10/17 - Papa and Brad were here

So things have been very busy since I got back from Vegas visiting Brad. My dad stayed the whole next day which was great. The boys had a great time seeing him Aiden says to me in the van a few day after Papa left, "Papa likes to tease people." Aiden learned a lot about Papa while I was gone. :)








My sweet dad tried to help me change Aiden's bike tire. I bought a new tire for Aiden in Vegas because I couldn't find the size in Jax. It ends up it was still too big so I went to a proper bike shop (Open Road) and got the right size. I couldn't get the new tire on myself (I can do it on my road bike) so I ended up taking the wheel to the shop with me and they put the tire on the wheel. I get the tire back on the bike and the training wheels but I can't get the chain on. In fact, I can't even get to the chain because of the chain guard. A day or two later I take the bike to the store with me and they (after a lot of work from a very experienced guy) he gets the chain on. FOR FREE. They put the tire on the rim and then also put the chain on for free for me. That was awesomely nice.

A few days after I got home I promised Aiden I would go have lunch with him at school. He brought his poetry journal for me to see. I was so surprised. He is doing such a good job drawing things or at least trying. Before he was so scared to make a mistake or not know how to draw something that he wouldn't try so I love that he is being forced to at school. He even drew his stuffed animal Iggy and colored it. 

We went to Home Depot on the first Saturday of the month and made a plane. They had a helicopter fly in and Aiden wanted to sit in but Eli wanted nothing to do with it which was a little odd. The boys had fun and I finally got a new air filter for our main air conditioning unit in the house (it's a really weird size so I got stuff to make my own). They had police cars there but the boys didn't want to go see them because they kept making so much noise with the sirens. We were able to watch the helicopter take off and the boys thought that was pretty cool and very very windy. 

Awana just started at our church the 2nd weekend in October and the boys really wanted to do it so I signed them up. I love the Awana program but am not a fan that it is starting to late and the kids won't be able to finish what they need to this year to stay on track but I need to put aside my desire to finish things and embrace the big picture of the boys continuing to learn about God and how amazing He is. Here they are at church wanting me to take their pictures with the dinosaurs.  

The boys and I had been talking about doing karate or taekwondo. We finally went for it and tried this place that gave us free uniforms and 2 classes. The boys are enjoying it (Aiden more so than Eli) and I just signed them up for a month. I think Aiden enjoys the structure and Eli enjoys the activity but Eli doesn't care for all the rules and he wishes there were more than 2-3 water breaks in a 30 min class!! 

Karate Kid Aiden

Punching Eli

Aiden is already saying he wants to earn the yellow belt. We shall see. I just wanted them to be involved in something. It cracks me up that Eli keeps saying he wants to do soccer when the kid can't stand to walk and wants a water break every 5 min in taekwondo. When we go to the putt putt golf course the kid will run around the course for about 15-20 min straight though so maybe I should let him try it. 

Grandma Jo and Grandpa Dave sent Eli a birthday package a few days ago. Eli was really excited and loved all the stuff. (Look how he is holding that pen Rusty - he flips out if I try and correct him). Thanks grandma Jo and Grandpa Dave. Aiden loved his Brain Quest questions too and he even carries them around with him. 

Brad and I started talking at the beginning of last week and I said I would love for him to come home. Well, he came home. It was Change of Command at the training squadron and things would be shut down for a few days and the following monday was Columbus Day (a holiday in the Navy) so he came home late on Wednesday night. I had to include this picture because the poor hubby was trying to find something to eat on and eat with and he had a hard time with that. I forgot that he was only there in the house for about 2.5 weeks before he had to leave (compared to the 2.5 months he's been away). The boys woke up on Thursday and we super excited to see daddy here. Brad was a trooper and got up at 6:30am Florida time to see the boys. 

Brad even walked Aiden down to the bus stop and Aiden was pretty excited about that. The boys were glued to Brad the entire time he was here and the awesome thing was that Brad didn't mind a bit. What a great daddy. 

The boys were super excited to show daddy their new skills they have learned in Taekwondo. Here they were goofing around either before or after class. They are so cute. Brad enjoyed watching them do their thing.

