Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sleepy Time

Today at church I noticed Lucas was a little warm. I didn't think much of it and dropped him off at nursery like usual. About an hour later I stopped by and saw Lucas lying under the table. The kid was asleep under the table! Out cold with all the other kids playing all around him. I just decided to leave him there to rest. When it was snack time he got up and went to another part of the room to lie down, then when he got up from that spot he was sad and crying, so Clay took him to me. My poor little man was burning up! He fell asleep again on the way home from church and then slept from 2-6 this afternoon (I woke him up, too).
He's so sweet when he's sick (no whining), but I hope he feels better soon.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Favor for the Benny

It's that time again. Ben has shirts up on Design By Humans - The same site where The Taking Tree was sold.



Ben would really appreciate your votes:

CLICK HERE FOR TRIANGLION
CLICK HERE FOR URBAN ASSAULT

One of his shirts is actually causing quite a stir in the comments.
Ben could use your support! Thanks!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Totaled


Damage came out to $5,618
We're hoping for at least $7,000 from insurance. Cross your fingers!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Stinkin' Cute

Some cute things from the past few days:

The other night we were getting ready to go somewhere and I opened the garage door and Lucas ran over and held onto the bottom of the door. Up went Lucas with the door. We just looked on in amazement and told him to let go, but he wouldn't. Ben ran over and grabbed him when he was about 4 feet off the ground. It looked really funny, though, to see this kid being lifted in the air by the garage door.

Friday afternoon I went to the park with my friend, Jamie, and her kids. She ran to get gas in the car and I had all three kids. Anna had to go to the bathroom, so we all went over to the pool to use the fine facilities. I instructed Lucas and Drew to sit at the table while I took Anna to the potty and NOT to get in the water. I yelled at Drew and asked if they were ok and got a positive response. When Anna and I emerged from the bathroom, there was Drew sitting at the table, and Lucas was swimming in the baby pool - in his clothes. He thought it was great. Next time I'll bring all three into the bathroom with me.

Saturday morning (before the accident) we were at the nursery looking at plants. When we were leaving we saw this elephant topiary, so we showed it to Lucas. He immediately called it Horton and said, "Hello Horton. My name is Lucas."

This week is our bulk pickup in our neighborhood, where people can throw just about anything out on the curb to be hauled away. We saw a decent bike out on the street with flat tires and a broken training wheel. We totally took it home. Embarrassing? A little, but the price was right. Lucas was really excited about his "new" bike. Last night Ben fixed it up and it's good as new. Lucas is still too small to ride it, but he had fun playing with it. Ben's favorite part of the day was when Lucas said, "Thanks for fixing my bike, Dad!"

My favorite part of the day was when some kids from up the street were down on their bikes, checking out Lucas's bike, and Lucas said, "Hi, my name is Lucas. These are my friends, Mommy and Daddy." He's just so cute (and polite, I might add).
Here's a pic of Lucas on the bike, and a sad pic of the Maxima before we took it in to the shop.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Crashing Through the Rain

(sing to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Crashing through the rain

in a Nissan Maxima
Through the fence we go
screaming all the way
The car has some big dents
Lucas doesn't cry
It stinks to crash the car that way
But at least we're all ok

As you can see, there's a hole in that fence. It wasn't there Saturday morning.
We went on a Saturday adventure down to South Austin to visit a cool nursery to ask about fruit trees, then on a few other errands. On our way home it started to rain. We got to the curvy part in the road and that's when it happened. Ben tried to slow down, but that put the car totally out of control. We started going left into the other lane. There was a red truck coming towards us. Then all the sudden we zipped off the road and went straight through this fence. Unfortunately we went right into the brick part of the fence. And we flew through it! Bricks everywhere. We weren't expecting to bust through the fence with such ease, but we really did. AND I didn't even say a bad word. I said, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" as we were about to crash. Ben was silent (until after we crashed). And all Lucas said was, "I want to go home." He didn't really know what to think. He had a couple of lip quivers but managed to keep his cool (better than me).

The owner of the house saw the whole thing and was very nice. After we crashed the rain started to pour and Ben ran around dealing with the guy while I stayed in the car with Lucas hoping no one else would have the same fate and hit us.

We managed to drive the rest of the way home safely and even got to keep a souvenir brick to place on the mantle. As far as the damage, we will find out on Monday if she's totaled or not. Poor little Maxima. We'll need a new bumper, grill, hood, fender, and door. We hope, hope, hope it's not totaled. We love that car!

