First steps

It was almost bathtime which is why Luke is just wearing his diaper.
He tries to clap for himself and walk at the same time. Excuse the high pitch voice in the background. Who is that? I mean, seriously, can her voice get any higher or more annoying?

Luke's baby dedication

We had Luke's baby dedication at church last night. It was a very sweet time. Instead of doing one big prayer at the end, the pastor prayed out loud for each baby & family by name as he went through the line. Luke did well until he became fascinated with Kevin's nose and started trying to stick his fingers in it. We didn't get pics of that, but here are a few other pics. Luke is trying to take a few steps so stay tuned for some video footage later this week.

Three generations - Kevin's parents came to visit.

Proud big brother strikes a pose.

for Audrey

Audrey is 4 1/2 years old. She was born one month after Fletcher. I've known her parents Mike and Bonnie for years since we were all in the singles group back in Houston. Bonnie is one of the girls that goes on our Girls Weekend trips every year. They have two older boys and Audrey is their youngest and the only girl.

This week they found a tumor on Audrey's adrenal gland near her kidney. Doctors believe it might be a rare form of cancer. She is having surgery Tuesday, July 1st at noon. Please pray for this family. Pray that the tumor is benign and if it is not benign that it is completely contained and nothing has spread. Pray for a complete healing. Mike and Bonnie have a very strong faith that God is in control. But trying to explain what is happening to a 4 1/2 year old and keep her calm while doctors and nurses are poking and examining has to be an overwhelming task.
Thanks.

Move over Clark Griswold

My brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew came by for a visit. They live in Texas and they are huge baseball fans. They are headed to the northeast to see baseball games in Pittsburgh, DC, New York, Philadelphia, Maine, and Atlanta. Maine? That one really confused me until they explained to me that there is no baseball team in Maine but Monette's aunt lives there. Whew! I thought I had really lost touch with the baseball world. They will be in the car for 74 hours. I asked if they wanted to take Fletcher with them but somehow they quickly changed the subject.

Throwback Thursday

The date: I'm guessing somewhere around 1970

The place: Carlyss, Louisiana

The mood: Watch out Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders -- we are HOT!

This is my sister Denise and me. We were cheerleaders for my brother's football team - the Carlyss Colts. I think the cheerleading coach encouraged me to be a "base" not a "flyer" once she saw the size of my thighs! No one believes me when I tell them I weighed 10 lbs. when I was born.
My sister can still do the splits. The team had no budget for pompoms.
My brother's football career was short lived. He moved on to become a VP for Shell Oil. I still don't understand why we don't get family discounts on gas. Help a sister out!

Praise injury

Our church has a very sophisticated security system in the preschool area. You walk in to one of four laptop stations, give the last 4 digits of your phone number and the volunteer prints out nametags for your kids and stickers with randomly generated letter number combos that correspond to the letter number combo on the kids' nametags. If there are any problems with your children during the service, they flash your number on the Jumbotron screen in the worship center. Trust me -- no parent wants their number flashed on the big screen for any reason.

Luke has been having some trouble in the church nursery. Actually, he has been having alot of trouble. I had to stop going on Wednesday nights after they flashed my number three Wednesdays in a row. Wednesday services start at 6:40 pm and aren't over until about 7:40 pm. We usually start Luke's bathtime and bedtime routine around 7:15 so he would just start crying around that time. I'd go get him and he would be fine.

We decided to start going to the early Sunday service at 8:30 am. For those of you that know me well, you know that this is very difficult for me because I am not a morning person. But we figured that we could make it back home by 10 am for Luke's morning nap. We live 1 mile from the church. The last two Sundays they flashed our number on the big screen towards the end of the service. Luke was crying in the nursery, again. Poor baby. He is just not used to being away from me. And I think he is going through that separation anxiety phase. Did I mention we normally sit up front? That is such a long walk! Well, this past Sunday I told Kevin that we were going to sit in the back in case our number came up again. Wouldn't you know it. Third time's the charm. The pastor is just about to wrap it up and our number flashes on the big screen. Why don't they just include the words "Parenting Failure"?

I head back to the nursery expecting to hear Luke crying. Imagine my shock when Fletcher is standing there crying with a paper towel on his nose. For an instant I am relieved that Luke actually made it through a whole service. The director said the kids were singing "My God is So Big" and using music sticks. Um, yeah, whose idea was that? One of the kids whacked Fletcher on the nose after Fletcher "accidentally" whacked the other kid on the finger. After much parental interrogation, this is the story Fletcher is sticking with. The swelling has gone down and it is not quite as bruised. He's in VBS this week. Lord help us all.

Decisions, decisions

Can you guess what we are about to do?
Some of you may not know that we moved into our new house the same day we brought Luke home from the hospital. No, seriously. Kevin & his dad came back from Florida to close on the house. I had to stay in Florida with Luke until they told us it was ok to leave the state. I walked into our new house with a newborn in one arm and boxes everywhere. Needless to say, decorating was not the first thing on my To Do list. Heck, it wasn't even on the list. We did manage to paint the boys' rooms and bathroom. But then things kept coming up - Christmas, the new season of The Office, a sale at Macy's, vacation. Now that we've been here TEN MONTHS, I'm feeling somewhat guilty that we still don't have much on the walls. I can't exactly keep a glass vase on the coffee table. I can't even leave a magazine laying around without someone eating it. I won't mention any names, but it isn't Sadie. But we can paint.

