Still Going Strong...

...Max's pirate infatuation, that is.

The first words out of his mouth most mornings are "Your name is McGraw. Where's Captain Bogg?" Honestly. He doesn't call us anything else! He wore a bandanna and my black belt to Target yesterday, and the cart was his pirate ship. Thankfully, as he told a random woman at the store, he's a "nice pirate, not a mean pirate. Nice pirates say 'Arrr' and 'Land ho!' But when he asked me repeatedly what mean pirates say, I didn't exactly want to go there. They say... uh... mean things? Oh you want specifics? Hmmm... Luckily I was able to stall long enough that he got distracted.

If you don't already have a pirate name, you should pick one, because he is almost guaranteed to ask you what it is when he sees you. Just a warning.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of ... pop!

Giving Thanks

The boys in Grandpa's recliner

We spent Thanksgiving in Marshall with my mom's side of the family. We stayed with my grandparents Wednesday night through Friday, and it was a wonderfully relaxing holiday! Many rounds of games were enjoyed, including Bowls, Buck Euchre and Five Hundred. All the grandparents pitched in to help with the kiddos, so I could have some down time (thank you SO much!) The boys loved Grandpa Moorse's cuckoo clock and stash of M&M's, and I loved seeing him play with them! Of course, my Grandma Moorse spoiled us all with her cooking the whole time we were there (honestly, five dishes to choose from at every meal??), but the crowning jewel was the Thanksgiving feast at my Aunt and Uncle's house. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, biscuits, rolls, salad, fruit, pie, pie, pie!

I love food.

But while the food is wonderful and amazing, the day was really about thanking God for the abundant blessings in our lives. I have so much to be thankful for, and I don't say it enough. So with that, here is my top ten list of things I am thankful for this year.

10. Flannel sheets- got them for the first time ever this year! If I thought it was hard to get out of bed before, it just got exponentially harder
9. Cute animated animals (a la the movie Tangled- Maximus the Horse made my day)
8. Pirates, especially Captain Bogg and Salty- they have kept Max entertained for the past week, non-stop!
7. Coffee shops- alone with a chai and a good book, or with a friend and good conversation, there are not many places I'd rather spend my down time
6. Wine and chocolate, alone or in combination
5. Modern conveniences, especially my fridge/freezer. It's incredible how much you don't really appreciate something until it's gone... dishwasher, stove, washer & dryer, listen up- I appreciate you! You are important! No need to prove it to me.
4. All of my amazing family and friends, you know who you are and you know I couldn't do it (by "it" I mean anything & everything) without you.
3. My two beautiful, crazy boys- they are my world!
2. An amazing, one-of-a-kind husband. I love you, honey- you're the greatest.
1. My Lord, without whom I would not even have the ability to be thankful.

"I give thanks to my God at every remembrance of you, praying always with joy in my every prayer for all of you" -Philippians 1:3

Mr. Personality

Louie is closing in on a year, and his personality has just lit up in the past weeks! I am enjoying this stage SO much. Even as he constantly does things that remind me of Max, he is becoming more and more himself every day. We were discussing last night that he may end up being quite the handful as he gets a little older; he needs to have his hands on everything, and he is becoming very vocal about what he wants.

He LOVES his big brother and will stop at nothing to be near him! This is getting a little hard on Max, but he's learning to play in the places that Lucian can't reach, such as the dining room table... then Louie just sits on the floor by his chair and yells "a-DAH! a-DAH!" until someone pays attention to him.

In related news, our little sensitive baby is toughening up... at least in some circumstances. If he gets clobbered by Max or falls on his face in pursuit of whatever Big Brother is doing, he gets right up and keeps on going as if nothing happened. But if he has just woken up from a nap and someone looks at him sideways, his world collapses and he makes the offense known to everyone within earshot. I think Max could do just about anything to him and he wouldn't care, or wouldn't show that he cares. He knows that if he cries, someone will remove him from the situation... which is the last thing he wants!

I'm enjoying every minute of watching our sweet Louie grow up, but time is flying by! Slow down, little one, slow down!

Do you see what I see?

You know how some fire alarms spray ink on the person who pulls the alarm, so they can identify the culprit in case the alarm is pulled as a prank? That's what I thought of today when Max came into the room after coloring with his markers in the kitchen. He had blue marker all over his hands (to be expected), blue marker on the paper (obviously) and blue marker one other place, where it's not supposed to be...

I wonder what happened here?

