I made up a new schedule for us and now have we are VERY busy during mornings Monday - Saturday (Sunday is our “free” day and the boys love that too).  We have mommy and me type groups that we go to, a kindergarden preparation class, the Library, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot Kids projects, Riley is going to Speech twice a week now and, and…. the boys are going to a place called “Check-a-Child” twice a week for two hours.

This is a drop off child care place that has a lot of different toys and jungle gyms and kitchens and trains.  There is absolutely no structure for the kids (except snack time).  The kids simply get to run and play and do whatever they like.  On top of the “no structure” the other thing I liked about this is that by taking them during the week in the morning, the older kids are in school so the kids that are there to play with Riley and Tanner are between about 2 and 5 - perfect!!!  They need to be around other kids their own age more often so this is perfect.  I have really noticed that the two year difference between the boys right now is huge and when given the chance, Tanner tends to go towards 2 and 3 year olds and Riley plays with 5 year olds.  So this place really appealed to me.  BUT, what were the boys going to think???

On the first day I picked them up and Riley got mad at me because he didn’t want to leave!  It wasn’t long enough for him!  I told him he was there for two hours and he (not understanding the concept of time) said that next time he wanted to stay for 20 minutes.  So I said how about if next time you stay for 120 minutes… his face lit up and just couldn’t believe I would let them stay that long

I also had an interesting conversation about something that happened that first day.  Both the boys tell me about an incident where a boy hit Riley and Riley being Riley didn’t do anything but (and Riley was very proud when he said this), “Tanner went over to the boy and said, “we’re not happy with you,” in his very serious face.”  When I’m not happy with Tanner that is what I tend to say, “I’m not happy with you Tanner.”  So Tanner being Tanner went right up to that bigger boy and spoke his piece. Listening to the boys explain the situation was really funny.

So, Check-a-Child is a hit and I get 4 hours a week uninterrupted to get some things done (actually about 9 because the boys are now going over to Grandma Barbie’s twice a week for about 2.5 hours each time in the afternoon).  

Under normal circumstances, this isn’t something that I would consider “news worthy.”  However, to give a background, Riley had all of his teeth by the time he was 2 (which is normal).  Tanner on the other hand, didn’t get his first tooth until he was almost 11 months old.  Then he got 6 and then didn’t get any again for another 7 months.  Then out of nowhere he got 4 molars within 3 weeks (ouch).  So that meant he has 10 of the 20 infant teeth that people get.

Well, those molars came in last March and finally yesterday we can now see an eye tooth popping out.  Almost 10 months without a tooth.  The dentist told us not to worry because the “normal” is for teeth to be in place somewhere between 2 and 3 1/2… but I was still starting to worry.  I still am a little bit because he still does not have the two little teeth that are on either side of the two big front teeth on the top but I’ve heard that the longer it takes to get the teeth the healthier they tend to be… so I’m crossing my fingers

Yeah, we finally have a tooth

Time for Toys and Time for Cheer.

Ok, I have no idea why an Alvin and the Chipmunks song came into my head when I started to write this, but there it is

Wow - that basically sums it up - Wow! How do you describe Christmas with two young boys and three sets of adults (mom and dad, grandma Martha and grandpa Jim, and Grandma Barbie and Grandpa George) spoiling them? I just don’t know how. In case you missed my email on Christmas, a word picture is the best I can do…

Christmas Eve…

Christmas Morning…

Wow - that’s really all I have

We had an absolutely amazing Christmas! Christmas morning was obviously a madhouse, but the whole day went really well and we had a lot of fun. We spent the day opening presents, cleaning the mess, building toys - trains, legos, easel, tool bench, etc.

They both got too many toys but the reaction Riley had when he opened his “computer” was great and Tanner watching his “Cookie Monster” was really cute! Riley got a VTech laptop with something like 80 learning activities and when he opened it, he very shocked and excitedly, said, “mom, I got a computer for Christmas.” The tone in his voice is what made this reaction so special to me. And when Grandma Martha got the Cookie Monster out and showed Tanner how to tickle it and what it does, his face just lit up and he just started laughing with him.

