Just Like His Big Brother

When Darrin picked Carson up from daycare yesterday the teacher told him that Carson had a rough day. She also gave him a long note explaining that he threw toys across the room, didn't listen, threw food on the floor, etc. Since Darrin usually picks him up, the note was probably to make sure I got the message. 

It's sad because he's so excited to go to daycare everyday. He always says, "Daddy we go?" or "Daddy's car".

Today, he insisted on taking Ernie the Elephant (named by Darrin last night). We tried for a second to talk him out of it because the elephant is huge, but then it didn't seem worth the fight.

Darrin sent me this on the way to daycare :)

I was telling Miles tonight that he was bad at daycare too and he didn't believe me. So, I search "behavior" on the blog and the first two posts that came up were this and this. He laughed so hard at himself. We had some good laughs at the memories too. It was a good reminder that we need to stay the course and one day hopefully these behavior issues will end. Although I do think we are dealing with two completely different personalities here. We shall see what the future holds.

I text the teacher mid-day and she said he had been a little better after she separated him from his buddy, Charlie. Apparently they gang up on her and cause some chaos. Unruly little two year olds...what are you gonna do?!?

Wordless Wednesday

5 Pics From Our Chill Night

It's very rare that we, specifically I, do nothing around the house at night, but that is what we did tonight. We got a call this afternoon from the after school director saying that Miles had bumped heads with another kid so hard that it knocked Miles down. The school is very cautious about head injuries, so they report everything to you. Usually they just give you a note when you pick them up, so I figured this was a little more. Darrin went to get Miles and I picked up Carson on my way home. When I got home Miles was chilling on the couch. He was fine, but I guess that set the tone for our night. After Tortilla soup (recipe below) and salad for dinner, Carson and daddy read books and watched AFV.

Miles and I worked an incredibly difficult word search that he got from one of his teachers on the first day of school. He said they worked on it for a couple weeks and then she told them they could take it home or throw it away. He said everyone threw it away but him. That's my boy.

Then, we convinced Carson to watch a movie other than Frozen. We tried to think of a movie with a lot of singing. We have already tried Moana. We decided on Sing. I think that is the cutest movie. He watched it for a little while and then played by himself while we watched it (AKA me falling asleep on the couch). We'll call that a success!

While we were watching the movie, he randomly brought us the bag of chicken nuggets from the freezer. He does not eat much at home, even though he's the best eater at daycare and everywhere else he goes. When we asked him if he wanted some, he said, "Yes. Daddy do it." Daddy had to do everything tonight...put on his pjs, fix his snacks, read books, and put him to bed. I know the tides will turn, so I'm just enjoying the moment.

I really did try to convince him to let me put him to bed, but he insisted that "Daddy do it" and then gave me a kiss and walked to bed. He's in such a good phase of going to bed. Lately, he walks or runs to bed willingly when we say it's time and then we don't hear a whimper all night. I guess daylight savings time has him too. 

Here is the recipe for the Tortilla soup that we had tonight. Darrin has been on a keto diet since July. More on that in another post, but this is one of our favorite new recipes. Kind of labor intensive, but so flavorful!

Thanksgiving & Weekend Wrap Up

We had a great long weekend of family time and home time. The boys woke up excited to go to Thanksgiving at Darrin's cousin's house in Kentucky. We had an hour and a half drive. 

Carson is still obsessed with Frozen and watched it approximately 87 times this weekend. We tried to get him to watch something else, but he wasn't having it. 

We convinced Carson to go to sleep on Wednesday night by telling him that he would see Granny and Pa the next day. When I opened his door on Thanksgiving morning, he said, "Pa...Granny."

I was a beautiful day. Miles didn't have as much to do b/c some of the cousins left early and there's really not many kids his age (or Carson's age). Carson was pretty good most of the day. He liked playing outside with their dog. 

Granny & Pa played cards with Miles...

...while I played with the cousins and their kids. Games and cards all day is my idea of a perfect holiday.

We left straight from Thanksgiving to go camping with Darrin's sister and her family. They have a new camper, so we all stayed in it for two nights. The boys were in heaven.

