A weekend of fun...

We had quite a weekend here in our household. Lots of playtime and lots of fun.


Saturday morning, after the girls each had their morning naps, Colette packed a picnic and we all headed down to the farmers market. We walked around and the best entertainment there seemed to be between all the dogs walking around and the street musicians. The kids loved watching the dogs, they wanted to pet them but we don't let them. Last thing I wanted was to have to take one of them to the hospital with a dog bite. Even when people would volunteer their dogs to pet, I would politely decline. Colette has had to fix too many kids' faces from dog bites over the years. The street musicians were also quite entertaining, the kids would just sit there mesmerized. After walking around for an hour, we found a nice spot under the tree to have our picnic. Everyone ate really well and then we had some kettle popcorn for a treat.


After the farmers market downtown, we made a quick stop at the park and played on the swings and the kids crawled all over each other in the tunnel. We got a good little movie of it attached below.


Sunday morning we went to Mass. I called Aunt Audra and Uncle Matt to see if they wanted to come to Mass with us. They did, and it was a good thing. All three kids were quite the wiggle worms in Mass and would have been quite a workload for Colette and I to handle on our own. After Mass we did brunch at Hy Vee and then retired for naps in the afternoon.


Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra came back over to our house about 5pm so that Colette and I could go to a friends baby shower for a couple hours. We got the kids Godfathers pizza and of course some blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. After dinner I guess the kids got treated to and Oreo cookie which they obviouslly enjoyed.


When we got back from the baby shower, we had a little more play time and the kids abruptly passed out when put into their beds.

Three little monkeys...Playing in the tunnel

Some pictures from the park on Saturday, the kids had a grand time playing in the tunnel.

Pictures, a funny story, and a Big Boy Bed update...

Colette took alot of good pictures today of Maria, Lauren, and Brayton...I'll post some of them here for everyone to enjoy.

Also, a funny story. As I've posted before, Lauren is really starting to talk more and more. Today, several times, she would point to Maria and say, "It's a baby."

Actually she said, "It's a baee"

Brayton is doing really well earning stickers for his big boy bed. He is now on number 20, he missed a day earlier this week because he couldn't find the "Magic Hankey" to wipe his nose. We had to talk to him so he understood why he didn't get a sticker. He seems to fully understand and has been doing quite well.

Earlier in the week, we awared him for getting to #18 on the chart. He got to go pick up his new pillow and has been sleeping with it the past few days. It's a green downey feeling pillow (actually polyester filled). If he gets to day 22, we'll let him go pick up sheets for his new big boy bed. Then on day 28, we'll take down the crib and he can finally get his big boy bed all of his own.

Swingin' with Maria

Today was our first full day with Maria visiting our house.

Ryan and Mikhael flew off to Seattle this morning, before anyone else got out of bed. B, Lauren, and Maria all slept in until after 7:30 am. After breakfast and some morning playtime the girls took naps until about 11am. When they woke up it was time for Colette to take everyone to the park for some playtime.

She packed the girls in the double stroller and Brayton being the big boy he is, helped Mommy push the stroller up the hill to the park. From the sound of it everyone had a great time playing at the park. Everyone got to do plenty of swinging in the swings, but Brayton felt he got the shaft. He normally gets to sit in the enclosed swings, but there are only two at the park up the street. So, Colette had to put him in the "big boy" swing. He didn't like it one bit. If you watch the video, he wouldn't even say "Hi" to Grandma.

After Colette wore them out playing at the park, the kids took great naps. I actually got home around 4:15pm and Brayton was still sleeping. We woke him up, ate supper and then proceeded over to Buellow's for the monthly "Flamingo Friday Night" party.

Phil and Beth had their little swimming pool out, and some of the other kids were playing it. So, we stripped the girls down to their diapers and let them play in the pool. Lauren immediately screamed, she thought it was too cold. Maria on the other hand had a ball. She was splashing and playing, pushing the boats around and kicking her feet all over. Brayton got in the pool as well, but of course was trying to splash everyone until I started splashing him back and he realized it wasn't that much fun getting splashed.

