...could've been cake

National Kellen Day (aka Halloween)

2009-11-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

I don't think it is any secret that Kellen loves candy. Now, don't get me wrong, I know almost all kids love candy. But Kellen's love for the sweets goes far above and beyond your typical adoration for such deliciousness. So, around here, Halloween is know as Kellen Day. :)

We did what has become our tradition and went to a small neighborhood downtown. No one is really home in our neighborhood, so the trick-or-treating stinks here. Before heading out, though, we had a fun-filled afternoon. We finally carved two of the three pumpkins.

It took Coble and Kellen a little time to warm up to the idea of sticking their hands in the guts.
I was so proud of Timmy! This was the first year that I didn't have to do anything other than cutting the bottom out (we carve from the bottom and leave the top intact -- that is why the pumpkin is laying the way it is on the floor). Timmy made his own pattern (you can see it in the foreground of the pic below), scooped out the guts and then carved it all by himself. Then he helped Coble with his well. My little boys are getting so big!

After we carved, KK and Baboo came over and we all went to see Daddy's show, "Bunnicula", one more time. From there we had some delicious mexican for dinner and headed over to our fave trick-or-treating spot that I already mentioned. So, here are my top favorite pics.

Who's that in the Jango Fett costume?

Oh, it's just my sweet little Kelly. :)

Believe it or not, both of my Jedi's left their light sabers at home. Really. It's probably a good thing since they would have ended up being two more things me and Daddy were carrying. So here they are posing with their invisible light sabers.

And apparently all Jedis have to kneel a lot. For some reason both Coble and Timmy struck this pose with no direction. Too funny.

My little Ani.
Hey, Mommy's got the camera. Let's jump! Why not?

The king on his special day inspecting his treasure...

This place does it up big. Full-on decorations everywhere.

I don't really think I need to say anything here.

And one of the spookiest houses with that witch hangin' out on the balcony.

Summer Fun

2009-10-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Part of my plan for the summer was to hang with my boys as much as possible since all three would be in school this year. :( The end of the days of having boys home during the day. So, every Friday I knocked off early and we did something fun! I even told my regular clients about it and had their support.

One of the things we did a lot was go to the pool. We have wonderful friends that live just around the corner from us and allowed us full access to their pool whenever we had free time. Here's some fun shots from one of our last pool trips of the summer.

Kellen didn't mess around with his foe, the water. He just like to chill in his tube.

Timmy was a big fan of jumping from the steps onto hi boogey board.

For two boys who hate it when I rinse their face in the tub, they sure liked to have a non-stop water fight.

This is one of my all-time favorites. Kellen pitched a fit every time he got caught in the middle of the water fight. Then, he discovers the water gun. Oh, it's on.

Here is a link to the full album if you want to see more.

Where did the summer go?

2009-08-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

Holy cow! Has it really been that many months since I wrote anything here? I feel like I haven't had any downtime in just as long. Although we did have quite a fun summer. I tried very hard to knock off of work after lunchtime on Fridays and do something fun with the boys since EVERYONE went off to school this year. That will be a separate post, though.

I want to first catch you up on the months I have missed. First, and super-great, Coble got his cast off! I feel like I have to say that since one of the last posts is his new clean cast. So here are some pics of his marked-upon cast the day he got it off.

The day he got it off, his arm was rather stiff and sore. He was very ginger with it and didn't try to use it all that much. He thought he would never want to try using it again! It was very dramatic. Then, the next day, there he was -- hanging from the money bars at a park... with both hands. :)

Live from the Justice Center

2009-05-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

My butt has been sitting on this hard wooden bench all freakin' day and I am so ready to not be sitting here anymore. Why? Jury Duty. I am in day 3 and we still have not been interviewed by attorneys. This has been the longest day yet as we have been here since 9:15. Yesterday and Monday they let us go home early. Although, my entry title does make me feel like a member of the Justice League. hehe

For all of those reading, please say a prayer for Mr. Hicks. He is a fellow juror that stopped breathing this morning during role call. We still are not fully sure what happened, but without the CPR administered by two other jurors he would surely be dead. When they began compressions he was not breathing and did not have a pulse. We have been told he is in ICU and has no family in the area.

