Oh, Mason

We are currently taking bets on whether Mason will survive the summer, or if I'm going to kill him before kindergarten starts. Oh Lord, y'all, handful does not even begin to describe that child. There is no denying that Mason loves his little brothers, and most of the time he's very sweet to them. but as soon as my back is turned- watch out! I swear I won't be out of sight for two minutes before one of the twins is crying. Mason loves to trap them with toys, or hold onto them and knock them over, stuff that makes them mad more than hurts them, but this week he has taken torture to new heights.
Monday: I hear Hays crying hysterically in the playroom and come in to find Mason "waterboarding" him with a juice box. Poor Hays is lying on his back, bawling his eyes out while Mason squeezes apple juice all over his face!
Tuesday: I told Mason to watch the twins while I took the trash out (a two-minute task- tops). I come back in and see Hays crying with his hair sticking up all over his head. Upon closer inspection, I see that he has something sticky and gooey all over his head. Then Will comes crawling in in the same state. I'm trying to figure out what on earth is in their hair, and I'm yelling at Mason "What is this???? What did you put on their heads??" And he's frantically searching his devious little mind for a lie that won't get him in trouble. When he couldn't come up with anything he asked "If I tell you are you going to spank me?" I replied "YES, but if you don't tell me I'm going to spank you a whole lot harder!" Turns out he had squeezed gooey, liquid candy all over their heads. I still have no idea what possessed him to do that, but I was mad at him the rest of the day!
Wednesday: Mason got in trouble for being ugly to Will (imagine that) so I sent him to his room. When he came out he said "Mommy, there's water all over my bed. I wonder how it got there." I went in to find his bed completely soaked and the cup of water he keeps on his nightstand lying on the floor, suspiciously empty. I asked why on earth he had poured water on his bed. His response was "I think Will did it." After I yelled at him for lying, he admitted that he had been trying to pour water on the cat! And actually, I have to tell on myself and admit that I really asked "Why in the hell did you dump water all over your bed?" That came back to bite me when we took a trip to Sam's that afternoon and he asked me, "Now what in the hell do we have to get?" Oops.
Thursday: We actually got a break from the obnoxious behavior and he was relatively good all day. When it was time for the twins' bath, Mason was helping me by sitting in the bathroom watching Hays in the tub while I got Will undressed. When I came in the bathroom, Mason was very gently bathing Hays. It was so sweet and I praised him lavishly for being so helpful. After their bath, he offered to sit with Will while I got Hays out of the tub and dressed. I was in the den drying Hays when here comes Mason with a big, proud grin on his face, carrying Will whom he has somehow gotten out of the tub and wrapped in a towel. Now will is heavy and almost as long as Mason, so I just about had a heart attack when I saw this! I told Mason that I really appreciated him trying to be so helpful, but he must NEVER try to get one of the babies out of the bathtub again.
So after a week like this, who knows what today will bring. I'm almost afraid to find out!!!

Happy father's day to all you dads out there! We had a pretty nice day around here. Matt got his present earlier in the week. I got him a new grill because we were in desperate need of one. We'd had our old one since we moved to Athens eight years ago, so it was pretty well shot. I got him a decent one at Sears and had them assemble it, so Matt's dad picked it up in his truck when he came out to visit earlier in the week. We've already used it a couple of times, and it's great. We're looking forward to trying out some new recipes on it this summer.

Today we wanted to do something fun, but it's so darn hot outside that our options were kind of limited. My mom volunteered to stay with the twins so we could take Mason to the movies. We went to see Up and we all really enjoyed it. It was in 3D and the animation was amazing. It was a really sweet story, and it was visually stunning. It was actually my first time going to the movies with Mason. He's been to several, but I've always stayed home with the babies. After the movie we went out to lunch and it was so nice to get to have a special afternoon with just our big guy.

Earlier in the week, Mason had his first sleepover at Nana's house. He's spent the night a few times at my parent's house when Matt and I had to be out of town, but this was the first time at Nana's. He did great and he had a ball, but it was weird not having him home. I was glad he was having a good time, but I was also glad to have him in his own bed the next night!

I love this picture!


Will likes watermelon!



Here I am trying to get all the boys sunscreened to go to the pool. Just one step in the 30 minute process of packing up for pooltime!




Once again, I've been slacking off in my posts, but there honestly hasn't been much happening. You know, it's summer, me and the boys have just been hanging out. It's already hot as hades, so the only comfortable thing to do outside is hang at the pool. We've been going to the pool in my mom's neighborhood a couple of times a week, and I've been trying to keep us busy the other days. I generally try to come up with two "adventures" every day. One after morning nap, and one after the afternoon nap. It's generally something super-exciting like going to Target or Walmart or Publix. I should probably try to consolidate gas and do all our errands in one trip, but that's waaay too hard. It takes a lot of effort to get all three kids cleaned up and buckled in the car, remember to pack all the necessities in the diaper bag, drive to our destination, unload the twin stroller, get all the kids out, buckle into the stroller and make it through a trip without too much screaming/whining/fighting. By the end of it, I'm exhausted and can't imagine going to more than one location at a time!! We did manage haircuts for Mason and Hays and a trip to Sam's in a single outing today and that about did me in!




