Dr. Seuss is a Genius

I say this because if it weren't for him we would be bored out of our gourd around here. This past week we have now done two Dr. Seuss related activities, Green Eggs and Ham and now today our newest activity Oobleck. Between the kids having colds and coughs and the crummy weather this is turning into a very long winter, Gabe however is at least at a fun stage where he likes to do new things and he is actually excited about them. When I was teaching I did a lesson with my 5th graders using Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss and then they each got to play with some oobleck at their desk and then did a descriptive writing piece about it, obviously Gabe didn't do the descriptive writing but he loved the oobleck(okay for those of you who don't know what oobleck is it is just corn starch and water, with some green food coloring) At first he was rather apprehensive but once I showed him it was okay to touch he went to town. He kept saying "I wike Oobleck, Mommy" Ty also experienced a new activity this week as well, sitting in a high chair. I had just been feeding him in the car seat, but yesterday my nephew, was at our house and he needed a high chair so I brought ours up from the basement and decided to try it with Ty. Ty loved it, I think he just likes being able to see everything from up there. He actually ate his cereal better from in the high chair so I think the high chair will be staying upstairs. Things are going well with the new house and the selling of ours. We have the home inspection on our old house this Thursday so we are hoping that everything goes well for that. We had some estimates done last week on the new house and we now have our fix-up budget. I will post a few pictures of the house, keep in mind all carpeting is coming up, as it is all nice hardwood floors underneath, pretty much every room in the house is getting paint(and if there is wallpaper, that is coming down), and the wood paneling is becoming a brick wall around the fireplace and we're going to sheet rock the rest, and the kitchen is getting a minor makeover, don't worry eventually I will post "after" pictures so you can get a better idea.



This will be our room
This is the fireplace in the living room
The next 3 pictures are the kitchen that will be getting rearranged with new appliances, countertops, flooring, The dining area, and the stairwell

Yo Adrian

So you may be wondering why the title of this post is what it is. Mostly because Gabe now looks like he has gone 15 rounds with Apollo Creed or maybe Clubber Lang I don't know, forgive my Rocky references if you have no clue what I'm talking about. Let me start at the beginning of our very long, very stressful, very painful for some, day. In the morning Ty woke up coughing quite a bit and it seemed a little deeper then the past few days so I decided to take him into the doctor. Luckily Pete was able to watch Gabe at Mom and Dad's house so I didn't have him with me when we went into Ty's appointment at 9:45. When we got there we actually got in relatively quickly, the dr. came in and discovered Ty had a temperature of 102.8. Since he is so young she wanted to rule out some things since he was running that high of temp, so she listened to his chest and heard some wheezing but not too bad. She decided to order a nasal swab and blood work since his fever was so high. They came in and did the nasal swab and Ty did not like that at all, poor little guy then they wanted me to give him a breathing treatment(which obviously from the picture he didn't mind too much) since he was wheezing and they said while they did that the lab would come and take some blood. I thought it would just be a simple finger prick but oh-no they actually had to do a draw from his little vein in his arm, it was so sad, Ty didn't like that much either. They finally got enough out for the tests they needed to run and then we had to wait at the Dr's office for the results, 2 hours later we were leaving the office and on our way to pick up Gabe for his haircut appointment at 12:30. Gabe was a rockstar for his haircut this time, he didn't fuss or fidget or anything so we went to McDonalds and picked up lunch since we hadn't eaten yet(don't worry Grandma Nancy, he still eats his fruits and veggies too) anyway we got home and ate and then Ty needed to eat so I was in the process of carrying Ty over to the rocking chair to feed him and Gabe decided to race me to try to get there first, well he only had his socks on slipped once his foot went off the rug onto the wood floor and went face first into the top of the wicker toy basket. He instantly screamed bloody murder and I soon saw a gashes and bruises right underneath his eye. I had to put Ty down and try and get his bleeding stopped and get some ice on it as it was already starting to swell. Ty did not like this as he was hungry so I had two crying boys. Finally the bleeding stopped and we had ice on Gabe's eye for awhile and he agreed to go sit on the couch while I fed Ty. While he was sitting there he started falling asleep sitting straight up, kind of unusual for Gabe so I called first nurse and told them what happened and asked if it was okay for him to sleep, they said yes as long as he didn't sleep for more then 2 hours and then when he got up if he was acting okay it was probably fine. Well he went down for his nap and slept the whole 2 hours and woke up on his own. He was crabby and said his owie hurt but he didn't seem lethargic or anything. In the meantime Ty needed to eat again and I had just gotten done feeding him and my mom called me back and I was in the process of telling her about her day when Gabe came up to me with a strange spacy look and proceeded to throw up, I hung up quickly with mom and got him into the bathroom and tried to get him to talk to me, he kind of did and I went into full out panic mode. I called Carl hysterical and he had to tell me to calm down and call the Dr. I did and they could get him soon so Carl got home, mom and dad came to get Ty and we headed to the dr.'s office. By the time we got to the Dr. Gabe was acting like himself again and wanted to watch the fishies. The Dr. checked him out and everything looked good, he said most likely it was just a small concussion which accounted for the throwing up and that last night we needed to wake him up every 2 hours and get him to talk to us, to watch for any type of slow bleed that may occur. So last night we woke poor Gabe every 2 hours and made him talk to us, he was fine and today you would never know anything happened to him besides the lovely shiner he is not sporting. We just thank God for watching out for him and that nothing more serious happened! Boy am I glad today is Friday:)

