Congratulations Hanes

Eli has grown out of his character underwear so I bought him some new Hanes "big boy" underwear. When I put them on him this morning he said, "Cool, now I look like Michael Jordan." He is 4. Congratulations Hanes, excellent name recognition and marketing plan.

Merry Christmas - From The Boys

A Christmas Prayer

Eli's prayer tonight:
"The best way to bring Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. Amen"

Peace...

"Christmas" Tree

Much like the nativity scene, which has added gifts each day from our little "wisemen", the Christmas tree has collected a few "ornaments" over the past week.

A Wrench
Tickerbells treasure chest and a grape
A hammer, Mr. Potato Head
Cream of Mushroom Soup
A Project Lucas Bracelet, more grapes
A block
A french fry, an onion ring, and more grapes...

Because nothing say Christmas like fried food and grapes.

Christmas Illness

Eli & Isaac are starting to get into the spirit of Christmas - the true spirit of Christmas. Eli received a coloring book from his Cubbies teachers about the Christmas story and baby Jesus. He could recite much of the Christmas story. It was sweet.

I wanted to share a picture from this color book. I jokingly asked if Mary, Joseph and Jesus were green because this was an alien version of the Bible story. I was quickly corrected that Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus were green because they were "sick" and had acquired some sort of "bacteria". I guess even the King of Kings is susceptible to the swine flu.

Maybe I should hold off on the sanitizer a bit.

This one is about poop...

Just so you are fair warned, this is all about poop, and it is kind of gross, but really funny.
Eli had to go to the bathroom today before we left church. He lifted the potty seat and it appeared that someone had a major accident. In our house we call it explosive poo. There was poop all over the bottom of the seat. I know poop is a part of life, but it was really gross. So Eli starts talking it up. "Oh mom, I have to get out of here - there is poop everywhere." He proceeds to come out of the stall, pants around his ankles, moving to the next free stall (luckily there were only two other people, mortified middle schoolers, in the bathroom with us). By this time he decides he has peed all he can, yet he continues, "I can't believe someone did that to the bathroom. Why would someone poop all over the toilet seat? I know adults have really big butts and they have to poop sometimes, but come on."
Oh my goodness. I was trying so hard to hold it together, but it really was hilarious. I redirected him to washing his hands VERY good in VERY hot water, and asked him to talk about something else that someone was probably feeling very sick and didn't mean to. He said, "OK - but that was really gross."

Water

I have made a grave error. For years I have given the boys a mix of juice and water to drink for snack/meals etc. It is about a 50-50, or 60-40 (juice) mix. It tastes nasty, but they are used to it. They aren't allowed to have it until after 10:30 AM, but after that it is fair game. I have recently decided that I would like to start moving the kids towards water, at least for meals. I have noticed that the few times I have given them water they have drank less and ate much better. Today at lunch I was met with screaming and tears. Eli had several amusing reasons as to why he does not like to drink water:
"It tastes bad"
"I'm allergic to it"
"It makes me sick"
and my personal favorite - "It's gray."

Nativity

Since the boys are a little older I have placed a few nativity scenes around the house this year for Christmas. I have a neat kid friendly one that I put in the upstairs living room. This morning - I found that it had been a bit altered.
Eli had added a Christmas tree - since "obviously Jesus needs a Christmas tree" and a car, "how else is he going to get around." The worldly and the spiritual collide.

My allergies

It is hard to know how to teach Isaac about his allergies. For the most part if he has had a bad experience with the offending food he knows first hand that that particular food doesn't bode well with his system. So he often he'll say - I don't like fish, or I don't like peanuts. As a two year old - he even knows that his food allergies are the cause of him disliking food. So why am I surprised that Eli has adopted the "I have food allergies" response to any food he dislikes. Eli asked yesterday what we were having for dinner and I said - chicken casserole. "Hum," he said, "I am pretty sure I am allergic to that - can I have pizza instead?"