We're grateful to all be ok. We very likely could have ended up at the hospital if we would have hit the oncoming truck instead. I know that somebody was watching out for us - maybe that's why we went off the road so quickly and into the wall.

By the way, did you know the road is more slippery right when it starts to rain? It's because of all the oil on the street. After it rains for a few minutes, it washes away. It's weird because I've seen way more people slide on wet roads here than in NM. I don't know if it's just our backwoods neighborhood or what.

Here's the damage. Feel free to make your own assessment/estimate... Here's to No Buy July! (and June, probably)

Friday, May 1, 2009

Recent Lucasisms - April

Smarty Pants - Lucas and I were graciously invited to participate in a home school preschool with a few friends from the 'hood. It's been a great experience. Lucas has had a lot of fun learning and it's been good for him to sit down and have some structure. He is the youngest, and often most wild of the group, so sometimes I do a lot of chasing, but he's 2, right?

Rocket Ships - Ever since Rocket Ship week in preschool I have learned that we have about 8 different rocket ships in our house. Who knew? The pantry, Lucas's cupboard, under the crib, under the TV in my room, various boxes, nooks and crannies, etc. Lucas likes to get in the rocket ships to go visit grandparents... or go to the moon.

Name Game - My brother has a gift when it comes to nick names. He calls Lucas, Lukie Lau Lau. And since Christmas, Lucas has referred to himself as Lukie Lau Lau. Part of this was my doing, and now it's just Lucas's name. BUT, this week he has finally started calling himself Lucas, which is equally cute coming from his mouth.

Counting Machine - Lucas loves to count. He can count to 30 now. He generally skips 13-15, but manages to get all the way to 30... or 2010, as it was first called.

Babble Mouth - Lucas has become quite the talking machine. He learns new words each week, so we get increasingly confused each week trying to decipher the new words. Also, he likes to repeat himself a lot until we acknowledge what he is saying and repeat it back. The other day Ben said, "Remember when we wanted Lucas to talk so bad? Why did we do that?"

Shhhhh - Lucas will do anything for a piece of candy. Last weekend we were shopping in Pier 1 and Lucas was whining about wanting a piece of candy. "I want candy, I want candy...." Finally Ben told him he needed to be quite if he wanted a piece of candy. So, for the next several minutes Lucas whispered, "I want candy, I want candy, I want candy..."

Pee for Sarge - Did I mention Lucas is easy to bribe with candy or cars? Well, in our house if you pee on the potty you get a toy car. Last weekend Ben and Lucas spent a lot of time in the bathroom drinking orange soda and Gatorade. Lucas decided that he wanted Sarge (from Cars) and Ben was determined to help Lucas get him. So, the boys spent an hour and 45 minutes in the bathroom and finally, finally, Lucas went pee in the potty. I heard the celebration from downstairs and got in the car to go buy Sarge.

Spelling Bee - Lucas can read/spell: mom, dad, cat, dog, Lucas, wow, and stop. I think that's it.

Hop on Pop - When my parents came to visit over Easter, they gave Lucas Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss. My mom was reading it to him on the way to the airport and said, "He'll be able to read this to you before too long." I thought it was a long shot, but sure enough, he has it memorized. Here's a video. By the way, it's kind of nice now that Lucas can "read" to me before nap time! I added little subtitles so you can understand what he's saying.


No Push, No Hit - Lucas has a great memory. He got in trouble at a Valentine's Day party in February for pushing James and hitting Kate and we left the party. To this day he still talks about it. "Lukie push James, hit Kate's head at party..." And before we go anywhere with friends, he always says, "No push. No hit." Now if he would only listen to himself.

Eggs in a Basket - Lucas still has fun with his Easter eggs. My mom hid them for him many times in the back yard on Easter and he still loves to play with them just as much as he did then. Sometimes he lines them up, sometimes I hide them. Most of the time he watches from the kitchen while I hide them. And he always takes them apart after he finds them.

Dress Me - Lucas isn't too keen on the idea of learning to do some things by himself. He's not too excited to start potty training, doesn't want to dress himself, etc. The other night we decided we'd try to teach him to change his clothes. So, there we were in the living room taking our shirts off together. It was rad. Then we were offering Lucas candy to take his pants off. Grrrreat. We'll have to learn about stranger danger next time. But, hey, he did finally learn to take his pants off just in time to take his candy into the shower.