As of this moment, the boys are fully day-time potty trained.  Yee-haw!  I knew we could do it!  Kinda.  And just in time too because they need to be potty trained for school, which is coming up rapidly.  They do still wear a diaper (because, for some reason, pullups SUCK and leak) at night, but other than that (and us making Coops wear a diaper on the 2-hour plane trip to SC recently), they wear big boy undies all day long.  With very few accidents.  I’m so stoked about the money-saving, no more worrying about running out of diapers and having to stress over whether a restaurant has a diaper changing station.  And wipes and poopy diapers and stinky closets (where we kept the diaper champ with the poopy diapers) or having to put the boys in swim diapers.  It’s kinda awesome, this no-diapers business.  I highly recommend it.

So, let’s see how it all started…

We registered the boys for the fall session of school back in February, which is when I found out that the kids had to be potty-trained.  Cue me with jaw on floor and panic racing through my brain.  February March April May June July August.  Ok, I had 6 months to get them potty-trained.  I could do it.  I could do it!  It would be easy, no problem, they were ready!

Oh mom. You're as crazy as I look right now.

Ha!  Ha ha!  No.  No, they were not either.  We attempted the 3-day thing again with disastrous results.  Spence was more open to the idea of it, but he just couldn’t *get* to the bathroom on time.  Thank god for hardwood floors.  I’m not sure how people with carpets do potty training.  Sounds awful.  Cooper wasn’t open to the idea at.all.  Not one bit.

Around the beginning of May, maybe middle of April, the boys’ teacher told us that Spencer was ready and to put him in pull-ups for school.  So I did but she would tell me at pick up time that he would refuse to go to the potty there and would either hold it or just pee in the pull-up.  So I just forsook the pull-ups and put him back in diapers.  He’d get it in his own time.  Cooper, on the other hand?  Total lost cause.  He would scream bloody murder if I even suggested he pee on the little potty.

Then, at the end of school, I realized that most-if not all-of the boys’ classmates were potty trained.  This was ridiculous.  They were three!  They should be potty trained!  And I was gonna have to be the one to do it.  It was obvious the 3-day method was not going to work on these guys, I’d just have to be patient (HA!) and figure something out that would work.

Spencer responds to sticker charts.  Cooper couldn’t care less about them.  It got to the point that when Spence would pee in the potty and he would get a sticker, he would put it on Cooper’s chart because Cooper’s was so glaringly empty.  He’s such a sweet brother.  Anyway, I’m not sure when he snapped, but Spence just started announcing that he had to go pee and I’d run with him to the bathroom and he would pee in the potty.  I think once Jay showed him that big boys can stand to pee in the big potty + me putting a stool in front of the big potty + letting him be naked around the house for several days on end = Spence getting potty-trained!  Well, and M&Ms too.  M&Ms make the world go ’round and kids go pee on the potty.

I am so awesome. I am a big boy.

Spence never had any reservations about pooping on the toilet so that worked nicely for him becoming totally potty-trained sooner.  Once Cooper gave in to the stickers and the rewards (cars and other small toys) and the M&Ms, he would pee on the little potty but no way in hell was he going to poop.  One day, I could tell he had to poop.  He was acting anxious and he was getting really stressed and upset.  He was in and out of the bathroom and he finally asked me to put a diaper on him (he was naked at the time).  I asked him why and he started to cry.  He told me he had to poop and I told him he could do it on the potty.  He cried harder.  Poor guy!  I am not quite sure why pooping on the potty is such a scary thing.  I might have done this completely wrong, but at the moment I thought it was a good idea (and it turns out, it was just the push he needed, so to speak), I grabbed him and put him on the little potty, shoved my iPad in front of him with the Potty with Elmo app on and sat with him until he had gone.  About 10 minutes later, he had pooped in the potty and he was ecstatic.  Oh, the joy on his little face was so cute!  “MAMA, I POOPED ON THE POTTY!  LOOK!!”  Ahh, why do they always want me to look?    After that, our only problem was getting him to actually take time out to *go* to the bathroom.  He tends to prefer to hold his pee/poop until the very last moment.  But he is always so excited about anything he does in the toilet, so that’s fun.  In the beginning, we made a huge deal out of everything they, ahem, left in the potty.  Screaming happily, high fives, stickers, toys, M&Ms, kisses and hugs…  Now, it’s like anyone else pooping or peeing: they get bupkus.  🙂  Actually, I do still tell them “good job, buddy!” when they announce their bowel movements/urination moments.