Blessings to all and I will get some more pics of the boys up soon!

The end of the cast

2009-05-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

Wow! It has been a crazy few months. I think maybe I got two posts up in my new effort to post every few days and then nothing for quite a while. Yep. I am a slacker. :(

So, I have been hanging onto this picture thinking I would share it with you all. Since most of you never got to see Cobie's cast clean (and some of you not at all), here you go. I love Timmy waiting rather impatiently in the background to show me his papers from school.

He was very proud of it. Although it looks pretty much white and boring in the picture, it is, in fact, a glow-in-the-dark cast. It is very neat.

We are almost to the end of the 6 weeks. May 20 is the end of the cast and the beginning of re-strengthening those unused muscles.

Happy May all and I will TRY very hard to update more often.

Visit from the Street

2009-03-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Every so often Grover comes to visit my boys. It has been a really funny thing to watch. At first the twins (and Timmy when he was younger) were both terrified and enthralled at the same time. If Grover got too close there were shrieks of terror and tears. Now it is hard to keep their hands off of him, though. All they want to do is honk his nose and hug him.
They all sit, quietly giggling, for the first 5 minutes or so. They answer all of Grover's questions and ask him some. Then someone gets brave enough to try to stick their hand in his mouth. It's all downhill from there. :)

Birthdays

2009-03-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

I officially feel like the world's worst mom. I kept promising to get pics and details of Timmy's birthday up here and I never did. So, here is a general birthday update with pictures!

Timmy:
He wanted (can anyone guess???) a Star Wars party. Big surprise, I know. We used a space at the church, ran the Clone Wars movie, invited the guests to bring light sabers (brought extras just in case) and had a 2 hour light saber battle. I kid you not. I thought for sure they would get bored with that after a while, but not so. The best part - no one got hurt!

I somehow managed to get no pictures of Timmy in the Jedi Battle, but one of the funniest things was the frequent "dead bodies" you would find in the midst of the battle. This is one of Timmy's friends from school.

What is so cool that everyone has to see?

The most awesome Darth Vader card ever! :)

Twins:
We have had one family party for them with Jeff's family and will be celebrating with my family tomorrow. At some point I have promised them a pirate party, but there are really only 4 kids they want to invite. So, what we plan to do is have an afternoon at the park when it warms up again and just give everyone pirate swords (the boys already have theirs). We will do cake and stuff, but a little lower key. Here are some pics from the Hartman family celebration.

It seems as though I have mentioned Kellen's love of candy here. Well, that love extends to cake as well. Check out this series of his excited faces.

The flash didn't fire on the best pic of Cobie blowing out the candles, but here is payoff. Mmmmm

We have Issues

2009-02-25T06:10:00.001-08:00

T-man has been sick for a few days. I was originally concerned that he might have strep as a friend from a birthday party he attended came down with it early last week. I don't think it is, though. He was sent to the school nurse on Monday and she didn't see anything troubling with his throat.

He did REALLY enjoy having PawPaw come and read to his class, though. Then he stuck it out for another 30 minutes so PawPaw could eat lunch with him. His teacher called PawPaw "precious". :)

And then....Last Friday Coble came into the office with important information for me. He announced, "We have issues. " I repeated the phrase back to him to be certain I heard him correctly and when he confirmed, being the good mother I am, I said, "You certianly do."

A little while later he finds me in the kitchen and he says it again. Then he wants to show me his issues. "You want to show me your issues???" yep. He takes my hand and leads me into his bathroom. He points to the counter to show me the issues.

There, in the nice clean bathroom (thank you, Jeff!), is a brand new, brightly colored, box of Tissues.

I love my boys.

Beach Granny treated us to the aquarium when we visited for Christmas. This is the twins watching the otters play. That dark blur upsetting the water on the left side of the picture is an otter swimming by and there is one on the rock grooming himself. Kellen's face is only just visible because as the otter came seemingly out of nowhere, it startled him and he jumped back. It was really neat to see them that closely.