We had a slightly “lighter” house for Christmas this year… this was the first year… ever (and I’m almost 31) that my whole family wasn’t here for Christmas - when I thought about that I was actually kind of amazed. I was 30 years old before things happened and made it so that we could not all be together… I think that is pretty impressive! Anyway, my sister, Sarah, lives in California and they simply couldn’t make it back for Christmas (and it really was her boyfriend’s turn to spend the holiday with his family). So, we used modern technology and were able to watch them open their presents via our webcams so they were right in our living room

After playing, cleaning, eating a nice dinner and cleaning some more we settled down for our family tradition of getting the games out to play until about 1 or 2 in the morning… I can’t believe our energy, after all day with the boys, holds up that long, but it does! We have accumulated a nice collection of games and play things like Taboo, Malarky, Imagine Iff, Catch Phrase and others. I had been thinking about it throughout the day and just couldn’t get over the fact that Sarah (and Nicholas and Kai) were sitting by themselves at home while we were going to have our annual game night. So, when it came time to sit down, we called them and they played along with us on the speaker phone. I’m sure it was kind of difficult for them not being able to see anything, but I think (hope) they had as much fun as we did with them. Game night is always a lot of fun for us and maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’d recommend it for everyone when there are going to be at least four players. So, even though my sister couldn’t physically be with us for Christmas, thanks to our modern day conveniences, we were able to experience it with her just the same

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure…

Grandpa Jim reading The Night Before Christmas before bedtime on Christmas Eve…

Riley and Tanner waiting patiently for everybody so they can RIP into their presents…

Grandma Martha showing Tanner Cookie Monster…

Poor Maynard stuck outside…

Riley (and Barb and Tanner) opening his “computer”…

Riley’s new “power’…

Matthew and Riley’s new Legos…

Shannon helping the boys with the new train set…

Kai (my nephew) watching us on the webcam…

I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did and I hope you have an amazing 2008!

Riley’s last day of preschool was on Thursday. The school re-tested him and he no longer qualified for services because his speech has improved so much and as we all know, he didn’t qualify in any other way. In fact, when they tested him for everything except for speech he came out above normal and “superior” in many cases… He is going to be smarter than me by the time he is 8… what am I going to do

This was a perfect time for him to leave school since it was going to be Christmas, oh sorry the schools now call it “holiday” break - sorry, will always be Christmas!!! He wasn’t sad, but not happy about not going back to school. It is almost like he is “taking it in.” He said he will miss everyone. When we made the Christmas cookies for school, he had to make his teachers, Ms. Sandra and Miss Sherry, special heart shaped cookies instead of Christmas shapes because, “mom, I love them.” So, even though he didn’t like going to school and leaving me, you can’t tell me he didn’t like the time he spent in preschool!

Matthew is on his way home - we get him for four full days!!! I get my Christmas early!!!

This morning, Barb came over and with the boys we all built a gingerbread house. It was our first and the boys had a lot of fun. My camera is currently missing, I may have left it at a Christmas party for Riley last week, so I didn’t get any great photos of our work, but I did manage to get one on my phone…

Oh, one more thing… Riley was helping me wrap his Christmas present to Tanner and on the box it said, “BIG TRAX” he looked at me without hesitating, without taking sounding it out and said, “mom, does this say big tracks?” Very cool - I was impressed!!!

My little chef created a new recipe today.  He wrote out the recipe himself - with my help for spelling, he’s not quite that good yet :)  Here it is if you would like to give it a try

1.  2 Cups Water
2. 3 Slices of Apple
3. 1 Cup Juice
4. 1 Cup Hot Chocolate
5. 5 Teddy Bears (Honey Teddy Grahams)
6. Little Piece of Bread

He mixed them all together and baked in the oven for 5 minutes at 200 degrees.  Our new thing is that he, as the chef, has to try everything he makes.   He didn’t really comment, but Tanner tried it (the child that likes most anything), spit it out and said, “mommy, I DON’T like that!”

Last night they both helped me make and decorate Christmas sugar cookies so Riley could take them to school today for their party.  Those turned out much better

Hey, every chef has to start somewhere right

I FINALLY did it… I finally got the pictures together, narrowed them down from 785 to just over 100, resized them, created a web page and uploaded everything. Like I said there are just over 100 pictures so hopefully you don’t get bored and if you do, oh well, it is a nice journal for me

I’m sorry it took me so long! Here’s the page:

Hawaii, Hawaii and more Hawaii

Riley had a dentist appointment yesterday… he does not like the dentist… basically the way he describes it tells me that he doesn’t like the shot.  But, very typical of Riley… he does it anyway.  He doesn’t  throw a fit, get upset, fight it… he simply follows what he is told to do even though he doesn’t want to.  This side of him amazes me.  He has always been like this and even now at 4 1/2 it amazes me that he respects authority as well as he does.  Sure, he has his moments (most of them with Grandma Barb) but he simply amazes me…

