Today, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where all Chase’s binkies had gone. I had 4 of them in the crib not too long ago….hhmmmmmm…where COULD they be?

And then the binkies were found....

They are even nicely spaced out....

This isn’t the first time we’ve lost binkies…the day Jeremy was deployed, Chase slyly tossed a binkie straight out of his stroller and I didn’t figure it out till they were both SCREAMING and we were on our way home.

You just can’t strap it to the kid ALL the time. I do however recall being greatly amused when the instructor for my birthing class told us all quite seriously that we CANNOT tape the binkie to the child’s mouth….

I had the distinct privilege on Sunday of buying new jeans in a smaller size! HOORAY! In fact, I took all my jeans that are too big out of my closet today so I won’t be tempted to wear them. (Because they seriously fall off me…YAY!)

As I was pulling out the jeans I realized I now have 3 pairs of jeans that fit me. And really, I only like 2 of the three.  Considering that I took about 6 pairs out and put them away, this didn’t seem like very many jeans!

So my question is, how many pairs of jeans do you have? (And this means that you wear them…not that they just live in the abyss of your closet!)

I’ve never been super “in” to Halloween. It’s just not my thing. Take it or leave it, whatever. But I AM into my kids and I know kids like the opportunity to dress up, act silly and get a free pass for a day on a little sweetness. So, you know…

Sporty Boys!

Cooper was a baseball player and Chase was a basketball player. I had in mind a couple little extra things for their costumes, but it didn’t quite work out! (Bad planning on my part!) So, this is what we got. Chase was much happier than he looks in this picture….it’s just hard to get both of them to smile AND look at me at the same time. By the way, the shirt that Chase is wearing was worn by both Cooper and Jeremy! I love that shirt!

A Happier Chase

So the morning of Halloween we really just did our normal Saturday gig. The boys went down for naps a tad early and then once they woke up, we headed out to Puyallup to hang out downtown.

The Puyallup Mainstreet Association hosts this super fun thing every year where the kiddos can trick-or-treat around to all the local businesses. For all you STL peeps who have no idea what Puyallup is (say it like Pew-Al-IP), it’s kinda like main street old St. Charles, but smaller and square.

There were a TON of people there! It was so fun! And even more fun was the success of my church, Renovo, and our outreach event. Renovo hosted a carnival-style gig complete with Jake’s band The Reaching playing a few sets, a bounce house, a cup cake walk and vaious other carnival elements. There were A LOT of people there and it was so awesome to see our church having the most popular thing down there! How great to let people know that we are IN the community and A PART of the community -to let them know we care about them and want to play too!

Krista with some funny sounding gilatto

My friend, Krista, was in town so she hung with me and the boys. After hanging at the carnival and a little trick-or-treating, we stopped at Forza for some hot chocolate, gilatto and coffee! It was good times. Krista and I laughed about the prevalence of coffee shops in Washington and how much we always miss that when we go back home. Seriously, in the 1 block radius of the coffee shop we were in, there were at least 4 other coffee shops. And we’re talkin’ cute coffee shops-not just chains.

So after that fun it was a little after 5 pm. I wanted to get back home with the kids so that we could hand candy out to the trick-or-treaters who would be ravishing my house. Guys, if you ever in your life live near an Army base or military installation of any kind-go trick or treating there! WHEW! TONS of kids came to the house. We stopped and grabbed a pizza on our way out of Puyallup (gotta love Take N Bake!) and then headed home to meet our kiddos.

On the way home, I explained to Cooper what was about to go down. He was SO excited to help me give candy out to the kids. I had 7 bags of candy and I told him that once it was gone, that was it! The deal was that he could give 2 pieces of candy to each kiddo and he couldn’t let the kids just grab their own candy (cause holy cow kids are greedy!).

