Health Nut

First, we finally got Schroeder into the Santa suit my friend Matt got him for Christmas!  I got one picture while he was still stunned and then one picture while he started to rabbit-kick it off.  It was on his body for all of 5 seconds - and he managed to get it off in with one kick with his back feet.  He was not a fan. But it was adorable.

Stunned.

Starting the back foot rabbit-kick removal

Wm has decided that he is now all about health and wellness.  No idea why.  But he got out my 2lb weights and "worked out" with them for an hour yesterday.  He then declined dessert after dinner because "sugar isn't healthy." When he went back to continue working out, I decided we needed to have a talk about moderation.  He then OKed a "small" bowl of ice cream and some resting time. When I woke up this morning, he was back at it.  Wm also decided that Steve needs to work out more with weights after he heard me telling him that he's at an age where he is losing muscle mass and needs to do some weight training (this is an ongoing battle with Steve, who likes to whine around about aches and pains that could be helped quite a bit with some resistance work!)  This has become Wm's personal mission.  He actually got Steve to lift some weights last night! (And not the 2lb-ers, either!) Steve gets more cardio than anyone, but hates weights. I told Wm he could be a personal trainer and now he's all into that idea.  But, he's the mean kind where he yells at you and tells you that you are flabby and out of shape.

Crocs

I have a giant box that Wm thinks is the perfect size for a Wm coffin.  So he likes to lay in it and pretend to be dead.  Totally normal stuff.

Wm also found fleece lined Crocs and will NOT take them off.  I got out of bed 10 minutes after he did, but he had already put them on and was running around the house.  Steve is horrified. You can see the offending footwear in his coffin picture above.  They were buy one get one free so we got him the next size up for when he outgrows these.  Wm LOVES him some Crocs.  Like...intensely loves Crocs. 

Also, this made me laugh quite a bit....

Wm: Why do you have to work on weekends sometimes, Daddy?

Steve: If we have a tournament, lots of people come and there's a lot of work to do!

Me: And Daddy is the Big Boss of tournaments so he has to be there to run the show.

Wm: Like you are the Big Boss of the family?

Me: Actually, Wm, families don't really have "bosses," it's more like-

Wm: Well, this family has a boss.  And it is Mommy.

Christmas

Wm has finally torn through his presents and we are all exhausted! Wm said it was the best Christmas of his life.  But he says that every year.  I think he forgets in the other 364 days of the year how awesome Christmas is! He was under strict instructions not to get out of bed before 6AM.  At 6:01, he was in our room.   And we were off...

Xmas breakfast: homemade old fashioned gingerbread!

FuzzyHair MacKenzie getting ready to open!

Rock/mineral mining with Mommy

Daddy discovers we are making a mess

Quartz FOUND! Mess MADE.  Mission: ACCOMPLISHED.

Playing Skylanders on the PS4

Growing crystals with Daddy (in apron and embarrassed)

Wm got 3 pairs of safety glasses this Xmas in various presents.  He is crushing it. Wm the Science Guy. After we opened at home, we went over to Mimi and Guy's for more presents and Christmas lunch! (The following pictures were taken from Steve's phone, so they are weird.)

Steve finally gets to open something!

Mimi supervising 

Guy opening and my hands explaining

Cross bow!  Jackpot!

Mimi likes her slippers!

Wm is very excited

Electric circuit toy - Wm's favorite! (New hat too!)

Wm is still full of energy.  He is getting fairly grumpy, however, which means he is secretly tired.  Time for me to binge watch old episodes of 30 Rock on Netflix while Wm plays with his new stuff and Steve snores on the couch! But first, Steve says we have to get Chinese food.  That is Steve's favorite Christmas tradition.  Egg rolls...here we come!

Christmas Eve

The Christmas festivities have begun!  Wm, of course, is on cloud nine.  Here is a sampling of what has gone down so far...

Wm built a kit from Uncle Drew & Aunt Jess.  Go Da Vinci!

Schroeder and I snuggled and watched a movie

Wm gets his stocking Xmas Eve

VERY excited about Lego Mini-Figure

More good stuff in there...

Sour Patch Kids!

And, of course, Christmas cookie making!

Wm is currently playing the Lego Superheroes game for the PS4 he got in his stocking.  He is a happy boy!!  Schroeder makes a great audience.  

And Mimi and Guy are coming for dinner tonight!  Wm can't even stand the fun.

Suck it, Nerds!

