Thought we were done......

From snow day

From snow day

No, these are not pictures from a couple of months ago--this is what my backyard looked like when we came downstairs for the morning. Hard to believe we were in shorts 2 weeks ago. Like I said before, so much can change in 2 weeks when you live with crazy Illinois weather!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, if I can just hold the kids off with wanting to build snowmen........

Nemo & Buzz

So, the boys have re-found their Halloween costumes & apparently, it's time for Mommy to create a "costume box" for dress-up play. William calls it "transforming" into Buzz Lightyear when he dons his costume & you are NOT allowed to call him anything but Buzz while he's wearing it. He runs around the house making laser noises & yelling, "I can fly! I can fly!" Daniel on the other hand, puts on the Nemo costume & is much more flexible about what you call him while it's on ;-) He loves to run around the house yelling, "I can swim! Swim, swim, swim, swim!" It's really pretty cute. So, here's our little space invader along with one handicapped fish:

From Nemo & Buzz

From Nemo & Buzz

From Nemo & Buzz

From Nemo & Buzz

Two little hands

Here is a video of William singing the song he'll be singing at National Prayer Day at his school in a couple of weeks. Here are the words since he gets kind of hard to understand:

Two little eyes to look to God
Two little ears to hear God's Word
Two little feet to walk God's ways,
Two little hands to serve God all my days.
One little tongue to speak God's truth,
One little heart for God in youth,
Take them, O Jesus, let them be
always willing, true to thee.

And, then, of course, little brother had to get in on the action at the end. He's wearing his dinosaur crown that he made at school today. It's got pics of T-Rex on it & when he wears it, he's "king of the dinosaurs"!!

From 8 months to 8 days!

 

Here's the latest version of our sad little paper chain--if it can even be called a "chain" anymore!! (And, it even has 2 extra links, just in case!) We're now down to 8 days & Scott is officially leaving Kabul behind tonight--or Friday morning, where he is. Please keep your thoughts & prayers with him as he makes his way across Afghanistan so he can get on the flight that will bring him home to us!!!

First zoo trip of the year

The high's were in the upper 50's (and ended up being in the mid-60's), so the boys & I headed to the zoo with four of their friends. Here are a few snaps from our day. They had a blast & got to ride the carousel and the train--all in all, a very successful zoo trip!! Click the picture to start the slideshow:

Firm date

So, I had my latest OB appt today & our official C-section date is Monday, 27 April, most likely at 11:30 AM. Unless of course, this little guy decides to make a surprise appearance. If that's the case, we're just praying it's not until Daddy is safely on the ground in Illinois!! Which, by the way, should happen on Friday, 3 April in the morning. Yay!! Down to a measly 18 days. Wow!

What a difference 2 weeks makes...

So, here are a couple of snaps from March 2nd (exactly 2 weeks ago) of William & his friend, Stephen, playing in the backyard. Note the heavy coats & hats, and very red noses. I think the high that day was mid-40's and we were SOOO excited about it. It was WARM!

From outside snaps

From outside snaps

And, now a couple of snaps of lunchtime today. It was already 62 (got up to 72 today!), so we had a picnic lunch outside under our umbrella. William kept complaining he was hot. I don't think we're getting into 40's for daytime for the next week and a half, at least, according to the forecast!

From outside snaps

From outside snaps

***And, note the open laptop--we were even IM'ing with Daddy during the beautiful weather--what a great day!****

More random news

So, first of all, here is our sad little paper chain (yay, it's actually shrinking!) as we head into the last month of Daddy being gone. We are now officially under a month away, barring any plane trouble, etc.

 

Second of all, William's class is learning the Our Father. He comes home every week knowing a little more. When they learned the first part, he made the typical kiddo mistake & said, "Our Father, who art in Heaven. HOWARD be thy name." He's since gotten the whole "Hallowed" part down. This week, they started learning the line about forgiving us our trespasses. This is what he said as he was saying his prayers for me tonight, "....Give us this day our daily bread, and for give us our trucks back." Poor little guy thought he was asking God for his toys back. I laughed so hard & almost fell out of his bed!

