Black Family Blog

We love trucks

2012-02-04T21:27:00.001-05:00

Today's post is dedicated to three people:
1. Ms. Kathy, who is the preschool director at First Presbyterian and the one who sent me an email today to tell me about this fantastic event at which the pictures that follow were taken;
2. & 3. Uncle Matt and Katie, Tim's brother and his girlfriend, who were such great sports to traipse around the Safety Harbor City Park looking at all sorts of trucks.

As I mentioned, we got an email this morning at 9:40 from Ms. Kathy, telling us that she had just seen a news report that they had an event this morning in Safety Harbor from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. called, "Touch a Truck". They bring in all sorts of city trucks, park them in the city park, and let kids climb all over them, honk all of their horns, push buttons, pull levers, and generally live out the dream that all little boys have - play on trucks. Needless to say, we took off as soon as we could to spend a couple of hours in this dream world. Tim was principle photographer for the day and he took 80 pictures. That's how much love our boys have for trucks.
This first picture is in a sheriff's golf cart, one that they ended up on because I was holding their place in line for the fire truck nearby.

Liam, waiting in line to see the fire truck and getting a bird's eye view from Uncle Matt's shoulders.

Boarding the fire truck!

Micah was pretty excited. Can you tell? :)

The paramedic talking to Liam about his truck shirt.

The garbage truck. Heaven on earth for two little boys.

They weren't really a fan of all the horn honking - although they took every chance they could get to honk horns themselves!

Driving the garbage truck - a dream come true.

Liam spent a few minutes checking out all of the buttons inside the truck while driving it.

We didn't get a chance to ride in the rocket car. Maybe next time though because it looked really cool.

Driving the recycling truck!

Who gets to sit in the bucket of a bulldozer? Our boys!

Running a fork lift.

We didn't get pictures of the boys actually using the fireman's hose, which they got to do, but we did get a picture of Micah approaching the stand-alone hose shooting water in the air.

Liam would only go if Katie took him. Liam is a big Uncle Matt and Katie fan. In fact, he woke up crying one morning during their visit and when I went in to soothe him, he asked for Uncle Matt.

Step aside, Sandra Bullock - there's a new city bus driver in town!

Up in the driver's seat of a monster truck!

Sitting on the tire of the monster truck. It must be pretty big if they can sit on the tire and still not come to the bottom of the car in the tire's wheel well.

At the end of the day there was the icing on the truck-shaped cake: getting to stand on train tracks!

By the way, we followed the "Touch a Truck" event with lunch at McDonald's and a stop at the train store in St. Pete. It's safe to say that the boys are having good dreams tonight.

Celebrating Love

2012-02-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

The theme of the month? The obvious - love. I love little boys with wild hair, big grins, and chocolate pudding on their faces.

Flashback to the Christmas Concert

2012-01-30T21:20:00.000-05:00

I haven't taken a lot of pictures lately, unless you count taking pictures of the kids' artwork so I can make it into a bound book and get rid of the really large piles of original artwork I have diligently kept since they each started school. Consequently, unless you want to see the work of Picasso-prodigy children, there isn't much to tell. So I thought I'd flashback tonight to their preschool Christmas concert because I promised I would do this at one point, they were really darn cute that night, and I have nothing else.
Here they are, Liam distinctly saying "cheese" while I take the picture, ready to go to the concert and sing their little hearts out.

Liam walked in with his buddy Tbit, whom he hangs out with at church and school. They have the same sense of cool style.

It's a blurry picture, but it's the best one I have of Micah making his entrance, and naturally his hands are in his pockets. That kid came out of the womb practicing that move, I think.

Liam's group was up first. He stood between a nose-picker and his friend Nicolina.

How cute is he when the nose-picker stops digging and you can see our little guy?

Micah's group was last. It's a little blurry again, but I love it because it shows that he was actually singing, something Micah isn't always quick to do in public although you should hear him belt it out at home.

Mr. Cool again. Loving how the crown is making his ears jut out!

Liam got a little upset at the end because I changed positions in the crowd to get a different angle, and he couldn't find me. Look at how the lips are crying and the eyes are filling with tears! Thankfully, his friend Nicolina talked to him and made him feel better, and he finished the concert just fine.

The grand finale!

So proud of our performers.

Cookie time - their reward for singing loudly!

Ms. Kathy, the preschool director, had a little chat with Liam while he was waiting in line to see Santa.

Two (three?) excited guys, ready to see the guy in the red suit and give him their wish lists.

I can't believe how great this picture turned out! This is the best Santa picture so far.

I fell in love with this picture. Santa looks like he's really listening to Micah, who is actually telling him something he wants, and Liam is looking on in glee at the whole thing. They must have been good because they got what they wanted on Christmas morning!

Pet Parade

2012-01-21T10:04:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was the (fake) pet parade at school. It's good that it was with stuffed animals because I don't think Heinz and Samson could have contained themselves around all of the kids.
The parade capped a week of learning all about different kinds of animals and the kids were encouraged to bring a "pet" from home to be in the parade. From his cadre of animals, Micah chose Max, the stuffed dog that he coerced the dental hygienist into giving him the last time he was in the chair. He named the dog all by himself and we have no idea why he chose that name. Max (we're told by Micah) had fun in the parade. Max also sleeps with Micah every night.

Of course, other animals get to share in that privilege as well. :)

Oh, and we ran a half marathon!

2012-01-18T23:01:00.000-05:00

Back in July, Tim and I thought that signing up for the Disney World half marathon would be a great idea to hold us accountable to getting in shape. Fast forward five months to the alarm going off at 3:00 in the morning on Saturday, January 7, and it didn't seem like such a great idea anymore. But we had trained (mostly) and were excited (as excited as you get at 3:00 in the morning), so we drove ourselves to the Epcot parking lot. Here we are, waiting for the race to start. By the way, you get to the parking lot at 4:00, start walking to the starting line at 4:30, the race starts at 5:30, and we actually hit the starting point at 6:15. It's a long morning before you even start running!

It's impossible to get a good picture in the dark of how many people participated. More than 22,000 people finished the race, and there were probably at least several hundred that started and didn't finish. Lots of people trying to run in occasionally small spaces made for a sometimes-trying run. And those white things you see at the back of the picture were the port-a-potties. I have never seen more port-a-potties in one area in my entire life.

I have no recollection of being this insane at the start.

Tim just looks ready to go.

We finally see the starting line, although it's hard to tell from the picture!

When do you ever get to stop in the middle of the road to the Magic Kingdom and take a picture?! We had to take advantage of this. It was right around mile 3.

Running towards the castle in the early morning hours. Not a time of day that we usually see the Magic Kingdom!

Tim left me at mile 10 and finished about fifteen minutes ahead of me. This is the picture he took crossing the finish line. The time says, "3:24", but you have to subtract 45 minutes because that's how long it took us to cross the starting line.

Final time for Tim was 2:42. Final time for me was 2:59. I finished thirteen seconds under three hours, which I was thrilled about. I was hoping for three hours and fifteen minutes, so I was happy with where I finished - and that I finished. Way to go us! Liam snuck in our end-of-the-race picture, but he's cute so we let him.

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

2012-01-14T17:10:00.001-05:00

New year, new blogging. I still don't have the hang of this new photo editor, and I feel like I'm about 90 years old when I complain about it, but it's true that I've resisted blogging because I don't understand it. That's changing today.
The theme of 2012 in our house is "Just Do It". True, I could be a little more creative than ripping off a late-80s, early-90s Bo Jackson-featured Nike campaign, but it really fits. All those tasks that I've put off either since a.) having kids or b.) moving to Florida (and that's 7 1/2 years, folks, believe it or not), are going to get done this year. So far, I've started back to blogging, have deep-cleaned portions of the bathrooms (okay, it hasn't been that long since I cleaned the bathrooms!), and started on the process of writing our will thanks to the kind folks at Office Depot. What handy legal paper packets they sell. Who knew.
But here's the blog part, which is probably the only part anyone reading this cares about. This is a quick recap of our Christmas and start to the new year.
We took our annual trip over to Disney to see the Festival of Dancing Lights at Hollywood Studios. Their smiles are bright, but these guys weren't part of the display, just waiting for it to light up.

Here it is - from the wrong end of the street. :)

While this experience is pretty much the least peaceful one of our holiday season, I do appreciate the effort to put out the wish for it.

Liam was explaining something about the lights to me. Sadly it was raining a little so the "snoap" (snow made from soap) didn't fall as it usually does.

We got all dressed up for Christmas Eve.

We left food out for the reindeer so they'd have something to snack on while Santa was doing his thing. (We used to do carrots inside the house for the reindeer. What were we thinking?)

We didn't forget about the jolly guy in the red suit, either.

A final picture of our Christmas tree prior to Santa's arrival.

Miguel, our elf on the shelf, ventured off the shelf for his last night with us before returning to the North Pole.

See how high up he was? He really needed a good place to make sure that Liam and Micah were super good on that last day.

Santa was good to both Micah...

...and Liam.

Maybe because we were good to him.

Liam's new Spiderman bike!!

Micah got a collapsible bridge for his train set.

In disbelief that Santa actually brought the monorail he asked for over and over and over and over again.

One of Liam's favorite presents? Raisins. Seriously.

Playing with his beloved monorail.

Turns out that Santa dropped some presents off for us in Pittsburgh too.

These trains glow in the dark. A little creepy when you stumble over them in the middle of the night, but very fun!

Baby cousin Tyson got into the act too.

Ah, Thomas stuff. We love trains of all kinds in our house.

We had the annual Williams family reunion the day after Christmas.

The boys snuggled with their cousin, who looks a little unsure about hanging out with these guys.

Micah made indoor snow angels with Chloe because there wasn't any snow outside to do it.

Liam helped Aunt Heidi feed baby Tyson.

We celebrated when our beloved Steelers beat the Browns on New Year's Day...

...but mourned when they lost to ~~God~~ Tebow on January 8.

And now we're chilling, riding off into the Florida sun and into a bright 2012!

Finally an update!

2011-12-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

Our new computer is ready and all set up, just in time for the holidays and cute videos like this. The boys' Preschool Christmas Concert was last night, and I'll leave you with a taste of it before I'm able to post more later. Enjoy!!

Thanksgiving Feast

2011-11-21T06:40:00.000-05:00

Well, the home computer finally died. We refuse to be too upset about it since we knew it was coming and prepared - no sudden death where you lose all of your important documents because you haven't backed up in several months. Still, it's frustrating and we had no idea how much we used that computer for all kinds of things until we don't have it; it also explains the lack of blog entries, which I'm sorry about. But Black Friday and Christmas are coming. In the meantime, I'm using Tim's work computer and will just have to delete all of the pictures when I'm done.
In the meantime, we had the annual Thanksgiving feast at the preschool, one of the best events of the year. It's about eating. And fun decorations from made by the kids. I think that's a great perk to having kids - tons of table decorations! Liam made a turkey, and Micah made the teepee in the background.

Here comes Liam, ready to eat - after he finds us, that is.

And next came our Indian brave!

His Indian name? Written on his shirt. Appropriate, don't you think?

Happy Thanksgiving to me and Liam!

And then we ate.

