The Chase

I took the boys to the indoor park today so they could burn off their energy. They had such a good time! Towards the end of our visit, a group of girls noticed Keaton. They quickly decided he was cute and the chase was on! They chased him, everyone giggling, and tried to put a play dress on him. This went on for so long and was so funny to watch. Poor Keats. He's such a cutie that this isn't the first time a group of girls have chased him around the park; I suspect this won't be the last time, either. You can see by his happy face that he wasn't as troubled by the attention as he'd like you to believe.

Sully, on the other hand, spent the entire time trying to get the girls to leave his brother alone! You can see in the "dog pile" photos that Sully is trying to help Keats (who is on the bottom of the pile) by pulling at the dress as the girls try to put it over Keaton's head. So funny!

Let them frost, apply sprinkles, and eat cake!

Today we baked cakes. Initially, we were baking a cake for Vince's birthday (this is my sister's husband). The boys were excited to help mix the batter and everything, so I thought, hey--why not bake two cakes, letting each boy help with one whole cake. So, this is what we did. 

Keats helped with the first cake and we made two round cakes out of that batter.

Sully helped with the second cake, and we made a standard 13x9 cake out of that. 

I let each of the boys frost and decorate one of the round cakes. The rectangular cake was cut in half and I made a double-decker cake for Vince's birthday.

Keats made his cake into a Lego brick with four studs. He is so funny, using the frosting extremely sparingly and not making a mess at all. He also used the sprinkles very frugally. He has always done this with art and with decorating.

Sully, on the other hand, is all about the frosting! The more the better, in his opinion. He did a great job with frosting and was very careful to make everything even. Then he was extremely liberal with the sprinkles, too, and in the end he put a smiley face on his cake using his fingers to draw.

You can see above that Geddy was terribly interested in the possibility of eating some cake. She is such a scavenger, even licking the frosting off of Sullivan's frosting knife!

Sullivan's Christmas List

Sully cracked me up while we were doing his list. He would act out parts, as needed, when describing what he wanted me to write down. And some of the stuff on the list is just too cute. Here's his list.

Robot that walks

Green Lantern Toothbrush

Green Lantern Pajamas

Cat toys 

Green Lantern Backpack

Green Lantern shirt

Green shirt with frogs on it

R2D2 Lego watch

Tiny little Alien Conquest Lego set

Tiny little Pirate Lego set

Big Alien Conquest Lego set "Like the one Jamey got for his birthday"

Nintendo DS

Dora or Diego sheets "for extra for the times I accidentally pee in my sleep"

Green Lantern Books

Green Lantern pencil

Green Lantern glasses

Green Lantern guitar

A whale that jumps like they do in the ocean

I think it's safe to say that I'll be surfing for Green Lantern gear in the near future!! I have no idea how to get a whale that really jumps. I have no idea where to get a green shirt with frogs but I'm pretty sure he only said that because he loves green, loves new clothes, and frogs are green; I think I could get any green shirt and he'd be happy. I also do not know what Lego set Jamey got for his birthday. And, I had no idea he cared which sheets he had! He has Green Lantern in there now, but we do have several extras. He's only wet his bed a couple of times so I'm surprised he was worried about having extra sheets. 


Helping them with these lists was pretty interesting!

Keaton's Birthday and Christmas Lists

I sat the boys down tonight and had them tell me what they want for Christmas ('cause I had no idea what they really, really, really want and would like to start looking for sales!) Keats, of course, wanted to write his birthday list as well. The whole process was pretty interesting with Keaton. He meticulously drew a line down the middle of the page, labeling one half "Birthday" and the other half "Christmas". He would write something in the birthday column and later decide it belonged in Christmas; he would write something in Christmas and later decide it belonged in birthday. He added a couple of things to both columns because "I just really, really want it and this way I'll have two chances to get it!" Another funny thing he did was wrote which store to get certain things. I'm sure you can get a Ukelele anywhere, same with the Lego stuff, but he apparently thinks you can only get them in these exact stores. This is the first year he's thought about where to get things, which is just an interesting thing to see develop. Anyhoo, here are his lists.

Birthday

Lego Star Wars alarm clock, from Target

Lego Star Wars Obi Wan watch, from Target

Ukelele, from Cost Plus

Monopoly game (the real kind with paper money!)

