The Bachelor Do

I usually give Luke pretty much the same haircut. But now that school is out, I decided to have a little fun and give him what I call the "Bachelor Do". This is because almost every contestant on the most recent season of the Bachelorette seemed to be sporting this hairdo. 

Example: 

Bachelor Luke:

Luke giving his male model signature look. The funny thing is, he LOVES it!!

Summer Beginnings

I've been staying busy all school year getting the house ready to sell and now that it is listed, although I have to clean it often, most of my to do's are done. Now that the boys are all home all day and Chance is working long hours at the clinic we are trying to figure out what to do with our LONG days! One day we went on an Elementary School Playground tour. We drove around to 4 or 5 different Lake Stevens elementary schools to check out what their playgrounds were like compared to Glenwood. Plus I wanted to scout the other schools. You never know, if we move one of them may be their new school!

Children's Museum.

Last week Chance finished up work at Monroe on Monday and Tuesday and then finished the work week with three 10 hour work days at NorthSound so we were looking forward to having Chance home for the weekend! We went to the zoo on Saturday since Bradley hasn't gone in awhile (the other two had field trips there).

Now it was Bradley's turn to feed the birds!

It has only been 4 days of the 10 hour NorthSound work days, but the boys are already missing Dad. They are so use to having him home in time to play with them before dinner and now he gets home right before bedtime. But we all appreciate him working hard for us.

Best Buds

They don't always get along.  Like right now, while I'm writing this blog, they are arguing in the backyard over who gets to be who in their BFG game. Let's hope they work it out, because when they do get along and play together I am a happy Mom. 

Like Brothers, Like Brother?

And Bradley makes 3! 3 Little artists that is! Bradley loves to draw at the table like his brothers and his skills are really starting to show!

"Donkey Kong"

"Elmo"

Bradley's first movie!

We have been waiting for a movie that was appropriate enough for Bradley for awhile now. We decided "Finding Dory" fit the bill, but once we got to the theater, Bradley kept complaining that he didn't want to watch it and wanted to go home! We thought maybe he was scared because being in a theater reminded him of Star Tours. It took a lot of convincing that it wouldn't be scary! He still wasn't very happy and sporadically begged to go home during the movie, but we made it through. Not exactly the experience we were hoping for! LOL

Big Brothers

Luke and Nate really know how to care for the little ones. Lately, Luke has been giving Bradley extra affection. Sometimes he will ask Bradley, "Do you want to snuggle?" which Bradley always accepts. 

Now that Nate is a reader, he can read to Bradley and Amy! Speaking of Amy, I barely have to watch her if Luke or Nate is around. They take care of her for me and they are so gentle with her.

And I don't think there is ever a time where Nate sees Amy where he doesn't make sure he gets a hug from her.

Luke's books

Luke's writing just cracks me up!

Most of the Luke and Nate's "books" are started and never completed. However Luke was determined to finish this one!

All 70 pages of it! I'm blown away!

U2

Are we seeing a theme here? The boys seem to love whatever Daddy loves. And Daddy LOVES to expose his boys to the things he loves!

And then Mommy has to help them make a video of their latest obsession. :)

End of School

The school year has come to an end. It's weird when it's your last time doing anything with these kiddos. This could be the last time I walk my boys to school at Glenwood. You just never know. I'm going to miss hugging these two at the top of the stairs and watching them walk down together and across the crosswalk looking like adorable best buddies. The crossing guard tells me often how adorable she thinks they are and says she would adopt them if she could. Haha! I agree. :)

I asked the boys to write thank you notes to their teachers.

 So proud of these boys and all they have learned this year.

Showered with Love

So of course the boys always treat me like a queen on Mother's Day. They spoil me with wonderful cards and hugs and signs. Nate made this sign all by himself!

As if that wasn't enough. Nate decided to plan a special surprise party for me. I think they know I've been pretty stressed lately with so much to do. I haven't been spending much time with them so I think this is their way of forcing me to relax and spend some time with them. How can I refuse? Nate wrote me this note for my surprise...

He also had Chance make this sign. LOL. What a good husband/father he is. 

 He worked for several days drawing me pictures. Here is a note he wrote on the back of one.

He also got some help from Trisha. He wrote out clues for a treasure hunt for me (all by himself) and he asked Trisha to buy me a shirt at the store for a prize at the end. LOL. 

Nate masterminded the surprise, but his brother's were excited to help plan it. They all went into another room one day and when they came back Luke said, "Um, Mom we were just talking about how the Earth uses resources." 

Luke wrote me a sweet note too, it said:

"you are the best mom in the world! I hope you are not too troubled with packing for the you-know-what. You really make me, dad, Nate and Bradley very happy every day! I really appreciate that you care so much about me in the past 8 years. I most appreciate that you went through those contractions and painfulness to bring me to life."

And not too long after that, more sweet cards for my actual Birthday!

One from Luke.

Bradley always draws me something on these occasions too. Such a special time when the boys are so open with their love! I am so lucky. :)

Open for Business!

Oh Joy! The Pool is open and the boys could not be happier! Nate is now a diehard just like Luke! And now we don't have to work around Bradley's napping so I foresee lots of swimming this summer!

Nate already learned a new trick! Check out his form!

Bradley's 4th Birthday Party

Bradley has been waiting for his day to shine! We had a party at my mom's house since we were having an open house at our house that day. I'm not a great party planner, but with all that has been going on lately, I still wanted Bradley to feel like his party was special. 