And ate some more.

And double-fisted the remainder of the meal.

Can't forget about dessert.

Daddy says we take this picture of him wearing Micah's hats a lot. Well if you're an adult and you can fit into it, I think that warrants a picture, don't you?

One big happy Thanksgiving family! Well, except for Micah, who insisted on sticking his tongue out. I think it was Meatloaf who sang, "Three out of four ain't bad", or something like it.

Things to Do in Tampa When it's Hot (Still)

2011-11-13T01:45:00.002-05:00

The last week has been beautiful here. Not traditional fall, but beautiful. Chilly at night, warm during the day, and much lower humidity. So while much of the north is preparing for a winter storm, or still dealing with the consequences of the season's first, we thought we'd take advantage of such a great day and wash the car. Any excuse to get the hose out and spray one another makes our boys excited. Like Christmas excited.
Here's the dirty car. Hard to tell, but the car was so filthy that I actually used it to help keep track of my laps around the block when I was running on Friday. All I had to do was keep tally with marks on the dirty back windshield - an even lower-class way of writing "Wash Me", if such a class existed.

Micah taking his turn,

and then showing Liam how to do it. I was impressed that Liam had the hand strength to do it all by himself, but he did, and wanted "No help, Mommy".

I'm not sure how much of the car he actually rinsed, but he looked the part!

When washing a car, it's very important to not just rinse all areas of the car, but also the driveway underneath the car, which was very soapy.

Look Mom - bubbles!! Seriously, nothing makes this child happier than bubbles.

It might be Thanksgiving, but around here, we've got a lot of ham.

I've heard it said that you will always remember the first time a boy gives you flowers. Well, I'm not sure I remember that, but I will always remember the first time Micah, on his own, picked me a flower and brought it to me. Here it is. And when he gave it to me, he said, "I know your favorite color is purple, but this is yellow." I told him, "Mommy loves flowers of all colors."
But I love even more the heart of the little boy who handed it to me.

By the way, the lack of blog posts is not due to lack of trying to post. Our computer is dying a slow death, and has begun to refuse to perform certain activities. Like upload more than one photo at a time, if it decides to upload at all. Or allowing me to browse the internet for more than 90 seconds before freezing. Or turning on - that's the latest game. It turns on, but won't send any signals to the monitor. We're holding out for Black Friday sales, so bear with me and keep checking back - I'll update as often as the computer lets me!

A Halloween Theme?

2011-11-01T21:50:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the Halloween parade at preschool. Lots of cute kids in costume - and some teachers too! Here comes the Director, Ms. Kathy, leading the way with (appropriately) SuperGirl. And look who's coming down the hall behind them!

Immediately upon seeing me, Liam starts to cry. And it quickly turns into sobs, which brings memories of last year screaming back to me, literally.

Halloween 2010.

So I handed the camera to Tim and did what I did last year at the daycare - I marched in the Halloween parade with my crying kid..

At least someone was happy to see us!!

Here's the 2-year-old class picture with all of them in their costumes. God bless Ms. Pam (red bandana) and Ms. Stephanie (black bandana) for trying to calm Liam down.

Here's Micah's class with his bacon (Ms. June) and egg (Ms. Michele) teachers. I think it's the first time I've ever seen bacon upstage a train. But then again, bacon does make everything better.

We also went trick-or-treating to a few neighborhood houses that night, as well as driving to a few friends' houses to show off our trains.

Off they go, with Daddy in tow.

Finally, a little video to close out Halloween 2011. It's video of Liam trying to catch up to Micah and Daddy. What's not on the video is Liam assuring me that he would "be back later, otay?" Then I remembered to turn the camera on, and if you listen closely, you can hear him saying, "Wait me, brother, Daddy!" (For those that don't know, Liam refuses to call Micah by his name, only ever calling him "brother". We have no idea why, but it's pretty endearing.)

Trunk or Treat

2011-10-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

If it's Halloween, it's Trunk or Treat at First Pres!

This year, the boys wanted to be trains for Halloween. Both of them. I have spent the better part of a month trying to convince them that they want to be any of the other five costumes I already had from prior Halloweens, yard sales, herniated belly-button surgeries, etc. But there was no swaying them. So we faced up to the challenge. The end result? You be the judge. But since I don't rate myself as very creative, I look at these pictures and think that it's actually pretty amazing what you can do with a cardboard box, some paper dishes, an oat container, a can of spray paint, some ribbon, glue, and a $2.50 can of blue paint from Lowe's. Oh, and two borrowed engineer hats.

We have to work on getting Liam's to stay up better in time for the parade at school tomorrow. And don't you love how his engineer hat is a little ghetto, all off to to the side like that?

Gettin' some candy.

Some people went all out and decorated their cars in a really cool way.

At first Liam couldn't seem to manage maneuvering in his train costume and holding his pumpkin. But as soon as he realized that's where people put the candy, he figured it all out.

People were really creative in their costumes. Here's a refrigerator.

And Flo, from those great Progressive commercials.

Just like last year, there was a cake walk. Just like last year when Micah won on his first try (believe me, not everyone wins), Liam won on his first try at the cake walk too. This is the cake that I brought (the pretzels were just there to hold up the plastic wrap that covered the cake)...

...and this is the "cake" (actually five giant cupcakes minus the one Tim has already eaten) that Liam got to bring home.

Micah, sucking on a lollipop and picking pumpkins from a bucket while Harry Potter looks on.

Happy Halloween! More pics to come from the parades and parties at school tomorrow...

Scary faces - or future dental bills

2011-10-25T21:57:00.000-04:00

For the record, I think this was a peanut butter and banana snack one night. At least, that's what it looks like...

Touchdown, Steelers!

2011-10-23T17:09:00.001-04:00

Start 'em young!

Dinosaur Fun Courtesy of Half Off Depot

2011-10-23T07:27:00.001-04:00

I'm not sure who originally thought of the Groupon, but he should be rich, if he's not already, for this fantastic brainstorm. I get several of these offers a day from different groups and most of them are junk. Really, how many massages and facials could one woman get, even at half price?? But every once in a while there's a gem. We got a fantastic deal on Liam's big boy mattress. We go to the movies for $20, which includes a large popcorn and two large drinks. And then, at the beginning of this month, there was this deal for Dinosaur World.

Dinosaur World is an attraction that's about 20 minutes from our house. We pass it all the time because it's on I-4, the main drag from Tampa to Orlando. Micah went once with some friends about a year ago but the rest of us hadn't gone. Frankly, I didn't want to pay full price to go, but then Half Off Depot said we could go for $4/person - meaning Micah, Tim and I could go three for the price of one. (Liam's still free.) I thought I would buy it for a Christmas present for the boys, but then after I purchased it, I noticed that the expiration date was October 31 of this year. Not so much working for Christmas. So in our crazy busy October, we squeezed in a visit Dinosaur World on a beautiful "fall" Florida afternoon.

First up was the fossil dig. Every kid gets a sifter and a small container. Then they get fifteen minutes and sift through the sand to find three fossils. They actually find a lot more, but they get to keep three.

Micah finding some good ones.

Liam got the hang of it too after first trying to just play in the sand. They each walked away with a shark's tooth, a fossilized clam, and a fossilized piece of plant.

Then it was off to walk around and see the dinosaurs. I have to admit, it was kind of cool. Not annual-pass cool, but cool just to see the size of what the dinosaurs might have been. Some were disguised in plants,

some were already fossils in the ground,

some were in the water,

and some were terrifyingly close to us on land. Don't worry - Liam and I scared this one off with a roar, while Micah covered his ears. I don't blame him. Our roar was pretty scary.

He got into it at the next dinosaur.

The T-Rex was pretty scary up close,

especially as close as Liam got!

Wooly Mammoth Micah and some orange dinosaur Liam.

In the middle of the park was a boneyard with a big dinosaur skeleton buried in sand. If you could deal with the hundreds of mosquitos inside, you could use brushes and shovels to find the skeleton.

Our archaeologists.

Getting to "roar" inside a dino head.

Monkey see, monkey do.

We ended the afternoon with a visit to the pumpkin patch. The boys each got to pick a pumpkin. Liam picked the little one in his hands. Micah picked one similar to the one next to him, so it's a good size pumpkin.

Next up? Carving the pumpkin!

A Halloween Message from Micah and Liam

2011-10-19T17:44:00.001-04:00

P.S. Mom, that shirt Liam has on still lights up. After Micah wore it two years ago. And last year. And I've washed it lots. I'm officially starting to have nightmares about it.

Sunday afternoon in our house

2011-10-09T14:23:00.000-04:00

Both boys (not Tim) are wearing their Steelers shirts even though they're sleeping right through the Steelers cleaning some Titan clocks.

And by the way, the picture of Liam is entitled, "Battle Not Chosen". That kid is desperately in love with his flip-flops. It's a little like Carrie Bradshaw and her Manolo Blahniks , for those SATC fans. I let him wear them to our recent church directory pictures because when are feet ever photographed in those pictures unless you're younger than a year old? Well, the photographer did fun things and one of the cute pictures of the boys showed Liam's flip-flops in all their glory. He loves them so much, he routinely sleeps in them. And really, if life is about choosing which battles to fight and which to not bother with, I think we've made a good choice to not pick this one.

I didn't really like that sweater anyway

2011-10-05T22:36:00.000-04:00

I've discovered that motherhood is a matter of perspective. I'm a successful mother depending on how I look at things. For instance, if I choose to see the grass stains on the good pants instead of appreciating the fun my son had with a good buddy that he doesn't see often, I'm successful. If I yell at my son for ruining his pants and curse the laundry detergent for not doing all the commercial promises it can, I'm not successful. You get the picture.

Tim is in California visiting his parents. We're sad the whole family couldn't go as we would like to have seen Grandma and Grandpa too, but a visit for all just wasn't in the cards right now. We're glad Tim could go. And we're attempting to manage the chaos that has occurred since he left.

On Sunday, prior to Tim's leaving, I dressed the boys up in new clothes from Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop. The calm before the storm. Thank you to them and to CUMC for having a consignment sale! By the way, they look a little cold because the temps dipped down into the upper 60s overnight from Saturday to Sunday. Break out the parkas, fellow Floridians!!

But seriously, doesn't the word "dapper" just spring to mind when you see this picture?

