4

And then there were 4...

Happy Thanksgiving :) This years holiday season is looking to be quite a bit different than years past!

When Blaise Turns 3

What a day! Blaise turned 3... wow, where did the time go? We had a very busy day of celebrating. At his request we spent the morning filling the kiddie swimming pool on the back deck. We'll see how long it lasts this year before breaking. With another year behind each of them, they seem quite a bit rougher this year. They had a blast. Giving each other "baths" with the hose. Blaise wasn't quite as interested as Scott, so mostly Blaise hosed Scott- which I thought was a nice change :) And the water was COLD, but the weather was nice and warm.

Then we went to Carowinds. The boys wanted to go and a friend of mine I hadn't seen in a very long time was going to be there. Yes, I know, I'm crazy to take 3 kids by myself to Carowinds (before the water park is even open.) We managed. We only stayed for about 2 hours, at least 40 minutes of which was walking back and forth from the parking lot. Blaise insisted he didn't need the stroller, so I wore Michael and got to carry Blaise on too on the way back. We did get to see my friend- which was really neat. We rode the carousel. Scott rode the airplanes, kind of like Dumbo only much smaller, lower, and slower. Blaise said they were too fast. We all rode the little train and the sky tower. Blaise was pretty worried when the sky tower first started up, but he calmed down, when he realized it wasn't going to do anything fast and enjoyed the view.

Grandma and Grandpa were here when we got home, but Blaise and Michael were completely asleep in the car (after the whopping 5 minute drive.) They napped and we played. Then we all went out to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Blaise had requested a "cheese birthday cake," and when presented with the option he was quite excited about dinner at Cheesecake Factory. He ended up with a hot fudge sundae with 3 candles and waitresses singing Happy Birthday to him- which he thought was really cool. (We did share some cheesecake with him too.)

He's still fairly small for his age... 36 inches with shoes, and just under 30 lbs. But he is growing and eating well. He's 99% potty trained day and night, only occasionally needs to be reminded. He still has an amazing vocabulary for his age and is very quick with words. He loves to play with Scott and with Michael. We're not 100% certain that he really knows his shapes and colors, but we think he does (at least for the most part.) Probably 50% of the time he will answer all color questions correctly and the other 50% of the time he will say, "purple." "Green" was Scott's go to color, when he couldn't remember the name of the color he was looking at, so maybe it's just that, or maybe he's just pulling out leg, or maybe he really is still a little confused- who knows, but we're not worried. He can spell his name, but isn't into writing much of anything. Although, recently I handed him Scott's dry-erase maze book and he spent a long time just doing the mazes (and erasing them) over and over again. He's so independent- so different from Scott.

He's gotten a lot faster at running, better at jumping, and was even galloping a little and experimenting with standing on one foot recently. He has a blast every time he gets his scooter out and is remarkably good at that too. (Too bad for him, our driveway is gravel and we only have a short sidewalk to scoot on.)

Just Add Water

It's officially strawberry season! The strawberry patch up the road opened on Friday and we were there that day picking our first 2 gallons. They're almost gone. How many gallons do you think we'll pick this year?

Michael is getting quicker with this walking thing. He definitely still needs some hands or a walk-behind toy to hold onto, but he's cruising faster everyday. It seems to come with being the littlest, he's good at holding on tightly to things he's playing with and getting around (or over in some cases) obstacles (like Blaise, or anyone else) that are in his way.

Other Michael news... he seems to be changing so fast these days. Babies never cease to amaze me in that regard. In the past week, he's significantly increased his speed with his walking toy, he's started waving (mostly to that incredibly cute baby in the mirror), he finally cut his 2nd tooth, and he started clapping a couple of nights ago at dinner. Busy guy. They learn so much so fast in their first year. Amazing.

We are gearing up to celebrate Blaise's 3rd birthday on Friday. Actually his 3 friend play-date (party, but so named to discourage gifts, we have plenty), is tomorrow. In getting ready for that, we've been cleaning up the porch and that included cleaning out the sand table.

