Moving, Family, and Graduation

March in the Wood house was basically a big blur of packing, cleaning, looking for somewhere to live, Ryan's school & house-finding trips, finishing school, graduation, final hanging out with friends and everything else associated with moving across country.  The fun was exemplified by our house being worthy of quarantine status: Grant and Tate with fevers, congestion and coughs, me with a crazy sore throat, cough, and possible ear infection and all of us (except Ryan) with pink eye. (Most of this showed up as we were ready to move out so I really hope no one that came to help us caught anything!)

  My parents came to help us pack up and for Ryan's graduation.  They brought a few eggs filled with candy for the boys to have a little Easter egg hunt.  I had been so busy with all the moving business I hadn't even thought of doing Easter activities.  The boys loved it!

 He's such a handsome lad!

 We've had three years of Easter egg hunts in this backyard, we are definitely going to miss Ohio!

 Ryan's dad made the long trip out from Idaho and his brother, Farel, came up from West Virginia to be there for graduation.  They also helped with the moving process.  Here they are pictured in front of the Tetris masterpiece that is our furniture packed into 10 feet of space in a semi trailer.  Only Ryan has the skills and patience for such fine pack-manship.

 

  Unfortunately, I forgot our camera at Ryan's graduation ceremony, but we should be getting a few pictures from one of his fellow residents soon.  The ceremony was very well done and nicely celebrated and commemorated all their hard work.  Ryan worked very hard during his residency, surpassing many of his requirements.  But I think one of his greatest achievements is that through all the stress and busy-ness of his residency, he always put his family first and continued to be a wonderful husband and father.  We love you Ran and are so proud of you!

I just had to include this picture of Luke because it is so dang cute!

Happy Birthday Ran!

 Another birthday post!  Amongst all the busy-ness that March and April has produced for us this year, Ryan turned 32.  I feel like his birthday got somewhat neglected last year because I was still in the nausea/tiredness stage of Luke's pregnancy, and then this year again with getting ready to move.  I guess it's a good thing that Ran doesn't care too much about birthdays.

For the past several months before our move, I had been using up pantry items instead of buying more food that we'd have to move or give away.  By the time it came to making Ryan's birthday cake, our cupboards were pretty much empty.   Thanks to a friend, I found out about a pineapple cake that uses two ingredients: a yellow cake mix and a can of crushed pineapple.  It was really good (extremely moist, too).  I whipped up a little frosting and we had ourselves a birthday party!

The boys were good and let daddy blow out his candles all by himself.

 

Our favorite part of birthdays (besides the cake and presents, of course) is going on a treasure hunt to find the presents.  The boys were excited to help make the treasure hunt and drew their own pictures for the clues.  I think this was one of the most difficult hunts our family has had because we let Ryan try to decipher the pictures without help from the illustrators.  It took him a minute with a few of the clues but he eventually found the presents.  Happy Birthday Ran, we love you!!

Happy Birthday Tater!

 February 11th was Tate's 3rd birthday.  It's hard to believe it's already been three years!  He is such a wonderful little boy and adds so much fun and happiness to our family.  Scroll to the bottom of this post for some little known facts about Tate.

 We decided that for odd number birthday years we will just have a family party and even years the boys can have a bigger party with friends.  We decorated the living room with some streamers and balloons (just to see the boys' cute reaction when they came down) and Tate got the cake he had been requesting for months: "a George cake".

 Compared to Grant's cake last year, I'd have to say I did a better job on this one.  It looks a little more professional, a little less "this cake is falling apart but somehow I kind of threw it together", like Grant's did.

 Tucking into some cake.

 When I was growing up, my dad would always make a treasure hunt for us to find our presents.  It got progressively harder the older we got.  One of my last years at home, I had to solve some kind of difficult mathematical equation to figure out the clue.  These treasure hunts were always the hit of the party so we're going to keep them up with the boys.

 Finding clues in random places.

 Another clue!

 To prove I was there!

 After running up and down the stairs several times, following clues, the boys found the presents!

One of the little known facts about Tater: he loves footie PJs, especially 2 pairs he owns of size 2T footie PJs that are much too small for him.  We found a new pair with monkey's on them (his favorite), but they only had size 4T.  We figured he'd like them and wear them, even though they would be a little too big for him.  However, since the party, Tate has not worn his new PJs once (but has worn his too small 2T size almost every night), and Grant has squeezed himself into the 4T PJ's we got for Tate for several nights.  Well, at least they are getting worn.

