Excitement is in the Air!

With five days left to go until Isaac is born...

 Daddy decided to start his ten day weekend from work with a much anticipated and requested camp out with his boys.

As I post this, I am hearing a Daddy voice saying, "Boys, boys. It's time to settle down!" 
How can you settle down when your baby brother is coming soon and you're on a camp out?
So much excitement!

Countdown to Isaac!

Nesting has hit me full force. I must get everything on my 'To Do List' done (although I am scaling back on it). In prepping for Isaac's birth we've...

... sorted through tubs and tubs of baby clothes and organized them by size...

...pulled out the Baby Bjorn to make sure that it's still in top condition...

...grown by leaps and bounds....

...learned how to play nicely with Isaac....

...while being completely annoyed that Mama would take pictures of playing with Isaac...

 ... sorted, cleaned, and set up the baby toys and equipment.

Isaac will be here soon. Just a little more set up and bag packing to do and then we'll be prepped and ready to go!

Partying Like a 5 Year Old!

The past two days has been party central here at the Whittaker household. Yesterday was Beniah's 5th birthday which we celebrated as a family with banners, balloons, and singing galore.

Beniah kept grinning a goofy, embarrassed grin whenever he got "Happy Birthday" sung to him.

 Since Tim had to work that night, we did the majority of the gift opening in the morning after breakfast.

Beniah requested pancakes for dinner, so I made him some birthday cake pancakes from a Pinterest recipe.  Silly mama that I am could have made him some of my regular blueberry pancakes and he would have been just as happy.

Cake (made by the lovely Grandma Whittaker so that I could rest more) soon followed dinner.

Which was then followed by calls from Aunties, Uncles, and cousins.

  Proof that he was listening to your singing Auntie Jo and not just reading his book! :)

Soon, it was bedtime (much to my relief) for the next day was the highly anticipated bowling alley birthday party at Big Al's!

 There was bowling!

 We love Beniah's arm flap of excitement!

 Elijah got a spare on his first frame (with a bit of help from his Daddy) which made him SO excited 

but left him disappointed in his bowling the rest of the time.

There were friends and friends who are also cousins!

There was even more bowling!

 There was pizza and cupcakes!

There was presents!

Yeah for really cool planets that can hang from your ceiling! 

Beniah tried to convince me to hang them up before his rest time after the party. Ha! Nice try kiddo.

There was the assembling of presents with Daddy once we got home!

 There was leftover pizza for dinner (since Mama was WAY too tired to cook)!

(Apparently the Hot & Delicious Pizza made just for me was made by the Devil himself!)

Beniah had a wonderful time bowling and asked as we were getting ready to leave, "Mama, when can we come back to Big Al's?"  I'm thinking this is going to become a monthly family game day (as long as it's over before nap time.

A Whole Handful!

Five years ago today, Beniah came in and rocked our world.

It has been amazing watching this adorable baby boy grow into a fact absorbing little boy... excuse me... BIG boy who does not like being called a little boy.

He is so creative and is constantly telling me, "Mama, I have a present for you!" and hands me the drawing that he was working on. Sometimes it's a red dot in the middle of the page and other times it's a sweet note from him.

It reads "I (upside down) heart you"

 He is very inquisitive and asks questions that keeps my tired pregnancy brain in overdrive.
"Mama, how high does 10,000 Daddys, 5 Mamas, 200 Beniahs, and 1 Elijah reach?"

(FYI - That would be 10.35 miles which would barely reach up to the stratosphere. The poor suckers at the top wouldn't be able to breathe due to the lack of oxygen. Yes, my exhausted mind went there. No, I did not share that bit of information with Beniah.) 

"Mama, why did God create penguins?"
"Mama, could twins be born on different days? Could they be born in different months?"

His favorite topic is space.  He has gone to the bookshelf and pulled my college astronomy textbook out and read through some of it and looked at the pictures. Grandpa and Grandma bought him some space books for his birthday which he read for over an hour this evening. (Hence why I am actually blogging about his birthday on his birthday!)

Beniah is all goofiness and laughter and is a "teaser just like Daddy!"

Beniah, our whole handful of a boy, we love you very, very much and are so happy that you are a part of our family!

Staying Up Late

   Tim recently was hired for an at home Tech support position with Amazon. It's been really nice to have him working from home and seeing him during his breaks and lunches. Unfortunately, his schedule is such that he can't help out with putting the boys to bed.  After a few weeks of putting them to bed by myself, I stumbled across a solution that would be fine to do once a week. One Wednesday night, we got home from Lifegroup with our church around 9:30 just as Tim was getting off of work.  The boys loved having their Daddy put them to bed. I loved the extra help. Tim loved seeing his boys after work.  It was a lovely night!  I decided to repeat that this past Friday (since there weren't any errands planned for Saturday).  So with plain and chocolate air popped popcorn, Veggietales Jonah movie, and blankets to snuggle in, the boys stayed up way past their bedtime so Daddy could see them and put them to bed. This just might have to become a weekly tradition.

A Super Halloween

   This year for Halloween, Beniah told me that he wanted to be a ghost. Now, call me crazy all you want, but I am not ready for my boys to dress up as anything remotely scary for Halloween. So, to Pinterest I went to find some alternative, homemade costume ideas that might look cool enough to convince my almost 5 year old to not choose to be a ghost.  During this time, Beniah and Elijah were watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood on PBS Kids and Daniel was pretending to be "Super Daniel".  Both boys were super excited about being super heroes that they (because Elijah has to do everything Beniah does) decided to be Super Beniah and Super Elijah for Halloween.  Thank you PBS Kids! I can handle that costume choice. After a bit of searching, I found a website that gave a great tutorial for the cape (http://www.thethriftinessmiss.com), a second one for the mask (http://nonpareilhome.blogspot.com), and Martha Stewart for the Letter templates. The boys were super excited about the capes and masks that they wanted to wear them as soon as they were hot off the sewing machine. I soon had superheroes whooshing around my front room.

Although, one superhero didn't want his identity revealed and refused to look at the camera.

   I was not wanting to do the traditional Halloween night trick or treating with Tim working and me being 35 weeks pregnant, so we went to a couple of churchs' Trunk or Treat. The boys get the candy and I don't have to waddle as far.  Win - win! It was nice though, that Tim's lunch break coincided with the trunk or treat so he could see the adorable superheroes and help deal with superhero woes.

Of course, superheroes need time to splash in the mud puddles.

And Whoosh to the next trunk or treat.

After we dropped Daddy off at home so he could go back to work, we headed to Grandma's house.

Where she helped them trick or treat and I stood back, watched, and counted my Braxton Hicks contractions.

Once back at Grandpa and Grandma's house, the family of superheroes (a last minute, insistent decision by the boys) got ready for a small Halloween party by Grandma.

And after all this excitement you ask? Well, the two tired boys went to bed as quickly as this tired Mama could get them ready because Super Mama needed to put up her super tired feet.