Chicken Noodle Soup

How appropriate this title is, I thought. It's only been a week or so since my last post and so much has happened already so I'm going to throw it all in to this post...hence, Chicken Noodle Soup. We'll start with Matt's birthday. His birthday, technically belonging to his older sister Susan first, is Sept. 30th. About a month before, I checked all around trying to find just the right gift for him since we didn't get to celebrate his birthday with him last year b/c of him being deployed. After searching many sites, I finally decided to get seats to a pro hockey game. I've watched him play hockey on many occasions but thought it would be nice if we could watch a game together and just maybe I would understand what the heck those blue lines are in the ice or what a hat trick was. Unfortunately, there weren't any games on his bday so I had to go with the Thursday before his bday...which he was supposed to have taken leave that week. Well, with anything in the Army, I should have known...plans ALWAYS change. So, I couldn't keep it a suprise from him, I had to tell him. The night of the hockey game, I took the kids to my parents and I drove to the metro station and met Matt there. We then rode the metro to the Verizon Center together. I got a great laugh when we were riding there when I happened to look at Matt's leg. He was wearing the jeans I had gotten him for his bday but left the sticker strip with the size on his leg. LOL! We got a good laugh. Matt was so excited with the seats I had gotten. We were about 4 or 5 rows behind the players bench...center ice! Awesome! The Washington Capitals vs The Carolina Hurricanes! How appropriate since we just left NC. The game was great. Although it was a preseason game, we had a ton of fun. The Washington Capitals ofcourse won and we saw many many hockey fights! I think I was more interested in the fights than the actual game. I still don't know what the blue lines represent or what a hat trick is BUT to my delight, I was able to catch a t-shirt that was thrown out to the crowd! Whoo-hoo! My only complaint about the entire game is that I could smell the players sweat as they skated back to their benches. Yuck! Matt thought that was great! So, because he got a hockey game for his bday gift, Matt thought his bday would be business as usual. It was until he got a call from the staff duty desk asking him to leave the baby shower the company was hosting to sign for a package. Well, the package was from the kids wishing him a happy birthday by means of a big balloon bouquet. I heard it was a great hit at the office. Matt was apparently showered with off tune ballads of the Happy Birthday song all day long. When he arrived home, he had dinner waiting as well as a homemade carrot cake and presents from the kids. It was really a lot of fun to celebrate his birthday with him this year. We really missed it last year.

Looks like he's praying but he's actually making a wish! lol.

Blowing out the MANY candles

Ethan trying to help blow out the candles

Ta-dah!

Sorry, I know, it's a long post. Moving on, the patio has gotten another step closer to being completed. After receiving a few estimates with having it graded professionally, we decided to go ahead and have it graded. The kids loved wathing the digger/scraper..whatever it is. They were fascinated...so much that Katheryn grabbed the camera and took these shots. The driver let the kids hop in it while it was running. Katheryn loved it! But the patio area is atleast graded and we had a delivery truck come and dump some sand this past Friday. The kids like playing in the mountain of sand. I've had many sand piles in the house from them taking off their shoes. Hopefully this weekend though we'll have it leveled and pavers started. I can't wait till it's finished.

Katheryn has found her calling

Friday was a great treat for Katheryn and I. Our friends came up from NC to visit us. Katheryn was so excited to have her friend with her. On Saturday we went to the National Zoo in D.C. and spent most of our time at the Panda exhibit. Brian also braved the elephant house this time and we watched an elephant get his foot/toes cleaned. We had planned on touring the sites in D.C. but we were sooo tired from the zoo and all the walking we decided to save that for another trip. Matt was working that day but joined us later at the house. Then on Sunday we had a lot of fun going to the outlets. There were so many sales. I spent about $100 in The Children's Place and I got the kids sooo many winter shirts/sweaters. The pants weren't on sale so they have to do without those for a while. LOL. After the outlets, Matt called to let us know he was on his way home from work. He met us at Panera Bread, yum, for lunch and after that, we went to a corn maze. I had never been to one. Crazy since I grew up here. The maze was in the shape of an eagle and the corn was about 7 or 8 feet high. They had stations set up with tickets and if the kids collected all 5 tickets, they could get a prize. We made it through the maze collecting all 5 tickets. It was a lot of fun. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. I may find one online and link it here.

Katheryn in tears from Alanna's suprise visit

On the metro

At the z00

No room inside for these creatures

Showing off their new sweaters

After the corn maze, we went to the go-kart tracks. We raced and I have not been beaten yet!!! It was Brian's first time on the go-karts with Matt and he had a blast. We went ahead and reserved the kids' bday party for there for both Katheryn and Brian. I know I have written a lot and there was much to read. Although not quite as entertaining as the last few posts but I hope you enjoyed it still. On one final note, while shopping today, I found the perfect shirt for Ethan. It said, "Master of Disaster" "watch out" "here I come". It was just perfect. I didn't buy it, it looked cheap but I loved the saying. I could totally picture it on him. Well, until next time....I'm signing off.

