Laundry Love

I was preparing to do laundry while talking on the phone  the other day blissfully unaware of my surroundings.  I had just removed an armful of laundry from the washer when I opened the dryer door to this:

After I stopped screaming….and picked up the pile of wet clothes that I dropped….and slowed my pulse down to somewhat normal, I realized that this little fella is pretty cute, huh?!

A mom and her boys

A Boy & His Best Friend

Ian is very reserved, a bit of an introvert.  It takes a while for him to open up to people. It took me a while to accept this fact.   I had to work hard for Ian’s affection when he was smaller and I’ll be honest…I thought the kid just didn’t like me.  I wasn’t used to convincing people that I am worthy of their affection.  I’m Shanita for goodness sake!  My firstborn was the total opposite. Freely giving his time and attention and endearments to any Joe Blow within a 12 inch radius. But with Ian, there are very few individuals worthy of his affection.  The good news is that once you’re in…you’re in.  Here’s a picture of Ian and his brotha from anutha motha, Gavin.  Ian loves this kid.  He wishes that he was his brother (his words not mine). Here they are holding hands on the way to a friendly game of kickball. A boy and his best friend.  Enjoy!

Money! Money! Money!

The other day I decided to cash in all of our coins so I emptied all of our piggy banks and headed to Coinstar to turn our coins into cash!

After 15 minutes of pouring pennies, nickels and dimes into the machine and enduring all the stares from the people in the check out line at the grocery store, we ended up with $183.36! Watch out now! We are living high on the hog!

I decided to take the boys to open up their first savings account. They were really bored throughout the whole process and they didn't understand why we were giving their money to a nice little white lady to keep for us instead of heading to Toys r Us to spend our newfound riches on video games. Perhaps I should have done more education...ya think?

Goodbye Pre-K

Ian & Piper

Ian & Libby

Ian is officially done with early education. His Pre-K days are now over and it's on to kindergarten in three short months. For those who don't know the whole story, Ian had a rough school year when he was 3. Let's just say many trips to the principals office that resulted in us removing him from school altogether! But this past year at University Christian Church Weekday School has been amazing. I don't know if it's the fact that it is a new school or if he's just a bit more mature (or as mature as you can be when you're 4) or if his current teachers are just top notch. Whatever the reason is, Ian has thrived at UCC WDS, and we are so proud of him and thankful to his two teachers who have helped him grow! Mrs. Stroud & Ms. Tribble

Ian & Mrs. Stroud

Ian & Ms. Tribble

The Fun Life

Life Is


More Fun


With Your


Best Friend

Happy 4th Birthday Ian

Happy 4th birthday to my sweet Ian! Four years ago today I gave birth to a handsome little boy who is truly a gift from God! Ian you are one amazing kid! You are determined, strong and a natural leader who is not afraid to blaze his own trail! You've even taught your big brother a thing or two along the way! Even though you are not afraid to stand up for yourself, you always manage to let people know when you really care! Your hugs, kisses, snuggles and big grin melt my heart! I hope you enjoy your special day! Love ya to the moon and back!




With Love,
Mommy

This Is Ian

This is Ian..he’s three years old.

He has a Mohawk…kind of fits his personality.

Sometimes he pretends to be interested in what his big brother is telling him

Most of the time he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing.

He has the cutest smile.

And the cutest dimple.

He’s an all around cute kid…kind of like his mommy, huh?

Sovereign

It’s been a rough couple of days here in our house.  Frustrations mounting, stress consuming, yada yada yada.  To add insult to injury (for lack of a better term)  yesterday my car died in the pick up line at Evan’s school.  Umm…frustrating and embarrassing.  The boys were in the backseat yelling, “mommy I gotta go potty! and mommy, I’m hungry!”  I was DONE! Thankfully my good pal Gretch came to the rescue again.  She pulled out some kind of starter thingy and we she hooked it up to the battery and we got the car started in two seconds.  Amazing!

