Bryant is Two!

 Okay, I know they say the “Terrible Twos,”  but we don’t really believe it.  Bryant does enjoy trying to assert his independence, but for the most part he is pretty obedient.  He says, “Yeah, ba’am” when I have to correct him.  That’s “yes ma’am” in Bryantese.

If you look back on Bryant’s growth (easy to do by clicking on his “label” on the sidebar), you’ll note that he’s done quite a lot of things early.  Teeth at two months.  Crawled at five months.  Etc.  Well, he is, by far, our most verbal two year old.  He also understands a lot more than he can communicate at times.

For his birthday, he requested at “hootball cake.”  He didn’t just ask for it one time but multiple times.  Over several months.  We’d say, “Bryant what do you want for your birthday?”:  “A hootball cake,’ he’d reply, “Happy Birfday Myant!”

Oh, and Myant is what he calls himself.  He’s such an important two year old that he speaks of him self in third person.  He’s been doing this since about March.  Sadly, as August approaches he’s growing out of it and it’s more of “I do dat.”  Instead of , “Myant do it!”

 Aha!  All you peeps out there who didn’t understand toddlerese.  This is a “hootball cake.”  Known to you and I as a football cake.  Yay for cake pans that are in the shape of a football.

 He cleaned his plate!

 Bryant’s also our animal lover…especially horses and dogs.  We were so excited to find a big stuffed horse at a consignment sale this past year.  He was thrilled to have it too!

And, we all would like to thank Papa and Grandmere for the harmonica.  No, really.  We’re also grateful that you volunteered to hold it for us until we come to visit.

Bryant also fell in love with Josiah’s Captain America doll action figure that he received from Ge and Granddaddy.  So, after two days of Bryant following Josiah around, I requested one for him.  Ge and Granddaddy were thrilled to comply and Bryant walked around with his own figure for several days!

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Cuteness from March

One morning Bryant and Ceili Rain were oogling over Malachi.  He was awake and “sort of” looking at them.  “Malachi, meet your partners in crime…Ceili Rain the Tornado and Bryant the Hurricane,”  I announced.  Ceili Rain then began to call herself the “Tormado” and Bryant the “Hurricane.”  This picture is part of the “Hurricane” at work. 

After we got home with Malachi, Bryant grew like a ton and was no longer a toddler boy!

Grandmere came to visit us and help out while Mark ventured to work for a few days.
We took advantage of that time and broke out the play dough!  We’re crazy like that.

We also went to the park where the splash pad was.  It was 75 degrees and we scared away all of the preschool moms and their tots while simultaneously receiving dirty looks from them. 

If eyes had darts…I would have been full of them.  Apparently, they thought the splash pad would not be on for some reason. 

My children turning it on was not part of their plan.  Bryant, obviously, had nothing to do with the splash pad.  They need to groom toddlers like Bryant.

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The Destructo Duo at their Cutest

A couple of weekends ago, I braided Zoe’s hair in small braids so that when she woke up on Sunday and took them out she had wavy hair. She loves that! Ceili Rain saw it and asked for braids too. Braiding a two year old’s hair in tiny braids…um, yeah, she doesn’t stay still…wasn’t happening. So, I curled it in sponge rollers instead. And while she fussed at night, she didn’t take them down. And this was the result. Too precious!And it stayed curly for two days.

 We’re big Awana buffs…since Mark is now the sole Commander of our club!  Bryant’s ready to be a Cubbie if he can figure out how to get the vest on.

Wednesday’s trash day.  It doesn’t matter where Ceili Rain and Bryant are, when the trash truck comes through they come running to our school room and sit at the window.  And sometimes, they get along and do this!  Josiah’s pretty excited to watch too but not as much as the Destructo Duo is!

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What a Weekend!

We started the weekend off like we normally do…cleaning the house.  I know.  That’s really exciting.

However, Saturday afternoon, the women at our church (and my dear “little sister”) helped us celebrate Malachi’s coming arrival with a prayer shower.  It is such a blessing to gather with women and know that they are there to pray for our sweet baby and to celebrate  how God has already blessed us with him!  So much fun!

