I'm Thankful for My Boys Three

With Thanksgiving just days away, I want to sit down and write how thankful I am for my boys three. I can not imagine my life without any of them and I am still unsure why God allowed me to be wife and mom to them. HE is, without a doubt, the giver of all good things and for that I say "thank you"! 

To my love, the one who made it all happen. I am thankful I met you right after starting college. I am thankful you pursued me and didn't leave me to wonder what you were feeling. I am thankful you are so level-headed, peaceful, intelligent, and patient. I am thankful you seek God's will for our lives and lead our family to do the same. I am thankful you still love me - even though I'm certainly not the same person I was when we met. I am thankful you love to play "hike-hike" with Eli and will change Micah's blow-outs (without much complaining). I am thankful God gave you to me to be my husband.

To my oldest. I am thankful you are healthy. I am thankful you have a mind of your own. I am thankful you eventually obey. I am thankful you love your brother SO much. I am thankful you want to pray and sing Jesus' songs before you go to bed. I am thankful (most of the time) you have such an amazing memory. I am thankful you still take a nap.

To my current baby. I am thankful you are healthy. I am thankful you are so happy and sweet. I am thankful you can sit up now. I am thankful you aren't constipated. I am thankful you love your brother SO much. I am thankful you travel well. I am thankful you nap at the same time as your brother. I am thankful you will still fall asleep in my arms.

Thank you, Father, for blessing me now with these boys three. Help me to encourage them to love and honor you. Capture Eli and Micah's hearts soon. Amen.

Business in the Front...

Micah- 7 months

Well another month has come and gone. Micah continues to be such a sweet baby. He has a thing for his mom and loves to wipe his slobber and snot all over her shoulder. 

We kind of missed the mark on the photos this month. Micah was snotty with his cold, his face is dry and chapped and he just was not feeling it. But I think you'll agree with me that this boy is cute. 

Micah...

-has his two front bottom teeth

-loves to barrel roll to whatever he wants

-can get on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth but no crawling yet

-still loves his brother (and the feeling is quite mutual)

-says mama a lot (and yes, it melts my heart every time)

-usually takes a short nap in the morning, a long afternoon nap, and to bed at around 8 and sleeps until 5 (most of the time)

-has taken a few steps back in eating food. He was at the point where he'd eat baby food pretty well and had even started eating mum-mums, but when he was teething he didn't want anything to do with food and hasn't recovered from that. So...who knows? 

-has taken a few bottles from other people

We love him to pieces and can't believe he's already been with us 7 months! 

Halloween 2014

This was our first year of actual trick-or-treating. We went to Kansas Wesleyan for a truck-n-treat and it was perfect. One stop- 20 pieces of candy and a very very happy little lion. Then we went to the Salina Central football game for a half. A good time was had by all.  

KC & Sabetha Weekend

Swimming at the hotel

This picture...bless

My baby's first swim!

At Union Station- Eli LOVED it! 

Going out on the bridge to watch the trains pass under. 

Eli's watching the trains

At Fritz's restaurant (they deliver your food with trains)- made for kids to love and parents to be uncomfortable. 

In Sabetha- Tynlee is pushing Eli in the swing.

Just look at those cuties!

Visiting Great Grandma.

Tynlee, Kyson and Micah

The Wicherts and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

The following account is intended to make you laugh with our family. We know there are much more terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things going on in our world. This day was just so much that it was begging for its own blog post. Please laugh along as we recount our T.H.N.G.V.B.D.


A few Thursdays ago, the Wicherts were headed to Kansas City. Brent had a Continuing Education meeting to go to and so the other 3 of us tagged along to have a night in the big city. The boys and I had MOPS that morning, so right after MOPS we headed to Dillons to get a few last-minute things and then rushed home to get everything in the car. Brent was getting off work at noon, so I wanted to be ready to leave close to then. 

Side note, at this time we had a crazy amount of fruit flies in our house. So much that it was driving me crazy. Also, at Dillons I tried to find one of those bug bombs that we could set off before we left so it would have time to work and we'd be long gone. I couldn't find one. We also had some dishes on the counter that needed to be washed before we left so we wouldn't be encouraging the multiplication of said fruit flies while we were gone. 

Wouldn't you know we rolled into our drive way only minutes before Brent did. (And remember I wanted to basically leave once he came home). But wait, I still had dishes to do, fruit flies flying in my face, 2 hungry boys and a vehicle that needed to be packed. So Brent did his best to help me and much to my chagrin, we left the dishes and headed out. Before we left I looked up directions to my friend's house in a town 30 minutes away and asked Brent to put it in his phone so we'd know how to get there. I was picking up something from her and since we were already driving through the town I decided this would be the most perfect day to do so (great idea, right?). 

So we were off. But it didn't take long to realize that our trip not only started late, but was also going to be very memorable for all the wrong reasons. As we started driving, we noticed a lot of tiny black bugs in our car. You see, once we returned home from MOPS I proceeded to leave the car door open thus allowing said bugs to enter our vehicle. So I was kinda going crazy because I already had the fruit flies in my house and now I had these tiny black flying bugs in my car and I thought about God's locust plague on the Egyptians and how that was probably my worst nightmare. We would kill these bugs and then would watch as more climbed from underneath the windows. At one point, I looked over to Brent's window to watch in horror as these bugs were climbing and I KID YOU NOT, there was a bee that climbed out. A BEE! But wait, just a minute later Eli said, "Mom, there's something on your shirt". Brent looked and sure enough, there was A BEE ON MY SHIRT! Brent took care of it, but let's just say I was not a pleasant person to be around at this point.