We did buy a new area rug and a cool bench (go craigslist!) for the area in our house that Fletcher calls the "dance floor." It has some fun colors in it that we will try to incorporate in the rest of the house since our floor plan is so open.

I'll try to remember to take some before and after pictures once the painting is complete.

Luke - 10 months old

Here are a few recent pics of Luke. You should be able to just click on the Smilebox below to see the pictures.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Date Night

Kevin and I went out with two of his coworkers and their wives last night. We went to a restaurant in uptown. Here are a few highlights of our evening:

The Crowd
We haven't been to uptown at night. As we approached the restaurant we were suddenly surrounded by hubcap spinners, avocado green Oldsmobiles, grills (not the Weber kind but the teeth kind), weaves, and a colorful array of Jockey and Fruit of the Looms peeking out of beltless blue jeans hovering around the thigh region. We then spotted several posters in front of the Convention Center that said "DV8". I immediately get nervous when people make words using letters and numbers like they do on license plates. I am ashamed to admit that I have almost rear ended someone while trying to figure out what their license plate said.
DV8 was an easy one. Not sure if the crowd and the posters were related or not.
Must be a new country and western band.

Favorite exchange of the evening
We ordered something called Chicken Lollipops as an appetizer. Kevin felt a little silly saying the word "lollipops" but he is secure enough in his manhood to do so. The server brought them out on a small tray with some green herbs (?) around them.
Kevin: I never know if this stuff is decoration or edible.
Doug: It's like Julia Roberts on Pretty Woman when she eats the mint leaf in the ice cream.

Later in the evening, Doug orders dessert. A lovely chocolate peanut butter torte served with whipped cream and a flower.
Doug: This flower is edible.
Us: How do you know?

It's not that we didn't believe Doug. He just isn't the type to know what flowers are/are not edible.

Doug: The server told me it was edible.
Doug eats the flower. The look on his face was classic

The server stops by to check on us.
Doug: You told me this flower was edible.
Server: It is.
Doug: But it was awful.
Server: I didn't say it tasted good.

You know you've grown up in church when...

If you've grown up in church, this guy will crack you up. I've spent way too much time on his site reading his very sarcastic, but very funny look at church life.

Some of my favorites:

#260 Drawing in the Bulletin

#270 Snacks at VBS

# 301 The prayer score guide

Happy weekend!

Rock Star

Fletcher likes to make up songs and play them on the guitar. This song is one he made up. Something about rock and roll band, everything is gonna be alright, 4 and birthdays. Please note the extreme confidence at the very end. If you are part of the family, you've already seen this video once. I have to say I am loving this whole video portion of the blogging experience.

P.S. Luke is 10 months old today. We are going to try to get some good pics of him this weekend.

Throwback Thursdays

I decided it might be fun to include some pictures and memories from the past. Thursdays will be a good day to do it - thus the name, "Throwback Thursdays". It may be from 5 years ago, 20 years ago or even those lost decades like the 70's. If I can get a scanner (hint, hint, Kevin), then the possibilites are endless.

Here goes the first one:

The date: May 16, 1998 (exactly 10 years, 1 month and 3 days ago)

The place: Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX

The mood: happy, excited, amazed

At least he's listening

Fletcher has a tendency to touch EVERYTHING when he is eating. Sticky fingers everywhere - on his chair, on his booster seat, on his placemat, the 36 inches around his placemat. You get the picture. It drives us nuts. So lately when he does this I have him get the dishrag and wipe down everything - chair, booster, placemat, table, etc. I'm hoping he'll get tired of having to do this and start using a napkin or at the very least stop touching everything.

Sunday he was wiping down his place and asked, "Mom, can I be done."
I told him, "No, you still have more to clean."

He replied, "I wish I were God and this was the seventh day so I could just rest."

Hmm, I wonder what his Sunday School lesson was about.

Thank you Little Tykes

Yes, that is a sleeping bag on Fletcher's back and he is pushing a shopping cart filled with random stuff he found around the house and wearing a hat he found in the bottom of Kevin's closet. Do we know how to have fun or what? They would do this for hours if I would let them. Luke refuses to push the scooter in the conventional way. Everytime we put him behind it, he moves it around to push it like you see him doing in the video.

Why Snickelfritz Lane?

What to name the blog? Something clever using our last name? Something easy to remember? Something that had to deal with our state or town or street address? Or something rather unusual that would make people wonder?

Fletcher loves to hear his adoption story. How we got the phone call and we jumped in dad's truck and drove to the hospital to get him. We told him that on the way to the hospital we were trying to decide on a name for our new baby. How about "Snickelfritz" - that would be a cool name. This part always makes him laugh. And he says "No, you decided to name me Fletcher." But we still would sometimes tease him and tell him that we decided to name him Fletcher David Snickelfritz G*****. When we found out Luke was on the way, he started telling people that his new baby brother would be named Snickelfritz. So that name gets thrown around alot in our family. In the urbandictionary.com "snickelfritz" is defined as "an endearing term for a friend" or "a rowdy child". Well, I can safely say I live with a couple of rowdy children. Snickelfritz by itself sounded goofy so I threw something else in there that kinda, sorta, halfway describes where we live. Thus, the name of the blog.