 How adorable is that???
 And, if you must know it was a chocolate cake thankyouverymuch!
 The spread!  We girls like to eat 🙂
We ate, we prayed and we played games…then some very gracious ladies gave Malachi some sweet gifts!  Ceili Rain was my on again off again helper.  
Okay, I don’t care who you are…baby clothes with little appliques on the back are just too cute!
And, of course, my weakness for homemade gifts…and he got quite a few…I was giddy!  One of them, that I didn’t include was a hat Tracy made.  I purposefully didn’t include it because I know she’ll work her camera magic on Malachi and the hat and I can’t wait to share those pictures.

Right before Zoe, Ceili Rain and I left on Saturday, Mark got a call from work.  He texted me to let me know he was on alert but didn’t have to go in.  Now, it’s very, very rare that he actually has to go in, but it can happen.

I was very thankful he did not have to go in at all on Saturday.  Because…when we got home from the shower, I was showing Mark all the sweet gifts when Ceili Rain and Bryant apparently took off with the baby bath soap…you know where this is going right?

I’m taking tags off and sorting and showing and we hear this blood curdling scream from Bryant.  The Destructo Duo had struck again.  They had gotten the top off of one of the soaps and was in the bathtub where, Ceili Rain felt it was her responsibility to bathe her brother.  With his clothes on.  She dumped about half a bottle of baby bath soap on his head.  Which trickled down.  Into his eyes and on his face.  She even got some on herself as well.  They got their baths early and praise God…yet again…no one was seriously hurt.  And Ceili Rain now understands that it is not her job to bathe her baby brother.  I’m not entirely sure that Bryant didn’t help her out a bit on the whole opening and dumping thing.  I apologize that we didn’t get pictures…it was a bit of a crisis moment, but I wouldn’t be a good blogger if I didn’t think throughout the crisis that this was going to make for a good post.

Then Sunday rolled around…Mark got a call before church that the same problem was going on.  Again, we praise God that he didn’t have any problems during church that would cause him to go in but he as soon as church was over…well, he got he call.  And he had to go in.  We even had to turn down a pizza invite from a visiting family and everything. (who really turns down pizza???)

The other problem came in that I had a pass to attend a pre-sale for a “friend shop” at a semi-annual children’s consignment sale for Sunday.  Now, I could have just gone with the crowds on Monday but noooo, stubborn me wanted to get it over with today.  We had a gracious friend who willingly went with me.  And all six kids.  We divided and conquered…and found some cute cheap outfits to boot!

And we shopped…for three hours (including standing in line to check out).  And the kids were awesome.  Well, as awesome as they can be when they were plum tired and hungry.

When we all got home (Even Mark was able to get home at a decent hour), we cooked up hot dogs and settled in to watch a movie.  Now, I’m not saying that Mars Needs Moms is a bad movie…just that I’m wondering, as I type this on Sunday, how many of the kids are going to come in to our room tonight to check and see if I’ve been beamed up to another planet.

And we capped off our busy weekend with Zoe (the one who doesn’t get sick) feeling congested and a bit feverish…hmmm.

I’m very grateful to have busy weekends to pass the time before Malachi comes…wonder what we’ll do next weekend?!

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How to Fit Five Boys in One Room

Welll, this was an issue we started discussing as soon as we found out Seven was really Malachi.  So, I went to trusty Pinterest to gather my thoughts all in one place.  We started with these ideas:

Source: fabric.com via Abbie on Pinterest

Fabric sample

Source: fabric.com via Abbie on Pinterest

Another fabric sample.

And an idea for beds to include this:

And this:

Our decorating and color ideas came from this bedding that we already had:

Source: target.com via Abbie on Pinterest

But before any of that could work in a room with five boys, we had to paint…and before we totally took the room apart, we remember pictures!

Sorry about the spots, not sure what was up with the camera.

Totally ignore that disheveled looking closet, the curtains for it will be coming later.  Ugh, I cringe when I look at that.  It does look much better now but still not fun to see every time you come in a room.