We all went and had lunch with Aiden on Friday at school. Aiden was really excited to show Brad his science journal. It also happened to be the same day the firetruck came to his school so he was all decked out as a fireman.

Aiden's 1-384 dot-to-dot picture

On Friday night we decided to go out for pizza and use Aiden's first Pizza Hut coupon for reading for September. He was so excited to go which cracked us up because he doesn't even like pizza. Well, he likes crust but not the cheese. As we were waiting for our food he was doing a dot-to-dot (1 to 384). I think he's in the mid 200's. The writing is so small but he can see it all and is finally almost done with it. Eli wanted to play on the iPad some. 

Eli playing Subway Surfer

Aiden really enjoyed reading to Brad. When Brad left Aiden couldn't read at all. Now Aiden is reading any BOB book and lots of other stuff too. It's amazing how fast they learn. Aiden will only check out "real" books at the library. I finally figured out what he meant by that when I went to his school and we were in the library. He means non-fiction. I told him it was okay to read pretend stuff and he said, "no, I like learning and I want to learn about real things. I will not read those other books." It's too funny because that is something that I would say (but I've never said that to him).

Great Grandma Hagan sent the boys something last week. She sent these two car rugs/mats with a set of construction vehicles for both boys. They love them. Aiden's is all folded nicely with his cars inside and Eli's is the one that is a ball of mess in the box we keep them in. Aiden has a rock collection and decided to get out his rocks and use them for real while playing on the mats. 

Aiden swimming over to Brad. This is new for Aiden!

It has been crazy chilly since the day Brad came here. On Sunday, it started to warm up a tad so we headed down to the pool. The boys have been so anxious to show Brad what they have learned. It was FREEZING. The boys didn't skip a beat and jumped right in. I jumped in because it was too cold and painful to try and do it slow. Brad eased his way in. The boys had a blast and finally Eli was shivering too much and his lip was blue so we decided to get out. It was great though. There were only like 1-2 other people at the pool since it was so cold so we had it all to ourselves pretty much. 

Eli posing with me. Love his smile.

The boys wanted to ride bikes and play when we got home. Aiden stayed outside with Brad for while and they baseball. Aiden is getting pretty good hitting from the tee and Brad throws it to him.  Eli went inside to get warm but then eventually comes out in the garage so Aiden can show him something. The child comes out in his undies. I asked if he's so cold why is he wearing just undies. He says "it's the sun that was making me cold. I'm okay inside." He's such a confused kid. Aiden thought it was pretty neat that his remote control truck can skid all over the garage floor and was anxious to show Eli. 

We ended Sunday night with family time and some wrestling. The boys really enjoyed seeing Brad and Brad managed to get all the things done on the list I had for him. He read them their story on Sunday night and then we all said prayers together. I can't wait until Brad can come home to stay for a bit. He's balances me out so much which is great for me and even better for the boys. That's one of reasons God gives us partners and I forget about that when he's gone for months at a time. Things are hard when he is gone and I'm stressed because there is always a ton of stuff to do and not enough time to do it and I feel like the boys deserve so much more than I can give them but I have to assume God paired me with Brad for a reason and He'll get me through all the times that Brad is gone. It was great watching all of my boys together on the couch. 

On Monday morning Brad got up with me and we left work. He went to my class and then we walked around campus measuring things to help one of my students out for a test he has to do. We ate lunch at Chick-fil-a on campus and then hurried off to a dr appt I was able to make the same morning. (I'll update on that next). After the dr appt is was off to the airport with Brad. It was so hard to say bye to him. I really miss him and we function SO SO SO much better as a family when he is around. I'm a better mommy and person when he is around. 

 

The day after Brad left it rained and this beautiful rainbow came out. It seemed so close like we could drive right under it. I've never felt a rainbow so close before. 

And to close out this post about Brad, he got to fly 2 times this week. That's the same amount he has been able to fly over the past 2 months he's been gone!! He is praying he is home by Thanksgiving, I'm praying he is home the first or second week in November. His orders say he is supposed to be back yesterday.  :(   It's out of our hands but we can still pray every night for him to come home soon. 