Magoo and Baloo

Max has had the nickname "Mr. Magoo" since he was tiny. There may have been a combination of factors that led to this name: his first babbling sound was "goo", his name started with 'M', he was little, bald and wrinkly. But you know how nicknames are, they really choose themselves. I have no memory of consciously choosing this name for Max, it just happened.

When Lucian was born, I made the mistake of referring to him as Mr. Magoo on a few occasions, and Max responded as if I had been talking to him. Oops! He knows it's HIS nickname, and he's not planning on sharing it with his brother. So I started trying to think of a nickname for Lucian. Besides 'Louie', none of them stuck... because they didn't feel natural.

One day, out of the blue, I picked up Baby Lucian and said, "Hi, Louie-Baloo!" "Oh!" I thought, "That feels right!" And it stuck. It has taken various forms (i.e. Louie-Balouie, Balouie, and just plain Baloo) but in all forms, it fits him perfectly!

So now we have a Mr. Magoo and a Louie-Baloo, but more often they are simply our Magoo and Baloo.

Arr, mateys!

Max and Lucian in one of their many pirate ships. Weigh Anchor!

Pirate McGraw here, to tell ye all about our latest adventure on the high seas!

Last week, I borrowed from the library the CD Pegleg Tango by Captain Bogg and Salty. These pirate songs have changed Max's perspective on the world! We have listened to nothing else for at least three days now, and Max can sing along with all the tunes. But it goes beyond a love of the music...

Our couch has become a pirate ship, as has our Toyota Matrix. I had to wear a roaster on my head for a full day as my pirate hat (every time I took it off, Max asked me repeatedly, "Do you want to put your pirate hat on, Mommy?" until I caved). Max no longer refers to us by our real names; Lucian is "Captain Bogg", Mommy is "McGraw", Daddy is "Ramshackle", and Max is "Max Salty". At one point yesterday, I mentioned to him that he was playing nicely with Lucian. "With Captain Bogg!" came the immediate reply.

We've had glimpses of Max's imagination previously; he's been an astronaut, a fireman, a baby, and numerous animals, but it's never been like this before. Our everyday language has come to include phrases such as "Land ho!" "Yarrr!" and "Shiver me timbers!"

I feel a pirate-themed birthday party coming on...

Not Cool

Sunday started out as a great day! We went down to my parents' house for brunch after Mass, and we ended up staying until the boys' bedtime. We played Buck Euchre, drank wine, made a snowman and generally had a nice relaxing day. If only it would have stayed that way!

But we went home and were greeted by a surprise...

There was stuff dripping out of the door of our freezer! We opened the door and encountered a very unwelcome sight: half-thawed food, liquid ice cream, and a whole assortment of formerly frozen goods that were no longer frozen. Luckily, we caught it before everything was ruined- the bottom half of the freezer was still very cold. But it wouldn't be for long, so we piled everything into a bin and Paul buried it outside in the snow.

Yes, in case you were wondering, the refrigerator wasn't cold either, so its contents were moved to the front porch (I'm thanking God that winter hit when it did! Last week, we would have lost everything we couldn't eat that night)

Our makeshift ice box

We spent the rest of the night trying to see if we could fix the problem, to no avail. This was a job for the professionals. In the morning I called Bill the Repair Guy, our neighborhood appliance repairman (good old West St. Paul), to see what he could do. Good news: Bill the Repair Guy was really nice and helpful. Bad news: it was going to cost us $500 to fix.

$500 to salvage an 11 year old refrigerator? We decided it was time to go shopping...

Sara came over to babysit so Paul and I could do some power shopping, and we were successful! We stumbled upon the last day (last day!) of an appliance sale at Lowe's, 20% off all Frigidaire refrigerators. What brand do you think we ended up with?? And did it end up costing us less than the repairs would have cost? Halleluia, YES!

So now we have a new fridge on order, and it should be here by next Tuesday. Until then we will be storing everything on the porch and eating a lot of canned food!

It hasn't looked like this since we moved in ... it sure smelled better then

One good thing to come of this mess: I was finally forced to throw out all the old food from our fridge and freezer that used to get lost in the hidden corners of our monstrosity. And yes, there were several moments of "Oh, I wonder what that used to be?" as we emptied everything out. Gross.

I'll make sure to let you all know when our new fridge arrives! I'm pretty excited about it, it's much smaller than our current giant, and it will make our kitchen seem more spacious. So in the end, I'm not sad to see our old fridge go, just sad to see the dollars disappear from the pocketbook.

But, as my dad said the moment he heard about our troubles, "Welcome to home ownership!"