A Weekend with SEVEN Boys

I think that title just sums it all up.

Our great nephews - yes, they are GREAT and they are great - came to stay with us over Easter so their parents could get away for their 10th Anniversary.

Honestly, the weekend went amazingly well.  We didn't even use an entire thing of Neosporin!  It may be the exhaustion talking but really, it was a ton of fun.

I spent most the time in the kitchen - shocker.  I had stocked up on food.  And An, being a foodie (really, she is the top dessert chef and baker at a well known restaurant) packed food.  I mean, the boys arrived with a COOLER.

We found use for the cooler so I am really glad she sent it.

Coolers make great chairs, did you know?

I spent a great amount time in the kitchen.  And most of the time the kitchen looked like this....

Notice the basket? An sent that too, filled with grown up goodies. She's lovely like that.

Do you notice how the sunshine streams into the kitchen, filling it with a cheery glow?  The cheery glow forgot to clean my kitchen.

Our floors looked like this...

The dart bullet is further proof of an all boy household. Well, except me. 

In fact, the youngest at five, J informed me our floors were made of dirt.  "No, honey," I explained sweetly, "I have only swept them twice today so they are only a little dirty.  Not made of dirt."  The photos shows you how much dirt one room had it in it.  

Of course, if two of my boys weren't thinking it was cool to wear cleats outside and then back inside and three (yes, husband, calling you out) of my boys didn't wear big bulky boots in and out, they would have been cleaner.

But what's the sense in not wearing those?

We watched a lot of A Team.  The show?  It is AWESOME to them.  And I kept falling asleep when it was on and my husband wondered why I was so tired.

For real.

Meal times were the best.

Here are some dinner highlights....

J had to have lemon on his glass every. single. meal.  And because he is J, he had lemon on his cup for every. single. meal.

One meal we spent a great deal of time guessing what J's favorite foods were.  Thankfully it was mac and cheese, which we were having for lunch then.

A big debate at one meal time was what exactly should they do when they caught Big Foot.  What cracked me up was that it wasn't even a question IF they would catch Big Foot, it was just what they would do when they did.  

At dinner one night they suddenly began singing Convoy.  I don't know why.  Then they began talking about how they used to think that the song was talking about flying black bears and grizzly bears in sky.

They weighed out the best way to have a food fight at school and not get caught.  Not getting caught seemed to be trickier than they thought it would be, and I was relieved to hear that.

The Sunday they were with us, it was Easter sunday.  We did not make it to sunrise service, although Jake and S1 and S2 made it to church at 5:30 to make breakfast.  And I was up at five to get dinner done.  We were only about ten minutes late to church breakfast - woohoo!

At the service, I looked down and saw this....

It made my heart melt.

And wish for a good coffee with an extra shot of espresso.  Okay, more than an extra shot.

But this?  This photo I love ever so much....

We "hillbilly-ified" the boys while they were with us.

We used a couch to say "only go this far in the driveway".  Yes, a couch.

And then, as all hillbillies do, we burned the couch at night.

The boys never ever wanted to leave our house then.

We didn't have an Easter egg hunt - I can do only so much - but we did make dirt cake.  I did not think to have gummy worms (how ever could I forget?) so J suggested we catch real worms.  Fortunately, the ground is still frozen otherwise I really believe he would have.

A has severe food allergies and I am pretty sure he was sick and tired of hearing me say, "Are you sure you can eat this?"  If you have a child with food allergies...God bless you.  What extra patience and creativity and wisdom you must be granted!

At night the boys giggled and laughed and wrestled and yelled until they fell exhausted asleep.  I made beds for them, they mostly slept on the floor.

During the day the door slammed about five hundred million times.  They quickly learned our front screen door requires kicking to open (seriously, it does) and that was all kinds of fun.

An sent a cooler and two bags of food.  I loaded up at the grocery store before they arrived.  I only needed two more runs to the store while they were here.  