Other Tate Facts:

*He is still one of the happiest kids we know.  He smiles and waves to strangers in the stores.  He knows when to flash a huge squinty-eyed grin to deflect a punishment.  He continues to wake up around 6am every morning, but is so dang happy it's hard to be grumpy while getting up with him.

*He has been really into word play and changing normal words.  For instance, he'll say a sentence where he'll switch the first letter of every word to a "p".  ("PI pant pa pogurt" is "I want a yogurt").

*His new favorite word is one I do not know how he made up.  "Goggish Mogish" is now used in about every other sentence and is often used interchangeably as an adjective, noun , verb, or exclamation.

*He is starting to develop a little defiant side.  For example yesterday morning he asked Ryan for a second Pop Tart which Ryan declined, saying he needed to eat something healthy first.  Tate replied "Daddy, get me another Pop Tart or I'm gonna punch you in the face!"  Ryan just wearily shook his head and kept brushing his teeth.  Needless to say, Tate didn't get another Pop Tart.

*Even with his increased rebellion, he is still sweet and sensitive.  The other day he turned off the computer just as I was about to place an order on Amazon.  I was a littler perturbed and yelled at him and sent him out of the room.  He was very sad and I felt bad that I had over reacted.  We made amends and all was fine.  Then over the next two days, he randomly came to me and said "I'm sorry I turned off the computer".  Poor little guy still felt bad about it, (and I felt really bad for overreacting!)!

*His favorite outfits are either: his swim suit and swim shirt or his Superman T shirt and Superman boxer-briefs (which he wears as shorts).  He wears one of these outfits every day (I'm not kidding).  I usually make him wear normal clothes when we are out in the morning, but once we get home he disappears for a couple minutes and comes down in one of those outfits. 
*Several times per week, Grant and Tate will pull everything off their beds, make a pile of it all, and pretend it's a boat or car, etc.  At the end of the day, Grant is very willing to pick up the mess but Tate is not as enthusiastic about the clean-up process.  But if there's anything that needs to be swept up, wiped down with a wet rag, or dusted, Tate is all over that.  He even has his own small spray bottle that he will fill with water and "clean" the floor or windows by spraying them then wiping them dry with a rag. 

*He is just a sweet boy who loves to have fun, loves to play and ride his bike, loves his family, is quick to share and quick to forgive, and loves to "help" with anything mom and dad are doing.  We feel so blessed to have him in our family!

Christmas Review

So here we are in February, trying to post about Christmas.  I've decided to just include a ton of pictures of some of the fun we had over the Christmas season.

The boys enjoyed trimming our little Christmas tree.  I enjoyed seeing how many ornaments they were going to fit on one branch.  I guess you have to put the ornaments where you can reach them :)

Luke was able to watch from the swing.

After decorating the tree, Grant was still in a creative mood so he made a bed/couch out of the box of Christmas supplies, a blanket, and a couch cushion.

Of course, in our family you know there was way too much baking going on :)

I tried an easier version of gingerbread houses and the boys decorated Christmas trees (made from an upside down ice cream cone).

This little guy was just happy to be around.

The weather was incredible in VA.  On one nice day we headed out to Northwest River Park and played and hiked and ran around.

On a more obscure trail at the park, you can come across an old, falling apart ropes course that is fun to play on.  I first found it with my cross country team in high school and it looked old and falling apart then, so I'm not sure why or how it's still standing.

The boys were supposed to be entertaining us on the pavilion while I fed Luke.  Grant was a shark and Tate was a fish.  I believe it ended like many of their games do: Tate running away screaming and Grant crying on the ground.

One of our traditions on Christmas Eve night is to go on a "star walk" to find the new star like the wise men did.  Luke was not very excited about all the preparatory bundling that occurred, but I believe he was thankful once we were outside.

Uncle Ryan manned the stroller during the walk.

The boys marked our way with two bags of "reindeer food" they received from friends.  I'm sure the squirrels loved all that sparkly oatmeal in the morning!

