Farewell April

Guess who turned four months old today?

Mr. Cool himself. Ryne William! Four months.....I think this past month was the fastest yet. I have to say, it has been a good month. Ryne is really developing a fun little personality. He laughs a lot and loves to talk to us. He has also taken a new interest in his big brother...watches everything he does and really tries to talk to him, too. Likes to play with toys, which mostly amounts to chewing on them, but likes it nonetheless. Great at sitting in his bumbo seat to watch some t.v. with Kade every now and then. Enjoys playing in his exersaucer, especially now that the new has worn off and Kade isn't so interested in helping him play with it anymore. I think he is really wanting to eat some food, you should hear the noises he makes when we are all sitting at the table and he is watching every bite we take. I'm hoping his doctor will tell us on Monday "give this kid some cereal". Month three was a good month for Ryne, I'm really looking forward to month four. Here are a few more pictures that we took today so you can see how much he is growing.




Special birthday surprise for Ryne.....

Our great friend Woody came to town!!!! He flew in from Maryland this morning and is going to get to stay almost two weeks with us. We are so excited that he is here. Woody is going to work on my car for me and that is a huge blessing, but that's not the best part. The best part is just getting to have some time to hang out with Woody. I sure wish that everybody could know Woody. Kade is super excited that Woody is here and had a great time playing with him today. I think Kade is already making plans to take him to the Space Needle on Saturday. We'll keep you posted on that.


Look at this kid. Does he look sweet? Mischievous? Adorable? Funny? Two-years old?
Well, he is definitely all of those things. Let me tell you a bit about what he has been up to lately. He has been working on learning to obey and doing a little better this week. Have had a few moments but not near as many as last week. He has been making me laugh. Mostly at things he has been saying. Sometimes they are really funny and sometimes they are the ones where you really want to laugh but shouldn't. Here are some examples:

Funny and should laugh:
I'm changing Kade's diaper and he says to me "Happy Birthday, Mom!" (it's not my birthday but Kade likes to tell us this from time to time because he thinks it's a nice thing to say) I simply respond, "Thank you, Kade." Then Kade looks at me in all seriousness and says "you need some cake, Mom". (because birthdays and cake go hand in hand to him) My response to this was honest. "Oh, Kade, I can't have any cake. Mommy is trying to eat healthy." With a look of dispair he quickly shoots back to me. "No, Mom, don't eat healthy, me and Daddy need cake!"

Funny and not so funny all at the same time:
Kade is in Kyle's office, sitting in his chair with a pen (more on pens later) that he has taken apart. I ask him to give me the pen and he refuses. So, I go to take the pen away from him and he jerks away so that I can't get it. So, I tell him to obey and give me the pen, reach out to take it from him a second time, he jerks away and says to me: "Cooperate, Mom, cooperate!"
I had to suppress the laughs and explain to him that it was his job to cooperate not mine.
I did get the pen and put it back together but Kade wasn't very happy about it.

Another funny and not so funny one:
Tonight, I'm cooking supper and Kade is running around the kitchen playing with a punchball. Only he isn't punching it, instead he is throwing it up in the air. He gets a bit to close to the stove and I tell him that he has to move back. After he gets to close a third time and I remind him to move back, I follow it up with "If you get to close again I will take your balloon away." His reply:
"This is my balloon, Mama. This is not your balloon. Are you kidding me?"
Yes, he said "are you kidding me?" to his Mom!
I just suppressed the laughs again and said. "No, I'm not kidding you. It is your balloon, but I am the Mama and I can take it away from you if you don't obey." That must have worked because I didn't have to get on to him again.