Tim left Monday afternoon and all was well until Tuesday morning. We made it a whole 18 hours before chaos erupted. I emailed a friend about my day so I thought I would copy it here for all to see:

7:45 - Dropped Liam off at daycare and took Micah to work with me
9:00 - Dropped Micah off at preschool
9:05 - Got message on my phone from daycare that they thought Liam had ringworm and I had to come get him
9:15 - Stop by the house to get things to entertain Liam at my work before the pediatrician appt
10:20 - Pediatrician appt; confirmed ringworm diagnosis at 11
11:20 - Dropped Liam back at daycare since he could go if area is covered and had note from doctor
12:05 - Five minutes late picking Micah up at preschool, but I had called to let them know I would be late and they were nice enough to be having a dance party with him when I got there.
12:15 - Dropped Micah off at daycare
12:20 - Stop at home to pack lunch for myself and grab pants for Liam since he won't keep the bandaid on the ringworm
12:30 - Dropped pants off at daycare
12:45 - Finally back at work for an extended period of time
5:15 - Picked boys up from daycare (where they have signs on the doors saying kids have been diagnosed with ringworm and watch your children for this contagious disease, which made me feel great!) and go to CVS to pick up medical cream for Liam. While at CVS, Liam is very lethargic and lays his head on my shoulder while I carried him through the store
6:15 - Liam throws up at home, all over himself, me, and the boys' bathroom; apparently it's unrelated to ringworm (according to a quick search at WebMD), and he has a fever of about 100
7:00 - Liam wakes up from sleeping on me for half an hour because I finally decide Micah needs to eat dinner at some point prior to bed and he's too little to get it for himself
7:15 - Micah gets dinner; Liam eats a little but complains of a stomachache, understandably. After the boys are done eating, I let Liam play the iPad and then I finally get to help Micah build the track for the really long train he put together

8:00 - Bedtime for the boys
8:30 - Liam is asleep
9:45 - Micah is asleep
10:00 - Talked to a friend on the phone
10:45 - Talked to Tim in CA
11:15 - Collapsed into bed. Not gonna lie - I didn't even brush my teeth. Just took my contacts out and went to bed.

And that was my day.

So I could look back at that day and weep for the insanity of it all and mourn the state of my house. It would be easy to feel sorry for myself and maybe even somewhat justified. But instead, I thought the following:

Being a single parent is rare for me, and it's always for a relatively brief time. God bless those who do it all the time, be it because of the military or sales jobs or whatever else frequently takes one parent away from a family.
I have a great daycare and preschool who have offered all the support I could ever have asked for and then some. Even thought I was only five minutes late picking up Micah from preschool and I had called to let them know, it was wonderful to know that he was safe while I was shown mercy. God bless those who do not have such an incredible support system.
I have a job that gives me great flexibility when I need it, and I work close to where my children go to school and daycare. God bless those whose jobs are more rigid and unforgiving, and those who work too far away to come and care for their sick children in the middle of the day if needed.
I have a friend who texted and said, "I'm bringing your kids happy meals tonight and you're not allowed to say no!" I didn't, and she even allowed me to change the day she brings the happy meals. God bless friends who watch out for me more than I watch out for myself.

I have been showered with undeserved blessings at every turn, and I am grateful. So I could be really bitter about going through this stuff, or I could laugh through the craziness, look at the sweater that Liam threw up all over, and think, "I didn't really like that sweater anyway."

Update: both boys are doing great today. And they're managing to be a little bit precious too.

Micah goes bowling

2011-09-28T21:57:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, Micah went to a friend's birthday party. A bowling party. A cosmic bowling party. I ~~think~~ know I was way more excited than Micah as I always enjoy a good game of cosmic bowling.

But this was his first time ever bowling and it was loud and had crazy blacklights, and he just didn't know what to make of the whole thing. I forced him to do it twice, just to try it and he hated it. So I told him he did a good job trying and he didn't have to do it anymore, and then we went to the food table to get him some pizza. Voila! A brand new boy emerged after two slices of pizza and now he was dying to bowl.

He started cheering. For himself and for others.

He started clapping. For himself and for others.

He started jumping up and down. (That was just out of sheer excitement for the sport.)

Here he is in action - bumpers down, pink ball rolling.

If you look closely, you can see the ball rolling right along the bumper, so you know the pin count was minimal. But check out the joy on his face and in his body language.

In case you missed it, this is what joy looks like.

Yep, he's a bowler. We're going to have to get him one of those arm braces and everything. Here he is cheering for a friend who had just bowled. (Later he started hugging everyone after their turn. I don't know what got into him.)

A bonus party favor was a gift card to spend in the arcade. Micah sampled several rides, including a motorcycle race,

and a roller coaster simulator.

But in the end, he came back to bowling. He didn't do very well with the duck pin bowling since the ball could actually go in the gutter, but he still loved it.

Loved it.

Liam channels Elton John, circa 1970's

2011-09-26T20:02:00.000-04:00

Friday Night Lights

2011-09-24T21:55:00.000-04:00

This is the time of year that the Florida weather me depresses me most. I can handle January through August fairly well. But once September hits, it's supposed to start getting cool and the air should be crisp and the leaves should start turning colors and there should be high school football games where we wrap our hands around bad hot chocolate to keep our fingers warm and I should be changing out the summer clothes for the winter clothes.

Instead, in Florida, we keep wearing our same flip-flops and shorts, t-shirts and tank tops. We sweat through the day, and keep the air conditioning on through the nights. We take our pumpkin spice coffee iced and we spend high school football games swatting away mosquitoes. We look forward to the humidity decreasing down to 95% and hope the temperatures somehow manage to dip into the upper-80s instead of the mid-90s. It doesn't happen, but we dare to dream.

I miss fall. I miss the smells and the feels and the colors and if I think about it too long, I just get depressed. So instead of wallowing, we took off for the beach Friday night to celebrate what we have rather than mourning what we do not.

We traded the Friday night lights of a high school football stadium for the bright light of the setting sun at Fort DeSoto Beach.

Instead of watching the birds start their migration south for the winter, we hung out with this guy, who graces us with his presence all year long.

We watched our boys run barefoot on the sand and chase our bird friends into the air,

and we watched them fly gracefully away.

We dipped our toes in the still-warm waters of the gulf and dug in the cool sand with trucks and shovels.

We listened as our boys ran towards the steps of an old fort, laughing and shrieking as they tried to catch each other on the empty stretch of sand, and appreciated the quiet of September in Florida when we who live here reclaim our land just briefly from the tourists who flood it in the summer and the winter visitors who start arriving next month.

We worked really hard to get to the top of the fort so we could have the best view...

...of this,

and this,

and this.

So instead of being depressed that fall doesn't feel like fall here, I was happy just to be somewhere with these guys.

And I was grateful for different kinds of colors - those that paint the sky instead of those that paint the leaves.

And I realized that it's not the same in Florida, but fall is still beautiful here in its own way.

Potty-training, take 2

2011-09-12T22:45:00.000-04:00

I hate how I have been such a blog slacker lately.

I don't want to make excuses because I don't like reading other people's blogs and just seeing excuse after excuse. The bottom line is that life has caught up to me in the last few weeks. Hopefully I'm going to be better at carving out computer time because I get so mad thinking about all of the sweet moments with our boys that I have not recorded and it makes me sad.

I have been working on my "what you need to know about Micah at age 4" entry, and that will come soon. Four is a big age, and there is lots to say about that kid. Because he totally rocks.

But tonight is a brief entry and it's about Liam, that little charmer. Lately, he has taken up a new fascination with underwear and has expressed a real interest in using the potty, unlike his brother who was three and a half before he just decided one day that he would give in to our pleas and use the potty.

New underwear for Liam? Check. (Thomas the Tank Engine, at Liam's request.)
Spare outfits for preschool, including socks and shoes? Check.
Additional spare outfits for daycare? Check.
A promise from Liam that he would tell someone when he had to use the bathroom? Check.

Huge load of laundry at the end of the day because he went through five pairs of shorts, two pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, one shirt, and one bathmat? Check.

What do you wear when you have very few pairs of shorts left at home? This lovely outfit.

He was still his usual cheerful self, despite the multiple changes of clothes. Today we are thankful for patient preschool teachers and daycare workers who love our kids through all of their trials, for a working washer and dryer, and for a little boy with a desire to try something big and new. Tomorrow is another day...

First day of school!

2011-08-31T21:59:00.000-04:00

As you know from my previous post, Micah started school on his birthday a week ago. Here are some picture of his classroom and his first half hour, which was "meet the teachers" for parents.

This is Miss June (mother of a friend of his and one of his teachers this year) trying to coax the shyness out of him.

He wasn't parting with it easily, but he opened up fairly soon. I think he's just a kid who has to take it all in, stand back and figure everything out before he joins in.

Check out the birthday cake for Micah on the date!

Hanging out with me in the reading area before class began.

He got to have a birthday party on the first day! He chose the fire truck theme himself, and asked to bring in his firetruck from home. His other birthday hat was a fire helmet, and the favors for all the kids were fire truck whistles and fire truck tattoos. To all the parents in Micah's class, you're welcome!

Everybody enjoys cupcakes and juice.

Loving what the hat does to his ears. Happy birthday, Micah - again!!

Liam started school on Monday of this week. Here are our boys, on the first day of heading off to school together. How cute are they?

Unfortunately, Liam took a little spill getting out of a pool this weekend and scraped his nose, which you can see in this picture. The irony of this hasn't escaped me. Liam started 2-year-old preschool with this scrape...

...while Micah started 2-year-old preschool just days after he ran headfirst into the corner of a wall in our house. Ms. Pam taught Micah and now she's teaching Liam, and I think she's going to start to wonder about our back-to-school rituals!!

Doing a puzzle. I think it was a little confusing for Liam because his classroom is also currently housing the church nursery, so when he walked in on Monday, I think he thought he would see Ms. Brandi and Ms. Kelsey from church. He looked confused when the room didn't look like it does on Sunday. Thankfully the new building opens up soon, and the church nursery will permanently relocate to another space.

The apple with Liam's name on it is on the right,second from the bear. You're official if you make the board!

Even though it's only preschool, I can't believe he's old enough to go! He's so ready to take on the world, armed with his Buzz Lightyear backpack and that fun little smile.

Micah Turns 4

2011-08-29T21:26:00.000-04:00

I'm a little behind in posting about it, but Micah had a fantastic time turning 4. I think this is the first birthday that he really understands that we're celebrating him and that he gets gifts and he gets cake. At least, that's what it seemed like. He had very specific requests this year.

He wanted a clock, and he's learning how to tell time. (Thanks, Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop!)

Here he is, the morning of his birthday, eagerly waiting on the couch with his eyes closed to see what one of his presents would be.

Liam also sat down to wait. I think he was hoping there was something in it for him too.

A new scooter! It was actually found abandoned at my work, but it was in good shape - other than being pink. Micah asked for a blue scooter with Toy Story on it. How do you think we did? With a little spray paint, a Toy Story gift bag, and clear contact paper, dreams can come true!!

He took it for a spin down through the dining room...

...and got the hang of it very quickly.

His birthday was also the first day of school (more pictures from that later). But he did oblige Tim and hold up four fingers as he was all dressed and ready to go with his Mater backpack.

When we asked him a few days before his birthday what it was that he wanted to do on the actual day, he said, "Go to Mickey's house and eat at McDonald's." So that's what we did. We left right after I finished work at four and headed over, grabbing McDonald's on the way. He loves to wear his hat, and he was excited that we had to park far enough away from the transportation and ticket center that we got to ride the tram. Normally we use our special pass and park really close, so this was a fun treat.

Outside of "It's a Small World", one of his favorite rides. How cute is this four-year-old???

And he has the button to prove it's his birthday.

Next posts include more about Micah's first day of school, Liam's first day of school (can't believe he's starting preschool too!), and all the things you need to know about a four-year-old Micah. Stay tuned!

