If you are family or a {very} long time reader, you may remember Michael’s 3rd grade music performance – his last music performance, actually.

Do you see him? Wearing the striped shirt in the back left hiding behind the wall? Yup. That’s Michael. The quiet one. The shy one. The one who never had to attend another music performance because he had such anxiety about people watching him on stage.

Please excuse my small photos… they are from my original blog. Back then I obviously didn’t know that bigger was better. 

A few months later, Jack had his preschool music performance. He made us realize that though brothers, he and Michael are completely different.

Fast forward to 3:40 into the video:

And now.

Last night, Jack spent the night at a friend’s house. The friend’s Mom was taking her son Colton to the school talent show (he was lip synching), and Jack was going to tag along.

Last minute, she asked if Jack wanted to go up on stage while her Colton lip synched his song.

Jack didn’t know the words, but said yes, and decided that he would “shake it” while Colton was performing.

No rehearsal.

No prior notice.

And obviously, no second thoughts.

Colton’s Mom called me and we rushed over to catch Jack’s performance.

You don’t have to fast forward this video, because he dances for the entire 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

Michael and his friends were watching, and one said “Michael, isn’t that your brother? You are SO different.”

I get the nature vs. nurture debate, but today?

It’s all about nature.

Jack Shakes It is property of: Our Crazy Boys

So, you’ve probably seen the hilarious Brandi in Sh*t Mom Bloggers Say.

Oh, you haven’t?

Ok. Here it is. I’ll wait.

A few days after Brandi’s video came out, a video from a Mom Blogger’s husbandcame out…

It was equally hilarious. I watched the videos with the boys and Michael decided that we needed to add to the craziness.

Because, apparently, I drive them a little crazy with the blog talk.

So, I bring you… Sh*t (or stuff, because we are kid friendly) Mom Blogger’s Kids Say:

Sh*t Mom Blogger’s Kids Say is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Happy Holidays to each and every one of you!

From Our Family To Yours…. is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Really?

Can you explain…

the live worm on the ceiling fan?

the yarn necklace on the dog?

the stash in your closet that rivals “Hoarders?”

the broken ornament? (broken when juggling the glass ornaments)

the loose worms in the living room?

the loose crickets in the den throughout the entire house?

the nail and hammer forgotten under my back tire?

the exploding toilet and blatant misuse of toilet paper?

If you can’t explain these to Santa, we will. You’re an energetic and curious 7 year-old who doesn’t let life pass by quietly.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

—

Linked with my dear friends Amanda, Kristi and Lolli for Wordless/Wordful Wednesday.

We Can Explain. is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Every once in a while, it’s necessary to take a break.

For your sanity, for your family, for yourself.

I didn’t plan on taking a break, but it turns out that it was a necessary thing. I’m trying to keep the computer closed between the hours of 3-8 p.m. which, I have found out, is my most productive time of the day.

Hence, no blog posts going up.

I thought I’d let you know what we have been up to.

My dear friend Nicole brought her family back to Tucson for a few days, and we were able to get some girl time in.

Ignore that messy counter. We’re making memories. 

Jack decided that life around the house was a little boring, so while he was feeding Billy, he threw a mealworm up.

Yes, up.

Onto the ceiling fan. Where it stuck.

Until it fell.

Yup. I can’t even make that up.

I went out on a rare lunch date with some of my best and oldest friends (they’re not old, our friendships are). It was the best birthday gift ever!

Our amazing server wasn’t an amazing photographer, so please pardon the crazy colors. Tucson doesn’t normally have lime green trees :)

Well, maybe my new iPhone4S was the best.

No… they’re tied.

We have been eating artichokes like crazy. With the amazing recipe from The Killer Griller, we have grown to love artichokes during the past few months. Yes, right in time for them to go out of season. But next year, we are ordering a case of them from Ocean Mist Farms right at the beginning of the artichoke season – They seem to have the absolute best artichokes.

Jack and his mini-artichoke. We thought he would love it, and he did. Can can easily eat an entire huge artichoke by himself!

In other news, Michael declared that he wanted a megaphone for Christmas.

Shortly after, Jack decided he wanted one, as well.

Anyone who thinks it’s funny and buys my kids a megaphone for Christmas will be getting nightly midnight visits from me and the megaphone – in person or by telephone.

Also on the Christmas list?

An ATV, an airsoft grenade launcher, and a new iPod touch.

Hmmm…. The list gets smaller as they get older, but it gets more expensive.

And a little crazier.

Oh… Grandma Teetsie came to visit!!!

We got some girl time in while the boys were at school, and Grandma got some much needed spoiling in.