They arrived on Friday morning, they left on Monday night.  These boys had never stayed more than a few hours at our home before, and always with their mom or both their parents.  They left in a flurry and silence fell over the house.

I waved goodbye to my extra boys and they didn't see me.

I shuffled back to the kitchen to finish cleaning up.  My husband didn't miss a beat.  "You miss them already, don't you?'

I sniffed.  And nodded.

It was a great weekend.  One I drank a lot of coffee over but a great weekend. 

S4, Whiskers Gray and J.  

So sorry, An, pretty sure J is going to need a bunny now.

And you all can thank me for telling you no bathroom or stinky stories.  But let's just say that having one bathroom is no fun.  And S may have gone home to tell his mother dear, "I have heard it said and it's probably true...Too much bathing, it will weaken you."  Hey, we did what we had to!

Insane is My New Name

Forewarning...I am writing this with only half a cup of coffee in my system

S3 and S4 have been on this kick lately...either they fight like no one else or they are adorable like no one else.

Example:

They arrive home from school and help each other get a glass, milk and cookie.  Best of buds.  They decide to go outside to toss the football back and forth.  Within five minutes they are screaming at each other, wrestling the other to the ground, shoving and pushing each other around.  Did I mention screaming?, it bears repeating. 

Because I continue to say, "You two are brothers and you will be FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE so figure this out", I try to let them hash it out themselves.  I cringe through the exchange and every once in awhile I have to separate them because they need to be separated.

At night, when they have gone to bed (finally), I sit down, hold my head in my hands and want to cry.  I am emotionally and physically exhausted.  I peer through my fingers at my husband and groan, "They are driving me insane....."

He laughs.

I am serious.

Last week the three youngest boys announced they are going to be in the church Christmas program.  Daddy said they could. Mama was going to make sure they weren't because she didn't want to do the practice running.  Daddy won.

The Christmas Play is a Spelling Bee Musical.  We have a cd.

We must listen to the cd because the boys need to know the songs and their lines.

So, we get in the suburban and the Christmas musical cd in on and singing "S P E L L I N G B E E" all happy high-pitched kid like.  You parents know what I mean.  It hurts your ears it is so high-pitched, happy, scrape your fingernail along the chalkboard sounding.  And the music is so loud as to soak into them that they might absorb the words.  They need to know every song, every line and all their friends lines too.

Today, I am listening to this super happy high-pitched singing and actually missed the moments that all I had to do is deal with them fighting over who hit who with a wad of paper or stole the others hat.

This morning I had only time to suck down a half a cup of coffee as I was walking out the door and had no time to make myself coffee for the ride, I am certain that has to do with some of my insanity at the moment.  However, if you see me with my head twitching to some weird beat and my eyes buggy eyed out and me singing in a chant sort of way, "Be nice, S P E L L I N G B E E, be nice, S P E L L I N G B E E," you will understand why.

Place coffee in my hand.

Perhapes consider kidnapping me.

And pray I make it through this current phase in our lives. 

Let's Revisit Jake's Colonoscopy

One year ago today, I wrote the post about my husband and his Colonoscopy.  

Since this post published, we have retold this story too many times to count.  It is one of our favorites and people usually laugh hysterically through the whole thing.  So, since it's so popular and I love my husband so very much, I am reposting it today.

Read the whole story here....

But don't have a drink in your hand because you will drop it or spit it out in laughter.  I guarantee you.

Want a Colonoscopy?

While this date is circled on my calendar so we can giggle about it and celebrate we aren't reliving it, a week ago we watched this funny bit by Jeff Foxworthy and had to share.  Jake, puzzled, said, "He must not have been very drugged up".  He still forgets we asked to have him drugged to not remember anything.

For an update of how Jake is doing a year later....

We have slowly added coffee back to his daily life.  We started slow, then we added it once a week and now we have gotten to where he has a cup in the morning and very rarely one at night.  He used to drink two pots of coffee for sure a day, sometimes more.  As long as he remembers his medicine, the heartburn is gone.  But the key is remembering the medicine.  He has the hardest time remember he needs to take it every day because I think he just wants to think he will be fine without it...until the heartburn takes over and causes all kinds of pain again.  

