Crafting for Thanksgiving

The boys brought home two small pumpkins (probably more accurately called a gourd) from trunk or treat with my Mom.  They got to decorate them with foam Halloween stickers.  They enjoyed taking off the stickers and trading them between each pumpkin until they were no longer sticky.  So I've had two pumpkins sitting on my table. I came up with a fun idea to turn them into pumpkin turkey's for Thanksgiving.  

I wanted thumb tacks that weren't colored,but finding them proved more difficult than I thought it would.  Landon chose the fancy google eyes for his turkey and to use a leftover bow tie from his original pumpkin.  I think they turned out pretty cute! And I'm proud to say they are out of my own head and not off Pinterest!

Saying goodbye is hard to do

We recently received the news that our good friends were moving.  Not just to a new house, to a new state.  I nearly cried when they told me, but I am happy for them.  For new job opportunities and time with her family and new adventures.  But we will miss them.  Our boys are a year apart and LOVE to play together.  We went over just a few days ago so the men could move some heavy stuff. Before we went Landon said, "I love Colin, Mommy."  I about cried again telling him that his buddy was moving away.  But luckily they will be only 1.5hrs from our family in NY so we can still visit when we go up and they of course will be here for visits too.  Poor Landon is losing his only guy friend! haha.  All of my friends had girls when I had a boy and so he is alone in the world of girls.  Not that he seems to mind.  But we had them over for dinner and hang out time a week or so ago. I needed to get as many snuggles from their darling new baby girl as I could!

Landon and his buddy Colin

 Will had to squeeze in between them.  He thinks he's a big guy.

Baby Sofia.  Landon calls her Baby Princess Sofia and even asked to hold her.  That is a big deal for him!

 I love this picture.  Two of my awesome boys.

 The boys all love to play superheros when they are together.  Will donned the Hulk gloves and proceeded to Hulk smash everyone in his way.

Sad Hulk needed a hug from Daddy.  He refused to take them off for comfort hugs.

We are excited to play with them whenever we can.  We love them and are lucky to have gotten to know them over the past four years.  

Grave digger

Last night I let the dog out before bed like I always do.  I let him out and went to get ready for bed.  I thought he was asking to come in, but when I went to let him in he wasn't there.  I called for him and found he was in the far corner of the yard.  And when he looked up I knew, I knew he was eating something.  Oh no, not good.  But surprisingly he came running in when I called him.  He stopped at the base of the steps and looked up at me with the look that says, "oh crap, she's gonna kill me."  And I was repeating over and over again, "no, no you didn't.  Please tell me you didn't."  His face was covered in blood and so were his feet.  I had to call a few times, but  he did come in and I grabbed him before he got in the door and ran him to the bathroom.  He looked like the Joker with the red smile painted on his face.  The smell was so gross and I think I was drowning him trying to get all of it off his beard.

Mo has been chasing this rabbit in our yard for weeks.  Not every night, but a lot of them, the bunny is there when he goes out before bed and he tries to catch it. He knows where it's holes in and out of the yard are and he has tried to dig it out before.  This rabbit has been driving him mad since the summer actually.  His terrier instincts finally kicked in and he won his war with the bun bun.  Death to the bun!  I was grossed out and too worried about having to deal with the situation to be proud of him for getting in touch with his animal instincts.  John wanted to know why I didn't get a picture of him and if I gave him a treat for being good.  I was too concerned with cleaning him up to get a camera.  Although I thought about it.

I grabbed plastic bags, a flashlight, and vinegar and headed outside.  Vinegar, yes, vinegar.  I figured it would kill the blood stink if I doused the area with it.  I had flashbacks to Mo digging up our buried chinchilla and playing with it and then redigging the hole repeatedly to roll in the stink.  I went through a lot to get that to not smell enticing anymore, so I wanted to go for it right away.  I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't too bad on the bloody scale.  He hadn't gotten to do much damage before I called him in, thankfully.  I approached it with my flashlight in hand. As I bent close it gasped!  What the?  I jumped back and started to freak out. It's alive?  Are you kidding me?  I started to panic knowing that I couldn't let it suffer, I had to finish it off.  I thought about getting a gun, but being that it was 11:30 pm I thought that wouldn't go over well with the neighbors.  I would have ended up with the cops here.  So I settled on hitting it with a shovel. I got one and started to feel like I was hiding a crime that I had committed or something.  Standing there in the dark with my shovel and flashlight shining on my victim I started feeling like someone from Bones or Castle figuring out how to off someone.  While I did a panic dance in the yard about not wanting to kill it I luckily thought maybe I should shove it before I bludgeoned it to death.  I seriously think it would have been easier to shoot it than hit it.  I gave him a little push with the shovel and he didn't move again. I guess I caught his death shudder earlier.  Then I lost all my nerve to pick it up in a bag. It was looking at me with it's sad bunny eyes...so cute.  So I put it on the shovel and tossed it over the fence.  Which took two tries. It was a pretty large rabbit, which made it pretty impressive that he was able to take it down.

Let's hope that this serves as a warning to all other would be bunny interlopers.  We have the big bad Mo on patrol, and he will take you down!  I just never want to have to do that again. Why is it that he knows to do the awful things when I am home alone?  It's like he thinks, "what can I do to her this time?"  I've had to monitor his potty time all day today.  The one time I forgot he found blood somewhere that I missed and coated his head in it.  I didn't notice it until it was dry and then I was worried about what he had laid on with his bloody head.  I haven't come across anything else with it on it, and I have no idea where it was out there.  Ugh.  I'm done with bloody dog fur.  No more!  

Wit's end

At this moment, this second, I am there.  At my wit's end.  What does that mean anyway?  I have no idea, all I know is I've had it.  I've been driven to tears by a 3 year old, and I barely kept it together.  It's one of those nights where I swear I would sell him.  HELP! 

Ever since he was a baby he's been quick to go nuts and throw fits.  His nickname as a baby was "Hulk" because he would quite literally "go hulk" on us.  He would just start to scream uncontrollably and we were unable to stop him. Nothing snapped him out of it, and nothing made it better.  He would just close his eyes and refuse to open them and scream.  We thought it was stressful then, little did we know he would keep that up.  

He is nearly 4 and he is still quick to throw a fit.  He will scream so loud that it rattles my brain, I don't know how he does it.  You can't talk to him during it either.  The only thing to do is send him to his room and let him scream it out.  Usually he is faking the few tears and the screaming is to get a rise out of us.  An effective action indeed.  Tonight he wasn't listening, as usual, and giving me attitude.  So he got sent to time out, when he continued the behavior afterwards I took away his songs before bed.  A little thing really, just no songs before bed.  How does that turn into an all out screaming war?  He said his prayers and then laid down to be tucked in and sing songs.  I tucked him in and then told him no more songs and went to leave. (remember he was aware of no songs pre-bed)  He began to cry and I explained to him why he wasn't having songs.  He decided to scream louder. So I left the room, but he escalated.  Will is trying to go to sleep in the next room so I tried to talk him down.  He only screamed louder and began flailing.  Once he gets worked up there is almost no way to bring him back to reality and get him calm.  

I have no idea how to handle this behavior.  Trying to ignore it doesn't work, taking the calm route doesn't work, and getting angry of course doesn't work.  It doesn't help that he is stubborn and both of us are too.  Two stubborn people only breed a child more stubborn than they are...bad stuff right there.  I need advice on how to help with this before he goes to school and starts exhibiting this behavior there.  Can you imagine?  I shudder to think that my child could be THAT child.  

He's so handsome!  He's silly, creative, funny, and has a huge imagination.  I love this guy, even though he's also stubborn and has a scream loud enough to wake the dead.