Visit from Aunt Heidi

2011-08-21T22:21:00.000-04:00

Aunt Heidi visited from Boston to get a dose of the nephews. Since Micah turns four on Wednesday, we had a little party for him while she was here, complete with yummy cupcakes ans presents. Micah likes to cook and bake, so he and Aunt Heidi made the cupcakes.

Liam clearly enjoyed them.

With his new birthday clothes form Aunt Heidi. He's now ready to start preschool again!

Grandma Black sent some birthday money for Micah as well. While we are spending the majority of the gift on clothes for him (he is definitely more of a 4T and his pants are definitely more of a 3T), we couldn't resist letting him pick out a toy. Lots of thanks, Grandma!! Of course, when you give him free reign of the Target toy section, he goes right for the trucks. He loves his new tow truck, and nothing is fair game for towing - not even my pinky toe. A toe still recovering from an attempted tow.

On Saturday, we hit up a local park with a running trail. Heidi and I took turns getting a chance to run and watching the kids. Pictures of them enjoying the swings.

I took them down part of the trail and they loved that at one point they were under a bridge and could hear every car that went by. There's a fun embankment leading to the road. Don't worry - neither of them got much further in climbing once they realized it was much harder to get down on their own.

Their shades make them the three coolest people in Valrico!

Micah had had fun with Aunt Heidi at the park a couple of days ago, but we went again after church this morning. This picture was taken when Micah was with Aunt Heidi on Friday,

and the picture of this crazy kid was taken this morning.

Thanks to Aunt Heidi for a super-fun trip and a great time hanging out with the boys!!

VBS Recap

2011-08-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

First Pres's VBS theme this year was "SonSurf - Meet up with Jesus!" Over 100 kids, the majority of whom came from the surrounding community, and more than 50 volunteers worked together to make it a great week for everyone.
Because I'm part of the working world now, I couldn't actually attend VBS so I don't have pictures during the week like I did last year. But we did attend the closing night program, which featured the kids singing (or not singing, as in Micah's case) a few songs from the week.
Check out the sanctuary decorations!

He may not have sung, but at least he looked cute! And if you look closely, you can see that, next to where his name was written on his hat for him, he actually did it himself too, and then colored over it. He's getting really good at writing his name.

Looking cute again. Still no singing.

Just standing as part of the group. Still not singing.

Liam, on the other hand, was clapping along in the audience. When we play the CD in the car, Micah does choose to sing, but Liam actually sings louder and yells out, "J-E-S-U-S" when it comes time in the song to spell Jesus' name. He's ready to participate next year!

Here's a video of all the kids singing the week's theme song, video proof that Micah wasn't singing. But sometime I'll take video in the car when they're really singing along!

All kidding about singing aside, Micah really did have a great time at Vacation Bible School, and is talking about Jesus a lot more, even starting to get a grasp in his own way of who Jesus is and what Jesus did for him. It's really amazing to watch faith develop, and we're so blessed to be part of a church that does so much to nurture the faith of its youngest members. Thanks, First Pres!

No escape

2011-08-01T23:05:00.000-04:00

With me as his mother and especially with Tim as his father, there was no escaping the coffee habit. We just didn't think he would start so young...

And yes, that is a slice of fake bologna that Liam's holding in his non-coffee hand. This kitchen set I got at a yard sale a few months ago for the crazy cheap price of $10 came with everything!

A glimpse of the future???

2011-07-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

This is Micah and his friend, Ryann. They've been in preschool together the last two years. Tim took this picture this morning during the first day of VBS. The important thing to note is that no one else in his class is holding hands with anyone but the teacher. Apparently, Ryann and Micah wanted to reconnect after some time apart. Judging from the picture, he obviously had something very important to tell her. :)

Happy Birthday, Mum-Mum!

2011-07-18T19:38:00.000-04:00

Sorry we can't be there on your birthday and sorry this is grainy, but here's a little birthday wish from us.

This. Park. Rocks.

2011-07-16T17:09:00.000-04:00

Confession time. My friend Harmony told me about this park a year or so ago. She described this as something akin to a children's nirvana in the middle of Lakeland. If you know Lakeland, FL, you know that's saying a lot - Lakeland isn't exactly a destination hotspot for, well, anyone. So I filed it away and didn't give it a second thought until this morning when we were trying to think of something to do before it got so beastly hot. I remembered this park and we hit the road.
Turms out, Harmony was sooooo right. This park is the best park in the world. I took tons of pictures, so be warned - and this is only a small portion of them.
The park is called Common Ground

because it's a handicapped accessible parks with lots of little trails and different play areas so that kids of all kinds of abilities and ages will be able to have fun. They even put this chart up at the entrance so you'll know if your child can do something or not.

A general theme of the park is butterflies, and there are lots of statues of them all around the park.

I even found a real one lounging on a rock. Considering this picture was taken from about 20 feet away, I thought it a pretty good shot.

Just check out all the stuff you can do.

Needless to say, the boys jumped right in, climbing rope ladders

and venturing through tunnels with Daddy close behind.

"Anything you can do, I can do ~~better~~ just as good but it takes me a little longer."

When did Micah become old enough to be able to climb this?

Because I swear it was just yesterday that this was the extent of his adventures at the park.

The boys found this super cool circle swing that they could ride together.

Gettin' ready to slide.

Daddy checked out part of the playground too and waved to his boys.

Micah could see me through that tube and asked me to take a picture of him looking at me. He thought it was pretty funny.

Daddy and Liam tackle the slide together.

Snack break. Water, blueberries, and goldfish. You can tell how hot it was from Liam's face. Poor little guy. I guess he inherited the Williams family red-face-when-exert-yourself gene. Don't worry, son. It's only mildly embarrassing.

Do you think he's having fun???

And do you think he's having fun???

What about this guy in the spinny thing?

Then Micah took his turn.

This is what happens when you get out of the spinny thing. Walking becomes quite a challenge!

Super cool seesaw/balance beam thing.

Check out Liam's face. I think he's saying, "Yeah, I can take this slide." And he did.

Both boys actually took the whole park. They were so bummed to leave, but it was getting really hot by 10:30. We promised to return soon. Oh and Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop? This park is probably about ten minutes from where you're staying when you visit, so get ready for some fun!!

What I think isn't what my kids think

2011-07-12T20:42:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think what is best for my kids isn't what they think is best.

For instance, I thought Micah should be napping. He thought he should come out of his room, after an hour of no sleep, wearing his blue hat and playing with his yellow monster pickup truck.

I thought we should wear pants while we played. Liam thought just a diaper would suffice.

I thought we should play anything but cars and trucks...again.
Micah thought we should get out every single Matchbox vehicle he owns and park them all on the carpet.

I thought Liam should look totally adorable. Okay, we both thought that.

Look Who's a Big Boy, Take Two

2011-07-09T11:39:00.001-04:00

When we went to the library this morning to retrieve my card that I left there the other day, Micah asked about swiping his own books through the computer checkout system. So I asked him if he wanted his own card, and he said yes. After learning that it's up to the parents what age the child gets a library card, we signed him up. This has been a week of milestones. I love the library, and hope both he and Liam learn to love it too. There's nothing like getting a new book out and not being able to wait until you get home to start reading it. That's what traffic lights are for, right?
Here's Micah with the first library check-outs of his life. Pretty appropriate, don't you think? A book about trains and boats and things that go, and a video about garbage trucks. If you look in his right hand, you can see his new library card. Way to go, Micah!

By the way, Tim doesn't yet have a library card, so Micah beat him to it. Challenge extended...

Look Who's a Big Boy

2011-07-07T16:46:00.000-04:00

Someone's been keeping a secret. It seems that Liam can drink out of a big boy cup. I found out this morning when I dropped him off at daycare and he started consuming his second full breakfast for the day. (Visions of huge grocery bills danced in my head...) Miss Ashley handed Liam a cup with milk in it and no lid and he gulped it right down. It's not a secret any more! No more sippy cups for us! Well, except in the car. I think we'll keep that rule for a little while longer.

Sometimes I miss this

2011-07-06T20:16:00.002-04:00

Happy Fourth of July!

2011-07-04T16:18:00.000-04:00

Although it's pretty hot in Florida in July, we braved the weather and headed to Disney as our family-only time this holiday weekend. The boys were really excited since we hadn't been in a month. I know, I know - we're totally spoiled. They await their beloved monorail at Epcot.

We put this one in for Pop-Pop Williams - that's the Marriott Surf watch visor that Micah is sporting on the train around the Magic Kingdom.

We found the jumping fountains at Epcot. Water just jumps from spot to spot in this one garden and one little boy in particular thought it was hysterical!

Here they are watching it; you can see the water on the left side of the picture. Pretty cool, huh?

Seems like a perfect time to dance and spin and twirl and scream!

In honor of "Cars 2", which Micah has already seen twice (but it was his first movie in the theater so it's not as bad as it sounds!), Epcot did a topiary with the two main characters - Lightning McQueen and Mater. This was the best picture we could get with the boys in front of it.

When we ask Liam to say "cheese", he always obliges. If you ask him a few times because you haven't quite gotten the picture you want, he seems to think that means he's not close enough to the camera so he does what you see in the picture below. I've deleted most of these for obvious reasons, but check out the color of his eyes in this picture, which doesn't even do them justice. This kid has beautiful light green eyes. He's going to be a real ladies' man one day with those!

I asked Tim to take a picture of this because I just thought the contrast of the fire and the sky and the horizon and the moon and the water was really beautiful. Even Disney can be pretty!

And this is what we're taking to a cookout today. A slight twist on the usual dessert fruit pizza because this one has a brownie crust. And it's gluten free!

Go ahead - dig in!!

Weekend

2011-07-03T13:48:00.000-04:00

We're taking it easy this holiday weekend, just lounging around

and enjoying the little gifts.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-29T23:24:00.002-04:00

Electronic Saturday

2011-06-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

This was the scene at our house this past Saturday morning. Boys and their electronic toys.

Twinkle Toes

2011-06-27T19:58:00.000-04:00

When I came home from church yesterday, this is what I saw when I looked under Liam's door.

The good news is that, as I type this, he is in his bed, no tears, and the door is unlocked. Progress is being made!!

Last pictures from vacation

2011-06-23T20:05:00.000-04:00

My last set of pictures from vacation center around the pool. The boys started out skeptical, then fell in love with the baby pool and then, finally on the last day, decided the big pool was really cool and worth their time. All of the adults in the group wished they had discovered this earlier in the week as it was pretty hot and there are only so many grown-ups who can fit in the baby pool while supervising said boys. Or who even want to get in the baby pool, for that matter.

Liam earned his keep by carrying his own towel.

They each had fun with the family. Here's Aunt Heidi showing Liam the water,

while Micah got a ride on Uncle Ryan's back.

Micah explained some big math theory involving the number two to Mum-Mum, who was undoubtedly mesmerized and thanking God that her genes, which skipped right over me, had landed squarely on her grandson,

while Liam checked out Pop-Pop's sunglasses.

Liam stood for a while contemplating jumping in and letting Pop-Pop catch him. Would he do it?

Yes, he would! And thunderous applause rose up from all areas of the pool. Well, just our family, but we were pretty excited.

He kept right on swimming after the big jump.