There *is* random screaming and running around in undies. But doesn't everyone do this?

I’d say Spence has been in underwear full-time (again, except for bedtime.  Although, tonight – 8/5/12 – he asked to sleep in underwear and then cried when Jay wouldn’t but then I put him in them and so we’ll see.  He has woken up dry most mornings lately, so I’m going to trust him…and the waterproof sheet I have on his bed) for about a month and a half now?  Maybe even two months.  He’s done so great, I am so proud of that guy.  He does have an accident every now and then, mostly when he’s playing and so into what he’s doing that he forgets he’s wearing underwear and he’ll pee just a little.  He’ll run to the potty to finish up though.  It’s gotten to the point that he doesn’t even announce “I gotta go pee pee, mama!” anymore, he’ll just go.  And sometimes, he’ll go when the light is off too.  He is that good.

Cooper is in underwear full-time, but has only been like that for maaaaybe a month now?  He is doing so well too.  He rarely has any accidents, probably because he has a bladder of steel and holds it forever.  I have to force him to pee sometimes, just because he’d rather be doing just about anything else in the entire world.  Weird kid.  He does still ask me, “Am I wearing diapers, mommy?” just to remind himself that he’s in underwear and he should go to the bathroom IN THE POTTY.

I am much too busy to stop and go pee in the potty right now, mother.

They both prefer the big toilet over the little one so I think I may be getting rid of the little potty soon.  I do lug around a small potty in my car for when we’re out and about and at a place where there are no restrooms at all (i.e. all the small playgrounds around town), which was a genius move on my part, if I do say so myself.  They also really enjoy being naked when we’re at home.  It makes for awkward situations when I forget to close the front door and someone drops by unannounced and catches a little toddler booty, but who doesn’t love a little tiny behind?!  Seriously, their tiny butts are freaking adorable.

So, I’m going to take this moment to pat myself on the back for having potty-trained kids and I may be helping myself to all those leftover M&Ms…

Three cheers for potty-trained little boys!

The boys are 3y4m2d old.

Three weeks later (ok, not at the time of this writing, but whatever):

All healed!

Coop got his cast off on May 21st.  It was quite a production.  Oh, it didn’t take very long, but the way Coop carried on, you’d have thought they were sawing his leg off instead of just the cast.

The sawing off of leg. I mean, cast.

It didn’t even really sound like a saw.  It was more like a vacuum and not a very loud one, at that.

Off! Stinky feet!

Here’s what Cooper was probably saying in this picture:  “OMG, THEY CUT OFF MY LEG!  MY LEG!  IT HURTS SO MUCH!  OMG, MYYYYY LEGGGGG!!!”

I’ll have you know that no blood was shed in this whole procedure.  I think the guy knew what he was doing.  He probably removes casts every 10 minutes, every M-F.  The pediatric orthopedist Coop was referred to was very nice and their office was very big–I think there were 10-15 waiting rooms!  So that equals a lot of casts being removed.

Not as stinky as I thought it would be.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was not it.  I guess I was thinking that they’d slide the cast off somehow?  Who knows!  That doesn’t even make sense, with Coop’s cast having gone over his knee, but I really did not know how they got those suckers off.  Turns out they saw up both sides and then get some pliers and pry the two halves apart and slide the appendage out.  Pretty neat.

So distraught

Cooper: “I need comfort, my leg feels weird and naked and it huuuuuurrrrrrttttssssssss!”

