Missed us so much that you're blue?

As always, we have lots of good excuses for being gone.

We've been learning our colors. (Asher pretty much already knew his colors, but Heather had told me some fun things that she used to do with her boys, so having different color days really helped him perfect them.) For each "color" day, we ate, drank, wore, crafted with and played with all things "blue", "red" or whatever color day it was.

These are from red day:

This was also the first time McKlayne had spaghetti...it was a fun, messy night for all of us!

(Don't be fooled...these pics were taken on March 18...I'm only 3 months behind in editing pics and blogging...as Asher would say, "No big deal.")



Proof that Asher already knew his colors before this whole things started: the morning of the first color day (which was red) I was so excited to show Asher his red pancakes.

me: Asher, what color are these pancakes?

Asher: Umm...pink! (he was really impressed)

me: My mouth wide open, annoyed that my son was so smart.

Charlie: (saving the day) Well, you're riiiiiiight...but this is red day and pink is a shade of red. Cool pancakes, huh?

The little smartie pants with his pink pancakes and milk.

Blue Day...this was the most fun of all.

We painted ourselves blue and went to eat at Blue Baker to celebrate Blue Day!
(You get free food depending on how "blue" you are.)


Asher loved looking at his blue-self.

Some of our sweet friends met us there.

The Apel girls...minus one...but that will be another post...umm...soon! Promise.
(I'm not pregnant...I just gained a sister-in-law.)

Our Sweet Em...she's one of the precious college girls (and babysitters among other things...) that's always at our house. Asher loves her.

We also potty trained the big guy at the end of April! 3 days. That's all it took. I was prepared for a whole week worth of staying in the house, constantly next to my two year old pal. Nope. The 3 Day Potty Training REALLY works, people! I was a skeptic.

My sis used this method on Brynn. I thought maybe since she was a GIRL it worked for her, but wouldn't work for my Asherboy. I was wrong. He had 9 accidents the first day, 5 the second day and 2 on the third. For the second two days he was just holding himself or dancing around like crazy, holding it in. But by 7 p.m. the night of the third day, he was telling us he had to go...I think he went about 4 times between 7 and 9 that night and was super proud when he went poop in the potty.

When he does have to "go"...like really go...he tells us (while pointing), "Go out there! Shut the door!" (I'd like to add that I don't know where he learned this...because I sure don't get any privacy when I have to "go".)

And he likes to read while he "goes".

We've also been busy working on the house...Charlie sprayed the brick.

Then a group of precious college students came out for Big Event and painted all the white trim on our house! We adore them. They saved us many weekends of having to do this just the two of us. Remember what it used to look like? It's really come a LONG way...inside and out!

You don't have to have any socioeconomic need or disability...we used to think you did until last year when we noticed that like 10 houses (several of which were young families like us) in our neighborhood had groups come out. It's basically just a big community workday were 10,000+ students get together with groups of friends or their student organizations and go serve in the community for about 4 hours. The last several years Big Event has actually needed MORE jobs! So, remember to sign up next Jan/Feb at BigEvent.tamu.edu if you live in B/CS. You'll get free work done on your home and be able to build relationships with college students.

And, I'll leave you with this of our sweet little kiss-blower:

Are you thinking, "Does this kid ALWAYS have a clip in her hair?" Pretty much...otherwise she can't see. When she wakes up most mornings and I haven't clipped her hair back right away...I often hear this, "Uh-oh, Naney Bop...need a bow?" Her big bro is always watching out for her.