Micah got braver and braver with each jump. The look on his face in this picture is great. I'm not sure who's more apprehensive about his landing - him (judging by what you can see on his face) or Mum-Mum (whose face we can't see).

Aunt Heidi posed with Tyson on the last night of our trip. He was starting to get hungry at that point in the evening, but was a good sport for the picture.

Later, back at the timeshare, Aunt Heidi posed with Liam and Micah, who mostly obliged.

Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop took pictures that night with the boys, but the best one with them was outside of Stacks Pancake House. (Shout-out here to Stacks for the yummy GF pancakes!!) Everyone actually smiled and looked at the camera. At the same time. It's a vacation miracle.

We were sad to see it end, and are already looking forward to next year!

Random pictures

2011-06-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

Here are just a few random pictures from sometime in the last week. Liam's birthday gift from Aunt Deci, Uncle Ryan, and Tyson was this super-cool Buzz Lightyear backpack with a holographic Buzz on it. He adores it and is soooo ready to take it to school in the fall. Thank you very much, Deci, Ryan, and Tyson!!

Something funny is on the iPad.

Big brother teaches little brother how to do something. When Micah's done teaching Liam, he could probably teach me a thing a two. They learn so fast. Then again, Liam could probably teach me too...

Big Boy Bed

2011-06-21T21:55:00.001-04:00

For those of you not on Facebook and therefore not reading my status updates, Liam suddenly climbed out of his crib last Friday. We lowered it to the last level and he climbed out again. We put in on the floor inside the crib and he still managed to get out, and Tim found him on the floor next to the crib on Saturday morning. Needless to say, it was "Big Boy Bed" time. A trip to Ikea, a visit to Bed Pros (thank you, well-timed Groupon!), and an online order from Target, and Liam is all set up in his new big boy bed.
This is what happens when you don't nap because you don't really have a bed. Yes, that's my arm.

This is how happy he was to get his new bed!

Seriously, is it just me or does it seem like he's so much older than two in this picture??

Brothers having fun together on the new bed. By the way, the bed set that I ordered from Target was a sports theme, so neither of our boys will end up with animals. It's sad that the nursery isn't the nursery anymore, but I'm glad they're happy.

Of course, no matter how much fun the bed is, Liam still doesn't want to sleep in it. We were forced to turn the handle around on his door so that it locks from the outside, therefore keeping him in at night. After the first night, which was more than an hour of constantly putting him back in his bed, it took Tim and I taking turns holding the doorknob before he fell asleep. Then he was up again and we had to hold the doorknob for another half an hour. Locking the door and being able to walk away makes him realize much faster that this is not a battle that he's going to win, and he's only cried for 20-30 minutes the last two nights. Still a lot, but a big improvement. Hopefully this isn't setting us up for a bigger battle in the long run.
Sleep tight, Liam!!

An Apology to Ducks

2011-06-16T20:50:00.000-04:00

An Open Letter of Apology to all Ducks on the Surfwatch Property in Hilton Head

Dear Ducks:

When we saw this sign

we thought it was cute. True, maybe, but cute. Now we are petitioning the board of Surfwatch to post a cautionary sign warning you, the ducks, about our boys. It would read something like this: CAUTION - Waddle fast when you see Micah and Liam!
You see, our boys loved you. They loved to feed you. They ran after you just to give you bread, which is something you really shouldn't have anyway, seeing as how they actually sell duck food at the timeshare. But they ran after you to give you bread, bread that probably made your tummies bloated and spoiled you from the food you were meant to have.

You were good sports about them being nearby. Sometimes they threw the forbidden bread towards you.

Sometimes you even dared to get close, surely lured by the yeasty scent of pieces of fresh hot dog buns.

That is, before you saw Liam eat your grainy goodness, and you waddled away in utter disgust.

Our boys watched you, sad to see you go, not understanding that you needed to leave to save yourselves from the effects of the bread, and from the little hands of two boys who would have loved nothing more than to give you big hugs.

But we want you to know that we understand. And if we're lucky enough to come back, we promise not to give you forbidden food that makes you sick. Rather, we vow this day to give you the food you need, the food you deserve, and to keep those curious boys far from the shores of your safe pondly habitat.

Sincerely,

Tim and Kelly

Beach fun

2011-06-15T20:54:00.000-04:00

Because we live less than an hour from the Gulf of Mexico, our boys have seen the beach much more than the average kids. But they still love playing in the sand, and are growing more adventurous when it comes to the ocean. Liam especially. He liked to put his feet in.

Sometimes Daddy lent a hand.

Yes, you can still play trucks in the sand!! The dump truck was a hit all week.

For those were are wondering, dump trucks can also be worn as hats.

How cute is this boy?

And how different from this little guy from just a year ago.

Speaking of little guys, we finally got to meet Tyson (officially known as "Baby Tyson" in our house), who is Ryan and Deci's new son. He was fun to hang around and tolerated his cousins well, and their desire to give him knuckles. Check out the smile!

The new family.

Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop bought boogie boards for the kids (and adults) this year, but the boys weren't interested yet. Tim tried it out...

...and so did Deci. I think Deci managed with much more flair!

Liam made sure to get in some quality time and hung out with Aunt Heidi,

and also with Pop-Pop.

Can we just go back to the beach right now?

Liam's Birthday Celebration on Vacation

2011-06-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

Liam turned two a few weeks ago, but we celebrated with my family on vacation. He had an ice cream cake from Publix. (Forgive the bad picture.)

We added the "2" candle to it, but sadly had no way to light it. Why oh why does none of us have a secret smoking habit? So we sang, and pretended to blow out his candle, which probably made Liam think twice about the oddity of his family.
But he recovered and really enjoyed the cake, in particular the Nilla wafer decorating the top.

Beach toys! Those came in pretty handy.

Fun shorts!

I was inexplicably really excited about this shirt that Aunt Heidi gave Liam. Hey, it was a cool shirt that was one of those with the sunscreen built in and that you can wear in the water, but I'm not sure that Liam was anywhere near as excited as I appear to be.

A favorite gift? Little Steeler footballs that were meant to go in the water. (The soccer ball from the next picture was one we brought from home.) I sort of felt that the balls were too good for the water, though, so we throw them around the house instead.

Treasuring them once he could actually hold them.

To ensure a little less jealousy at all of the attention Liam was getting, Micah got a cool Hot Wheels coloring book. We didn't have crayons, but he treated it like a regular book and looked at all the pictures. We're looking forward to coloring in it now that we're home.

Happy Birthday, Liam - again!!

Back from Vacation

2011-06-13T22:14:00.000-04:00

The Black family vacationed last week in Hilton Head, SC, joining the branches of the Williams family for a week of fun in the sun. Although we couldn't check in to our timeshare until Sunday, we decided to take off on Saturday, visit some dear friends, and experience their church with them before heading to Hilton Head. But we began the day at Magic Kingdom because our friends, who live in Jacksonville, wouldn't be home until dinner time and we were just ready to get out of town. While we were there, we made time for things we haven't done before, like meet Buzz Lightyear.
If you remember this post, you'll remember what Buzz Lightyear means to Liam. We waited in line, and Liam was so excited by the time we got to the front, he could barely stand it.

Micah got spooked at the last second, but Liam rushed forward to great him - no fear, just a little hand waving hi.

Our boy and Buzz, together at last!

The only appropriate way to thank Buzz for the meet and greet is knuckles, so that's what Liam did.

When it got too hot and sweaty, we rode the covered merry-go-round.

Micah checked out the beanstalk from "Mickey and the Beanstalk",

and tried on silly hats!

Then it was on to Jacksonville...

Liam loves Curious George

2011-06-01T20:06:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's a library book under Liam as he sleeps. Lately, his fascination of all things Curious George has meant he doesn't sleep without the "Lello Book". Whatever it takes...

Micah's "Birthday"

2011-05-31T21:29:00.000-04:00

Because Micah has a summer birthday, he gets to celebrate his birthday at the end of the school year so that he doesn't feel left out on having a special day. This is Micah and his classmate Maddie, who were born on the exact same day in the exact same hospital. His mom and I were right down the hall from each other and had no idea!

Their "birthday" was also beach day for the class.

The birthday kids enjoying their cupcake and ice cream cup.

Micah showing the class his beach supplies. Except he got to do it with his birthday hat on!

Believe it or not, he had two parties like this last week. One was for his M-W-F class and one was for his T-Th class. Mommy handled the party for the T-Th class, and Daddy took the M-W-F class. Maddie's mom took a great picture of my guys at the party!

By the way, Micah mentioned to me at the end of the day that it was his special day and he had to share it. I think he was looking for sympathy. You're barking up the wrong tree there, son! :)

Watermelon on Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-25T17:16:00.000-04:00

What you need to know about Liam at age 2

2011-05-24T22:45:00.002-04:00

There are so many things that you need to know about two-year-old Liam.

He knows how to get his way. He can already duck his head and make eyes at you to get what he wants. Later in life we call this "manipulation", but when you're two, it's called "charming".

The bouncy house has ruined Liam's ability to run. Now he runs everywhere like he's in a bouncy house. He's got a lot of athletic tendencies, so we're hoping the basic skill of running returns.

Liam is a snuggler. Micah was independent from day one, so having a child who actually loves to put his head on our shoulders and snuggle up is a wonderful feeling.

Bubbles bring him more joy than you could even imagine. He loves to yell the word "bubbles" and chase after them.

Liam is a boy who knows what he wants. Seriously. He will definitively say, "yes" when you get it right or "go away" when you get it wrong.

The kid has rhythm. And he loves to clap, sing, dance, spin, or just plain move.

He wants to do everything his brother does. I had always heard that younger siblings idolized their older same-sex siblings, but this is the first time I've seen it in action, and I know understand the phrase, "monkey see, monkey do."

Liam loves Micah.

They love to laugh together, play together, annoy one another, and feed off one another. But they just like each other, which is great fun to watch.

Finally, Liam has a zest for life that is already unmistakable, even at the ripe old age of two. And if we can see it now, how much more will we be able to see it in the years ahead?

We love you, Liam. For all that you are, all that you are becoming, and all that you were created to be. It is a privilege to be your parents. Here's to another beautiful year of your life.

Liam turns 2

2011-05-21T21:38:00.000-04:00

Two years ago, this was Liam.

Time flies and look at him now!!

Today was not only Liam's birthday, but it was also our church's 50th birthday, so we had a big celebration to go to this evening. So instead of waiting to have a special dinner, Liam had a special breakfast. We're also going to celebrate his birthday with a cake when we're on vacation with my family so today we did cookies. Here is part of Liam's breakfast - a happy birthday cookie!

He was clearly way more excited about the cookie than he was about the french toast.

Micah picked the "L" cookie to eat.

Liam, taking a stance now that he's two, refused to wear a bib. Curious George took the brunt of the icing.

One of his presents was a monster pickup to rival the hip-hop car Micah had received from Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop two years ago in honor of his brother's birth. It seemed like a full-circle moment.

Most little kids love bubbles, and Liam is no exception. Also like most kids, he can't quite figure out just how much air to blow in order to get make bubbles from the soap and wand. So we got him a bubble gun - you dip the end in soap, push a button that activates a fan and voila - bubbles!

