Pancake Goddess in the House of Boys

Birthday party for Mimps and Seder, Kelly's surprise

We went to Cincinnati to celebrate with Mimps. He turned 81. The great-grandkids all made cute drawings for him and ran around his and Nana's small condo like hooligans. I know my mom took good pictures, so I hope she sends us those soon!

In the meantime, here are some cousin pics since my camera is still gone. :-( It's getting depressing.

(Hey you other cousins! Send us some updated pictures!)

Last night was our community Seder. Evan made his spectacular matzo ball soup as always. We were missing a grammy, who was home feeling unwell. Things went fairly smoothly (markers, playdough, megamags) until around eating time, after which all four boys were ready to either go home or run around like crazy people with grabber toys (thanks to the host, R, for giving that clever thing to Ryan).  A certain almost *11* year old was also spotted upside-down on their sofa with his crocs propped on the wall. You have to understand, this seder is hosted in a home that is quite a bit like a museum. EEEEeee. They are both very gracious and good sports about our kids and their shenanigans, but it's not really relaxing for the mama.

And lastly, the surprise of the week comes from Kelly, who started grabbing his diaper and saying poop. Usually there is no poop. So a few days ago I took off the diaper, which seemed to be bugging him, and asked if he wanted to go pee on the toilet. He likes to watch his older brothers and dad, so I just thought, what the heck - obviously expecting nothing. Not only did he pee that time, he peed in the toilet exclusively for the next 24 hours. Yes, dry in the morning.

Since then, he's probably only peed in the diaper 2-3 times.  He doesn't seem to have much control over #2.  In the category of Hard to Complain, he actually needed to get up and pee on the toilet at 5:30am this morning.  So, one-year-old toileting genius has made my week, and it needed some making.  How long until you think he totally reneges on this fabulous offer?

some picture catch up and birthday sweetness

Someone's four years old now! We had a very low-key celebration in the midst of pre-moving business and box towers. Ryan created his own birthday hat and enjoyed the singing and cake as much as ever, as always.

tomato sauce mess (and a boy signing "more")

 

Attitude (and a little eyebrow modification)

and smarts.

JJ has been drawing maps and memorizing Canada

Ryan has been doing a lot of drawing.

 

and imaginary play

 

so incredibly behind

I hate when I'm so behind in blogging that even a flip through the calendar and downloading photos isn't enough to feel sure I got it all. Still, those are the memory tools I have, so here we go. Make yourself comfortable (or hit the back arrow) because it might be long. [updated, days later, when the post is STILL not written: this isn't long after all. I've decided to just post what I got done and keep going when I have time, which is not now.]

We're moving. The sign is in the yard, and I'm turning out to be annoyingly slow at accepting this transition. It makes me a very slow "decider" of things, such as whether to fix xyz in the house to prepare for selling, how to set our spending budget for a new house, whether to buy or build, etc.  We have the world's most patient real estate agent who is willing to totally hold my hand, which is good, because I am decidedly wimpy about all this.

So, I say all of the above because it was true for a few months, but actually I'm recently feeling a lot more decided and confident, which is why I can finally blog about it at some length ("some" meaning more than a single line of text plus a cartoon).

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A couple of weekends ago, the boys and Evan attended a lake party with Evan's old swim team buddies and their families. Most eventful for Ryan, I think, was the boat ride.

I don't have a picture of that, but I'm including this one, because it is a classic Ryan expression - used whenever he is meeting a small child or other cute creature that he really wants to squeeze.

I'll have a few more lake photos to share in the next post.