Disadvantages of being the youngest sibling!

We had the Chalfie family (friends & neighbors) over for dinner the other night.  The kids were all playing quietly in the living room while Jill and I finished our dinners in the kitchen.  When we came in to check on them, this is how we found Maverick and Grace.  There are some disadvantages of being the youngest sibling!

The Chalfie's have 3 kiddos -- Lily (5), Luke (1 day older than Mitchell) and Grace (1 day younger than Maverick). 

As they were leaving, Mitchell said "I don't want my girlfriend to leave."  I said "If you want Lily to be your girlfriend, you'll have to ask her."  Mitchell walked up to their mini-van and through the open window, he asked "Lily, will you be my girlfriend?"  Lily a little bashfully answered "Yes."  It was the cutest :)

Dog Park with Maverick

I enjoy my alone time with Maverick 3 afternoons a week while Mitchell is at pre-school. Most of the time Maverick naps during this time (school is from 12:30 to 3pm), but the other day he helped me take the dogs to the dog park.


As you can see he, he found an interesting way to entertain himself...by wrapping himself in dog waste bags. Great, huh?

I'm not sure who likes the dog park more.....Maverick or the dogs. Perfect outing! :)

Maverick's Children's Day Out Program

Maverick started a one day a week Children's Day Out program at a local church this year and seems to absolutely love it! Bad mom that I am, my camera battery was dead the first day that I took him...so we stopped by yesterday to take some pictures out front to pretend it was his first day all over again :)




As you may be able to tell, he assumed that he was there for school and was all too excited to go inside!




We absolutely love the program so far. He has 6 little kiddos in his class, and 2 teachers. They do all kinds of fun age appropriate things. He is there each Thursday from 9:30am to 2:30pm, including a nap from 12:15 to 2:30pm. I was also excited to get one day a week to myself with Mitchell while Maverick is at school to do some "big boy" things that are hard to do with an 18 month-old...some things like movies, kaleidescope, roller skating, ice skating, etc. Unfortunately the list keeps growing because I worked each Thursday and haven't been able to take advantage of my "Mitchell" days yet, but I will soon enough (for a short time until the new baby comes)!

I LOVE that they call the program the "Children's" Day Out Program vs. the Mother's Day Out program, because that how I like to think of it!  It's Maverick's fun day to play with his friends and do fun things.  He even came home with his own finger painting the other day :)  He seems to sleep extra long on Thursday nights, so I know it wears him out.

Once he realized the door wasn't going to open, he started signing and saying "more" because he wanted 'more school'!




As you can see, the little man wasn't too happy not to get his way!

That is until he became distracted by a basketball goal that was laying on the ground.

"You mean, I don't come back until Thursday?"


We are so happy to have found a program that we all enjoy (we're also just excited to have gotten in since we were on the waiting list for months!) He gets glowing reports from his teachers...let's hope that continues! :)

More Mitchell-isms

A few more funnies to document before I forget...

- We took a family trip to the dog park.  Pilot and Tex started running ahead a bit and Mitchell said "Get back here you two, or you're FIRED!"  Jacob and I got a good chuckle and then Jacob asked "What does fired mean, Mitchell?"  He responded "Umm..just in big trouble."

- I'm quickly learning that TV commercials are VERY effective on young children.  Mitchell recently asked "Mom, can we start getting Angel Soft toilet paper?"  A little amused, I asked "Why?"  He responded "Well, it's soft, so it doesn't hurt and it's doubled." (meaning two-ply).  Wow - who would've thought 3 year olds would be their market audience!

- Mitchell begged and begged to go with me to teach my KU class on Tuesday night.  I tried to explain that I wasn't going anywhere exciting, I was just going to teach my students Accounting.  He replied "Well, I can help!  I can help you teach counting, see 1,2,3,4,5, etc...."  If only it were that easy!

8 weeks to go!

Here I am - 32 weeks along and counting! There's certainly no mistaking that I'm pregnant, that's for sure. I'm feeling great...still claiming that this has been my easiest pregnancy yet, but we'll see what the final 8 weeks bring.

Although I really enjoyed knowing the gender of the boys the last two times, it has been kind of fun waiting for the big surprise this time around. It's taken 7 months, but we've got a short list of names for each gender....but still don't know which name off of each list we'll choose.

We're starting the process of getting Maverick's new big boy bedroom ready, so that the baby can have the nursery. Our third baby in the same nursery...I'd say we've gotten our money's worth!







Mitchell likes to have contests to see who's tummy is bigger. I think I won this one.

Maverick, the carmel apple licker, was all too happy to be a spectator for the contest.

Mitchell's First Day of Preschool

We're slowly adjusting to our fall schedule. Mitchell started the 4-year old program at Sunshine Preschool (the same school he attended last year). We are trying afternoon preschool this year (12:30 to 3pm). He seems to be doing very well! His teacher said he is a "good listener, kind-hearted and a good helper."



He has a small class - 6 children - 5 boys and 1 girl. Poor girl :)

Mitchell had fun looking at all of the kids' backpacks to see what superheros were on them.