Any more questions?

Happy Father's Day

To our favorite

• pancake maker
• smoothie blender
• hide-and-go-seek player
• devotional leader
• time giver
• "big truck" driver
• cool tool owner
• yard keeper
• prayer leader
• grill master
• bill payer
• bath giver
• deep end pool swimmer
• heavy weight lifter
• long distance runner
• bug stomper
• boo boo kisser
• car maintainer
• lawn mower
• weed killer
• dog bather
• coffee maker
• diaper changer
• peek a boo player
• golf/tennis/basketball/soccer/football/baseball/hockey instructor
• Sunday comics reader
• long distance driver
• rainy day car getter
• Star Wars movie watcher
• long story with no point listener
• Saturday errand runner
• Haircut partner
• Candyland (graceful) loser
• Monster Truck crasher
• Hard worker
• Jar opener
• Bible reader
• God lover
• Christ follower

Happy Father's Day from two little boys who absolutely adore you. I can only hope and pray that they both turn out just like you!

And a special shout out to Fred (Rachel's dad) and Charlie (Kevin' dad). We love you too.

And one more to Cade - Happy first Father's Day. You are going to be a great dad.

In preparation for Fathers' Day

Background info: Fletcher normally watches a tv show while I am getting ready in the mornings. Our electricity went out on Thursday and somehow messed up our cable box. I had no clue how to fix it or time to figure it out so I told Fletcher that dad would have to take a look after he got home from work. This was our conversation Friday morning.

Fletcher: Mom, can I watch a tv show? Is the cable fixed?
Mom: Yes, dad fixed it last night after you went to bed.

Fletcher: Mom, you are just a little bit smart but dad is really, really smart. He is good at fixing things.
Mom: That's right.

Fletcher: And mom?
Mom: Yes?

Fletcher: You are not strong at all, but dad is super duper strong.
Mom: Just watch your show.

"Her children arise and call her blessed " Proverbs 31:28

The Hebrew definition for the word "blessed" apparently does not include "smart" or "strong".

The Chocolate Chips Incident

Earlier this week I was getting ready to take Fletcher to sports camp. He walked into my bathroom and I noticed what looked and smelled like chocolate on the corners of his mouth. Keep in mind it is 8:30 am.

Mom: Have you been eating something chocolate?
Fletcher: No

We've been having some trouble with him lying about various things like whether he washed his hands before dinner.

Mom: I can see food on your face. Show me what you ate.
Fletcher: Ok

We start the Walk of Shame from my bathroom to the kitchen pantry. Only he doesn't go to the kitchen. He starts walking down the hall to his room! Huh? He goes to his nightstand beside his bed and opens the bottom drawer. Well, hello there Nestle Tollhouse Semi-sweet Morsels. Yes, the chocolate chips I use for BAKING! not SNACKING (well only sometimes if there is no chocolate in the entire house and the boys are sleeping)! Only 1/8 of the bag is left. I can't remember how many were in there to begin with. Guess that tells you how long it's been since I've baked any cookies. I didn't even know he knew they were in the pantry.

Mom: How long have these been in here?
Fletcher: (who still doesn't have a good grasp of time concepts) Since yesterday.

My heart starts skipping every other beat as I envision him with freshly brushed teeth popping the semi-sweet morsels long after we thought he was sleeping. I tried to find the balance between laughter and appropriate parenting.

We had a long talk about lying, deception, boundaries, hiding things from mom and dad, how God always sees everything and how bugs really like sweets and that nightstand is mighty close to the bed that he sleeps in on a nightly basis.

Time to make some cookies.

Luke's newest trick

To blog or not to blog

Well, after debating in my head for awhile now, I decided to check out this whole blog thing. Since our families and many of our friends live so far away, we thought this might be a good way to let everyone know what is going on in our lives.

We will see how it goes. Feel free to leave a comment and let us know you stopped by. Comments won't show up immediately. I have to moderate them so I don't get a bunch of spam comments.

For now, here are the latest updates on the boys:
Fletcher - he is in a "sports camp" all week at our church. I use the term sports very loosely because he really isn't learning any one particular sport as far as we can tell. It is ridiculously hot here this week. Record highs of 99+ degrees. He doesn't say much when he gets home. Probably because the sun has sucked the life out of him for 3 hours. But I think he is having fun. Thank goodness for water bottles, sunscreen and the neighborhood pool!

Luke - he'll be 10 months old next Friday. I can't believe it. He is cruising around furniture and tormenting the dog. Still no teeth - we are looking into the dentures option. Any advice, PawPaw? He says "da-da", "uh-oh" and what sounds like "aa-ee" for Sadie our dog. I'm working on a video of his newest trick. Supposedly, it is pretty easy to upload videos to this blog. We'll see.