Sharks on the Brain

Alex and his hammerhead shark chicken dinner. The chicken looked like a shark and I got creative. He was the happiest kid that night.

When I was growing up, I was obsessed with Star Wars. At least, I thought I was obsessed. The truth I can now see is that I knew not what obsession truly was...until now. When little boys grow up, it's pretty common to hear them get excited about certain things. Trucks and tractors and dinosaurs are generally the two big boy-loves you hear about. Sometimes a few sports get thrown in there as well. Alex has had his fair share of loves. Trucks and tractors were a phase. Then he moved on to The Wiggles. That lasted the longest and he still holds a special place in his heart for the Aussie Fab Four. When he wore that yellow, long-sleeved Wiggles shirt every single day from age 2 - 5, I thought we'd known obsession. But once again, not so much. In between we've had the football-love and The Avengers-love as well. Buy oh my! Alex. That kid! My goodness, has he got it bad!

About a year and a half ago, Alex began getting interested in all things Ocean. Because of his new found interest, Josh and I thought we'd feed that by finding the closest aquarium and taking the kiddos to that. We found one in Oklahoma and once Alex saw that they had a shark tunnel, he was pumped to go. We went last summer around this time and he had a blast. That was just the beginning of his ocean love. Fast forward to today...

He never stops talking about all things ocean. Especially sharks. Never. Stops. Talking. About. Sharks....NEVER. When I ask him to think about something else for a few minutes, he says, "I can't! I can't get sharks out of my brain, mom!" When we go for walks, he will literally talk my ear off about all things ocean and sharks for the entire trip. He owns about ten shark books right now and is begging for more. And the kid reads them...by himself...every day. He Googles. Yes. Googles. He finds the name of some random sea creature and types it in to Google so he can find pictures about them. He wants to be a Marine Biologist and go scuba diving with sharks as soon as he can learn how. I seriously can't explain the level of obsessed this kid is. You just have to hear it to believe it.

This summer we are going to go back to the Oklahoma Aquarium. This time, I can guarantee that he will know every single name to every single creature in that place and will be able to tell you at least one fact about each one. He's asked if we can go to the New York Aquarium and about six other ones he's read about. He can spot a pea-sized picture of a shark in any book he finds within moments and will beg to cut the image out so he can keep it or buy the book if that won't work. We spend hours checking out and reading the shark books he's found at our local library. A year ago, I wouldn't have known one shark from another. They were all great whites in my brain. Today, I can name and identify at least 30 of the 400 species of sharks in the world and tell you a little about them. I know terms like "midnight zone" and "denticles" and can tell you  just which shark is the "garbage can of the ocean."

Sometimes, Josh and I just look at one another and start laughing when Alex gets his shark and ocean lectures on. It can start to drive us a bit batty at times, but who knows? Perhaps he'll be the next Jacques Cousteau. Here's my big question though. How is it possible that things like Scooby Doo and Sponge-Bob give this kid nightmares, but the most frightening creature on Earth doesn't even faze him? And if you're wondering whatever happened to Alex wanting to be a Chiropractor? Don't worry. He says he wants to be a Chiropractic Marine Biologist that scuba-dives with sharks. When I asked him if he would fix the sharks backs he pointed out to me that sharks don't have bones. They have cartilage. It made me laugh.

Evie is 7 Months Old

Seven months old.

One of these days I'll go back to the good ol' blog postin' days and actually get things up more than once a week. Not anytime soon, but I'm still hopeful. Sometimes, I'll be walking around thinking, "Oh that's cool! I should take a picture of that and then write a blog!" But then I never get around to it. Evie just keeps me hopping these days. If I'm not fishing things out of her mouth, then I'm rescuing her from falling over and bumping her noggin. Busy, busy! That's her (and me apparently).

So I know I'm a few days late, but Evie is 7 months old. What is she up to at this crazy age? What is she not up to, would be the better way to put it. I believe I totally skipped the sixth month posting (I think). But two days before her sixth month, she started crawling. Within a week of that, she was practically a pro. And by her seventh month, she is currently doing way more than I can keep up with. She's crawling like a pro, pulling up to everything (seriously...everything), cruising where she can, trying her best to let go and stand on her own and saying Mama when she's really upset I left her with daddy. She's starting the finger food days. Banana puffs, sweet potato puffs, Cheerios, tiny bits of toast (as of tonight), and her favorite, graham crackers. She's on about 75% of the different fruits in veggies in the baby food aisle and still fights me on peaches, pears and carrots. She still wakes up all night long and wants nothing more but to sleep on my pillow with me (I know. Not safe.). But best of all, this girl is one happy little baby! She loves to play with and follow Alex and Abby everywhere and loves to sit with us at meal times. All around, little miss Evie is just doing wonderful! I'm so blessed to have such a happy and fun little girl...even if she does keep me on my toes nonstop.

Is she not the happiest little girl you've ever seen?