His final gift was a freebie from Huggies - a caterpillar tunnel to crawl through, or send trucks through, or race his brother through. It was free because I always save up the points you get from buying diapers and I finally saved up enough to purchase something cool!

Then we hit the playground. Liam and Micah love the playground. Liam's hair gave it two (hundred) strands up.

The ticklebugs found Micah in the park!

Slip-slidin' away.

Daddy finally got the bubble gun to work at the second park we went to, and it was a hit - not just with Liam, but with about twenty other kids who eventually gathered around.

Liam got it to work too, and out came some pretty big bubbles.

Sometime in the next day or two, I will post all the fun things you need to know about a two year old Liam. For now, happy birthday, sweet boy!

Mother's Day - a week late

2011-05-15T18:23:00.000-04:00

We have a new router - but it turns out the problem was just a plug. A very expensive plug. But we're back up and running now.
Mother's Day was a nice celebration for me and our family. It started the Friday before with a Mother's Day Tea at Micah's preschool. Lovely decorations,

yummy food,

and real china with iced tea accompanied a beautiful new multi-color tealight holder that Micah made for me.

He also helped to make a placemat for me that has his handprint on top of mine. Other than the fact that I inexplicably don't have a thumb, it is beautiful and I will treasure it.

Micah next to his friend Lincoln singing a Mother's Day song.

Here's video of the song. The lyrics, since you won't be able to understand it through the kids yelling them, are,
"We love mothers, we love mothers,
Yes we do, Yes we do,
Mothers are for hugging,
Mothers are for kissing,
We love you. We love you."
(sung to "Where is Thumbkin")

Me and my guy.

My beautiful flower.

Oh, and on the back of the placemat was a paper called, "All About My Mom." I alluded to it in my last post. The teacher asked Micah about me and this is what Micah had to say. His answers are in bold.

My mom is 24 years old.

Her favorite color is purple.

Her favorite food is raspberries.

How do I show my mom I love her? I hug her!

My favorite thing to do with my mom is: go to Mickey's house (Disney World)

If she had extra time, she likes to: go to the pool with me.

When my mom grow up, she wants to be a fire truck.

My mom laughs when: I make something for her.

What my mom loves most is: garbage trucks.

Bet you didn't know those things about me, did you? :)

Fried router = no blog posts

2011-05-11T06:44:00.000-04:00

I have been itching to write about Mother's Day, but an intentional Mother's Day non-gift was a fried router due to our power going off and on several times the previous night. Hopefully our new one will arrive soon and I can get back to blogging. I'll leave you with a tidbit. Did you know that Micah thinks I'm 24? That's what he told his teacher. Considering that another child thought her mother was 5 and still another thought hers was 5, I'd say that's pretty good!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-04T21:34:00.001-04:00

Corn Connoisseurs

2011-05-02T19:41:00.000-04:00

Yes, I spelled that right.
Our boys love them some corn on the cob. While Daddy was away, I didn't snap too many pictures, but I did manage to catch them chowing down an entire ear of corn (Liam) and an ear and a half (Micah).

We're grateful for yummy early-season corn!

Redecorating Redux

2011-04-26T20:11:00.002-04:00

Two years ago, when Micah moved out of the nursery and into his "big boy room" to make way for Liam, I posted about the transition. It involved animal pictures, among other things. Now that he's a headstrong 3 1/2-year-old with clearly defined likes (and dislikes), it was time to do his room in a way that honored what he likes, not what we chose for him. So since I had off work yesterday and today (thank goodness for Easter break and a still-open daycare!), I took the time to shop, craft, and redecorate.

Here is Micah's new transportation-themed bedroom!

I got the duvet cover, pillowcase, and car rug from Ikea for a grand total of $21. We live in Florida so there's no need for an actual duvet, but the cover serves nicely as a light blanket.

We ended up with two 4-ft. fire truck puzzles (sorry I never returned this, Heidi, Ryan and Deci), so I got the brilliant idea to glue one together and nail it to his wall.

I repurposed the animal pictures by creating transportation ones.

A close-up of one. All of the planes, boats, trucks and cars were $0.59 each at Joann's. Add some craft paper for a quarter a sheet, a little acrylic paint for the clouds, and some modpodge, and you're good to go!

I found this lamp and bus picture frame for $1 each at a garage sale a few weeks ago and they were the inspiration for the room.

A new shelf, also purchased from a garage sale for a couple of dollars, that now holds Micah's towel, piggy bank (conveniently and coincidentally colored the same as his new room since I painted it a year or two ago), his Mickey ears, and his baptism crosstitch from the church.

A close-up.

The grand total for redecorating Micah's room was around $50. Not bad for a whole new look.
I'm also tackling the living and dining room areas. Thanks to Aunt Deci's Christmas gift card and a great sale on frames at Michael's, we now have lots of beautiful framed pictures of the boys!

Next up, re-upholstering the dining room chairs...

Eggcellent Easter, Part II

2011-04-24T18:53:00.001-04:00

Handsome boys, ready to go to church for Easter. Last year when we matched their outfits, it was out of last-minute-shopping desperation, but I ended up liking how cute they looked matching for that one day. So for as long as I can get away with it, Easter = matching in our house!

In our family, the Easter Bunny comes on the night before Easter, but we don't do baskets until later afternoon. We love daddy, but no way am I getting them up at 5:30 to do baskets before Tim goes to the sunrise service. This year, they got candy and one toy each. Here is daddy reading the letter that the Easter Bunny left for them.

Micah's toy was Mack from "Cars". It opens up to be a full-service car-care center to take care of Lightning McQueen.

Liam got a jeep, but he was more thrilled with the candy.

We dyed eggs yesterday in preparation for today. It's pretty convenient that on the inside of our Aldi eggs is a bible verse - makes for some extra religious Easter eggs!

Daddy helped Liam manage the eggs he put in his favorite colors.

Micah supervised several other colors.

The finished products. Lots were cracked, but they ended up looking kind of cool. And very yummy. Think I'll go have one now...

Happy Easter!

Eggcellent Easter, Part I

2011-04-23T20:07:00.001-04:00

Between the pictures we've taken in the last few days with hunting for eggs and dyeing some eggs, there are a lot of Easter pictures to share, too much for one post. So the first part are the Easter egg hunts, and I'll post the second set (the boys dyeing eggs and all dressed up for Easter) tomorrow. You know, because I haven't taken the pictures of them dressed up yet since it's not actually Easter.
Micah had his class party on Wednesday this week. First was the egg hunt in the playground, followed by the party in the classroom. It's pretty fun to get to play while you hunt!

Note the purple egg on the left side of the picture. I'm wondering if he ever found that one...

He sticks the landing - and doesn't lose a single thing from his basket!! We call that "landing with finesse."

Excited to open all of those colorful eggs and dig into the candy!

How do you follow up the egg hunt? By jumping on the tricycle that looks like a John Deere tractor, of course!

This morning, we went to Cedarkirk, the Presbytery camp and conference center, for the annual First Pres Easter Egg Hunt. (Construction kept it from being held at the church as it usually is.) It's beautiful out there.

Liam sporting a carrot Easter hat. Which is exactly what you need to make every Easter Egg Hunt a successful one. He kept his on for more than twenty minutes - about 19 1/2 more than I thought he would!

Turns out M&Ms melt in your mouth and on your hand. We're considering suing for false advertising.

This picture looks adorable until you consider that Micah was showing Liam how to shoot his new water gun that he won!

The hunt begins...

Who was having more fun when this picture was taken??

Filling his basket!

Micah and his buddy Lloyd go hunting together again this year.

Micah has a new best buddy from the youth group, and his name is Ian. Micah always thanks God for Ian when we say our prayers at night. Ian walked him around today and helped him find eggs, which was really helpful. That way, I could concentrate on Liam and Tim could concentrate on getting good pictures like this one. Thank you, Ian!!

Lunch afterward - it was more than just candy!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-20T20:42:00.000-04:00

Weekend Work

2011-04-19T20:03:00.000-04:00

We spent a little time in the yard this weekend. We found ourselves with virtually nothing (outside of a couple of church things) planned, and on the verge of summer when no one wants to be outside in Florida. So we spruced up the landscaping. We cleaned out the old mulch a few weeks ago, and put down new mulch this weekend. We planted some new plants that will hopefully take root.

We also put in some edging around the flower beds to define the area. We love the finished look!

This is the other side of the driveway - obviously taken when the sun was going down!

Micah and Liam helped by discovering that they could turn on the water without opening the door to the fence. Hence, the fireman boots to try and keep his feet dry - or at least his shoes.

Liam wielded a big stick in his supervisory role,

while Micah supervised from his police car, also with a stick.

We worked hard, we did a good job, our yard looks beautiful, and then came the reward. Towels spread on the floor, and a picnic dinner while watching the animated "Robin Hood". The menu was a list of the boys' favorites - grilled hot dogs, baked beans, french fries, and applesauce. Liam was clearly more interested in the food than in the movie, but who can blame him when the food's that yummy?

Pop-Pop's visit

2011-04-14T21:57:00.000-04:00

For all of the times that I grab the camera and take tons of pictures of the kids doing (seemingly) insignificant things, it amazes me how many times I miss the significant times and don't capture them on film. Like when people come to visit.

Pop-Pop came two weeks ago and stayed for about six days. His visit meant Tim and I could get a night away sans children for my birthday. Thanks, Dad! We all loved seeing them, but the boys certainly had a good time soaking up all the attention.

Pop-Pop did many cool things with them. We were over in Orlando at the time share and they got to play on the world's coolest indoor play area. Here's fearless Liam climbing up into the play area...

...and sliding down. No matter how many times we asked him sit on his bum, he refused. Smart kid - grown-ups aren't allowed/can't fit/are too uncoordinated to fit inside this thing so there really wasn't anything we could do to stop him.

He crawled out. I haven't seen him crawl in over a year - since he learned to walk. There's a great line from a Mary Chapin Carpenter song: "Since I've learned to walk, all I've done is run." That's Liam.

Micah at the top.

So you know Liam had to follow!

In the pool with Pop-Pop.

Pop-Pop took Micah in the big pool. They had a good time cruising around.

How cute is this picture of Liam and his daddy???

Pop-Pop also attempted to give them their first golf lesson. We discovered it's kind of hard to learn with Fisher Price clubs.

Micah took a swing too. Don't ask about the couch cushion.

Thanks for the super fun visit, Pop-Pop!!

"Give God the Glory, Glory"

2011-04-12T20:54:00.001-04:00

Tonight was the Preschool Spring Pagaent, "Give God the Glory, Glory". The stage was set, complete with paintings of rainbows made from the handprints of the children at the school.

The siblings were waiting patiently for their big brothers and sisters to entertain them.

And finally, in they came, and there came Micah - hands in pockets, strolling like a 7-year-old, not the 3 1/2 year old he is!

All of the three-year-olds singing together. The first song was called, "Springtime".

The second was the oldie but goodie, "If You're Happy and You Know It". That one finally got his hands out of his pockets.

Here's a little video of the song. Sorry it's so grainy - I took it from pretty far away and zoomed in. The words are, "If Jesus is your friend, say, 'Amen'. If Jesus is your friend then shout it out again, if Jesus is your friend, say, 'Amen.'"

