Wishing Big

Eli told me tonight with a deadpan face, "I want a humpback whale for my birsday."  Then he stuck his thumb back in his mouth and turned his big, blue, serious eyes on me, completely expecting a "Yes" out of me.

This is one of the millions of precious moments with my boys I absolutely never want to forget.

Keep Your Eyes Peeled for the PayPal Button

I think Judah has decided that my beef vegetable soup is his favorite meal.  I had to take a little video of him eating the other night because it was ridiculous how much he was enjoying his food!  By the time these boys are teens, I will either need to have found a part time job or to have added PayPal to my blog so my friends and family can donate to the "Feed the Hoffmann Boys" fund.

Can you believe the intensity?! I think the scream at the end meant, "Stop wasting my time, Mom, and give me more soup!"

Please Explain

Why do my children insist on peeing in the front yard?  We have three doors.  Why the front one?

I Have A Five Year Old!

Look at those blue eyes and that sweet smile.  This is my Luke.  I love this picture because it is such an accurate depiction of Luke's disposition.  Sunny, sweet, happy, loving, affectionate.  This child gives the sweetest smiles and the best kisses.  And he gives both so freely.  His brothers A-D-O-R-E him.  Eli follows him around faithfully, waiting for Luke to have an idea so he can copy it.  When he wakes up in the morning his first question is, "Where's Luke?"  When he is given any instruction at all his first question is, "What's Luke going to do?"  He absolutely hates the idea of being separated from Luke.  Luke is very good natured about it, but occasionally says, "I need a little break, Mama."  Judah starts dancing when Luke walks in the room and giggles out loud when Luke makes silly faces or movements.  Luke can, without fail, get smiles and laughs from his brother.  He is a good big brother and declared once that he wanted 11 sisters.  When I told him that I would need a lot of help taking care of that many children he said, "You could just feed them with your nuckles like Judah.  Maybe you could have, like, eight nuckles."  I didn't correct him on the pronunciation of that one, although I did try to explain to him that if I had eight "nuckles" I would be somewhat of a freak.

Kris and I, of course, think Luke is incredibly smart.  He is reading and learning math.  He loves to learn, asking me, "Teach me, Mama" all the time.  He likes to pretend that we're doing school every day when he works in his work books.  We are always looking things up on the computer to satisfy his curiosity.  The other night he asked us when God's birthday was.  When I told him God didn't have a birthday he said, "We need to check that out on the Internet." 

Luke is asking more and more questions about God, right and wrong, heaven and the future.  I made a comment about "one day when you have a family of your own and you live in your own house..." and turned around to find him crying.  After many tears and questions I finally figured out that he was NOT okay with the idea of us ever living apart.  While I know he won't always feel that way I love that he thinks he will always want to be right here with me. 

Luke, you absolutely make my heart overflow.  EYE HEART YOU (with hand motions).  You make me smile first thing in the morning when you crawl into my bed to snuggle until you go to sleep in your little white undies at night.  I love that you love me.  I love that you love your family.  I love that you love your life and never want it to change.  And I love that as you grow and change I know you will always be an absolute blessing to this family.  Happy birthday!