Animals

Do you ever feel some eyes on you?

Do you ever think your children are not what they seem....

That they might really be....

ANIMALS?


Tee hee, Max is the cutest tiger. There was a little event in our neighborhood with a bouncy house and face painting.

Benny asked for a U on one cheek and a football on the other. He was also wearing a jersey that day, big surprise. He's sooooo obsessed.

First Grade

My first baby keeps getting older. And taller!

Today was the first day of first grade.


Here are My Three Sons posing on the way to walk to school to drop Max off.



I hope he has a good day. He knows several kids in the class and met the teacher last night. He's already stoked about school lunch today being cheeseburgers, so he didn't want a home lunch on the first day.

I also hope holds my hand on the walk home. I'm still cool until about third grade, right?

Sleep, sleep, I miss you

July was the month Benny started to nap less. August is the month he has given them up.

We still put him down for a quiet time every day, but he sneaks out. Seriously -- he does an army crawl down the hallway. On busy days he needs a nap or he's exhausted by evening. See the above picture where he fell asleep on the floor. I have a few more pictures on my cell phone of him asleep in the stroller and asleep on me.


He made it 3 1/2 years, for which I am extremely grateful. But wow do I need a nap everyday, or I have to go to bed at 7:30 too. We'll figure it out, we did when Max stopped napping.

My sweet Benny! Growing up.

The canyon

We went up Millcreek Canyon for time with family before Seth and Suzanne went back to South Carolina. Clemson calls!

What a fun time. Hot dogs, marshmallows, cousins, rocks and dirt.

This guy likes to cook. I like that he likes to cook. He's so good at it.

Feller had some advice for roasting properly.

Max and I thought it was all delicious.

Papa is very good at getting babies to sleep. He gets them all cozy on his warm chest, and hypnotizes them it seems.

Works every time.

Mobile

Andrew (aka chunker, chubby, Drewbie, Drew, Drewbles, chubber-bubber) is mobile! It's all backwards though. He gets stuck under stuff.

He rolls all over, too. This is why he can no longer sleep on our bed. JB jokes that Andrew is trying to learn to move fast, so he can follow me around the house. Right now if I leave the room he cries. Until I come back, swoop him up and kiss his cheeks.


So about the sleeping in our bed, after almost 8 months I think we've solved it! It was a tough few nights of hearing him cry in his crib (we would go in and pat or rock him every 5-10 minutes. It made me cry to leave him in there alone). But now he's used to his crib and he's doing much much better. He still wakes up once a night to nurse, but for a week now he has slept in after that until 7 AM. Woo-hoo!

JB the magnificent

It was JB's birthday this week. I made my from-scratch carrot cake I make every year it seems for his birthday, but he tells me he likes it so I keep it up. Sometimes I do orange cream cheese frosting. I know, exciting.

I crocheted him a new U hat. And I got him a bike miler measurer thingy, but he already had one. So my brother James saved the day with this awesome Coca-Cola clock. JB likes Coke stuff, like the chest I got him a couple of years ago.



He's such a trooper about that hat. I keep kicking myself for not going to go get new Pac 12 gear. Oh well, our anniversary is coming up!

We both took time off work on his birthday and went out to breakfast with the boys, then to Lagoon. I just love this tall drink of water and look forward to many more birthdays together!

A fun visit part 2

Dave, Andrea and Douglas stayed at the Holiday Inn Express. Who knew they had such a cool pool! We loved playing with them there.

Max and Ben went up and down this slide over and over. They really learned some confidence from Douglas, who I swear must be half-dolphin. He's a great swimmer for 4 years old!


This little guy loved splashing.



After the pool we went to the Days of 47 Rodeo. We had a lot of fun watching these boys' excitement.





On the last day of their visit we hung out at the park.

(Oh Andrew. Carrying you and your milk supply really hurt my posture)

I'm glad Andrea took pictures when I forgot our camera -- I borrowed all these pictures in this post from her Facebook page.


I hope we will be able to see each other again soon!

A fun visit

Pioneer Day weekend my high school friend Andrea came out west for a visit! I can't believe how much fun we had that weekend. It was so good to see her, too. We've seen each other a couple times since high school, and now our boys are great friends.





They brought a ton of St Louis Cardinals toys and gear for us.




They also brought the outfit Andrew is wearing below. JB is modeling his shirt, and Dave and Andrea's son, Douglas, had on a Cardinals shirt, too.



I miss St Louis. I loved my years there. I was obsessed with the Cardinals in high school, and still try to check the box scores to see how they are doing. But Dave and Andrea cured my Missouri nostalgia by reminding me of the humidity. They escaped a heat wave when they came out west!

We took them to Lagoon one day.



Andrea and I rode "Wicked" together. I think we screamed the whole time. If one of us was taking a breath, the other was screaming. But I'll tell you what ride scares me more -- the skyride. Yup, the whole time I'm afraid I will fall or my babies will fall. So I watched from below while they rode.

Max and Ben loved Douglas. I mean loved him. Every night of the visit they would ask me how soon until they could play with him again. In the next post, more pictures of the fun things we did.

Feeding time

Andrew is getting much better at eating solid food -- and the boys are getting better at feeding him. Ah, helpers. Pretty soon I'll be able to put my feet up as they clean the house, right?

Check out this picture of my best helper Max, feeding Benny exactly 3 years ago:

Now here's him, same kitchen, same high chair, different baby!

He's so tall now. Then Benny wanted to feed Andrew, too.

Those are carrots. Yum.

My little stinker

Here's Andrew modeling the skunk hat I made for a neighbor's fourth baby boy. I used a fuzzy white yarn for the stripe. Yes, that's drool on his shirt. No teeth yet though.

Here's Andrew on a day he should have been napping on the bed next to me. He was quite proud of his new sitting-up and raspberry-blowing skills.

My Max is 6

Max turned 6 years old last week. How did my first baby get so tall, and lose 2 teeth?

He asked for a "cowboy cake with Woody and Jesse on it from Toy Story. " My imagination and my talents are far apart when it comes to piping frosting. So I called in a higher power and took the cake over to my sister-in-law Suzanne. Doesn't it look great?

Here's Max blowing out the candles.

Benny somehow ended up claiming Jesse. Thankfully Max let him. Otherwise there would have been tears on both sides.

He got a scooter as well, and loves it. He fell off going downhill and skinned his knee big time, but now proudly shows off the huge bandage. That's my boy!