The last song was another goodie, "Jesus Loves Me." This picture's a little blurry, but there's something about it that makes Micah look older than he really is. I kind of like it.

Taking a bow.

This is the closest we could get to a smile for the camera at the end. He just wanted to go and get his treat for doing such a good job.

And who wouldn't want an ice cream treat with M&Ms, eaten while watching the part of "Toy Story 3" where Buzz's batteries are removed? (That was specifically requested by Micah. I have no idea why.)

Congratulations on a great concert, Preschool!

Pudding Pictures

2011-04-11T06:50:00.000-04:00

This is why we sometimes serve pudding for a bedtime snack. Only sugar-free. And only after they've had their baths, of course. Because it's no fun to get pudding all over your face when you're already needing a bath. :)

Amazing-Super-Wonderful-Joyous News

2011-04-07T22:54:00.001-04:00

Harmony is cancer free!!!
Happy happy joy joy!!!
Prayers are answered and joy overflows. I love when it's actually obvious that our cups run over and yesterday, finding out that news about my hero, that was one of those times.
- - -
Even as celebration abounds, I feel the need to write just a little bit about prayer, because there may be someone reading this who feels like their prayer was not answered, and may feel anger that one person is healed and another is not.
If you've ever gotten into a discussion with me about prayer, you know that while I love Garth Brooks, I strongly disagree with the theological stance of his hit song, "Unanswered Prayers". The premise that he puts forth in the song is echoed in the chorus: "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." The theological error is blatant to those who believe. God always answers our prayers.
Period.
No doubt.
In our limited and fully-human way of looking at God, we often mistake a prayer that has been answered in a way other than what we had hoped for with one that is left unanswered. These two things are not the same. God always answers our prayers.
The issue is that God doesn't always give us the answer we want.
It's hard to believe that when things don't turn out the way we want them to, the way we prayed for them to turn out - when the cancer does come back or the verdict is guilty or the tsunami hits or the job is lost or the marriage falls apart or the loved one dies - that it's in God's plan. But somehow, in some often incomprehensible way, it is. We don't understand it, we can't make sense of it, but we cling to the hope and promise that God really does know what he is doing, and all will one day be revealed.
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (I Corinthians 13:12)
The darkest hour is just before dawn. It's when we've lived through the majority of the night just waiting for the sun to start to rise and there's that period of time when it just feels like we will never see daylight again. And just as we are ready to give up, the sun peeks through and the first rays brighten the horizon and hope is somehow restored.
For those living in the darkest hour, who didn't get the answer you have earnestly prayed for, take heart. There is hope. Dawn will come. You are wonderfully made by a God who knit you together, who knows the number of hairs on your head and the words on your lips, who knows the prosperous plans he has for you, who knows when you sit and when you stand and every thought in your head. And one day, he will reveal all to you, when you see him face to face.
In the meantime, we learn to praise Him for all the answers that He gives, and we stay faithful, because he is faithful to us. Always.

Will you pray?

2011-03-31T20:52:00.000-04:00

If you read this blog fairly frequently, you remember this picture from about a year ago. This is my friend Harmony. And I am asking you to pray for her.

Harmony is my hero.

She's not my hero because she fought to recover from a car accident that would have made lesser people take a permanent spot on the disability list.
She's not my hero because she decided to return to teaching, even though she lives with constant pain.
She's not my hero because she kept her sanity through a difficult divorce.
She's not my hero because she faced down cancer and fought it with all she has, making it through chemo and infusions and sickness and hair loss and heart problems.
She's not my hero because of how incredible a mother she is to her four-year-old daughter through everything, even when it would be easier and everyone would understand if she decided to stay in bed everyday instead of being a parent.

Harmony is my hero because of her unwavering faith in a God that has never let her down but has held her up through every obstacle, every heartache, every crappy diagnosis, every struggle, and every rough road. She refuses to lose her spirit, and she refuses to blame God for all of the bad hands that she has been dealt. Instead, she clings to the hope that can only be found in Him, and in the process has become an amazing witness of the unstoppable love of God to her friends, her family, her students, and her co-workers.

Harmony is facing an unltrasound next week on a suspicious lymph node near her right breast. In the meantime, she waits. She waits with hope.
And she prays.
And I pray.
And I am asking if you will join us in praying.

Will you pray with and for Harmony?
Will you pray that this week before the test will go by quickly?
Will you pray for her mind to be put to ease?
Will you pray for strength in her body and her spirit?
Will you pray for her to have peace in the midst of this latest storm?
And, most importantly, will you boldly pray that Harmony will be healed, that the test results will be negative, and that the word "cancer" will never again have to be part of her vocabulary?

If you fast, please consider fasting for my friend.
If you light candles, please consider lighting one for my friend.
If you believe in God at all, please pray for my friend. Because prayer changes everything. I believe that and so does my hero.

Thank you for your prayers.

Ready, set, trike!

2011-03-30T22:09:00.000-04:00

It was a beautiful day for a Trike-a-Thon! All of the kids lined up and got ready to do their laps to raise money for their school. You could feel the excitement in the air...

...and they're off!!

Micah was very intense and totally focused on riding fast.

Chasing after his friend Giancarlo, who big-wheeled it. And tell the truth: wouldn't all you adults just love to ride a big wheel again if they came in our size??

Taking the turn, and trying not to take out spectators in the process.

This was taken on his last lap, when Micah's focus had clearly shifted to the juice on the Trike-a-thon sidelines.

Micah and his buddies Jake, Nicholas, and Lincoln, with a post-thon celebratory drink.

I couldn't get him to smile for the camera, but at least you can see Micah's shirt clearly in this picture. He even wore his monster garbage truck t-shirt to match his "Recycle Bicycle"!

We think he did about 20 laps in all. Whatever the final number, we were really proud of him. Way to go, Micah!

The Trike-a-thon is tomorrow!

2011-03-29T20:55:00.003-04:00

The annual First Presbyterian Preschool Trike-a-thon is tomorrow and Thursday! The kids are asked to decorate their bikes in some way for the big event. For Micah, who pushed his bubblemower in last year's 'Thon, this is a big deal, as he's now speed racer.
He decided that he wanted to decorate his bike like Toy Story, then changed his mind and decided that he wanted it to be a trash truck and/or recycling truck. So here it is - Recycle Bicycle.

Note the use of newspaper clippings for the streamers, an aluminum can with a recycling logo attached, plastic bags taped to the bars, and the trash truck tied to the front. The theme is strong.

We even made a bow tie out of an old Cheerios box for his helmet, although that might look girly so who knows if it will make the final cut.

We purchased the bike and helmet second-hand a while ago, so the only thing that we purchased new for this project was the "Recycle" license plate. But if you turn it around you have...

...a "Micah" license plate! So even that can be recycled!

We will post more pictures tomorrow after the Trike-a-thon takes place. Here's hoping we don't get rained out!

We got a bouncy house!

2011-03-28T20:01:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the generosity of some friends, we are the proud owners of a bouncy house! They actually gave it to us several months ago and we haven't had a chance to use it until now. But the boys love it. Love. It. They play "Ring Around the Rosie" and just generally smash into each other and it's all puffed out fun.

It was a trip to watch Liam learn to walk in the house and once he did, there was no stopping him!

Do you think Micah was having a good time?

If the last picture didn't convince you, this one probably will.

Even Daddy got in on the action.

It's a great energy release for two very energetic little boys!

Stupid things that mean the world...

2011-03-23T21:51:00.002-04:00

In the previous post, I detailed Liam's new Buzz Lightyear doll and how much he loved it. Sadly, Buzz Lightyear's time with our family has come to an abrupt end after only a few short days. Tim wrote about it on his blog and I have reposted that entry here.

The day after my wife posted a wonderful blog about our son, Liam, wanting a doll, I encountered a scene that concluded with a great deal of frustration. Upon returning home from a church meeting with both boys in tow, I discovered that our separation anxiety-ridden dog had dismantled Liam's Buzz Lightyear doll to the point of unrecognizable mutilation. I do hope, for those of you into the CSI shows, that Buzz had dental records. As my boys sifted through the polyester insulation that once filled Buzz, it was like watching a horror flick where the tantalizing lure of the stuffing helped them see right past the present reality. Poor Liam never even saw the carcass.

My response was less playful. And I must apologize to my dog, Heinz. He was obviously frustrated that we had left him all day and were home for a quick dinner and then left him again. But through my rage, I wasn't seeing things from his wounded perspective. I was fightin' mad. And I'm confident Jesus says, in a number of ways, don't take revenge, but he had hit me where it hurt. And I don't care, quite frankly, whether it's a doll or anything else--Liam loved that stupid thing--and my stupid dog took that stupid thing away from him and I was as enraged as I can ever remember. The worst part was that the dog did not know why. Human logic would tell me that his cowering at my rage was because he knew why he was bad, but Cesar Millan will tell you that dogs just aren't that good at putting the sequence together. They respond to our emotions. Well, Cesar, I agree--but why was he cowering before I even stepped in the room?

Needless to say, if there is a realm called Infinity, Buzz is finally beyond it. Because we love our children and because we continue to try and show this love to them in tangible, meaningful ways, we won't succumb to the temptation to go out and buy every single gift we think we should. But this one, because of the need for healing, will likely be replaced in the near future. As Liam was placed into his crib he started to say, "Buzz. . .Buzz. . . " Thanks, son. Break my heart a bit more, please. I had to tell him that I was going to look for him and see if I could find him. I knew where to look. . .somewhere beyond infinity.

We love you, Liam. And we will always do what we can to show you so. As for you, Heinz? Not so much right now. Talk to me in the morning.

AND I PAID RETAIL!!!!

Liam wants a doll, Liam wants a doll

2011-03-22T20:25:00.002-04:00

When I was little, there was a song off of the "Free to Be You and Me" soundtrack that was called, "William wants a Doll", and it was all about exactly what the title says - William wanted a doll. All the other little boys around him wanted bats and balls and trucks, but William wanted a doll that he could love and hug and hold. And ultimately his brilliant grandmother bought him a doll, against his shortsighted parents' wishes. She gave him what he wanted and taught him it was okay to be a nurturer and a boy at the same time.
When Micah was little, we let him pick his own stuffed animal from Disney World that was his very own. He picked Mickey and still loves his Mickey. While we were there with Aunt Heidi a couple of weeks ago, we let Liam pick a stuffed animal. He picked this pleather Buzz Lightyear doll. I was opposed to him getting it - not because it was a doll, but because it was pleather, and I thought that he should have something soft and squishy.
Early this week, Liam would not stop biting the fuzz off his fuzzy blankie that he had to sleep with each night. It was time to make the transition to a stuffed animal. What did I ask Tim to get him? The pleather Buzz Lightyear. Because our Liam, like the William in the song, deserves to have the toy of his choice to love and hug and hold. Or, in the case of this picture, watch over him to make sure he eats his sloppy joe and corn.

St. Patrick's day - a little late

2011-03-21T19:50:00.000-04:00

Liam's teacher gave me these pictures when I picked him up at daycare today. Our little leprechaun!

