The Man of the House

The other day we were driving back from picking up Boo from school and Crazy surprises me with this conversation:


Crazy:  "Now that Daddy is gone on the ship, I'm in charge of this house."
Me:  "Oh really?" (no sarcasm at all, promise!)
Crazy:  "Mommy, the first thing you need to do is take a nap."
Me:  "I think we'll get along just fine these next few weeks."


As nice as that was that he was thinking of me, it got a little old when he persisted in trying to send me to bed throughout the day.  I think he must of had an ulterior motive like eating a ton of junk food while playing the computer or Wii.  I have also heard him tell both Boo and I that he's in charge and we have to do what he says multiple times since Hubby left.  I think that I'll have to have Hubby explain to him exactly what "Man of the House" means in our family before the next time he leaves.  

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  We celebrated Christmas in our new house by ourselves this year.  One of Crazy's friends from school was nice enough to invite our family to their family's Christmas party.  They truly go all out for their party.  Santa makes a visit (one of the best Santa's I've ever seen) and not only gives each child a present, but allows them to sit and talk his ear off if they want to.  I made the girls Christmas pillowcase dresses and matching satin flower headbands to wear to the party.  I have the need to match them as much as possible while they are still young enough to let me.

Every time we've seen Santa in the past Boo is terrified.  We're talking full blown screaming and crying.  We were very nervous about how she'd act seeing Santa at the party.  For days beforehand we'd talk to her about how she'd see Santa at the party.  We told her that she could sit on his lap if she wanted to or she could stand next to him.  There was no pressure to get close to him.  As long as she was close enough for Mommy to take a picture of her with Santa she was good.  Well when Santa called her name to get her present she walked right up and crawled into his lap!  She then proceeded to talk, and talk, and talk.  We were shocked!

Next up was Hiccup.  After the success of Boo with Santa we were going to be happy with two out of three kids liking Santa.  Well Hiccup became our first child to love Santa the very first time she met him.

 If you look closely you'll see that she has some of his beard in her hand.  She was fascinated by his beard and kept playing with it.  Santa held her for a long time because everyone in the room thought that it was beyond adorable the way she was smiling and interacting with him.  I have to agree!

We had a fantastic holiday and hope that everyone had one as well.  From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!

What did you say?

Crazy:  Do daddies do more work than mommies?
Me:  What do you think?
C:  No.
Me:  Why?
C:  Because mommies are more smart than daddies.
Me:  (laughing) Don't let your daddy hear you say that.

Later that same day...

Crazy:  When Daddy sings he just sounds like he's singing.  He's good but not that good.  When you sing Mommy, it sounds like you're a beautiful singer in a show.

I mean seriously, how can you NOT love him?

What did you say?

This was a conversation that occurred in our van the other day:

Boo:  Can we get some ice cream?
Me:  Probably not.
Boo:  Probably yes.
Me:  Probably not.
Boo:  Probably sure.
Me:   A big no, got it?
Boo:   OK


A master manipulator in the making?  Probably sure.

Happy Turkey Day!

For Thanksgiving this year Hubby's parents came to visit.  We spent Thanksgiving Day driving to Ohio (my first time in Ohio!) to visit his grandparents.  That's about a 12 hour trip.  Thankfully we took two cars and spilt the kids up.  Hubby and I drove with Hiccup and we sent Crazy and Boo with my in-laws (hee hee hee).  Seriously though all my kids are pros when it comes to traveling.  Well, at least now they are.  Some of you may remember this post.  But that's in the past...  We made it to Ohio without any problems and we once again patted ourselves on the back for the brilliant decision to invest in portable dual DVD players for the car.

Grammie giving Hiccup hugs

We hadn't seen Hubby's grandparents in about 3 years.  The last time was after we moved back from Japan and Boo was about 4 or 5 months old.  The kids were excited about seeing their great-grandparents again and Hubby's sister and brother-in-law flew in for the weekend as well.

Aunt L reading to the kids

Hubby's Family

We drove about an hour and a half to Hubby's uncle's house for the day to visit with more of his extended family.  I'd never met Hubby's cousin and his wonderful family and the rest we hadn't seen in years.  It was great spending time with his family.  The kids had fun playing outside in the nice weather and we were able to catch up with everyone.

The Whole Gang

We stayed the night at Hubby's uncle's house and left about 5 am the next morning for the long drive back. The trip went smoothly until we got outside of Washington D.C.  Then the traffic was just ridiculous.  At one point a car two spots in front of us caught on fire.  I mean literally, there were huge flames coming out from under the hood.  I think by the time we made it home we had been in the truck for 16 hours.  Ugh!  Would we do it again?  Definitely!

The Next Karate Kid

After we moved to Virginia we decided to find an activity that Crazy could do to meet new friends and have some fun.  I vetoed Hubby's suggestion of sports because that would amount to me hauling three kids to an outside practice and game at least twice a week by myself.  Instead we agreed on karate.  We ended up signing him up for Taekwondo.  They have a program here called Tiny Tigers for kids ages 3-5 years.  After that they move up to the kids program.  Crazy loves it!  He has a belt testing every 3 months or so and in the Tiny Tigers program they get headbands instead of belts every other testing.  As several friends have pointed out, the ATA Taekwondo belt system is not the same as everyone else's.  He went from white to orange and then will get yellow instead of white/yellow/orange.  I say as long as he's moving to a different color each time, who cares?  They all end with a black belt!

 Crazy will be moving up to the kids' program for his next testing cycle.  We've signed him up for a Master's class so that he can use weapons.  It's costing us a small fortune for all the equipment but he likes sparring and "playing" with all the weapons.  The next belt testing should be interesting because he'll be tested on his form, sparring, and the short stick weapons (which are actually half the size of him.)  I'll be posting pictures of that when the time comes...

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween.  Not because of the candy but because of the awesome costumes my aunt makes for my kids.  I have never once bought a Halloween costume from a store for one of the kids.  Now that we have three kids I was worried that my aunt wouldn't have the time to make them costumes this year, especially because she has a new grandson to sew for.  Well I don't know how she did it, but she found the time and energy to make all four kids a Halloween costume!  I mentioned that she was awesome, right?

This year Crazy requested to be a dragon from the movie How to Train Your Dragon.  Not just any old dragon would do either, it had to be a deadly nadder dragon.  My incredible aunt had to design his costume from a picture in a children's book that we sent her.  He was thrilled when he got it.

Boo asked to be a butterfly, a green one, but when we were at Jo-ann's one day we saw a pattern for a Rupunzel costume.  Boo is fascinated with Rupunzel so of course she had to have those long golden locks.   This girl never wears dresses or skirts, so I was a little worried that she might balk at the idea of wearing the dress when she actually had to put it on.  I worried for nothing, she was jumping up and down at the thought of put her costume on when it arrived.  

Halloween at the aquarium

Crazy and Boo picked out Hiccup's Halloween costume.  They chose a sunflower.  I don't think I've ever seen a cuter sunflower in my life.

I think it's next to impossible to have all three kids looking and smiling at the camera at the same time.
Maybe when they get older it won't be so hard...

 I absolutely love this face that Hiccup is making.  It shows her frustration with me taking too many photos and makes me laugh whenever I see it.

We were invited to our neighbor's house for a Halloween party before we all headed out trick-or-treating.  Not long after arriving our little sunflower wilted.  I guess the excitement of her first Halloween was just too much for her!

 I can't wait until next Halloween to see what the kids decide to be!