Have time for another Kade story? Well, our boy LOVES to draw and color. One of his most favorite things to do is to draw with a pen. He often does this sitting in Kyle's lap in the office. Remember me finding him coming out to the office from rendevous with the pen and paper while C.G. and Grandaddy were sleeping?
Well, I found him in the office drawing one day and asked him what he was doing and he said, "Writing my Matthew." I asked him to repeat it because I wasn't sure that is what he said. And sure enough that is what he said. "Writing my Matthew." I asked for clarification and found out it was Matthew as in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I was okay with that one. The next day I find him in the office drawing again and ask him what he's doing. This time he says, "Drawing a coupon, Mom." "A coupon?" "Yea, Mom, a coupon." "What's it for?" "For Kade." "What are you going to use it for?" "It's for fruit punch." "Okay, finish drawing your coupon and let's go have lunch."
Isn't the imagination of a two-year-old amazing?
Well, the Matthew writing is good, the coupon drawing is fun, and he really does color some pretty amazing pictures in his new coloring books. BUT....he crossed the line yesterday:

He left a masterpiece on our kitchen table. YIKES!!! And this picture is after Kyle has worked on the art project with magic eraser, rubbing alchol, hairspray, and orange glo. Maybe one day Kade will be a famous artist and our table will be worth something....because as of yesterday it just went down in value. Yes, he did get in big trouble and has lost his pen privileges for the time being.

Let me end by telling you what else our two-year-old artist came up with today. We work on questions about the Bible and Jesus. If you ask him who we worship he says, Jesus. If you ask him who Jesus is, he says God. If you ask him who the Bible tells us about he says, Jesus. If you ask him what Jesus tells us in the Bible he says, obey your parents (we think that's a pretty good first memory verse). So, Kyle was working with him last night about how much does Jesus love us. Kyle stretched his arms out wide and said "this much", Kade followed suit by stretching his arms out and saying "this much". We figured he had that one down. This morning Kade was chatting with C.G. on the phone and Kyle was asking him these questions. When Kyle asked him "how much does Jesus love us?" Kade forgot to stretch out his arms and forgot the answer he'd been taught last night. So, he just said "More than enough." Kyle and I both looked at each other in amazement. Wow! How true. Neither one of us have ever told him that, so where did he come up with it? Maybe that was something he learned while writing his Matthew?
Thank you Jesus for loving us More than Enough!!!
And thank you for giving me Kade to remind me just how much you love us, even when I do wrong things like writing on tables and trying to make you cooperate with me instead of cooperating with You. Just like I still love Kade more than enough, You still love me more than enough. Wow!

OH WONDERFUL DAY

Yesterday was a very important day in my life. Not because we were celebrating my half-birthday a day late, No, No. BECAUSE SONIC CAME TO TOWN!!! Okay, not technically my town but a town within driving distance! Only 25 minutes away!!!! If you have been keeping up with my blog then you know how much I absolutely love SONIC and how much I have absolutely missed it since moving to Washington.
I would rank yesterday's importance something like this:

1- The day of my salvation
2- My wedding
3- The birth of my children
4- SONIC came to town

Okay, so there may actually be a few more days of importance that rank above it but yesterday it sure didn't feel like it. The grand opening of this sonic was yesterday and I looked forward to going all day long. Our neighbors and friend Ben were all worked up about it, too, so we made plans to go when everyone got off work.
Here's how it went:


We parked and started walking.
Why?
It's SONIC....a drive-up place, right?

Well, just look at all of the people waiting to drive-up and order some delicious SONIC food.
We were at the end of this line when we decided to just park it and walk in and order at one of the walk-up spots.

This sign greeted us as we came across the corner. Only it needed to have a X 2 out beside it!
That's right. We waited almost three hours. Were they really that slow? Nope. Not slow at all.
Just really busy!

See this beautiful sight?

Here is a lot full of cars filled with people just as excited about SONIC as me.
That line of cars that we saw first.....well, they were just waiting to get into this lot, called the "staging area". We counted and guessed that there were a minimum of 70 cars in this lot and then probably another 50 or so waiting in line to get into this lot.
Good thing we walked in right?

