Merry Christmas!

Our first Christmas at home by ourselves has been a pleasant one.  We wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays

Yes, we are still alive.  Very alive, actually, to the point of insanity.  I finally dumped all my photos onto the computer going all the way back to August so that tells you how far behind I am in the blogging world.  This year has been every bit as hectic and crazy as we anticipated it to be and I feel like I am in survival mode most of the time.  For a quick, quick update (since I am supposed to be working on Christmas which I have done zilch for, not to mention that a certain little boy is turning six in less than two weeks which I also have done NOTHING for) I will fill you in a little on our boys

Fisher is turning six really soon and he can't wait.  He has been doing so much better that it almost feels like we have a different little boy living under our roof.  He has grown up so much this year it is unbelievable.  We still have moments with him where he can be difficult but overall he is a loving little boy.  He loves Tucker, is not near as fond of Cooper who beats Fisher up a lot, loves school and art, playing the Wii and beating us at Mario Kart.  He still loves Angry Birds and coloring and is officially a reader.  He loves reading books but will let you know when he is sick of sounding out words.  He loves playing board games but would fall into the category of sore loser.  We are working on that with him.  Scooby Doo is still the love of his life along with his student teacher who he is constantly telling me he is in love with.  We love him and cannot believe he is almost six.  Although with all the struggles we have had with his behavior it feels like it has been six years. :)

Cooper has taken Fisher's place with being the difficult child.  He is definitely a terrible two.  He still has a joyful side to him but you have to find it in between the hyper activity, screaming tantrums and hitting.  He loves to get into everything, is our monkey man climber so NOTHING is safe and eats all the time yet his ribs are always showing.  The kid.never.stops.  It is exhausting and I have forgotten how crazy life is with a two-year-old boy.

He is finally talking in sentences even if we can't always understand him.  Despite the fact he is a complete stinker most days, we adore him during the good moments.  He has his tender moments and we savor them.  He is in his big boy bed but the stinky beedee (blankie) is still in the picture.  We have tried taking it a few times but it has been a devastating process and frankly, I NEED him to take his naps.  Like as much as I need to breathe on the scale of need.  Without the blanket comes no naps so we will cross that bridge at another time.  Cooper's interests are planes, big trucks, Lightening McQueen, causing mischief, climbing on furniture, jumping off furniture, stuffing his blanket into his mouth, hitting everyone, drinking egg nog, eating anything with sugar, running everywhere, hiding from mom & dad, making a big mess in Fisher's room while he is at school, getting into my purse, reading books, having us sing to him and Super Why on PBS.

Tucker really is the forgotten baby in terms of the blog.  Poor guy.  His first year will forever be remembered as that crazy year of transition.  He just turned 9 months old and is still a really good baby.  He is not always the best nurser and might be the first baby I don't make it all the way through the first year.  One reason for this is that he is my official biter.  I now know that teeth are not necessary to bite.  He still has no teeth but has been "teething" since about 3 months.  He still likes baby food although he has started trying to chew it.  The few times I have tried pieces of banana or cheese and little things like that he spits them out but he LOVES puffs and yogurt melts.  The problem is that his big brothers do too so I run out frequently.  He is showing interest in drinking form cups very much like Cooper who skipped through the sippy cup phase until he was older.  Tucker crawled for about a week before he started bear crawling and pulling himself up onto everything. He is attempting cruising but mostly just stands there and laughs.  His favorite place is the bottom of the stairs where he stands up holding himself onto the second stair.  He stands and squats over and over.  He loves chewing on the toy cars and has me freaked about him choking on the tires.

