Things I Love

In no particular order:

-Zach's new room, which Mike worked very hard on while the boys and I were in Colorado a month or so ago. Zach was especially surprised by his Star Wars sheets, which are his favorite part of the room.

-How Maggie finds the craziest places to lay down. In this first picture, I was reorganizing closets after we moved Zach into his new room. Because my sisters and I have all had boys, we have shared baby clothes a lot over the past 5 years, and it seems I am always getting some random box of clothes back from somebody, which makes organization a little tough. On this particular day, I was trying to get everything sorted just right so I could put the 3T clothes in Drew's closet (the next size he'll wear), and the infant through 18 month clothes in the baby's closet. As you can see, the room was a total mess, and Maggie just walked in and made herself comfortable, right on top of a pile of clothes.

In this next picture you can see that Maggie is snuggled into a tight corner. She tries to get back into this corner multiple times a night, and depending on how many pillows are stuffed back there (versus on the couch, where they belong), many nights she is somewhat successful. It seems it can't be very comfortable, though, because she often doesn't last long back there before she comes out. It's always funny to hear her trying to maneuver her way out, too. Occasionally she knocks over the stuff on the little table above her.

-Family movie nights. On this night Mike was out of town, and the boys and I decided to watch Finding Nemo and have a frozen pizza for dinner. Drew picked the movie and kept asking before hand, "Can we find Memo?"

-When the boys play nicely together and have so much fun with each other. It is amazing how much better at pretending they are than I am, and it's so fun to listen to them pretend together. It's no wonder Drew has such a great imagination with a big brother like Zach to help him out. Here they are pretending they are bad guys with shields and swords.

Here they are catching fish and playing with the water table, where they kept themselves entertained with no help from me for over an hour. I was able to get some things done, visit with my friend Molly, and just sit back and watch them and smile.

-The funny things Drew says. Today I told him my throat hurt, and he said, "I not have one of those." I said, "You don't have a sore throat?" He said, "No, I not have a throat. I have burps." Okaaaay. This afternoon Maggie licked him, which is something that makes him mad about 99% of the time, and he said, "Pete's sake, Maggie!" And then tonight while we were reading before bed I sneezed, and Drew said, "Maybe you need some coffee." I don't drink coffee, so I don't know where that idea came from, either.

-The lantana in my garden. Lantana is one of my favorite plants because I love the clusters of flowers. I got all my lantana for half price in about mid-July, and I thought for a while they were never going to do anything, but lately, they are just gorgeous! I wish they were perennials!

-Family golf outings.

-The fact that Foudy is always willing and happy to snuggle with Zach (obviously not a great picture of Zach).

-Drew wearing big boy underwear successfully for about 2 weeks now. A year ago I thought he'd be easy to potty train and would do it early, and then a few months ago I thought it might be a while still because he wasn't interested in trying to potty on the potty. Then, basically exactly at his half-birthday (just like Zach when he turned 2 and a half), it was like something clicked and he was ready. He had 2 accidents the 3rd day of wearing underwear and has been accident-free ever since! And he just looks so darn cute in those undies!

-How excited the dogs get when the boys get up in the morning. Foudy walks around barking her happy bark/howl, and often picks up a dog bone or ball. Maggie picks up anything she can find (which is what she does anytime she gets excited by someone's entrance to our house). Maggie is 10 years-old going on 2 years-old. She is still a puppy at heart in many ways, and I have gotten very good at detecting when she has something in her mouth, like a marble, a sock, or any random thing. This morning she showed how happy she was to see the boys by picking up one of the boys' cars. Thankfully most of the time I catch her before she does too much damage, but not always.