I Feel "exostid"

Picking up where we last left off, Riley made Carter a very sweet valentine this year.

 It reads "Carter, I love you.  Thanks for being my brother.  Happy Valentine's Day Carter."

  

These two are amazing brothers.  They love each other fiercely and even though they bother each other sometimes I never doubt how much the truly care for each other.  More nights than not I find that Carter has snuck into Riley's bed to sleep.

We've had some troubling times in the past few weeks - hence the 2 1/2 weeks between my posts.  On Feb 15th Haha went into the hospital after having a seizure-like episode at home.  After a long weekend spent at the hospital, he was taken off some medications that they think caused the episode, and sent home.  While he was still in the hospital we went over to Kate & Jason's and the kids all made "Get Well" cards for Haha.

 

If this had only been the worst of our troubles......On Thursday, Feb 20, Kate's dad, Steve (aka GrandDaddy), went into the hospital for an apparent heart attack.  Turns out it wasn't a heart attack, but while he was being moved from the ER to the heart center he had a pulmonary embolism and did not survive.  The week following was a very long week full of emotion and stress and I was not even experiencing it all first hand.  Chad & I were both at the hospital supporting Kate when Steve died and we took her kids to our house that night for a sleepover.  This was probably one of the hardest nights of my life as we did not tell the kids that night.  At one point Liz told Chad that Haha had been in the hospital, but he was feeling better now and her GrandDaddy was in the hospital, but he was feeling better too.  She couldn't have been more spot on.  It broke my heart.  We spent Friday and most of the weekend with the Lovelady's and Steve's visitation was last Wednesday night, followed by a memorial service on Thursday, Feb 27.

Death is not a taboo topic in our house and it has been very interesting to see how the kids are adapting to the news of GrandDaddy's death.  When we first told Riley he said that this was the "2nd, no 3rd time this has happened to me."  The night before GrandDaddy died Riley sobbed in bed to me for 20 minutes about Batman (our old dog who died when Riley was 9 months old).  Had this happened after GrandDaddy's death, I would have attributed it to that, so I'm not quite sure where this recent grief came from.  It continued after the news about GrandDaddy.  Carter told me a couple times: "Mommy, when you die, I will miss you." and he also told me "When Riley dies I will have no one to play with, but I will still have my Nana."  Carter also said "I miss Grammy.  Is Grammy dead? (I said "yes")  I miss her."

One of GrandDaddy's favorite places to take Liz and Zachary was Pop 'N' Cream so Chad and Kate took the kids there last week.

In the middle of all of this chaos, my sweet Carter turned 4.  We had a birthday party at our house for him and it was so much fun.  Taylor Willis took the majority of the party photos and I don't have them yet, so here are the few I took with my phone.  The party was dragon themed and we had a dragon pinata that the kids (with Uncle Blake's help) broke open.

  

On Carter's actual birthday we had a low-key night at home.  Carter wanted Pizza Hut for his birthday dinner and we followed that up with chocolate cupcakes for dessert.

  

I took Carter for his well-check up on the 26th and here are his 4 year old stats:

Height: 41 inches (67%)

Weight: 42.2 lbs (90%)

As a comparison, Riley was 34.4 lbs (45%) at his 4 year old check up and 40.5 inches (50%).

On Feb 23rd we went to watch the Cowtown Marathon, as the course runs one street away from our street.  

  

We saw our friend Elaine run by and also Zuilma's husband Ignacio.  Chad brought the dogs with us as he has been working really hard to train them to stay on the front porch and not bark and chase after people.  He is very dedicated to their training and I thank him for that because I truly do not have the patience for it.

Riley got to go on a field trip in February to Imagination Celebration.  Alex's mom was the parent chaperone and she took some sweet photos of Riley & Alex.  Adorable!

 

 Riley has been working so hard in school and in both his after-school and private tutoring and the results are really paying off.  He's gotten 100% on many of his past spelling tests.

  

His obsession with Harry Potter continues.  He really wants to see the movies beyond the first two (which are PG and all we will let him watch of the series) and he did this homework at school.

  

I wonder if this was supposed to be about a book.......  My favorite part is who are the characters:  "Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, I can't remember."

Riley also wrote and drew the below picture and caption, which states "I feel exostid." (exhausted).  This was done during the week after GrandDaddy died and Chad & I truly were exhausted.  I guess Riley was as well.  Breaks my heart just a little bit.

 

 But even being exhausted my two sweet boys sure do know how to be silly.  Riley likes to make bubble beards and check them out in the mirror.

  

Carter is such a little organizer and he had this fun after Cowtown:

I have no idea what this is about, but it cracks me up!

  

And did you know that dog beds make good resting places for boys?

  

Even with this silliness, they sure do know how to be sweet.  Riley has always been a total sweetheart and snuggle-bug with me, but Carter is really getting the hang of it.  The other night I was hanging up some hand-washed sweaters of mine to dry and Carter said "Thanks for hanging those where I can reach them."  I said "Why do you need to reach my clothes?" and he responded "Because sometimes I think you are beautiful."

And this morning at 2:54am I was awoken by Carter coming in my room quickly to say "I need to give you a hug and a kiss," giving me one, and heading right back to bed!

Carter started his first season of soccer last month and we had fun picking out a soccer ball for him.

He's continuing Uncle Jake's soccer # tradition (#11).

And he was really excited about having Gatorade pre-game.

  

However, at both his practice and his first game, while he is excited to kick the ball around with Chad before-hand, when it comes time to listen to the coach and play he is "tired."  Apparently, at the game on Saturday, he wasn't kidding.

I guess we've all been just a little bit exhausted these past couple of weeks.

Chad has been teaching Riley the art of chess and it's been fun to watch them bond over the game play. 

  

And when the boys had a sleepover at Grandmommy & Haha's on Friday night it looks like Carter had some fun playing dominoes.

Here's to hoping things slow down a bit soon and to savoring precious moments with my family at every turn.