::eye roll::

Not as withered and pale as I imagined

I thought he’d be excited to have that hard, heavy, clunky, awkward thing off, but he was just the opposite.  And silly us, we put one shoe on as we left for the office and then when they took the cast off, we had…one shoe.  Duh.  We went out to eat for lunch to celebrate Cooper having made it through the 3 weeks of wearing a cast and not having to have another one put on and we realized that he would look silly with just one shoe on.  He solved the problem of me worrying about him hurting his feet walking barefoot from the car to the restaurant by just not walking.

And then he would continue that by not walking for the next 15 days.

WOE

Around day 6, I was worried b/c Coop wasn’t putting any weight on that leg/foot and when we would try to get him to stand or we — oops — tried to force him to walk, he would cry and scream that it hurt.  As nice as the doctor had been, he hadn’t given us ANY instructions/advice on what to expect or how Cooper would recover.  I called the office and a very nice nurse apologized profusely for us leaving without being told what to do about the healed leg.  She told us that he would walk in his own time and sometimes it took a while.  She told us not to — oops — force him to walk and if he wasn’t walking by day 10 to call for another appointment and they would make sure that everything was, indeed, healed nicely.

At day 10, he hadn’t so much as tried to stand on his own and when we would stand him up to change shorts or whatever, he’d refuse to put his right foot down and kept pointing at the spot right where the foot meets the leg on the top side and saying that it hurt.  I called for an appointment just to make sure he hadn’t broken something else that wasn’t caught on the first x-ray and they told us to come in the very next day.

At that next appointment, they did another x-ray and this time, they moved the view down to include the top of the foot and found…nothing!  Turns out that “children heal in their own time” and “it could take anywhere from a week to even 2 or 3 weeks for them to start walking after getting their casts off”.  Hmph.  Sure would have been nice to know that before scheduling the appointment.  Thankfully, they didn’t charge us for that 3rd appointment!

No broken bones here

After almost 2.5 weeks, the kid finally walked.  And we weren’t even there to see it.  Nope.  He decided his own mommy and daddy weren’t even good enough to walk for and instead walked for his beloved cousin Ty.  See!  I told you!  Favorite person?  Ty.  Jay and I had gone to a birthday party in Houston and left the boys with my parents for one night and with Jay’s sister the next night and while they were with Kim and Ty, Cooper went and walked.  He still limps and has started saying that his left leg hurts, but he’s not crawling anymore (he had been scooching or crawling like a zombie climbing out of a grave, like he had when the cast was on).

I’m so glad the cast is off and that he’s finally walking.  My arm, shoulders and back were hurting carrying that guy!  He’s not light, that’s for sure!

And the beat goes on.  I’m hoping we don’t see another pediatric orthopedist for, oh, ever.  No more broken bones, TYVM!

I hate doing these posts because I always worry I’m going to leave something out.  I want it to be something to remind me down the road about how my little guys were at this point in their lives, but I don’t want any important stuff to be missed.

Let’s see…

Spence

Your little sly grin

You’re still sucking your thumb.  😦 and since you still don’t like the Mavala Stop, you’ve learned to switch thumbs.  Dag!  Persistent little guy, that is you to a “T”.

You’re so helpful and you always want to do things with me–laundry, putting dishes away, feeding the outside cats.  Sometimes, you get mad and pout when you can’t help or I do something without you.  But I usually try to back up and let you finish the task or create a new job for you and that works most of the time.

Daddy says you’re just like he was when he was little–very active, can’t sit still, always wanting to do something.  You’re so busy and I like that you have so much energy.  I can barely keep up, but it’s fun to watch you go!

When you were younger, you were a lot more crazy–going down slides and climbing on things–but you’ve become a little more cautious and you don’t do those things as much, or at all.  I’m not sure what happened, but I hope you’re not always so timid because hanging out with me is no fun!

Speaking of me, you are very much my little guy.  You cry when I leave the house and I didn’t say good-bye, you get upset when I leave the room and don’t let you follow me. You’re my sensitive one.  You always offer to kiss my owies or you’ll ask if someone is ok if you see that they’ve gotten hurt.

