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A little helper with a giant heart

We've had so many storms here lately, and most of them have been happening either at night time or, worse, in the middle of the night.


When you have little ones, storms that come in the middle of the night generally translate into toddlers who end up in your bed in the middle of the night. At least, that has been our experience during our Illinois thunderstorm seasons, anyway.


As previously stated on Facebook earlier in the week, you can be certain that our queen bed will fit five people--however, it will not do so comfortably. So, Shane and I have sort of been playing musical beds lately. When we are wrenched out of our deep, wonderful, peaceful sleep awakened at night by one or more boys creeping into our bedroom, we get up and 'make the switch'. One of us will sleep with two of the kids in our bed, and the other will go into the boys' bedroom and sleep in Colin's bed (the most comfortable and roomy of all of their beds) with the remaining child.


And, of course.....they return to sleep, and have a wonderful night of peaceful dreams.


We wake up (if we ever slept at all) with backaches from being in contorted positions and bruises from where they've kicked or smacked us sometime in the night.


*sigh*


A couple of nights ago, while putting Ethan to bed, he began to cry. Colin, ever the helper and wonderful big brother, grabbed his blanket and "Neena", his stuffed animal, hopped out of his bed and said, "I'll lay with E, Momma!"


And, he did.


And, Ethan loved it.

And, more importantly, he fell right asleep, and stayed asleep all night long.

This has been the habit now for a couple of nights in a row.....Shane puts Colin back in his bed once they are both asleep, and none is the wiser. I'm not sure how long it will continue, but I just love that little protective instinct that Colin is showing. He has such a heart for his brothers!

{Mighty} Wordless Wednesday

Guess who--oo?!

*hee hee*

The beauty after the storm(s)

Funder, Whitening and Toe-madoes--Take Two!

We had some crazy storms roll through here last night--major enough to apparently make some news on the National Weather Channel! Here are a few pictures that we snapped while we were supposed to be "taking shelter in an interior room on the lowest level of the house" out of our back door during the storm, and shortly after.

Clouds circulating....they were so low and moving so fast!

This is right over our back yard--you can see the swingset in the lower corner

Lake Merritt has returned! To the boys' dismay, however, it was gone by this morning.



Shane checking out our neighbor's tree across the street--it split the whole tree in half

Another tree split right around the corner. Literally, there was damage on every side of us, but we had NONE in our own yard! We were praising God for that!

Welcome to Catlin! Don't mind our mess, please.

Here is the link to a local article (and better picture, actually) of a train that was derailed by either vicious winds or a tornado that touched down. This is one mile east of our house....tornadoes were touching down all around us, apparently, but thankfully there was no major damage.

You can see part of the train is half-sitting on the tracks....

....and those are the cars that were all tipped over on their sides.

They said it overturned 40 cars total, out of about 75.

Mangled cars


And, from the opposite angle....

(By the way--yes, we were totally checking out damage as soon as the storm was over! Shane would definitely be 'that guy' you see in all the Weather Channel videos that is like, 10 feet from the F-5 tornadoes with a wriggling video camera, saying things like "Oh man.....it's tearing the whole building apart! Oh, man!! Oh, man!!!)

Ahem.

While it was more than devastating for Cameron to watch his precious swingset being torn into pieces and blown into the field behind our house, we were more than thankful that that was all the damage that was done!

{Hilarious} Wordless Wednesday: What grown men do with G.I. Joes

Cameron's wedding

Two years ago, Colin got to be a ring bearer for the first time. Our Pastor's oldest daughter, Sarah, got married. But, the big day was, in our household, affectionately referred to as "Colin's Wedding."

This year, it was Cameron's turn.

Actually, our Pastor's other daughter, Becca, got married and asked both Cameron and Colin to be ring bearers--so Colin got to play a part in the day, too. The boys both gladly accepted....and even though both got to share in the shining moment of walking down the aisle, to be fair, we all referred to this big day as "Cameron's wedding."

He liked that. He thought he was pretty special.

He is pretty special.

Here are some shots from the big day!

Daddy helping the boys with their tuxes
The boys outside before the wedding with Brooklyn, the flower girl.

{Ethan was enamoured by that tie, let me tell you.}

It seems as though the thrill of picture taking wears off extremely

quickly when you're three (or five) years old.....

I think the look on their faces here is just priceless. Especially Colin's.

The flared nostrils just scream, "Mom....I can't do this anymore. Can we be done?"
One of my favorite shots of the day

One of my other favorite shots of the day.

This kid just steals my heart every time....

E and Daddy

The boys with Grandma MJ in the nursery before the service

Me and my mom
Shane and I

Mommy and E, right before the boys came down the aisle!

Okie dokie! Grab your Kleenexes.....here they come!

Becca and Ryan. Awwwww!!

I love weddings!

The kids on the way back down the aisle--they did great!


On to the reception. The food was great, and the boys really got their groove on!

Col and Cam with Daddy--another fave picture
Becca dancing with Cameron....
....and Ethan!

Someone made the mistake of 'modeling' some breakdancing....as you can see, both Colin and Ethan (in the background) gave it a whirl as well!

I still crack up looking at these pics of Colin boogieing down....


I think this may have been Col doing the electric slide.

Yes....I'm quite serious.
E got tired pretty fast, and decided to curl up with another party pooper. *giggle*

(That's the father of the bride--our Pastor. One of E's favorite people!)

It was such a fun night, and we were thrilled the boys got to be a part of it.

Congratulations Ryan and Becca!