Cooper was so excited that he waited at the front door with his nose pressed against the glass door. He kept opening the door, popping his head out and yelling back at me, “MOM! THERE’S NOBODY COM’IN!”. It was so funny. Finally, a little after 6 pm, we started to get some kids. Cooper just got more and more excited. He could hardly stand it and he was so adorable. He DID NOT want me to help, “I got it Mom, I got it, I can do it myself”. The poor trick or treaters crowded up my front steps and eagerly waited as Cooper SLOWLY counted 2 pieces of candy out to each kid.

While he did this, he was so sweet; he said to various kids, “Oh hi, I like your costume!” and “here ya go!” and “happy halloween!”. It was slaying me. Finally, after about a half hour of candy giving, he was so excited that he put his shoes on and just kept going outside with the candy bowl and cheering people to come to our house. He was outside YELLING “Hey kids! Come over here, we’ve dot TANDY!”

I must have told him a dozen times to stop calling people over, that they would get to our house eventually because they were working their way down the rows of houses, but it was no use. Too many kids would just barrel past their parents when they heard Cooper’s call…it was like the call of the Sirens or something!

After only one-hour of an open house, I was out of candy. And I don’t keep candy in the house…so I didn’t even have like a back up stash. That was it! We closed our door and turned off our light and dreamed of years to come. It was quite an exciting night for all of us.

I told Jeremy this story already and afterwords, we talked about years to come. I told him that when we move home I want a fire pit so we can roast hot dogs in the front yard, set up big jugs of hot chocolate and sit in lawn chairs outside and let our kids dress up and hand candy out to people instead of go trick-or-treating. It was so fun to see Cooper so excited to give to other kids…even if it was something that wasn’t great for them. He even got his candy out when we ran out and started giving his candy away because he was so sad we ran out! What a precious boy!

Here’s a few parting pictures.

Sleepy baby all bundled up, ready to do a quick pass!

Ooooh! A picture of Mommy!

Cooper and his BF, Braydon at the Carnival

Krista and I

Hey gang, here is an excellent article about what happened to the 7 guys that 1-17 lost last week.  This article gives you a glimpse into what life is like for our Battalion. Jeremy and I were actually on the computer im’ing when this happened. I’m so grateful he wasn’t out there.

This is scary stuff; I’m not going to sugar coat it. I know so many of you are praying and I want you to know that I believe with all that I am that God hears your prayers and is protecting Jeremy. Thank you so much for the time that you take out of your busy life to pray for him and for us. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.

After reading this article, my brain and my heart were trying so hard to process what life is like for Jeremy and his friends out there. I hate that we are in this – that’s all I feel when I read this. All the politics and the philosophical ideologies just fly away and that is all that is left- I hate it.

This is probably one of the most well-written articles I’ve read. I’m grateful for writers like this who can help us back home to get a glimpse into life for our husbands, sons and friends.

Still haven’t heard anything…

Here’s the scene: Dinner time.  The evening in our house runs on a tight schedule because frankly, Chase is a crabby patty. He goes to bed at 7:00 pm…and when I say he goes to bed at 7:00 pm, I mean he is bathed, changed, fed and IN bed at 7:00 pm. Therefore, come 6:00 pm, he starts to get very fussy.

In the best-case scenario, Cooper and I are eating dinner between 5 and 5:30 pm (Chase eats around 4:00 pm) so that we have time to eat and then get cleaned up BEFORE Chase starts to get too crabby. If I miss the mark on this then I’ve got trouble.

The problem: Cooper. Yes, Cooper is killing me with his slow eating. Last night, I was a little late getting dinner on the table. (Totally my fault.) It was 5:55 pm when we sat down. At 7:19 pm I was ready to send the child to China and he was still eating (and crying) and I was attempting to put Chase to bed because the evening was so off kilter. Cooper didn’t want me to take his food away because “he was hungry”, but he wouldn’t be quiet and eat. (There is lots more to this story but that is the short version of what happened.) This is getting to be a regular evening issue here in the Nevil household and I’m pretty perturbed by it.

Additionally, the problem is that he won’t just shut up and eat! I love him and he’s a fun kiddo, but really, REALLY?

