Time Flies

The boys will be 5 tomorrow.  How the heck did that happen?  It seems like it was just yesterday they were born scary small in a hospital where the air conditioning wasn't working and the doctor taking care of Christine couldn't make it in to deliver them. 

The weekend is shaping up to be one long birthday party.  Because Christine and I are masochists, the boys are having a school friend party, AND a family party.  I can't really remember why I decided this was a good idea, but for the record Christine NEVER did.

So my Friday night will be spent with a dozen or so shrieking pre-schoolers, and a dozen or so parents of shrieking pre-schoolers at the Little Gym.  The kids will have a great time at the party.  The parents probably won't, unless they like cupcakes, juice boxes and slightly warm pizza.  Or have any ability in gymnastics.

The "family party" is going to be at Alphonso's Pizzeria.  It has a huge game room attached to it, so instead of the millions of dollars worth of toys they score at the party, they will spend the rest of that day playing with the toy rubber snake they get with the tickets I score them with my mad Ski-Ball skillz.

But Alphonso's serves beer, and that can go a long way in drowning out the shrieking if you're so inclined.

Happy birthday Ian, Spencer and Oliver.

Return of Grandma Choo Choo

It's been a busy few weeks. We did a big fall "spring cleaning" yard sale. The ad ran in the wrong section of the paper so we didn't do as well as we had hoped, but we got rid of a lot of stuff we didn't need any more and made $170 to boot.

Preschool started last week! The kids love it. The parents love it even more! The preschool has really helped with their language skills. It's such a joy to know what's on their minds rather than having to guess.

We're also well on our way to being potty trained. Ian pretty well has it, Spencer is starting to get it, and Ollie... not interested.

The biggest news is that Christine's Mom "Grandma Choo Choo" and her sister Helen were in for a visit last week from Colorado. She's Grandma Choo Choo because on her last visit we all went on Thomas the Tank Engine. She was here for 5 days and when they left Ian was not happy. It wasn't until this morning that he could say "Gan-ma Choo Choo home." "Henin home." without getting really mad and throwing something.

Training Time!!

How time flies. It was Thanksgiving 2005 when we told the family that there were three extra heartbeats coming from inside of Christine. It seems like it was just the other day. From then, to the birth of the boys, to now has just flown by.

The last couple of weeks, Ian has given us signs he's ready to start potty training. He had started taking his diaper off so often we had to duct tape the things onto him. He was also holding his diaper when he wet it and saying "uh oh".

Even though Ian may be ready for potty training, I'm not sure I am. So far he's making pretty good progress. He has the dropping his drawers and the peeing part down pretty well. He needs some work on the location part.

He's also doing better than the hardware. We have a hand-me-down "Royal Potty" with some sort of system to detect ...flow, and play a florish. Well, it started acting up and started playing "du du da Daaaah" over and over again.

The Royal Potty is now missing the royal batteries, and his highness will have to learn how to pee without music.

The other guys are doing well. Spencer has really started to talk AND make sense. He's also into giving high fives lately.

Ollie has started to get over his cold. He's only had to have inhaled medicine once in the last week or so. He's also started talking more. He's also been really snuggly.

Christine is doing pretty well. Her back is still giving her trouble, but she is taking it like a trooper. She's also exercising and that seems to be helping it. Even if it doesn't help out her back, it is helping her. It's already starting to show results elsewhere. (Not that she wasn't cute before!)

Anyway, thanks for checking in and Happy Turkey Day.

Bats, Spiders, Devils, and Airplanes

Well after a week of staying with us, Christine's Mom is in the air heading back to Grand Junction. Right now, she is somewhere over southeastern Colorado (or so flightaware.com says)

You never know how people are going to react when they meet each other for the first time. Ian can be a bit stand-offish, so I figured he would take the longest warming up to Gahmah B.

He took to her right away. In fact, when he got up from his nap today, he ran through the house. When he didn't find her, he came to me crying and said, "where gahmah go?" I told him that she went back home, but he either didn't understand, or didn't accept the answer. The other boys loved getting to know her, too, and we are all sad that she had to go back.

Halloween was nice. Everyone was sick, so we took it really easy, but the guys like getting into costumes. Having people give you candy and cookies helps, too.

Thanks for checking in,

The Moss Dudes

Woo Woo

It's been a really busy weekend here. Christine's Mom, Grandma B, got here yesterday evening right on time. Once we got back home and everyone settled in, it was bedtime.

The second big event of the weekend was our visit with Thomas the Tank Engine. He left the Island of Sodor to visit his fans here in the U.S., and to make boatloads of money for Sir Topham Hat.

All kidding aside, we all had a great time. There were things to keep us busy while we waited for the train, the stuff in the Gift Shop wasn't outrageously priced, and the train ride was a 2-year-old friendly 25 minutes long.

All of the guys like Thomas, but Ian loves him. When we headed into the waiting area and Ian first saw him, it blew his little mind. He was practically dragging Christine up to the car when it came time to board!

Everyone else had a good time, too. All of the grownups got a kick watching the dudes taking in the trip. Although they didn't get crazy like their brother, Ollie and Spence both liked the train ride. Even the grownups enjoyed the trip, though we all skipped on the face painting.

Things to do while watching the World Series

Christine's mom is coming to visit in a few days! Everyone is really excited. They guys know something is up with all of the cleaning going on, but I don't think they understand that Grandma B is coming.

While cleaning up the house, we found the cape for Ollie's Underdog that managed to get torn off. I figured what could me more manly to do during the World Series than a little sewing! So upstairs I went and retrieved my sewing box. Actually it isn't mine at all. It's my Grandma's. It's been nearly 10 years since she passed away, but I still don't feel like it's mine to claim.

And it's so much more than a sewing box. It's a time machine! The first thing that happens is when you open it, it smells like Grandma and Grandpa Moss' house. Then while you are looking for the right spool of thread, you see all these little boxes with ugly 70's buttons, cards with needles in them advertising companies long since out of business, and stuff that no one besides Grandma has any idea what it's for.

While I was sewing away, I realized how lucky I was to have my Grandparents around while I was growing up. So I'm really excited that Christine's Mom can make the trip. I think the dudes and Grandma B will have a lot of fun!