We weren't the only ones with that idea. The lines for the walk-up-and-order spots were pretty long, too.

Mr. Eric takes his turn keeping up with the Kadester. Kade really liked sitting on his shoulders.

They passed out menus in hopes that people would know what they wanted before they got their turn to order. I might appear to be checking out this menu but I had been knowing for days exactly what I would order. Cheeseburger plain, onion rings, Route 44 Vanilla Dr. Pepper, and a Reese's cup Blast.

The owner came around with little samples of drinks. Kade's trying out a new mango limeade and I think he really liked it.

I get my turn hanging on to the Kadernator. He was unbelievably good last night. Can't even tell you how happy I was about that! Waiting in line with us like a trooper. Said he wanted his Cheeseburger and Ice Cream. You better believe my baby got his Cheeseburger and Ice Cream.

And both of my boys here are chowing down on some yumalicious SONIC burgers! Kade ate like a champ....guess he was pretty hungry since it was 10:15...YIKES!

All of that yummy SONIC...totally worth the wait!

Stephanie digging into a chili-cheese coney!

Delicious! And check out Ryne, he was a trooper. He woke up to eat and hung out with us for a few minutes and was back out like a light.

Kade digging into his ice cream.

Of course, I ate it ALL up!

And anything that didn't get finished made the trip back to the vehicles with us. Mr. Eric is very brave for letting Kade hold his drink on top of his head. But just look at the satisfaction on Kade's face. I think we have a SONIC fan on our hands! Like Mother, Like Son! Even if that's not how the saying really goes!

Tulip Festival

This past Saturday we hit the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It was something that I had been waiting to get to do since we moved here. Kept hearing how amazing it was. Well, it was amazing. Absolutely beautiful. Thousands of tulips. Also thousands of people....like crazy too many people for our liking. Not to mention, Kade decided to show his Daddy just how much of a two-year-old he learned to be while Kyle was gone. Part of Kade's problem was that there were so many people that we couldn't just let him run around a little bit because we were afraid he'd get lost in the crowd. So, he was a bit hard to deal with. Even after we let him get a fancy shark painted on his face. That also means that I didn't get that sweet little family picture of us all in the tulip fields. Oh well, life does go on. But the tulips were fabulous and I'm glad we got to see them....next year we might just try going on a Monday instead. Here are some pictures. I'll spare you the captions this time. Just enjoy!
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Oh, Mrs. Nancy, this picture is for you. On our way out we happened by a daffodil field. Of course, I thought of you!

While Daddy Was Out

Last week Kyle went to a conference in California. Me and my baby boys were in for an adventure. Well, maybe I should clarify....I was in for an adventure.

Tried to get out of the house at least once everyday. The first day that only amounted to driving through WalGreens to pick up a prescription and then driving through Jack-In-The-Box for dinner. So, we conquered Drive-Thrus!!!!

Wednesday evening we went with our neighbors and Alissa to CostCo to buy supplies for our Sunday night Bible Study party. Alissa pushed the buggy loaded down with Kade and Ryne and I had a grocery buggy. Another success!

Thursday we had a big night out planned with our neighbors. Dinner at the Space Needle (Kade's all time favorite place). We've never eaten there before because its kind of a swanky expensive little joint. BUT...they were having a Space Needle Birthday Bash and had some great menu prices. Our neighbors, Eric, Justine and Stephanie, thought it would be a great idea to go. They knew Kyle was out of town and made reservations for the boys and me to join them. I was nervous about taking them out to eat without Daddy's help and a little skeptical about how things would pan out there. As Thursday came and Kade decided to start acting like a two-year-old (oh, it was a really bad Kade day) I was really nervous about this little outing. However.....we loaded up and headed to Seattle and Kade was fabulous! Of course my neighbors are so sweet and always help out with Kade so it made my evening much easier. All in all it was a very fun evening and I was pleased that for a few hours Kade forgot he was two.