Green jello was on the snack menu.

There's a jello shot joke in here but I refuse to stoop that low!

Look at the ham smiling right at the camera!

Just a little Video

2011-03-20T07:37:00.002-04:00

Here's a fun ride to enjoy with your morning Sunday coffee. Or lunch at noon. Or whenever.

Micah's Mecca

2011-03-19T14:03:00.001-04:00

We found it. Micah's Mecca. It came in the form of the Model Train Convention that was held at the Tampa Convention Center this morning - and I have to give a shout-out to my friend Harmony for telling us about it. See, Harmony, something good came out of all that TV you watched in the hospital!! :) $10 for Tim and me to get in, and the kids were free. Micah could not get enough and cried when we went to leave. But here are some fun pictures from our time there.
Your entry fee included free rides on Thomas the tank engine. Despite Tim's urging, Liam refused to ride, and Micah only rode once. Figures when it costs $2/kid/ride, they want to ride numerous times. But when it's free, they want nothing to do with it.

Micah made it one time around.

I had no idea there were so many different types of model trains - and that there were so many people interested in the model train world.

Diligently watching for this train to start again. This was the one that was closest to what both of his grandfathers have. I think the only thing that could have made this experience better was if Micah had gotten to use the controllers. But alas, they have professionals for that at this convention!

Here he is reading some literature on that particular train.

There was a running model train set made entirely out of Legos. Even their drive-in movie theater. If you look closely at the sign you can see that it says: Now Showing Young Frankenstein - and it really was!!

More of the Lego train world.

They even constructed downtown Tampa out of Legos!

There were also lots of cars and trucks for sale.

Towards the end of our visit, we found an area where kids could build their own train tracks. Micah immediately set up the train platforms and got to work on his train.

Liam did what he normally does, which is stand on the tracks.

Micah was pretty happy with his finished product.

Liam was pretty happy with the engineer hat that someone gave him. He refused to take it off until he got in the car.

On a sidenote, the other large group taking over the convention center today was comprised of high school thespians from all over the state of Florida. A few blocks up the street was the St. Pete Times Forum, which is where some of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament is being played. So as we're walking back to the car, we saw all sorts of people. It's not often that you see drama people, sports fanatics, and model train enthusiasts walking the same streets together!

Aunt Heidi's visit

2011-03-16T21:52:00.000-04:00

We did more than lock Grover up while Aunt Heidi was here. We took her to all of Micah and Liam's favorite places to do all of their favorite things. We went to the Magic Kingdom and rode the tram and the monorail.

Liam sat with me for the tram ride.

They rode the train at Downtown Disney. The first ride was in the caboose.

Going 'round and 'round.

Liam with two of his favorite people - Aunt Heidi and Buzz Lightyear.

Liam turns two in May and he would like this complete monorail set from Disney. Start saving now! And yes, he is definitely wearing a shirt that says, "Hello my name is Trouble". We got lots of comments throughout the day about it!

Because one train ride is not enough, they rode again, this time in the engine.

Micah stunned us all by getting on his bike and going all the way around the block by himself. We knew he was riding bikes at preschool and daycare, but when we've had him on his bike at home, he hasn't had much interest in it. Aunt Heidi must have inspired him to go!

She went with him as he navigated the block.

We went to the beach to run in the sand,

and build sand castles,

and have Aunt Heidi show us how it's really done. Sort of. :)

Thanks for the really fun visit, Aunt Heidi!

What happens when Aunt Heidi visits

2011-03-13T22:35:00.000-04:00

Aunt Heidi was here. She clearly wins the title of "funnest Aunt ever because really, when else does Grover end up in handcuffs?

Heinz looked slightly concerned. He didn't know what Grover could have done to end up with the 'cuffs, but surely he's done worse.

We did lots of other fun stuff. More to come later...

Final CA pictures

2011-03-10T22:45:00.003-05:00

Grandma took some good pictures while we were visiting and I saved them from her email, then promptly forgot where I saved them. I just found them so here they are, providing the last installment of our trip. Micah and Grandpa hung out together at dinner our first night there.

Remember that train Grandma and Grandpa had at their house? Liam liked to try to run it.

Micah is a tunnel!

Grandma found a really cool banana slug while we were in the redwoods. The boys thought it was fun to look at, but they weren't totally sure about holding it. Give them a few years though and I bet they'll be fighting over who gets to hold it!

Grandma and the boys colored a little bit. It was a pretty big coloring book so everyone could color at the same time. We really did have a great trip!

The Little Red Barn

2011-03-08T21:20:00.003-05:00

Last Saturday, the boys were invited to a birthday party for a friend from church. It was held at a place called "The Little Red Barn." It was about five minutes from our house and we had no idea it was there. Thank goodness we do now! It's a petting zoo, hayride, and playground all wrapped up into one. Micah and Liam had a blast!!
Liam rode a fun horse swing for about five seconds.

A beautiful peacock bared its feathers for all of us.

Micah fed a cow corn tortillas while we were on the hayride. Who knew cows liked corn tortillas?

Liam refused to give his to the cow and ate it himself instead. This was after he refused fruit and chips I offered before we got on the hayride. Apparently once he was trapped on the hayride, he decided it was time to eat.

Then Micah fed the cow corn chips.

Liam was also still hungry. Why should the cows have all the fun?

The petting zoo was next, and a little goat named Oreo let everyone feed him.

After he had had his fill, Liam decided it was finally time to feed the animals. And once he was shown how to do it (with his hand open) and started feeding them himself,

he couldn't get enough. Check out the sheer delight on his face in the next series of pictures. He LOVED letting them eat of his hand and kept going back to the feed bucket again and again.

And again.

And again. Who knows - maybe he'll be a vet one day.

They did each get a chance to sit on a llama too, but not together. Micah sat with another friend from church.

Liam sat with some kid I don't know who didn't look at our camera.

Oh, did I mention that there was also a slide?

California, Part II

2011-03-07T20:54:00.000-05:00

I thought that I had a lot more California pictures to post, but it turns out I only have four more. They all involve trains, which is no surprise when you're talking about our boys. This first one is the boys playing with Grandpa's train at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They thought it was really cool that the train went under the dresser.

On the second full day of our visit there, we rode Cal-Train, which is a commuter rail near Tim's parents. Apparently, according to news reports that were airing while we were there, Cal-Train is going bankrupt, and we don't know why. It was a really nice, smooth and quiet ride, with places to plug in your laptops and nice comfy seats. Way better than the T that I rode to downtown Pgh everyday for three years!

Grandma and Micah check out the sites.

Micah loves him some trains, and to get to ride one was especially cool.

Thank you so much, Grandma and Grandpa, for such a fun visit!!

Florida doesn't suck

2011-03-06T06:24:00.001-05:00

I'll finish documenting our CA trip either tonight or tomorrow - kids wanting to play trains and cars and trucks have kept me from the computer. I got up early to email and blog today and wouldn't you know that Liam started fussing almost immediately. So I need to go get him but wanted to put something up for my efforts. So I quickly picked a few pictures from our Friday night fun on the beach. It's a series I'm calling "Florida doesn't suck", and I'm dedicating it to all our friends and family who think we're crazy for living in this state.
This is what we did on Friday night. What did you guys do???

California, Part I

2011-03-02T21:59:00.000-05:00

After the Chicago portion of our trip was over, we flew to California to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Our hotel had a rockin' koi pond, which brought fond memories for Tim and me of our honeymoon in Hawaii. A hotel janitor let the boys feed them one morning and it was like they (and the fish!) had won the lottery!

One of the things we knew we needed to do was hit the mall with the sole purpose of letting the boys just have an open space to run. Going to mall at 10:00 on a Monday morning means having the place pretty much to yourself, so the boys had a field day going here and there and trying out rides.

Grandma watched Micah pretend to drive the race car.

Liam found a friend from home.

Next stop? The gorgeous redwoods, which also lets the kids run. We saw these trees on our last visit to CA, but requested to go again because it's just an amazing sight. Someone once said, "There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it." Well, our hearts were quiet but our boys were not. Still, we couldn't help but feel surrounded by majesty.

Seriously, they were tall.

Micah had fun in the roots of a fallen tree.

Liam got a little behind at one point, so he ran to catch up.

Could he be cuter??

Random picture of two boys on a log bench.

Run, run, as fast as you can!

Grandpa encouraged the running in the trees.

A little perspective.

At the beginning/end of the trail is a gift shop with a train set running in it. I think this may have been the boys' favorite part. They could have watched for days. Thankfully the store closed about 20 minutes after we got there, so there was an enforced limit to the viewing!

Liam was ready to drive the motor home!

More California adventures coming soon...

Visit to Chicago

2011-02-27T13:29:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we hopped on a plane to Chicago so that I could participate in a twin study with Heidi, and we could all visit Uncle Matt. Since I was separated from the family for the first day of the trip, the only pictures we have are from our trip the Navy Pier.

While in Chicago, we met up with our good friends the Newmans, who are Wisconsinites. This is their daughter Karis riding the pier's ferris wheel with Micah.

Daddy and Aunt Heidi (not pictured) also braved the cold temps to make the ride.

A view of downtown. If memory serves, this is the Hancock tower.

Chicago's water in winter...

...Clearwater's water in winter. You know, just for comparison.

Taking a ride on Thomas at the Navy Pier.

Liam hangs with Uncle Matt.

Karis, Micah, Liam, and Timothy, who was named after Tim. This was the best one of all four of them. At least in this one they're all sort of looking in the same directions and no one has their entire body on the table!

Me and the boys. See, I was there!

Aunt Heidi was every kid's best friend on the trip because she had her iPad wherever we went. Sorry, Newmans, but I think that might now be on Karis's birthday wish list!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-23T20:56:00.000-05:00

Construction begins

2011-02-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

Something I'll have to post later is pictures of the groundbreaking on the construction at First Pres. It was the blog entry I was working on when I ran into the space issue. But for now, here is the trackhoe (as Micah tells me it's called and believe me - he knows his trucks!) tearing down Campbell Hall and starting the demolition so we can start the construction!

Tim took Micah to school early that day so he could watch a little bit.

Our boy with the big eyes couldn't get enough of all the fun demolition.

Somewhere in there was a Super Bowl

2011-02-21T19:51:00.002-05:00

Somewhere in the time I lost not blogging, there was a Super Bowl. And our beloved black and gold made it to the big game! We hosted a little get-together to celebrate. Micah and Liam practiced their best football moves - Micah puts Liam in a headlock, Liam goes to gouge out Micah's eyes. It's all very steel curtain.

They came together to motion for a touchdown!

We were ready outside the house...

...and inside the house.

Micah was celebrating with some giant yellow feet.

Liam celebrated with a pig nose at the door.

And all of the Steeler fans in our house came together for a group shot. Yeah, this was the best one out of the bunch we took. At least you know where our loyalties are!!

P.S. I dedicate this post to my good friend Barbara, who remains a die-hard Cleveland fan, although no one knows why and even her children have defected to being fans of better teams. Barbara, you can live vicariously through us so that, sometime in your lifetime, you will know what it's like to be fans of a great franchise. With six Super Bowl rings. I'm just saying. Are we still on for coffee? :)