Wm actually got up with me this morning and did exercises! Steve, meanwhile…did not.  BUT, Steve got amazing news last week!  He is getting a very sizable bonus for being awesome at work.  I decided he deserved a PS4 for Christmas so I went on the hunt.  But they were NOWHERE (literally every place on the planet is sold out).  Using my wiles and nerd allure, I managed to get someone at GameStop to tell me exactly when their next delivery was coming and showed up and snagged one.  Since it cost one million dollars, Steve got an email from our credit card company saying that someone had spent millions of dollars at GameStop - so I figured why make him wait until Christmas?  Needless to say, Steve was VERY HAPPY about the PS4.

Farewell XBox, we hardly knew ye

Wm has found a love of computer programming.  They did a quick unit on it at school and showed the kids a little game they can play that teaches them the basics of programming.  Wm LOVES it and spends all his time on the computer working on it now.  He just programs a tiny snail to move across the screen in a pattern, but he finds it endlessly entertaining.  It's hilarious, though - he's exactly like my students: he will work on his code forever, then click to start it, but there will be an error someplace so it doesn't run right and he has a giant fit.  The other thing that annoys him is that Schroeder wants to lay on the keyboard while he's working.  Wm screams, "NO, CAT! Go away!!!!"  But Schroeder is not deterred and this goes on the ENTIRE time Wm is typing away.

Kitty mid-yawn!

Morning People

The difference between the young and old...

THE OLD

Me: I have decided we are all going to wake up an hour earlier and exercise  together! Even on the weekends! It's supposed to improve your sleep, make your body healthier, and make you happier during the day!

Steve: HAHAHAHAHA! No. 

Me: Yep!

Steve: Do not wake me up. 

Me: We start tomorrow!

Steve: If you wake me up, it will have a very negative impact on our marital relationship. 

Me: You suck. 

Steve: Just DO NOT WAKE ME UP. Don't even make noise when you get up or I will kill you. 

Me: You ruin all my fun plans!

Steve: Yep. 

THE YOUNG

Me: I have decided we are all going to wake up an hour earlier and exercise  together! Even on the weekends! It's supposed to improve your sleep, make your body healthier, and make you happier during the day!

Wm: GREAT IDEA!!!!

Soccer Buddy

Steve finally has a Soccer Buddy!!!



And Wm is completely insane.  He calls this his "Funny Person Show" and it went on continually for 40 minutes yesterday afternoon.  Then he had the unmitigated gall to not fall asleep forever at bedtime so I was trapped upstairs (because he has kid panic attacks if he thinks he's upstairs alone where he says he can't breathe and he thinks he's dying - so I have to stay up there in my room and pretend I'm going to sleep until he actually falls asleep and I can sneak back downstairs).  WHERE DOES THE ENERGY COME FROM?!?  Poster child for ADHD.

Funny Willie

Wm: Daddy, do you want another piece of pizza?
Steve: I do.  But then I'd pay for it later.
Wm: Don't worry, Mommy can pay for it.

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Me: What smells? Did the cat fart or is that one of you?
Steve: It's not me!
Wm: It's not me!
Me: Well, something is foul.
Wm: I know what you smell like.
Me: Hm. What?
Wm: Awesomeness.

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Me: Did someone move the remote?
Steve: Not I, said the deaf mute.
Wm: Not I, said the deaf newt.

Tooth Fairy

Wm has grown his two front teeth in, but just lost one next door.  Now that he knows the Tooth Fairy isn't real, the tooth fell out and he immediately goes, "GIMME THE MONEY YOU OWE ME."

Toothless…again.

My neighbors called my cell at 8:04AM to tell me the house alarm was going off.  Steve raced home to investigate and discovered Schroeder had somehow set off the motion detector (it's not supposed to detect things under 40 lbs). The neighbors were not pleased to be awoken by a screaming siren before 8AM.  I feel awful.  I was afraid Schroeder had knocked over the Christmas tree - which he likes to climb - and that is what set it off.  But Steve said everything was in order.  He was not pleased with The Cat.  But, seriously, how can you stay mad at this?

Sleepy and cuddly kitten

Steve turns 37 this weekend.  THIRTY-SEVEN.  No idea how that happened.  His eye is all weird and painful like something is in it, he has some sort of Mount Everest hiker chapped lip thing happening, and his nose is clogged…so he is grumpy.  I told him he's probably allergic to the cat! The alarm was the icing on Steve's birthday cake of sorrows.  I asked him if he wants me to do something special for him tonight to start his birthday weekend off right and he was all, "no."  I told him I bought orange honey glazed bacon at Lucky's and that perked him up.  Pancakes and bacon for dinner!  Happy Birthday, Steve! (Steve and Wm are also watching The Hobbit, which Steve loves.  So he has that to look forward to!)

Popular

I'm very popular with man and beast...

And Schroeder does NOT like to be ignored.

Me: Haha - look Wm!  Schroeder is giving himself a bath and if I run my fingernails gentley through his freshly groomed fur it drives him bonkers!

