Great Minds...

So last week, Will had yet another dream (again in color!).

He dreamed that Papa Dave was reading him a book, then he and Papa Dave ended up in the belly of a shark, the inside of which was purple and blue.  

Now I know it is very likely a lot of little nearly five year olds have super dreams about sharks...but the story gets better!

The night Will had his dream, I prepared a lunch napkin for him before I, myself, hit the hay.  I drew him a great white shark.

The morning after his dream, Billy used a shark cookie cutter to shape his sandwich for his lunch.

When I picked Will up from school, I asked him what his dream was about the previous night (which at the time of the napkin creation and sandwich making was unknown to us) and he told me...and then he went on to say how great it was that the napkin and his sandwich correlated with his dream.

I just about veered off the road!

Great minds think alike in our house I guess :)

Boys Night Out With The MONSTER TRUCKS!!!!

Saturday was Will and Billy's night out...they headed downtown to Reliant Stadium for the MONSTER TRUCK RALLY!!!!  Per my instruction Will went equipped with ear plugs and brand spankin new Winchester (yes, Winchester) shooting range ear protection.  

John tried on a similar pair before they left...I just couldn't resist :)

Papa Max went along for the ride (pun intended)...

Here they are right as it is about to begin (side bar...we totally should have invited the guy next to Billy - whoever he is - to John's Mustache Bash)

I can only imagine the look on Will's face when they started jumping and crashing into things!

And apparently now there is an Iron Man AND Batman truck...

The next day, Will and Billy headed out to our mud pit to make a monster truck course of their own...

And they may have even gotten a few runs in before John showed up and completely destroyed it!

John's Weekend Outtakes

John's weekend started out with a bang...

He brought home his very first daycare art :)

Yes, this is a cute little polar bear, but look closely...it only has three legs hahaha! 

I can only imagine the trouble Johnny gave the staff when they tried to get a handprint...

Saturday things started getting really crazy as John and I prepared for an evening alone (more on that in tomorrow's post)...

And Sunday was so busy John couldn't even get through lunch without dozing off...

One of these days I SWEAR we will have a nice, quiet weekend...

(Un)Dressed to Eat

Over the weekend, I texted a few pictures to my parents while John was eating...

Today, I talked to my mom who asked why John always eats without a shirt...

Well...here is your answer...

He is an eating m.a.c.h.i.n.e.

During mealtime, he becomes one with his food...

He eats twice us much food (not exaggerating) as Will in about half the time!

He shovels the food in so fast half doesn't even make it to his mouth...

And he is always super messy happy once his belly is full!

Challenge Accepted

As a school aged child, one is constantly hit with peer pressure...apparently even at 4 years old.

Lunch time is the peer pressure cooker at Will's school.

I've received a litany of peer pressure comments from Will about lunch:

1)how other kid's moms visit to eat lunch with their child

2)how some kids get juice/gatorade while he is sent with milk

3)how some kids get desserts (like, whole bags of skittles) while we send him with, for example, 5 skittles.

A few months ago, Will came home and advised me his friend's mom always decorated lunch napkins for her so she had a surprise in her lunch box every day.  "Challenge Accepted", I thought...this is totally something I can do!  

But this task has become daunting!  Some days, I forget to do it and Will let's me hear it the minute I pick him up after school.  Then there are little comments like "but mom, Kensley's mom uses glitter pens"which is like a knife to my heart! 

Last week I asked him to give me a theme for the week...he chose Star Wars and was thrilled with the results...

Here's some of my napkin art :)

Path of Destruction

Someone who will remain nameless advised me today that whenever I spend any time alone with my boys, we leave behind a "path of destruction" (ie enormous mess).  I would like to argue that point with the following as evidence:

I give you Exhibit A:  A young Johnny Boomtastick single handedly destroying our living room in the 30 seconds it takes for me to run to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee...

I give you Exhibit B: Will and John playing in their new Batcave complete with elbow pads, knee pads, and broken down car seat boxes that I am SURE they were able to tape together themselves...

And finally, I wrap up my defense with Exhibit C: How my boys and I finish up every day...all cleaned up!  No mess here!

The defense rests!!

Christmas Catch Up

Will and Billy got into some Christmas gifts a few weeks ago and had a ton of fun putting some dinosaurs together (thanks Grant & Sunshine!)  Here is Will, super proud of his and daddy's accomplishment.  Let it be known however, that shortly after this photo, John promptly destroyed them!

Early Morning Visitor

So early Tuesday morning, we had a visitor...at approximately 2:11am, Will walked into our room, claiming he had just woken up from a nightmare.  Billy (thanks honey) patiently walked Will back to his room and he fell back asleep.

Now, mind you, I think I can count on ONE hand the amount of times Will has interrupted my beauty sleep (haha) in this way in his almost 5 years...so we figured it was something serious...and serious it was!

The next day, I questioned Will about his nightmare:

ME: "Will, what was your nightmare about last night?"

WILL (without hesitation): "So, the scorpion was hissing and trying to claw you, sting you, and eat you up.....and you climbed up a wall, and the scorpion jumped onto your bed, and he turned into a meerkat and then he was nice.  The scorpion was yellow, dark yellow, with black on him.  I was with you and then I fell into a box of clothes and he tried to eat me up but figured out he didn't want to.  All this happened while Daddy was giving John a bath."

Mamma Freud's Translation: Will has obviously been reading/watching way to many nature books/shows about bugs, meerkats, and the like.  He is also heavily into Spiderman these days, which explains the ability for me to climb up a wall.  And I just so happened to be behind on laundry Monday night, in fact, his hamper in his room was overflowing, which explains him falling into a box of clothes.

What an amazing dream!

Rest & Relaxation

So John completed his first week of daycare on Friday...and successfully infested 3/4 of our household with some type of virus...(Ironically, Billy, the only one of us NOT to get the flu shot...remained healthy!)

Saturday night Billy and the boys made a relaxing bath for me...complete with just about everything one would need to relax...

Bubbles....

 Made with Eucalyptus/Spearmint bubble bath selected by Will at HEB...

Some Shiner (a cold/flu's best elixir obviously!)

 And yes, a Megalodon...left over from one of Will's baths taken in my tub :)

Yes...SOOOOO relaxing LOL!

You've Come A Long Way Baby!

The official numbers are in...

Here are John's stats at 1 year old!  

(spoiler alert -- apparently all his moving and cruising around after Will has shaved some poundage off our little man!)

Height: 31.5" ~ 92nd percentile

Weight: 23lbs 3.6ozs ~ 56th percentile

Head: 17.99" ~ 29th percentile

Day ONE

Day ONE YEAR OLD