5/28 - Trip & Camping to TN

Here is a short recap of our weekend and then I'll be bouncing all over the place to address each collage. We drove to TN on Thursday afternoon/evening and got in at 8:00pm. We all slept inside the first night. We woke up Friday morning and it was pretty darn chilly and I didn't bring warm clothes for us so we hit the thrift stores and bought some stuff. The second night, we had a camp fire and then slept in tents (even Papa). It got freezing that night. It was a record 40 degrees that night and the previous record had been around since 1979. Nice timing we had. We all did great and made it through the entire night although we were freezing. Eli slept with me in the smaller tent and Aiden slept with Brad in the larger tent. Papa sawed logs slept just a few feet away in his tent. The sun (and freezing air) woke us up by 6am on Saturday morning. On Saturday night, we were all desperate for some good sleep and we all slept inside. On Sunday night, both boys said they wanted to camp so I was in the little tent with Eli again and Brad was in the big tent with Aiden.

On Friday morning it was pretty cold but they boys wanted to explore some outside. Eli finally found a nice comfy seat in papa's swing and got warmed up with a blanket. In the afternoon, the sun comes into the backyard and Eli wasn't such a fan of that. He really wanted to sit in the swing but didn't like the sun. He sat in the tent that I put up during his naptime and then finally went over to the swing. He said it was too sunny and went back in the tent (along with his sleeping bag and blankets) and waited there until Brad and I built a contraption so the sun wouldn't hit directly on the swing. Once that happened, Eli was happy to join us outside. 

I've given each boy a collage to summarize their Memorial Weekend. Aiden helped papa plant flowers and some vegetables on the first day there. Papa told him he could come water his flowers anytime he wanted and he was sure to relay that message to me. He then took his tools and played in a pile of dirt over the new septic tank my dad has. He was super excited to use the walkie talkies. We made a rule that if someone was out on the 4-wheeler that we needed to use the walkie talkies. Aiden was so very excited to have a camp fire. He tried to patiently await to make smores and actually collected about half the sticks, if not more, that we needed for the camp fire. I was surprised that he ate a couple of smores while we were there. Smores are messy and there is no way around that. That is huge progress for him. He had lots of fun dancing at the festival that we went to in downtown on Sunday evening.

Eli had a great time as well. Sometimes it's hard to get him outside but once he's outside, he's good to go. Eli had fun using his 'map' and telling us where to go exploring on Papa's property. He always enjoys dancing and there are a couple of pictures of him dancing away at the campfire and also at the festival. He has so much personality for such a little guy.

The campfire was something both of the boys were really excited about. Aiden helped collect sticks and they eagerly brought the chairs and crates to the campfire area. I would never have guessed that the smoke a fire makes would be so exciting for these boys. They were running around and trying to run under the smoke and around the smoke and all kinds of crazy games. They were having a great time running around and dancing to the 'camp fire songs' station that I played on my phone from Pandora. Eli didn't like smores but ate a few bites of graham cracker. Aiden loved them and once he got over having to get a little sticky from the marshmallow, he was enjoying himself. Aiden and I even played a few games of Hiss while hanging out by the camp fire.

So here are just some random collages. Dale, my Dad's friend from KY, came by to say hi. He brought his remote control helicopters that he's been working on. Brad was excited to help him look at them and Aiden wanted to play with them so bad. We had to explain those were expensive big boy toys. After camping that first night in the tents, Aiden could barely breathe the next day (he is allergic to almost a dozen trees and grasses) so we gave him some benedryl. That normally doesn't phase him but I think with 2 days of no naps, a late night the night before, restless sleep from sneezing, and getting up early, he totally passed out for over an hr on the couch in the living room. We stopped at the COOLEST McDonalds on the way to my dad's farm for dinner. It was huge treehouse structure built mainly for little guys (ages 2-5). The boys run in and start playing right away. I then realize there is a sign that says "closed for cleaning from 6-9pm) and told Brad, I'm so glad it's only 5:05pm. I then notice tons of very old people sitting in the kids area and people setting up microphones. It turns out we are in the easter time zone and it's 6:05pm. Totally stinks and the kids were so disappointed. What is really frustrating is that we were only in the eastern time zone for about 15 min that day while traveling (my dad's farm is in the central time zone). To get the boys out and stretch their legs, we walked over the the goodwill that was near the McDonalds. The boys enjoyed playing with random toys and Brad got a really good pictures of Aiden rocking out with his guitar. In the bottom left picture, you can see my dad and the boys standing at the window. They were watching a turkey right outside my dad's place.

