Funny

Mystery Baby spat up and Buddy cordoned it off just like he used to cordon off Little Guy's potty accidents.

Mystery Baby planking.

Crazies

B came home from the store with these rubber gloves for Princess Sparkley to clean toilets.

Immediately following the picture of B wearing pink gloves, I looked over to see Buddy looking like this.

I found Little Guy in the bathroom like this the other day.  He told me he was doing a science experiment.  It involved soap, Germ-X, water and the sink and had something to do with whirlpools. 

Pyramid

Tough Week

Last night B was complaining to me about how horrible his week is going to be.

1.  He has to watch a baby be born.
2.  He has to cut the umbilical cord which creeps him out.
3.  He has to be present for a circumcision (he already learned the lesson of not watching this one).

My response, "Yeah, YOUR week is going to be real rough."  It's not like I have to give birth or anything.

Then I had a laughing fit remembering a hike we took at Thomas Stone National Historic Site.  Little Guy was in the hiking backpack on B's back.  B ended up falling into a small creek almost up to his waist.  When he climbed up the other side of the creek, Little Guy was exclaiming how his boots *almost* got wet to B, who was wet from his upper thigh, down to his toes. 

Darth Vader golfs in Scotland

The bottom of Little Guy's heel is peeling.  It's bugging him so I told him last night he could go put on socks and then it wouldn't bother him.  He came back (naked except underpants and these black and red argyle socks) asking me to help him put on his Darth Vader costume (which was already borderline too small for him last Halloween).  The result:

In this picture, he informed me, he's pretending he just got his arm cut off.

What's been going on...

6/1/12   Me at 30 weeks and 1 day.

6/3/12     We went on a family walk/bike ride to the park near our house and B got bitten by a giant Mastiff.  He thought it mean that I gave him a dog shaped ice pack.

6/5/12      Buddy got the flu which meant his nice Daddy moved our teeny tv and the Game Cube box up to his bed and Buddy spent about 6 or 7 hours playing Lego Star Wars.

Little Guy has been putting this USA magnet puzzle together once or twice a day for a few weeks now.  The other day I came across Buddy teaching him how to play Risk with is.  For those not in the family, Risk is the board game that all the brothers and brother-in-law play when the family gets together.

Little Guy figure out the camera

Little Guy stumbled upon the camera the other day and decided to take pictures of all his dogs and when he remembered, their bums.   Then he moved on to family members and other objects, including the rug. 

Nativity

Our Fisher Price nativity scene has repeatedly been taken over by plastic frogs.

Little Guy

This is probably Little Guy's favorite song to sing.  He usually insists on singing it alone, without any help.  And he usually belts it out (as much as a 3 year old can "belt" something out).  He was being a little shy with the camera on and didn't sing quite as loudly as normal.

We have two different kid games with plastic frogs.  This week, somehow, both sets of frogs escaped their game boxes and have been having "battles" on our couch. 

We got all the fridge magnet letters down and several times a day Little Guy creates all of these "words" for us.  It started with just his name (which can now both spell and write) but then he started stringing long lines of letters together to create new "words."  As for writing his  name, he does a great job.  Yesterday he was writing his name for me and informed me that now he was a big kid so his teachers at nursery didn't have to write his name on his paper for him anymore, he could do it himself.  He was very proud of this.  And today at nursery he wrote his name on his paper and his teacher's were very impressed and made sure to tell B when he picked Little Guy up.  AND, Little Guy wore underpants to church.  He really only wears a pull-up at bedtime now, and for church (or long crazy days like going into DC or something).  He went potty once at the end of the first hour, and about 45 minutes later his nursery teacher brought him to us again to go potty.  Such a big boy!

Last night, for a family movie night we watched Snoopy, Come Home.  Little Guy thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had to get some of his cracking up on film.  If only I'd kept the camera rolling.  He got the giggles.  He started his prayer and started cracking up and it was so funny to see a 3 year old with the giggles that we were all cracking up.  He was laughing so hard he started crying.  So so so funny!

Easter Bunny Training

 Little Guy got bored while I was making dinner, found the empty Easter eggs, and started refilling them with his Easter candy.

Maps

While B was checking basketball scores (with Buddy sitting by him checking scores as well) I noticed Buddy pretending to draw all over B's atlas.  Which, if you know B, he draws all over maps and has since he was a kid.  Buddy was pretending to add a street to Pittsburgh.  This cracked me up because I once got lost taking real estate pictures for my job when we were first married because I was using one of B's atlases and he'd apparently drawn in a road where he thought one should be.  I assumed that he'd just updated the atlas to show a street that was newer than the atlas (which he also does).  I was wrong.  The road didn't exist.  Doesn't exist.  I got lost.  I like seeing Buddy as interested in maps as his daddy.

Long Afternoons

Now that we have church at 9AM, our Sundays seem endless.  We came home from church, I took a nap, our home teachers came, we were checking basketball scores and getting ready for family home evening when I realized that the boys were dressed as opposites.  Buddy with red pants and a navy shirt, Little Guy with navy pants and a red shirt.  I pointed this out and realized that Princess Sparkley was dressed with navy pants and a red shirt too.  Then we realized that together, B and I matched.  I had navy pants, he had a red shirt.  B insisted we change so I changed my entire outfit and B put on navy pants.  Then we set up a pile of books and the self-timer.  Except it seemed to have captured a bunch of dust floating in front of the camera.  And it definitely captured Little Guy's displeasure.  For some reason he was very upset that I changed my pants. 