And Jack. He was hamming it up for her.

Michael even got to take a half day off of school and go to lunch with us :)

In other fun news, Jack called our neighbor a vampire.

To her face.

In her defense, she doesn’t look like a vampire. And she doesn’t act like a vampire.

Jack will just do anything for a laugh. Apparently, we are still needing to discuss appropriate and inappropriate things to say to adults.

I know I’ve said it before, but just to be clear.

Michael? NEVER called an adult a vampire.

Or threw mealworms onto the ceiling fan.

Or threw a football really hard in the garage, breaking 7 of Steve’s 30ish Hard Rock shot glasses that he has been collecting for 18 years.

It’s been a crazy few weeks, friends.

The boys have been playing with the Grinch Cam app. Have you seen it? It’s totally worth .99 while the kids are waiting at a restaurant.

The boys have been asking me to lie down with them at night when they go to bed, and knowing that these times are coming to an end before I know it, I’m not saying no.

I’m spending as much time with them as I can, and thinking a lot about where the blog will be when they get to an age where they don’t want me blogging about them anymore.

I realized this fall that I have been missing a lot of time with the boys while I have been blogging about them, and that’s not what any Mom wants. There has to be a balance somewhere, and I’m looking for it.

So, please be patient with me while I over-post one month and under-post the next. I have an almost finished story about the auto show last month and how fun that was for me – a Mom who blogs about her boys. You’ll see that soon. I’m also over here at Dinner Tool a few times a month, and find that sharing facebook status updates are sometimes easier than full blog posts.

Don’t worry – The blog is sticking around, and will still be family-focused, but I’m thinking about adding a little more about the entire family. More recipes that we love and fitness, maybe? I was just accepted as a FitFluential Ambassador and am getting lots of post ideas from other ambassadors. Our life has changed a lot since Our Crazy Boys began in 2009, and I want to make sure to represent that as well as share all of the fun things that are going on out here in the desert.

All bloggers evaluate their blogs every few years, and I guess it’s just my turn!

In addition to the funny stories about the boys and the crazy things they do, what would you like to see more of? Less of? I’m sure we can all come to a compromise ;)

Can I thank you all enough for the kind comments on my last post? You have made me smile :)

Life In Our World… is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Have you ever played High-Low?

Each person in a group tells the high and low of their day, which always makes the low seem a lot less “low.”

Did that make any sense?

Now that I’m back (and almost recovered) from my 48-hour trip to Los Angeles, I thought it would be fun to play high-low with you. Only, there are a lot of highs and not many lows. And I’m including many pictures, because I took about 400 of them in my two days. So I guess I’m changing the rules a little.

I can. It’s my blog.

High #1.

That is all I have to say about that.

High #2.

I got to hang with my dear friend Amy and the wonderful Lisa from GMC. They’re both awesome :)

High #3.

We also got to hang with Joe. He’s hilarious.

He even ate Snickers Steak since we couldn’t find him a Hash House to get Snickers pancakes.

Ok, maybe he didn’t eat it, but it did come in contact with his steak. That counts in my book.

High #4.

Amy and I were able to meet some amazing local bloggers like Suz and Michelle. Suz even put a name to the “skinny arm pose” which, by looking at the rest of the photos in this post, I need to practice a little more.

High #5.

Dinner with Eric and Carter from the GMC Trade Secrets series. And not “dinner” like we ate in the same room and posed for a photo or two” but dinner. Like, Carter sat next to me and I stupidly ordered arugula salad and then thought “you can’t eat that in front of Carter Oosterhouse! You’ll have arugula in your teeth and look stupid in front of a famous person!” dinner.

Yup. This is about the time when I thought about my appetizer choice… listening to Michelle and thinking how smart she was for ordering tuna. 

Can I tell you how great these guys are? The night was full of great conversation, amazing wine (so I was told), and lots of laughs. Carter tells some funny stories. By the end of the evening, I had forgotten that they were famous. That’s how fun (and down to earth) they were.

My funny story for the night? Even though there was a professional photographer at our dinner, I had to get an iPhone photo for Grandma Teetsie, who was so excited that she couldn’t sleep that night. As I went to put my arm around Carter for the photo, I touched his butt. ACCIDENTALLY. Someone else may have ignored that and smiled for the picture. Me? I couldn’t ignore it. I said, “I totally didn’t mean to touch your butt. I promise.”

I was a little bit mortified.

Moving on.

High #6.

As a mom of boys (or Dude Mom Lifer, as Amanda says…), this was definitely a high. The Hot Wheels Camaro. The paint job? Cost more than the car.

