Skills

You're going to want to click over from your reader. Seriously. Because I don't think you'll be able to see this picture from your reader (it's animated), and you want to see this:



Matt Nederlander to the rescue!

Are we still friends?

Who stinks at blogging? (hint: me)

I wouldn't feel so bad for neglecting it, except that it's kind of the only way for our distant family to see pictures of the boys. So, um, whoops. Sorry about that!

Moving on.

I haven't told you about lots of stuff. Lots. Of. Stuff. For example:

Zach turned 1! Which resulted in some obligatory cupcake messiness.


His cupcakes weren't too shabby, either.


Matt played his first season of soccer, but as you can see from this extreme action shot, was less than thrilled with the sport.


For the record, that's because our city does it too early in the summer, so the kids spend their time begging to be on the sidelines, taking a drink of water. Now that's more like it.


Chris went to the Salt Flats (twice), which you can read about on his new blog.


Halloween fun:


Mr. and Mrs. Hecht rocked the costumes this year, for the first time in a decade, at least on my part. We also happened to discover the best thing ever to hand out to trick-or-treaters: glow sticks! Neighbors, I hereby proclaim that we'll be doing that every halloween, so no stealing my idea! You all just stick to the snickers.


The glow sticks also came in quite handy for our family New Year's Eve dance party. OK, OK, you can't really see the glow sticks too much in this picture, but it was too hard to resist posting a picture of Darth Jay (with glow stick glasses under his mask) and J.R. Or rather, J.R.'s pants. 'Nuff said.


It's pretty much ridiculous that I haven't found time to blog about our trip to Disney World. We loved, loved, loved Disney World. There are no words.


And no, I didn't have two more kids since I last blogged. Those are my nephews. Lots o' boys around these parts!

You shouldn't be that surprised that I didn't blog about Disney World, I guess, considering I never even blogged about our Disneyland trip of a year ago. Pathetic, I tell you.


Have I ever told you that Chris calls me Project Girl? He does, because of things that I make, like this:


Awesome, awesome homemade solution for toting around more kids than your stoller can fit. At Disney World, I heard a lot of whispered comments as we walked past people. They were A) Did you see that? They have FOUR BOYS!!!! and B) Wow, that skateboard thing is such a great idea! She should sell those.

It wasn't my idea, by the way. Well, at least it sort of wasn't. They sell a much more fancy version of this in Europe (it's called a Buggy Board), but I wasn't willing to pay nearly $100 to get one. So I jimmy rigged my own, made from a skateboard instead of a fancy plastic step stool on wheels. I'll have to show you how to do that some time.

Jake turned 8:


Got baptized:


And made an awesome Dodgers pinewood derby car.


Matt turned 6


Josh turned 4


I've been doing a lot of sewing. One owl for each son, awwwwwww. Project girl strikes again (and again, and so on and so forth).


We made some pretty awesome easter eggs.


Zach likes to get messy, and to bump his head:


Mmmmmmmmm, hot chocolate power (with head bump):


Oh, and Z also totally knows how one is supposed to use Tech Decks. He showed me:


That probably explains some of his head trauma.

Well, I suppose that's it for now. Perhaps I'll be back soon with elaborations on some of the above, including approximately 300 pictures of Disney World. Until then!

Cali Trip

This past weekend, we took a blitz trip to California. 48 hours of traveling for a 24 hour stay? Yeah, not our favorite. It has solidified the notion that we will only make trips like that for A) weddings and B) funerals. Luckily, we went for A. More on that later.

Before we start with pictures, I have to tell you a story about my Mr. Matt. He is so exuberant. Yesterday we were playing a game in the car: I would play Disney songs on the iPod, and the boys had to guess what movie the song came from (gotta prep them for Disney World, right?). Matt wanted to win sooooooooooooooo bad, so he'd constantly claim to know a song, only to sit there in silence when we asked him to name the movie. But he really was trying. Here's how one episode went:

Ariel: Look at this stuff, isn't it neat?

[silence in the back seat]

Ariel: Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

[crickets]

Me: Want a hint? This movie takes place in the ocean.

Ariel: Wouldn't you think I'm the girl, the girl who has everything?

Chris: It's about a mermaid . . .

Matt: I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW!

Ariel: Look at this trove, treasures untold . . .

Me: Matt, what movie is it?

Matt: --------------------------

Ariel: How many wonders can one cavern hold?

Chris: Is it called the big mermaid?

Matt: Nooooooooooooo (surely rolling his eyes here).

Ariel: Looking around here you think, sure, she's got everything.

Chris: The Tiny Mermaid?

Matt: Nooooooooooooo (now he's laughing at Chris).

I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty . . .

Matt: OH! I KNOW! THE MEDIUM MERMAID!

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha, Chris and I died over that one. Love that Matty.

Ahem. Moving on.

We did two things in California. The first was the beach in San Clemente (pretty much the only place the Hecht fam ever goes, beach-wise), which the boys of course LOVED.


Well, except for Mr. Z. It was not his favorite. This is as close as he got to sitting in the sand.