He totes a Batman backpack this year. He seems to like it :)



On the way home from his first day, I asked him how he liked it. He said "Well....it was interesting. We read a story about a plant-eating dinosaur. The fancy word for them is herbivore." It sounds like they're learning!

Mitchell's funnies

Many of you tell me that your favorite blog posts are reading Mitchell's funny quotes....so here are a few crowd pleasers.

• This morning as I was leaving for work, Mitchell didn't want me to go.  He said "Here's the Deal.  You and Daddy need to start working while I'm sleeping at night, that way we can all play all day."  Oh, wouldn't that work wonderfully :)
• We're trying to break Maverick of the habit of being carried everywhere since we'll soon enough have another little one to carry around!  We were leaving church and I was trying to get Maverick to hold my hand and walk with me...well, of course he was running the other direction instead.  So I said "Bye, Maverick.  If you won't walk with me, I guess we'll have to leave you here." (obviously joking)  Mitchell become VERY concerned.  "Mommy, you can't leave him here (almost crying).  Please just pick him up and bring him home with us!"  Of course, I did :)  It was so cute to see how concerned he was for his little brother!
• While making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I almost dropped the jar of peanut butter.  I was just talking out loud to Mitchell and said "That jar almost went flying Mitchell.  It would've dropped on the floor and spilled all over the place!"  He said "Mommy, if the jar was flying it wouldn't have dropped."  So literal!
• Jacob and I took the boys to the circus last week.  They LOVED it!  Of course, the cotton candy and snowcones didn't hurt.  The next morning, our nanny asked Mitchell what he thought of the circus and he answered "Well....it was pretty fancy!"...and then proceeded to tell her about his favorite parts which were the elephants (especially the baby elephants) and the motorcycles.
• I've been trying to decide what type of sport to enroll Mitchell in for the fall, so I gave him a few choices.  "Mitchell, would you rather do soccer, football, swim lessons or karate this fall?"  Mitchell answered "I want to take scuba diving lessons."...which I found pretty humorous.  I was telling my sister his request and then in a subsequent conversation, she asked if I'd decided what to enroll him in.  He was listening as I joked by saying "Well, since I can't find 3 year old scuba diving lessons, I think we're going to try flag football instead."  He quickly became upset...."Why wouldn't they have 3 year old scuba diving lessons????"  Maybe if we do more swim lesssons, we'll get there eventually :)

Labor Day Camping

Well, we did it. We've talked about it for years...at least I have talked about it...a family camping trip. Our neighbor (Jill Chalfie) invited us to crash her family camping trip over the long weekend. I would consider it "half" camping - the best kind! Yes, we slept in tents, but we camped on Jill's sister's lawn in Grand Junction, Iowa, so we had full access to power, indoor plumbing, even a big enclosed shed for dining.

There were probably 30ish people in all camped out on the lawn in tents and RVs.

I loved the view from our tent window...corn.

Here are all of the campin' kiddos. Mitchell is in the middle with his superman pjs on and Mav is 2nd from the left in a maroon jacket. They had a BLAST playing outdoors on the farm with the other kiddos. In fact, on our way home, Mitchell already asked when we're going back.

There were so many fun farm things to do. They have a chicken coop (one morning they made farm fresh egg sandwiches for breakfast!) with a bunch of chickens and one turkey named Tom. Tom was very tame and let the kids pet him.

Being out in the country was so refreshing! Here is a picture taken looking away from the house at the front lawn. Their oldest son, Kyle is flying a kite in the front yard. The black dot in the upper right corner is the kite.

Their neighbors have a small pig farm, so the kids enjoyed seeing the stinky guys.

Jill's brother-in-law owns farm equipment dealerships, so we stopped by to let the kids climb around on some of the machinery. Obviously, Mitchell loved it! Lil' Maverick napped through it :(

The women of the family are very crafty, so they organized a craft for the weekend too (rug made of t-shirts). I didn't finish mine :(

All of the kids loved rides on the Cub Cadet around the farm.

Maverick was a little too small for the cub cadet, but he was game for some wagon rides...complete with a beer box back rest.

Mitchell was especially fond of their sandbox. He's already made a special request for Army tanks and Army men for our sandbox at home! Look at the size of this thing...ours can't compete!

Who doesn't enjoy a beautiful Iowa sunset?

See that smile? We saw lots of those this weekend!

The adult guys even snuck in a round of golf on the local course. Maverick was helping them brush up on their skills before they left.

All in all, we had a GREAT time and would do it again in a heartbeat. Maybe they'll invite us back next year? :)

Head for the Cure 2011

We participated in the annual Head for the Cure 5k in honor of Team Lucy, our little neighbor/friend (Lucy Weber) that lost her battle with brain cancer in November 2010.




The kiddos took turns riding and walking. They actually did a great job keeping up! Here is Lily Chalfie (neighbor friend) taking a break with Maverick.

It's hard to believe that Lucy has been gone almost a full year now. We remain close friends with the Weber family and know they go through their share of ups and downs, as expected. We were glad to be able to support them by doing the race.