It was so shiny. And pretty. I took way more photos of it than I should have.

My low?

The only one?

Missing these guys and their Dad:

Even if Jack thinks it’s hilarious to do this in all the photos I try to take of him recently:

I still missed them :)

I had more fun than I thought possible at the L.A. Auto Show. I’ll share more photos and fun car facts later this week!

My dear friend Amanda was kind enough to feature my boys and I today on her blog. You can check it out here. And you should poke around a little, because she’s hilarious!  

High-Low Game is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Update: Congrats to Jenn, Francine, and Molly!! I’ll be in touch to send you your code for 25 free Shutterfly photo cards!

The Christmas portrait time of year!

I will admit that I’m a little stumped this year.

We have done the cactus:

and the big smiles:

We have done the Christmas carol reference (with the boys faking sleep):

and the elves (there’s no way I’ll be able to do that again with a middle-schooler):

Last year, we almost used this card:

but after winning Amanda’s photo contest, we decided to use some of the winning pictures instead:

This year, I’m stuck.

Moody 6th grader meets hyperactive 1st grader?

Should I look to Diary of a Wimpy Kid for some ideas? The Heffley family is quite similar to ours lately.

One thing that has stayed consistent is that every year, we have ordered our Christmas cards through Shutterfly.

There are several designs that I have fallen in love with this year, but I’ll wait to share :)

Not only do we use Shutterfly for our holiday cards, but we also use them for photo gifts, such as our famous (in the family) cookbook. I *might* be getting a second volume together for this year. Funny, because our eating habits have changed a whole lot since the first edition!

After the pool fiasco of 2008 (oh, that’s another post all together) we heavily relied on friends to help us finish our pool. When it was complete, we wanted to thank everyone. Shutterfly’s photo cards were the best way for us to share the news (and photos!) with everyone who helped us.

Fun fact: These photos were taken in December over three days. One day the pool wasn’t heated!

Dying to order your holiday cards yet? I am giving away three sets of 25 personalized photo cards from Shutterfly.

To enter, leave me a comment and tell me your favorite holiday card story. Mine would have to be when we took photos near the cacti (I hate saying that – cactus as a plural sounds so much better, I think). Michael almost strangled Jack while trying to keep him sitting, and Jack was only concentrating on the fruit snacks that Michael was holding in his hand – which was closed tightly to avoid being in the picture. And what mother takes her 5 and 1 year old to a national park filled with sharp cacti?! Not my best Mom moment.

Go up and look at the photo now. I’ll wait a sec.

Moving on…

Three sets of 25 cards! I’ll choose three random winners next Friday evening, November 18th. You know the deal… whenever I pull the kids apart, get them safely tucked in their beds, and pull the ear plugs out of my ears. 8ish?

Good luck, friends!

I was provided with holiday photo cards in exchange for my post. If you’re a blogger and want in on this great deal, go visit Shutterfly and register here: http://goo.gl/DDw7Q

As always, all opinions are my own. I’ve been shopping at Shutterfly since the boys were little for a reason ;)

It’s that time of year again… {a @Shutterfly giveaway!} is property of: Our Crazy Boys

In Arizona, there really is no fall. No autumn. The temperatures drop a little, but there are no leaves changing color yet. That happens around Christmas.

So, we make fall. We find it.

We light candles (Michael is my designated candle lighter, and Jack is the candle blower-outer).

We open the windows and pretend it’s cool outside even though it’s still too warm.

We find fun activities to do… like popping indian corn on the cob.

We bought small cobs of unpreserved/untreated corn (smaller cobs pop better).

Soak them in water for about 30 minutes before popping.

Place one cob at a time in a small paper bag, fold the top to close. Press the popcorn button on the microwave and listen for the popping to slow.

Some of the popcorn pops right off the cob, and some pops on the cob. I melted some butter, put the cobs and loose popcorn in a bowl, and tossed it a little with salt.

The boys approved :)

We find fall by watching football. Well, the boys watch. I take pictures of them watching football.

We play tricks on each other every once in a while, too. Not because it’s fall, but because we can.

And since it’s Arizona, we go out for ice cream. And sometimes, I let the boys order whatever they want.

Even if it’s a huge sundae that I know they will never finish.

And on our way home, we turn the seat warmers on in the car and pretend that we are freezing.

Because then I don’t miss fall so much when Grandma Teetsie sends me pictures like this one:

Because we find our own fall here.

Finding Fall is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Jack has been playing with HEXBUG Robotic Creatures for a few months now – he actually received his first set as a birthday gift in August. When he saw a HexBug Halloween box at our front door, he got a little excited.

We invited seven of Jack’s best friends and they all had a blast!