Doctor visit

What a joyful day it has been and it is still not over. It's only 4:30 but wow, it just never stops. Although, I did laugh myself to tears with Katheryn today. I know it's not funny from her persepctive but I just could not help but laugh. We finally had doctor appointments for the family so that we can get on board here in Maryland and today was Katheryn's appt and mine. Ethan fell asleep on the way there so it was quite nice to not have to chase him around the office while I filled out new patient paperwork. We get to the room and are with the nurse. She takes Katheryn's temp, blood pressure, etc. and asked Katheryn if she could pee. Katheryn just looked at her like she was crazy. Then the nurse asked her if she could pee in a cup and Katheryn had to question her and ask "why do I need to pee in a cup?" It was pretty funny but that's not the best part. It's coming. So, she goes and does her thing and we wait again. While we are waiting, Ethan wakes up and starts to fart. He looks at me and says as proud as he can..."poopy!" I told him no, you just farted, you say excuse me. Well, he does it again only this time it's several in a row and he laughs. He then stands up and says, "poopy!" As he's standing, I noticed that he seems to be concentrating so I asked him, "are you going poopy?" He says, "yep." I wait and he's still there and I ask him again. "Are you still going poopy?" Again, he says, "yep." Great! I thought that since he was asleep, I wouldn't need to bring his diaper bag in..he'll sleep through the appointment. Boy was I wrong. So the doctor comes in and we find out that Katheryn needs to have one more chicken pox shot. She is not happy. She gets dressed while I step out to grab Ethan's bag. The nurse then comes in and Katheryn starts to freak out. I have never seen her so scared. The nurse rubs the alcohol swab on her arm and she screams and says it hurts. Wow! Then the doctor and I try to calm Katheryn while the nurse proceeds to give her the shot. Katheryn jerked away screaming! Tears were streaming. I could not believe she was so afraid. Finally we had to lay her down so the nurse could give her the shot. I had just done this two days before with Brian and Ethan. Brian got 4 shots and Ethan got 2. They didn't flinch so it was a little funny to see Katheryn, an 8 year old, react this way. She was happy though with the lollipop afterwards. lol. Okay, so, we get home. We're hanging out and getting ready to take Katheryn to dance in a bit. I changed Brian's diaper and went to run it outside. Ethan was in the living room. I get back in to the house only about 30 seconds later and I find Ethan with a dish soap tab for the dishwasher. *sigh* He took a bite out of it through the plastic and spit the crumbs out. The moment I saw what he had, he threw up. How much more wonderful can this day get? I have a few hours left so who knows. It just seems that this is not ending. I plan to start with potty training Ethan tomorrow so I know my week can only get better! ha!

1st Caller/Bidder Wins!

Okay, if you have been keeping up with the blog, you all know that I had a pretty bad day with Ethan and black permanent marker. Well, it's another day and it hasn't gotten any better. Who is this kid?? First bid takes him! At this particular moment, I was checking my email before going in to start preparing tonight's dinner. I hear a rapid pounding of feet coming down the stairs from upstairs. It's Katheryn running around the house looking for me. I thought about hiding but decided I should see what she needs. She tells me that Ethan is in my room, the bathroom, spraying water around. I looked at her and asked her, "how can he be spraying water??" So I go upstairs and sure enough, there is Ethan fully clothed and drenched in the bathtub with the water running. He sees me and stands up and stomps his feet in the water very proud of what he has accomplished. I then take him out of the tub, pull off his socks and wet clothes and proceeded to clean up the flood on the floor. Someone please tell me that it can only get better. I didn't have time to grab the camera to take a pic...that was not on my mind at that moment. :) One day at a time.

What is going on today???

I've never blogged twice in one day but after the permanent marker today I was sure things could only get better. I was wrong. I was cleaning the house...still...and I knew the boys needed to be changed. I vacuumed the front living room only to notice brown stains on Ethan's hands. Yep! You guessed it. He dug into his diaper and was playing in the front living room that we just bought furniture for. I just want this day to be over with so we can start fresh tomorrow. Aaahhhh, kids.

Adopt Ethan for a year....anyone??? Just kidding...sort of.

What a wonderful morning I have had...too bad you can't hear the sarcasm. Things were going fairly well. Brian had off from school today and as the boys were eating their breakfast, I ran upstairs to get dressed and to make the bed. I went back downstairs to check on the boys, about 5 minutes later, and as I approached the kitchen, THERE IT WAS! A huge wonderful mess for me to clean but oh no, it wasn't just any kind of mess. It was an Ethan original worth as much as a new kitchen floor, white door, hardwood dining room floor and stainless steel refrigerator....not to mention the rug in the living room and small kitchen floor mat. Petty I know but still mentionable. Now I know you are asking what kind of mess this could possibly be for me to post a blog asking anyone to adopt Ethan for a year. LOL. Now, I really wouldn't do that. I do love him still however a short visit with family or friends may be considered. LOL. jk. Okay, so here is what he did. Let me put a picture here first so you can see for yourselves.