So we get to the town to pick up the thing from my friend 30 minutes late. As soon as we pulled into the town I reach for Brent's phone because he put the address into his phone. Right? WRONG. He thought he'd just remember it. Which usually works, but for some reason this time it didn't. So we were 30 minutes late originally and another 15 minutes driving around the part of town where they live before we found the correct house. At one point, Brent pulled up to a house and said "This is it." To which I replied, "Kari does NOT have Mother Mary in her front yard". 

After we left Kari's house we went to Dollar General and got bug spray and sprayed it in the window crack of each of our doors and the bugs were taken care of.

We arrive in KC with no additional drama. Thank the Lord.

Checked in to our hotel and had a family swim before Brent's meeting. This was so fun and I think we all enjoyed our time.

Then we went to take Brent to his meeting. We dropped him off at 6 and were on our own until 8:30. I decided to take the boys to Taco Bueno. Nothing fancy but it's a fast food restaurant we don't have in Salina. We ordered and got situated while trying to give no one a reason to gawk.  

As we're eating Eli says he needs to go potty. Normally this isn't a big deal when we're eating out somewhere because Brent or I can take him while the other stays with Micah. And can I just add that at this moment I wished he had a diaper on so I could tell him, oh just go in your diaper, son. Since I was going this whole evening solo, I strapped on Micah and off the 3 of us went to the bathroom (leaving our food and hoping they didn't throw it away while we were gone). 

While in the bathroom, I had to convince Eli that he COULD pull down his pants and underwear by himself. Begrudgingly he pulled them down and then proceeded to SIT DOWN ON THE FLOOR to "take his shoes off". At this point I'm doing the mommy-whisper-yell saying "Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. You don't need your shoes off. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up." Because folks, my boy was sitting bare bottom on a public bathroom floor. Can we just all agree that that is just nasty. We finally get where we're supposed to be and of course it takes him a good 10 minutes to be done. We wash up and head back to our table. Thankfully they had not thrown our food out and we finish up. 

Now it's approximately 7, so we have an hour and a half until we pick up Brent. We drive across the street where there is an outlet-type mall. I see an Office Max and remember that I was wanting a desk calendar for 2015 (I know it's weird, but I love new calendars). So I get Eli out and go around and strap Micah in the ring sling. We walk up to the doors and they are LOCKED. Who closes an Office Max at 7:00 on a Thursday evening? Well, apparently, the Office Max in Kansas City does. So we get back in the car and find a Barnes & Noble. 

Our Barnes & Noble experience was fabulous overall. There was a small incident where a boy that was a good 3 years older than Eli was totally being mean to him at the train table (while his Grandparents read the newspaper nearby- without so much as telling him to be nice)- but it was a small amount of time and we played and had a good time the rest of the hour. 

It was about 8:15 so I decided we should probably start to make our way to the check out. We did so, and made it back to the hospital where Brent was at precisely 8:30. Then for the next 30 minutes Micah proceeded to cry/scream. I tried calling my mom to tell her about our crazy day and couldn't because he was too loud. Brent finally emerged from his meeting a little after 9. 

We arrived back at the hotel at 9:15. Micah was ready to eat and go to bed so I was taking care of that. Eli was BEGGING his dad to give him a bath. I was like "I don't care, give him a bath." I could hear the water running and Eli was having so much fun in the hotel bath. Then Brent comes in and says...

"You won't believe this, THE WATER WON'T SHUT OFF". 

C: "I'm sorry, what?"

B: "The water won't shut off". 

C: "Well you better unplug the tub!"

B: "I already did."

C: "Well you better call someone."

B: "Ok" ...on the phone..."Yeah, we're in room 328 and our water in the bath tub won't shut off. Yeah, it won't shut off. Ok." ...to me..."They're sending someone up." 

C: "This is insane. Also, you need to get Eli out. He can't be in there while someone comes to work on the tub."

B: "Oh, yeah."

Somewhere in here we were both laughing and I said something like, I bet that guys is going to come up and just shut the water off with the handle like normal.

So the guy comes and looks at the tub and finally gets it to shut off but says we wont' have water until a guy comes to fix it at 5 am. 

B: "So you're saying a guy is going to come fix it in the morning at 5?"

Guy: "Yeah, so we'll get a different room for you guys."

Oh good. 

Micah had just fallen asleep and we were definitely not packed up. 

Brent gets a phone call on the hotel phone and this is what I hear...

"Yeah, so I guess we'll get a different room. Uh, yeah we like Vitamin Water. Strawberry. And some cookies."

At this point I am dying laughing because the idea of upset Brent asking for a Vitamin Strawberry Water and some cookies to make up for us having to change rooms at 11 pm is just too much for me to take. I'm doing the so-tired-almost-crying-laugh. 

So we settle in and get to bed. We're so tired. So tired, in fact, that we didn't get to read my Barnes & Noble purchase...

...but we have read it since. Not really a book for almost 3-year-olds, but IT IS HILARIOUS.

The End