My favorite thing about you is how lovey you are.  You always want to kiss!  You’ll kiss anyone and usually on the lips, much to many of our friends’/family’s shock.  🙂  I don’t think Tyler likes being kissed on the lips by his 3-year-old cousin, but you sure don’t care and I love that about you.  You’re a sweet boy…most of the time!

You like to color a lot.  When I buy cards, I always can put you at the bar in the kitchen with some markers and you’ll jazz ’em all up really pretty.  Or, I can just hand you some paper and colors/markers/pencils/whatever and you’ll go to town.  Your usual choices for colors are yellow, orange and pink.

Is he a lefty?

You have a lisp and you say “f” instead of “s” for most words:  Fencer (Spencer), fwim (swim), etc.  And you don’t pronounce your “r” either:  Coopah, cah (car).  It’s like you’re from the Northeast!

Whenever I try to take pictures of you, you always want to grab the camera from me, or you let me take the picture but you want to see it right away.

I really like the way you talk.  You start talking and then you change your mind about words halfway through and so you just say random things and you might stutter a little bit and yeah, it might take you some time to spit out a sentence, but I do love it.  It’s fun to watch your brain work.  You force me to be patient and that’s a great thing.  I *need* to be more patient and you’re just the guy to do the job.

Your favorites:

food: stawbewwies (strawberries)

tv show:  Ciffurd! (Clifford, and you like the puppy days ones better than the big red dog ones)

toy:  anything Coop has.  😉  You have a stuffed puppy dog that you call “Nanny” and you like that dog to sleep with you.  You’re not the type of kid who attaches to things though.  Aside from your thumb, that is.

book:  Truck Stuck by Sallie Wolff and Clifford books.

colors:  yellow and orange

song:  Hat-de Birt-day (and you always make me sing it to “Coopah and Fence-uh and mommy and daddy and gamma and gampa and Aunt Kim and Ty and other gamma and other gampa”…it always takes forever just to get through!)

person:  mommy

friend:  Cooper.  As you say, he’s your “best”.

Cooper

I can hear your giggle now

You speak so well!  I’m always amazed at the things that come out of your mouth.  You do this thing where you put your pointer finger up right by your mouth and you’ll say “just a little bit” and it cracks your daddy and me up so much.  You also say “I can’t how to do this” when you can’t figure something out.  I’m pretty sure you’re afraid of the dark, but that’s ok.  So was I.

You don’t like when cartoons have scary music.  You always ask me to turn it off or say that you don’t want to watch it and I have to fast-forward through the “scary” parts.

Once, recently, you and I were driving around town on a day when Spence was in school (you had your cast on, so you couldn’t go to school) and I said something about having to take you with me to some place and you told me, “I can just stay at home and you go by yourself.”  Of course I laughed and told you that was not going to happen, but thinking about it, if I were to leave anyone at home by themselves, it would be you.  You have a great imagination and you will sit and play in your playroom forever all by yourself.  I can hear you talk to yourself/the toys and making up stories.  It’s really awesome.

You still love books.  If I don’t know where you are and I go looking for you, I almost always find you with a book in your lap and you’ll be murmuring to yourself about the things you see on the pages.

You’re not a fan of doing crafty things.  When I suggest coloring, you will color for maybe 5 minutes and then you’re done.  And when you do color, you always go for the dark colors–black, brown, dark blue.  Weirdo.

Is he a righty?

You hate when I take a picture of you and when I do get you to look at the camera, you make a face.  Little turkey!

Your go-to face

You’re more cautious when it comes to doing anything, but you sure like to talk big.  😉  When we drive by the big slides at Schlitterbahn, you always say that you want to go down those slides with daddy, but if push were to come to shove, I’m not sure you would actually follow through.

You’re definitely the more quiet of the two of y’all, but I don’t want anyone to mistake that for you being the “good” one!  Oh no, you have a devilish side about you too.