We came back from Buellow's about 7Pm and tossed all the kids in the tub for bath time. After some frantic washing of kids, we pulled them out and systematically got the diapers and pajamas on and then one after the other they all went to bed.

Not one kid cried when put down for bed, a good ending to a great day.

Slapjack

A couple of weeks ago, I taught Brayton to play slapjack. He gets quite a kick out of smacking the cards as I lay them down. He doesn't yet know the difference between a jack, queen, or king. He just knows to slap anything that's a face card, those are the rules of our game. After a while he loses patience and just starts slapping everything. It really doesn't matter though, we have a great time playing.


Tonight, Colette went scrapbooking at Archivers. It's something that's fun for her to do, and get's her out of the house on a friday night. Her scrapbooking is like my blogging, it's a way to record our kids lives and to be able to relive all the great times we've had.


When Colette left for Archivers, there was a deck of cards on the kitchen counter. I thought we hadn't played slapjack for a few weeks, so I asked Brayton if he wanted to play. Of course, I didn't anticipate Lauren would like it so much.


As Brayton and I started playing, Lauren was off on the other side of the living room playing on her own. When she heard all of Brayton's excitement, she naturally crawled over to see what we were doing.


She got quite a kick out of Brayton's squealing and slapping the cards was quite fun for all of us. Lauren thought it was so funny, she was bursting out with her little belly laugh. I didn't want to leave her out, so I started dealing cards to Lauren, and without any coaching from me, she would slap them too and giggle and giggle and giggle.


By the time I decided to film this little game, most of the giggles had worn off. Pretty typical. I'm always a bit too late to get the really good footage. However, what I did capture is pretty neat in itself.

You may notice that it's rather hard to film with one hand, deal cards, and play slapjack with the other. Oh well.
Enjoy.

One the move...Part 2

Colette called me at work today to tell me that Lauren was starting to walk. We have a little walker toy on wheels that Brayton used to push around and learned to walk with this toy. I reminded Colette a day or so ago that we should get that toy out of the basement for Lauren to use, maybe she'd start walking too.

Well, Colette brought it up today and low and behold Lauren started pushing it around.

Walking...

My little girl is growing up, it's somewhat bitter sweet. I am so overjoyed to see her walking, progressing out of the baby stage into the toddler stage. But another part of me is sad because I don't want my baby girl growing up quite yet.

She's growing up so quickly, it's amazing. Her language skills seem to be growing by the day. She is progressing much differently than her brother did, however it's just as precious to see it the second time around. Her voice is so much softer than her brothers, when she talks you can just hear the innocence and sweetness. It makes me so proud to hear her talk. She says "Hi' to everyone we pass in Costco. She's becoming quite the little socialite.

It melts my heart.

Sometimes Daddy Forgets

Tonight was Colette's opportunity to have a "Mommy" night. Colette likes to go to Archivers and do some scrapbooking on Friday nights, it's a little release and time for herself after sometimes long weeks.

This means that I get the opportunity to do some fun stuff with the kids. Today, Colette came to work and picked me up at about 3:30. We got home, got changed, and loaded up the bike.

I pulled the kids in the bike trailer to the "bent tree park" where they have a large sandbox. The other day Colette bought the kids some sand tools, a couple of buckets, scoops, a sifter, and some fish to put sand in and make fish impressions in the sand. We played in the sand for about an hour, then swang in the swings. After that we came home and proceeded to play in the water table, eat some dinner, play in the water table again, then upstairs to take baths.

After baths we played a bit in Lauren's room. After putting Lauren to bed, we went over to Brayton's room and played doctor. Brayton had a tummy ache, so I listened to it with the toy stethescope and kissed it so it was all better. I told Brayton that Daddy's feet were sore, so Brayton performed a little surgery and voila they were all better.

Once time to go to bed came, we did our normal snuggle time where B sits on my lap and lays his head on my shoulder. It's nice time to settle down prior to putting him in bed. We talked about the bug chart and how when he gets a sticker by not whining or screaming in bed, he will be one day closer to his big boy bed. Brayton then informed me that mommy said he could have a pillow and sheets for his big boy bed.

