So, Matt's Out of Town

. . . at a conference for about 5 days this week. The boys and I are getting along fine, with a lot of help from Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, and Papaw -- and American Idol. Before he left, Matt and the boys recorded this Two-Minute Tuesday about what we'll do while he's gone.



Matt's plane left at 11:10 on Tuesday morning. At 11:30, this is what we were doing. We wasted no time mourning his departure.




We've also been conducting our own version of Clean Sweep in preparation for an upcoming yard sale. The boys have been so good about cleaning through their toys that I'm treating/bribing them with Chuck E. Cheese tonight. So Daddy's missing a lot of fun.

But I think he's having some fun of his own, too. This was recorded last night, or maybe very early this morning . . .

Brown Bag Lunch from Kenny Conley on Vimeo.

Maybe we need an air hockey table

Here's video of the boys playing air hockey with two leftover plumbing pieces and a quarter on the ottoman. Very resourceful!



BTW, the plumbing pieces laying around the house should give a little insight into how our weekend went -- flooded basement, couldn't find the replacement part, water turned off for 24 hours, had to move in with in-laws, shower repaired, all is well now.

Our Latest Addition

Five weeks ago Matt and I made a fateful decision that will forever change the face of our family. We decided to get a dog. We'd been thinking about it for several months, considering it for Christmas, but the time wasn't right. Thought we might wait until Azlan was potty trained, but that could be forever. So after much research into breed characteristics, one weekend we decided this was the weekend we were going to get a dog.

Enter, Toodles . . .

Toodles is a golden doodle, which means her mom was a poodle and her dad was a golden retriever. Her breeder says she'll be 45-50lbs full grown, and should shed very little, both things that were very important to us.

We've had a lot of fun with Toodles over the last five weeks. Here's very bad video of her playing in the yard with the neighborhood kids. She also likes to take walks around the block and loves to be cuddled.


We've also had a lot of frustration with Toodles. She bites everything -- including the children, to the point that they don't want to be around her. She's having difficulty with housebreaking. The vet says she's a slow learner. She barks anytime she's in her crate and knows we're in the house. The vet said to ignore it. She's out-of-control wild. The vet offered us a Ritalin prescription, and he was serious. This is what she tends to look like to us.

So today is Toodles 3-month birthday. For her birthday present, we're getting her puppy obedience classes. I'm determined she's going to be a nice family pet someday. This is the best birthday portrait I could get of her.

I'm buried somewhere under the pile of laundry.

You may be wondering what I've been doing lately. Perhaps this pic will help you understand why I've not been blogging.


This is the pile of laundry I have to sort, clean, fold, and put away today.

Oh, how I wish I had a Laundry Fairy who could come in and help me. Enjoy the following video to see what I mean. I think many of you will relate to it. When you pass this video on, All Small and Mighty will donate to a designated charity.

I'm Dreaming of a White and Sandy Beach

I awoke this morning to a thermometer that read -3 degrees. That was the temp! The wind chill was something like -4000! So my thoughts have naturally wandered to daydreams about summer vacation on a warm beach. In case anyone else has fantasies like mine, let me tell you about my vaca last year, because it was fabulous and I'd highly recommend it!

Matt and I took the boys to Beaches Family Resort (they advertise after every Sesame Street episode, that's where you've heard it before). There are several locations, but we chose Beaches Boscobel in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It is an all-inclusive family resort.










Let's run down the highs and lows of the trip for you:

THE HIGHS:
1. Sesame Street - Because Beaches has partnered with Sesame Street, the Sesame characters are part of the resort. Three evening each week they perform a live stage show with singing and dancing, sets, etc. Every day has kid's activities like Dancing with Zoe, Baking with Cookie Monster, and Storytime with Elmo. My boys thought they had entered some magical Sesame Street land.





















2. All-inclusive - Our room had a little fridge in it. When we arrived it was fully stocked with tiny cans of juice and sodas. I assumed it was like a hotel mini-bar and those tiny cans would cost a ton. Then another family told us they were free. So we let the boys have a can of juice in the morning before breakfast. The next day, it was restocked. It became a little ritual for us to have juice on our balcony and watch the sun come up every morning.











Kids Camp was open from 9 am - 6 pm every day. Your kids could stay there all day long for free. They took them swimming, fed them lunch, took them to craft time, gave them naps. They had daily themes like Olympics day when they had Olympic events on the lawn. There was a pirates day and a birthday party day. The kids loved it! They asked to go to kids camp every morning. So we dropped them off and would spend the morning lounging by the pool or on the beach. (We did get a copy of the Kids Camp schedule and would drop in when our guys were doing something worthy of a photo. It was fun surprising them!) Matt and I ate a nice lunch without cutting anyone else's food and would pick them up after naptime for an evening together. It was all included in the resort price!

