Our Songs

I have songs for each of my boys. These are songs that I began singing to them before they were born and continue to sing to them whenever we get a few quiet moments. I cry whenever I sing them, because I imagine (God-willing) that these are the songs we will one day dance to at their weddings.
For Owen, it's "You Belong To Me" and for Sammy it's "When You Tell Me That You Love Me." I dance with them to the songs whenever I get the chance. William's song is a really old one by the McGuire Sisters that my mom told me is how she feels about me. It's called "May You Always." Here are some of the lyrics:

May you always walk in sunshine
Slumber warm when night winds blow
May you always live with laughter
For a smile becomes you so

May good fortune find your doorway
May the bluebird sing your song
May no trouble travel your way
May no worry stay too long

And may you always be a dreamer
May your wildest dream come true
May you find someone to love
As much as I love you.

I sing this to him every night before he goes to bed and I cherish this time with my little boys. I hope their songs let them know how very special they are to me, each in his own way. I hope to one day be able to keep it somewhat together if we do get to dance to these songs at their weddings, but I doubt it. I'm already a big puddle of mush just thinking about it!

FINALLY!

Well, he's 4 1/2 and he can FINALLY go to the bathroom unattended! YIPPEE!!! I decided this weekend to let him cry and plead with me to "yine it up" but no matter what, I would refuse. Now he is going all by himself and is very proud. WHEW! With the new baby on the way, we definitely don't need to have to drop everything when we hear "I need to go pee pee" anymore.

Between Owen's graduation from kindergarten and now this, we are having a week of major milestones! Now I wonder what William's going to come up with...

The Perfect Age

Who could resist this face? I swear, 18 months old is the absolute perfect age for babies. William's babbling just cracks me up! He is 100% confident of what he is saying and truly believes we understand him, too! He has about 10 words that we actually DO understand including: WHAT?, num-nums (food), juice, HEY GUYS! (when running after his brothers) and of course, Dada and Mama. Here he is enjoying some music on the Ipod I got Chris for his birthday a couple of weeks ago:

Hmmmm...wonder what he's up to? He is into EVERYTHING, of course, but so far hasn't done anything too destructive. I'm sure he'll save that for when he's older/bigger/stronger. Don't you just love those chubby feet???

Last Day of Kindergarten

Well, I can't believe this year has gone by so fast! I swear I cried more yesterday on Owen's LAST day of kindergarten than on his first! It seemed so sad to me to have this short chapter of his life over already, never to go back again. At the same time I was sad it was over for him, I was realizing how quickly my own kindergarten experience flew by and far away it is in the rearview mirror of life.
But, anyway - he had a lot of fun. They had a Luau party and Chris took Sammy and William up to school to celebrate with them. Below are a few pictures. The first one is of Owen with his best friend, Josh.
Here they are setting up coconut bowling:
Here's Owen with his teacher, Mrs. Neuwirth. She has been so very kind and patient with him this year and we feel so grateful he ended up in her class. We're definitely going to be sending her some repeat business!
Last time off the school bus as a kindergartener!
Owen brought home a TON of stuff and we're going through it to see what to save. There are so many cute things! I can't believe my mom saved NOTHING from my school experience - not a single paper, art project - NOTHING! I plan to someday organize everything for the boys and give it to them when they grow up and move out. Perhaps I can get into scrapbooking someday...someday far, far in the future.

Where Has The Time Gone?

Seems like just yesterday we were excited that he was GETTING teeth, and now here he is LOSING them! During the kindergarten field trip to the farm on Thursday, Owen lost his first tooth. He proudly brought it home to us and Chris and I were a little sad. I can't believe that 6 years ago we were about to embark on this journey of parenthood and now we are practically seasoned professionals. It's so amazing how quickly life can change!

I had read a few years ago about a different way to approach the "Tooth Fairy" tradition. As a child, we had put our teeth under our pillows and I believe that's the most common way to do this. I can't recall if we put them in an envelope first or just threw them under there, but I can imagine the difficulty of fishing around trying not to wake the sleeping child. Anyway, the idea that I read about was to put the tooth in a cup of water on the dresser in the child's room. Once Owen was asleep, I took the cup into the kitchen and removed the tooth, replacing it with four quarters. I then added food coloring and glitter so that he would know that a fairy had touched the water. He thought it was GREAT!

Any other interesting twists on this tradition out there? How do you put your own spin on the "Tooth Fairy?"

New Pet

Owen has been begging for a new pet since we lost Sir in January. I see how he is with Dope (not good) and realize he is still far too young. So we have allowed him to have "outside pets" in the form of toads, which are all over out here, as we live across the street from a lake. He keeps catching the same one pictured here over and over again. I can't believe this thing keeps allowing itself to get caught after all Owen's put it through! He pushes him in the baby swing, throws him down the slide and has dropped him countless times. Chris and I absolutely cringe and yell at him when he accidentally hurts "Toadie," but we also know it's part of the learning process.

I took this picture of the boys, not realizing "Toadie" was trying to make his escape...

How We Spent Our 8th Wedding Anniversary

I can't believe it's been two weeks since we went to the zoo! We had such a great time! The weather was cool - the kids wore sweats and jackets in the AM but we were able to switch to shorts later in the afternoon. I had thought that William was the perfect age for the zoo but didn't realize how much Owen and Sam would enjoy seeing the animals. This was our second trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo and it's a pretty nice zoo, but I must say it makes us very nostalgic for the Toledo Zoo. When we lived in Detroit, that was the zoo we always went to. If anyone is ever in that general vicinity, I would HIGHLY recommend going to the Toledo Zoo.

Here are a few more pics from our day at the zoo...