LUV

2009-02-18T13:35:00.001-08:00

I have no idea what we are doing to get these results, but you should see the love that is in this house. Every morning when Timmy leaves for school, Coble and Kellen HAVE to get a hug and a kiss from him. If he leaves before they get up or if they are in the potty or otherwise not paying attention and he gets out of the house without having acquired said hug and kiss -- oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that takes place! It is so adoreable that they love their big brother so much.

Christmas fun - the most coveted gifts of fancy light sabers. Thanks Lala, Paw Paw, Stinky and Brandon!

Clothing Optional

2009-02-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

OK, I decided to make more of an effort to at least put up small updates daily or every other day (along with some of the thousands of pictures I have taken of them). Even if it is just like today's - something fun and more Twitter-sized that we overheard last night. I just want you to be able to stay connected with the boys. They are growing up so fast!

So, today's fun tidbit: we overheard the twins as they were playing in the tub last night. Kelly says, "alligators don't wear dresses," to which Coble replies, "or shoes".

It's amazing the way their brains work!

Coble begging me to take his picture right before he lost his second balloon of the evening (which was tied around his wrist!).

Kellen contemplating something heavy (apparently) as he washes his hands.

Poor Lil' Small

2009-02-11T18:08:00.001-08:00

OK, so I still have not edited the pics from Christmas. They have now been moved to my external HDD so who knows when I will get to them. We did have an incident this week, though, and I feel the need to post about it for my own twisted reasons.

When I was in high school I played soccer. In all actuality, I was never all that good at it. I was on the JV team. By the time I got good enough for varsity, I was a theater nerd and didn't have the time. I was occasionally disappointed in the time I did spend playing, though. I really enjoy having "battle wounds" to show for my efforts. Many times I was kicked, kneed and plowed over (I was the goalie), but I just don't bruise easily. SO... nothing to show for my few triumphs.

Kellen, on the other hand, apparently bruises nicely. All three boys were playing outside during all of this nice weather. Timmy decided that all of our outdoor sports toys needed to be separated into "stations" in various areas of our yard. Timmy was at the baseball station trying desperately to hit the ball as he tossed it up in front of himself. In the midst of this, my poor little Kelly ran up to show something to his big brother.

Bat and head collide and Kelly gets a nice shiner:

Timmy felt so bad about it, but it was definitely an accident.

Visitor in the dark

2009-01-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Hello all! I will update on Christmas happenings as soon as I get caught up from not working for nearly 2 weeks! This was too good not to post, though.

Last Saturday night (the 27th) we are all sleeping soundly at 3am when all of the sudden a small dark figure comes running into our bedroom. Now, with three kids, small dark figures in the middle of the night are normally not an issue. This figure, however, came in at an above average speed. Well, the next thing I know there is screaming from the bed that then causes a high-pitched scream from the figure that in turn causes more screaming from the bed. The figure hits the deck (yes, he did not duck or slowly crouch, he hit the deck) and proceeds on his knees around to Jeff's side of the bed, all the while the screaming continues. Then the figure, which turns out to be Timmy (big surprise) climbs over Jeff and grabs me around the neck. He is so traumatized by being scared of his dream and then being scared in our bedroom that ha doesn't even ask if he can sleep with us. he just kindof burrows in.

He frequents our room in the middle of the night because of nightmares from time to time, but he has never come in a high speed. That caused a scene that I am still laughing about now - a week later. Too funny!

Dancing Boys

2008-12-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

Jeff's employer had their Christmas party this past Friday night. They always have some of the students perform and this year Coble and Kellen were in it! They have been participating in the Creative Dance class and their teacher, the wonderful Leanna, lead them in the cutest dance ever! I hope you enjoy.