Finally, once that conversaion was over, Brayton said, "Daddy, you forgot to say prayers."

Well, I guess we did.

We said our prayers, and the question we always ask is "Brayton, who do you want to pray for?"

The answer is different every night, but tonight he said:

Grandpa Wayne
Grandma Coke
Georgie
Grandma Cindy
Mommy Scrapbooking

I'm glad we got to have such a fun night.

One little monkey jumping on the bed...

Lauren is becoming quite the active little girl. One day, she saw B climb up on our bed and play. Immediately she wanted to do the same. Well, over time we discovered she really liked the bounciness of the bed combined with the soft pillows that we have up there.

Now, we line up the pillows in a small perimeter on the bed and she crawls around and pounces on them. She also likes to bounce because the bed is elastic enough she gets a little extra spring when she does it.

Just about every night when I come home from work, I take Lauren upstairs with me while I change out of my work clothes. She used to sit there and watch me and play. Now, all she wants to do is be put on the bed to bounce around. I'm always worried she'll bounce right off, so I don't put her up there until I'm done changing clothes. She has no concept of falling yet. Consequently, I have to put up with a whiney little girl for the 2 minutes it takes me to change. She doesn't have much patience, I don't think many 14 month olds do.

As a follow up to this, Brayton is getting to be quite the little climber lately. He is climbing up on top of everything, even the ropes courses at the parks in town. It kind of makes me nervous.

The other thing he has been doing recently is standing on the edge of our bed, jumping up in the air and landing on his bottom on the edge only to bounce off and land on his feet on the floor. I should probably stop him from doing this, but it's quite funny to watch and he really gets a kick out of it.

This kind of stuff reminds me of the old song about 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed, I just hope neither of them fall off and bonk their heads.

Feeding the Geese Part 2

A follow up to yesterday's post. This is a quick video of the kids feeding the geese at the lake by the West Des Moines Library. These have to be the tamest geese in the world. Brayton was not quick enough feeding the geese, so they kept approaching him and he would back away. I guess they were invading his space. But every time he'd back away, they would come closer and closer.

The kids really love those geese.

Update on the Big Boy Bed Chart and other items.

Well, Brayton is sleeping like a little angel tonight.

After supper, we went to the library fed the geese outside, put together some puzzels, played with the blocks and toys they have there, and read a few books. We also fed the geese with som left over hot dog buns. Lauren was crawling around trying to crawl into all the little crevaces between the book shelves. She stacked blocks, and stood up and cruised along anything she could. She's really starting to get good with her little steps.

When we got home about 7:15, we did baths and played doctor a bit. Brayton and Colette had been playing earlier today, and when I went to look into B's ear with the little doctors kit, Brayton told me there was a frog in there. Assuming Colette had told him this (later confirmed) I also told him that there was a frog in there and he doesn't want B putting his finger in his ears. He looked at me with amusement, like he wasn't sure if he should believe me or not.

After playing doctor for 15 minutes, it was time for bed. We talked about the bug chart, and discussed getting a big boy bed. He is so excited for his stickers and getting a big boy bed.

As of tonight, Brayton is going on his seventh day of going to bed without throwing a fit and will get his seventh sticker tomorrow morning. He has filled up the entire first row. Horray!

Working for a "Big Boy Bed"

Brayton is transition.

We decided it's about time we get him out of the crib and into a "big boy bed." For the last two weeks he has been difficult to get to bed, for both naps and at night time. He would scream and cry, kick and flail about, and use any type of stall tactic his little mind could think of.

Grandma Cindy suggested that she thought he was big enough for a new bed, and Colette and I agreed.

We were orginally going to wait until his 3rd birthday, but with the recent spate of tantrums we knew we could not put him in a bed without rails until we fixed the tantrum problem.

Colette is so good at finding positive solutions to problems like this. She suggested we create a chart that every night B goes to bed with out fussing and throwing a tantrum, he gets to put a sticker on his chart. Once his chart is filled up, he gets his Big Boy Bed. I thought it was a great idea. We talked about how long it should be, I thought shorter was best. But we ended up doing 28 days. By that point hopefully the tantrums habit will be broken and it's a long enough time he can see his progress while working for the Big Boy Bed.

