Sunday School

Yesterday, Tim and I had the fun privilege of teaching our sons nursery Sunday school class. Since I happened to bring my camera, I couldn't resist snapping a couple of photos of my boys.

Elijah saw that his Daddy put a crayon behind his ear and desperately wanted to put his crayon there too.

Beniah has become very proud of his artwork and was so excited to show his picture to my parents who were visiting us for the weekend.

What Elijah Was Doing At 10 PM

Looking over the arm of the couch at toys that had been dropped.

Enjoying family photos

Contemplating about how weird it is to feel your teeth with your tongue.

Being generally cute.

Finally, after having a very busy late night (considering bedtime is 8 pm), Elijah went to sleep.  I now know that even if Elijah has had a very long weekend and is very tired, he should never be allowed to nap until 5:45 pm.

Pacifier Patch

Checkstand 18 at our local Walmart is the place to buy cigarettes and other nicotine products (not that I buy any, but it's kind of hard not to notice the huge case behind the checker). One of the products is the nicotine patch which got me thinking about addictions and weaning oneself away from harmful chemicals that also smell and taste bad (again, I haven't actually kissed a smoker but I hear it's gross). I've been wondering what kind of market there is for pacifier patches. We've started to wean Elijah from his pacifier and it is more difficult than I imagined it would be. He now gets to have it when he is napping or asleep for the night. However, Elijah is a little sneak. Yesterday, our niece and nephews were over and Elijah dug through Samwise's carseat to find his pacifier.  I was in the other room and heard vagarious sucking sounds. When I went to checkout the noise, I saw Elijah sucking as hard as he could on the pacifier. I could almost hear him say, "Oh how I've missed you! Oh no Mama's here! Don't go! Don't go!"

I think that an intervention just might need to be in store for us.

Finally, Snow!

We finally got some snow!  I know, I am almost a week late on the announcement, but hey I get an A for effort, right? Last Wednesday, we got 4 inches of snow to play in. Schools were closed and not many people ventured out (at least from what I saw on our street).  Although the Olympians and Seattlites north of us can snicker at our measly amount of snow, we had a blast and Beniah is satisfied with the winter weather.

Beniah when he realized that it had snowed while he slept.

Beniah's snowmonster with a beret of course!

Beniah wanted to have snow bowling. The clumps of snow are the pins.

Elijah's first look at snow. 

He wasn't to thrilled with how cold it is.

 

You can't play in the snow without having hot cocoa afterwards.

Some of our garden friends.

 Even our cat, Mongkut, enjoyed the snow.

Snow!

Pacific Northwest snow system, I don't like you. You taunt my son with your flurries and slush.

But you never stick around. I have stopped telling Beniah whenever it starts to snow because he gets so disappointed when it all melts away. Tonight, you have started snowing again after my boys are in bed.

Please stick around until tomorrow morning so Beniah can enjoy throwing a snowball even if it's small and mostly mud.

Morphing

Today, we took our boys out to finally get Elijah's haircut.  After a bit of a wait, we were able to set up Elijah's booster chair and get prepped for his first haircut.
 

Elijah did fairly well considering this was a new and scary experience.

The first cut was his earlock that never fell out when he was a little baby. 

Yes, I did keep it.

"But, I don't want to lose my hair!"

Suckers make everything better!

Elijah lost it towards the end though when I had to hold his face still while the beautician trimmed up the sides and back of his head.

 

Finally, the torture... I mean haircut is over and my baby has suddenly morphed into a little boy.

Cookie cutter brothers.

Sicky Sunday

Today, we stayed home from church, slept in, and have yet to get out of our pjs all because of this cold that the boys have. At one point this morning, Beniah wanted to get onto the computer to type on his Word document and Elijah was very upset until I realized that he wanted to be at the table like his big brother.

This is the first time he has colored and seemed to really enjoy it until I took the crayon away because he kept trying to eat it.

Why Elijah Didn't Get a Haircut

I'd like to think that the beautician that we would have gone to would say, "Thank you for keeping your sick child at home!" had she known our original plan for today.

A Haircut is Pastdue When...

You could be mistaken for Justin Bieber 

Photo Credit

You look like you could be a member of the Beatles. 

Photo credit

What members of the Beatles thought when Yoko Ono got involved with John Lennon.

 Albert Einstein could be your twin.

Photo taken by Arthur Sasse in 1951

 I have told myself that we will cut Elijah's hair on Friday. Until then, I am going to enjoy the baby curls ...

... and his cute, little earlocks.  We joke that they are a throwback to my one drop of Jewish blood.

Tummy Rehab - Week 1

Ever since I had Beniah, I have been getting questions asking me when I am due. At first, I was really bothered and even offended by it until I took an honest look at my belly and admitted that yes I still look pregnant. Well to be fair, I look like I have an average pregnant belly. Anybody who has seen the way I carry my babies and compares it to my belly now says, "Wow you are so tiny!"

Three weeks before Elijah was born.

Day one of the Tummy Rehab

 Big difference, but there is still a pooch!

Vanity aside, there are also other problems that I have been experiencing mostly low back pain. Some days it is intense.  I was brushing this off as side effects of having huge babies and carrying so far out, until I read a pamphlet that I picked up at a local pregnancy boutique.  It was information on a medical condition called Diastasis Recti. Basically, it is when your transverse abdomen muscles (your girdle muscles) are weakened (surprise, surprise with how big I carried) and are no longer able to hold your insides in (and everybody say, "Eww!").

I am now starting physical therapy to correct this and have decided to submit my thoughts and struggles or victories of this correction process to all of you who are still reading this.
I guess first things first. Here is my waist measurement (which is a visual indicator as to whether or not this is working for me).

Go ahead ladies, measure your waist and compare our measurements. It should boost your self esteem by a few notches.

I also got measured to see how much of a diastasis I have. The upper portion of my abdomen has a 5.5 finger wide spread, the middle portion (over the belly button) is at 6 fingers wide, and the bottom portion is 5.5 fingers wide. Unfortunately for me, it should take approximately a year to completely close my diastasis.

And now we will see over the next few weeks how much the Tupler Technique works for my tummy.

Here is another link for any of you who are curious about Diastasis.