the past few

Collin had his 3rd birthday party on the weekend before Halloween. Every other weekend it's been beautiful- this weekend it was FREEZING and windy. I really thought nobody was going to come and it was just going to be us having a party (or freezing to death) by ourselves. But he had several friends come (although not all of them stayed to the end) and he was very happy. So that made me happy :) 

I borrowed my mom's SD card because mine was full (of course) and she took it home with her, so I'll have to do another post later with full pics. We ended up taking all of his presents home with him and he had big fun opening them all up.

On his real birthday we baked him a cake with 3 candles. 

Photo-bombed. Makes me laugh every time I see it!!

The next day we went to a "Carnival Festival" as Caleb would say- but Collin couldn't say festival so it turned into "vegetable". All of his candy that he got was "vegetable canny". I love to hear him say it so I keep asking what kind of candy he got. And yes, we still have plenty of candy around here.

Cute, cute little harvest festival at a sweet church. All of the proceeds went to missions, and you could "trick or treat" through the mission booths. 

 C sang in big church with his Kingsingers group. Keith and I looked at each other at the exact same moment and said, "When did we have a kid old enough to sing up there?" Seriously, he's half grown y'all. And on another note, while I didn't get many good pictures, I did learn how to use my zoom lens. Finally!

 

C wrote a poem about our jack-o-lantern:

I am a pumpkin

sitting on the table.

And waiting to be a Jack-o-lantern

Boo!

He also wrote 1st and 2th so you'd know which came first and seconth :)

My bud and his sweet teacher Mrs. Ellingson. She's the bomb, y'all. She and some of the other teachers dressed as "Toddlers & Tiaras". Hilarious.

That night, we did a little trick o treatin'.

 

 The Shivers gals showed up and then the party really started :)

 

Look at us!! Best friends for almost 20 years. Love this gal. She makes everything we do together fun and special.

Yeah and this guy too. He's pretty alright.He tells me I'm hawt on a regular basis, so that helps.

Do y'all remember coming home from trick or treating and sorting out your loot? I do. My mom has pictures of us doing the exact same thing. So fun. 

This past Thursday night Ashley and I took our kiddos to see Disney on Ice. Of course we needed some Mexican beforehand. Ashley and I almost always eat Mexican. It started back in the day when we ate Mexican once a week at the restaurant across from our school. Ashley taught a little boy who's parents owned the place and he always hooked us up with free food. And I taught a little Vietnamese boy who's dad did nails at a shop down the street. We got the hook-up there too. Those were the days!

I caved and bought the boys those ridiculously expensive swords. I told Ashley I wouldn't and then I did. Oh well.

This is how awesome our seats were. Sooo close. I did good y'all. I'm pretty sure that's why Collin sat as still as a statue during the whole thing. After taking Caleb to a few things here, I learned the hard way that you might as well go ahead and pay for the good seats. Makes for a much better experience when they are totally engaged in the show!!

So that was our past few weeks. I am blessed, y'all.

the battle of pants

in the battle of pants here's the score:

collin- 1, me- 0

the other day i was pulling out fall stuff and getting it ready to put into drawers. collin looked at all the blue jeans and casually said, "i'm not gonna wear dat pants." i didn't think one more thing about it- until later that week when he begged to wear his new "mickey mouse cwubhouse" pajamas.  he wore the pants for about 3 seconds when he started wailing "i don' want dese pants!" and took them off.

sunday, he threw a fit about wearing his new jeans to church.

yesterday he cried just looking at the pants in his drawer.

today, i decided was show-down day. i mean, it doesn't matter if he wears shorts right now, it may be chilly in the mornings but it's in the 80's in the afternoons. one of these days though, he's going to have to wear the pants and i figured the sooner he made up his mind about it the better.

he loooves wednesday night church. his friends are there and he's all about it. so, i figured i'd pull out a pair of pants and he'd decide to wear them rather than stay home.

so, i pull them out and say, "if you want to go to church you're going to have to put these on." of course he protests and cries. it's getting later and later, and my ignoring him and getting ready despite the wailing isn't really working. i pretended to leave. we gathered up all of our stuff and i told him if he wanted to go, he had to wear the pants. utter refusal. he sat down in the kitchen floor and cried. i'm still calm and cool, just pretending like i don't really care, but in my head i'm praying like crazy for him to just put the dang pants on!!