The only thing that's really noteworthy, is Will's swallow study. I told y'all a while back that he's had some asthma-like attacks while eating where he's turned a frightening shade of blue and had to have emergency nebulizer treatments with Albuteral. Well, or pediatrician sent us to have a swallow study with a speech therapist to see what was causing the problem. Will did great- he drank the nasty barium junk and ate the barium coated graham cracker without complaint. After reviewing the video of the swallow test, the therapist thought she might have detected a problem. She thinks he may have a fistula, which is basically a band of scar tissue, connecting his esophagus and his trachea. This is most likely a result 0of the trach and can be easily repaired with surgery. Our doctor has referred us to a doctor at Egleston for further testing to see if he truly has this. If so, Will will have to undergo yet another surgery. Hopefully this won't happen, but if it does, we'll get through it, just like we have everything else. Compared to the procedures Will has already endured, this should be small potatoes. But y'all keep your fingers crossed that he doesn't have to go through surgery again. We're meeting with the speech therapist on Friday so she can work on feeding techniques with him to minimize the possibility of him choking on or aspirating his food. He's already doing better, but we'll welcome any suggestions she can give us.

Better kitchen pics

Okay, these are slightly better. I still don't think it's a completely accurate picture of the color, but I think it's as close as I'm gonna get. And I included a picture of my chicken curtains, which I'm not loving as much as I thought I would. It's staying for now, but I'm keeping an eye out for different fabric.

Okay, so here are the pictures of the kitchen- remember, it was yellow before. I don't think the pictures are doing the blue justice, so I'll try to take a couple during daylight hours to see if it shows up better. Just remember- the same blue as Sally from Cars. I've got to finish some of the trim painting, but it's pretty much done. In the last picture you will see my star that I'm very proud of! It was blue, but I sprayed it cream, then distressed it with a sanding block, and I totally LOVE how it turned out. Once again, I don't think the pictures do it justice. But overall, I'm real happy with the way it came out. Everyone that's seen it really likes it, unless they're just lying to be nice!

Happy Birthday to Mason!!

Yaya helping Hays try out the slip-n-slide


The "surfboard" and "beach umbrella" cupcakes!



birthday boy!!!!




Make a wish......





Oh boy, presents!!!!!!!

"Guess what?" "Chicken Butt!"

Mmmmm.......Sno-cone...............

In the giant inflatable pool

At war with the water guns

We have a five year old!!!!!! Mason officially turned five on Thursday. It was a pretty great day for Mason. He started the day off with a present from Mom and Dad- a remote control car. Then he had bible school, where everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him, followed by a playdate with our friends (long live the Three Martini Playdate!!) and dinner at Cracker Barrel (his favorite).

The real celebration was on Saturday. We had an awesome water party at YaYa and Grandaddy's house, since our backyard is all rocks and dirt, and that makes the slip-n-slide mighty painful. We had about ten kids there and I think they all had a big time. The little girls weren't so crazy about the water guns, but they all had fun with the water balloons. My beachy cupcakes were a hit and I thought they turned out cute. He got lots of nice presents and I think he had a ball. We were all wiped out when it was over and the babies too a pretty long afternoon nap.

They've actually been napping like crazy today. The took a three hour morning nap, which is unheard of for them. After they got up, we went over to the pool in my mom's neighborhood for a couple of hours, then they came home and took another hour and a half nap. It was amazing, but I sure wasn't complaining! They stayed up a little later because of it, but that was nice. They're normally in bed by the time we eat dinner because they're normally such crappy nappers, but tonight we all got to eat dinner together and that was nice. It's fun to sit around the table with all these goofy guys. The twins are the biggest mess you've ever seen because they were eating ravioli with tomato sauce, and Matt and Mason were cutting up. Mason's gotten into that stupid thing:

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"Chicken Butt!"

Thanks to a birthday gift from Aunt Ninny (thank you Aunt Ninny) he's been doing it all day, and he and Matt were doing it all through dinner. I swear Matt's as much a little boy as they are! But I love guys, always have. I always had a lot more guy friends than girl friends growing up because I just thought guys were so funny to be around, and now I'm surrounded by them! Today Mason said, "hey Mom, look what I can do. I can show the number one with a different finger!" Guess which finger he was using? Yup, THE finger. Yup, I got flipped off by my innocent little kindergartner. I fought laughter the whole time I explained that that means something ugly to grownups, so we probably shouldn't show the number one with that particular finger!

Our wedding 6 years ago!




Will's baptism






Haysie







Mason






Matt

At the church- how good lookin' are my guys?

So here are the long overdue pictures from the big ol' Mikulak clan family baptism event!! It went surprisingly well. The kids behaved beautifully and kept their clothes amazingly neat! Hays got a little noisy while we were up at the alter, but it was cute. So all my guys got right with the Lord and we joined the church. We had lots of family and friends surrounding us, and we felt very lucky and blessed. And then we all got to eat some good barbecue at Mama's house, so a good time was had by all!

Sunday was our anniversary, so Matt and I watched our wedding video. I was so nostalgic watching all the fun we had with our friends, who we love and don't see nearly enough and truly miss. Our wedding was fantastic and we were so lucky on that day to be surrounded by pretty much all the people that we love- I wish I could do it all over again every year!

Mason is in bible school this week and he is having a blast. A couple of school friends are in his group and he loves it. Last year he whined every day about going, but this year he's all about it. I'm putting the time that he's at VBS and the twins are napping to good use. Today I had coffee with my friend who's daughter is also at VBS. I told her that I was thinking of painting my kitchen, and she encouraged me to go for it. So I ran by Lowe's before VBS pick-up and got a gallon of paint! I used Mason's toy car, Sally, from the movie Cars as my color model. It's a shade or two lighter, but it's Sally blue! The color is called "Martha's Vinyard," but I'm calling it "ride, Sally, ride."

I got the walls painted while the twins were napping and got the second coat done tonight. I love it and I didn't have to get any new accessories. I used a few different things that

I already had and now I just have to make a new curtain. I have some fantastic chicken fabric that I saved from the curtains I made at the first house Matt and I lived in after we got married. and I think it will be the perfect touch. I'll start painting the cabinets tomorrow- they need a fresh coat of white- and then I'll post pictures!