my opposite boys

Before Creighton was born, we had the discussion that I'm sure most parents have... "what will this baby be like and how can it be different than the kid we already have?"  ... or at least when you are going from one kid to two, and have only experienced one personality.

So, have we found Beckham and Creighton to be very similar or very different?

Overall... very different.

                                                     
Beckham is careful and safe, doesn't like to take risks .... while Creighton isn't afraid to try new things and takes risks.  He climbs like Beck never did and is already more brave on the slides at the playground than Beck is.

Beckham doesn't like to disappoint and is quick to say sorry or cry if he feels like he someone is upset with him .... while Creighton is feisty and doesn't mind being told no.  He puts up a fight and is going to be harder to discipline (I'm predicting).

Beckham is a "steady-eddy" and doesn't have emotional swings.  He has a very consistent personality and never throws tantrums .... while Creighton is more dramatic and will throw fits when he doesn't get his way.  He switches between being happy and mad much more than Beck.

Beckham is calculated .... while Creighton is spunky

Beckham has always played well by himself and enjoys alone time .... while Creighton loves being around people and rarely has alone time besides sleeping.  He usually wants me or Beckham by his side.

Beckham was an easy baby that always transitioned from one stage to the next pretty smoothly without much trouble .... while Creighton is a less predictable and was/is a more needy baby.

Beckham is focused and can play one thing for a while (like golf, or digging in the sandbox, or pretending with trucks) .... while Creighton has a shorter attention span and seems to get bored easily.


Overall, Beckham seems to have the typical, more responsible "oldest child" personality and Creighton seems to be the carefree little brother who will instigate trouble.  If I tried to summarize their personalities, I think Beckham will help Creighton be responsible and Creighton will help Beckham have fun and try new things.  But they're still very young and things could change.  :)

There are some things that have yet to manifest themselves... like how Beckham is listens closely, is super observant and pays attention to detail.  He never fails to amaze us with the things he notices, hears, and remembers .... but I predict that Creighton won't care as much and be more distracted.  Or will Creighton be up for playing/learning anything?  Beckham doesn't like to do things he isn't good at and wants to give up quickly if he can't do something, like hit a baseball.

I must say that while they clearly have their differences, they are both clearly boy and share two clear LOVES:  trucks, machines, anything that says "vrrrmmm" and digging in the dirt.  And they really do seem to like each other. :)

Creighton being a pest!

Just life

Other than enjoying basement life (not really sure what that is, but I know it involves much less stress & responsibility than managing your own home!), we've been enjoying lots of dinners and weekend plans with friends... and of course just soaking up summertime and the wonderful weather we've been blessed with this season.

The boys have been fun lately, but Creighton's a little handful.  He picks on his brother (and messes up his toys), climbs on things much more than Beck ever did (even though he isn't walking!), fusses ALOT for communication (although his jabbering is adorable), and Loves his mama... which is flattering but can make it very difficult to accomplish much while he's awake.  This stage goes fast right?  Beck was a little easier than C was at this age, but we do remember from around 12-18 mos. being one of the harder ages.  I'll try not to wish it away.  :)  I just think about how fun it will be when C an walk, talk, And play with his brother!  But.. lest I sound as if I'm just complaining about sweet Creighton, he is pretty good at cuddling and does give the best bear hugs around my neck.  Those make up for all of his stinkery-ness.

Some pics from the last month or so:

Chad and I tried a new (for us) very authentic & delicious Korean restaurant called Mama's Korean Restaurant.  Yes, we ate all this food plus some dumplings.  It was all amazing, but my favorite thing about the meal was all the little random veggie sides (like kimchi, pickled zucchini,  seaweed salad) that came with our main dishes.  If anyone wants to try it and needs someone to go with them, let us know. :)

zoo time!

at the Indy zoo on a friday night.  there's live music at the big white tent and the train is free. :)  

at the Peoria zoo with cousins

Lately Creighton just points at everything and jabbers away, like he knows what he's talking about or something. :)

some pool time of course!

our lovely friend and helper Grace, who we happen to be living with this summer :)

who doesn't love a good spaghetti faced kid?!

yes!  an elliptical can be a kids ride!

being silly with Grace 

A fun night out with friends at Bonge's Tavern.  It was Leann's b-day that wkend and the whole restaurant sang to her.  Twice.  Once when we started the singing during dessert, and the other time was when we got up to take this picture... everyone just started singing again!  the place is small, but they were all cheering and gave us high-fives on the way out.. I think Leann felt celebrated!

love this pic of C through the door

matching church outfits :)

house update

Well, we've been living in the Bucher's basement for a little over a month now and things are going good.  We've enjoyed being able to take walks to our house and see it be built (they live in the same neighborhood where we are building).  Beck likes showing off the house to other people and telling them where the rooms will be (sometimes he's right, sometimes he's not :)).  Chad met with our builder today and we're hoping to close on the house around the middle of September... hopefully it stays on track!