3. Such service - Every member of the restaurant staff learn our kids names and often what they liked to drink, too. The Kids Camp staff knew what my kids liked for lunch and their favorite toy. There was always a clean towel at the beach. The lifeguards taught Matt how to do tricks off the water slide. No matter what we asked, it was met with "No Problem."

4. The pools - There were several pools on the resort, but we preferred those with water slides. Two pools had three levels of water slides: one was appropriate for Azlan, one appropriate for Patriot, and one appropriate for Matt and me. We had so much fun cheering for each other when we'd slide down and laughing when we fell in. The toddler pool also had fun toys that the boys could climb and splash with. Great stuff!











THE LOWS:
1. Travel day - I know customs is always long, but it seemed so much worse in Jamaica. Maybe it was just because we were waiting with a cranky toddler and a restless preschooler, but it was brutal. And the resort was a 2 hour bus ride from the airport. They don't tell you that in the brochure.

2. Fabric table clothes + no lids - At dinner, every restaurant had beautiful place settings with table clothes, real silverware, and glass glasses. No lids, no plastic plates or forks. We spilled or broke something at almost every meal. I think we ruined at least 4 table clothes. The servers were always very "No problem" about cleaning the mess and were pretty quick about it, I think because they had so much practice. I guess Beaches is trying to give the grown-ups a nice meal, but a plastic cup with a lid would really help.











3. Food variety - Matt was disappointed in the restaurant options. There are three family restaurants, a family buffet, and an "adults-only" restaurant. I thought it was fine, but we've heard that other resorts have more choices.

4. Tiny beach - For a place called Beaches, we expected a pretty nice beach. Not so much. It was maybe a football field in length and 50 feet wide (I'm not very good with distances, but it wasn't big). Taking a stroll on the beach was only a two minute excursion. It was lined with comfortable lounge chairs under palm tree awnings, perfect for reading a book and listening to the ocean. And we had lunch at the grill on the beach, definitely a memory.












5. Time change - My kids wake up at 8 am no matter what happened the night before. Because of the time change, they were ready for bed and cranky at 6:30 (some nights we didn't even survive dinner before they broke down) and woke up at an obscene hour in the morning. This could happen on any trip, but it's something I wasn't prepared for.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. I'd love to do it again and would recommend Beaches to any family. (There were teen activities if you have an older kid.) You can check out more pics on my Facebook page.

Top 5 Ways I Know I Have Boys

5. Our conversations are consumed by Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
4. My kitchen towels and chip clips have morphed into capes.
3. I found Lego pieces in the dishwasher.
2. My children really want me to burp the ABCs.
1. We had to make a "no guns at the dinner table" rule.

Merry Christmas!

The McKees (and Abby Cadabby) want to wish you a merry Christmas! We did one of these last year, but when I saw the new dances I just couldn't help myself. Enjoy

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I've been tagged!

My sister tagged me for this photo game, and it's easy enough so I thought I'd play along. I'm to go to where I keep pics on my computer (iPhoto), choose the 4th folder and post the 4th pic without editing or cropping.


So here it is! This is Azlan during the summer, so he must be about 8 months old. He's in our living room just playing with toys and being cute. I think he was just learning to stand, so I've got him wedged between the couch and the ottoman. The funny thing is that we've totally rearranged our house, don't even have a couch downstairs anymore, and don't own that couch at all.

Now I'm supposed to tag 4 people, so I'm going to tag Debra, Starr, Lydia, and Matt. Do you think Matt will play?

Are we two-years-old?

The following took place in our kitchen this morning . . .

Azlan: Mommy, I have some candy?
Mommy: No, we're going to eat breakfast. No candy before breakfast.
Azlan: Daddy, I have some candy?
Daddy: What did mommy just say?
A: (pause, then with hesitation) I need more candy . . .
D: Are you sure that's what she said?
A: Um, yes . . .
D: Do you know that I was standing right here and heard what she said?
A: Um, yes . . .
D: Are you lying to Daddy right now?
A: Um . . .
D: Daddy is answering you the same way Mommy did. You may not have candy until after breakfast.

So we found stickers on sale today . . .

Patriot's Premiere

This weekend Patriot participated in his first Christmas musical, and made his first onstage appearance (without Mom or Dad). He did great! He loved performing -- you could tell. We had one hiccup that gave me a parenting dilemma, though. Let me tell you about it.