Well, as you can see by the picture of the chart, we are two nights into the stickers and Brayton has been doing quite well.

We have been making it a point to really talk up the stickers and chart to get to the end goal of getting a Big Boy Bed. Brayton's little mind is like his fathers (or so Colette says). He is already trying to scheme ways to skip all the days and put his sticker on the 28th day. He wanted to do that after day one.

Part of the ritual is he gets to pick a "bug" sticker. Colette bought these little bug stickers that Brayton just loves. So far, this chart idea is working well.

As I am writing this, it's 11pm, and when Brayton wakes up tomorrow morning he will get to add his 3rd bug sticker. Not a peep out of him when I put him down for bed tonight. I made sure to remind him when we were reading books.

"P" is for "Puppy"

Today is Independence Day, the 4th of July 2008. Today, Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra invited us to attend the Urbandale parade with them and some other friends. We arrived at the spot where we would watch the parade at about 10 AM. It was a nice and shady spot that Uncle Matt had staked out some time before we arrived. He couldn't have pick a better spot. We were at the very end of the parade though so we didn't see any actual parade until about 10:30 or so. The fact that there was no action going on for almost a half hour was more than Brayton could bear. Good thing Matt and Audra were there to entertain him until the parade got to us.

Once the parade stared going by, it was okay for about the first couple of floats and cars that drove by. Brayton was quickly getting bored with the entire parade thing, and Uncle Matt and I were getting physicall tired of tossing him in the air.

That is UNTIL, they started throwing candy. Then we stayed for the next hour and watched every float go by with Brayton wondering if they were going to toss candy. Brayton did so well, he picked up enough candy to last well into the fall, and was such a good boy sharing all of his candy with Lauren and the other kids at the parade. It was lots of fun watching him get so excited about the candy.

Lauren on the other hand, couldn't have cared less about the candy (except when I gave her a little Dum Dum sucker). The most exciting part of the entire parade was any time someone with a dog would walk by she'd immediately say "puppy" and point her finger. There was a whole float dedicated to dogs, I don't recall if it was the animal shelter or some animal boarding house, but a float with about 25 dogs went by. Lauren was bouncing on my lap she was so excited.

I have to admit, I had a good time too.

Watering the flowers...

Summertime is the best time of year. We like it because it presents the opportunity to get outside and do lots of fun activities.

We love to garden, and part of the fun of gardening is getting to water the flowers. Brayton loves to help dad with the garden. Earlier this year, when we planted the garden, Brayton was right there beside me putting the seeds in the ground and putting the fence up. We also tilled the border of the yard inside the fence this spring and planted sunflowers and lots of native Iowa wildflowers.

Now when I come home, we get the opportunity to water the flowers. Brayton has his little watering jug while I get to hold the hose. He loves to run under the water and get all wet. Gardening is one of our favorite activities, and it's nice that everyone gets to participate.

Stand and speak

In the past couple of days, Lauren's really begun to take off in terms of being able to stand and speaking with intent.

Tonight prior to bed she was in Brayton's room playing with B's toys. She stood up and took her first steps (at least that I have seen). Colette has seen her do this in the past couple days, but tonight Lauren stood up and walked from the play table past Brayton's bookshelf and over to Brayton's blue chair. All assisted of course by the objects she could hold on to, nevertheless she made it about six steps. It was very special for me to get to see this, and it's been wonderful watching my little girl grow.

Lauren has also been talking more and more. Of course, as I've written before, her favorite word is "ball." But, recently she's been very fond of "puppy". Every time we see a dog, she says "puppy" or "pup." She says "bye" to me every day when I leave for work. She also loves "Bob" our fish. She is really getting her "B's" down well.

Here's a quick little video of Lauren standing up playing and talking a little bit. Watch her look around for the "puppy" when Colette talks about a puppy. Date of this video is July 1st, 2008.