On Friday, my friend Dawn and her baby Aaron came over and we loaded the boys up and went to a consignment sale in Puyallup (Pew-Ah-Lup), just a couple of towns away. It was supposed to be fabulous. Well, it wasn't!!! We probably spent more time getting the boys in their strollers and into the sale than we actually spent at the sale. There really wasn't much there that we were interested in and the wait to check out was an hour and a half. Kade was having some more two-year-old moments so we decided to just leave empty handed. Headed to the mall where we knew they had both a playground and food. Played. Ate. Headed home.

Spent Friday afternoon trying to get all twenty-five loads of laundry folded and suitcases from our trip to AR and OK unpacked....all in an effort to look like I actually accomplished something before Kyle got home Friday night.
I was definitely glad to get my hubby back Friday night. He and the other guys had a really good time at the conference and I'm so glad that he got to go BUT I was SOOOO glad to have him back home.
Here's a look at some of what we did while he was gone:

Fireman Kade joined me for lunch one day.

My Rescue Hero!

Daddy, hurry home...Kade came out of my closet wearing a pair of my high heel shoes and then found my curling iron in the cabinet and told me he needed to curl his hair. At least he does have on Spider-man underwear and an army helicopter shirt, right?

So, here is Kade in his favorite elephant slippers, his guitar shirt and Yes, Yes, Big Boy Underwear. I made an attempt at potty-training while Kyle was gone. Day 1 was great. Kade went all day without any accidents until 9:15 that night. I consider that one my fault because normally he would have already been in bed. That was the night we went to CostCo and he even wore his big boy underwear to the store with no accidents. I was so proud.
Day 2.....a different story. It was a two-year-old day, I guess, because he had four accidents before lunch!!! He would go to the potty and not five minutes later he would be sitting in a puddle. I felt like he was doing it on purpose but I never could figure out why????? In fact at one point he even told me.....Mom, I just want to wear a diaper! WHAT?
So, we were not successful at the potty training bit while Dad was gone and the potty training saga continues in the Lewallen household. Anybody have a fabulous idea they would like to share with me?

Here's Ryne all snazzed up for a night out at the Space Needle .

And Kade, not quite ready to get all snazzed up for the Space Needle.
Remember, this was a bad Kade day.

And here is proof of a two-year-old moment.

Finally got a nice pose of both of my little men all decked out for dinner.

Hana and her family met us for dinner at the Space Needle.

Hana, me and the boys waiting for our table.

Now check out the view from our table. Kade seemed more interested in the crayons, but the view was spectacular. And for those of you who might not know, the restaurant revolves. Pretty cool except for when you need to go change a diaper and you don't know which way to go to get to the restroom the fastest because it's location in relation to you has changed since you were seated.

Ryne and I were enjoying our time together. Steph was taking care of Kade for me!

The coolest dessert ever. It had some cool space-agey name. Ice cream with smoke coming out from under it. Was created for the space needle restaurant in like 1962.

Kade looking up at the space needle after dinner.

Playtime at the mall with Dawn and Aaron.

Kade getting ready to swim with the dolphins. Playtime was much needed for this guy!

Kade looking over Ryne as we cruise through the mall. I really like my new double stroller. Kade has the option to stand or sit in the back of Ryne. There's only one problem, if he really wants to hop off while he's standing...there's nothing stopping him!

On Friday afternoon we took our daily trip to the mailbox and Kade had a package. Monk Monk had sent coloring books and crayons. Kade was thrilled. Coloring seems to be his new favorite thing to do. I had mentioned to Monk that Kade had already colored all of the pages in the coloring books that he got for Easter so she hooked him up with fresh pages to color.

Look, Mom, this one has crayons of its very own!
Thanks Monk, Monk!!!

And Ryne on Friday night seems to be saying, "Mommy, is Daddy ever coming home? I'm getting kind of tired of you and Kade." Can't say that I blame the poor guy.