Fruit Snack of [Little Guy]

Happenings in Little Guy's World

Little Guy developed a cough a couple of weeks ago. B (having suffered an emergency tracheotomy at the hands of croup when he was a toddler) worried that it would be whooping cough and instructed me to place him in a steamy bathroom each night. Here's Little Guy, hanging out in all that steam. We ended up taking him to the doctor after a ruptured ear drum, but by then the cough was clearing up, the ruptured ear drum (it happened on a Friday night) was healing, but the other ear was headed toward infection, so he's been on an antibiotic (day 10 is tomorrow) ever since Valentine's Day.







B and Little Guy exercising together.


He also sits on B's chest for sit-ups and gets very upset when B gets tired and slows down and stops. So, basically, a great personal trainer.


We recently finished up a homeschool unit on explorers, founding fathers and famous Americans. I was trying to find a video like this one, "Ben and Me" about Benjamin Franklin made by Disney, but about George Washington. I instead found this series, which for some reason, Buddy LOVES. The first one we watched dealt with the use of messenger pigeons during the Revolutionary War and the next thing I knew, Little Guy flapped his way downstairs with a message rubber-banded to his leg by Princess Sparkley. He informed me that he was a pigeon.

Rock Concert

Our kids love when we put on The Killers concert cd. They sing along, acquire rock star personas and it's all hilarious.

Ice Skating

For New Year's weekend, we headed down to Richmond to spend time with the P family. They are always super fun and plan lots of cool stuff for us to do while we're visiting. On New Year's Eve we let the kids stay up until midnight and then run down the cul-de-sac banging pots and pans. On New Year's Day they took us to an ice skating/laser tag/arcade place. The kids were thrilled with all of it, but especially the ice skating. On the way in Little Guy informed me we were going to have to buy some ice skates. I explained that we just rent or borrow them. He told me he was going to get two, one for each foot.


I can't believe they have ice skates for kids this little. I couldn't get over how cute they were. Little Guy was very proud of himself when he figured out how to stand up with ice skates on.


Buddy was especially excited to learn to ice skate because he realizes this is a skill he needs to be able to play hockey. He told me beforehand he hoped he was good at it. Because of this, I think he was a little disappointed by how hard it was, but by the end he was a lot better and a lot more pleased with himself.

We signed the kids up for laser tag at a specific time then rented skates and went to the rink... just in time to watch the Zamboni for 10 minutes. The kids of course all loved watching the Zamboni, but we were on a schedule now! When we got on the ice, Buddy and Princess Sparkley stuck to the wall with me slowly making their way around the rink. B took Little Guy ahead of us just holding Little Guy's hands up above him and having him skate between B's legs. B told Little Guy not to worry about moving, just to keep his feet under him and B would move them. LG's left foot started to slide out in front of him and he said, "but that foot's going crazy."




Then the big kids, the cousins, the aunt, the uncle and B went to laser tag (we only made it one lap) and stowed their skates and coats in a bench around the rink. Little Guy was not happy about ice skating now that he realized how much it hurt his feet and arms. I convinced him to come out with me again and we went one more lap. Then we stowed our skates and coats and walked around the arcade some until everyone was done at laser tag. B took Buddy and PS around again and they got much braver, letting go of the wall. I hung out with Little Guy on a bench until I left him with his aunt and uncle and I joined the kids on the ice. Then B and I skated around together holding hands all romantic-like. :)



And here's the video I got... as you can see, they aren't so much "ice skating" as they are "walking on ice without help." But this is much improved from the first lap around the rink where they were clinging to the wall for dear life and still couldn't keep their feet from sliding away.

{more pictures to come, H got some with her camera when I was busy ice skating and helping the kids}

Fun at Sam's Club

Driving to the library the other I noticed a strange sound as the car tire turned. It sounded like I was driving over a sheet of paper with each rotation of the tire. Turns out it was a nail/screw. So when I got home, B but the spare on, and the next day we headed to Sam's Club (where we buy our tires) to see what they could do. It worked out well that they could patch it (since the tires are only about a year old) but it took them forever to look at the car, and then patch it. When the kids weren't watching Toy Story 3 in the pathetic waiting area, we were exploring Sam's Club. Sorry for the poor quality cell phone pics.

Noodles

Buddy requests Top Ramen for lunch whenever he gets the chance. They crack me up when they eat it.

Christmas Parade

I wrote the Christmas Parade on the calendar very lightly in pencil so if I remembered and wanted to take the kids, we could go, but they wouldn't demand it or expect it. Saturday morning about 10:45 I remembered the parade. It started at 10. We hurried and bundled up and drove over to the end of the route figuring we could still see something. It wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected (basing everything on how many people went to see fireworks on the 4th of July) so we parked downtown and walked over to the main part of the parade route and stood behind people in chairs for awhile. After maybe half an hour my arm was tired of holding Little Guy up and there was a curb opening across the street and down a bit, so we waited for a pause in the parade and ran over. But with all the hustle of getting out the door, we didn't have the camera. Only my cell phone camera, which I think is 3.1 megapixels or something. So... one of the best pictures of all three kids looking at the camera and smiling I may have taken this year, and it's on a inferior camera. Oh well.



I took a bunch of other pictures as well just so we could come home and show B the kids' favorites. Here they are:


Princess Sparkley enjoyed the dancers, bands and Girl Scout troops.
Buddy enjoyed the types of trucks, cars and tractors as well as the bands.
Little Guy loved the "forseys" (horseys) and the jeeps decorated with eye balls, etc. One looked like Mater (I didn't get a picture).
The blurry dump truck is painted pink for breast cancer awareness. The boys are all about dump trucks but I thought PS might pick this one as her favorite dump truck.
And the parade of course ended with Santa and Mrs. Santa. Although every time I say that, Buddy cracks up and insists that they are Santa and Mrs. Claus. I suppose he's right.

And because this is what my kids do... they came home and played parade. Princess Sparkley put on a parade outfit. They made a banner. Blurry Little Guy (still couldn't find my camera) is in front as either a dog (which there were in the parade) or a horse.