Because you’re quiet, I think people think you’re more sensitive too, but that is definitely not the case.  You’re very easy-going, you take after your dad that way, you are the one who is more apt to give up a toy or work out a trade or share.

Your attention span is longer than your brother’s, but you’d rather play with toys or read books than watch tv.  I did something right!

Favorites:

food:  french fries.  And I’ll put milk here because that’s what you prefer over anything else at mealtimes.  You guzzle your milk down and always ask for more.

tv show:  Busytown Mysteries

toy:  your beloved “wovey!” (an orange lion head attached to a little square blankie) and since we got you the stuffed longhorn/”longie!” (which, strangely, you’ve decided to call Uncle Jared), you carry that around with your lovey and insist on both being in your bed with you at naps/bedtime.

book:  you will read everything.  You like books with machines in them.  Lately, you’ve been all about cranes.

colors:  red and green.

song:  the alphabet song.  And when you sing it, you sing it LOUD, screaming almost.  I’ll have to videotape you for posterity.

person:  Tyler, your cousin.

friend:  Konner, from school.  I am terribly sad he won’t be in the same class as you next fall, but we’ll make sure to still play together as often as we can!

Both of you

Stinkers

Neither of you have the patience or attention span to sit through a movie yet, so we haven’t tried too many.  I think Wall-E is the only one we’ve watched all the way through, spread out over several days though.

You both love swimming and going to Schlitterbahn.

Chillin' at the 'Bahn

Playing with dirt or sand is a big activity these days and there always has to be a machine around to help you dig (“excabators” and “buhdozuhs” and “loaduhs”).

You both loathe brushing your teeth, but will let mommy and daddy do it for you.

Neither of you want to potty-train!  ARGH!  No matter how many toys I promise you, you just won’t go potty all the time in the bathroom.  Spencer is much closer–as you’ve pooped and peed in the potty multiple times, but Cooper is as far as far can be.  Sigh.  Soon.  I hope!

Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground.

We recently dug out my old Legos and man, y’all both were in heaven!  Cooper more so, but both of you just loved building and destroying things.

Blocks of any kind are great!

Cars are another favorite here–anything with a car, or any vehicle really, is a hit.

I could go on and on, but it has been AGES since I’ve posted a new blog entry so I’m going to add some pictures and throw this up on the web.  If I think of more, I’ll just make a new post, dang it!  🙂

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

The boys are 3 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 5 days old.  🙂

It had to happen some time.  I have boys, after all.

On Thursday (April 26th), around 6:00pm, the boys were in the living room, playing around their Cozy Coupes.  They were climbing into them, Dukes of Hazzard-style, when one fell over on top of Cooper (I was in the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner) and then when Coop started crying, I looked back again, he was next to the Coupe and Spencer was now on top of him.  I asked him what was wrong and he was crying too hard to respond.  I picked him up and set him on the couch to assess the damages.  I asked where it hurt and he pointed to his right shin and asked if I could put a band-aid on it (through tears).  I said, “Sure, hang on!”, grabbed a band-aid and slapped it on.  He asked for another one to be placed right below that one.  Done.

I sat him down on the couch to calm down and told him he could watch a cartoon while I made dinner.  Jay came home about 20 minutes later and dinner was ready soon after.  Jay told the boys to come to the kitchen to eat, so Spence slid off the recliner where he had been sitting and then Coop did the same thing, but he cringed and then fell to the ground crying when he did so.  Jay asked what had happened and I repeated the story.  He thought maybe Coop had a sprained ankle or some thing was hurting him.  Cooper asked me to carry him to the kitchen for dinner, where he proceeded to eat nothing.  He looked so sad that I knew something had to be wrong.  Jay checked Coop’s foot, applied pressure on it to see if he could discern whether the leg was broken and couldn’t decide.  I called the after hours nurse line and was told that if Cooper couldn’t stand on his own, it was most likely broken and I should take him to the ER immediately.  Jay thought maybe we should wait til the morning and take him to the doctor, but finally we determined that the pedi couldn’t do x-rays anyway and Coop seemed to be in a lot of pain (even though he kept saying it didn’t hurt and that he didn’t want to go to the doctor) and DEFINITELY could not stand on his own, so Jay took him to the Med Clinic here in town.

