The boys are currently jumping on the couch and singing super loud. A is screaming at the top of his lungs, "I pray to Jesus! I praise him! I like manna! Now let's give everybody a hug!" I have no idea where he learned about manna. I think it was at his church class, but he thanks God for "manna that God sent down from heaven" every single time he prays. What a funny kid.

What's C singing, you might ask? Mostly he's screaming really loud. But he will also stop every once in awhile to yell "cereal and milk!" I love my kids. They are just too entertaining.

a few stories

i am blown away by C's language explosion lately. he can say pretty much any word you ask him to say. and, in the car today, without being prompted, he said, "more cracker mommy" three words! maybe that's normal at 20 months, but i am still super impressed. i guess that's my job as his mom :)

C's also reached the story-telling stage. He reenacts things that have happened. i LOVE this stage!!! it is just so entertaining, and it's cool to see the things that impact his life and are memorable to him. some of his favorite stories right now:

1. he'll say the name of one of his uncles and then rub his hand on his face because he answered the door with shaving cream on his face. then he'll point to his eye because he wants me to say, "did he have shaving cream in his eyes? NO!" then he'll laugh every time because he knows he's being funny.
2. Vashti. Tractor. and then he'll cry. this little girl we see each week at our farmer's market had toy tractors with her that the boys played with and then they cried when they left because they wanted to play more with Vashti.

a few weeks ago, A asked me to start teaching him piano lessons. so i got out the masking tape, labeled a few keys, and taught him two songs. he can play one of them by heart. "hot cross buns," so it's not super complicated, but amazing to me that he doesn't have to look at the paper that tells him what to play. throughout cincinnati right now, they have pianos set up randomly around the city with the words "play me, i'm yours" written on them. whoever wants to can sit down and play. we saw one the other day when we were at a downtown park, and A got to play his song. they have one in the middle of our little downtown square of our neighborhood. we tried to get him to play on that piano tonight, but he was too shy with people watching. then he cried the whole way home because he wanted to play. we'll try again soon, and maybe he'll have the courage to play with an audience.

Anytime A is playing and makes up a name for one of his toys, it is always one of the same few names: Skwunka, Munka, and Gunka.

No idea where those came from, but I have to admit I'm a little nervous for my future grandkids.

We're here, in case anyone was wondering what happened to us. But, as is often the case in our house, we have been sick. I have no idea why it is that my boys tend to pick up every virus out there. Well, I guess it has something to do with the fact that A started putting his hands in his mouth when we took away his paci and C puts everything he finds in his mouth. I try so hard to keep our house clean and germ-free, but if there's a germ to be had, my boys tend to find it. We are almost recovered, though, and back to having a life outside of our home.

It's a good thing, too, because we have a packed week. We had friends over for dinner on Sat, had dinner at a new neighbor's house on Sunday, met former neighbors at the park on Monday, met a friend of mine from high school with her kids on tuesday, new friends coming to visit tomorrow, time with Miss C tomorrow night, an outing with grandma on thursday and hopefully hanging out with cousins on friday. Whew. I'm exhausted just thinking about all of that activity.

C has hit one of my favorite stages of toddlerhood. The Storytelling Stage. He has started to repeat events that have happened to us over and over with a mixture of words, sounds and action. For example, the other day, we were heading home when a fire truck passed us with sirens blaring and lights flashing. The entire rest of our trip home, C retold the story:

Fi Cuck (fire truck)
Wheeeee Ooooooo
Then he'd cover his ears and shake his head to show how loud it was.

He rushed into the house when we got home to tell daddy the story. He was so proud of himself when daddy understood what he was trying to tell him (with a little prompting from mommy).

He will take a kitchen towel and swing it around his head, saying "daddy" because P tried to swat at a fly that was driving us crazy. He'll out of nowhere say, "Cat" then swing his hand around, get a sad look on his face and grab his foot because a neighbor's cat scratched at C when he got too close the other day.

I just love this stage. It shows just how much he is absorbing what's going on around him, and he gets so much joy when people understand him. And there's nothing better as a mom than to watch your kids get joy out of life.

I was standing in the kitchen this morning and heard A start crying. He was sprawled out on the floor in the family room, so I asked him what happened. His response, said through tears: "I tried to walk, but it didn't work". I guess that was an understatement.

Family Pictures!!!

We had our family pictures taken a few weeks ago, and they are ready to view! I am so excited about them. I think Mike Bresnen is an amazing photographer, and he did a great job with two squirmy kiddos.

I don't want to post the password on here for the sake of our family's privacy, but if you would like to see them and aren't facebook friends with me, leave a comment.

What loan?

Got back from a super relaxing vacation on Wed. The next day, I received a call from a collections agent wondering about my plans for paying back my loan. Seeing as we have NO debt, I assumed it was a scam. Nope...turns out someone stole my SSN (no idea how!), and took out a HEFTY loan in my name in March. After a minor emotional breakdown, I've spent the majority of my free time this week filing papers and making phone calls to figure out this whole situation.

As of today, the loan has been taken off of my record. I think I have 3 things left on my to-do list to help prevent this from happening again since we don't know who has my SSN and if/when they plan on using it again.

I promise to post some cute vacay pics from our NC trip and some funny stories from the boy soon.