caleb and i get into the car and he's still sitting in the kitchen floor not budging. so i crank the car. at this point i can see his little head in the window and the screaming is louder- so i of course feel bad because i'd never want him to think we'd actually leave him there alone, so i go inside and scoop him up. i grab the pants thinking he'll change his mind when we get to church and he buckles himself in wearing underwear and a shirt. he's screaming  "i need some shorts! i need some shorts!" i keep telling him i'm not putting him on any shorts and if he wants to go into church he'd better wear the pants.

about halfway to church he says, "i wanna wear dose pants!" and i think, "thank You Jesus."

we pull into church and it starts to pour down rain. i get out and help him put the pants on. he begins to cry and takes them off. i put them back on, he takes them back off. i'm getting soaked, caleb's getting soaked- collin's still not wearing any dadgum pants.

and just as an aside, before i had children, i would have thought this was stupid. i mean, he's two, right? you can't make a two year old wear pants? no, you cannot. and i could've spanked his little bootie every time he took those pants off and he still would've done it. i'd been down that road too many times with caleb polk, and i'd decided more drastic measures were needed.  sometimes, you have to be willing to humiliate yourself, look like a completely bad/crazy mother or be completely inconvenienced to make your point. or, at least i do with these hard-headed boys.

so, i drive around to the back and take both boys inside. now, mind you, collin isn't wearing any pants because i meant it was those pants or nothing. he's crying about shorts the entire way through the church while he's wearing underwear and socks. i'm not sure if it's a good thing that everyone knows me or not, but i'll tell you this much, i felt like the bad/crazy, inconvenienced, and humiliated mother. i'm not even sure what i looked like, i was just trying so hard to keep it together for collin's sake. i felt like everyone was smiling and wanting to chat and i'm holding a half naked screaming toddler. (sorry if you are reading this and you wanted to chat, i was kind of just trying to get out of there.)

i take caleb to his class, put collin back in the car (crying because he wants to stay, but he's not putting on the stinkin' pants) and drive home. (keith was already at church, i didn't abandon caleb :) before we even get back on the highway collin is sound asleep. and i'm pretty sure the showdown wouldn't have been as dramatic as it was had he not been so tired, but STILL, he never put on the pants. 

so there you have it folks: the battle of the pants. and i lost, big time.  at least i have the rest of the night while he's asleep to plan my strategy. because unlike potty training and a host of other little quirks that i've refused to do battle over, at some point this winter, he's going to have to wear the dang pants.

collin IS still a baby.

i would like to tell you all, how at 34-and-some-change months collin  is still a baby. the baby, and i'm pretty sure no matter how old he gets i'll still think of him that way. here are the top 20 reasons why:

1. he potties pretty independently- doesn't even tell me half the time when he's going.
2. he can dress himself from the waist down. and doesn't mind getting up in the night and putting on his brother's underwear (because that's what he can reach!) he puts his shoes and socks on easily.
3. he can ride a tricycle.
4. he buckles his carseat.
5. he can turn on any show he likes on my phone on the watch disney jr app.
6. he uses the word "actually" in every day language.
7. he knows bible characters. (well most men with beards are noah and long haired men are sampson but still- he does know them!)
8. he drinks out of a regular cup at dinner.
9. he eats with a fork and spoon.
10. he has totally given up baby puzzles and is obsessed with the big floor ones and small 24 piece ones.
11. he can spell his name and recognizes it and letter C.
12. he counts to 10.
13. he knows some spanish- he calls us "amigos" and yells "ayudame!" when he needs help. (thank you diego)
14. he knows all of his colors and shapes.
15. he can put all of his toys away in the right spot.
16. he bathes and brushes his teeth. (of course we help him afterward)
17. he can play golf on the wii. (it's fun to watch)
18. he can name all the superheroes.
19. he can follow two and three part directions.

but the biggest reason of all,the one that pretty much negates every other reason that he is still a baby-