We'll add more sand in a couple of weeks maybe... but for now this is great! I really should have thought of this, oh, say, 2 months ago- being as there's only been a really small amount of sand in the table left over from last summer anyway.

Now the question is... how many minutes til they ask me to get the pool out again? Oh wait, they just asked at dinner tonight.

On The Road Again and Home Again

We've had a busy month... Cullen has started a new project at work and he's been out of town for a couple of LONG trips lately. It made our Easter Basket devotion, well, not quite the same, since he was out of town the whole week leading up to Easter. Thankfully, he was home for Easter and we had a nice celebration. We welcomed him home with peanut butter Easter egg candies (his Grandma's recipe). Then we made "Resurrection Cookies" on Saturday night that you leave in the oven overnight. (Everything is all about dessert here!)

We had a nice morning in worship, did our own little Easter egg hunt at home, and then headed over to my mom's for Easter dinner. It was a nice day. And gorgeous weather too. Scott, Blaise and I went out with Mom to walk the dog and found a little turtle on the way. Scott was kind enough to pick it up and move it from the road to the grass- he loves touching wild animals. When we got back to the house, Kelly and Joseph (Mike's fiance and her son) were there, so the boys were very excited to play with Joseph... and dig in the sand pile in the driveway together.

Then the pollen came... and my oh my did it come. Scott has bad allergies, by the way, and couldn't sleep from the cough and congestion. Well, until I caved and gave him Benedryl... I just hate to see the kid start his lifelong daily dosages of allergy medicine at age 4.

Michael in addition to cutting his first tooth, had learned the all important skill for all little boys- pushing a car...

... oh, and fighting off Blaise at the same time!

For Cullen's 2nd long trip, we took a long trip of our own. We stopped in MD and dropped off Blaise with Grandma and Grandpa for his first solo visit. Then Scott, Michael, and I headed up to CT to visit with Jessica. Ah, relief from the allergies! (There's still pollen up north, but it's not as bad yet as it is here.) The driving was killer... but otherwise we all had a blast!

Blaise had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa... he demonstrated how sneaky and quick he is and why he manages to get into so many things. In Grandpa's words, "We figured out you can't blink too long with him." He got to do lots of fun things while he was there, go to the Marine Museum, see the airplanes, the playground, eat a Dunkin Doughnut for snack (the powdered sugar covered, creme filled variety) without making a mess, go to work with Grandma, go to Chic-Fil-A with Grandpa. Yeah, he had a good week. To top it off, he got to go pick out part of his birthday present... he wanted a skateboard. He picked a really cool Toy Story scooter, just his speed and matching helmet. It even has a bell, which makes him quite happy.

In CT, we got to see Aunt Jesse's house. We approve. It's big, and feels a little empty, especially without Uncle Darrell, but it's very nice and she's got an amazing backyard (even if we didn't go out there.) We went to the Mystic Aquarium. It was nice and we had a great time, but if you're planning a trip to CT, it's a little overpriced for what it is. We stayed for 4 hours or so, but easily could have seen everything in 2. Scott liked petting a shark and seeing the sea lions. Michael just wanted to walk... a bit annoying, since he doesn't know how and that means that I have to bend over and hold both his hands. On the other side of the coin, I mastered the art of folding Michael in order to buckle him into the stroller (he likes to arch his back and fight the process.)

We also went to the beach while we were there. Technically, it was a beach on Long Island Sound, but it was very nice. The water was blue, there were lots of little stones, and seashells to look at and plenty of sand. Things look promising for the beach this summer... Scott got wet up to his knees (and it was FREEZING) and ran all over the place playing in the sand, Michael again wanting to walk, tried walking out to sea, and tried (very hard) to eat large mouthfuls of sand- he was mad when we wouldn't let him.


This week... we've been home... without a car... with a sick Scott... with a couple of guys in the backyard building us a fence. This week is almost over. The fence is finished! Scott feels better! The transmission in the car should be ready this afternoon or tomorrow... things are starting to look up. Oh, and CJ Spiller is going to play for the Buffalo Bills. (Probably not the most exciting place for him, but you can't be disappointed about a #9 overall draft pick, and if you know me- this means I don't even have to get a new NFL team, I've been a Bills fan since 6th grade, though much less interested since I discovered college football at Clemson.)