Luckily, the Med Clinic didn’t have tooooo long a wait (Coops and Jay left the house just before 8pm) and they were able to x-ray a 3-year-old.  Plus, it was only $60 and Jay said (most of) the staff were very nice.  Around 10pm, I got a Voxer message from Jay and it was Cooper’s voice saying, “Mama, I bwoke my yeg.”  My baby!  My poor, poor baby!  😦

a clean break

I’ve never broken a bone before, but I certainly thought it took more to break one.  Especially with as much milk as Cooper drinks.  I guess there will be no more rough-housing!

A temporary splint

Anyway, they couldn’t put a cast on it at the med clinic, so they just put a splint on it and gave us numbers of 3 pediatric orthopedists in San Antonio.  I called all of them the next day as soon as we got up (even though Coop and Jay didn’t get home until after 10p, he still woke up bright and early.  No rest for the wicked) and found that Friday is “Doctor Slack-Off” day.  None of them answered the phones before 9 and one even was as late as 9:30!  With it being Fiesta in SA, I was worried we wouldn’t be able to get a cast for him at all if I didn’t get there bright and early.  At 9 straight up, I called one office again and finally they answered their phone.  The receptionist told me she would work me in and asked if I could be there by 10a.  Uhh, seeing as how I needed a baby-sitter for Spencer and still had to drive way over to Stone Oak, I wasn’t sure I’d make that.  I called my MIL anyway and asked her to hurry on over.  She got to our house about 9:45 and we sped off.  I am surprised that we got there by 10:15a and I drove the speed limit the entire way.  Wow.  No traffic will do that, I suppose.

We signed in and didn’t have to wait very long at all.  I brought my iTouch and let Coop play some Thomas the Tank Engine puzzles and matching game.  When we went back, the doctor said that he didn’t think it would take longer than 3 weeks for Coop’s leg to heal and that they would do the cast right then and there.  They had make it go halfway up the thigh because the doctor thought one that went below the knee would shift and fall off and he thought one right above the knee would probably do about the same thing.  Coop *does* have skinny ole legs.  So way above the knee it was.  And no walking cast either b/c the knee had to be set at a 90 degree angle.  Can’t catch a break!  Oh wait…

Before cast.

Cooper was a trooper the entire time.  He was so good.  He just grimaced a few times when the guy who put on the cast had to adjust Coop’s leg so it was straight.

Sad face Cooper

Wrapping with some soft stuff (<-technical term). That's my hand at the top.

We were there probably about 45 minutes, I’d say.  The guy making the cast was very nice and so good with Coop, he was gentle and explained what he was doing so Coop wouldn’t be afraid or think it would hurt.

All wrapped up and ready for some color!

See how high up it goes on his thigh?  I told the guy I was going to take pictures and he said he was glad I was doing that.  He said that very few parents took pictures and he would encourage them to do so because it is really neat to watch the change.  Not in a broken leg or whatever, but for clubbed foot babies.  He explained what a club foot was and how they could fix it.  Amazing what you can achieve with just some plaster and whatever that other stuff is.  😉

Of all the color choices, he picks neon orange.

I thought for sure he would go for red or green (his favorite colors, he says), but he wanted orange.  I hoped he’d choose glow-in-the-dark, but nope.  How cool would a glowing leg in the dark be?!  Apparently not at all.  Hmph.

Watching Clifford to pass the time.

When we were done, I asked about a waterproof cover and the doctor said he suggested not even doing the plastic bag/duct tape trick because a) it rarely works and b) I could sponge bathe him easier/quicker.  And because of the bend in the cast, he said getting water in it would be bad because then it would mold and get nasty behind the knee.  So yeah, sponge baths.  It’s really too bad that Cooper hadn’t had a bath for 2 days before he broke his leg.  Oops.  I hope the doctor didn’t look at Cooper’s toes and make a mental note to call CPS.

