End of Week Catch All

Well, it has been one of those weeks. Braydon and I each skipped out of work for an hour to go out to lunch on Wednesday. Over hummus and stuffed grape leaves we both confessed to each other that we're each battling minor depression in the wake of the terrible tragic loss of Joe (if you're not an avid Johnson-McCormick Family Blog reader, click here). Once we got that out in the open and decided to just let ourselves feel it, everything felt a bit better. But still. Sometimes life is just hard. We know it is normal to go through these spell. It still doesn't make it easy. Here are some other less deep tid-bits from the past week:

• Latest favorite swimming pool activity for K & O is "riding in the ferry" (i.e., on the little yellow raft) "in the deeper!" (i.e., the deep end of the pool), pretending that they are "in the ocean!!!" and it is "salty in the eyes!" and they "see beautiful fishies!!!" and "coral!!!" and "ah! ah! ah! SEA URCHINS! Sea urchins!!!" that are "RIGHT DOWN THERE!!!" The ferry has to "go fast! hurry! hurry!" because "the sea urchins may be owie!" and "we can't touch them! they could be a big owie!" and "we can't step on them! they may be very owie!" They see "red sea urchins!" and "black sea urchins!" And it is all very dramatic. And fun. (Note: we did, in fact, see many red and black sea urchins while we were in Virgin Gorda and Braydon and I were always telling the boys to be careful not to touch them or step on them. This is obviously where this ferry-ocean-sea-urchin thing is coming from.)
  

• One morning I was loading the dishwasher while the boys played nicely outside drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. I began to notice that I could hear them inside the garage doing something that sounded suspicious, but I had no idea what it was. I could hear them repeatedly and very animatedly shouting out something about fireworks. I went to investigate. This is what I found (note that what you see at the base of the garage wall, all over the floor, is broken pieces of sidewalk chalk):

They had been throwing the chalk sticks against the wall... pretending that the 'snap' sound they'd make when they broke and landed was "fireworks!!!" When I said, "WHAT DO THINK YOU'RE DOING?!!!" They said, "Mama, we're pretending we're sixty, and we're just like MorFar, doing fireworks!" "CLEAN IT UP!!" I demanded(after taking the photo). Here's the pathetic tub of sidewalk chalk now:

• Got Milk? -->

• The boys (mostly Kyle, really) are currently absolutely obsessed with their middle names. Kyle likes his, in particular, because it "has an O in it." (quote unquote). He reminds us of this constantly. These masterpieces below took a long time to make. I must admit, I was really quite proud of them. They found all of the sticker-letters themselves (amidst a huge pile of alphabet letters), and made their names. I helped them figure out the order of the letters, of course. But really they did most of this project themselves. I think that's pretty dang good for two boys who just turned three in May (and have a hard time sitting still for more than 5 minutes).

• Some other random tid-bits that have no associated photos: I discovered this week that Owen will eat absolutely anything as long as it has balsamic vinegar poured all over it. How weird is that?! Owen is really into nicknames right now. He has started calling Alex "Nan" (short for "Nanny"), and he's started calling Alex's dog "Cyps" (short for "Cyprus"). Kyle is back in a lovey-dovey phase and says, "I need a hug." about a dozen times a day. The boys are really interested in adoption right now. They love hearing their own adoption story over and over and over. This morning at the pool Kyle said proudly, to no one in particular, "I was adopted!" Kyle continues his fixation on acquiring a trombone and asks for "a real trombone" at least once a day. The boys are hardly fighting at all this week -- the fighting seems to come and go in ebbs and flows, and it is much nicer for everyone when we're in a fighting-valley-phase instead of a fighting-peak-phase. A very proud moment for me this week came while sitting out at the pool with Owen on my lap -- we were cuddling and I said, "Owen, do you know how beautiful you are?" He nuzzled his head into my neck and said, "I am a beautiful brown boy." My heart skipped a beat with pure pride and joy for my beautiful brown boy.
  
• Two nights this week the boys had to go to bed early because they had not napped and were beyond exhausted. Early bedtimes on work nights means that there is absolutely no way we can eat together (I simply don't have enough time to pull together a meal for all four of us in the short period of time between arriving home from work and tucking them into their beds). So the boys eat first, we get them in bed, and then Braydon and I eat later. Here's Braydon with K & O while they eat their dinner. I am so glad to be co-parenting with this man. I'm so grateful my boys have such a wonderful father. I hate to shove it in people's faces, but I can't help it: My man is the best.
  
• Thanks for reading ~~ Have a great weekend y'all!