Stegosaurus on the loose!

Daniel's class has been learning about dinosaurs for the past couple of weeks. Today, they made Stegosaurus hats! The plates sticking out behind him are supposed to be spines running down his back. He was so proud to show me his creation & couldn't wait to webcam with Daddy so he could show him, too. William & I were very scared of the dinosaur running loose in our house!

From dinosaur hat

From dinosaur hat

From dinosaur hat

McNugget Fan!!

So, those of you who've been keeping up with my blogging (heaven help you!) know that William has been gradually able to eat more & more of products made with milk & egg. Well, today, we tried McDonald's chicken McNuggets for the first time!! Note the happy grin. He's been saying for MONTHS now, "Mommy, maybe when I grow out of my allergies, I can have the nuggets Daniel gets to eat." The McDonald's chicken selects have no milk or egg, so that's what he's been getting to eat when he wants chicken instead of a hamburger. Now, I know it's completely ridiculous to get so excited that there is another fast-food product my child gets to eat, but just look at the grin on that little face!!

 

King Cake

So, I was finally taking the pictures off of my camera & realized I'd never posted the pics of my boys with their first King Cake. When Aunt Sarah came out for her visit last month, she brought Cajun Mardi Gras books for the boys. William has been very interested in the concept of parades and people throwing candy & beads at him! In keeping with the Mardi Gras theme, Aunt Sarah had a King Cake shipped to us. It was the boys' first taste of it & boy, did they love it!! For all of you northern readers, you can read up on the King Cake & even find a yummy recipe for one here.

First, a picture of the cake itself. It's kind of hard to see b/c it's Saran-wrapped & the flash reflected off of the wrapping, and some of the icing slid during shipping, but boy was it yummy!

From king cake

And, here are the boys with the beads (or "beans", as Daniel calls them) that came with the cake:

From king cake

From king cake

William-man

So, William's newest phrase is "I can do it all by myself, Mommy. I'm a FOUR-year-old!" He's even gone so far as to tell me that when he was a three-year-old, he still needed help, but four-year-olds are big kids. It's never that he's four, or that he's four years old, he's always "a FOUR-year-old" and you can hear the all-caps in the title. This extends from brushing his teeth to washing his hands, as well as to things like climbing the rock wall at the park & swinging on the swings by himself. The main thing that he now wants to do as "a FOUR-year-old" is to read all by himself to me & Daniel. This has led into his finally being interested in sounding words out phonetically. The other day, we pulled up at Lowe's, and he looked up at the big sign & asked me what "llll" ("l" sound), "ah" (short "o" sound), "wuh" ("w" sound), "eh" (you get the picture!), "sss", spelled. Well, yesterday, he managed to put all the sounds together himself & officially sounded out his first word with no help from Mommy AT ALL!! And, do you think he went for "cat" or "dog"???? Oh, no! In true, William fashion, the first word he officially sounded out by himself was "tender". As in train tender. See--it's all him, not only in the fact that it's not the easiest of words, but it's sooo appropriate to his tastes & interests. He turned over James' tender (red train from the Thomas series) and first sounded out James phonetically & couldn't quite put it together, then I heard "tuh", "eh", "en", "duh", "eh", "errrr". "ten", "duh", "er". "tender". Mommy, this spells "tender"!!!!! He was SOOOO excited & I was pretty darn surprised that he did it all by himself. Guess it's time to buy some early reader books.

And, then today, he's outside playing with his friend, Stephen while Stephen's mommy is at a doctor's appointment. I look outside & he's sitting on the swing actually pumping in rhythm & the swing is pretty high off the ground! I may be able to avoid hours of pushing him on the swings at the park this spring. Now, if I could just convince Daniel that he's a "FOUR-year-old", too..........