Since I've done a post about Monkey and Big Boy, I've gotta tell about my sweet Cheeks! We all loved to hear him talk as he used w's for r's and l's. He cured himself of it with no encouragement from us. I was so sad to hear it go, but glad that he figured it out on his own. The result of this is kind of strange though. He now speaks with kind of a cowboy accent. It's so hard to explain, but it takes him some effort to say his r's and l's and it makes him sound a bit twangy. It's been funny to watch. I'm finding that he can figure anything out on his own if he's determined enough!
He also learned how to write his name without ANY help from me! I remember spending a lot of time with Big Boy helping him figure out how to write his name, and that was after he started preschool and he needed to be able to put his name on his papers. Cheeks got an alphabet book for his birthday and went through the whole thing, not wanting any help. Shortly after finishing the book he started writing his name on his artwork:
Now, I'm sure he copied it from something or had help from Big Boy the first few times, but he can now do it all by himself!
I'm also amazed at how well he can draw. He's always wanting me to draw cars from the Cars movie, but he's figuring out how to do his own now:
I also love how he colors. He's so good at staying in the lines. I think he's going to be quite the perfectionist like his daddy:
He's a real tender guy. He has yet to realize that he's the biggest of the brothers and he is frequently the victim of their little squabbles and wrestling matches. I don't encourage fighting, but somehow I feel like if he could just give his brothers a good shove one time he might realize his strength and stop with the crying!
He's a real tender guy. He has yet to realize that he's the biggest of the brothers and he is frequently the victim of their little squabbles and wrestling matches. I don't encourage fighting, but somehow I feel like if he could just give his brothers a good shove one time he might realize his strength and stop with the crying! I've had the hardest time trying to figure out how to motivate this kid. I can't tell you how many times he's ended up putting on his shoes and socks in the car because he didn't do it the 5 times I asked him to before we leave. He just gets distracted to easily and goes into his little Cheeks world where it's so hard for me to get his attention. I'm sure someday I'll be glad that he's got such focus when he's able to sit down and work on his homework or something, but for now I just need to figure out how to harness it!
We love our little Cheeks (I guess he's our big Cheeks)! I can't believe how big he's getting. He'll be starting preschool this fall, I'll have 2 boys in school!
For now he's excited about our new baby on the way which he's named either Coco or Finnigan depending on whether it's a boy or a girl.
We love you Cheeks!
Here they're finding a little halfway point treat:
Here's the pot of gold. It was actually mostly full of jelly beans, but there had to be a little gold, right? 
Now they get to enjoy their hard work. Actually this is just moments before everyone started melting down because there were only a few jelly beans left and apparently not everyone got the exact same amount. Can you imagine? Shafer and I have discussed how whenever things are going well and you think you'll do something fun for the kids, like give them a treat, suddenly every one's sad and whining and crying. It makes me wonder why I try to make holidays fun, they're usually my most stressful days! 
My St. Patrick's day dinner tradition is just for me though, so I had that to make up for the meltdown. A few years ago I started cooking a traditional Irish meal and I've looked forward to it every March. Here's our corned beef, cabbage, garlic mashed potatoes, Irish Soda Bread (GF of course), and I threw in some lime and pear jello just for good measure! It was so good. Who cares if I'm the only one who likes it, right? Actually they did pretty good with it, I've got some good eaters! 