The kitchen door

A section of the kitchen floor

Dining room floor after scrubbing

Okay, so there you have it. Ethan pulled open the drawer in the kitchen where we keep our pens and opened the pencil box. He then proceeded to find the thickest black permanent marker he could find and wrote on himself. As he was doing this, he had to have thought to himself that the white kitchen door needed some work. He finished there and went on to the living room carpet with just a streak, thank heavens, and then onto the kitchen floor where he drew mazes. Was it one part of the kitchen that could be hidden under carpet? Oh no, he went the extra mile and placed his touch everywhere! I caught him at the refridgerator. Thank goodness because that one was the easiest mark to remove. I then panicked. I grabbed the 409 and started to spray everything but it wasn't working. I called Matt but there was nothing really that he could do except listen to me pant as I tried to erase the marker. I then called my mom but there was no answer. I grabbed every cleaner available to me in the house. I tried Simple Green...no luck. I tried an all purpose cleaner that was supposed to be the wonder cleaner...no luck. Then I remembered I once took permanent marker off of my dad's van when it was vandalized with some oven cleaner. So, I grabbed the oven cleaner. Spray and scrub...spray and scrub. After about an hour and a half, I gave up. The marker is faded but you can still see it. Some areas more than others. The door will need to be repainted so I will tackle that today with some primer and hopefully get it painted by tonight. On the bright side of things, I guess this means we'll be installing a new kitchen floor in the future. We'll definately have to resand the floor in the dining room and finish it. It's not terribly bad in there but it'll need to be done. So, there you have it. Are there any takers on a month with Ethan? He can create thousands of dollars worth of drawings for you in a day. Just think if he had colored markers! Okay, how about a day??? Anyone?? That's my final offer.

Kid Gone Wild

This past week/weekend has been a trying one for me. I finally had an open house for my home business and while getting the house ready and trying to set up, Ethan found my raffle ticket roll. It was a brand new roll of course so there were quite a few tickets. He found it fun and entertaining to place the roll on it's side and just roll it. I didn't realize he was doing this of course until I came downstairs and caught him. He just looked at me, smiled and said "ta-dah!" Kids! So I had to roll them back up...it took forever. When he found the tickets again and unrolled them, I just gave up. Thankfully Matt found them and rolled them up for me. :)

Ethan saying "ta-dah!"

Then this past weekend, Matt thought it would be great to spend time together as a family and just have fun rather than work on the yard or other things in the house. We've been doing a lot of work around the house since moving in and it's still not finished. The patio that we have been dreaming about is still a muddy patch. I go out when I can and I'm trying to grate it but it's not coming as fast as I would have hoped it to. Anyways, we decided to try the early morning service at church but as soon as we sat down, we got up and exited. We didn't realize there wouldn't be child services at the early morning service and Ethan couldn't help but chatter aloud once in the sanctuary. We then went home and had a really good breakfast. I just threw some stuff together and it turned out really really good. We then made it to the 11:00 service and had a peaceful service with the kids in their classrooms. We made it home and had some lunch before taking the kids out for an ice skating adventure. Matt loves to ice skate; he plays hockey and just really loves it so I know he was anxious to get Brian and Ethan out on the ice. Well, Ethan was just not cooperating. Katheryn got her skates on and was all over the place until she fell and hit her head. Ouch. She got back up though and continued on. We put hockey skates on Brian. He was having a great time. He was very hesitant at first about getting on the ice but once we gave him something to hold on to, he seemed okay. After one lap around the rink, he thought he had won the race and would be given one of those nice big trophies in the trophy case. About an hour has passed and Ethan has Matt and I very frustrated. He wants on the ice but wants to skate alone and thinks he can. When we held him, he threw a fit and threw himself onto the ice. This went on for atleast an hour. Matt went and skated with Brian while I hung out with Ethan trying my best to get him to hold on to the walker. Matt came back and Ethan decided he would go on the ice again and by this time I took my skates off thinking I would just hang out with Ethan. Well, Ethan got on the ice, held the walker and did a lap around the rink with Matt. There were moments when he let go of the walker to skate a little himself. He only managed a step but I know Matt was really excited. He will have himself a hockey player!

Ethan first time ice skating

Brian on ice

Matt trying to get Ethan on the ice

SUCCESS!

Ethan needs no help from Matt

Goodbye August, Hello September!

What a busy week it has been for our family. During Matt's last week of leave, we decided to break ground and make room for a garden and patio. Well, we got the ground tilled and the concrete slab broken up and that's about it. That was a week ago. The patio pavers have been stacked in our backyard since last Saturday. But, we have a great excuse. This past weekend was my family reunion on my dad's side. We left Saturday morning and drove to S.C. with a stop in our old neighborhood to visit some friends and pick a few things left behind at our house there. We finally made it to my uncle's by 10:00pm.

The next morning we were able to hang out a bit and then we headed to Hemingway for the reunion. It was a great time but I really wish I knew all those who attended. Afterwards, we went back to my uncle's and just hung out. It was a lot of fun. Matt and the kids enjoyed swimming in the pool until it started to rain.

The trip home seemed long. We took a different way home and enjoyed the scenic views and unfortunately, the patio pavers never moved from their stack. They are still there. I will keep our progress posted.

Matt getting ready to break up the slab

Matt pounding the slab as Ethan looks on

The tiller before the garden area