And a random picture of Blaise wearing my sneakers on the porch. He's actually quite coordinated in them.

Bi-Weekly Maybe?

Okay, so now that I've already failed at the weekly thing... who was I kidding anyway? Here's an update on what we've been up to.

Well, first thing's first... we celebrated Cullen's birthday! Scott and I baked him a "super-chocolate" cake. Which is basically a two-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I really liked the recipe I found in Cullen's chocolate lover's cookbook, and was surprised we hadn't used it before. Cullen liked his cake... which of course, had to have candles. What luck! The only number candles we have are the #1 and the #3, which is perfect when you're turning 31... unless you really want 31 candles on the cake. The boys did an excellent job of singing Happy Birthday (they wanted the cake.) For the record, Cullen did not interrupt the song by blowing out the candles, they had already sung that line about 13 times... it's the latest "song that never-ends."


Still loving the nice weather and looking forward to another warm week. I think we'll be living on the porch through the rest of the summer. The boys are really loving their sand table, despite the fact that there's not much left of last year's sand and we really need to get a new bag for them. Our major "house" projects for this year are getting the backyard into a really sweet play-able place. We've already made major strides - if you'd seen our backyard when we bought the house 6 years ago (wow, we've been here awhile!) Our hopes for the summer include getting a load of dirt into the backyard to try and level it out some and putting in a fence. Volunteers to come help are welcome... let us know when you want to come and we can plan to have said dirt dropped off then :) We'll see how it progresses. Actually, the boys already have a nice track around the trees they like to run, it's just a bit hilly.


Michael enjoys the porch for standing up... yes, he's mastered pulling up on things. All kinds of things. Even pulling up on things he shouldn't and falling face-forward into them (toy bins, laundry baskets, etc...) No fear! Today he even mastered pulling up in the crib, oh joy. Today, it hasn't hindered his sleep, it was just when he woke up this morning and he was quite pleased with himself and again at bedtime when I came in to tell the big boys to be quiet. He loves it if someone will hold his hands and let him walk all over the place. He's taken a few steps behind his push toy and done a little bit of cruising along furniture (a couple of steps towards something he wants) and quite likely by the end of the week will be cruising all around the house.

We spent this past weekend up in Maryland visiting with Cullen's parents and grandparents... a bit of a change of plans, as we were supposed to go for Easter, but Cullen has business out of town all this week and next weekend just wouldn't work for traveling. Nice to be free to switch things up on short notice as needed!

We had a delightful visit, though short. Michael cut his first tooth! The video is of Grandma trying to catch a glimpse of the tooth... as soon as anything gets near his lip, he sticks his tongue out and completely blocks the view. Funny boy. Anyway, we played Wii, watched a movie and had popcorn, hung-out at the house and then headed up to the beach to see Great Grandma and Papapa. The boys were wonderful at their house- didn't touch the clock once! It's usually a great temptation- they must have forgotten it was there. We went for a short walk on the boardwalk and brought Papa some Fischer's Popcorn... but it was frigid, so it was a short walk.


I was actually quite surprised that Papa managed to read this book to Scott. It's Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel (which I'd heard a lot of good things about and finally gotten from the library... we would love to have this book and will probably renew it a few times.) Anyway, Papa isn't breathing well. He gets out of breath after about 3 words and has to stop and pant a little to catch his breath. It didn't bother Scott... maybe he appreciated the slower reading pace? Please pray for Papa's health.


Among Papa's other tricks... he managed to pick up a squirmy Michael and hold him for a few minutes, before helping him practice standing and then leaning all the way over to put him back on the floor.


Grandma seems quite tired too lately and older. It's part of life, but it's hard to watch them age. Blaise enjoyed a "drink" (of water) with Great Grandma before dinner. We enjoyed visiting and I'm sure they enjoyed having us, but I'm also sure we wore them out in less than 24 hours... busy boys!

