Happy Birthday, Keenan!!

We have a three year old! It is hard to believe but here he is, huge! We had a blast celebrating our big guy last weekend and were reminded again how blessed we are to have him as ours. He is an incredible boy with a huge heart and we love him dearly!! I will walk you through our weekend of celebrating Keenan Boy. It started Friday morning at snack time at his school. We got to take cookies and play with everyone for a bit. Everyone sang happy birthday to him and he was so embarrassed. It was fun for me to see him playing and interacting with his friends and how they love on each other even though they cannot understand one another fully.
There are 27 kiddos in his class and they are all so adorable!
Elliot and me at the party

Then came the BIG day!!! Our morning was NOTHING like we planned or thought it would be but it was fun rolling with the punches. For days before I had been trying to get out of Keenan what type of cake he wanted, what special birthday dinner he wanted, what he wanted to do, the works. And all I got out of him was he wanted chocolate pancakes for breakfast so I had it in my head that morning time would be a great family time and big celebration deal for us. Well, we woke up kinda early but were waiting for Elliot to get up when Karl knocked on the door and asked us to come to their apartment for a sec. We go over and see that their shelves on the wall above their kitchen sink had come crashing down with tons of food everywhere along with kerosine lanterns and broken glass. While we were there for a bit their boys woke up and we went into the room to say good morning to find Whittaker had pooed and smeared it all over the place. I brought Keenan and JW over to our place while Whit got cleaned up and Craig helped try to clean up the kitchen. Whit then came over screaming because he didnt want to be at our house and at the same time Elliot was constipated and screaming because he couldnt go. So, I put Keenan and J at the table with some play doh, Whit in Keenan's room to scream all he wanted and sat with Elliot while he sat on his little toilet literally dripping sweat and crying for about 20 minutes as he tried his hardest to go. Absolute chaos!! The dust finally settled and we were able to have pancakes with everyone in shifts and we finally made it to unwrap presents with our birthday boy! Deep breath!!
Here was his face when he saw his little pile of presents. Sheer happiness!
Package from Nan and Pops

They made a recording of them reading this book to him and we listened to it that night at bed time. When he heard their voices come on the computer he sat up really quickly and started talking back telling them all about his day and how he got a new book to read.
Reading Uncle Kevin's card which he did over and over and over since it sang a song
Elliot enjoyed the unwrapping of presents too!
His new clock! He can now tell time at the push of a button and knows he can come out of his room in the morning when the light turns green.
From Auntie A and Uncle John
SOOO excited
His big gift from us was a train set that he loves. I dont know if Craig loves it more though. They will sit forever and build and play together. My favorite thing is that they sit on the floor the exact same way too.
Theeen we took them to a play area at the "big giant store" and the boys played for a couple of hours running and jumping around.

The only picture I could get of the three of them. So stinkin hard!
Keenan settled for a pirate party and he had a treasure chest cake which ended up falling apart right before we did the cake part of the night but still delicious and as a three year old, he did not care one bit.
Before the corner fell off
The boys had a scavenger hunt around the house where I had drawn picture of different things things of where to find the next clue. I am not at all good at drawing and we had to give lots and lots of clues on top of the drawings in order for them to find the treasure. At one point when they found a new clue and I asked what the picture was JW cocked his head all the way sideways and said "Is it a fish?!" It was a guy laying in bed to signal to go look under Keenan's bed. It was still so fun and the boys had a blast.
The end of a long and great day!

Out Of Batteries

I have debated on putting this story out on the world wide web knowing that as I did I would become one of those moms who share those embarrassing stories that haunt their kids for years, but I still laugh to myself every time I think of it. Keenan just keeps getting funnier! The other night Keenan was having a hard time falling asleep so he kept getting out of bed which he knows that he should not do. After the second time I took him back and gave him a talking to letting him know that if he did it again there would be more serious consequences and he needed to listen and obey. Being a clever little guy, he knows how to extend things and what things are OK for getting out of bed so a little while later he was up again saying, "My tummy hurts, I think I have to go poopy." So I told him there had better be a lot of poopy coming for him to get out of bed again otherwise he would be falling into the disobedient category. So, he went to the bathroom and I sat across from him on the tub waiting. He started peeing and told me, "Just wait for it, Mom, I will go after I pee." "OK, Im waiting." Then after a bit he half pushed one time and then looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I think it's out of batteries." "Huh?" "I think its out of batteries.... (eyes shifting down) so000, I cant go. (little shrug of the shoulders and voice trailing off) I guess Im done." It was all I could do not to laugh hysterically before tucking him back in bed and sternly telling him not to get out again.

