to do the whistle himself. Last night he kind of overlapped his prayer and song time a bit. It went something like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep...HI-HOOOOO!
I pray the Lord my soul to keep....Hiiiiii-HO!
Guide me safely through the night....Hi-HO!
And wake me with the morning light....Hi-HO!

He keeps God on his toes.

Good Job, Mom!

Liam has been very interested in drawing and coloring again lately, after taking a short break from artistic pursuits in favor of hitting a large rubber ball with a big plastic bat. Repeatedly.

He received a giant bible story coloring book from Auntie Sarah as a baptism gift. He loves nothing more than to take a big handful of pages (this thing is like 800 pages long) and flip through (very dextrously, I might add) each individual page until he finds the one he wants.

Unfortunately, he is very much in love with the story of Jonah and the whale (he's a budding outdoorsman and loves the big fish!). He forgets that he's already colored the one picture of Jonah and the whale that was in said coloring book and continues to search for it. Through all 800 pages. Such a patient kid. He didn't even throw a fit when I reminded him for the fourth time that he'd already colored the Jonah picture and sent it to Grammy Pammy for inclusion on her Refrigerator Door of Fame.

We were coloring last night after I got home from class, and Liam was knee-deep in a self-pity party over not staying exactly in the lines as he colored (not something you'd expect from one of my kids, right?!). Anyway, I assured him that he was doing really great and to keep coloring. He would color for a minute and then stop and lament his "sub-par" coloring skills. If he's this hard on himself at just shy of 3 years old, I can't imagine how closely he'll resemble his OCD mother as an adult!

What was adorable about all of this wasn't just the fact that he was even worried about staying in the lines, it was his sincere admiration of my master coloring skills and his deep appreciation of my ability to stay in the lines. He would stop coloring to check out what I had done and say, "Oh, GOOD JOB, MOM! That looks so nice!"