Now we are back home and getting ready for Easter. We are hoping to make some of Great Grandma's peanut butter eggs for Easter and will be celebrating the resurrection with my parents and soon to be sister-in-law and nephew (Mike can't come because he has to work on Sunday.)

He is Risen!

Visit with Aunt Jesse

Aunt Jesse went back to CT on Friday. We had a great and very eventful visit with her. I already posted the part where Michael started crawling for her. Wore him out!


The weather finally warmed up while Jessica was here and we were able to take lots of hikes. While she was with my parents on Sunday, the 5 of us went out to Crowder's Mountain State Park and got to wait in the car for 30 minutes because the park was at capacity and the ranger was letting people in one at a time as others left. We waited it out. It was a nice day and worth the wait. Scott was very excited about hiking.


And tree climbing... he wanted to touch all the trail markers, once we pointed them out to him. I don't think he'll get lost in the woods. I also think he needs to find a better method for climbing trees!


We hiked the "Fern" Trail, which was about a mile and had this cute little stream where it crossed the "Lake" Trail. Scott and Blaise both did a really great job hiking on their own and didn't really want to leave... I didn't either. What a fun family day we had!

Then we took Aunt Jesse to a park I used to take Patience to back in the day. That was really nice too. A little walk around a pond, where we got to see a turtle and a lot of time on the playground... where Aunt Jesse got some great pictures of the boys that we'll be hanging on the wall. It's nice to have a budding photographer in the family :)

Another day another hike. We revisited Landsford Canal State Park with Aunt Jesse for a picnic lunch and hike along the river. The boys absolutely LOVE it there. Throwing sticks into the water is the name of the game:

We didn't actually hike very far, they were having too much fun throwing sticks into the water.

Then we went home and after naps spent the rest of the afternoon outside at home... Michael got to play in the sand for the first time. I think he enjoyed it!

He also discovered gumballs. Joy. I think they're nasty things and don't like them at all, but every time we go on the porch he crawls over and picks one up and tastes it of course. The funny part is the whole time he's doing this he has this awful look on his face. Funny dude.

That afternoon turned a bit scary. My brother Mike came over for dinner and on his way over he started feeling badly. As we were sitting out on the porch chatting and the boys were playing (I was feeding baby Michael,) Mike got sick and passed out. He's a big guy. It was scary. The paramedics came and he got to spend the night at the hospital. I'm not sure how much he wants here for the whole world to read, but it turns out it was just a bad stomach bug that triggered convulsive fainting. It scared Blaise and he had a hard time getting to sleep that night (despite it being late by the time they got to bed.) Scott on the other hand... could be a doctor someday, he's just so fascinated by all things related to medical practice. Baby Michael was a little annoyed that his dinner got interrupted. The rest of our visit with Jessica was kind of back and forth between here and the hospital... we settled a little bit back into our normal routine, since she spent a lot of time with Mike. The boys were sad when she left... they had come to believe that this was her new home. "When is Aunt Jesse coming home?" they asked. I tried to convince them that her home was far away in CT... maybe they believe it now?

Michael has made strides with his coordination crawling since last week:

It seems the greatest motivation for him is getting to me or getting to something that belongs to the big brothers. They are getting used to it already- don't like it, but are getting used to it.

I've decided to "attempt" to post here on a more weekly basis, with more pictures and videos. I'm trying to record the little things elsewhere. We'll see how that works.

Mobility Calls for Video...

I've been told I haven't posted enough videos lately... I already knew that, but thanks for pointing it out Jessica :)

Here are videos from all of 2010 so far...




Not the most exciting video ever, but it was one of Michael's playdates with his friend RJ (back in January.) They like to just chill together! The video is a little deceptive... RJ could already move... fast. Michael couldn't. (Rj is about 4 months older than Michael.)




This is how the big boys entertain themselves during the baby playdates :) Notice that Kitty Cat is playing drums too.