Duck tape

2008-12-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

Yes. I misspelled that on purpose. We had a little mishap with the handle of a butterfly net. Cobie brought it to me and Timmy came in a few minutes later. He asked Cobie what I said about it. "I told him to leave it here and I will duct tape it because there is nothing more awesome than duct tape."

Without missing a beat, Timmy says, "What about cow tape....or gorilla tape?"

They are knuckleheads, but they are all mine and I love them!

Big Boys

2008-12-10T05:16:00.001-08:00

I can't believe I forgot to mention this last week. We finally got the new carpet installed! I can already tell a difference in the dust factor and it looks great (thank you, KK and Baboo!!). KK and Baboo have been keeping two twin beds for us for a while now with the intent of is getting them when the floors were finished. Well, the weekend after Turkey Day came as did the new big-boy beds! We got them set up and all Kellen could say was, "I can't wait to sleep in my beautiful new bed". He was so cute. Each time he referred to his new bed, it was his "beautiful new bed".

They look so comfy in them at night when they are sound asleep -- and no one has fallen off yet!

Max

2008-12-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

We have a visitor at our house. He showed up the day after Thanksgiving and will be around though Christmas Eve. His name is Max and he is a house elf. Each year he shows up here right after Thanksgiving. He selects a place to sit that will allow him to observe the activities of the day and then each night he flies away to the North Pole to tell Santa all of the naughty or nice things that the kids did during the day. Then, before anyone wakes up, he flies back and chooses a new place to sit and watch. The boys love it. The first thing they do each morning is roam around the house and find Max. One afternoon I heard them all shouting excitedly. Daddy came in and told me see what they were doing. They were all standing at the foot of the entertainment center telling Max what they wanted for Christmas. It was so cute.

We sat the boys down and had a chat with them about Christmas. It's a losing battle with the freaking marketing these days, but we told them that Santa was only going to bring them each 3 gifts this year. They were good boys, but Mommy and Daddy want Santa to be able to give more to kids that really need it. Plus, we want to remember Jesus and the three gifts He was given. Remarkably, they have been very receptive to the idea and they have been much more thoughtful in their requests. Last year at this time, every toy commercial that came on was answered with, "I want that for Christmas" in our house. I was so done with Christmas before it ever got close!

It is even better for Jeff and I because we sat down together and also really put a lot of thought into each boy. It was pretty neat.

Well, it's just around the corner and we haven't really started yet at all! Don't know when we will since we work opposite schedules and one of us has the kids with us pretty much all the time. We shall see, I guess.

Fall Boys

2008-11-24T18:57:00.001-08:00

I only managed to pull off about three good shots before they scattered. Here is one of the better ones. Of course, Kellen looks like a stinker in ALL of them. But then again, he is a stinker.

Too much politics on TV?

2008-11-19T19:35:00.001-08:00

This afternoon Timmy asked me if he could do something. My answer was no. He did not fuss or whine. He simply turned and slumped out of the room. On his way out he muttered, "democrat". You think there has been too much talk about political parties on TV lately? Hmmm.

The bodily functions of Jedis

2008-11-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

We are apparently fascinated with the word poopy right now. Well, the twins are - so much so that we have banned the word because we are tired of hearing it. We catch them trying to use it when they are playing and don't realize that either Jeff or I is nearby.

Yesterday I round the corner to catch the tail end of a conversation. As and aside - if you have never stayed just out of sight and listened to two three year olds carry on a conversation, you have to put that on your to-do list. So cute. Anyway, the end of the conversation was, "No, Jedis don't poopy."

Who knew? I am happy to have solved that mystery for any Star Wars fans that were curious.

Little Small and the Wizard

2008-11-13T06:33:00.000-08:00

One of Kelly's nicknames is Little Small. He is our smallest child and he has always been that way. When he was born he weighed more than a pound less than his older twin and we also noticed his umbilical cord was much smaller. This, fortunately, has caused him no health problems. He is just less muscular than Coble. So, "Little Small" was named.

At some point Jeff and Kelly decided that "The Wizard" (whoever that is) made him so small. Apparently said wizard made his entire tribe small. Don't ask.

