This Week's Funninesses:

Isaac's favorite item was a perfume sample card, given to him from a lady at the mall. He loved to smell it over and over again. "Oh this smells nice, Mom," he'd say.

Titus' favorite item is a dense-foam yoga block. He loves carrying it around, placing it on the ground, standing on it, then jumping and falling to the ground. Repeat action sequence multiple times.

Eli didn't have a favorite object, but instead favorite word phrases. Lately, when he is upset, he points and yells: "No, it's not! Okay?!" There is no reasoning with him during these "no it's not okay! no it's not okay! no it's not okay!" yelling moods.

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The boys love to dress up in their super-hero costumes. Isaac's really likes his "Army Guy" costumes, given to him by Matt's parents, Nana and Mume.

Friday morning Isaac was IronMan, Eli was SpiderMan, and Titus didn't get the memo--he was just plain old diaper baby.

The boys are up stairs when Matt arrivs home from ROTC, around 10:30am (he leaves a quarter till 6am). Isaac is very excited to see him and yells, "Dad, I'm IronMan!" and runs and jumps down stairs, doing flips on the floor.
Eli is very excited to see him, is on his way downstairs, and Matt says, "Hi SpiderMan!" Eli enthusiastically replies, "Hey Army Guy!"
Titus stays on the upstairs landing, but looks down with a huge smile on his face. Matt says, "Hi!" Titus says, in a deep baby voice, "Hi-e!"
Matt, "Hi!"
Titus, "Hi-e!"
Matt, "Hi!"
Titus, "Hi-e!"
Matt, "Hi!"
Titus, "Hi-e!"
Over, and over, and over again the greetings go back and forth; till Titus gets a little shy, or too excited, and runs happily into his room.

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It's been just this week that Eli has taken to ice cream. Odd, I know, but he has never, ever liked it. Maybe if it's on a cone then he'll comply to the social norm, but then again it's never his first choice.

Until this week. He wanted some, and even asked for some ice cream on a cone. (Usually I have to force it in his hand.)

But even more amazing was last night's event at our dinner-table:
Eli has a bowl of ice cream in front of him. In his Eli style, he disregards the spoon, places his face in the bowl, and starts to lick the contents.
He looks up, eyes wide, and says, "This good ice cream!"
Eli then plants his face in the bowl, and eats with no inhibitions--pig style, for sure.

And here are some fun pictures of last night's fun:

Get the gist of the pictures? Eli's making a royal mess with the ice cream (why is there a spoon in his hand?). Titus is trying to smile, but doesn't want to, but tries by saying "cheese!" Isaac's new favorite place is the trunk/bench for the piano. He loves to hide in there with his flashlight given to him by Mume (Grandpa D), and Eli is starting to want to be in there with him... but it's a little tight! And why is everyone just in their underpants? I don't know... I really don't know.

Boise State's Halftime Honor

Saturday Boise State University's football team played at home, against Texas Christian University. 

And we went! Happy! 

But Boise State lost. Sad. 

Why did we brave the 30 something degree weather, with constant wind? 

One, because the tickets were free and all 5 of us going to a Boise State Football game while Matt was still a student there seemed cool. And magical. 

Two, Matt needed to go because the ROTC program was highlighted during the halftime show, and only those cadets in their last ROTC year were going on the field. 

We stayed for only the first half, then left after halftime. The boys did well, but were tired of the football game 8 minutes into the 1st quarter. If there wasn't the wind, or the chilliness, I'm sure they would have been happier. We sat in the student section and with the other ROTC cadets. They helped us out lots and made sure our boys didn't commit accidental suicide on the steep bleachers. 

And UGH! GUESS WHAT?!?! I totally thought I had recorded the whole "over the speaker--announcing the ROTC cadets, and thanking them for their dedicated service," but apparently I didn't. The button must not have been pushed when I thought I pushed it. And obviously that unsets me. 

So for the recored this is what happened: After the band came off the field, the ROTC cadets (including Matt) went onto the field and waved and everyone applauded. 

It was awesome.  

THE END

The Felling of Autumn

The leaves are falling, and we enjoying the bounteous harvest.

