The other reason that I've not been around much to blog is because I was a work widow for a couple of weeks. We decided a few weekends ago that we wanted more chickens and therefore needed to build a new, more predator-proof coop. Matthew jumped right into action designing and building my new coop, but it's come at the cost of him working on it until late every night, so I've been on dinner/dishes/bath/bedtime detail alone. Which is fine, and I totally realize that lots of ladies do these things by themselves all of the time, but it makes me appreciate how much my husband does to help me around here. He's pretty amazing folks!
The coop is turned out beautifully! It's actually a chicken tractor so it's portable, and we'll be able to move it around so the girls always have access to fresh grass. We have four hens, two of which are already laying. I'm so excited to have chickens again, and boys are thrilled! It's wonderful to have fresh eggs again!
In other news, I fell down our stairs {again} last week and completely shattered my phone! It was in my back pocket when I fell and it did not survive. I survived with a little bruising and soreness.
As for the boys...
Owen
Owen has been great these past couple of weeks. He's surprising all of the time with the things that he knows and can do. I feel like his confidence to try new things and figure things out is improving as well. He's been cracking us up with his lengthy explanations and marathon stories. One windy evening as we were sitting at dinner we were commenting oh how loudly the wind was whistling through the house since we had had some windows cracked. Out of nowhere, Owen says, "It sounds like a Whistle Pig Wednesday to me!". Whaaa? We all cracked up and he simply said that groundhogs are called whistle pigs and it was Wednesday, so it's a Whistle Pig Wednesday.
All righty then.
Then a couple of days later, I was cleaning up a couple of our old strollers to sell. Eli couldn't understand what I was doing, and I heard Owen "explaining" it to him in their room.
Owen: "Eli, Mommy is going to sell those strollers to someone else."
Eli: "What's 'sell' mean?"
Owen: "It's when someone gives Mommy money to buy something. Like if she wanted to sell you, she'd put you on Craigslist and someone would email her and then she'd take you somewhere to meet them so they wouldn't know where we live and they'd give her money for you. That's selling."
Eli: (sobbing) "I don't want to get selled"
I probably should have broken in sooner, but I just had to hear what he was going to come up with. I assured Eli that we weren't selling him or his brother-- only strollers, and all was right with the world again.
Last Sunday, we got another special surprise from Owen when he shouted from the stairs, "Hey! I didn't know we were getting a swimming pool in the basement!" Yep, we had quite the flood down there. Our sump pump had gone out {again} and we had a basement full of water. So we spent all of Sunday carrying stuff out of there, replacing a sump pump and drying everything out again. Fun stuff!
At the beginning of March Madness, I helped Owen fill out an NCAA bracket so that he could participate in March Madness with us. It was hilarious to listen to his reasoning for choosing each team. All teams in or with proximity to Indiana got precedence. Teams in states where he has been, is going to, or has "heard of" also received special treatment. Finally, teams "with Jesus" also received priority status. St. Mary's was the only team to receive this distinction. Notre Dame did not receive "Jesus points", but did get points for proximity :) After night one of the tournament, he was 13/16! He actually picked the Lehigh and Norfolk State upsets!
Last Tuesday, we lucked out by getting some sweet Pacer's tickets. We were going to take both boys to the game, but Eli ended up not feeling well that day and asked to stay home with our neighbors.
It worked out wonderfully because it's a rare occasion that we get to take either boy out without the other. It's a special treat to have mom and dad to themselves.
Owen was so sweet and had such a great time! He also got to have cotton candy for the very first time and it was a BIG deal!
Eli
Eli has been his usual goofy self. He has been playing outside everyday, and even on the warmest of days the child does NOT want to take off his fleece Mickey jammies. His uniform of choice is Fleece Mickey jammies and rain boots. If you're wondering why he would choose this, he cleared it up for Grandma Dee the other day when she asked why he was wearing his boots.
"Me wearing my boots cuz me wook awesome in my wainboots."
So there you go. Wouldn't you want to wear the same thing every day if you *knew* you looked awesome?
The child has finally reached his "terrible twos" at three and a half. He's still very good for the most part but he's become more argumentative and always has a reason for why he shouldn't have to listen to us. It doesn't matter what we say, his response is, "But me just_____________"
For example, we could say, "Eli please close the door."
"But me just wooking outside." will be his response.
He hasn't figured out that we aren't looking for an explanation, and cannot figure out why his "explanations" are getting him sent to his room.
One of my favorite things about this kid is his ability to fall asleep in the oddest of places. I really do not understand how he can do this, but I have so many pictures of him sleeping in odd ways/places. These two pics are from these past two weeks.
I swear I need to make a book of pictures of the odd ways that he sleeps. It just cracks me up!
Also, just a few days ago he stopped saying "me". I'm so sad, because now his language seems so much more grown up. Now he would say, "I wearing my boots cuz I wook awesome in my wainboots." I guess that it's good that he corrected that before starting preschool this fall, but it's still sad. It was a trademark Eli thing.
Also, just a few days ago he stopped saying "me". I'm so sad, because now his language seems so much more grown up. Now he would say, "I wearing my boots cuz I wook awesome in my wainboots." I guess that it's good that he corrected that before starting preschool this fall, but it's still sad. It was a trademark Eli thing.
In other news, I've been working on some of my other "to dos" and we've had some great successes and some epic fails. I'll update on those soon.
Well there's our last few weeks in a nutshell. It's been fun, crazy and busy. The chicken coop is done, so I hope to be back to blogging more frequently soon.
