Bounce House Fun and PJ Day

The boys had PJ day at school on Monday. It was a very cold and snowy day so the boys were able to wear their super warm fleece jammies to school. They wore their boots to school and then put their slippers on for the day.

That night, I set the boys loose on their chalkboards. They both had a good time drawing and erasing. Luke drew an excellent picture of himself and then drew a Ryan, a Daddy and a Mama.

(Luke, A Self-Portrait)

Today I took the boys to the Bounce House. It has been a few months since we've been there, so they had a good time re-exploring the place. Luke refused to go to bed last night and ended up staying up with us until 10:30. As a result, he was very tired today. After about 20 minutes of bouncing fun, he was worn out and grumpy. We stayed for about an hour to let Ryan play, but I spent the rest of the time either chasing Ryan through the obstacle course (thank goodness he can do it all on his own now) or listening to a very whiny Luke say, "hold Mama, hold Mama, hold Mama."

I used to have to carry them up this super-steep slide-they figured out how to do it themselves today.

Below is Luke and his Aquadoodle-he loves to draw.

New things:

Luke likes to take Greg's old Bronco megaphone and walk around the house saying, "Hup, two, three, four." He is practicing his future career as a drill sergeant, or maybe he's just following in his Grandad's footsteps.

When Luke is excited about something and wants to tell me about it, he says, "Wow, Mama, wow, wow, wow."

Ryan likes to ask me, several times a day: "Mama, whatcha doin?" He also likes to ask where someone has gone. He holds up his hands and shrugs his shoulders and says, "Mama, where Daddy go?"

Both boys are following in Greg's frugal/money saving footsteps by being totally in love with putting money in the bank. They like to take Greg's change and put it in the piggy bank we have in our room. The boys have their own banks, but it is full of more substantial money than pennies and dimes. If Greg leaves change on the nightstand, Ryan is really good about either coming to get me and ask to put "money in the bank" or he'll bring me the change and ask. They found some of the Euros that I had left over from our trip to Germany and wanted to put that in the bank, they were pretty upset that I wouldn't let them.

I leave you with a picture of the back of the boys' tricycle. It has a little trunk and they love to fill it up with all of their special treasures that they collect during the day. I think my favorite is a Christmas ornament that was Greg's from 1990-something of Santa in a car.

Fun in the Sun and Back on the Wagon

We are loving the lack of winter weather this week. The boys and I went out for a walk yesterday down our street - Ryan on his tricycle and Luke on his car. It was so nice to get outside, and we were even able to meet a neighbor. Today, I let them loose in the backyard and even let them swing for a while. We don't encourage the swings very often, because once they are on, they don't ever want to get off.

Yesterday we visited a church that we hadn't been to before. They have a really nice nursery and they even provided us with a pager to take with us. With about 10 minutes left in the service, the pager went off. Apparently, Luke had not stopped crying since we had left. The nursery workers said that even Ryan was telling him "it's OK, bro." We'll have to start referring to church as Sunday School since Luke loves school so much.

Tonight during bath Luke tried to hug Ryan and he said "I love you." How sweet is that? We tell them that all of the time and only occasionally will they say it if we ask them. I think it is so sweet that the first time Luke said it on his own, he said it to his brother. I'll ignore the fact that Ryan wouldn't let Luke hug him.

It has been a quiet week and so far healthy. Both boys seem to be past their eye infections. We finished Ryan's eye drops tonight. Luke was a very good patient and eye drop taker, Ryan has been very difficult - I have to sit on him while Greg pries his eyes open. He has cooperated enough because he has been promised a jelly bean after medi.

If you have a web cam, you have to get on Skype. My new laptop has a webcam and my brother got my parent's one that has recently been set up. We are now able to talk to and see them online with Skype. The boys love to call them on the computer and they think it is great fun to watch Grandad jump in out of the picture. When I'm on the computer now, Ryan always looks at the monitor and says, "talk to Nana?"

Ryan is back on the potty wagon. He started off great, but Christmas happened, and so went potty training. I'm taking advantage of these several days off to get him back on track. I'm not expecting him to be wearing big boy underwear by school on Thursday, but I'm hoping to be back where we were before Christmas-I think we'll get there. The key seems to be staying home and doing nothing but normal home things in order to get back in the habit. Honestly, diapers are so much easier for us (which we hadn't expected), but we can't do that forever. Luke is still doing his own thing. He talks about and wants to go to the potty so he can get a jelly bean, but he just doesn't seem to get it. We don't push it at all with him. He is such a worrier that the whole thing has made him very self-conscious and has messed his stomach up since we started with Ryan during Thanksgiving. I'm not sure what to do about him yet, so we aren't doing anything except telling him that he is ok.

Greg and I are watching the Daily Show right now and are really enjoying the "tribute" to the Bush administration. As Jon Stewart just said, "The last 8 years, well, have been good for this show." We all need to be able to laugh, even when there hasn't seemed to be much to laugh at lately. I'm looking forward to watching the inauguration tomorrow and watching "history" as my grandmother puts it. I know the boys won't get it, but hopefully they can withhold their fighting and whining long enough, if not, that is what TiVo is for.

All By Myself (sorta)

Greg is in Florida for his company's annual meeting, so me and the boys have been on our own since Saturday morning. We are often on our own, but this is for a longer stretch, plus it spanned over a weekend. We've done pretty well.