School and friends

Keenan started school!! In the French system, kids can start school at 3 and we found a great Christian French school here to send Keenan to and he LOVES it! Every day when he is getting ready to walk out the door he tells me, "Mom, I love school!" He goes 4 days a week and he is the only white kid in the whole school. He has funny stories when he comes home that crack us up and we can tell that he is thriving there. The first day was sad and he didnt want to lay down for rest time with everyone but the principal called Craig and after Keenan got to hear his daddy's voice saying that it would be fine he went right down and he has been great with it ever since. One day on the way home I asked him if he wanted some cookies and milk when he got home and he said thoughtfully, "well, do we have any onions?" "yeah, we have onions. Do you want me to cook them or just eat them raw?" "I just want them raw. Let's have onions!" And another day I asked him when he got home if he was so happy to be home and if he missed us so much when he was at school and he looked at me and said, "No, I was fine! Really!" Stinker. Meg asked him after his first full week of school what his teachers name is and he responded, "Umm....Five?" "Five?" "Yeaaah, Five.... weeeell, maybe I dont know." We are so thankful that he is loving his time and learning so much along the way. The picture above is him in his school uniform. Snazzy!
JW turned 3!!! This is the boys, Meg, and me at his Cars birthday party. So fun to have friends to celebrate with!!
Keenan and JW's reaction when they saw they were wearing matching shirts. Its funny because both Meg and I bought those at Wal-Mart before leaving for birthday presents for the boys without knowing the other one did the same!
A rousing game of Lightning, Lightning, Mater! Although when anyone was chosen at the goose, all three boys would jump up and run screaming and giggling around the room.
And for the grand finale the boys watched the movie Cars as they ate their Mater cake.
They were all glued like they had never seen it before!
Elliot couldnt take his eyes off either
Elliot just wants to stand ALL THE TIME now! He has crashed quite a few times because he thinks he is stronger than he is and lets go to lean over and get things, but the screams only last for a little bit and then he is at it again.

The boys got out all of my cooking stuff and "baked" for an hour today. They made cakes, pancakes, cupcakes and cookies. And brought them to me to eat. Let me tell you they were delicious!!! I asked what they put in their cake and here is the recipe from Keenan and JW:
2 Cups Cupcake Flour
4 Eggs
9 Cups Sugar
A BIG Milk
4 C Chocolate
Stir with a spoon and then you have to bake it in a hot oven for 2 minutes. Voila!



Look at those adorable faces!!

Activity Central

Our month has been crazy! So many things and so many random snap shots along the way. I'll just describe the pictures as we go. ;) One hot day we went out on our balcony and had water/bubble mania with the boys. They both had a blast throwing water all over the place and blowing bubbles. And as a bonus, the floor of our balconyg got super clean!!

Elliot is a mess at every meal. The way this kid eats is he gets a bite and then promptly shoves both hands in his mouth to suck on his fingers as well. Then he typically reaches over and grabs whoever is closest to him to ask for another bite. The result is large amounts of mashed foods all over the place, but one happy baby. Carrots seem to be his favorite so far.

Keenan and I had craft time the other day and he used scissors for the first time. He couldnt get enough of it! It was so funny to watch him concentrate really hard because every time he opened the scissors, he opened his mouth wide, then closed the scissors, closed his mouth. He had a great time endlessly cutting and gluing.

Bath time picture!!! Our team is finally here and we are so so thankful to have them!!! It has been great having friends to share life with and so much fun watching our boys play! This is Whittaker who turns 2 at the end of Dec. JW turns 3 in a week, but he has been sick and I have not captured the boys all together quite yet. Dont worry, I will!
While JW went to the doctor, Whit and Keenan painted together. They were so good sharing and painting on each other's pictures. It was sweet to watch them and they both could have done it for hours. Too bad the paint ran out!!

Everything has another use for little boys. Paintbrush turned airplane!
Cheeeeese!
Of course he wanted the farthest one! And why wouldn't you just lay all across the table to get to it?!
Nap time for the boys. They were sleeping in the same way!

Keenan loves to help me bake. Here he is kneading bread for me, his favorite. I love these times with him and the sweet conversations that happen as we work side by side. He amazes me more every day.

Im so glad I caught this face of his!! This is Keenan's most common face recently and it is so funny to me. He will do it for everything, but the most used and most effective is when he is asking a question and wanting to look very sincere about it. Look at those big puppy eyes!
The other day Craig and I were talking in the kitchen while Elliot was playing in the living room with some toys and I walked around the corner to find this. Standing!! All by himself! He stayed like that for quite a while but then he got excited about something, let go and tried to lean over to whatever he wanted and crashed. He is getting so strong!!!
That's all I got for ya for now! We are all doing really well. Fun news for this week also is that we got packages!!! We had almost given up hope of getting things sent forever ago from the states, but just a couple days ago we got a package from my parents and one from my sister Alison! Keenan will be so so happy to unwrap his presents in just a couple of weeks. We are thankful they made it!