Therefore, my question to you all is this: What is a reasonable amount of time that I should/you give to your children to finish their dinner?

I am a firm believer in kids sitting at the dinner table with their parents.  I don’t do the getting up and walking around thing either. Dinner is dinner and you don’t get your bootie out of that chair until I say. But I also understand that I eat way faster than a 4-year-old, so I try to add a little extra time in there for him to finish his food.  I enjoy talking with him because that is another fun part of dinner; conversation around the table is what families do!

I feel like 30 minutes is plenty of time to eat. I don’t want him to rush, but I also don’t want him to eat slower than mollasses pouring out of a glass bottle on a cold day. You know?

If he can’t do it in that alloted time, I feel like it is perfectly ok to take his plate away from him and tell him that dinner time is over and so sorry you didn’t finish. Especially if he is clearly not making an effort to finish his dinner in a timely manner.

So that’s my issue. How does dinner time conversation and allotted time to eat work in your house at night?

It all started last Saturday morning when I awoke to the sounds of a barking dog…and realized it was my baby.  Well, it has now been 8 days of sickness in the Nevil house. Seriously? I’m kinda done now.

I was really hoping that me and the kids would all be better on Friday actually. Cooper had some testing for school after being home all week (just making sure he is on trek for school readiness and doesn’t have any delays, etc.), then I went to my friend Crystal’s for lunch and then…we went to the Tacoma Holiday Food and Gift Festival at the Tacoma Dome! It was SO much fun. And then I lost my voice that night. That was not fun. Ooohh but we did watch a great movie-”Gifted Hands” with Cuba Gooding Jr.-it’s a must see!

I’m still mustering through the no voice thing. Julie Seward cracked me up when she wrote on my FB page that I’d better practice my mommy scowl! HA! Actually, Cooper has been pretty understanding and empathetic. He keeps telling me he is sorry that I’m sick and that he thinks I’m pretty.  I’ll take it.

Today was a day o’ naps and just lots of rest. I count that as a good day!  I’ve had a song in my head ever since I went to bed last night. It’s by Martin Smith:

“Lord, You have my heart, and I will search for Yours; Jesus take my life and lead me on. Lord, You have my heart, and I will search for Yours; Let me be to You a sacrifice. And I will praise You, Lord, And I will sing of love come down. And as You show Your face, We’ll see Your glory here.”

It’s a really beautiful song and every time I think of it I hear it with the guys taking a strong lead and the girls echoing the chorus. So pretty….

Anyway, I’m getting over it! I’ve gotten to speak with Jeremy almost every day starting last week I think. It’s been pretty wonderful! My friend Krista comes in town late on Thursday from Iowa. I’m super excited to hang with her and I know Cooper will be too. (I think he has  little crush on her!)

Not a whole lot is going on around here lately. In fact, I have been almost bored all week. I say almost because I quickly did some yucky projects like cleaned out my closet and the kids’ closets, etc. We are all still trying to get back to 100% after getting hit with sicknesses over the weekend. Being sick is no fun!

On a good note, I’ve been able to talk to Jeremy DAILY all week long. It has been so fun! The phones and internet are working so communication is excellent. It has helped sooooo much! I realized I had all kinds of stories I hadn’t shared with Jeremy yet, so the last few nights on the phone I’ve just tried to catch him up with the happenings here on the home front. It’s a wonderful feeling being connected to your husband!

My poor family back in STL is soooo sick! My Dad has swine flu (sorry dad!) and so I’m sure my mom will be following suite soon. I just hope we don’t get it while we are in town. (And I feel bad for my poor parents!) That would be so,…so..SO bad! Pray for our health and theirs!

We will be headed to St. Louis for the Thanksgiving holiday and I am pretty excited. My SIL Jen is actually flying out to help me when I fly there! Isn’t that so great? Now all I’ve gotta do is talk my mom into flying back here to WA with me (wink, wink) to help me get the house in order for Jeremy’s arrival-YAY!

