X is 5!

X is 5!  My oh my!  He is my sweet boy, even if he's not my little guy anymore.  He has a tender heart and is always the peace maker.  If birth orders are correct, he is my middle child in every single way. He's my reliable, dependable child that is will always help when asked...even when he really doesn't want to.

He still LOVES Star*Wars.  His new love is Lego*s.  If you combine the two, he's in heaven.  He doesn't understand why Santa won't bring him sets that are for 7+ (or older).

He's started loving the tractor this fall.  He would ride with G'pa in the combine all by himself...or just go out and check on him working.  He talks about when he gets his license how much he's going to help G'pa by driving tractors.

C's First Haircut

At three years old and four days, C finally got his first haircut.  I've been dreading cutting off his adorable curls, but with the air less humid, it wasn't curling as much.  Additionally, the back of his hair was constantly matted and a pain to comb.  It was time for it to go.  One of the guys at church asked which boy was C.  He asked, "Is he the one that always looks like he's running?  Not because he is running but because his hair is sticking out?"  It was definitely time for a haircut.

On Saturday evening, everyone got bathed and then Mom's Hair Salon opened.  E got a few inches trimmed off hers first with a few bangs added.  She wasn't impressed as I was cutting and with each snip, she said in a anguished voice, "She cut it!"  But today, she likes it.  X was next.  I just hacked a bit off here and there.  His hair is thick and has wave to it and it is hard for me to trim, but I trimmed up around his ears and neck and it will suffice for another month.  C was next and his was so fine and so long that it was an easy cut.  He sat fairly still and entertained me while I chopped off those adorable curls.  Jut came last and I used the trimmers and he got the quickest haircut...probably a bit too short, but oh well.  He was a good sport about it.  I was tired of cutting hair by the time it was all finished.

Everyone's new haircut

Other Halloween Antics

I'm by no means a P*trest type of person...but a strike of ambition hit me on Halloween.  Mom gave me a recipe for ghost pancakes from a magazine and I found a pumpkin latte recipe online and...the pumpkin latte was divine.  Made me want to leap over tall buildings in a single bound.  Coffee hasn't had that effect on me in a long time.  E and I even tackled cleaning her whole room...under the bed and all.  Oh, the joys of caffeine.  The pumpkin pancakes on the other hand...the recipe didn't get saved, but the kids all enjoyed the whipped topping and chocolate chips.  Guess they needed to get their sugar rush started early as well.

After school was finished, we finally got around to painting our pumpkins that have been waiting for over a month.  They are pie pumpkins and so they wouldn't make great jack o' lanterns...but painting is more fun (and less work for me) anyway!

C's was multi-colored in the beginning...by the end it was just kind of a blah yellowish tint

X wanted a red pumpkin...so he painted the entire thing red.

E designed a face.  The green are the pumpkin's glasses.

Happy Halloween

What a cold Halloween!!  E decided to go as a pioneer since it was so cold, but one lady called her Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz because of her sparkly shoes.  E thought that was pretty fun...so she went as "Dorothy" for the remainder of the evening.

X was Obi Wan Kenobi.  He even met Darth Vadar at one location but they decided not to duel.

C was going to be Batman.  Since August, he's wanted to be Batman.  I finally decided to buy him a shirt on Tuesday so that he could be Batman.  As they were getting changed at 5:00, he decided he wanted to be Milky the Cow with Super Kitty instead of Batman.  Go figure. However, he was an adorable cow.

The Fort...or Imagination Station...or Island

 Dad decided that the kids needed a fort on the 'island' out in the field.  So, instead of helping mom pick raspberries one day, he spent the morning creating the fort...or imagination station, as E calls it.  The kids love it.  Although, X thinks that it needs a roof...so we'll see if G'pa gets even more creative or not in the future, but for now, they love it, even without the roof.

