Happy Birthday, Mike

Sometimes I forget what stories I write about on this blog and which ones I just tell to people, so if I ever write about something twice, forgive me.  It's just a bad memory, and I guess I'm too lazy to go back and reread my old posts to find out if I've already blogged about it.  Same goes with pictures.

First, here's one more (failed) attempt at a Christmas card photo with the boys and dogs.  Notice that look on Drew's face.  He has gotten so good at crawling already- he is all over the place, and I'm finding I have to think more about what's out that he could get into.  Zach also seems more easily annoyed by Drew because Drew can get to Zach's stuff by himself now.  Sometimes it's pretty funny to watch.

Thursday I got to go volunteer at Zach's preschool.  It was a blast.  I had to take each child out into the hallway to see if they could put their own coats on and zip them up.  They all did a great job getting them up, but for most of them getting the zipper started was tough.  Then I got to stay and observe/play.  I can see why Zach loves it there- his teachers are awesome.  Here's a picture of Zach that I took right after we got there Thursday morning.  He went straight to the dramatic play area and got dressed up as a fireman.  Notice the boots- he loved those.

After preschool Zach and I went to Jumpin' Jacks, a place with big inflatables to play on.  Zach always wants to go there, but it's not easy to go with Drew.  The room mom for Zach's preschool class had set up a playdate there, so we left Drew with Grandma Linda and went to play.  There were about 4 of Zach's classmates and a few of their siblings there, too, but no other kids.  It was perfect, and really neat to get another chance to meet some of the kids and talk to some of the moms.  Zach had a lot of fun playing with his friends, too.

Friday night we got together with our neighbors and our former neighbors.  It was a lot of fun.  It's been a long time since we've all hung out.  Zach enjoyed having everybody over, and he and Anna, who is about 20 months, loved watching The Wiggles and dancing together.

While everybody was over Maggie just couldn't resist trying to get some attention herself.  Here's how she did it.

Saturday Mike went to his last Hawkeye game of the season, and they won!  It's turned out to be not such a bad season after all.  I went Saturday morning and did testing at the place where I work out.  With the program I follow you do your initial ten weeks with testing at the beginning and end.  Testing consists of a weight check, body-fat check, measurements, sit-n-reach for flexibility, sit-ups and push-ups (how many you can do in one minute), and running the mile.  I did the testing when I started back in June and again at the end of my initial ten weeks in August.  Now it's been about 12 weeks, and I haven't worked out as religiously as I did for those first ten weeks, but I've still gone probably an average of 5 times a week.  I also haven't followed the diet like I did this summer, so I was curious to see where I would be at.  I was very happy to see that everything pretty much stayed the same since August.  I guess I wonder, though, if I had been eating a little better, if I would have improved.  Oh well.  If I didn't go backwards, I'm ok with that.

Yesterday we went out to brunch with Mike's dad and stepmom to celebrate his birthday.  It was delicious, of course.  Before that we took some time to get stuff done around the house.  I've had these little collections of single socks on top of both of the boys' dressers for a couple of weeks now, just waiting for their mates to come through the wash.  Well, yesterday Mike discovered most of those mates- while he was picking up dog poop.  It seems Foudy has developed a real taste for little socks.  Mike said he probably saw 10 socks in the poop.  It's not only gross, but it also worries me because one of these days she'll eat one and it will clog everything up.  She puked one up the other morning at about 4 a.m., and I didn't appreciate that.  It's also maddening, because I have to keep buying new socks for Drew, and sometimes she eats really cute socks.  She prowls around looking for them.  For example, a couple of weeks ago after Drew's nap I had taken his socks off and they were by us on the living room floor.  Pretty soon I realized by the way Foudy was sauntering around me that she had something in her mouth, and sure enough, it was one of the socks.  I took it from her and put it on the coffee table with its mate.  Then I vacuumed the living room.  As I finished up vacuuming, I happened to glance at the coffee table and realize there was only one sock there.  Sure enough, she stole it right out from under me, the little scamp.  We're being very diligent to keep closet doors closed and make sure Zach doesn't leave his socks laying around anywhere, as he likes to take his socks off a lot.  Unfortunately he thinks a good place for his socks is on the kitchen table, so I'm also working on breaking that habit.

Anyway, I walked into Drew's room after his morning nap on Sunday and he was standing up in his crib, leaning on the railing!  I had already told Mike that I wanted to move his mattress down, and that just confirmed that.  So apparently Drew is pulling up now.  I haven't seen him do it on furniture yet, but obviously he can.  Now with his crib mattress down so low I feel like he's sleeping in a cage, but oh well.  It's only been 11 months since Zach was sleeping in the crib like that, but it's funny how I hardly remember it.  

Mike is 32 today, so happy birthday, Mike.  We celebrated tonight by having pumpkin bars after dinner.  Thankfully Zach did a good job eating his dinner and got to have a pumpkin bar, too.