It's More Than Skin Deep

Most folks know that my firstborn is a spitting image of his father. I've yet to find a physical gene that has come from my string of dna. I assure you that I'm the one that carried him for over 9 months but somehow he managed to escape my body without a speckle of Baker blood in him.

Just like his father, Cade is a saver of all things money. Give him a five dollar bill, he runs upstairs and immediately places it in his velcro spiderman wallet. It's now busting at the seams. 

I remember vividly the blue ocean pacific wallet that stayed in Bobby's top drawer all through highschool (as well as previous years before I was around) that housed all the money that would eventually buy me an engagement ring.

Cade, and Bobby both, can be caught at any given moment manning the remote control. Cade wakes up, walks downstairs, and asks permission (thank goodness) to turn on the tube. He'll spend his entire 20 minutes or so of t.v. time flipping through the kid channels I have programed in. 

And, ohhh, the calculating. Ask anyone that Bobby works with and they'll tell you that he can be found calculating numbers at any given moment during the day. Bobby has an uncanny talent of being able to figure numbers in his head.....like how much my grocery cart is going to cost before I get to checkout for one example. Cade found this calculator of mine and I've found him numerous times sitting alone just adding and subtracting numbers. He can also do larger math in his head than me. But, seriously, that's not saying much. I'm not the smoothest mathematician there ever was. 
Now, just to keep things clear, Cade DID get his love of reading from me. I don't know if I've seen Bobby read a book for fun in our entire 16ish years together. I would not, however, choose a book on George Washington and the war. Bobby would. I think he actually listened and retained things in history class. Cade loves all things wars, battles, generals.....once again, just like his daddy.

To top it all off, while getting his hair cut and watching CNBC at Mr. Danny's (our trusty hair-cuttin' man), I overheard Cade say, "Boy, we sure have a lot of down stocks today". What?? What 7 year old knows or cares anything about "down stocks"?? Only a boy with a financial advising baby daddy.

I'm just thanking the Lord that my boy has a mighty fine example to follow!

The Answer to the Age Old Question:

"Cade, where are your glasses?"

Let me just fill you in on just a few of the places the glasses can be found. You can rest assured that when you start your search they are most definitely NOT on his dresser, the designated safe spot. 

Maybe they're here. Safely nestled in the shag carpeting. 

Or one of the more obvious places:  sitting right in front of the bottle of scope. One would surely think to look there.

This is actually a good spot but not the designated one: On the mantle by the lingering Christmas berries.
There are some places you think just might pop up on the glasses finding radar. This is not one that ever registered to me. The ONLY reason I found them was because I was making mac and cheese for dinner:
One low traffic area where glasses are likely not to get broken:  directly in front of the hearth, just beside your Battleship game. Of course! Why didn't I think to look there??
It's always acceptable to place them face down on the couch (where no one is bound to sit on them)  in a pile of crumbs from your afternoon snack. Good idea. Great idea.
Ahh, and the LEAST obvious place to find the glasses: 
On the face of the child that is suppose to be wearing them. This my friends, is why, in the first year of glasses-wearing we went through THREE pair. Yes, three. We are over a year with this pair and going strong.......undoubtedly but for the grace of God.

Let's Take a Peek Back

I thought I'd add some "peeking" pictures as a nice touch to my Peek Back at 2009 post. How cute is it to see kiddos peeking out of the bathtub?!

I have nothing to complain about when reminiscing over the past year. It brought many great memories. 

Grant started kindergarten and has loved it. I think he may actually be in love with his teacher. She overheard him saying to a friend, "you know, it's okay for Ms. Cole to kiss us if she wants to", which prompted her to call me and clarify that she did not tell him that and there had been no inappropriate behavior on her part.......which just made me laugh. 

Cade has rocked the first semester of second grade and has lost most of the teeth in his mouth. 

Rhett finally adjusted to it being "just me and you, kid" every day of the week. He's even embraced it I think and admitted just the other day that he actually likes running errands with me! 

I had one of my personal dreams come true by seeing Brad Paisley and Keith Urban play the guitar simultaneously. Woot, Woot!

Jacko passed this year.... along with my personal childhood favorite heartthrob: Patrick Swayze. 

Kanye blew it again this year. 

There was the baby bird debacle of 2009. 

And one more debacle that barely made it into this post: Tiger Woods. Ouch. What a disappointment.