Before all the painting started, Mark and Granddaddy put their heads together to come up with bunk bed plans.  Granddaddy got the wood and cut it and even pre-drilled the frame and delivered it on Piano Recital day (cause he rocks).

I’m tempted to stop here and make ya’ll all wait until tomorrow to see what took place but then I think someone would come up with the cyber version of rotten tomatoes to throw at me so I won’t!

And this started…

Mark and I realized about an hour into bunk bed building night that two people, one of whom was in her third trimester were not really adequate enough to hold up these sturdy pieces of wood to build two levels.  So, reinforcements were called in by way of a neighbor down the street (he always comes to help…we really are wondering why he hasn’t ran away far far from here now).  So, thanks, S for helping with the project!

Not going to show the finished project yet…I had some art up my sleeve to do as well as a bit of refinishing.  And while I worked on canvasses, three very sad looking male faces appeared and requested ever so sweetly to paint one.  I couldn’t resist those big blue and brown eyes so an afternoon of painting commenced on their very own canvasses.

Not sure how we didn’t get a picture of Josiah in action, but he was there painting his square too.
And, when we visited Granddaddy Thanksgiving weekend, he showed us a chest of drawers he had picked up for $35!  No kidding.  Solid wood.  Just needed to be painted.  For those that don’t know, my parents are pickers on the side.  They have a booth at an antique mall where they sale their finds.  But this, this I was not going to let get away and gladly accepted it!
It had those missing drawers, I just had already taken them off to get the hardware off so Mark could sand it.

So ya’ll want to see the finished product huh???

As you enter you can see that beat up dresser all done.  Mark did add the knob to the door.  We kept the solid wood sturdy big dresser we already had and got rid of (well, it’s sitting in the schoolroom right now) the beat up smaller dresser.  We took the knobs off of that dresser and put them on here.  I already had the fabric for the boys’ beds and we had plenty of paint leftover from painting the previous dressers.  So, total cost was $35 for the dresser!  That’s my spaceship canvas that I freehand drew from looking at the pattern on the boys’ crib.

Bryant helped with the photo tour and please ignore any toys, this was prior to clean up time.  This is Josiah and Liam’s bunks.

And this is Bryant’s and Ace’s.  See the sweet little head peeking out.  Bryant got his mattress this past weekend and has transitioned pretty well to his big boy bed. (This is the part where I don’t admit that we tried to give up paci but Mark nor I could stand the screaming so he still has that and it’s probably a big part of the transitioning well.  Yeah, it’s going bye bye before Malachi is born though.)

 We put gutter bookshelves on the footboard of each bed and a push light (which is battery operated and they have to buy the batteries…some of them are already in need).  At the headboard we put their name canvasses that I did with their life verses on them.  Have I shown those yet?

My other canvas that I made…freehand…yay me.

This was the boys’ artwork.  I thought it turned out really well.  In an effort to control the art, I did sketch off the ship they wanted and outlined it and they did the rest.  I resisted any desire to control how they did it but I did limit their color choices to what we were using in the room.  Really, I did!  The end of the legs of Liam’s ship is fire coming out.  And my control of Bry’s hand was mainly to keep the paint on the canvas not  on the house or me.

Verdict:
I was kind of bummed that we didn’t get to do the beds L-shaped.  When we put them in the L-shape, there was no room to put two dressers and a crib so we had to think and rethink.  My dad and Mark wanted to make sure they were sturdy enough for, well, boys.  And that meant using a bit bulkier wood.  But ya’ll, these things will last for a long time!  We also had to factor in that the beds were tall enough to hit the fan.  Mark willingly volunteered to chop off a bit to make it work but we came up with this configuration and it worked.  I’m really happy with how it all turned out and the curtains on the beds are a super hit! This room was a month long project and every time the boys woke up it was kind of like Christmas.  They spent four days sleeping in the living room (on the sleeper sofa) and so they were truly surprised each time they awoke to find their room a little different.  It was a great treat for them and I’m so excited that they love it.

Now, I realize this is a long post, so next time we do a big project, should I just post as we go or wait until it’s done?  I love waiting so everyone could definitely see the finishing touches.  Sometimes I forget to post the finished product when I post as we go.
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