Here some of the progress, if interested...

the slab was poured the week of July 4th

the framing goes up in a few days since the sheets of wood come pre-cut.  pretty crazy!

the current state... next up is siding and drywall!

we bought a house

Wow.. where have I been?  That is one of the longer lulls I've had in blogging in a while.

So, what have we been up to?  Well, we did go on one fun trip to Hilton Head over Memorial Day weekend (sure, I'll pose the two pictures I took ;)), but mostly we've been consumed with the process of selling our house and building a new one.

Yes!  We sold our house!  Unlike this time when we listed our house for a few months and it didn't sell, (or get hardly any showings) this time it sold just a week after we listed it and we only had to have two showings!  Yeah for not having to clean up after two messy boys for showings very many times!

So our "good luck" and easy house selling process kind of stopped there... not that the process has been horrible, just a little complicated.  Let's just say we are still in the process of nailing down our inspection repairs, sorting through the drama of realizing that our back fence was not built on our property line but rather on common area and needs to be moved back to our property line... aka, bye-bye back yard. (oh, and who is overly responsible and orders a survey to be done before they buy a house and what kind of HOA board cares enough to pay to relocate a fence that has been up for 12 years in common area and no one cared or knew?!)
We were also glad to find out just today that our house is in a flood plane (due to the lake behind our house), but the good news is that we just need to get some paper that verifies our house is built high enough... but the mortgage company might need this special paper before they finance our buyers, so if the paper doesn't come soon, our closing might get pushed back (currently scheduled for the end of June).

... Which might sound like a bad situation to have your closing pushed back, but for us that is actually ok news.  Remember the beginning of my house story where I said we were building a new one?  Yea, that's the fun and exciting part of all this.  In our house shopping we had a very limited area we wanted to move and we couldn't agree on a house.. so we ended up building our own!  That house however, isn't scheduled to be done until the end of September, hence the being ok with staying in our house longer.

So.. what are we going to do after we've closed on our house and are waiting for our new house to be done?  Well, that's still in the works as well, but we're thinking we are going to be living with a family we go to church with.  They generously offered and it seemed like an easier, simpler, and more affordable option than trying to rent.  We're thankful for their offer.

I have packed two boxes (woo-hoo!), but we're hoping to hit it hard this weekend.  This week is also supposed to be the week where we hear that our appraisal came back with flying colors, our buyers are A-ok with the fence situation b/c they love our house so much, we learn that the flood plane paper stuff is no biggie at all, and we know if our closing date stays the same so we can schedule our storage pod for moving day!  (how's that for optimism).

We were really excited and ready to move out of our house, but it turns out that the house selling/buying process has been a little more stressful and complicated than imagined... plus it requires Lots of patience as you wait for reports and our realtor talks to their realtor, who talks to their manager, who talks back to the realtor, who communicates with the buyer, then talks back to our realtor... you get it.  Communication seems a little inefficient, but that's just the process and how it goes.  I'm sure it will all be worth it when we are settled in our new place and loving it.  As long as we get there. :)

... oh, I just published this and realized I didn't say where we are moving, small detail.  We are excited to stay in Indy!  We are moving to Zionsville, which is on the NW side of Indy.

And then he turned one...

Yes, little Creighton reached one year.  We celebrated with some family in the evening.  The evening of a day where Creighton didn't feel so great and didn't take an afternoon nap... he was a little grumpy.  He didn't care too much about presents or his cake, but by the end of the evening he had gotten a little happier and was socializing with guests.

I was on hostess duty and Chad was on picture duty.  He decided to just take videos of the party and no pictures, so I don't have any pictures to post. :)  And I can never get my videos to post right... and of course it takes way too much time to figure it out.

So we will instead talk about how much Creighton has changed.

He started crawling just about a week before he turned one, so he's in full crawl mode now and getting rather fast.  He's pulling himself up some but definitely no steps taken.