Crystal and I still managed to do some Black Friday shopping. We drove to Clarksville, TN, a little over an hour from the campsite. We wondered what we had gotten ourselves into when we pulled up, but it wasn't bad at all. Neither of us did any major shopping, but we did buy a few things. 

Sleeping in a camper is a little tricky with a two year old, b/c they wake up before everyone else. 

Miles and Ava did some exercising. It didn't last long. As soon as Miles got up he realized he dodged a big spider that was about to crawl on his head.

Being outside is Carson's favorite thing. He loved every minute of it.

Miles said his favorite things were sitting by the fire and sleeping in the camper. He loved watching a movie in the bunk house with the girls too. 

Carson was a little restless on Saturday night after it got dark. Since we still had a few hours before bedtime, we drove to Patti's to look at the Christmas lights. It was only five minutes away. He really loved them. I was so glad that we took him. He kept saying "Oooohhhh" and "Pretty".

Our niece, Olivia, went with us, but Miles stayed back at the camper with Ava. Ava and Miles are closer in age and I think Olivia liked being with Carson.

We woke up early on Saturday morning and headed home. We were home by 10am, which gave us all weekend to get some stuff done around the house. More Frozen on the way home.

The boys had time to chill and just hang out at home. I'm not sure if Carson cares about that, but Miles needs that time. 

Miles was watching TV on the iPad in our room, so Carson went and got the portable DVD player so he could watch Frozen next to Miles. He thought of the idea on his own and ran across the house carrying the DVD player saying "Miles, Miles". Miles wasn't as excited about the idea, but he humored him after my convincing. 

We put up the Christmas decorations too. I'm sure this makes me a bad mom, but this is one of my least favorite days of the year. I enjoy it now that it's all up and the house is clean again, but the work stresses me out every year. If it was socially acceptable to not put up Christmas decorations, I wouldn't. I do really like my front door though. I guess this is how it looked last year, but I don't remember liking it so much.

I bought a new pillow and dressed up my porch swing. We also put three spotlights on the house, so it looks really festive.

I bought a new tree skirt this year thinking that might motivate me. I didn't, but I do like the end result :) We bought this tree brand new 4-5 years ago. When we got home with it, which was an hour away, it was missing a piece that holds it steady in the middle. We didn't want to drive two hours round trip so we just made it work. If I knew then what I know now, I would have driven the two hours over and over again. This tree is the death of us every year. Darrin said it's going in the ditch after Christmas and I can't really argue with that.

While Darrin was fighting with the above tree, I was doing the same with the one below. This is the boys' tree which goes it the sun room. Last year, I got the bright idea to flock the tree. A co-worker had done it to her tree and it was beautiful. The only problem is that I'm not as crafty as her apparently. The second problem is that we took the ornaments off and shoved the tree up in our attic with the lights and garland. In the process of pulling it down, the lights got all tangled with the garland and flocking went everywhere. I ended up having to cut the garland to get it untangled. After I took everything off of the tree, I contemplated throwing it away. I really like the size though and didn't want to spend money on a new one, so I took it outside and beat all the flocking off with a broom. It came off surprisingly easily and my tree was back to how it was before. I put the lights and garland back on and then Miles put all the ornaments on. I think he did a great job. For two people that don't like to decorate for Christmas, it wasn't the best day. To top it off, Carson was not on his best behavior during all these shenanigans. Stress levels were pretty high.

The rest of the weekend consisted of Mexican take out, ten loads of laundry, wrapping & organizing Christmas presents, meal prep for the week, and church. Carson is very particular about what he wants and who he wants to do it. I think we are learning not to fight it. Tonight, when I was getting him ready for bed, he said "Daddy read", which meant that he wanted Darrin to read his books and tuck him in. This morning before church, he wanted Miles to fix his hair. He said "Miles do it."

I bought a new picture for my living room so we hung that and moved some things around. The picture is 100% accurate for Darrin, Miles, and me. Only time will tell with Carson.

We moved the family picture that was hanging there to the office area. I want to paint and decorate this area more, but I can't seem to get around to it. For now, the picture helps fill the blank space.

Time to chill for a bit before going to bed. It's been a busy yet gratifying weekend. We are thankful for the memories that were made.