Scott wanted to play with Play-Doh on his birthday... so we played Play-Doh for well over an hour. Have I mentioned he has an incredible attention span?! So serious, all the time.




And since Michael couldn't play with Play-Doh (you know, all he'd do is eat it,) he played in the jumpy jump. No surprise here, he stopped jumping every time I turned the camera on. At least he was happy the whole time.




The final video for today... taken last night. Michael on the move! Forward this time. That's right, Michael figured out the whole crawling with forward motion thing on Wednesday night and has been fine-tuning since. Still a long way to go with that. It's very spastic and rather slow... but if he sees it and wants it, he can now move forward and grab it. Watch out big brothers, hide your favorite toys and keep the books and choke hazards off the floor!

Dinner in Epcot...

With a rat?!




This was just cool... Remy joined us for dinner. Well, he stopped by anyway.

The Happiest Place on Earth...

Oh, we love Disney World!

This year's trip was a bit more chaotic than past years... you know, something about being away from home with a 6 month old for a week and walking all day long as a group of 7.

We started our vacation with a fun car ride. Scott rode with Grandma and Grandpa the first part of the drive, then we switched and Blaise rode with them. Scott and Blaise both took naps while they were in our car and stayed awake (even though Rush was on talk radio the whole drive) to entertain the grandparents the whole time they were in their car. As we first drove into Orlando, Michael woke up from a nap and I expected a grumpy baby the rest of the drive... but Scott also woke up from his nap and the two of them laughed and laughed and laughed at each other and had a grand ole time. In my opinion, they could not have picked a better way to start our trip :)

Once in Disney, we started in Epcot... Michael was completely overwhelmed within 3 hours of being in the park, so rather than stay for the fireworks, I fed him and sent him back to the hotel with the grandparents (they offered.) He went to bed wonderfully for them and the rest of us stayed for dessert in Norway in then the fireworks. The boys said they didn't like the fireworks, so we left probably half way through.

The next day we were off to Animal Kingdom. We headed straight to the Safari and got to see lots of animals. The boys favorite's are giraffes and there were 2 baby giraffes out, so they were excited about that. Grandma was sure Scott would like It's Tough to be a Bug, which terrified him last year... I told her she could take him in. As soon as we walked into the theater, he had a total panic attack and she walked out with him and waited for us outside. Blaise was pretty scared too and covered his eyes for the 2nd half of the show. Michael was oblivious. He had what he wanted, which was lunch! After that we headed over towards the Festival of the Lion King. We got there early enough for a couple of character greetings before the show. We met Donald Duck and Chip and Dale. Michael liked them, Scott loved them, and Blaise warmed up quickly (though he never got quite as comfortable this year as he did last year.) Then we saw the show, which is basically a circus. Blaise, for the 3rd year in a row, fell asleep! I don't get it. Since Blaise was asleep, Scott got to meet the rabbit's from Bambi after the show. It always amuses me when he meets characters he doesn't know at all and gets all excited about it.

We had our first character meal at the Garden Grill in Epcot after the day in Animal Kingdom. It was a good character meal. It's in my top 2 for favorite character meals. The blueberry buckle was unbeatable- it's making me drool thinking about it a month later (and the rest of the food was good too.) We got to see all the characters (Mickey and pals) at least twice and didn't feel rushed at all.

On to Magic Kingdom... oh wait, first we should note that Scott woke up with a fever in the middle of the night... so, yes, for the 2nd year in a row we got to spend our Disney vacation keeping track of when the last dose of children's tylenol/ibuprofen had been administered. Scott was a trooper and had fun anyway, of course... not going to let some silly fever ruin his trip to see Mickey. (And after last year, we were prepared and already had everything for just such an event packed.) Anyway... Magic Kingdom. Easily Scott and Blaise's favorite place. The most waiting we did all week was the waiting at the gate for 30 minutes plus for the opening show. Blaise's reaction to the opening show (if you've ever seen it, you might be like me and have, "Good morning, good morning..." running through your head at first mention of it) was priceless. Could not be captured with words. He watched intently as the townspeople and the mayor come out and sing, he clapped his hands, he pointed. Then, they pointed out the steam train coming with Mickey and his friends. He looked. He waited. He looked. He SAW them!!!! He kicked, clapped, otherwise flipped out in pure excitement. Totally PRICELESS.