They had three performances this weekend. One was Saturday night for some inner-city kids and any grandparents, etc who couldn't come on Sunday. The gang all came to see him at this show and he was wonderful. The other two were for our two services Sunday morning. The early service was good, he performed as practiced. The second service was a different story.

On the last song of the last performance, Patriot decided to pull his shirt up to his armpits and dance around. I was horrified. I have never seen him do this before. Ever. Why did he pick the church stage in front of a packed house to show off his abs? I have no idea. Then he started tugging at the waist of his pants. I was dumbstruck -- frozen in time and space. I was in the audience on the other side of the room and could never get to him in time to stop what might happen. This was the first time I've ever seen him misbehaving but was totally unable to do anything about it. The crowd thought it was hilarious. I didn't find it as funny.

(Side note: Matt had to come out and close the show by thanking all the volunteers, so he was backstage during all of this. He had no idea it was his son causing the commotion. If only he could have seen and stopped it.)

The show remained G-rated, but that didn't stop the jokes. I sat shellshocked in the auditorium as people filed past. "Didn't know Patriot was an exhibitionist," laughed someone who doesn't have kids yet. "Really enjoyed the strip tease," joked someone whose kids are grown and must have forgotten what this moment was like.

Before I went to pick Patriot up, I took a moment in the empty auditorium to collect my thoughts and pray about how to handle this situation. Some of you are probably thinking I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe, but please remember that Matt and I have been in children's ministry for a long time. We've seen lots of misbehavior, from kids and their parents. We've seen parents in this situation compliment their kid for "expressing himself." We've seen parents get mad at the church for allowing their child to act this way (still don't understand that one). We've seen parents pull their children out of preformances, never to participate in a childrens musical again. I knew none of those options seemed appropriate for us.

But what was?

Funny thing is that I never expected to be in this situation myself. In all the times I'd critiqued other parents, I'd never once thought about what I'd do. I didn't think my kid would ever behave that way. This is pretty unlike me. I tend to spend my moments sitting in waiting rooms or at stoplights thinking about "what would I do if . . ." Kind of a sick hobby, I guess. But I'd never run through this scenerio.

Here's what I did.

The first thing I did was hug Patriot and tell him what a good job he did singing on stage and remembering all the motions. I told him I loved seeing him smile really big on stage. "But then you made a mistake, Patriot. You lifted your shirt onstage, and that wasn't the right thing to do. We sing to show God how much we love him, and being silly onstage is not respectful towards God. Mr. Tim and the other kids worked hard to make this a nice show. We need to go tell Mr. Tim you're sorry for being silly and ask him if he'll let you be in the show again next year, so you can try to do better."

Patriot didn't like the idea of apologizing to Mr. Tim, but discipline isn't supposed to be fun, right? We made our way through the crowd with all their jokes and found Mr. Tim. It wasn't Patriot's best apology, but we got through it. Mr. Tim didn't even realize Patriot was the kid everyone was talking about, but once he stopped laughing he accepted Patriot's apology.

Next we went to apologize to Daddy. We got through that one, too, but not without some drama. I could see in his eyes that Patriot was starting to like all the attention he was getting over this misdeed, so we made a hasty exit from the building.

I will never speak of this incident again. I think at this moment we have the perfect balance of "what I did was wrong" without entering the "my wrong behavior got me a lot of attention" zone. I'm afraid any more attention might push him into the danger zone for more misbehavior next time. If you're local, please don't mention it to him.

Parents, have you ever had to deal with this type of behavior? How did you do it?
Church workers, what have you seen parents do that seemed appropriate?

Below is video of Patriot being good onstage yesterday. He's the second boy from the left in the front row. You can see the light in his eye while he performs. We really might have a rockstar on our hands. (Sorry the video quality is so bad. I hope it doesn't make your eyes bleed looking at it.) Rumor is that footage of "the incident" is on Facebook already, but I'm not telling you where.

Peppermint Tea

I was in the grocery today and remembered I had a coupon for Celestial Seasonings tea. Last Christmas I really enjoyed their peppermint tea, so I decided to buy another box today. I brought it home and unloaded all my groceries. As I put the box of tea away, I noticed another box of tea on my cabinet shelf. I started digging around and discovered this:



I had all this tea sitting on the shelves of my cabinet and pantry. Here's the ironic thing: I'm really not a tea drinker. I like the idea of drinking tea. I admire those women who can sit and enjoy an afternoon cup of tea. I really want to be a woman who tucks the kids in bed, then curls up with a cup of tea and a good book. I want to be her, but I'm not. And I keep buying tea hoping I'll eventually become that calm, relaxed woman who is so together that she has nothing better to do than sit with a warm cup of tea.