We went to a festival on Sunday night in downtown. They had live music (bluegrass) and the boys really enjoyed it. They were dancing up a storm and then playing tag for a bit. I had to include the picture below of the toothbrushes. These are the toothbrushes of just Aiden and Eli. Seriously. They weren't brushing their teeth long enough a few months ago so I bought the kind that had light-up timers on them. For some reason, the boys refuse to actually use them to brush their teeth; they just use them for the timer. The print to the right of the toothbrushes is a deer footprint that I thought was neat. That was on my dad's property. The two print under the toothbrushes are ... can you guess?  Bear prints. We went hiking through an area park on Sunday afternoon and we saw bear tracks a couple of times which made me slightly nervous. Once we came upon a spot that had some baby tracks, I was very nervous. Nothing is going to stop a momma bear from protecting her baby bear if she even thinks the baby bear is in danger. I educated the boys on what to do if they saw a bear which made me feel slightly better. Aiden has been obsessed with taking pictures and being in pictures lately. It's too funny. In the picture to the right of the bear tracks, he says, "take my picture mommy" and then poses for me. He's actually even taken a few pictures too and they have turned out pretty well.

While we were in TN, Aiden developed a rash. It got pretty bad but thankfully with lots of benedryl, it has subsided. We have no idea what caused it but thankfully it's getting much better. The bottom picture of Pouncer cracks me up. He got in to our bag while I was packing and was pleading to come with us. The final picture is an egg carton game I did for the boys. Each boy had their own egg carton and colors were painted in each spot. Their goal was to find a matching color of something outside to put in each space. Eli didn't really care but Aiden did a great job with it. It was a fun way to give them something to do and more of a purpose while exploring.

One last thing. Aiden was so cute while hiking on Sunday afternoon. Papa taught him how to follow markers in the woods by looking for tagged trees and staying with the same color. Aiden kept wanting to lead and saying he was an expert hiker.

Here are two beautiful pictures we took on our hiking excursion.

And this picture of the boys cracks me up. Aiden just thinks it is ridiculous to stop and take pictures. He doesn't not enjoy it at all. He just wanted to keep on hiking. Eli enjoyed the break but Aiden was so bored (we stopped for about 5 min) and kept saying, "come on. What is taking so long? Let's go."

I had to include these handful of pictures from Eli because he's just too cute and his personality really stands out. What a carefree and loving little boy.

Aiden doesn't like to take pictures that much because he can't be bothered with actually stopping something so I have to get my fix of pictures with Eli.

1/18 - Baths, Papa, & bowling

Here is a bath time collage from last week. Aiden struggled to even get in the tub last week and then once he was in, he really didn't want to get wet. You can see from the first two picture that he wasn't so excited about the shower. He finally let me run the water on his back. He started to calm down and enjoy it actually. He then wanted to play with the different settings on the shower head. It was interesting to watch him assess the different settings and see what he liked. I was surprised that he actually liked some of the "bullet" ones since they were high pressure. It took a bit of convincing, but he finally washed an arm and a leg with a washcloth. He actually gripped onto the washcloth pretty good to and put enough pressure on his skin to possibly get dirt off. That's an improvement.

And then there is Eli. He has no problem with the bath, or water, or soap, or bubbles. It's pretty refreshing. Come to think of it, maybe I should start bathing him second so I leave bath time in a good mood rather than stressed with fighting Aiden. Eli was playing with this little penguin in the bath tub. It has a rotor on it and can swim by itself. We were playing with it in the bath tub for the first time in a long time and he was having a great time. His great time got even better when he realized the rotor kicked back some water and when he put it in front of his private parts, it felt .... different. I was dying laughing because he started smiling and kept doing it. Oh boys!! 

I got out some animal flashcards the other day and asked the boys how many of the cards they could find actual animals to represent (not real ones of course). They had fun hunting around the house for various toys to try and find matches.