But onto why I was really writing this post…

Even though he does not like the dentist… at all… as we were leaving yesterday he said to me, “mom, why do dentists fix our teeth?”  I told him that they chose to do that because they want to help people keep their teeth healthy.  So he said, “mom, I want to also want to be a dentist when I grow up.”  Interesting

The reason he said “also” is because his list of what he would like to be is growing all the time.  Currently he would like to be a Chef, Train Engineer, Painter, Astronaut and now a Dentist.  Wow, with those kind of aspirations I can’t wait to see what he decides on

Ok, it is definitely very early for us (I’ve NEVER had a Christmas tree up in November before, usually not until the 15th of December) but we didn’t have much to do today, so we decided to get out the Christmas decorations and decorate the house.

Barb came over and we all spent the day decorating the tree, the house and eating greasy food (homemade fried chicken and potatoes, REALLY good, but I have to eat either fresh carrots or an apple afterwards to suck up the grease in my stomach, sorry, gross I know)

Riley and Tanner had so much fun!!!  Tanner mostly just played, but Riley did a really good job helping me with the decorations for the tree.  He kept saying, “mommy, it is soooo beautiful.”  Barb put a couple of stockings up on the window behind the tree and one of them is the stocking Riley made at school last year so it has his name on it.  He had to write on a piece of paper, “4 Riley” so that Santa knows that he is 4 and needs big boy toys not baby toys

I picked up a really cheap train to go around the train for the boys this year and they are having a blast with that.  We broke about a dozen bulbs today trying to get them on the tree but the boys had a lot of fun.  We all did.  It was good for us today…we’ve been missing Matthew this week and this kept us busy today

Here’s a look at our day…

I couldn’t help myself with that last one… thought it was a very unique picture… not often you see a dog sticking her tongue out 

First off, yes I will be adding some information about Hawaii very soon… I finally got my pictures off of Matthew’s computer so I’ll do something soon, I promise. Now onto the task at hand

Matthew came home on Wednesday for Thanksgiving For the first time ever, we did not go down to Anaconda for Thanksgiving. Matthew could only be home for 2 days and with a 6 hour drive from Calgary and then a 6 hour drive back we decided that we couldn’t go down so we invited my parents up. We had a blanket of snow covering basically all of Montana on Monday, so my mom decided she did not want to drive over the pass and through the canyon to get here. And then Barb got the stomach flu on Wednesday. So it was just us and my dad It was fun and the boys love to see grandpa. They played games, watched t.v., went swimming, and grandpa made Tanner cry… or Tanner made grandpa cry, I’m not sure which…

Matthew headed back up to Calgary today… his time home is always too short (maybe I’ll win the lottery and he can quit and we can just move to Hawaii… oh yeah, I’d have to play first)! Anyway, the boys and I went to the toy store so that they could show me what they would like for Christmas… Riley basically wants everything he sees… Tanner doesn’t seem to get excited about anything, but also likes everything. Then this afternoon we made some “Christmas” cookies per my mom’s idea…

We bought some Christmas sprinkles at the store last week and Riley wanted to make something with them so when I was stuck with which kind of cookies we could make my mom suggested orange drop cookies, but I didn’t have any oranges so instead we made lemon drop cookies. We then made some green and red frosting and Riley sprinkled all of them. We had a lot of fun making them and this activity (baking/cooking) has become a staple for Riley… one of the things he wants to be when he grows up is a chef

After we made the cookies, we went out to play in the snow for a while. The boys love the snow

So, I guess the season has officially started and the boys are getting pretty excited (especially Riley). I personally can’t believe it is almost Christmas… but I can’t wait… I love Christmas morning with the boys

I have never seen Riley this excited.  He is counting the days.  He is talking about beaches and planes and oceans and how many days and daddy and waterfalls and snorkeling and and and… he just doesn’t stop talking about it.  What I find the most interesting about it all is that he’s never done any of this stuff (well he’s been on a plane) so how is the anticipation so intense?  He knows when we are leaving and knows I will be waking him up to go to the airport first thing in the morning.  He can’t hardly stand the waiting.  Watching him is truly like watching “a kid in a candy store.” Tanner’s excited too but he is too young to comprehend why.  I feel like Riley really understands why he is so excited.

54 hours to go before we take off… I think Riley’s excitement is a little contagious