Funny Derek

Derek has been cracking us up lately!  He just does life at 110% all day every day.  He doesn't need much sleep.  He laughs REALLY hard, and tries to get other people to laugh REALLY hard.  He cries really loud.  He gets really mad.  Everything he does, he does with zest.  I love that about him.  Usually, he's the happy, jokester in the group.  We'll be eating dinner together, and out of the blue, he'll say something in a really funny voice, or just make a hilarious comment, and the whole table will burst out laughing.  What a JOY this boy is.

He has a love for animals.  He's the first to spot a bird or any wildlife, and the most curious about them.  Here he is building a bunny "trap."  It's a bunch of 2x4 pieces stacked up with carrots and leaves and lettuce on top and all around it.  He worked on this for hours, then sat and watched for rabbits to come.  One actually did come close to it, but he got up to go pet it and it ran away.

One day Derek came upstairs holding only the tail from his stuffed giraffe.  I asked him what had happened, and he said he cut the tail off of giraffe, and could I please put it on his black puppy instead?  Who am I to argue with that?  So we pinned the giraffe tail on the puppy instead, and he played with it like that for weeks.  The stuff he comes up with is just funny! 

He's the one who is so curious, so things that other kids might do to be naughty, he does because he just wants to try it.  Like POURING paint onto his piece of paper rather than painting it with a brush, and then adding a few huge squirts of dish soap and smearing it all around (I went outside for 5 minutes and this is what happens!).  When I came in he asked me if I thought it was "so beautiful?!"  Yes.  I really did.  And messy.   

Here's his black puppy with his giraffe tail.  

One of the funniest things is that one day he asked me what was on his shirt.  It was a Puma shirt, so I told him that it was the outline of a puma.  We talked about what that was, and from that moment on, for about the next month, he wanted to wear a tail like a puma.  It started out with a black sock that we pinned on, then he used a piece of yarn tucked into his shorts for awhile, and then we found the "perfect puma tail" (it's actually a fox) in the Halloween costume stash.  You'll see it below.  He loved it so much he wore it all day every day and slept with it at night. 

The looks we would get in the grocery store were priceless, and when he'd ride his bike with it on, it would get all black from the tire, but he absolutely LOVED it.  You'll also see that he's wearing all dark blue.  Every day during this month, he would wear either black or dark blue shorts and then find a shirt and turn it inside out so you could only see the black/blue, and not the design.  He really wanted to look like a black puma.

Here's Tyler in a costume that matches his stuffed cat, and Derek in the whole puma/fox get up.  FUNNY BOYS!

After about a month of being a puma, we've now moved on to being a Ninja Turtle.  He really wants to be Donny.  He found some bright green shorts, and now turns any green shirt inside out so that it's "totally green" and he really looks like a turtle.  We made him a shell, and he's been playing the part ever since.  Since there is only one pair of green shorts, and really only one "good" green shirt that he wants, I find his green ninja clothes hidden in random places at night after he goes to bed.  He stashes them so I don't wash them.  He wants to be sure he can find them in the morning right away.  I laugh at him even after he's in bed.  :-)

Here's Tyler on our deck.  He made himself a "throne".  The boys love to sit on all the deck chairs stacked 6 high.

And here they all are playing in the sand box.  They can get along so great, and so awful all in the same day.  I never knew how much fighting/wrestling/tattling could happen in one house, but also how much fun/laughter/learning could happen.  Who else gets three other brothers to play with at any time?  These boys are blessed.  And I'll keep reminding them until they know it for themselves.  :-)