We have been having a challenging time trying to keep clothes on Eli. That boy just loves to be naked!!
It can be freezing outside, and pretty chilly inside and he'll still want to me a "naked boy." Brad re-did his prize chart last week to reward him more. The boys get stickers for their prize charts and every 4 or 5 stickers usually earns them a prize. That has worked great with Aiden. Eli has a hard time using the chart as a motivation tool because the gratification is not instant enough. He gets all upset when he doesn't get a prize and doesn't even care to put a sticker up even though he earned one. Brad re-did his prize chart so that he gets a prize every other time and that is working out better. It's at least motivated him enough to get himself dressed in the morning for the past week without too many tears shed. It kills me though that when Eli does get to pick a prize, he always picks candy. I've had the same candy in there (chewy gummy lifesavers) for a few months and he only gets one piece. There are unopened lego men, Chuggington trains, eraser puzzles, and other things Eli loves but he only has eyes for the candy. I'm debating taking the candy out as a choice but we'll see. Below is Eli sporting his "naked boy" self along with his goggles. He cracks me up.

We got to Skype with Nana the other day and the boys enjoyed that. Eli was trying to show her his puppies. They both showed her their legos and how they could build things and then knock them down.

Eli is actually getting strong enough fingers to push the legos all the way down and build himself little towers. He definitely loves building them up kinda high and then making sure almost every lego is off the base by the time he is done. Eli is a little more reserved with his lego knock-down. I actually think he doesn't like the mess it makes which doesn't surprise me. I think I've finally come up with a way to store/sort our legos (for now) and am thankful for Aiden's OCD to help me keep them organized! :)

Saturday was a beautiful day and we decided to head to a new park. We went to Blount Cultural Park in Montgomery. It was very pretty and there were lots of bike/walking paths to take. We will be going back and taking our bikes next time we go. Eli was being rather lazy and we had to take the stroller for him or we would get stuck carrying him the whole time. We took a few balls with us and played catch and fetch. Yes, I said fetch!! I did lots of the fetching since Eli is lazy.

On Saturday afternoon, we ended up staying home and playing in the backyard. Brad and I got out the frisbees, balls, and a nerf football. We had lots of fun. Brad and I got to play catch, Aiden practiced hitting the ball off the tee, and Eli was just roaming around. Pouncer sat at the window and watched us for a long time. I eventually got out bubbles and the boys both had fun playing with those and the automatic bubble maker. To top off an already fun backyard afternoon, I found our walkie-talkies. The boys have never seen or used them before but we got Papa some for Christmas for his farm and Aiden has been talking about walkie-talkies ever since. Brad and I got them a few years ago when we were driving from Maryland to Florida and we didn't want to have to use our cell phone to call when we had something quick we want to tell the other person (we were driving separate vehicles). Anyway, it took some practice for the boys but they eventually got the hang of it. It was hard for Aiden to push the button and hold it in order to talk but he eventually got it.

On Monday, we were blessed by Papa showing up. Papa and I went to get the boys early on Monday. They were just finishing up playing on the Big Green Bus. They were anxious to show Papa their skills and then come home and play with him. Here they are after just getting home. It took Eli only a matter of minutes to strip down to his undies! Aiden insisted on Papa having a lizard on his head for the picture. I think Eli is going to be swimmer just so he doesn't have to wear clothes and it's acceptable for him to wear his goggles all the time. :)

After seeing Eli sporting around his pool look in briefs and goggles, Aiden wanted to show Papa how he can swim "by himself." In his world, that means he wears this froggy vest and can still float.

As usual, Aiden had therapy on Tuesday. He struggled a bit in the beginning but Mrs. Rusty knows how to get him to do stuff. He helped her hang a swing up, get on the swing and ride, find crabs and put them on the rope, and then played did a few minutes of sensory work. He is trying so hard to make all of his muscles work together to be able to swing. He (much to my surprise) put a blind fold on for the first time and crawled around on a giant wobble board on his belly while he felt for crabs on the floor. He then got his fingers nice and strong by clipping the crabs to the rope. He ended the session by having to find little plastic rabbits in a bag of grits and then finding the hidden treasure in a pile of shaving cream. It was the end of the session and he was tired and started going downhill. He wouldn't touch the shaving cream so Mrs. Rusty modified the original goal to try and make it easier. It was aggravating for me to watch so I'm not even going to try and type the whole thing out so here is the readers digest version: he used the rabbits he just found in the grits to "help" look through the shaving cream; he found a treasure; he wouldn't wipe the treasure off with a towel so we took it to the sink; he wouldn't wash it off either. 