We stayed home on Saturday and went to Barnes and Noble on Sunday. Last time I took the boys there, Ryan had an absolute meltdown when it was time to leave (which meant leave the train table). This time, I gave him about 10 warnings over a several minute time period that we would be leaving soon. So, when I said it was time to go, he put his train down and said "bye bye choo choo." The purpose of our visit was to get a new movie, WALL-E, which we then watched later that day. That is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time (really, I rarely see any movies). Ryan fell asleep and Luke lost interest at times, but I thought it rocked. Luke is now obsessed with me drawing Wall-E on his magnadoodle. Last night he asked me to draw it before bed and then wanted this magnadoodle/Wall-E to stay on his pillow. He ended up sleeping with me later on in the night, but he woke up at about 3, went to his bed and brought the magnadoodle back to my bed so Wall-E could still sleep with him.

Yesterday it snowed. Alot. I don't mind snow, but when the weatherman on the 10pm news says that it will only be trace amounts with no accumulation, and then there are like 6 inches on the ground when I get up in the morning, I don't like it. I had to work yesterday and take the boys to school. It took 40 minutes to get to the church (usually about 10) and I still hadn't had my coffee (I'm out of my white chocolate sauce needed to make my morning mocha), so I had to go to Starbucks-I finally made it to work much later than I had planned, but that happens.

Another thing that I don't like about snow is that when Greg is out of town, I hate having to shovel-but it is done.

Today, Ryan woke up with red watery eyes and was very fussy. I took him to the doctor and he has Luke's eye infection (from last week) and an ear infection. He is now on medicine (and motrin) and will hopefully feel much better soon. It has been since we left Texas a year ago that boys have been sick enough to go the doctor-we've now made 2 visits within a week. I'm grateful for their health-I think this is only Ryan's 2nd ear infection.

Greg will be home tomorrow and we will all be happy to see him. The boys have been very good, but it does get exhausting to have them by myself for this long. It was easier last year when I was still in Texas with the boys and Greg was working here because the boys weren't 2 1/2 then-this has been a difficult age at times. They are so funny and they say and do new things every day, but the terrible twos really do exist, they just didn't show up in my boys until fairly recently.

Now pictures:

Ryan on his "bicycle" - he actually pedalled for a very short distance on his own this weekend.

Luke and his picture of a baby. Note the hair, eyes, nose, ears, and mouth - I think he has really good fine motor skills for his age-but I'm bias.

Baby Thomas in the Bumbo. Jonny and Jenny came over on Friday for dinner and we were able to give them the rest of the stuff we had brought from Lubbock. Thomas was 6 weeks old on Tuesday and he looks like such the little man in this picture.

Ryan and Luke with Baby Thomas. It wasn't that long ago that they boys sat in this Bumbo.

Ryan in the Bumbo at 2 1/2 and in August of 2006-so at about 2 1/2 months.

Luke

Have a great week!

Below is the video of the boys with Stephanie. I've delayed putting it up because it is sideways, and I can't get it to rotate-so here it is, just turn your head to the side.

We're Home!

Actually, we've been home for almost a week, but things have been so busy. We made it in Saturday night with good weather all the way to Colorado Springs and then snow from there to home. We stopped at Cracker Barrel in the Springs and got the boys to eat their dinner by bribing them with ice cream if they did-it worked. We had a good trip-I only saw 2 crazy things. One was a peacock walking on the side of the interstate between Lubbock and Plainview (I don't think peacocks are native to West Texas, even though my grandmother was born in Peacock, TX) and then we watched 2 girls ride their horses to Applebee's in Amarillo, park them in the parking lot and then tie their legs together to get them from walking off. The boys did good in the car. I don't know how our parents did it before car dvd players-I think my brother and sister and I fought alot.

Below are pictures from the rest of our trip in Lubbock.

Me, Conny and our kids.

What is up with Ryan's face? All four kids played "Santa" and handed out presents-although I think Ryan gave every present that he had to Mr. G.

Luke and his stocking.

Ryan ripping into a present.

Olivia and I made cupcakes and Luke enjoyed his.

Ryan helped us ice the cupcakes.

Nana and Luke at the park.

Ryan pushing Jacob on the stroller.

We went to dinner with my parents and Jane and Charlie our last night in town and the boys allowed us to enjoy our dinner by riding in this red car. Grandad kept them supplied with about $5 worth of quarters to keep them entertained.

On the road!

Since we've been home, I worked on Monday and spent Tuesday decorating cookies. In the possibility that I might spoil the surprise (probably only a surprise for me), I made cookies for Stephanie's baby shower which is on Sunday (in Texas). I baked about 100 baby buggies and baby bottles on Sunday and decorated them all on Tuesday. I got them in the mail today and I hope they make it there safely in time. It was alot of fun and I really hate that I won't be there for Steph's shower.

The boys have had a good week minus Luke's eye infection (no pictures of that, it is quite disgusting). We've never dealt with an eye problem before but when I picked the boys up from school on Monday, Luke's eye was all goopy-made even worse by his long eyelashes. I took him to the doctor on Tuesday and he is now taking antibiotic eyedrops. As crappy as it is to give a 2 year old eyedrops, Luke is probably the best one out there to take them. He really doesn't mind and when we finish one eye, he says "do the other one." He is looking much better now and so far the rest of us are ok.

Below are pictures of the boys playing with their new Christmas toys.

Spinning on their Bilibos from Aunt Conny.

Ryan and Luke playing Animal Scramble. I got this game when I kept all 4 kids and it is the coolest thing ever-Luke rocks at it.

Lastly:
I am the proud new owner of a beautiful red Kitchen Aid mixer - which came in handy with all of those cookies.

Greg is a new owner (I don't know if he's proud or not) of a super nice bike-now he can pull the boys' trailer.