Identity Crisis vs. Imagination: You Decide

So for the past couple of weeks George has taken on a new persona every few days. At first, he was obsessed with the movie "Up" and was a Junior Wilderness Explorer. He wanted to know if we had any badges. I didn't think so, but then it struck me that we had saved Adam's old scouting stuff. So we dug it out of the dress up box and, low and behold, the badge belt became the badge sash. We had a bandana and cap and with his backpack packed full of atlases and scriptures he was ready to go. Unfortunately, I only got a picture of him in the cap, but Spencer got to play wilderness explorer too, so just imagine George in this outfit.

After the wilderness explorer phase came the strange "girl" phase. George found a mullet wig in the dress up clothes. But to him, a five year old, it's not a mullet, it's a girl wig. So on it went and now he was a girl named Kaitlyn (it's a made up persona, so I don't know how to spell her name). It was fine when we were home or at the playground and I even let him wear it to the gym, but I started to worry when it was time for school. Should I call his teacher and tell her she had a new student? Should I call the school counselor? Luckily, "Kaitlyn" informed me that you can't wear wigs to school. Whew! Here is a picture of "Kaitlyn" dressed up as Wolverine. (Yes he still acted like a boy, so no worries.)

He would also dress up as "Kaitlyn the Wilderness Explorer" and "Kaitlyn the Superhero". So Kaitlyn was pretty much George in a wig dressing up as other imaginary people.

Kaitlyn has not been around very much lately. It's just been George. Which is great. Because I adore George.

***

To continue with the Kaitlyn bit, George has insisted that the new baby be a girl. He wants a sister so badly. And of course her name would be Kaitlyn. I've asked him what would happen if it was a boy.

George: "I don't want a boy. I want a sister!"

Me: "But it might be a boy. What should we call him?"

George: "If it's a boy, we should call him something funny, like Boo. I want it to be a girl baby though because I love girls and I hate boys. We don't need any more boy babies."

Much to George's disappointment, we will be having another boy baby. We haven't decided on a name, so I guess for now we will just call him Boo.

Birthdays

It's been nice having all of our birthdays at the beginning of the year. My birthday is in December. Phineas is in January, Spencer in February, George in April and Adam in May. It makes the first part of the year lots of fun and clears up summer and fall for, well, summer and fall things.

My birthday first: Went to Tony Romas, the temple and got a new Flip video camera. Okay, it's been months and I'm still trying to figure out how to add video to this blog.

Phin's Birthday:

A Thomas book from Grandma and Pop Pop

A tool kit from George and Spencer

And "Mood it mood it" (a.k.a. Madagascar 2) from Mom and Dad

Plus a special trip to McDonalds. This was the day we moved into our new house, so Phin kind of got jipped on a cake. I don't think he minded. Now he's three. What a big boy. He's in speech therapy and doing fantastic. He loves to go and play with Kris.

Spencer's birthday:

I know the first birthday is usually a big deal, but I figure, he won't remember, so we kept it low key. Just our family, cupcakes in cones and presents that everyone enjoyed.

He got a bubble maker (hours of fun, okay about one hour, before it broke) and a fun book that reads to you. He wasn't walking at the time, but within four weeks he was all over the place. Now I have to chase him down to put him in the car.

George's Birthday:

We had a Chinese birthday party with a couple of friends (for any of you that know the real story, don't feel like going through the pain all over again). George had a blast. We made Chinese drums and had some fireworks. We played Dragon Tag (just tag with a cool name) and had some good cake with Happy Birthday George written in Chinese. He got a coloring tablet, a light up frisbee and a "Super Hero Starter Kit" complete with mask, wrist guards and cape (thanks to my great friends Ramie and Tina for helping me out).

The Chinese theme continues today. He "writes" in Chinese on the back of his school papers. He knows all about the Great Wall and the clay army. He has a guide book for China and talks about going there almost every day. We have a friend who does a good deal of business in China and has the Rosetta stone software that has helped him with his Chinese. He has promised to let us borrow it when he is finished and George can hardly wait.

Adam's birthday was as uneventful as mine. We were actually camping at the time, which would have been fun except for the 60 mph wind gusts and the rain. Here is a cute picture though, before all you know what broke loose.

We celebrated the next weekend at Monterosso's, our favorite Italian restaurant. It was for Mother's Day as well, but we didn't actually exchange birthday/Mother's Day gifts until the weekend after that. It was more of a "birthday month", which Adam loved.

Now we have a problem. Something that is going to totally mess up my birthdays-at-the-beginning-of-the-year thing. A baby due in October. October! What am I supposed to do with that? I guess it could be the beginning of our holiday season. Birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday. Come to think of it, this is great. Now our celebration season can last from the first part of October until the 1st of May. SWEET!

Thanksgiving, Christmas & Birthdays

So we have had a VERY busy winter. Soon after taking the photos in the previous post Adam received an offer for a permanent position with CH2M Hill. We had been house hunting and had found one that we liked. Okay, so now we have officially found EVERYTHING on Craigslist. It was a converted duplex with tons of space. But more on the house in the next post. With trying to get everything squared away with the house, the holidays, packing up and moving, I haven't had time to post. So here goes the update.