A Call For Mrs. Dykstra

 

I don't get very many phone calls.  And, no, my phone doesn't look like this but wouldn't a phone like this be so cool?  Especially if it were turquoise.

Anyhow....

As I was saying, I don't get phone calls very often.  I'm just not much of a chat on the phone sort of gal. Unless I am chatting with the Farmer's Wife.  But lately, my phone rings in the morning and I know exactly who it is.

I get a sick feeling in my stomach.

I carefully pick up the phone, I cringe at the name, my face wrinkles in pain as I tentatively answer, "Hello?"

And it's the school, the office gals, whom I love.

These are the conversations I have had with them....

"Um, Denise, you need to come over to the school.  Your son's toe...yah, you just need to come over and see it."  S3 had kicked the soccer ball with his summer shoes on and literally tore the top layer of the bottom of his big toe right off.  It was just flapping in the wind.  I asked for bandages and got it taken care of in no time flat.  

"We're sorry to call," they said, "But we knew you were right across the road and would want to see it."

They are right, I did want to see it and I was glad they called me.

Another call...

"Denise? Your son just threw up."

S4 had a cough and I am quite certain that his cough that morning was the cause of his throw up because I ran to pick him up (this was the day I was unshowered and looking "rough" was a nice way to describe my appearance) and he then proceeded to eat a huge plate of macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes.

Another call...

"This is the office.  Uh, your son has poison ivy all over his leg.  We just need to know if we can put something on it so it doesn't itch so much."

As it turned out, they didn't have calamine lotion so I ran to the store, got that and anti itch lotion and dropped it off at school.  I had a little ivy dry and we poured that over his leg, the leg that hadn't been mentioned at all all weekend.  The added bonus of the ivy dry?  It looked like his skin was peeling off his leg and it was So. Cool.  Or so I hear.

The craziest call was this...

"Denise? The school.  Somehow your son has had an accident.  He is going to need all new clothes."

I couldn't hardly believe this one.  And on this particular day, I was at work all alone so I couldn't just leave the library open and run home and get clothes and return.

But I did have the suburban and we have been pretty much living in it with football season and all.  I quick climbed all over the seats (in a dress, mind you) and found enough half eaten food and half drinken water bottles to live on for a week as well as numerous shirts, a pair of clean folded socks (we don't even have those at home!) and, oddly enough, a pull up.

As it turns out, this son of mine had an apple and brought it in the bathroom when he had to go pee.  Why, I don't know.  He doesn't know.  Anyhow, he didn't want to put the apple down in the bathroom (thank goodness he thought that much through) but he couldn't just undo his pants so he just unzipped his pants like big boys do and pulled out his "pee-er thing" (as he calls it) but his pee-er thing didn't get out far enough and pee went  e v e r y w h e r e.  

I don't think that word "everywhere" is even strong enough.

Daddy happend to be getting out of work early so I frantically called him, grabbed my son from the school sick room, had him run for the suburban in his long tshirt he got from someone at school, got him into the library and a movie turned on for him with one minute to spare before opening time.

Daddy arrived a few minutes later and saved the day with new pants and underware.

I tell ya, I never know what the school is going to call for.

I am just thankful they always do call me, and I am so thankful I have those office women to help me out this school season. 

But just once, I'd love a call like this...

"Denise? It's the school.  You're boys have no injuries or sickness today.  We just thought you'd like to celebrate that."

Of course, then we would probably jinx ourselves. 

(Thank you Chris and Regina for taking such good care of us!)

Just Because It's Still His Birthday

In case you were really wondering how s4's day was going.

He chose lasagna for dinner, thought his cake was cool and hasn't stopped carrying around the angry birds stuffed animal he received.

Here are some pictures from tonight.