After getting our instructions, we headed to the check-out desk.  While standing there, we heard a saw coming from one of the exam rooms.  Cooper grabbed me and asked what that noise was.  I told him it was a saw and that’s what they used to take the cast off.  Rookie mistake.  I swear I never think before I speak and really should get into the habit of doing so.  He clutched me and kinda screeched that he didn’t want a saw to “cut off his leg”!  I assured him that they probably never cut any legs off in the process and that they usually know what they’re doing when they’re getting those casts off and he did not look swayed.  I should have said it was grasshoppers making that noise.  ::smacks forehead::

A cool ~$600 later and we were on our way.  Since Coops hadn’t been eating very well since the night before, I asked what he would like for lunch and when he said “fries”, I said, “ok!”.  We made a Wendy’s run and when we got home, Spence was a little afraid of the cast.  Cooper quite enjoyed the attention he got that day and played up the sympathy card.  He also kept making the most ridiculous excuses:  I can’t eat that yogurt because I have a cast on my leg.  I can’t go outside because I have a cast on my leg.  Spencer realized that Cooper was getting more attention and started complaining of random ailments himself:  I have a  bad feeling, mom.  I don’t think I can go to the store.  My eyes are hurting from all the eye-rolling I’m doing.

Coop has been a really good sport, he hasn’t really complained about pain and he knows that he can’t get in the sandbox.  He loves the idea of sitting on the couch and watching cartoons and swinging to his heart’s content.  He can still ride shotgun in their truck and he can scooch himself around the playroom all by himself.  By the end of the 3 weeks, I imagine he’ll be a pro at getting himself around to where he wants to be.  And at wrapping us all around his little finger.

Jay built ramps from the house to the deck and from the deck to the yard so we can pull Coop in the wagon and outside without any hassle.  He can’t go to school because they can’t make any provisions for his needs since his class moves around too much.  School is out in 3 weeks.  So, you see what I mean here?  He will be missing the last 3 weeks of school.  I feel so sorry for him, but I’m going to ask if he can come on the last day or something so he can say good-bye to his schoolmates.  Poor guy.

But wait!  I’m more sad for myself, frankly.  I have to hang out with him when I’m supposed to have T/Th mornings to myself!  ::shakes fist::  Argh!  And they don’t make child-sized wheelchairs.  I checked.  Sad.

Wish us luck and hope we don’t all go crazy.  Or that Coop gets bed sores from sitting on the couch and watching too many cartoons…

Getting creative at lazing around.

…which I’m sure he wouldn’t mind at all.

Second Easter was at the IL’s place.  I was glad they decided to have it after naps because that meant we could have two Easters in one day and who wouldn’t want that?

The boys love seeing their little cousins, Logan and Oliver (both 2, but not brothers) and, of course, Tyler (who is 14, I think).  They love Tyler.  They adore him.  And Tyler is very good with them, so that’s nice.

While waiting for the roast to be ready, we did the egg hunt in the backyard.  Spence and Coop, having an extra year in this egg-hunting experience, as well as practice from earlier in the day, really cleaned up.  I’m not sure they left very many for Logan and Oliver at all.  I said that maybe we should have a 3 and over edition and a 2 and under one because it really was not fair how many eggs my kids came away with.  Maybe we should handicap them in some way–tie their legs together perhaps?  That wouldbe funny…

They went one way...

As soon as we let the 4 little boys out of the gates, Coop and Spence headed left while the other two headed straight and to the right.  It was like my boys were being paid to find eggs.

My ducklings

Following their beloved Tyler.

Sweeping the yard for any eggs left behind

Taking a breath after the hunt.

He looks so serious.  I guess egg hunting *is* serious business.

It's not how many eggs you find, it's the memories you collect.

And with that, Easter is over.

We had 2 Easters this year.  I really like Easter, actually.  You hide eggs and let the kids find ’em and then you eat lots of good food.  I think we should start hiding stuff at Thanksgiving too, it would up the awesomeness factor.