I Do So Like Green Eggs and Ham

When it is -500 and snowing outside sometimes you have to come up with new things to do. This morning Gabe wanted to read Green Eggs and Ham for the hundredth time already today so I asked him if he wanted to eat Green Eggs and Ham. Of course he did, so we went out to the kitchen and he helped me make them. The funny thing is he ate the eggs better green then he ever does when they look normal, maybe green eggs will become a breakfast staple around our house. The video is Gabe telling me where he would eat green eggs and ham. Ty was not being super cooperative with being quiet during this time he was ready for a nap! On a completely different note Gabe has started to actually pay attention to his little brother, before he would pretty much be indifferent to him. Now he always wants to hold him, hug him and play with him. Ty loves his brother and grins and laughs at him all the time--from a distance that is. When Gabe is actually holding him he doesn't usually want to cooperate very well, maybe he has a fear of falling:)

My Son the Comedian

Ty thinks Gabe is just hilarious! Gabe doesn't even have to do anything for Ty to laugh at him. Gabe succeeds at making Ty laugh much more then we do when we are trying our hardest. I included a video of one of the many examples of Gabe getting his brother to laugh just by being himself. We have had a busy past week and weekend. We ended up selling our house and signing the papers on Friday, it was a good birthday present to have that taken care of. My mom and dad watched the boys that night so Carl and I could go out to eat and celebrate both occasions! We are very excited that now we can move onto the next part of the process, finding paint colors, imagining where to put furniture in the new house, etc. I am mostly excited that Ty will finally have his own room and not have to sleep in our dining room anymore! I'm sure he doesn't mind but it will be nice for Carl to be able to get up and eat breakfast in the morning without worrying about waking Ty. We were able to visit some friends this weekend and Gabe had a great time playing with Sammie. They are only 2 days apart so it is fun to watch them play together, although Gabe was wondering where all the tractors and trucks were. He is not used to dolls and dress up clothes:) We are ready for warmer weather around here too, some days we are getting pretty stir crazy! We have been using the bathtub as more of a playground lately to break up the day. Gabe also loves to "help Mommy" give Baby Ty baths. Ty just likes to chew on everything! Hope everyone is keeping warm.

Ty + Spoon + Bowl + Rice Cereal = Great Big Mess

As you can probably tell from the title of this post Ty has started to eat rice cereal. We just started the other day and he does pretty well even though he is extremely messy! Ty also turned 5 months on Monday and has become our rolling machine. I was so excited for him to roll over but now that he can I wish he would stop. He has decided that it is great to roll over every time I lay him down to nap or play. It is not so bad when he is playing but he doesn't like it on his belly to sleep and wakes himself up when he does it, oh well hopefully he will get used to it. We took his 5 months picture in our chair and it almost makes me sad to see how big he is getting, he is growing up so fast! Gabe has been bitten by the jealousy bug every once in awhile lately, especially if we are taking pictures of Ty and he thinks he needs to have his picture taken too, hence the photo to the left. Gabe is continuing to work on the potty training thing. He has had a few accidents but most days does pretty well. It has been somewhat chaotic around here especially days we have showings on our house. It is hard to get it ready to show with Gabe "helping" Mommy all the time, oh-well I guess I'm glad he wants to help. Gabe attended his first movie at the theater this past weekend. We were at a friends wedding so the boys stayed with Grandma and Grandpa but they had a belated Christmas Party to go to so Ty went to Uncle Alan and Aunt Andrea's and Uncle Pete took Gabe to the new Veggietales movie. Pete said he did a great job and even laughed at the movie a few times. Just goes to show you if you give the kid popcorn he will sit through anything.

It's Potty (and Party) Time

So we have embarked on the world of potty training. It is actually going quite well. We started on Monday and only had one major accident that involved a lot of cleaning, Tuesday we didn't do quite as well because we ended up having 2 showings on our house and were out of the house most of the day and today we have gone all morning up to 2:00 with no accidents and several successful trips to the bathroom! Gabe is very proud of his Spiderman and Cars underwear. He also is so used to getting cheered for when he goes that now he cheers for himself when the potty comes out. He was sitting on the potty the other day and looked down and saw potty coming out and he said Mommy I have a hose, I thought that was rather funny. Anyway enough of the bathroom talk. Ty finally rolled over, we were very excited. He is laughing more and more now as well and seems to think Gabe is the most hilarious thing ever, sometimes he just looks at his big brother and laughs. Very cute if I do say so myself. We went up to help Grandma Nancy celebrate her 60th birthday this past weekend. Ty got to meet Great Grandma Elfrieda for the first time and we were able to get a cute picture of the two of them. Gabe enjoyed helping Grandma open her presents and blow out her candles. He is very excited for Happy Junes to come (that is what he calls his birthday, go figure)

Crazy Little Thing Called Wuv

Gabe sure knows how to push my buttons. He has started saying he loves things. This all started on Christmas Eve when we picked him up from Nursery at Church. He saw Uncle Pete and for some reason kept repeating "I wuv Pete" "I wuv Pete" since then he has changed it a few times to include others, when asked who he loves he will say an assortment of names but usually not Mommy, much to my dismay. Well finally the other day I was cleaning out our closet trying to get everything ready for possible showings (if you don't know the story visit clarkitecture.blogspot.com) and Gabe says "I wuv you Mommy" out of the blue not prodded into saying it or anything, it was probably one of the best moments of being a mommy so far. Then to add to his all around sweetness I came out of the closet and he says "I missed you so much Mommy" I will have to remember this moment the next time he makes me want to pull my hair out. Ty is no where near saying he wuvs me but he is impressing me with his new skills, he can now sit pretty well in the boppy and is soo close to rolling over, he only needs to get that arm out from under him and he has it, of course once he does he probably won't be happy as he hates being on his tummy for very long. I included some pictures, one of Gabe drinking "Gabe coffee" as he called it(really hot (well luke warm) chocolate) and the other of Aunt Em with the nephews. She bought them all matching shirts for Christmas so we had to get a picture.