Farewell Bedhead

Well, after months and months of wanting nothing to do with haircuts, Asher decided last night he wanted his hair cut after all (much to our dismay since we loved his longer, shaggy hair). Gone are the mornings of fantastic bedhead... at least for a while.
Vince started with scissors... fashioning Asher's hair into a very stylish 1987ish mullet.

Then came the clippers.

Asher was not a fan of the hair in his mouth, or itching his neck.

But then the promised Skittles came, for doing such a good job, and all tears were gone.

The kid has (or had) a lot of hair!!

Obed loves haircuts... at least his brother's haircuts. He likes to watch Bob the Builder, and he also loves the complimentary Skittle he gets for being such a good Bob the Builder watcher.

Getting Out The Door

There are days I'm thankful to God that all our body parts are securely attached to the body, or we would most certainly leave home without a head or arm or some other essential part. Today, we were walking out the door to head to swim lessons, and this was how prepared we were. Ezra was good to go (partially due to the "R" and "L" written in his shoes, he gets them on the correct feet 90% of the time). Asher, with great pride, got his shoes on all by himself... sure, on the wrong feet, but on none the less. Obed had one shoe on, one shoe off... shoe still to be located.

Tractors in the Bible

As some of you may remember from almost a year ago, John the Baptist has offer several humorous moments in the Black house. We had another moment tonight during our family Bible time. Vince was talking with Ezra and Asher about which story we would read next. He started giving clues to Asher. "This person lived in the desert. He ate locusts and honey. He wore camel hair." Asher looked at Vince with a confused look. So Vince said, "Jooohhhhnnn," trying to spark Asher's memory. Asher's response, as the look of "oh, I've got it!" crossed his face... "JOHN DEERE!" Well, we were looking for John the Baptist, but I guess John Deere is a close second.

The Happenings As Of Late

Life continues on in the Black house and Spring is upon us! We have been spending as much time outside as possible in recent days, which has been fantastic (and thus, the reason for fewer posts as of late). Ezra has been working on learning to ride a 2 wheeled bike. He and Vince practiced quite a bit last weekend in the yard. Then we took off the pedals of his bike and let him practice balancing and scooting along a bike trail. He's doing quite well.
Asher continues to wake up most mornings with fantastic bedhead, which always brings a bout of laughter first thing in the morning.

Obed continues to make us laugh... a lot. He decided last week he'd like to wear a robe for most of the morning. Sure, it was one of his brother's robes and it was quite large on him... but it mattered not.

Obed has also taken to sleeping with all his animals, blankets and books horded under his belly. I suppose one can never know when a brother might come in and steal one's beloveds in the middle of nap time.... you can never be too cautious!

The Long Wait Is Over

Ezra and Asher love all sports-type things. They love football, baseball, basketball, soccer, golf... you name it, they've played some "pseudo-version" of it (by "pseudo-version," I mean they may not have actually played, say, field hockey. But they have taken my old field hockey sticks and hit footballs around the back yard while wearing helmets and basketball shorts... you know, the toddler version of the perfect sport).

The boys got soccer nets and cones for Christmas from their Aunts, Gretchen and Megan. These were a huge hit, and the boys could hardly wait to be "real soccer men" and play soccer in the backyard with the nets and cones. The only snag... when they received these nets, there was already 2 feet of snow on the ground... with another 5 feet to come! So the beloved nets were sent to the garage to wait for the thaw, while the cones stayed inside for games like soccer cone lacrosse.

We are having a nice mix of warm days, and some cool days (although I will say cool is relative... it was 38 degrees out the day the boys finally got out to play soccer with their nets. Sure, it was cool outside, but to simply be outside was glorious!!). It has been fantastic to get outside and play.

Vince put together the nets on Saturday... and it was all soccer, all the time.
Ezra loves to play soccer! The kid seems to have boundless energy.

Asher loves to be a soccer man too... he has great confidence and is still working on his coordination.

One of Asher's signature moves is to run, kick the ball, then overtake the ball and fall over it.

Obed was the designated cone guy (so designated by his brothers). He was responsible to set up the cones.

Apparently the field was quite small.

T.T.T. and H.O.P.

Tonight's after-dinner activities? T.T.T. - Tickle Toe Tunnel. Haven't heard of it? Well, it's all the rage in Nearly, Canada (well, at least on our street). The rules are quite simple. The "tickler" creates a tunnel with his (or her) body, and the tickle-ees crawl through, getting their toes tickled in the process. Doesn't sound like much fun, eh? Well, apparently it's much more fun that one would expect.

T.T.T. quickly turned into a game of H.O.P. - Hop on Pop. The "games" one can play on the floor are quite limitless... especially when the players are 4, 3 and 1 (well, and 33).

Spring Has Indeed Sprung!

We've had three... count them, THREE, beautiful days in a row! Spring is finally here! You can see in the pictures that most of the snow has melted, thanks to the 60+ degree temperatures over the past 3 days, and the wind today (which I didn't mind since it's drying out the swamp that is our backyard). The boys have loved being outside and we have spent at least 5 hours each day playing in the backyard and meeting old friends like trikes, basketballs and other outside toys closeted away in the garage for the past 6 months. It's been glorious!

Obed likes to sit on Ezra's trike... sure, his feet don't touch the pedals or the ground, but he's pretty sure he's headed somewhere!
Asher has been enjoying the bubbles he received at the Easter Egg Hunt at the zoo last weekend. On a side note, clearly he is deep in concentration since the tongue is out.