The boys opened one present on Christmas Eve, Christmas PJ's!  I think this is one tradition that most people share in common.

After the star walk, we came inside and warmed up with hot chocolate and donuts.  This was definitely the boys' favorite tradition of the night.

Here are Luke's aforementioned Christmas PJ's.  Look, there's a reindeer on his bottom!  Adorable!

Like I mentioned in a previous post, we had church on Christmas morning so we were all dressed up to open one present each before church.

Luke's present was about the same size as he was.

And then after church we got in comfy clothes again and enjoyed the rest of our presents and family time.

Uncles David and Ryan got in on the present action.

Ryan was very excited that the boys each got their first set of six-shooters!  The "do not point your guns at people" rule was quickly forgotten as everyone in sight was showered with a hail of imaginary bullets.  It'll definitely be a while before they're allowed to touch a real gun but these will get them through just fine until then.

More presents!

Luke's favorite present!

Ryan's favorite present.  Can't beat a Cold Steel pocket knife.

More wonderful weather helped us enjoy our presents in the great outdoors.  Here, Grant has formed a posse and is going after the bad guys.

My dad put this swing set up in the early '90s, and despite some broken boards/rods, it's still going strong.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how Tate slept in my parent's closet.  We found another perfect bedroom for a young lad, the laundry room.  It was the perfect size for a futon and Grant claimed it as his bed for most of the nights we were there.  One day, Grant took a rare nap and Luke and Tate went to greet him when he woke up.  Picture time!

Of Bikes and Guns

 Merry Christmas to all!!  The boys both had two similar items on their Christmas list this year:  a bike and a gun. Santa delivered both (plus many other wonderful gifts thanks to Munga and Papa).  We had church at 9am so the boys opened one present each before church and had the rest of their presents to look forward to when they got home.  And that first present was...

 ...bright orange shot guns!  Woo Hoo!!!  We made a rule with the guns that you can't point them at anyone and shoot unless it was agreed upon as part of a game (the guns don't actually shoot out anything, just make a noise).  The boys used the tree for some nice target practice. 

 Why yes, that is a gun holster strapped to Tate's hip.  You never know when you'll need to quick-draw.

The debut ride of the bikes was quite exciting.  Early wobbles quickly turned into confidence which turned into taking sharp turns on one training wheel.  Don't worry, we have helmets, we just forgot them in Ohio. We were lucky to have hit the good weather jackpot while in VA this year.  Several of the days got close to 70 so the boys put in lots of bike time.  More Christmas posts to come...

Caught Red-Lipped

My parent's have a large walk-in closet that we usually put a futon in for one of the boys to sleep there when we are visiting.  On New Year's Eve night, we put Tate to bed in their closet and went downstairs to hang out and play games with the family.  Later, my mom went up to her bathroom to get something she needed.  She turned on the light to the bathroom and was startled to find Tate, in the dark, trying out her makeup. He obviously had already used the lipstick and was just brushing up some powder when she put on the light. My mom gasped just because she didn't expect Tate to be there, but he took it as he was in big trouble.    She came to get me, and I couldn't keep from laughing when I saw him, even though he seemed pretty upset.  I think he was nervous that he was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to and embarrassed that the adults thought it was so funny.  This picture is priceless :)

Kid Hot Tub

Bath time in the Wood house is all about speed and efficiency.  We have a removable spray nozzle on our shower head so we usually just stand the boys in the tub, lather them up, and then spray them down to get them squeaky clean.  I believe we have given Grant a tub bath a few times but the spray down is the only kind of bath that Tate knows.

While at my parents house this Christmas, a bottle of shower gel got knocked over and spilled in the bathroom.  I thought we shouldn't let it go to waste so I scooped it up and made a bubble bath for the boys (there was a lot of spilled soap that resulted in a lot of bubbles)

I guess the bubbles in the water reminded Tate of the hot tub at the pool we go to on campus.  The boys named the experience Kid Hot Tub.  Now, every night, Kid Hot Tub is requested and has become the highlight of the evening (almost surpassing their daily treat allotment if they've eaten their dinner).  It's a win win situation: the kids are actually excited to get a bath, and we look like cool parents because we let them have a Kid Hot Tub.  One day they may actually discover that this is how most normal children bathe, but until then we'll let the kids think we're just being extra nice.