Anyway, my point to that whole story was that this morning, Terrance suggested I use his truck so he could take the car and do whatever guys do to cars to fix them.  On our way to school, Ian said “Mommy I want to hear Sovereign God”.  I said something about not knowing where that CD was as I turned on the stereo and ….you guessed it….Sovereign God was playing on the CD player.  So I started it from the beginning and listened to Ian scream sing the words to the song.  Well, I decided to listen along and all I can say is, “Thank you, Ian for your request because mommy really needed to hear the words to that song!”

MAURETTE BROWN CLARK SOVEREIGN GOD LYRICS

There aren’t even words to describe just how great You are
In all Your majesty
You continually
Provide for me
There just isn’t anything that You can’t do
Lord I’ve seen Your work before
So I’ll trust you all the more
Because You are

You are the sovereign God
Bigger than all my problems
And every situation
There is nothing too hard
For the sovereign God

A wave of Your hand can command the seas to hold their peace
If you can handle the seas
Then I know that You can deal with all my needs
So I will put every situation
Into Your capable hands
I don’t have to know the plan
Because You are

You are the sovereign God
Bigger than all my problems
And every situation
There is nothing too hard
For the sovereign God

He is able to do exceedingly abundantly
Above all we ask or think
So take all your burdens and lay them at His feet
And watch Him meet the need
We have the victory
Because You are

You are the sovereign God
Bigger than all my problems
And every situation
There is nothing too hard
For the sovereign God
He is sovereign, He is
He is sovereign, He is
(repeat sequence 3 times, inverting each time up to one octave…)

You are the sovereign God
Bigger than all my problems
And every situation
There is nothing too hard
For the sovereign God

Blood Shed

Do you see something wrong with this picture?




Yep...that's blood on our bathroom rug and towel!




And this is the poor toddler responsible for the blood shed. Doesn't he look pitiful? Once again, I was at work when Ian injured himself. I'm starting to see a trend here. This time he slipped in the shower.

My firstborn son is a very cautious kid to a fault. I can count on two fingers how many times he has been injured and one of those was at the hands of his little brother! He doesn't take chances and he considers the risks before proceeding. But lil' bro Ian is cut from a different cloth. He's a risk taker. He just goes after it! Which has it's pros and cons. My point is that I'm not used to all of these mishaps.

I hate seeing my boys injured. I have a friend whose kids are always shedding blood. Cut lips, eyebrows, chins, etc. She just chalks it up to boys being boys. I guess I need to put on my big girl panties and learn to deal with it.

Or wrap them in Saran wrap 24/7. Hey... Thats a good idea!



~Shanita~

A Stitch in time

Razor blade + three year old boy=



A trip to the ER on a Saturday night, 14 stitches plus more inside.



At least he's smiling!



Hopefully my beautiful baby won't have a huge scar! I'm sure there are more ER visits in our future. That's doesn't make it any easier. I'm a NICU nurse. I deal with sick babies, distraught families, and even death on a frequent basis. But no training prepares you to see your own child injured. No matter how major or minor. Even my husband was shaken up a bit and he's usually the calm, rational one.

Other than that...all is well! Thank God for small miracles!


~Shanita~

Career choice: Paleontologist

We frequent The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History quite often for our weekly playgroup. The place is educational and fun and the kids love it.

There's an exhibit at the museum called the DinoDig that has buried dinosaur fossils for the kids to discover. Fake of course. They get to grab their tools and get hands on experience in paleontology. We tend to stay away from this exhibit because water + dirt + boys = messy vehicle (a pet peeve of mine) but today we let them loose to put their excavation skills to the test.



It took the boys a while to figure out what they were looking for. In fact we had to point it out. I think they just wanted to shovel dirt.


Careful... I think I found one!


Check out my excavating tools. A brush and a shovel is all I need!


"Gavin...look what I found!"



You can't really tell but this is Ian walking in a stream to find more fossils. His feet were muddy and his jeans were soaking wet!