Another cute picture:

So now I'm looking forward to what 2010 (by the way, are you saying "two thousand and ten" or "twenty-ten"?) has in store for the Morgan Clan. Some things I'm anticipating greatly are the new season of American Idol, our mission trip to El Salvador,  and finally getting an invitation to the playgroup with Nicole Kidman, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and Mrs. Dierks Bentley. And, I know I said it last year, but I'm serious this time: 2010 is going to bring some awesome news regarding our adoption. I'm sure of it. If not, you can rest assured that 2010 will be the year I finally lose my marbles and go postal :) 

Happy New Year to all of my faithful blog readers. I hope all eight of you have a great start to twenty-ten! 

The Joy of Christmas Morn

Much to my surprise the boys didn't get up at 5am as I had anticipated. I heard the first footsteps running upstairs at 6:30 which is pretty much our normal wake time. Bobby and I quickly got out of bed and headed up to Cade's room. It was the designated meeting spot to do our annual reading of the birth of Jesus and our early morning raspy singing of Happy Birthday.


After that, the indians headed down the stairs to check out their loot




Rhett was surprised to find exactly what he had asked for: a Nintendo DS. Neither Grant nor Cade thought for a second that would be their Santa gifts. Our household Elf, Elfie, must have passed the word to Santa that they would love to have one.
Since the opening of the stockings this is pretty much where you can find the children. On the couch. Non-communicative. Brains slowly turning to mush.
There were a couple other presents under the tree to be opened.
A Star Wars DS game was a major hit!
Rhett was beside himself when he opened up the Imaginext Spaceship he'd been eyeing for months.
I got each of the boys a really soft blanket. One in red, one blue, and one white and to my surprise they each were genuinely excited about it! I thought it'd be like the "oh, great. I got socks from mom" kind of fake excitement. What a pleasant surprise!

Grant has been lugging around his little Webkins pair that Santa put in his stocking. He named them "Black Bear" and "Little Bear" because they are both such unique and individualized names. Original. Their last presents were remote control cars. Being that no one has touched them since opening them on Christmas Day, Bobby and I quietly placed them in a bag with their receipt and took two of them back. Can you believe that no one has even MENTIONED them??? If it weren't for the fact that our resident bull-in-a-china-shop (Rhett) snapped the antenna off of the remote for the other car, we'd have taken it back as well.


As for now, we'll just be stuck with a useless remote-control car, some soft blankets to love on, and three kids who've forgotten how to speak and read and will soon have carpal tunnel of the thumbs. Can school please start back?

Jumpin'

This post really doesn't need a lot of verbage. It's just some snapshots of pure 4 year old joy and the laughter that accompanies it. Sometimes breaking the rules can be so much fun!

It Could Have Been.

It's amazing to me how you can be going through your normal, daily activities without a thought of being scared when all of the sudden you're taken aback by something that, under normal circumstances, wouldn't spook you in the least. Take my day for instance. I'm doing my routine chores: picking up, wiping the counters, making sure we have enough hand sanitizer and liquid soap to keep viruses and germs at bay......you know, the usual, when I head into the laundry room to put clothes in the dryer. 

 I absentmindedly stick my hands in the washer and start pulling clothes out and tossing them into the dryer. I get down to the last few things, usually random socks that now have no mate or unmentionables, and I bend over to take a quick peek inside. I yelped and jumped because I saw a tarantula. Two of them.

I decided to give it another peek since, generally, tarantulas don't particularly thrive in this area. Do you know what it was? If you don't have boys you probably won't. Bakugan balls. Creepy, magnetized, little balls that pop into different creatures when placed on anything metal. Apparently someone had left a couple in their pants pocket and they took a swim in the wash water.  
Isn't it just like some weird toy to give you a good case of the willies? Don't you think at first peek, in low lighting, when unexpected, that this could pass for a tarantula?
Eeww. Yick. On a more serious note, I'm glad these little critters got a good washing. Even more creepy than a tarantula in my washer is knowing that my boys take these on the bus and trade them with other kids that, in most cases, are not properly cleansing their hands. This would be a good time to introduce the "sanitize after each trade" rule. That is a rule isn't it?

The Pilgrams Are Back

Grant didn't let his distaste for kindergarten dress up days ruin his attitude when it came to the Thanksgiving Feast between the Pilgrims and Indians. After he made it clear to me that he really wanted to be an indian, he decided to accept his plight and just rock it out as the best pilgrim ever. 

Since he came home from school with this costume I've seen him wear it at least 4 times. I wonder if Pilgrims really had sword and gun fights with the likes of Boba Fett and the red Power Ranger? My studies suggest not. 

Looks like we may be turning a corner regarding school dress up! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!