Halloween is coming and I’m vaguely aware of it. It is not my favorite holiday though. If anything, it just serves as my marker that Thanksgiving is almost here-and I like Thanksgiving. I think it is an unappreciated holiday!

Speaking of Thanksgiving…that reminds me of food, which reminds me of cooking, which reminds me of my cooking blog, She Cooks!. I have a few new recipes up there; one for a super fast and low cal Mexcian Soup, one for a sneaky Macaroni and Cheese (there are veggies in it-SHHHH!) and one for a fun graham cracker snack which can also makes for a fun lunch time element if you are looking to change things up. I think we’ll have to start discussing Thanksgiving cooking traditions on She Cooks! starting Nov. 1-so be thinking about your family’s recipes!

Everyone, you guys and gals have been so amazing about sending Jeremy packages! Thank  you, thank you, THANK YOU! It is so encouraging to the both of us how you are loving on him. His birthday is on Veteran’s Day and if you would like to wish him a happy one, you can still send him a box. In fact, I would bet that you could send him a box as late as Nov. 1 or Nov. 2 and it should get to him in time. If you want to play it a little safer than shoot for earlier. Jeremy can check email now too, so if you want to drop him a line I’m sure he’d love to hear from you!

Poor Mr. Chase is still sick with Croup. He’s had a fever off and on. Today is day 3 though, so we are hoping for improvement. Unfortunately, now Cooper and I are sick too. Fun times….

But in light of the last post being all about Chase, I thought I should put some funny things up here about Cooper. So here are some funny Cooper stories.

The Sock Tosser:
Cooper, for whatever reason, must take his socks off in a certain fashion. He sits down, pulls off his shoes, pulls of his socks, whirls them around his head and throws both of them in random directions and then he runs off.

This is fine when we are at home because he takes his shoes off in the same place. At home, his socks can be found either in the entry way (somewhere) or upstairs in his bedroom. No problem, I can handle that.

What I can’t handle is that we go places-other peoples houses, etc. And whenever he takes his shoes off, he IMMEDIATELY takes his socks off too. (He has some weird foot thing about wearing socks.) I cannot tell you how many times we have left to go somewhere either with no socks at all or only one sock because the Lord only knows where the other one could be.

To remedy this problem, Jeremy and I started telling him many moons ago that when he takes his shoes and socks off, he MUST stuff his socks into his shoes. It’s not helping. This is my face . This could be one of my biggest pet peeves.

Cooper and His Upset Tummy:
When you have little kids, I think that poop is just a regular part of your day. I believe I’ve mentioned before that Cooper loves to talk about poop and booties. Anything that is in reference to poop and or booties is immediately and always funny to him. Jeremy assures me this is a boy thing…but I dunno. I had a sister growing up and poop was not a regular part of our conversations if I do recall…

So, a while back one morning Cooper told me his tummy hurt. He is pretty regular and has a “morning constitution” each day after he’s been awake for a few minutes. He hadn’t had said event yet, so I told him that maybe he should try. He went in to the bathroom but got nothing. He came out of the bathroom pretty disappointed, but cartoons were on so he was passed it.

A little later that morning, say an hour or so, he again tells me his tummy “weawy, weawy, huwts”. I again remind him that maybe he should give it another go in the bathroom. He goes in and proceeds to work on said issue and I go about my usual gig fixing my hair and getting ready for the day.

Quite a bit of time goes by and Cooper is still in the bathroom.  I walk over to the door and I hear him grunting and saying “OH YEAH, THERE IT IS, THERE IT IS, THAT’S IT!”

Needless to say I couldn’t stop laughing and Cooper’s tummy was all better.

Noise Police:
Tonight, I put Cooper to bed as usual, then came downstairs to pay some bills and get some paperwork organized.  The house was totally quiet; no tv on and both boys were in bed.   I was shuffling through some papers when Jer popped on Yahoo Messenger. (That is SO fun by the way, being able to say that!) We chatted for a few minutes and then, all the sudden I hear Cooper up. He is at the top of the staircase talking down to me.

