Raising the Raines Rascals: Procrastination

As, I sat down to write this I heard a crash and then the sound of liquid dripping so I ran to the kitchen to find Landen's cereal bowl upside down on the hardwood floor and milk splattered for 4 feet in every direction. As, I am on my knees cleaning up the mess our crazy alarm clock that will not stop going off at random times is screeching and a commercial on Playhouse Disney says "What a great way to start the morning" in the most chipper voice ever.....I couldn't help but chuckle to myself and think "really??". But I think I'm going to run with that positive thinking....this is going to be a good day in spite of it's rocky beginning. We are, after all, heading to the lake this evening for four days full of boat riding (thanks to our wonderful friend and mechanic, Ben), swimming, playing cornhole and board games, and enjoying some down time with our family! Speaking of which, I really should be packing instead of blogging....procastination at it's finest :)

While I am avoiding the tasks of choosing, folding, stuffing, remembering, zipping, loading, and stuffing some more I think I will fill you guys in on what's new with the boys. Ethan is finally getting adjusted to first grade. He hops out of the truck every morning without any tears now. One morning this week he did tell me he would miss me but he didn't cry. I am so thankful for this and have prayed many prayers over the last few weeks that the Lord would help him to adjust and enjoy school again because it was very hard on both of us when he was crying every morning. Ethan loves his teacher and he was chosen to be "celebrity of the week" last week. I went to his class on Wednesday and he and I both read his two favorite books to the class. And then on Friday Landen and I went and had lunch with Ethan and stayed for his "walk of fame ceremony" where he put his handprint on a star, signed it an hung it up in his classroom. I think this really helped him feel more comfortable at school because throughout the week he was able to share his home life with his teacher and classmates by taking in pictures and some of his favorite things.

Even though he has adjusted to school, homework in the evenings is NO fun! I give him time after he gets home to play and have a snack before we do his homework but it is still like pulling teeth to get it done! Homework that should take 20 minutes takes the better part of an hour because he won't concentrate. Ethan has a reading log for school to track how much he reads and he LOVES to read so getting him to do that is easy. Most nights he reads triple what he's supposed to but math worksheets are where we battle. He can do the problems easily and once I get him rolling he does very well. But if anything else gets his attention, such as the dog walking across the room or his brother saying something, or even something as simple as a pencil rolling across the table then it takes me 5+ minutes to get him back on track. He is his momma's child though.....I love reading and English and can't stand Math! So, we are working on the homework issue and it's getting better slowly. But I took a picture of him during homework time yesterday and his enthusiasm is evident.....this isn't posed...he had no idea I was going to take the picture...

This is his silly face...looks more scary though, lol!

The Reds (Ethan's Fall baseball team) had their first game on Monday. The Pirates won but the Reds played a good game and Ethan got a base hit every time he batted. He also got the and threw it in twice. I was so proud of how well he played and he didn't seem to mind a bit that his team didn't win, he was too excited about how much fun he had. And that's exactly how it should be!!!

Ethan has become quite the performer lately...he loves to sing. Some of his favorites to sing are "This Little Light of Mine", "The B-I-B-L-E", and whatever that Justin Beiber song is that says "Baby, Baby, Oh". But the other night he caught me a little off guard. I keep the radio in the truck on 96.7 The Beaver (that is, when he boys aren't watching a movie, which is rarely) and half the time I don't even pay attention to what's actually on, you know how it is, it's more background noise to my thoughts than anything else. Well, Ethan was taking a bath the other night and he said "Hey Mom, listen to this new song....."Does anybody out there wanna' have a cold beer, kick it 'till the morning light, if I have to re-sell (raise hell) all byself I will but ya'll that ain't right". Yeah, that got my attention! Guess I'll be monitoring the songs that are on more closely since my son can pick up every single word from hearing a song one time!!! Thankfully, he really does think it says "re-sell", ha!

Now, that I 've rattled on forever (hey, I did go start a load of laundry in the meantime), we'll move on to Landen. My sweet, chubby boy turned 20 months old on August 28th. He is now picking up words left and right. His new words are "bow" for bowl, "Nana", "hi" and uses it appropriatley, he has picked up "baby...baby" from Ethan singing Justin Beiber, and just yesterday he mocked me and said "pack-pack" for backpack. He went around all day saying "pack-pack"...."pack-pack"....it's adorable! Landen has been giving wide-open mouth kisses for a while now but in the last few weeks he has started actually kissing. He goes around the house now carrying his toys and smacking away (giving them kisses). He has sat on the pottty once but doesn't have much interest...we are just taking our time introducing it but plan to try again soon. He is wearing all 3T's now 2T's/24 months are a thing of the past. We tried his tennis shoes on him this week (he hadn't had them on since last Winter) and neither pair fit him so we have been browsing the Stride-Rite website for new Fall-Winter shoes. His foot is so wide that we pretty much have to shop only at Stride Rite because you can get an x-wide there. Landen is a character and never fails to keep us laughing...