Fowl Language

Here's the latest haps with the Excell boys. We'll start with the eldest. Eli! Come. On. Doooooowwwwnnnn! 

Eli gets very excited any time his school offers an event for him to participate in. With much eagerness, he hurried us along one morning so we'd be able to stroll this group down the hill on "Walk to School Day." I'm a big supporter of walking. And school. Put them together and this is an activity I can get behind! Until you consider the hill one must walk back up. While pushing 2 babies in a stroller and one kindergartner who, when forced to physically exert himself in any way, has the endurance and temperance of an irritated chicken. He'll strut along, but his feathers are easily ruffled. 

I had a moment of genius the night before our morning walk to take just myself on a little drive down to the school, park the van there, and then walk up the hill without the weight of a double stroller or the aura of an irritated chicken. Then it was smooth sailing after we dropped Eli off and had a quick and easy ride back up the mountain. Boom! Mom win!

The one thing I pride myself in is fixing really great, delicious, generally healthful dinners for my family. A good dinner is my love language. I don't remember what the circumstance was, but for the first time basically ever, I caved and let the kids eat cereal for dinner. The kids who stick up their noses at my lasagna rolls, teriyaki meatballs, and roast beef with mashed potatoes giddily downed their evening bowl of General Mills while Eli announced, "Hey, this is a pretty good dinner, huh Carson?!?" 

Never has one of my made-from-scratch meals gotten such a rave review. 

Oh look! Another school function Eli was a loyal supporter of. His school did a jog-a-thon. Per my description of Carson's interest in forced physical exertion, Carson mostly sat the event out with a few bursts of voluntary speed laps when the urge struck him. Eli went full force! He was a running maniac. They had the kids run/walk as many times around the track as they could for one whole hour. That's a long time to run for a little 7-year-old! He did awesome and it was fun to watch him try something new. 

Our favorite fall outing is to head to the church in the afternoons for some bike riding. Whenever we walk over there I feel like a mother duck herding my little ducklings to their destination. Lots of unexpected bird references going on this post. I hope you'll excuse my fowl language. 

On to the next duckling: Carson!

You know we had to eat Ebelskivers over General Conference weekend. What you don't know is that I made enough last General Conference to stick an extra bag in the freezer and save myself a morning's worth of work this go-round. Mom win again!

Carson saved himself some morning work by taking his dishes over to the sink like so. Because he's "seen people at the restaurant do it."

Carson was amused one morning to discover and point out that Jonah had spit up on me in the shape of Mickey Mouse...while I was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt.

I bought the boys new boots and Carson decided the 70-degree, shorts and short-sleeves weather was a good time to break them in. Take a little bit of your winter wardrobe, and a little bit of your summer wardrobe, and if my math's right, that makes for the perfect fall fashion!

Speaking of fashion, Carson's interest in clothes is one of my favorite things about him. He loves clothes. He loves getting new clothes. He loves being adventurous with his wardrobe. He has great attention to detail when it comes to what he wears. I was tickled when I walked past his room one afternoon to find he had thoughtfully laid out his outfits for the rest of the school days in the week.

Carson works on a different letter every week and then I get to see cute worksheets with the letter they were working on and then some illustrations of things that start with that letter. I was a little alarmed by the man in the center of his "F" illustrations and cautiously asked Carson what exactly he was trying to portray as it looked a little suspicious. He got a little embarrassed with a big smile like he'd been caught. Then he sheepishly said, "Fart."

That was better than what I thought it was and we both had a good laugh but for different reasons. His other "F" drawings include a flag, football, five, fall, four, fall leaf, and flower.

Carson LOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEESSS Halloween. The whole second half of September he relentlessly questioned me about WHEN I was going to decorate for Halloween and WHY did we have to wait until October before spiders, pumpkins, and ghosts could invade our home?!? Well, seeing as I hardly decorate for any holiday, I finally caved while at Target when I found a cute pumpkin decoration to make Carson's Halloween heart happy through what I'm convinced is his favorite month.

This kid! He got sick with a fever this week and spent 2 whole days crashed on the couch. It made me realize how much I appreciate his spontaneous, clever, fun-loving, silly, and endearing personality. He's a hoot! (There I go again!)

We're going to skip to this baby chick:

The brothers have taken to showing Jonah their love by throwing every visible baby toy at him any chance they get. Jonah's always a good sport about it.

We have our 3rd thumb sucker of the family. He still prefers a binky, but if left to his own devices long enough, that thumb eventually finds its way. 

And if it's not a thumb to help pacify the baby, he's not above trying out a big toe or two. 

Baby food-ing is one of my least favorite baby stages. As if getting dinner ready for everyone wasn't enough of a challenge, I now have to spoon feed a little baby a whole different genre of food. And as I'm hurrying along to appease his minuscule appetite, it involves at least 5 attempts of shoving the same spit infused spoonful of sweet potatoes to him because he spits it back out at a much higher rate than he swallows it. Why is this part of life a thing?!? I need a baby food wet nurse. Now accepting applications.