Then we were off to the races... literally.
Such amazing speed walking skills will earn you Dumbo's first flight of the day. Scott was pleased. Blaise was too, though once on Dumbo, it's really not his favorite thing. We figured out by the end of the week (yes, we're that slow) that it might be the height that makes him nervous... at least moving the elephant up increased the anxiety. And we discovered that carousel's are okay, as long as he is sitting on the bench waving to everyone standing around and not up on a horse. Scott on the other hand, still loves being up on the horse and the bigger, the higher the better.


Fast-forward to later in the day... lollipops to entertain, while we wait for the parade... oh, wait, they eat lollipops slowly, so they had them for the whole parade too.


The parade was fun... we were greeted by 3 cheerful characters from the parade. First the Genie came right up to Blaise. To B's credit... he was looking at something else, Genie saw him, Genie (you know, regular man body, with BIG BLUE head, who B doesn't know at all) came running right up to him. I've never seen him move so quickly backward up over a curb in his life. He was a bit scared, to say the least. He watched the rest of the parade from the safety of my arms. Then one of Cinderella's step sisters came up to Scott and asked him to share his lollipop with her... or if he had another one for her... he looked at her like she was crazy. (I wonder what he would have done if she'd reached for it?!) Then Tweedle Dee, or was it Tweedle Dum, came and shook hands with Scott. He was a little unsure of that one, but hey, it's a character right?


Okay, we'll speed up the summary with what I uploaded pictures of, because it's getting late...


In Epcot we got to meet a face character that the boys know! They were quite excited to see her. Mary Poppins asked about Scott's Nemo sticker and Scott of course, wouldn't say anything, but Blaise- have I mentioned that Blaise has learned how to jump well with both feet off the ground in the past couple of months? Blaise got very excited and jumped down the street away from Mary Poppins, saying something like, "Yes, we did find Nemo..." Mary Poppins said, "And how many spoonfuls of sugar have you had today?" They were very cute with her... Mary Poppins is a movie we've watched (multiple times.)



Characters are still the highlight... obviously. Here's a picture of our whole group from our favorite character meal: breakfast at the Cape May Cafe.


What happens when you take a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 6 month old to Disney World? They get tired. Blaise fell asleep on the bus between parks. We managed to get him into the stroller without waking him up. Michael woke up when we got off the bus. Scott was riding on the back of the stroller. Minutes later, he was tipping over! By the way, he weighs a ton... I got to carry him like this for about an hour. I really like this carrier and I'm so glad I made it and brought it with us- totally worth it.

Now I'm tired and haven't told probably half the stories from our trip, but it was Disney World. It was fun and we're already asking ourselves when we'll go back. Scott says, when he's 5... we'll see.

Worth a Chuckle

We are spending the afternoon playing in the living room. I don't know exactly what Scott and Blaise, or should I say Peter Pan and Peter Pan, as they've christened themselves, are doing exactly, but I just heard Blaise say, "No! I'm not dumb!" Well, that's what I heard, upon further consideration, what he actually said was, "No! I'm not done!" My misinterpretations of his speech never cease to amuse.

Meanwhile, Michael is busy playing on his tummy. Which he does often and enjoys, even though he rarely lets anyone outside our immediate family know. When we have company or are away from home, he's much more interested in just being held constantly. So I put him close to the middle of the blanket with a handful of toys, just out of reach...


And before long he's reached a toy one way or another...


And he's doing some serious pushups! Check out the tongue action, he's trying as hard as he possibly can to look like Blaise (not that he really needs to try much at all.)


But alas... still no FORWARD progress. Though if I don't say so myself, a good deal of backward progress. Yes, we're still working on that crawling thing... one of these days.

Oh, and for those who are waiting... I have NOT forgotten about posting about Disney World, it's coming, um, someday, hopefully within the next week or so.