Sap I Am

This weekend I had my annual garage sale and I was super pumped to get rid of some of the unnecessary clutter in the house. Now that we've sealed the deal, so to speak, for not having any more kids, it's time to let go of all the baby stuff that we no longer need. Evie is moving right along and leaving lots of those fun items I've had for six years well behind her. But who has two thumbs and too much sentimentality? This mama. That's who.  Watching the stuff I've used on three babies get loaded into some random person's car was so much harder than I expected it to be. My nursing pillow...*sniff*...that helped my three little babies do countless hours of tummy time on. My Old MacDonald farm play mat...*sniff*...that three tiny babies learned to roll over on. Baby clothes...*sniff*...that I changed over and over through all the spit up and diaper explosions. The baby bath tub...*sniff*...that I gave first baths for three little naked babies in. Ah heck! I'm just an over-sentimental sap! But the worst was the last thing I sold. It was a ratty old (probably recalled) baby bouncer that I bought for a whopping quarter at a garage sale when I was pregnant with Alex. I called it the magic bouncer because, despite it's old crusty nature, each kid loved it like crazy. I actually almost kept it. But I knew that it would be better used for someone else's baby. I actually cried when it got loaded into that car and drove off. I also am kicking myself for letting it go. So my sweet daughter, Abby, told me tonight when I was telling Josh how much I regret selling it, that I can go buy it back from them when their baby is done using it and they sell it at their own garage sale. And that if I pray about it, God can help me find it. I gave her a hug and told her that it was a fantastic idea!

Our last picture with the Pink Bouncer. *sniff*

So here I am. Letting go of the baby scene. I never thought it would be so hard. I know that we're done and that we all must move on as our children grow, but dagnabbit, if it doesn't sting like crazy! Perhaps our paths shall cross again Pink bouncer. Perhaps.

Summer's Arrived

Now that Josh has started a job, I'm at home running around like a mad lady with the three kids. Evie started crawling...and pulling up...and cruising the furniture. Apparently she just can't wait to do these things for my sanity's sake. This has made my days very long. I'm not complaining about Josh working. I'm very happy that he is out of the house and attempting to bring some money back into the picture. But I forgot how much work it takes to keep a baby from crying and falling over nonstop. Between that and Alex and Abby, my days are just a big ol' bag of crazy. Alex and Abby want to be outside all of the time. I'm happy to say that they are already dealing well with heat. We keep our house at about 78 degrees during the day which is a step up from the 101 degrees our house was when I was a kid, so my kids can count themselves lucky. But I also don't want to raise a bunch of heat sensitive pansies. So I make them go outside and sweat. However, now that it's hot enough to swim, they begged me to put up our old friend the Big Blue Blob.  Today was that day. It was a lot of work to dust that bad boy off and get it filled up, but it's officially done. They've also officially swam in it twice already.

Evie is such a busy little gal that I have to entertain her nonstop no matter if I'm inside or outside so this is turning out to be a long summer already. I'm not sure how it will go, but I hope she's ready to do some heavy sweating. I have a feeling we'll be outside a lot.

And with summer, as it seems to be each year lately, comes our annual city wide garage sale in town. And I've been participating for the last couple of years. Now that we are officially done popping out babies, I'm selling off everything that I won't be using anymore (changing table, baby bath, billions of pounds of clothes, etc.). I must admit, I'm having a pang of sadness at seeing it all sitting in my house with price tags on them. I've had that changing table for six years. I've changed six tiny butts over and over again on it and my heart does a little flip at the thought of these days being in the past. Of course, that flip of my heart isn't big enough to pop out another kid. But it does kind of hurt. I'll miss those tiny butts being changed. Huh. Who knew I'd miss changing 20 poopy diapers a day?

P.S. I don't have time to edit my blog posts these days. I'm just lucky to have five minutes to write anything at all. So if you see a weird grammar issue...oops. My bad.

Super Hero Geek Squad 2013

I loved our family pictures that we took last year so much. (See Super Hero Geek Squad 2012 here) It was fun and cost us zero dollars (which is always a win in my book). I just have one problem. Our family wasn't complete the last time we did our super-hero pictures. Now that we are plus one more with miss Evie, I had to go for our next round of photos. I got my mom to take the pictures again this year and we all piled in the van to go be total geeks...and love doing it! This year, I decided to change things up a bit. I want to do something totally dorky every year like this. In 20 years, my family photo wall is gonna rock! I'm trying to convince Josh we should all do a pirate themed one next year because we will be going to my brother's wedding in California (I hope we can go anyways). We can totally do a beach background with that. He hates pirates. But ya know what? My camera, my gig...my rules. (insert evil, maniacal laughter here).  So without further ado, here is round two of:

Did I make my kids wear pairs of my old glasses for the sake of a fun family photo? Yup. (click to see larger formats)

Uh-oh! Someone activated The Geek Squad signal!

Quick! To the Geekmobile! Wait. Did we install the car seat right?

Evie will get her mask next year. Ya know...for identity secrecy issues.

Training to save the world is hard work. Especially with a super baby attached!

Training starts young in our family.

But even the Super Geek kids need a break.

Nailed the side kick last year. Had a baby via c-section and nailed it again this year. Oh yeah!

Teaching proper side kicks are easy with a flexible baby.

Incoming!!

We girls gotta be strong!

Little BatGeek may be small, but he packs a punch.

We've taught them well.