The 3 Checked Up

It's been well over a year since a normal "well baby/kid" check up for the boys. It's not like we were formally avoiding the doctor's office, just these appointments slipped my mind. Oh we went to the doctor's office regularly this year: all of Eli's heart stuff (cardiologist, monthly synagis vaccine, heart surgery, and other procedures), Isaac's adventures with 2 ear infections and his infamous LEGO up the nose incident, and Titus... well Titus hasn't had anything major this year.

In other words, I felt like the boys were being seen pretty regularly. Maybe not the conventional sense, but still being seen. (Sorry Titus, Tylenol fixed all your alignments.)

So I made the call, set up the appointments, and we went. All three kids got shots. Poor things!
I know, I know, there are a lot of opinions out there about vaccines. And I don't want this post to be a forum for that "discussion," aka fight. I'm just going to say everyone has good points to either get vaccines or not, but for our family it makes sense to get them. We are going to be an Active Duty ARMY family, going to be living everywhere, and meeting people from all over the world. Who knows what we will come in contact with.

• Titus, since he hadn't been to the doc's office since 4 months old, got a few shots. Like 3. And they killed his legs. He couldn't walk the rest of the day. He truly was pitiful! 
• Eli got two shots, and did just fine. Shoot, he'd just recovered from an open heart surgery! He can do anything.
• Isaac, wow... he got 6 shots! I didn't know what was going on till it was too late. Matt had come in the last half of the appointment and helped with Isaac, while I was with Eli. I will say this, if I had known it was going to be 6, I would have had them spread them out over the next month or two. He cried, was upset (who wouldn't be?), and was in a funk the rest of the day. 

And here are their stats: 

• Isaac (5 years of age): 
• weight, 39 pounds...                 25th to 50th percentile 
• height, 44 inches...                   50th to 75th percentile
• Eli (2 years and 6 months of age):
• weight, 32 pounds...                 75th percentile
• height, 35.5 inches...                 25th percentile
• Titus (16 months of age):
• weight, 23 pounds 5 ounces...   24th percentile
• height, 32 inches...                    56th percentile 

What do I take from all of this? We have pretty average kids. Nothing too extreme, and kind of what I thought everyone would be. Isaac long and lean, Eli short and pudgy, and Titus long and lean. It is funny to me that our heart baby is the heaviest, compared to his age group. Hot-dogs and cottage cheese, y'all. That's our secret to a chubby heart baby. 

When is our next doctor's appointment? I'm not sure. But at least I got one in this year! Maybe when our insurance is free (through the military) I'll be better about these things... or maybe not? 

The Squirrel and The Spatula

There once was a squirrel mother,
   who often came to our patio door,
and searched for food,
in a desperate mood,
   as her babies were always in need of more!

I took compassion on this squirrel mother,
   and left some food outside the glass door:
a spatula of bamboo,
covered in peanut butter--smooth,
   and layered with nuts galore!

Me and the boys watched the squirrel mother,
   who ate fearless by the patio door.
We enjoyed her quick bites,
and thought she was a sight!
   And hoped more entertainment was in store.

But the boys got bored of the squirrel mother,
   and went away from our glass door.
I had time on my hands,
and thought of a plan,
   to vacuum and rid myself of that chore.

The vacuum scared the squirrel mother!
   Twas too much movement from inside our door!
Not done with her snack,
and with no strength in lack,
   She went up the tree with our spatula, and off into Studly lore.

This happened yesterday afternoon. I was shocked, SHOCKED, that she took it! I ran after her, but she didn't let go. She went up, up, up the tree and never came down. Eventually she jumped from the tree to the townhomes' roof with the spatula.

AND I didn't get my spatula back! 

A Happy Halloween

This Halloween was a good one, and it truly was a "Happy Halloween." 

The boys have been in all sorts of costumes since Isaac's 5th birthday (in September), so I really didn't know what they wanted to be till the day of Halloween. To my surprise Isaac said:, "Iron Man," and Eli wanted to be "Spider Man." Titus looked to dang cute in his Spider Man, so he didn't have choice in the matter (it was between last year's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and Spider Man.) We ended up with no Transformers on Halloween night! Can you believe it?! 