DS Pokemon game

DS pens (in different colors)

Microscope

Legos, any but especially Lego City

Science toys like they have at Toys R Us (they make goo and stuff)

Christmas

Bass guitar

Ukelele, from Cost Plus

Lego Millenium Falcon

Super Mario Galaxy for Wii

Super Mario Brothers game for Nintendo DS

Lego Star Wars 3 Clone Wars game for DS

Lego Star Wars Obi Wan watch, from Target

Lego Star Wars pajamas

Car charger set for Nintendo DSiXL

Cash register bank that knows how much money you are putting in and taking out

Welcome Geddy Lee!!

Mike has been hinting that he'd like to have a cat that hung out in his office with him during the day while he was working. For his birthday, my neighbor was able to find us the adorable kitten you see in this post. Geddy Lee, named after the frontman of the band RUSH, is an absolute sweetheart! She was born around August 10th, and that is the "official" birthdate she has been given. She has fit in so perfectly without any issues. She immediately took to her litter box and now has started using the "big boy" potty in the garage. She sleeps great! When she's tired, all you have to do is pick her up and put her somewhere and she'll go to sleep. She's been sleeping in the green kitty bed (which I refer to as her bucket) right next to Mike. Geddy is so tiny that it can be scary to sleep with her-- having her sleep in her bucket takes the worry of squishing her away.

 Sully is in LOVE with this kitty!

 Here, she was attacking my leg as I was getting ready to go to work.

 We gave her some Gerber chicken the first few days because she was so young and tiny. She loved it. So did Moose.

Raise your hand if you're super cute!

I love the colors on her face here. She almost looks exotic.

How much is that Geddy in the window?

 Isn't she so very pretty??!!


She is also very sweet and LOVES kisses! She will put her face towards you as you come in for a kiss. You can tell she likes it. :o)

Tiny kitty in a basket

Tiny kitty in a bucket

          

Welcome to the family, Geddy!!

In Stitches

The day before we went to Utah in August, Sully and Keats broke a champagne glass on the kitchen floor. Mike was very careful when he picked it up: the housecleaners were coming this day and he didn't want any of them to get cut. As he walked through the garage with the dustpan, he bumped into something and heard something hit the floor but he didn't see what had fallen. Fast forward a few hours, I was upstairs packing and the boys were out in the garage playing. I hear Sully crying as he is running up the stairs, and I can tell this is a serious cry. I ran out of my room and got to the stairs just as he came to the top. He was holding his foot and I instinctively picked him up and ran to my bathroom. I set him on the counter and put his foot in the sink and OH.MY.GOD the sink filled with blood! It was crazy. The cut was only about a half-inch long but was very deep. Mike and I debated stitches and decided to try skin glue and bandages as we were leaving in a few hours for a long drive. During the drive, the wound was fine. I kept checking and there was no bleeding at all. About four seconds (possibly a slight exaggeration) after we got to Paul & Marilyn's, Keaton came running to get me, yelling that Sully is bleeding. And he was-- and Paul & Marilyn  have white carpet...so, I told Mike we needed to take him to an urgent care clinic. We happened to find one that was closing in about 15 minutes. They gave Sullivan three stitches, would have given him a fourth if he'd held still, and they sent him away with a green popsicle, so he was a happy boy.

These photos are of him trying to be brave before the stitches were placed.

So, he got the stitches and I got the instructions not to let him submerge his foot and get the wound wet. Uh, yeah....Grandma & Grandpa have a pool, Aunt Lisa has a pool at her condo, and Aunt Catherine was taking us out on her boat....not much chance that this wound will remain dry! I did tape it up each time, but each time the sucker got wet. We were to have Sully's regular doc take his stitches out on September 6th but the wound wasn't healed enough. I took him back the following week (so his stitches were in for exactly 14 days! Yikes!) and it took four adults to hold him down to remove the stitches. That is one strong kid!!

Halloween Boys

Well, this isn't what they are going to be for Halloween, but this is what they were for a Halloween party at a friend's house last weekend. I bought the skeleton costume at Value Village, a second-hand store that has loads of costumes, but I thought it would fit Sully. Turns out it is a perfect fit for Keats so he chose to wear it to the party. Our wonderful neighbors gave Sullivan the Spiderman costume last summer. Sullivan would wear a costume 24/7 if we let him. 

At Value Village, I found a Darth Vader outfit that has working lights on the front. Keats is just a little bit excited about wearing this. We bought the talking Darth Vader helmet at Value Village last year (or the year before that) and this year we also found a Darth Vader trick-or-treat bucket for the candy. Keats is set!

Yesterday, I found a Green Lantern costume at Target and was so excited to get it for Sully! I bought the size for 5-7 year olds....but it almost fit on Mike! Wow. I'm not sure who has children that giant, but it isn't me. So we'll be swapping that one out tomorrow. Sully is very excited to be Green Lantern!