Wm: Lemme see.

Me: Watch!  HA!   See?  He gets it all perfect, then I put trails in it and it bugs him and he has to fix it.

Wm: So what you're saying is that you enjoy annoying kittens?

Me: Well, when you put it that way...it doesn't sound very good.

Wm: MmmHmmm.

Schroeder is sick and had to go to the vet today.  He has to take cat antibiotics and he DOES NOT like that.  At all.  Getting them down his evil gullet is quite the experience.  And this goes on for 8 days....

Too Much Kitten

There no such thing as too much kitten....

Wm is enthralled

Naptime

Later, Schroeder decided to nap on top of Steve

Schroeder does not like to be away from his people.  He follows us around the house, weaving in between our legs, and meow-yells at us when we return from being out of the house and then tries to climb up us, purring all the while.  In fact, Schroeder purrs constantly - even while attacking Wm's stuffed animal in a psychotic frenzy of feline rage.  Turn up your volume and you can hear Schroeder the Motor going:

Wm is back on the iPad.  There is only so long anything in the world can keep him away.  He loves when the kitten comes in and sleeps with him at night.  And playing with him.  Wm came and woke me up this morning not tell me he was hungry, but to tell me Schroeder seemed hungry and I had to get up and feed him.

We got a bunch of snow yesterday and Wm went out and went sledding down our back hill while I shoveled the sidewalk and driveway.  It's a winter wonderland!  It feels more like Christmas is coming now!

Big Bro Willie

Steve and I are SO GLAD we got a kitten for Wm. We have never seen Wm like this.  He is so in love with Schroeder it's crazy.  He says Schroeder is "a genius cat" and that he loves him "8 times more than the iPad."  In fact, Wm hasn't even touched the iPad since Schroeder came home.  Which is a new record!

Schroeder being cute

Wm has a snow day today - PERFECT timing!! So I called off work and we are spending the day playing with the new kitten. Right now, there's just ice out there, but they are saying 4-8 inches is going to fall starting in a couple hours.  So we'll be snuggled up with The King of Purrs. Schroeder fell asleep on Wm's lap shortly after this and Wm was in HOG HEAVEN.  Wm said, "you like to take naps with your big brother, right Schroeder?"  So cute.

Best Buds

Here is the picture we took at the Humane Society while we were waiting to finalize his adoption.  Wm is gleeful.

How adorable is Wm playing with Schroeder?

Welcome Schroeder!

Well, "Fester" turned out to be not too nice.  He was a gorgeous cat...but just not the one for us.  Right after Wm met him, he knew.  So we played with some other kittens and did the rounds.  Then, right before we left, we played with one last kitten.  Schroeder.  And Wm was in love.  Schroeder is very sweet and purrs CONSTANTLY.  He loves to be petted and will purr and rub against anyone nearby.  He is also super playful (a Wm requirement).  Wm decided he didn't look like a Tater FuzzButt McFuzzy - he looked like a Shroeder.  So Schroeder it stays.  Wm said Schroeder is better than every other present he has ever gotten all combined.  I have never seen Wm so excited about anything.  We are working on being slow and gentle since Wm's fast, twitchy movements tend to freak The Schroed out a bit.  This may be a good lesson for Wm!!  It is really cute to see Wm working so hard to be sweet and gentle and so in love with his new pet!

Kitten!

We put the little tree up in Wm's room - his favorite thing!

And, in Big News, Steve and I have been plotting an extra special Christmas present for Wm this year!!  He LOVES cats and has been asking for a kitten for ages (his first word was "kitty!") He has found the show "Too Cute" on Netflix and watches an episode called "Kittens! Kittens! Kittens!" and sighs all over the place.  So, today, I went to my doctor and asked if there's anything I can do with my allergies to make Wm's kitten dreams come true.  And...awesome news: there is!!  I have an Allergy Action Plan to accommodate a kitten!  (She said, really, if I get it when it's a tiny kitten, never let it in my bedroom, and sweep frequently I will probably just get used to it as it grows up and is more full o' allergens.) At first, we thought we'd surprise Wm with the kitten after getting it.  Then we thought that Wm going and playing with a bunch of kittens and picking out his own extra special kitten would probably be even better!  So we dropped the bomb today that his Big Present is a kitten and Wm is SO EXCITED.  He has been trolling the Humane Society webpage ever since and has picked out multiple kittens he is interested in.  Wm found a favorite, whose name at the Humane Society is "Fester" - Wm goes, "can I give it a new name?"  I told him he sure can - it's just a baby and that's what they call it at the Humane Society, but he'll need to give it its official forever name.  He has already picked out its name: FuzzButt McFuzzy.