This morning, I am working in the bedroom - ehem, I mean, my office - and I hear Jeff singing a some song about Little Small. Kelly does not miss a beat. He joins in and starts creating the verses that go something like this: "Little Small, Little Small. The Wizard will make me big so I can reach the candy. Little Small, Little Small. The Wizard will make me big so I can reach the apple juice."

Make like a tree...

2008-11-11T07:13:00.001-08:00

Timmy learned all about leaves last week at school. He came home with some very cute rubbings he made as well as a bag full of leaves he found and identified. My favorite part of this leaf learning is the occasion when we spot a tree that still has green leaves on it. He points it out and announces, "it's still making sugar". Too smart!

On another subject, I don't know what sort of torture KK and Baboo inflicted on poor Kelly when he was over there last, but he is so snugly now. The child that previously wouldn't sit on your lap longer than about 30 seconds now wants to just hang out on my lap while I am working. He constantly wants me to hold him. I am really digging that!

Star Student

2008-11-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

I am very pleased to report that Timmy's teacher named him November's Star Student. She says that he is kind and a great student! Of course, I am paraphrasing because he has the newsletter with him in his binder. It is really sweet. We absolutely love his teacher this year (not that we didn't love last year's. We really loved her as well)! She is a real treasure. She lists some of his favorite things on the announcement that went out to all in his class...
Fave thing about school: recess (yep, he's definitely my son)
Food at school: chicken nuggets
Toy: Buster the dog.

:)

Halloween shenanigans

2008-11-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

Since we have family that is always asking for updates and pictures and I am always forgetting... here you go. A blog just for you to keep up with our clan, pics and all!

So, Halloween was way more fun this year than last (three seems to be a good age to really start getting into Halloween), although Jeff would probably disagree. hehe. Getting small flailing body parts into costumes is not my favorite thing in the world and it is possible I was a little grouchy. True, once the process is complete, they look adorable - I mean EVIL. Right. That's what they were going for.

As you can see, contrary to our alternate suggestions, they had to all three be Darth Vader. I was definitely protected from all forces of good on Halloween and Wednesday night as well. :) The pics below are from Wednesday night at the Trunk-or-Treat at church. My mom (aka Lala) came and walked with us. Well, ok. She came and babysat until I could get over there. I had a meeting that lasted about 30 minutes longer than it was supposed to. Then Jeff came directly from work and rode the hayride with the boy-heads. All but Timmy, that is. He has stealthily become chummy with the landscaper that provides the hayrides and twice - yes, two different times on two different occasions - he has weaseled himself into the driver's seat.

The best part was our little candy maniac - Kelly. How much does he love candy? Here is a pretty typical prayer at bedtime: "Thank you God for today and thank you for candy and chocolate and chocolate milk and suckers and gum and thank you for cookies and ice cream and candy." Me: "Don't you want to pray for some people?" Kellen: "Oh. And KK and Baboo and Miss Jeanne and Mr. Robb." Yep, you got it! Candy comes before people and Mommy, Daddy and brothers are not mentioned at all. Ahh well.

So, the Candy King goes trick-or-treating on Friday evening - something which he has been asking about all day, mind you. Not only is he typically the first of our three to the porch, he is the first back to grab Daddy's hand and waits rather impatiently to go to the next house. But the best part is what he does on the porch. While the unsuspecting candy-hander-outer is putting candy in his bucket and commenting on how cute a tiny Darth Vader is, Kellen quietly sticks his hand in the bowl, bucket or basket and grabs a duplicate. Of all the times we saw him do this, not once did he get caught. Hilarious! We did scold him for this and encourage other behavior, but we also rather enjoyed watching this unfold each time he went to a house.

Cobie Vader with Kelly looking on from the background

The fam (sans mommy) waiting for the hayride (Cobie has been making pirate faces for the camera lately)

T-man having just finished a donut - mmmm Krispy Kream

Kelly posing in a very un-evil way

Cobie's Darth Vader-head candy bucket

Timmy driving the tractor