Ephesians 2:10 says "For we are his (God's) workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." God created us to be who we are. Do we sometimes stray from the good works He created us to walk in? Sure. But He accepts me exactly as I am -- and I should do the same.

So, right now, I'm going to go brew a cup of peppermint tea and try to forget the mountain of laundry that needs to be folded.

Charlie Brown for this Generation

We introduced the boys to Charlie Brown this Thanksgiving. We'd been given the "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" DVD, so we took it to Nana's house for the kids to watch while the grown ups watched football in the other room. They made it about halfway through the first episode before they totally lost interest. I was afraid Charlie Brown might be a little slow compared to the Imagination Movers and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that are our current favorites.

We went to Wendy's for a quick dinner on Monday night and their kids meal toys were Charlie Brown. So we've been able to reintroduce the boys to Snoopy and the gang through the Wendy's stickers and toys. I think they're starting to warm up to the classic fav.

Then I saw this on my old friend, Jeff Prosser's, blog. The boys loved it, of course. Azlan was dancing and beatboxing along with the music. So we might get them into Charlie Brown after all. Enjoy this little clip.

The Day for "Redemption"

Today, November 23, is the day that Jack Bauer and the cast of "24" return to TV. It is a day which I've been anxiously anticipating for 18 months. The writer's strike did what Russian terrorists, Colombian drug lords, and a Chinese prison couldn't do -- stop Jack Bauer. Today he will return, in Africa.

Jack has a long history with our family. During those early weeks after Azlan was born, those weeks when days and nights are all the same, Jack provided a much needed distraction. Matt rented seasons of "24" and we'd watch episode after episode during feedings. Watching Jack torture people with a cigar cutter somehow made all of the diapers, spit up, and crying more bearable for us. I did wonder if all the shooting noises might somehow affect the subconscious of my precious newborn, and I decided it was OK.

But the writer's strike took away our beloved "24" just when we'd caught up to the current season. Then the lead actor was put in jail for a DUI. Then another key actress had a baby. Then the NFL season started and Fox knows better than to run "24" against Monday Night Football. But finally, tonight, we get a two-hour "prequel" for the 7th season starting in January. I will have my popcorn ready.

Enjoy this preview to determine if "24" is your cup of tea.

We're Still on the Road

A few weeks ago we took the boys to the planetarium for the first time. Patriot LOVED it and has started on this kick about space, astronauts, planets, and stars. This interest has been furthered by a couple of Star Wars video games (Wii and Leapster) that he's been playing lately. We now have a full blown obsession.

So today I decided to not be annoyed by the obsession but instead to play into it. Today he wanted to blast off in a rocket ship and go fight the bad guys in space.

OK, I said, let's go downstairs and build a rocket ship. We got out our play tools and our plastic mega blocks, all ready to build a rocket ship. Azlan and I put together a pretty nice little rocket ship, but Patriot sat with his arms crossed critiquing our work.

When we were done he announced that this rocket ship was not big enough for us to get in. We needed to go outside, get some wood, and build a big rocket ship, he decided.

Well, no, we can't build a rocket ship out of wood because it would catch on fire when we blast off into space, I explained. We'll just pretend to go onto our nice mega blocks rocket ship through this little door, we'll sit down, put on our seatbelts and countdown for blastoff!

Then Patriot got a great idea: we need to turn our car into a rocket ship. It's big enough for all of us to get in and put on our seat belts!

OK, I said. We found a remote for an old toy and covered it in aluminum foil. We printed off pictures of a rocket ship and taped them to our remote, completing our "button" that could turn anything into a rocket ship.

By now, it was naptime, so we decided we'd all get a good rest and blast off after naps. At Patriot's insistance, we "plugged in" the button so it could "charge" while we napped.

They napped a little longer than I expected and I had a Mary Kay appointment tonight, so Daddy was nominated to blast off with them this evening. According to Matt, here's how it went:

Matt hung the button on the rear view mirror and started the car. They counted down, pushed the button, yelled blast off and he hit the gas pedal. After a few moments looking out the window, Patriot was disappointed.

Daddy, it didn't work. We didn't blast off. We're still on the road.

Well, Patriot, were pretending we blasted off and we're flying in space.

No, Daddy, we have to go into the dark to go in space. We have to go off the road. Maybe the button needs to charge longer.

Guess we haven't perfected the "pretending" idea yet. But I will encourage this interest in space. I've always had a special fascination with space myself. Maybe we have a future astronaut in our house.