But we did have Transformers during Halloween day. In fact Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime were running around the house all morning. They took an ice cream break at 10:30am (ain't I an awesome mom?), and I thought Titus would be all about the ice cream but he only wanted to crawl and knock things over. 

I, Shannon, had no clue what to be for Halloween. While taking a shower, at 3:30 pm Halloween afternoon, decided on the Civil War. I threw some of our stuff together to transform into a Civil War solider dude. I actually really liked dressing up as a man, in uniform. I think as the years go by I'll be doing this costume more and more, with greater and better detail. I'll try to blur the lines between North and South, but one day I will probably have to choose a side. But for now, I like the Blue and Grey mix.

Matt didn't know that he was supposed to dress up for Halloween. HELLO! It's Halloween! I told him to throw on one of his uniforms. He decided on this Iraq campaign gear, and loved wearing it again. "Brings back memories of no responsibility!" He was talking about the rank of "specialist," but just for a second I thought he was talking about us (me and the boys). He clarified, saying that a "specialist" has just enough responsibility to bring respect (over a private) but not enough responsibility to overwhelm, and you know, be responsible for anything major. 

Here we are! Soldiers from way in the past (150 years ago), and from just a bit in the past (6 years ago). We look dashing, don't we?

And here's the whole gang:

Our pumpkin was carved by me, yours truly. Isaac insisted on it being a happy pumpkin with triangle eyes. Once again, Isaac was disgusted with the smell and look of the pumpkin's insides. He ran, eyes watering, gaging into he hand, back into the house as soon I lifted to stem. Eli didn't have a revolted reaction, but followed Isaac's lead, saying "Ew, yucky! Ew, yucky!" Titus grabbed uncooked pumpkin seeds out of the "guts" and plopped them in his mouth.
The past 5 days we've been using the pumpkin as a night light. (I go in their room at 10pm and blow the candle out.)

On Halloween night we were invited to 3 things. Three! I was a little overwhelmed by it all and decided that we should just go to one. So we skipped out on out apartment complex's Halloween party, didn't go to the ward (church) Trunk or Treat, and went straight to Matt's Aunt and Uncle's home on the other side of Boise (What's up Tim and Kara?!). They live in the great neighborhood, and Trick or Treating was very successful. They also turned their downstairs/basement/garage into a Hunted House, which was fun for me and Matt to go through. Isaac wouldn't go near it with a ten-foot poll, and was somewhat nervous about all the screaming noises coming from below. But no worries, he had a good Halloween. We all did. It was a Happy Halloween. 

Oh, and here's Matt getting the boys ready for bed after all the Halloween fun. They slept well that night. Thank goodness!

Yes! A Career!

HAHAHAHAHA!

I'm very happy. Matt found out this morning that his Active Duty ARMY Branch (job) assignment is Adjutant General. 

All the commissioning cadets at Boise State were gathered together at 6:30 this morning, feed breakfast at Elmer's, then handed boxes with their assigned branches' pins. When the cadet opened the box, he/she found out his/her branch. These babies were smiling up at Matt, and Matt smiled back! (These will be worn on his dress uniform. Pretty sweet, huh?)

Adjutant General in ARMY terms = Human Resource guy/gal in Corporate terms. 

Adjutant General is our first choice, and is typically not incoming 2nd Lieutenants. (Most want something "hard core-er.") But since Matt already has 10 years of combat arms experience (and a hard deployment to Iraq, with lots of cool awards and ribbons) under his belt, he is really good with having a desk job for an ARMY career. As am I! 

Really though Adjutant General (AG) offers so many opportunities, it's almost ridiculous. To better explain I'll quote The Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-3: "AG is an accession branch that is aligned with the force sustainment functional category. The AG officers manage functions from the HR life-cycle that include personnel procurement, training, professional development, distribution, sustainment, retirement or separation, to help ensure a quality force and direct the use of ARMY bands to support friendly forces at home and abroad."

In the Spring we'll find out where we'll be stationed!