20. at least 3 times a day he comes to me and says, "hold you pwease!". and i do. hold him that is. he is still absolutely a BABY.

what we did

i bought collin some goggles (gobbles- i love how he says that!) he loved them a lot.

cman's school picture. i told keith he looked like he should have a long rat tail and hang out at the skating rink on friday nights. y'all remember that kid? he could skate really well, i'll give him that. no seriously- i think C is very handsome but i'm not digging this look. in my defense daddy took him to school so he wouldn't have thought to do the "once over".

i bought c and c new shoes this week. they were pumped! i had to put my pretty pink shoes in there too. i bought them a few weeks ago. i went in stinky feet to pick up a 5K race packet and i walked out with these. they're worth it!!

we took the boys to the park on monday. keith had been feeling bad so we really laid around all weekend and finally decided to do something. the park was pretty crowded but the boys still had fun.

we went out to eat afterwards. i tell ya, our phones are big entertainment. not sure what we ever did without them. or what my parents did. i guess we actually had to behave or something. yikes.

bulldog bash was last night. they do it every year at C's school. we had a cute friend of C's come along with us. however, i think collin polk had the BEST time. he thought he was a big dog. for reals. look at him go up this big ole thing!! he probably climbed up like 20 times!

and that, my friends, is what we did.

An iPhone pictorial

LOOK!! this came in the mail today. and it's fall!! when i was little and all the way up until i had kids the fall season meant nothing to me. summer was the only important season. now, i still like it- but fall is my new fave. it's like the precursor to the holiday season, or a warm up to christmas.  and there's so many fun things to do with kids! it's just good family time. 

me and SL go way back, i can remember sitting at my grandmother's table looking at pretty pictures when i was little. the annual christmas yearbooks? i collect them just because of those memories.

can i tell you how much C loves his class? his teacher packs so many neat things into a day. 

this is a bathroom in a house we looked at. i'm not sure a hobbit could pee in there. i'm not sure i could and i'm all of 4'11. not to mention- well, there's a lot of not to mentions.

but THIS was the glorious front yard. i'd love to look at this everyday. all the neighbors homes around it were just as nice. 

here's collin on his first day of MMO. when he woke up this morning, as soon as his little eyes popped open he said, "i go ta school  today?" he was pumped, he's just holding it in for the camera :)

Shine on baby brudder

1. Collin's got his first shiner :(
2. I'm having one of those perfect hair/ outfits that is cuter than I thought days and nobody important is witnessing it. Maybe I should post a picture of myself?? Nah.
3. I have 6 can wrapper/koozie things to make by tomorrow @ 11. It was a misunderstanding- not me slacking but nonetheless I'm still blogging instead of sewing... So I guess I'm slacking.
4. I like blogging on my iPhone. Easy peasy.
5. I feel like eating everything in our kitchen but I'm refraining. Yay me!
6. Since Collin's not staying up until 9 every night he's not taking a nap. But I'm still making him rest. Not happy about that but oh well.
7. People are nuts. That's all I can say about that.

Brave

the other day we went to the science museum with our friends. c wanted to go because the dinosaur exhibit was back.

 

collin would look at the t-rex and say, "mama he scawe me!" shiver with fear and run past. we even needed rah-rah there for support. (that's the used-to-be white lamb he carries everywhere).

 

big brother on the other hand wouldn't even go near the dinosaurs. would run past them without looking.

 

the other night he got really, really, really sick. so sick i decided to take him to the ER. they knew he was going to need lots of meds, so they went ahead and started an IV. he didn't even cry, y'all. he was SO brave. i cried.

 

that next day when we got home i told C we needed to cut his nails  "because last night in the ER i thought he looked like an orphan". he said, "mama, i'll do it." and so he did- previously having been a little scared to let me or do it himself- for YEARS it was a bit of a battle.

i don't get how you can be terrified of fake (not even all that realistic dinosaurs) dinosaurs and go to the hospital without crying even when they stick you and take your blood and do x-rays. 

i don't get it.

but i'm still proud of my big boy. i'm thankful he's facing his fears in his own time. 

Lord, help him to be brave and strong in You!