Okay fine, he's cute with a bib on trying to suck down applesauce. I guess we'll just schlop through this part of life together. 

And who do we have here?!?

Yes. Not only is Lincoln sitting in Jonah's chair and hopping right into his bed, he also frequently downs Jonah's baby food leftovers and tries out binkies that have fallen in dark corners.

The kids have been sleeping in which is AWE-SOME! However, this caused Lincoln to insist on taking his breakfast on the go one morning.

Lincoln has mastered the cheesy smile!

Lincoln finally found a good use for a baby brother one afternoon when he was trying to watch a show and needed a pillow. 

The older boys crashed Jonah's 6-month photo shoot.

And then kindly "swaddled" him before running off to play again. 

Jeff and I felt free as birds when we ran off to have a dinner date with friends.

That's how fall's been tweeting us so far.

Falling Off the Potty Train

I have seen no fewer than 6 pediatric dentists for my kids and might currently hold the record for the least loyal dentist patient of all time. But how the heck am I spose-ta stay loyal when the dentist across town is tempting me with a free carnival full of balloon weapons and $25.00 gift cards if I sign up for an appointment? They got us. They got us good. 

I took amusement at the fact that my boys were given the option of any balloon animal they could think of to be made for them, but they insisted on the weapon route. Boys.

Here's that day I was really optimistic and thought, "Hey. Maybe I should potty train Lincoln."

With the help of a lot of juice, a fully functioning washer and dryer, and lots of activities to keep him hovering tile and not carpet, Lincoln was slowly making improvements in the potty department with every day we kept at it. 

As we entered week 2, he slowly regressed all the way to not giving a hoot if he had soaked pants, had 0 interest in being a big boy, and pleaded to be back in diapers every chance he got. I decided it wasn't worth the battle, so we'll give it another go in a few months. 

Because the trouble with Lincoln is he LOVES being a baby! So the rationale, "Do you want to be a big boy like Eli, or a baby like Jonah?" never worked on him because he picked diapers like Jonah every time! And when I gave up after 2 weeks and finally put that diaper back on him, he proudly  and with much satisfaction shouted, "DIAPER LIKE JONAH!" 

Lincoln gets mad if you refer to him as a big boy. He will correct you until you identify him as a baby. In fact, his current favorite part of the day is right after lunch when I take both my babies up to their naps, at Lincoln's insistence, holding them both at the same time. We have named this, "Two Babies." And he requests it by name at the bottom of the stairs every afternoon. 

Our baby, baby cracked me up right around his 5-month mark when I started to notice self-inflicted hickeys appearing on his arm. 

The kindergartners were assigned different colors to wear to school each day of the first 2 weeks of school. I was nervous when I saw pink as one of the colors on the calendar as I wasn't sure we'd have many options. Carson, my fashionista, was very into the outfit prompts. I sat him down on wear pink day and explained that red was kind of like pink, so maybe he could wear red instead. He brushed me off and excitedly ran to his room and emerged like so:

This boy house has more pink in it than I remembered! And I loved Carson's enthusiasm for it!

Jeff and I got away one perfectly weathered afternoon to go on a little bike ride.

E-li the Science Guy...watch out Mr. Nye, we're after you! Eli spent an afternoon doing experiments like mixing baking soda and vinegar, but also making an egg float in saltwater.

It's been cute to see Lincoln gain an interest in having friends, and we love this little friend.

Jonah's still getting lots of love and cuddles from all his older brothers.

I recently read a book called Duct Tape Parenting which I thought would have something to do with duct taping wiggly, restless boys to a chair for the afternoon for some peace, but I later learned the duct tape was for me and my mouth. While trying to implement its practices, I spent a weekend teaching the boys how to get some of their own favorite foods to give them a little bit more independence. They boys really thrived and appreciated the new skills they had acquired. And hallelujah Carson can now make his own 5-a-day peanut butter sandwiches.

We started reading Harry Potter to the older boys. It didn't take long after the Quidditch chapter before Eli hunted down our "broomstick" and a soccer ball for some reenacting.

Carson and his friend in a heated game of Go Fish.

Jeff and I can be heard at least daily mumbling, "That's a lot of boys!" I'll add my daily mumbling in here.

After 2 weeks of what ended up being failed potty training, I treated myself to a new dress and a new haircut. Can't wait to see what I get myself next time.

Our friends came over for dinner one night and Eli insisted on sitting right next to his friend Ellie.

Jonah's second home -- his car seat. If he's not asleep, this is usually where he ends up.

I made the boys tell me what they were going to be for Halloween this year and they decided on Nintendo characters. THE NEXT DAY, we saw their neighborhood friend running up the street to our house in a Mario costume. It was so funny. As luck would have it, he had an extra one because they ordered the wrong size and so Carson reaped the benefits and has since spent every day as if it was Halloween, in full costume -- even down to the white gloves, a touch he added all on his own.