“Mommy, um, could you please be a little more quiet?”

An annoyed and dirty look immediately comes across my face and I respond, “Um, Cooper, there is no sound at all down here and what are you doing out of bed?”

Cooper replies, “you were just being a little loud with the papers. Can you be quiet please?”

“Go to bed Cooper.”

Whispery Prayers:
Jeremy and I have been praying with Cooper at night before bed since he was a little tiny guy. It has always been a bit tough to get him to pray for things. It’s a great teaching time, but it gets a little annoying when Cooper prays for things like his lamp, the airplanes on his wall, etc.

Well, all the sudden, Cooper’s prayer life has really opened up. I think a lot of it is actually school. He LOVES to pray and prays the BEST prayers. They are so cute and they make me laugh (and cry sometimes) ever night. Whenever he is saying something special or serious as he prays, he starts to whisper.

One night recently he was going on and on about all the things he was thankful for and how great it is that God made everything. Then the whispering starts and he says, “…and thank you God that you made me and God, you are just BEAUTIFUL”. It was so delightful to hear him pray like that! He wasn’t being silly either, it was a serious prayer. It made me laugh and I just immediately thought of what God must think of little children who pray like that! How sweet!

This morning it was pouring down rain outside. I think each drop of rain must have weighed 10 lbs. We’re talking fatty rain here-not just the misty stuff we are usually used to in WA.

It is still dark here in the mornings and I was laying in bed half awake around 7:30 am this morning. I heard barking. I thought, “whose dog is barking like that this early in the morning?” and then I just continued to sit in bed trying to wake up. I heard it again and then I thought I heard Chase, so then I thought, “great, the neighbor’s dog is waking the baby up!” and then it all clicked when I heard it again.

The barking…was Chase.

Cooper has had croup before so I know what it sounds like. I felt terrible for the poor baby and immediately popped awake and rushed into him. He had this look in his eyes like, “um, Mom, why do I sound like this?”. Once he was up and about for the morning, he didn’t really cough that much. So, I thought, well, I’ll give him until after his morning nap and we’ll see if it is just a bad cough or if it really is croup. Chase went down for his morning nap at 8:23 am and he didn’t wake up until almost 1:00 pm! Yeah…he’s so sick.

He did eat though and has been nursing well. But the sad part is that he is whimpering. Whenever he is just sitting, he whimpers the whole time and it is so pathetic and adorable! It’s melting my heart and I’m sure he does not appreciate that I am laughing at him.

Sweet baby Chase on a healthier day

I went out to Target tonight for supplies: new humidifier (the old one has been questionable for a while and now that we have 2 kiddos I figured I might as well buy a new one-an elephant too!), filter, thingie to condition the water and keep the filter free of bacteria and $60.00 later we were on our way home.

Chase took a shorter nap this afternoon (only 2 hours or so), ate fine and whimpered through the evening. Finally at 6:15 pm, we went upstairs and I ran a warm bath for him. I rubbed him down with some baby vicks (with lavender!), propped his crib up with a book (because I’ve heard that helps) and cranked the humidifier. And since we live in the glorious state of WA and it has been raining for 4 days straight, I cracked his windows just a tad too. I figure a little cool and moist air will just help even more.

he is so cute!

Thus far tonight, I think around 9 pm, I had to get him up, bundle him in a blanket and take him outside. He was whimpering in his crib and coughing. Poor baby! He was such a cuddle bug the whole time as he wheezed. I know guys, is this breaking your hearts like it is breaking mine? There are few things in the world worse than sick kids.

I decided tonight that if I could spare my children from all illnesses by taking them on myself and if I knew they would still be ok as a result, then I would totally do it! Those thoughts remind me of the love Christ has for me.

Well, it is late and I hear Chase starting to stir. It may be time to fetch him and try the steamy shower this time. Pray for my little man! That his sweet and tiny body heals quickly! (And that I sleep too in between treatments.) Oh and that Cooper doesn’t get it too.