Ezra picked the smallest broom to in order to clean up the concrete pad. He's been a fantastic helper the past few days, helping with raking, shoveling, or any other need that might arise outside. He proclaimed yesterday that he likes it better outside than inside... on beautiful Spring days like we've had this week, I'd heartily agree!

Seriously Outnumbered!

When we had 2 kids, we felt like we could do it... we were evenly matched one parent to one kid. We adjusted to 3 kids, but were a bit outnumbered. Now, we will be down 2 kids per one parent. Added to that, I will be outnumbered 5 boys (including Vince) to one girl... add the male dog into the mix and wow, am I ever outnumbered! That's right... we found out yesterday we will be adding yet another boy to the mix. Cletus the Fetus 4.0 due August 27th.

An Easter Egg Hunt... North Dakota Style

Today we went to the annual Easter Egg Hunt at the zoo. We told the boys that there would be eggs hidden and they got to hunt for the eggs. I wasn't quite sure how the zoo would handle the hunt and the "hiding of the eggs" since there is still so much snow and ice on the ground. I imagined eggs peeking out of the snow, begging to be plucked from the wintry cold.
We arrived and there were literally hundreds and hundreds of families at the zoo. Here, Obed is surveying the hunting ground, formulating a plan of attack.

They had the children separated by age group. Obed went first in the 0-2 age category (although I didn't see any 0 year olds). For this age group, they just dumped giant boxes of eggs in a fenced in area and let the kids go crazy. This made sense since the itty bittys would probably have trouble hunting for eggs. Daddy helped him as he picked up his "hunted" eggs.

We moved onto the next age category... the 3-5 year olds. I thought maybe they would hide some eggs for this age group... but in light of the snow, they also just dumped boxes and boxes of eggs in a small enclosed area and let the kids go at it (incidentally, they did this for the 6-8 age group, as well as the 9-12 year olds... which I'm certain was LOADS of fun for the 12 year olds!).

They then counted to 10 and mass chaos ensued as hundreds of kids crammed into a small area trying to pick up plastic eggs.

Asher, understandably, got overwhelmed and didn't want to participate.

He did get 1 egg so he could trade it in for the bag of candy promised if the child returned his eggs.

Ezra got right in the mix with all the kids and had a great time!

He got quite the bag of eggs.

All in all, the boys had a great time. Obed liked collecting the "balls," Asher liked the bag of candy he got for "participating," and Ezra enjoyed the race of finding as many eggs as possible in a short amount of time. We had a great time in spite of the 40 degree weather and 25 mph winds. Driving home Ezra asked, "why is Easter coming during winter this year rather than spring?" Good question son.

Hide and Seek

We played hide and seek yesterday. Ezra's at a really fun stage because he "gets it." He now understands the concept of hiding and also of seeking and really actually looks for good hiding places and for those hiding.

I took the camera with me yesterday when I was hiding and seeking. Here, I was hiding in the shower and Ezra came to peek in to see if I was hiding in there and I jumped out at him and screamed. Fantastic expression I'd say!

And here, I snuck up on Ezra hiding in the closet. He didn't hear me coming and I screamed as I opened the door to the closet... it surprised him as well.

Cheerio Boats

We went for a family walk after dinner tonight, and wow, we had a great time! The snow is melting... it was 45 today! All the melting snow is creating rivers in the streets and huge puddles along the sidewalks. We took a cup of Cheerios with us to use as "boats" to drop in the rivers and watch them float down the street.
The rivers cut under the mounds of snow on the sides of the street. We were able to watch Cheerios disappear under a mound of snow, and find them a block later, floating along in the current.

Obed may have fallen... in giant puddles... a few times. But it did not phase him in the least. He had a great time stomping in puddles and throwing Cheerios in the rivers.

Asher won the award for "classiest dressed" for the family walk. He wore his Lightning McQueen rain boots from Grandma, his new silky basketball culottes from Grammy and Papa, and his Bob the Builder work jacket from Aunt Megan. I think it was his way of including our extended family on our family walk.

Trip and Culottes

Vince, Ezra and Asher got back from their trip yesterday afternoon. Obed wanted in on the action, so he got his suitcases ready to go... you know, in case they were going to turn around and leave again.
Asher and Ezra got to see Grammy and Papa for a day on their trip. Grammy and Papa gave both boys a pair of basketball shorts - or on Asher, they may better be named basketball culottes. He LOVES them and wants to wear them all day, every day and even to bed because, as he says, "I'm a real basketball man mom," and well, clearly real basketball men never, ever wear anything other than basketball culottes.

It's Spring!!!

It's Spring! How, you ask, do I know? Look at this HUGE patch of grass in our front yard! It's at least 2 inches wide and it was 34 today... that's 2 degrees above freezing! Watch out... it's almost swimsuit weather!

It Looks Weird

It has been a long winter. Even die hard, born and bred North Dakotans say it's been a long winter. We got our first big snow the first week of November and have not seen grass now for 5 months... that's almost a 1/2 year! That is 1/6th of Asher's life... 1/3 of Obed's!

Ezra and Asher are down in Missouri right now visiting Grandma and Bompa. They arrived late last night. The boys awoke this morning to bright, blue skies and much, much warmer temperatures (70 tomorrow!). Missouri is in full bloom right now with Spring in high gear. Bompa has already had to cut the grass twice! Asher woke up, looked outside and said, "it looks weird outside!"

I took this picture today... from our front porch. No wonder Asher thinks green grass and budding flowers look weird - he's known nothing but white for the last half year.
Our house... can't you tell we're well into the second week of Spring?