Boys

Introducing the Western Moto racing team!  Lance got new shirts for the shop.  Since Mia kept asking for a shirt for her, he ordered some kid sizes.  They're all very excited to have their own shirts.  You can have one too if you go buy one at his shop.  While you're there, buy some tires too.  He'd really appreciate that.

 

 

Mia and Chloe's costumes came so they had to try them on.  I didn't make them this year.  I've been a little busy.  You have to wait until Halloween to see them.  There's a little sneak peek of Mia's in this picture of Isaac.  Isaac has decided he's going to be acting like a two year old from now on.  He's still very sweet, but thinks he can do whatever he wants.  He pushes the stools around to get up on the counter so he can get whatever he wants out of the cupboards.  He learned that from Tyler.  He runs away from me in stores if I don't buckle him into the cart.  I got him a new pair of shoes that he can get on himself, which he does whenever any of the other kids go outside.  He repeats almost everything Tyler says.  He says "Hey!" whenever you try to take something from him or take his spot.  He says "Jack, Jack spot back."  (He's the only one allowed to say it anymore.  When anyone else says it, it just turns into a fight so I told my kids there's no Jack that lives here.  Mostly it just lets everyone know you're getting up when otherwise nobody cares.)  He has to sit on the stools with the big kids.  No more high chair.  He won't eat oatmeal for breakfast anymore.  Most of the time he doesn't eat his cereal either.  He's a picky boy, but he's sure cute.

 

Yesterday, I tried to put a new shirt on him. He just cried. He didn't want to wear it. He also cried when I tried to put this bib on him a couple of months ago. He's a funny boy.

 

 

 

Brady thinks he's growing up too.  He thinks he knows everything.  He loves to pester everyone.  Just a slight pat on the head is enough to get the desired scream from one of his sisters.  When someone else gets in trouble, he's quick to add his two cents or a "yeah".  He gets moody when he has nobody to play with.  He drags his feet at bedtime. This is nothing new though. He's always been good at that.  He's also been very responsive and willing to do what I ask him.  It always surprises me when he does something without arguing first.

 

He says funny things.  One night I was flipping channels with him after the little kids were in bed.  I stopped at Giuliana and Bill for a few minutes.  Brady said, "Those two are married?  She could have done way better than him!"  That made me laugh.  Another time there was a commercial with a lady talking about her special needs child.  She was smiling at him throughout the commercial.  Brady asked me, "Were you ever like that, Mom?"  Confused, I asked what he meant.  He said, "Enthusiastic.  Were you ever enthusiastic with us?"  Ouch.  Apparently I don't smile enough.  It reminded me of one of his other comments.  When the girls were little, life was crazy.  One day he was upset about something.  He said to one of the girls, "You ruined my mom.  She used to be fun."  That one still makes me cry. 

 

The kids all had their teeth cleaned a week ago.  Mia had three cavities.  Tyler and Chloe had one.  Brady had none.  Of course the dentist was telling Brady how good he's doing taking care of his teeth.  It makes me laugh since he doesn't brush his teeth anymore than any of the other kids do, and that's not near enough.  Anyway, they had an opening the next day so Tyler got his cavity filled.  He did fantastic.  He just sat there.  He squirmed a little with the shot, but not much at all.  They told him not to chew on his lip and sent us home.  It was bothering him as it started to regain feeling in it, but I didn't think too much of it.  I took Isaac outside with me and raked a few leaves.  I came back in and his lip was very swollen.  He had started sucking on it and managed to bite it or split it somehow.  When I took him in the next day to have it checked, the dentist said the split was so bad he would have stitched it had he seen him sooner.  It's pretty much healed now.  It looked pretty bad for a few days.  After the swelling went down, it was super dry and chapped.  He wouldn't let me put chapstick on it so I had to sneak some on him one night while he was sleeping.

 

One day when we were in Target and he was busy testing my patience he found a "straight pole".  He ran over to it and tried to climb it.  He wasn't having too much success so he said, "I can use my sticky feet."  I kind of ignored him for a second then realized he had his shoes off and was actually climbing it this time.  I guess that's what I get for putting him in a preschool with gymnastics. 

 

After a bath one night he informed me his weiner was big.  (He tells me this quite often.  He gets really annoyed when it just happens.)  I told him very straight forwardly that it was because he had been playing with it.  He replied, "I like to pretend it's a diving board.  Boing, boing, boing."    

 

Yesterday when I picked up Tyler from pre-school his teacher told me he's such a good kid and she can tell I'm doing a good job with him.  She went on and on too.  I'll be sure not share my blog with her. 

 

Isaac wanted me to take his picture after he took a bite out of the middle of his cinnamon toast. 

 

Isaac has shown more interest in Gabe.  He's starting to ask to hold him a lot.

 

Of course Tyler had to hold him as well.

 

Gabe's going to blessed at church on November 4th.  (It's kind of like a christening, but not really.  It's not a baptism.  It's a special blessing given to the baby, usually by his father, surrounded by other male members of our families.)  I've usually just borrowed outfits since it's only one day and outfits are $50 and up and I don't like to spend that much money for a one day event he won't remember.  Anyway, I decided to attempt to make one.  If it didn't work out I could figure something else out.  I wanted something warm so I went to DI (thrift store) and found a white sweater for $4.  Then I went to JoAnn Fabric and found a pattern on sale for $1.  A couple of days later I found some time to see what I could do.  Originally I was thinking of doing a separate sweater and pants but couldn't decide how to finish the bottom of the sweater.  Then I realized he was about the same length as the sweater so I could just do a one piece outfit and use the sleeves of the sweater for the sleeves so everything would have a finished edge.  Using one of his outfits, I traced out a pattern and made a sample with some scrap fabric.  After that, I went for it and traced it out slightly bigger on the sweater.  Usually, I tend to overthink things, but since my free time is limited, I just did it.  It turned out really cute.

Here you can kind of get an idea of what I started with.

 

 

Here's my finished product.

 

 

And here's my little Gabe in it.  He likes it so much he's even smiling. 

 

Today I almost forgot I volunteered to make a cake for a funeral.  I remembered an hour before it was supposed to be there.  After I put it in the oven, I had the ingredients out for the frosting.  While I was upstairs with Gabe, Isaac was doing some investigating.  He found out cocoa makes a mess. 

 

He started crying so I ran downstairs. He had the broom and was trying to clean it up. I had to calm him down before I could clean it up.  It scared him when it dropped. 

 

While I was at DI the other dayI happened upon this vcr/dvd recorder.  It's the exact same as the one we had to trash after Isaac rendered it useless by filling it with some change after the glass to the entertainment cabinet fell out.  Our remote even works with it, which is good since it didn't come with one for the bargain price of $15.  It's $160 new at Wal-Mart.  Consequently, we've been watching a lot of Power Rangers at our house.  I've second-guessed my purchase more than once.  Power Rangers are really annoying.

 

In case you didn't know, having a baby is expensive.  Our out-of-pocket we've paid for everything is about $3200.  That's without an epidural and staying in the hospital as little as possible.  I was there less than 36 hours.  It's more than we paid when Chloe was born after a 4 and a half  week hospital stay for me, c-section and 1 week in the nicu for her.  We had a family maximum out-of-pocket of $3,000 then.  Our total bill was about $50,000.  Our total bill for Gabe was about $9,000.  So save your pennies before you have babies and get some good insurance.