Unselfish Heart

I spend most of my blog goofing on my kids. They are 2 and 4 - let's face it, they do some crazy stuff. But since I have specifically talked about Eli's selfishness (see the sharing post) I thought I should write about his unselfishness on his birthday, of all days.
John and I really worked hard to make the day all about him. I think one day a year it is important to really make a big deal out of a loved one. We let him eat Lucky Charms for breakfast (his favorite - reserved only for a sweet snack), we took him to his favorite park, we surprised the boys with a trip to Gatti Town, we made Eli's favorite dinner, had a big "Peter Pan" cake, and got him a few presents. Even on a day reserved solely for him he managed to think of others.
Early in the day he asked me to get him party hats for his party that night. Not sure how he found out about "party hats" but I was going to make it happen. I had already planned to go to the "party store" to get him a few balloons. Anyway he wanted blue and he wanted his brother to have yellow. I am pretty sure all day they both thought it was both of their birthdays, but I still thought it was sweet that he thought his brother needed a special hat too. Anyway - when I brought three balloons for Eli, Eli gave one to Isaac, the green one since green is Isaac's favorite color. All day Eli made Isaac feel a part of his big day.
The sweetest example came later that night. Our immediate family came over for Eli's birthday. There are about fifteen of us (parents, siblings, and grandparents) and we had been telling Eli all day what special people he could expect at his party. We were sitting down to eat and Eli said, "Wait a minute, we are missing someone, where is uncle Joe?" You know, my son is sitting down to a dinner made especially for him, and he has a room full of presents, celebrating a day that has been all about him, and he is still thinking about someone else. Turns out uncle Joe had called and was running a bit late from work - he walked in the door about 5 minutes later and all was well.
The more a dwell on that day the sweeter it is - makes you feel like you are heading in the irght direction doing this whole parenting thing.

Eli's Birthday - Part 2

Eli's birthday get-together.

Eli's Birthday - Part 1

Eli turned 4 on Friday. He is growing up so fast. We surprised Eli and Isaac with a trip to Gatti Town, or Pizza Planet (Toy Story reference). The boys had a great time. Skee-ball definitely isn't their strength, but shooting hoops - not so bad.

Fall Family Pictures

Our friend Aimee (http://aimeenielsonphotography.com/) took pictures of the Collins household this fall. Here are some of our favorites.

Make-up

Saturdays are not very impressive at our house. I usually get a good run in during the morning and then we lounge around for the rest of the day. I usually take a shower after my run, but that is about as "cleaned up" as I get. We work in the house, run errands, play, etc. Yesterday John was studying for a test so the boys and I were playing downstairs while he studied. Eli brought a small black treasure box over to me. He said "Here mom this is for you." I said oh thanks for the present sweetie (because he often covers his toys in blankies and calls them presents). He said, "This isn't a present mom, this is your make-up, you need to put some on. You aren't looking very pretty today." OK - hint, hint. I pretend put the make-up on. Apparently I used only two of the options available in the treasure chest and closed it back up. Watching me intently Eli said, "Mom, you aren't done - you need to put it all on."
Ouch.

The Librarian

I took the boys to the library for the "Young and the Restless" reading time. We hadn't been in a while, several months, due to the impending H1N1 threat and Isaac's predisposition to impending doom. But today I was feeling brave. I found the librarian a little boring today. What I did find entertaining was the little boy in the corner holding up a book imitating everything the librarian did with a real animated face and very loud loud words. It was really funny.
Oh did I mention it was my son, Isaac?