Being able to crawl means being able to play with his brother, much to Beckham's delight.  Beck loves when Creighton chases his around the house, watches him play basketball, aids him in making a mess, or accompanies in while in the restroom.  His request is usually, "mom, you go out (of the bathroom).  Creighton, stay here."  Must be a boy thing.  Beckham also is starting to like it that someone else is being told no.  He suggests that we flip Creighton's fingers when he throws food on the floor or tell him no about various things.  On a few occasions he's said he's going to give Creighton a spanking... with no follow through of course. :)

Creighton has started being very interested in doors and loves to open and close them.  He will go into a room and close the door and just play for a little bit... by himself or with his brother.  But overall he would prefer the company.  He's more social than Beck and likes to be around people.  It's rather adorable to see Creighton light up in the morning when he sees Beck for the first time.  He's a Big fan of his brother.  If Creighton is awake, it's now easier to have Beck up too, just to keep Creighton entertained.  It's been really fun to see them start to become friends and communicate through laughter. :)

we dress up to play in the sandbox around here

Beck asked to feed Creighton his lunch the other day.  It was rather sweet and Creighton actually ate better for him than he did for me  :)

all about Beck

things he's saying:

He recently asked me if I could "shake my bottom like the machine on the snow plow"... which turned out to be waggling it back and forth.  The idea came from one of his truck shows and he tried to explain it to me, but I didn't quite understand.

His new thing lately is telling me to "be happy."  "Be happy mom."  Or "let me see your smile/happy face."  Kind of annoying since it's usually when he's being disciplined or I'm just being serious about something, but also a good reminder.

This is old, but what he used to say after he pooped in his diaper:

B (crying b/c he knows he's not supposed poop in his diaper):  I'm sorry for my poop mom!

Me:  You don't have to be sorry for your poop, just go in the potty.

B:  I'm sorry mom!

B (throwing his arms around my neck):  I forgive you!

What he's been calling people that he's frustrated at:  a scaby (as in skae-be) dog.  Used in a sentence:  

"Stop that you scaby dog"... directed at Creighton when he tried to take Beck's book.  As first I thought he made it up and then realized he got it from a pirate story on his leap reader.  Still not sure how I feel about it.  I'm thinking it's definitely derogatory.  

What he says to toys or other inanimate objects he's frustrated at:  "you're making me crazy!"

"Hanitizer" which is his word for hand sanitizer.  Makes sense to me.

CReighTon.  (overly emphasizes the "CR" and the "Ton")... anytime he disapproves of Creighton's actions.

what he's playing:

Work.  He likes to pretend that he's a worker (which isn't really a new thing for him).  This might mean carrying around a tool box, digging in dirt, putting things in and out of a dump truck, or moving around sticks.  Sometimes it's even something that's actual productive, like sweeping up his mess or helping me dust.  The other day it meant dumping trash into the trash can, picking it back up out of the trash can (like a crane) and putting it back in his cardboard box... and doing it all again.  He even told me to ask him how is day was going and responded, "Great.  Works great.  I'm working hard."  I even got to job shadow him and learn Exactly how he did his hard job.  I made the mistake of describing each piece of trash as he pick it up and had to do that several times in a row.  :)

Pretend.  He's good at talking to himself and playing pretend.  The other day he said he was going to return some of his books to the library and they ended up in my boots.  That works.

Anything that makes Creighton laugh, which is usually chase or dumping a bunch of toys or knocking over kleenex boxes.  Yes, this means the boys have been making a lot of messes lately!

the other night we out for a family dinner and looked over to find Beck making a pencil mustache  :)

another vacation

So about a month after we went to AZ (which puts us into the middle of March) we were due for another vacation and traveled to the other side of the country to Miami, FL with Chad's fam.

It's was fun to enjoy the beautiful weather (that we didn't get to relax in as much as we would've liked in AZ... not sure why ;)) and stayed in a place right on the beach.  Having a pool and a beach right out your back door was great for the kiddos... and the adults.  While the kids napped in the afternoon we could still be outside and didn't feel like we were missing out by needing to be inside close to the kids.

Each day was pretty similar, with some combo of pool/beach in the morning, then lunch, then the adults enjoying more outside time while the kids slept.... with some outdoor games and wave crashing in there.  Each of the married kids got a date night out too, which was great.  Chad and I went down to south beach and took in the variety of people and unique beach culture that surrounded us.

It really is a different world down there.  People riding home from the beach at 8pm on a Monday.  Kids walking home from school on the beach path.  Every night feels like a weekend since there are so many people out and about.  It was kind of refreshing and kind of odd at the same time... like people really live like that?!

Creighton looking his finest for the camera

most of my pics of the boys look something like this... head down and playing in the sand. 

it was so nice to have beach chairs with very comfy cushions ready for us at the beach.  that little blue building was our home for the week.

they love having the sun in their eyes  :)

the "older cousins"

Beckham being a "worker" and fixing the toilet paper roll.  He was so concerned about it there was no time to pull up his underwear.  :)

view from our balcony