He wanted a dinosaur party so I tried to add some jurassic touches. I made a feed the T-Rex sign and had the kids try to throw play food into it's mouth. Bradley was very excited about the sign I made. :)

 

I'm not good with decorations and I planned on making more of these but I decided one was enough!

"Happy Birthday Dear Bradley!"

Bradley was really looking forward to opening presents!

Kids always love a water balloon fight!

Looks like Chance wore himself out.

Luke's 2nd Grade Field Trip

Now it's Luke's turn for a day with Mom! He still loves having me volunteer and I'll take it as long as I can! I love spending time with him too!

We had one other boy with us, and though he isn't one of Luke's closer friends, I was so impressed with how kind and friendly Luke was to him even though I know he was kind of disappointed he didn't get one of his friends with us. Such a wonderful heart Luke has. Not to mention the kid was getting on my nerves ("When can we see the Red Panda?" "Can we have ice cream?" "Can we buy something at the gift shop?") but Luke was always kind. He was so well behaved and never whined or begged me for anything and I was his mom!

He really wanted to feed the birds just like Nate got to. It took us awhile to get to that exhibit, but he  was really patient. :)

Luke getting a picture taken with his class. 

Bradley is 4!

It's always going to be weird every time Bradley is a year older. No more toddlers or little ones in the house. He's just one of the boys. Luckily his voice is still adorable and I still get to hear things like, "Hey Yukey" (Hey Lukey) and "But Mom, I'm still Hungwee" and of course, "I wuv you Mom." He was VERY excited for his birthday this year. Finally he gets all the attention, which is hard to come by in this house and he definitely fights for it. But today he didn't have to!

Bradley has become very independent. When his brother's are at school he will sometimes sit and color by himself or play with his toys. He loves playing with his animal toys. A typical morning for us is walking the brothers to school then we come home.  We walk in the door and he says, "Mom, I'm still hungry." (Even though we just finished breakfast about 30 minutes ago).  I give him a snack and he eats it at the table while I start doing housework. He likes telling me what he's drawing or telling me about what a character did or said in his game. He also sometimes pretends he's an animal. I usually let him watch TV and he tells me he's still hungry about every 20 minutes. 

A few things about Bradley:

He is not shy. He can make friends with any kid on the playground. Just don't cross him! Because he won't stand for that. LOL

He loves to make his brothers laugh, even if it's at the expense of a punishment for talking potty talk.

If he doesn't get his way, he wails! 

He doesn't eat meat (unless he doesn't realize he is eating it, but most of the time I can't sneak it past him)!

He likes to come into my bed in the morning and snuggle next to me.

He is ALWAYS hungry. Always.

He gets in crazy moods and is hard to control. Like if we are walking the boys to school, sometimes he is all over the place and if I try to tell him to stay with us, it's difficult just getting him to pay attention to my instructions. He's in his own crazy world.

He LOVES playing with his Daddy. The second Chance walks through the door he is begging Chance to start playing an animal game with him or something.

He is either sensitive or just knows how to garner sympathy, because if his brother's start laughing at him or not letting him play something he will get sad and say, "they hurt my feelings."

However, if Chance or I are scolding him we are "hurting his feelings" as well.

He gets really excited when his brother(s) agree to play with him.

He likes to go places and try new things.

He is adorably cute, even when he is being naughty. Chance and I have to stifle laughs often while we do our best to stay stern. Bradley's hilarity makes it really hard and he gets away with too much because of it.

When he does something good and I praise him for it, he gets a big shy grin on his face and gives me a big hug.

Even though he is our biggest challenge behaviorally, and definitely tests the rules more than the other two, I think he really just wants attention and respect and his heart to be kind is there. He will almost always share AS LONG as you ask him nicely. If someone takes something or tells him he has to do something, it's not happening. And though he frequently provokes his brothers he doesn't do it much to other kids which makes me think he really just wants them to pay attention to him. Luke and Nate are pretty tight and it's hard for him to squeeze in there sometimes. 

We can't imagine life without Bradley. He completes are family and adds so much entertainment. We love our Bradley Boy.

House For Sale!

We are finally taking the plunge. The market is hot and we are hoping to sell it quickly and break even! We have spent years waiting for our home value to recover and now that it finally has, we are selling and hoping to find something in Lake Stevens. It's not an easy decision. We love living next to Trisha and we love our location, but we know that looking into our future, we would like to have more space for the boys both inside and outside. 

I have spent over a year working on this house inside and out. Repainting, recaulking, the list goes on.

Within the last month or two I painted the bedroom...

And the master bath...

and the guest bath...

and the playroom!

The boys are on board to sell too. They are excited for our "new house". Wherever and whatever that might be. I think they even realize how small our house/yard is! But since the market is so crazy, we are planning to move to my grandparent's duplex so that we can take our time looking for our next home (which is such a blessing of an opportunity). Because we are hoping the next house we move to will be a house that we won't fell "stuck" in no matter what happens to the housing market this time.

At first the boys were a little unsure of moving into an "older home". Luke said, "Oh great, it's probably going to have a leaky roof!" But once we took them to scout out our future residence they are super excited to be right next to the pool and have so much grass to play in and places to ride their bikes and scooters! It won't be easy to leave our house, but at least we will have some cool stuff to look forward to! The boys were helping me measure the new digs.

Now let's hope we get an offer!