I've gotten the boys early from daycare this week so they can hang out with Papa. We went to Big Lots the other day and Christmas stuff was 75% off. I had just been up really late the night before looking on Pinterest and finding lots of ideas of stuff I wanted to do. I got out the tent that Nana gave Aiden a few years ago. We made Eli's bed into a fort with sheets and then .... bought them each a set of LED christmas lights to hand on their beds. They were so excited. We got home, put up the lights, and the boys then played for the next couple of hours. The boys can plug the lights in whenever they want but they always have to be unplugged after we say prayers at bedtime. 

Tuesday night our water heater pilot light went out on us so the boys ended up getting no bath because we had no hot/warm water. So, Wednesday night was bath night. Aiden didn't want to get a shower which is no surprise. I got him to cheer up some and he even had fun. I let him play with the shower head and changing the way the water comes out and then put the plug in the bathtub so that he could in the water. I was trying to let him enjoy the experience and let him play for about 15 minutes or so. I finally told him we had to clean him and then everything went downhill very fast. I tried all my tricks of empowering him ("Aiden, what kind of wash cloth do you want to use?" "I'll wash one arm and you can wash the other. Do you want me to do your right or left?") and nothing was working for getting him onboard for a bath. He wanted to earn a sticker so bad by cleaning himself but he just wouldn't actually do anything. So.... he cried for 5-10 minutes while I soaped him, washed his hair, and rinsed him off. Bath time took much longer than usual. I was trying to be patient and work with him but I think he was too tired because of having no nap and just couldn't emotionally handle it. The boys didn't get in to bed until about 8:00pm this night because Aiden's bath was so long and dramatic and I was completely wiped out.

On Thursday morning, Papa went with me to my brain MRI. I'm so thankful it was approved through the insurance company so fast and then I was able to get it pretty fast as well. I got the referral last Thursday afternoon and had the MRI the next Thursday morning!! It was a MRI with contrast so I was slightly nervous my body would freak out again with a foreign substance being injected into me so I was thankful my dad came with me. The tech said the radiologist would have the report done by today but I probably won't hear anything until Tuesday since Monday is a holiday (Martin Luther King Jr). I spent the whole time in the MRI in prayer. I don't want them to find a tumor on my pituitary gland but at the same time, I would like for the MRI to help the doctors figure out what is wrong. On Thursday afternoon, we picked up the boys from daycare and then went to base to meet Brad to go bowling. Eli has never been bowling and Aiden has only been bowling once. Brad and I haven't bowled in a year or two and my dad said he hadn't bowled in many, many years.

The boys had a blast. Aiden eagerly awaited his turn ... every time. Eli had a good time putting the ball up on the ramp and then slapping it down. In Eli fashion, he even head-butted the ball down the ramp a few times. He got lots of excited out of watching his ball go down and hit pins. The bottom right of the collage is one of the first times he bowled. After his ball hit 2 or 3 pins down, he raised his arms up and started jumping all over the place. It was too funny. He was a big cheerleader for all of us. Aiden was having a bit of a hard time. We used the ramp and bumpers for both of them but Aiden had a bad ball at the beginning and it just went off to the left quite a bit and snuck into the gutter right before the pins but after the bumper. I brought some legos with us which was good. The boys were a little impatient because they just wanted it to be their turn the whole time. My dad did awesome. He busted out of the gates with 2 strikes!! It was fun for all of us.

Here is the score board at the end of the first round. The man behind the counter entered in the names if you are wondering why Eli and Papa's names are spelled different.

I had to get a shot of the boys at the end. They had lots of fun and we will definitely be going back.

Brad and I actually went out on a date last night for the second time in just 7 months. We went to dinner and then walked around the dollar store for a bit. I needed to get some supplies for a project I am working on so we thought we would multi task. Brad has class today and we were both pretty tired so we were back home by 8:30pm. It was nice to get out without the boys though. It was a great visit with my dad and the boys really enjoyed seeing him. It has rained all week so I've come up with some new games that I'll post about soon. Have a good weekend.