Friendsgiving Recap

As promised, more Friendsgiving pics! We had such a fun night with our baseball family. They have become our best friends since we moved here three years ago. As I said the other day, the parents have never gotten together without the kids. We had the best time! It appeared that some of us had not been away from our children in quite some time, but I will neither confess nor point fingers 😊

I thought I would include exactly how I planned it, b/c it was easy and went off seamlessly. I used a Facebook invite to get the word out and communicate about the party. I used Perfect Potluck for the food sign up list. If you have never used Perfect Potluck, it is so easy and even sends reminders out to people. It’s so much easier than just commenting or texting back and forth with everyone. Our menu was traditional Thanksgiving, so turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, corn, cranberry sauce, rolls, and a few other things. I hesitate to post this on here, b/c I would never want to offend or damage a small business, but this must be documented b/c we got a good laugh. I ordered my turkey breast from a local place that makes great to-go meals. Everyone loves this place. She catered a volleyball dinner for us several years ago and it was wonderful. Unfortunately, the turkey was not what I had in mind. It looked like a hunk of turkey from the Walmart deli smeared in seasoning. I stuck with the ham, but at least one person told me it was good. It was not a big deal b/c we had plenty to eat. Again, I only post b/c it was entertaining for all of us. I’m just glad it wasn’t my Thanksgiving turkey.

I planned four games for the night. I wanted to make sure they moved quickly b/c when you let a game go on and on, it seems to totally kill the mood. It’s better to leave everyone wanting more. I picked up some prizes b/c I think prizes make everything more fun and our group is very competitive! We started slow with a simple game of heads or tails. To play this, everyone stands up and chooses heads or tails by putting their hands on their heads or 'tails'. You flip a coin. If it’s heads, those with their hands on their heads stay standing, the others are eliminated and sit down. Everyone chooses heads or tails again and you repeat until there is one person left standing. You can change you guess every round. That was a good way to get everyone going. The winner won a $10 gift certificate to a local coffee shop.

Next, we played a new game call Four on a Couch. I wanted a new game that hopefully no one had played before. I’ll let you read the directions here rather than type them. I was a little concerned b/c I had never played, but it was a lot of fun! It was funny, challenging, competitive, and didn’t take forever. We played men verses women which made it easy to keep the teams straight. We are going to play this with Darrin’s team in a couple weeks and I plan to find a way to visibly distinguish between teams such as colored partied hats or something funny. The men won our game, but there was a lot of ‘talking across the table’. To keep it fair, there shouldn’t be any conspiring. I would also add the rule that you can’t call the same name back to back.

The third game was Reverse Charades. For this game, you can use the cards from Pictionary, Guesstures, Taboo, or something like that. We used Guesstures and it was perfect. We divided up into three teams of six people each. One team had five, but that was fine. I think teams of 4-6 are ideal. To play, one person is the guesser and the others all act out the cards together. You try to guess as many cards as you can in one minute. We allowed as many passes as you wanted just to keep the game moving. Whereas Four on a Couch was more serious and strategic (with some laughs), Reverse Charades was really funny. I needed six prizes for this and eight for Four on a Couch, so I went with $1 scratch off tickets. It was just a little more fun than a candy bar and cheap enough to not break us.

The last game we played was Left, Center, Right. I’m sure several have played this. We did have a few at the party that had not. Instead of playing with the chips that are provided (you can buy the game from Amazon, Target, etc) we used $1 bills. Everyone started with $3. You roll three dice to determine if you move your dollars to the left, center, right, or keep them. The dollars on the left or right continue to move back and forth. Once dollars go to the center, they stay there and that becomes the pot. The last person with any money wins the pot. This was very fun and very competitive. We crowded around the kitchen island and played. If you play this at a party, you have to tell people to bring $3 and also have plenty of ones to make change. I told everyone to bring $3 for a game, but I didn’t specify that it had to be ones. Thankfully, I knew Miles had a secret stash with plenty of ones. Seth was our winner and took home $51.

 

After the games were over, we hung out in the kitchen listening (and dancing) to music. Darrin was our DJ. I think music make every get together better. It’s safe to say that we will have the 2nd Annual Hornet Friendsgiving next year. This year will be hard to top, but we’ll give it our best shot.