First Easter was over at my sister’s place in Buda.  My grandparents, my uncle John and his family, my parents were there as well.  My mom, dad and I hid about 400 eggs in the backyard (my dad being stealth ninja egg-hider warrior man) and then let the kids go a-hunting.  As long as it took us to hide the eggs, it sure didn’t take very long for the kids to find them all.

Coop checks the "tree" for hidden treasure.

My sister doesn’t really have any trees to speak of, so we had to be really creative with our hiding spots.

Competitive egg hunting

Spencer is still an egg-hunter bad-ass, but Maya gave him a little run for his money this year.

Go! Go! Go!

Cooper also moved along more this year.  In years past, he moseyed along and thought carefully about the egg, maybe opened it up to look inside (there was nothing in the eggs, never has been) and then finally placed it carefully in his bag.  This time, he grabbed the egg and was off to find another one.

Maizy, the moseyer.

Nope, this year Maizy was the moseyer.  Hey, it had to be someone.

"Look at all my eggs, Aunt Doyce!"

I think Maya might have had the most eggs, but we didn’t count because we didn’t want there to be any fights.  We’re not dumb.

Coop's haul

Spence’s bounty

We had ham and potato salad, rolls, veggies of different sorts…um, I’m sure there were other things, but I didn’t eat them.  What I did eat was…

Jennifer made lemon cake balls.  I usually hate cake balls.  I think they’re disgusting.  But these?  They were drool-worthy.  In fact, I stole 2 on our way out the door.  🙂

I totally meant to post a “where are they now/what kinds of stuff are they up to” blog entry about the boys (not so much about Jay…) and I got caught up making the boys special t-shirts to wear to school and planning all sorts of crazy details for their birthday party this coming weekend. Ack! I am overwhelmed!

Here are my beautiful birthday boys

Sweet smiles from Coop

Cheesy grin from Mr. Spence

The only good one of both of them together

And the old guy…

Surprise! You're old!

(and here are the shirts I made that took a zillion years, tons of attempts and lots of frustration at the sewing machine, at curvy lines, at the tension knob…)

Sewing a "C" and an "S" sucks so much

As Jay always says, “Good enough for who it’s for.”  They’re 3, they don’t care.  They just like that their “names” (i.e. the letters) are on there.

And this morning, getting ready for school

They move too much

We don’t have any plans for the rest of the day, Jay took off, but who knows if he’ll want to go out and do anything to celebrate or just stay home and play.  Either way, there will be cupcakes involved.  😉

When the boys were little, we would play in the guest/computer room and I would put a bunch of pillows all over the rug in there.  Then I’d let the boys crawl around on it and bounce on the pillows.  Ah, it was great fun.

Now, I usually keep the pillows put away in a cabinet under the tv.  However, the boys know where the pillows are and sometimes they’ll get a wild hair to grab them all out and either make a “road” (they line them up in a long column and then step from pillow to pillow, or in the case of today–get on the Rody and bounce from one to the next) or they’ll pile them all up and dive into them.  Sometimes this ends in tears because someone has stolen a pillow or 5 off the pile and the guy jumping off doesn’t realize it until he’s smacked into the hard floor, but since they’re resilient, they jump back up and reform.

This was today’s effort, I thought it was pretty awesome.  And just shows how completely and totally different they are from each other.  One is like me where he puts one toe in to test the waters and then wades in slowly, where the other is just like his daddy and just heads straight in, no matter what the danger may be.

Ha!  Pssh!  See the date on the video?  See what day it is now?  Obviously I forgot.

The boys were in a Christmas program for their school.  For weeks, they’d been learning “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and another song I’d never heard called “God is Watching Over You” (uh, kinda creepy).  And finally they put their learning to the test.

Watch and see if it did any good.  🙂

Christmas Program 2011

ETA:  Jay uploaded this video on to his own YouTube account and for some reason, set it to private.  When he gets home, I’ll have him change the settings on it so I can share the video.  Check back later….