~Shanita~

Back To School

Ian has returned to preschool. His mother's day out/Preschool Enrichment Program (from here on out I'll just say PEP) started today and he was excited to go! Unlike last year when he first started preschool and he cried and refused to get out of the car! I think watching Evan get dropped off at his big boy school made Ian want to be a big boy too. He is in class with several of his sidekicks from last year and he even remembers their names and can tell you stories about what they did last year. Impressive, right!?

I have only a couple of pictures to share since he boldly told me..."that's enough!" when I asked him to smile. Geez!



~Shanita~

New Kid

It's been a rough week in our home.  So much so that I am now reading this book:

I'll let you know what I think about it!

Business As Usual

It's been business as usual with Ian and I since Evan has deserted us for higher education. We've just been hanging out with friends...



Baking carrot cake



Feeding the ducks



Man... Those ducks were hungry!



And doing a little male bonding!

Evan doesn't know what he's missing!

~Shanita~

Ianism

The other day...out of nowhere... Ian exclaimed:



"I'm hungry...JEEVUS!"

Terrance and I almost had a stroke trying to hold in our laughter! The boys know not to use the Lord's name as an exclamation unless you really need Him. Apparently Ian figured out that it's ok as long as you replace the 's' with a 'v' and stretch out the 'e'!

Well, it worked because we provided him with sustenance... STAT! We figured the kid must be pretty hungry to bring the Lord into this!

~Shanita~

Surprise

This is what I came home to the other morning. I was so excited about jumping into bed after working 12 long hours on my feet!




I pull back the covers and find a kid hiding under them!

This is even more surprising because Terrance has a strict no co-bedding rule that forbids the boys from sleeping in our bed unless they are sick unto death! But when I'm not there I see the rules are meant to be broken!



Don't you just love seeing father and son decked out in their a-line T-shirts a.k.a. 'wife beaters' at bedtime. We rarely don pajamas in our house. I think the boys only own 1 pair that fits!

I will admit that finding Ian in our bed was nice. I got to do a little snuggling before he woke up (Ian rarely let's me snuggle with him) so it was worth the surprise!

~Shanita~

Rollin'

Check out Ian's new set of wheels. Now he can get anywhere he wants 3mph at a time!


~Shanita~

Happy Birthday Ian

Well, my baby is getting older. My sweet Ian is now 3yrs old! I woke up this morning and told him Happy Birthday and began to tell him how proud I am that he's growing up and how sad I am that my youngest son is no longer a baby anymore. Here's tidbits from our conversation:

Me: Ian you're gonna grow up to be a big boy, then a teenager, then a grown man like daddy!

Ian: Yeah, but first I have to be a boy!

Me: That's right, first you'll be 3 then 13 then 23. You'll go to elementary then high school and learn how to drive and then go to college and get a job and get married to a nice girl like Brooklyn ( a pretty little chocolate girl in his Mothers's Day Out class) and have babies of your own! (ok... I know I was taking it a little too far).

Ian: I GET TO DRIVE FAST!?

Me: That was not the point of the story Ian, and NO you should never drive fast!

BOYS!

~Shanita~

Everybody Clap Your Hands

This is Sunday is Youth Sunday at our church, Greater Love Chapel C.O.G.I.C.  I am super excited because for the first time in a looong time, the Sunshine Band and Youth Choir will be joining together as one to sing praises to the Lord.  I know we will be in for a toe tapping good time.  I love the energy that the youth bring.  I love seeing them sing from their heart to their Savior.  It's always a beautiful thing. They will be singing Everybody Clap Your Hands by Joshua's Troop. We have been rehearsing here in the Lofton household.  I can't have my boys in front of the congregation forgetting the words and clapping off beat and such.  Ian has his tambourine ready.  He beats that thing sooo loud.  Now he'll have an audience.  I can't wait to see him get down!  For those of you who don't know, our church is not ashamed to praise God.  Whenever, wherever, however.  Here's a little footage of Joshua's Troop doing their thing.  I hope we can be just as enthusiastic as they are!  I love it!