Double Rainbow

On 10-6, we had the privilege of seeing our first rainbow at our house...and it was a double one!  I might have been a bit too excited, but I love seeing rainbows and double ones are just cool.  We also thought that it was fun that it 'ended' at the neighbor's silos.  The pot of gold is in the silos...maybe not this fall, but a fun thought nonetheless.

The arch was so large that I couldn't fit it in the camera lens.  I was disappointed how faint it appears in the picture, but it was a huge rainbow and I thought the scenery was pretty anyway.  I love the fall colors.

C is 3!

Today my whirling dervish turned 3.  I'm always sad to see my two year olds turn into three year olds because life is just different at age 3.  It is still fun, but there is more challenge to age three.

C at three remains 110% boy.  He loves his trains, his digger construction vehicles, light sabers, tractors, super heroes and Star Wars.  He loves shovels and digging.  Dad had to bolt down the hole to the diesel tank because he found it open one day with rocks surrounding it.  C loves to be out in the barn with G'pa, exploring and helping him.  He plays with Dad's tools.  He has the tractors named and can tell them apart.  He can find more things out there than I can.  Dad needed a flag one day and both boys ran to the barn to get one...and both boys knew where to look.  I wouldn't have had a clue.

My two oldest have been contemplating Halloween costumes for months.  C has only wanted to be Batman.  That is it...no wavering...just Batman.  He decided he liked Batman from the Lego Movie and that was it.  That was going to be his costume whether I agreed or not.  He doesn't play with super heros very often but he loves the idea of them.  He wants to conquer the world.  Once he makes his mind up about something, that is that.  Right now he hates driving southbound on the highway.  He complains about it (and sometimes screams about it) the entire way home.  Northbound is fine but he's decided he doesn't like southbound and he lets us know anytime we dare to drive it.  He can be a bit opinionated (and stubborn).

We laugh at him all the time.  He is one crazy little man.  If I don't catch him headed out the door in the morning, he will go play outside without a coat, shoes or socks.  I've brought socks, shoes and a coat countless times to the barn when it was too cold to be without them, but that didn't bother C.  He just kept on playing.  Once I tried waiting for him to get cold, my mommy-guilt caved before his common sense took over and I once again hunted him down to appropriately dress him.  Crazy guy.

His hands are covering his ears in anticipation of the "Happy Birthday" song

He's in a cuddly stage.  He loves to cuddle at bedtime.  He did great at going to bed by himself before it was dark out at bedtime.  Now that it is dark, he needs cuddles.  X has decided that he does too.  So, both boys and myself squeeze into C's bed and cuddle until they fall asleep.  The problem is that C won't go to sleep without a cuddle (by me if I'm home) right now.  We'll need to work on that before the baby shows up.

It took a LONG time for potty-training to be completed and he's still wearing pull ups to bed.  Washing his entire bed a couple times a week was worth the cost of another package.  In August, he couldn't go swimming at the hotel pool until he went #2 in the potty...and bam...just like that he decided that it was okay to use the potty all the time.  We had a handful of accidents afterwards but that was his major turning point in getting that #2 in the potty...now we did have the #2 tree outside for a bit because it took him awhile to figure out that it was really easier to come inside to do #2 but he got it figured out eventually...and it was easier to clean up the grass than it was the underwear.  Just a reminder to myself that all stages do pass...despite how frustrating (and tedious) they may be at the time.

His crazy hair needs cut.  The baby-fine hair in the back gets so tangled, but it just fits his personality so well...and I love his little curls that show up with it is humid.  But, it is time.  Soon he'll get his first hair cut (and I thought that E's hair grew slowly!).

Age 2 was fun.  We look forward with excitement to see what age 3 will bring.  We'll get to see him blossom into an big brother.  He'll just continue to grow and develop and gain new skills.  He'll probably learn other songs than the "B I B L E" and I'll miss hearing his cute rendition and sweet voice.  I'll hear, "I do it myself!" more than I will want...and maybe the question, "Mom, will you wipe my butt?" will evaporate into the past.