Everything goes into his mouth and we have had a few scares where Cooper has given him something that he can't have.  (A lot of my stress starts with the name Cooper these days.)  Tucker jabbers saying da, ba, and other combinations of slobbery babbles.  He loves when we chase after him saying "I'm going to get you!"  It makes him squeal and crawl away as fast as his diaper bum will go.  I love it.  He loves me and that is what I need some days to not lose it.  He also loves his brothers and daddy.  He is really good about

going down for naps but hasn't been taking long ones lately.  At least he is back to sleeping through the night.  There were a couple of months there where it was tough.  I need my sleep in order to have patience with Cooper.  We love our little Tucker baby and love to smother him in kisses.

That is about all.  Now that I have succeeded in putting off working on Christmas presents to update the blog and facebook I need to decide either to get to work or go to bed.
P.S. Mom and Dad C.- I have not forgotten about Thanksgiving!  I will get pictures up one day, I promise!

Halloween Festivities

Once again I am having difficulty with my pictures turning sideways.  I apologize in advance.  I had been working on trying to fix the problem and got sidetracked and now I am sick of thinking about it so sideways they will remain.

This year Fisher was adamant that he wanted to be Dracula.  Cooper refused to dress up.  We could not even  convince him to put on his transformer or Batman costumes that he wears around the house all the time so it was Halloween pj's for him.  Tucker was a Tiger and Cow.  All three boys have worn the cow costume although we refer to it as a bull so as to retain some level of masculinity.

Fisher was especially excited about the blood.  He thought he was pretty cool.

Originally Cooper was going to be an airplane.  He is obsessed with airplanes and living near an Air Force base makes it that much cooler.

After forcing him into the costume and having him cream and cry for 20 minutes, the plane was returned to Target.  

Tucker the Tiger.

Baby Bull.

We took the boys to a haunted house up on base.  They thought it was pretty cool but Fisher really wanted to go to the scary one for adults.  We walked by the exit of the adult haunted house and saw people being chased out by the guy with the chain saw.  He ended up letting the boys look at his chain saw and walk into the room at the very end.  He turned on the lights so it wouldn't be so scary.  

Fisher in the costume parade at school.

Enjoying treats at the party.

The little brothers accompanied me to the party.  Fisher stood up when we walked in and said "Excuse me everybody!  These are my baby brothers, Cooper and Tucker."  He was very happy we were all there.

Cooper was excited to eat all the food.

After the school party we came home to carve pumpkins so we would have some jack-o-lanterns outside for that night.

The boys both thought carving pumpkins was gross.  Cooper kept saying "Yucky!"

In the end, I was left to carve the pumpkins (which I did as fast as I could so they were nothing too exciting) while the boys watched a Halloween Alvin &the Chipmunks movie from G&G Church's Halloween package. The boys were happy to receive two Halloween packages that week from both G&Gs.  Thank you!

That morning in PT, Todd sprained his ankle on both sides.  He had some nasty big bruising on inside & out of his ankle and wasn't feeling up to walking around for trick-or-treating so he was put on candy duty while I took the boys out.

The boys had so much fun and our neighborhood was so fantastic for trick-or-treating. 

I forgot to mention that we also went to the ward party which had the largest turn out I have ever seen.  It was a fun but hectic time.

Cooper loves unwrapping the sucker but never finishes eating them.  He also calls suckers by a name we are trying to curb.  He pronounces it by substituting the s with an F....yeah..not cool. 

Tucker enjoyed raiding the candy his big brothers brought in.

Once it got dark I took the little boys home and then took Fisher out for a little longer.  He filled his entire pumpkin.

It was a fun Halloween.  Now we are excited for Thanksgiving!

More of August in pictures

Here are some pictures from August that I really like and did not want them to get lost in the endless abyss of pics that don't make it on the blog because I haven't been blogging as much lately.  This post is more pictures and less chat than the last entry.

For those of you who watch Project Runway, I would consider myself to be the Joshua of the blogging world.  I am incapable of editing which is why you will see ten pictures that almost look identical, especially when it comes to Tucker.  I want to remember every facial expression.

Cooper and his strut.

Sweet potatoes.

I call this one DROOL.

Playing with toes.

Chewing constantly.