Jake was all about the boogie boards (that's what these are, right?).


Josh was all about the s'mores. He said he had one, two, three, eight s'mores. I don't doubt it.


Here's cousin Eli's special brand of s'more: Licorice and sand.


Despite the extra crunch, he loved it!


Lots of beach play was in order.






And when the sun when down? Lovely.



It was a really nice evening.

Next up on the agenda, and the real reason we came? Lexy's wedding! The sealing was wonderful, and totally worth coming to (of course), despite the drive. And Lex looked gorgeous:


Here they are, with all of the grandkids on Chris's side: 9 boys and 1 girl. Boom!


Aren't the boys' shirts cute? Jay and Lex are waaaaaay into pirates (they even got engaged next to the real Black Pearl, though they were not allowed onboard). Anyway, to follow the pirate theme, you can see that their ties have little skulls and crossbones on them. Darling. I found them here.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Merrifield!

And now, I am happy to say, our next trip is to Disney World. Can't. Wait.

ER Visit, again

A few weeks ago, there was an accident at my house. It happened late on Sunday night, so my sister, who lives in Georgia, didn't hear about it. The next morning, my mom called her. Without telling her that there had been an accident, she simply said "have you talked to Christy yet?" By my mom's tone, my sister knew something was up. Her response?

"What did Matt break?"

Yep. That's my Matty.

Here he is, in his all of his post-ER glory:


So, here's the story. Matt had this huge pile of pillows in the basement. He was jumping like a hooligan onto said pillows. Oh yeah, and the pile of pillows was next to the stone fireplace hearth. Minor detail. Long story short, Matt ended up falling face-first onto the edge of the stone fireplace heart, and ripped open a big hole under his nose in the process. Seriously, so gross. I got really woozy when I saw the hole in his face, and had visions running through my head of the horrible scar he'd have for life.

In the end, he may or may not have broken his nose. The doctor did pull a bone chip out of the wound. He obviously needed stitches (5, I think), and lucky for us, the ER was competent enough to call in a plastic surgeon, who did a great job of fixing him up. See, look:


You can see that he's still got some red skin under his nose, but as long as we put sunblock on that for the next several months, it should look as good as new.

By the way, want some advice from a plastic surgeon? It's probably the exact opposite of the advice your mom gave you growing up, so listen up. Want to prevent scarring? Pick your scabs. You heard me. Where a scab forms, there will be a depression underneath when the scab comes off. For the new skin to grow in flush, you have to keep the scabs away with a) hydrogen peroxide diluted 1:1 with water and b) lots of moisture. Neosporin will do a great job of keeping the wound moist.

Need some help keeping the Neosporin on? Matt did. Here was our solution, which he loved:


Oh, yes. As long as you have to have a band-aid over your wound, which happens to be on your upper lip, you should definitely be allowed the liberty of fun mustache drawings.

Anyway, Matt is feeling great now, except when he gets kicked/hit/punched in the nose by his brothers, which happens pretty much every day. Holla.

One more tip from the plastic surgeon: scars will often be discolored (red, usually). If you want that skin to go back to flesh color, you need to put sunblock (not sunscreen, apparently there's a difference) on it, every day. For months. Or however long it takes to change color. If it gets too many UV rays, it might stay red forever. Good info, doc.

Pics

Aah, my sweet Z Guy.


Our littlest man is 10 months old now. It took him a really, really long time to learn how to sit up, but now he's zoomed ahead (well, ahead in relation to his previous speed) and is crawling and walking along the couch. He wanted to hang out with yours truly the other day. I was on the couch. He climbed onto the ottoman, then onto the couch, then onto my lap. Uh oh, trouble.

In other news, Chris took a work trip to California recently. He had a regular rental car reserved, but when he went to pick it up, he found that all they had left was this cute little number:


Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, are you kidding me? Have you seen my husband? I laughed really hard when he told me. I wish he'd taken a picture of himself next to it just so we could get a real idea of scale, but this one is going to have to do.

Anatomy of a Haircut

Josh and Zach have hair that, as of late, has been out of control. They both have curls, and since I have no girls, I am having a hard time letting go of them.

But for Father's Day, Chris made a request: hair cuts. WHAT? What's wrong with Z's hair being a little Trump-esque?


Josh's hair looks reasonably OK here only because you can't see much of it. His curls are fast fading.


So I busted out the haircutting kit. Thank goodness it comes with some fun toys.


Need more evidence that Z's hair was too long? Had I put a bow in it, hypothetically speaking of course, it would have looked really cute. Ahem.


Listen, for a long, long time, I loved Josh's hair. But hey, neighbors and friends . . .


Why didn't you tell me he was getting close to this, minus the Golden Ticket?


Sheesh.

So much whacking later, I ended up with this boy (who, for the record, is proudly wielding my iPod as a Light Saber):


And this boy, who is apparently less than thrilled with my handiwork.


I must say, Chris was right. Their haircuts make them look much, much better.

Sleepy

Man, this carpet is cooooooooooomfy!


P.S. Thunder thighs FTW.

Body Armor

Don't mess with this Storm Trooper.