I don't "wuv" you anymore!

It's been a big week for Caden Sosa.

On Tuesday night, at about 9:30 (he never goes to bed before 10pm now that he's a napper again) he figured out his buttons.

He must have unbuttoned and re-buttoned his P.J.s twelve times that night.  He made sure he nailed it.  We were so proud!

Then, to make a perfect Mother's Day even more perfect, he decided to make today be the day he figured out how to say "L" instead of "W"!  (ala "I wuv you, mommy.")  Beck has been helping his little brother practice a lot lately, teaching him how to use his tongue to make the "L" sound and the like.  And this morning was the big debut.  

Caden lay in bed with us and he said, "Mommy, Mommy!  I lllllLove you."  He got it!  Beck was right, some day he'd get it.  And now my baby isn't as much of a baby anymore.

Sniff... Sniff...  See for yourself...

Oh. Oh. Oh!

Happy Mother's Day!  I'm the luckiest mommy in the world.

Forever indebted to George Lucas

It's all Star Wars, all the time at our house these days.

I thought the Toy Story obsession was adorable... Then came Cars. I thought I'd never see anything so adorable as my two boys playing "Cars with eyes" for hours on end. But I've been proven wrong (again...). The Star Wars obsession is the best yet! I will forever be indebted to George Lucas for the memories!

Star Wars Galactic Battle, By Beck Sosa, Age 5

C3P0 and R2D2 under the Purple Death Star, By Beck Sosa, Age 5

Darth Vader of The Dark Side, The Artist

Light Saber fights are a pretty regular occurrence at our house these days. It's tricky business, this light saber fighting and war stuff. Explaining why it's O.K. to fight with light sabers (compare it to Olympic sword fighting?) and why it's O.K. to shoot each other with laser guns ('cause they're fake and Star Wars is just for pretend) even though that stuff is never O.K. in real life...

Star Wars is turning out to be a great lesson in understanding what it really means to be a good guy or a bad guy and what it means to be good or evil. It's WAY easier to drive these concepts home when there's a light saber involved! And, believe it or not, they actually find it much less frightening than reading stories of the same concepts from the children's Bible. It's hard to re-enact Cain and Abel without throwing rocks at your brothers head (and mommy won't let you do that for real or pretend!)

Check out this video clip:

Luke Skywalker and "Dark" Vader battle to the end.

Author's Note: Even Star Wars guys die with their tongues hanging out!

The Empire Strikes Dad (too)...

Beck dumped out all the money in his piggy bank last weekend and spent every last (time- consumingly counted) dime online ordering Star Wars costumes...

This ones for you Miss Bwooke...

My mommy may not be very hip anymore...

(My brother and I sort of cramped her style).

But I AM! Check me out!

The first official "friend" sleepover

Cousin Olivia had a sleepover with Beck and Caden last night at our house. The mommy's and daddy's went to the Loffler Companies Holiday Party at the Metropolitan while Aunti Sheri and Cousin Viki presided over the ruckus.

It was great to FINALLY have a volunteer to help me out in the kitchen! Livi helped make pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Then everyone played hard to work it all off.

Cousin Livi (a.k.a. Buzz Lightyear-Fireman-Pirate-on-Lightening-McQueen) and the boys played Ninjas and Star Wars. Despite the costume to the contrary, Liv insisted she was Yoda.

And then Livi honored us with a little ditty she calls "The Train" on the harmonica. She must get it from her daddy!

Nana's gonna go broke

The amazing thing is... Beck can't really READ the poem yet (he IS still in preschool)... but he figured out that if he counts the number of lines in the book and then follows them as he recites it... he won't miss any of them.

Ca-ching! $ $ $

(Caden, in the background of the video, thinks Beck's performance is "excellent" too!)

Caden Earns His First Dollar

Caden's philosophy is...
if his big brother can do it...

then so can he!

(He accepts all forms of payment, Nana.)

Vote for Beck Sosa on Tuesday, Nov 4th - See his plan to save the ecomony!

If you vote for Beck this coming Tuesday you won't be disappointed. Watch the following videos to hear his plan for bailing out the economy in his own words.

Part One

Part Deux