THANKSGIVING:

We went to Boise for Thanksgiving and enjoyed a great holiday with Adam's family. Both Evelyn and Gideon celebrated their 2nd birthday during November, so we had two birthday parties on top of the Thanksgiving bash. Adam's parents were in Atlanta visiting their son James and his family. George and Phin were disappointed to get to Grandmom and Pop pop's house and have it be empty.

George liked this game, but I think Evelyn has a sour face because he's not playing it "right".

Yum! Turkey. This was right before Fay almost set the house on fire when she forgot to take the candied yams out of the oven above. The marshmallows were totally roasted. It smelled just like camping.


Spencer before he learned to crawl on all fours. The hardwood floor is ideal for army scooting.
Fay looking all sweet and wonderful -- which she is. She is also pregnant here but didn't tell anyone until three weeks ago. With Evelyn's reaction to Fay holding Tank, I think Fay better get ready for some sibling rivalry.

"Bring on the Turkey!"

The food was delicious as always (especially Brandon's gravy). Like I said, we also celebrated two birthdays while we were there. Evelyn invited us all to Monkey Business, an indoor playground with an incredibly big slide. Even I was scared going down it.

Then we had fun at the house with Gideon and family. It was a house full of boys with George (4) Phin (almost 3) Gideon (2) Spencer (10 months) and Tank (6 months).

CHRISTMAS!!

Who doesn't look forward to Christmas? Upon arriving home from Idaho we went out and bought a Christmas tree. We wanted to cut one down, but you have to travel like 1 1/2 hours to get to any worthwhile trees. Next year, we might just get a permit in Oregon and pick it up on our way home from Thanksgiving. They have great trees in Oregon (not to mention, no sales tax). We decorated our little house, hung the stockings with care and made our Christmas lists. George wanted four things: (1) a Diego backpack (2) a Harry Potter Scene It game (3) a Twilight Scene It game, and (4) a Harry Potter wand. Okay, so Santa only came through on #4, but, a Twilight Scene It game? For a 4 year old? He hasn't even seen the movie. All in all I think the boys enjoyed their Christmas. I know I had a wonderful time savoring every one of my Andes mints. Plus I got a cool Flip video camera that I will be downloading video's from in future posts.

Sorry, don't know why the pictures are all fuzzy. Pretend you don't have your glasses on, then they'll seem normal.

Christmas morning--

Spencer loves his horse -- now if he could just stay on it.

They joy of headlamps. The boys wanted to play chase in the dark for the rest of the morning. By the way, they are also sporting the pajama bottoms I made for them. I figure I'll take advantage of their lack of fashion while they are young and make them wear cheesy pajamas at Christmas. It won't last long.

Yeah! Harry Potter! I think he's on page 3. No really the kid can read like a maniac. He sits down each Sunday with the comics and reads almost every word (except for Doonsbury, where even I don't know half the words).

Phin and his trains. He loved this gift. He still packs up his trains into "Daddy Thomas" (shown open on the floor) and puts them under his bed. This after refusing to let him sleep with them under his pillow.

We'd never even seen the movie, but now it is one of our favorites. George can do a perfect impersonation of Russell, "My knee hurts!"

The Harry Potter wand as promised. And the glasses to match. He wore those everyday until they inevitably broke.

Adam's parents opening their 65th and 63rd presents. Man, for people who you think have everything, they sure get a lot of loot at Christmas.

Me and my honey on Christmas morning. Adam's parents got us these hats that say "Shut up, big mouth." I don't know if it was a message from them to us or a message that we should give to each other. In any case, I like the hats.

So that brings us to the end of 2009. I'll start on 2010 next week. Right now it's my bedtime (9:00).

Playing in the leaves

Just some fun fall pictures. Enjoy!

Couponing Revisited

Okay, I'll admit it. I am now addicted to couponing. This afternoon I almost called a babysitter to sit with my kids while I went grocery shopping before all the good stuff was gone. Today was my best shopping trip ever!

Here is a list of what I got:

10 boxes of cereal (the boys just love Cocoa Puffs)

9 cans of Progresso soup

2 Cottenelle flushable wipe refills

1 Lipton soup mix

1 box of Kleenex

4 Progresso broths

4 Yoplait Yo-plus 4-packs

3 Danimal 4-packs

2 Healthy Choice frozen entrees

6 Betty Crocker boxed potatoes (au gratin, you know)

4 cans of frosting

Bananas

2 lbs. of baby carrots and

1 gallon of milk

Grand total = $20.24

Yes, it was awesome! I did have a $10 gift certificate from a newspaper subscription special, but everything else was coupons and specials. I'm going back on Friday to get more Kleenex. I'll get 30 boxes for about $10 and then $15 of free groceries. Whoot - whoot!

The Flu

Isn't it convenient that they come out with the swine flu vaccine after most of America has already had it? We had our turn last week. George started it on Sunday night. Phin followed during my primary presidency meeting on Tuesday morning and Spencer chimed in on Thursday afternoon. I basically had a mild case all week long and I'm still fighting the runny nose and coughing even now, a week later. I wished I could be like the boys and just sleep for three days straight. Wait isn't that the dream of every adult at some point. Heck, you don't even have to be sick to wish for that one.

This was how our week looked:

In this next one George is trying to smile. Even when he's sick he's cute!

We are all well now. Adam was very blessed and escaped unscathed. He was a trooper helping with the boys every night and making sure I got plenty of rest. He even went in late one day to make sure I could sleep in. I love that man!