The Wild Ride

Our family went to trunk or treat at church last night - we had a great time. The boys LOVED getting candy! I mean LOVED it! The church also had some of the huge inflatable rides for the kids - which were equally loved! The boys went on this one ride that had a huge slide on it. Eli was up and down with no issue, but Isaac - well his big moneky belly was kind of getting in the way. Our assistant children's minister helped with getting him up the huge climb up, but Isaac was a little terrified to go down on his own. He was just sitting up at the top staring down on all of the waiting parents. There were two kids up there with him and I yelled up to them - "Push the monkey down the slide" because I knew he couldn't get hurt and would love the ride once he was on the way down. But, since our church is filled with great kids none were willing to push him down. A few more came up and by now there were about 5 kids sitting up there waiting for Isaac to go. All of the parents by now were yelling - "Push the monkey - push the monkey." This went on for at least a minute - we were all cracking up. Finally one of the more "boyish" kids in our church climbed up - I knew he would take care of business. I yelled "Will, push the monkey" and he was like "Sweet" and down went Isaac. When Isaac got to the bottom we was jumping up a down saying "I did it, I did it."
Well, sort of!

Happy Halloween

One little monkey jumping on the bed. one fell off and bonked his head.

Momma called the doctor and the doctor said...

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!!

Happy Halloween!!

Evans Orchard

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Pot Pie is one of our familiy's favorites. The boys just gobble it up. And why wouldn't I be a proud mom? The meal is filled with fresh carrots and potatoes, as well as chucks of white chicken. That is the draw, right, vegetables and chicken?

Last night I called the boys to the table to enjoy a dinner of chicken pot pie and the first thing Eli said when he got to the table was: "So, where's the crust?"

An isolated incident

Though Isaac is taking three by storm the bedtime temper tantrum appears to be an isolated incident. Whew.

The Temper Tantrum

We have great kids, but I have seen my share of temper tantrums. But I have to say that Isaac's display last night was the most impressive battle of wills yet. This screaming cry fest lasted 30 minutes - to the point that his asthma flared and he couldn't catch his breath. There were a variety of issues that he brought the tantrum to be:
It began with the announcement of bedtime which Isaac just wasn't digging. As I have mentioned before there are a series of steps that lead to bedtime and if they are not tackled in the correct order mayhem breaks loose. Well the first step is Isaac walking to the bathroom. Since he refused, I carried him. The breakdown begins. John turned on the light in the bathroom since I was carrying a screaming flailing pig. Since Isaac didn't turn it on, then clearly he couldn't pee. So he refused to pee. So we picked him up and took him to bed. Well he obviously couldn't go to bed without peeing, but refused to go because that would be declaring bedtime.
So he screamed in his bed for a good ten minutes. He then decided that he would go to the bathroom - we let him climb down and into the bathroom, he turned the lights on and everything, even peed. But then he refused to get off the toilet. So he sat there, and sat there, and sat there - for an additional 10 minutes. During this time he is having a self induced asthma attack and refuses to let us use his inhaler on him. He finally decides to get off the toilet - and wants me to sit in the chair with him to sing a song, but he doesn't want me to sing - again this would declare bedtime defeat. So he sat on my lap with his hand over my mouth. That's right. So I told him if I wasn't going to sing I was going to put him in bed and go hang out with Daddy - I gave him the option, he could crawl into bed on his own or I could carry him. Knowing if I carried him - all hell would break loose again. He refused to climb in so I put him in bed, kicking and screaming. By now John and I had clearly lost our parents of the year award and we were both very much on the edge. I had begged and pleaded with Isaac, and was spiraling down to anger very quickly. So like any mother would do I took all of his friends out of his bed. The entire entourage of 10 stuffed animals came out one by one and I promised to stop when he stopped crying - so he slept alone last night. John and I left the room, closed the door, and went downstairs, closing that door as well. Not sure when he fell asleep.
This morning when he woke up I could hear him saying: "My phone, my phone - I want my phone". I guess that was taken out of his bed last night too. I am sorry - is he 2 or 17? He even declared last night that he didn't like us anymore.
Today during nap time I will be reading "The strong willed child." Isaac won't know what hit him....

Zoo Pictures

A Glimpse into the future...

They wanted to make funny faces with the statue.

They found being that close to an elephant very scary. They were both pulling my hair.

The caged animals.