Have you heard of a HEXBUG? They’re little robotic toys that look like… bugs. But cute bugs, if you can believe it.

HEXBUG toys behave like bugs. They avoid obstacles, right themselves if they get flipped over, and run about as fast as a real scorpion (that’s a little bit of fun desert knowledge for you). If you’re the inquisitive type, you can read about how HEXBUG creatures are desgined on their website – it’s pretty cool.

Here’s the habitat that we set up the night before the party. We decided to set it up and let the kids redo it if they wanted to… which they did!

…which I think had something to do with the little boy heads that we found on the kitchen counter. Gross.

The kids loved following the HEXBUG toys around the habitat. We invited kids ages 3-9 to our party, and every one of them loved playing with the bugs! The black pieces of the track glow in the dark, as do some of the HEXBUG creatures!

Here’s a short video of the kids taking the track apart and rearranging it:

 We played a fun game with the box that the party supplies came in. We cut four small “doors” in the bottom of the box – just big enough for a HEXBUG to run through. Each child put a sticky note with their name on top of their bug and on the count of three, they set the bugs down in the box. The first child’s bug to get through the door won a prize!

 After some more play time and cupcake eating, we played one last game to end the party. On one end of a long piece of yarn was a party bag, and on the other end was a name tag. There was one piece of yarn for each of the little zombies that came to the party.

The kids had to follow their piece of yarn under the coffee table and around the couches to find their party bags. It was a hit!

Pardon the blurry photo – they were moving a little fast!

In their party bags, the kids got some fun Halloween toys and some Hexbugs! The favorite, though, was the HEXBUG zombie!

It’s super cool because it has a removable exoskeleton and comes in a coffin! HEXBUG zombie bugs glow in the dark and is on sale for Halloween. I also saw a Christmas ornament HEXBUG on the HEXBUG website. It has antlers!! Hurry and order before they sell out!

Disclosure: Thanks to MomSelect, MommyParties, and HEXBUG for providing the HEXBUG products for our #HEXBUGHalloween party. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

We had a #HEXBUGHalloween Party! is property of: Our Crazy Boys

For a long time, it was a yearly tradition for my family (parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents) to spend a week in Maine during Labor Day. They would sit on the beach, barbeque, and shop ‘till they dropped.

In 2002, my parents sent me this awesome berber blanket from their trip. It was the perfect size for snuggling on the couch and it was so cuddly.

Michael soon named it “the leaf blanket” and promptly stole it from me. He wouldn’t take naps without it, and demanded that we trade it out with the comforter on his bed. We obliged, because he was two. And cute. And he had never clung to anything like that before.

The next year that my parents went to Maine, they sent another berber blanket. This one was named “the blue blanket,” and it was for Michael. Except Michael didn’t want it. He wanted the leaf blanket. Fine. I took the blue blanket.

Fast forward to 2005. Jack was one. And he fell in love with my blue blanket.

Then he stole it from me. Just like his brother did.

My parents looked and looked for another blanket for me when they went back to Maine, but they were gone. Mom was S.O.L.

I dealt with not having a snuggle blanket. I used fuzzy socks and sweatshirts instead. It was a joke around the house, and every once in a while, I would borrow a blanket back. That worked well until the kids went to bed and wanted their blanket to sleep with. Oh well. That’s the life of a Mom.

When my parents were here a few weeks ago, my Dad made a comment about the lack of blankets we have lying around the house.

I had never thought about it before, but he was right. We had one for our bed, one for the spare bed, and then the boys each had “the” blankets on their beds.

Perfect reason to go look for an extra blanket.

I went to Kohl’s and found a soft, fluffy, perfect blanket. It was $49.99, but I found it on clearance and paid $8.99. I was in love.

Until they found it.

Michael: Mom, where did you get this? It’s so soft!

Jack: Mom! I love this blanket!

Michael: Um… Can I trade you for the leaf blanket?

Mom: No! That’s MY blanket!

Jack: Mom, can I pay you money and then this blanket can be mine?

Mom: No! It’s MY blanket!

Michael: When you go to bed at night, can you bring the blanket into my room so I can sleep with it?

etc. etc. etc.

So I thought about it for a few days.

And decided that everyone should have a comfy blanket like Mom’s.

I went back to Kohl’s.

They had three left.

I bought two.

And now I have the happiest, snuggliest, warmest boys in. the. world.

And the happiest Mom, too. Because I finally have my own blanket.

—-

This post was originally published 1/2010, and remains one of my favorites. The blanket battle continues in this house :)

What’s mine is yours… is property of: Our Crazy Boys