Water Fight!

Harper

She may have been nibbling on dirt/rocks...a little dirt never hurt anyone, right?

Grant

Parade

When your hands are full of candy, you stick the extra under your chin to deliver it to the bag. 

Our parade watchers...waving at all the tractors. 

A big thanks to Noah 'Hide, Gabrielle and AEV for inviting us!

Che-he! Che-ha! Che-ha-ha-ha! Go Illini Go!

For my dad...

My dearest father informed me I was slacking...big time.  So, I'm sitting at his desk putting this together for him so he can see just what we have been up to.

Kurt and I had 24 hours to ourselves thanks to Aunt Michelle and Grammy.  I actually got to ride in a tractor without two little boys asking when I was going to get out of their seat! 

We picked the boys up the next day and made a stop the University of Illinois...my alma mater and their future school.  They both already sing part of the Illinois Loyalty song, so they are destined to attend. 

The boys wanted to jump, so we accomplished that on Memorial Day. 

???  Unexplainable at times ???

The kick off to the Summer reading program at the library included a fire truck and police car. 

Matching outfits so I could easily pick them out if they strayed away from me.  It took 30 minutes for them to work up the nerve to climb into the fire truck so no worries about them getting any further than my arm could reach.

Katy and I ran in the village of Stew's 5K.  We ran by our house and the boys cheered us on!

Nap time...I should just buy a double bed so they can sleep in the same bed at night. 

He voluntarily drank pickle juice AND liked it...yuck!

The training wheels need to be removed from Brody's bike.  He is a balance bike champ so there is no need.  Ri just started riding his bike on Wednesday of last week. 

His new trick this week...he stands to peddle like I do!  NO FEAR!

Steak-N-Shake!!

The library had a juggler one evening last week.  We were impressed with his skills!!

Uncle Chris turned another year older on Saturday. 

And on Sunday, we had a lovely invite to a parade.  Riley stood just like that until the folks in the parade started throwing candy...lots and lots of candy!

 

So Dad, there you go.  I might even post a video or two just for you!

Last Day

Riley William

Brody John Robert

first driveway swim

If I lick it, I like it!

Riley's favorite saying used to be, "If I need it, I need it."  He also loves to ask Kurt and I if we worked hard for our money at the end of the day.

Mother's Day morning, he pulled out a new one.  "If I lick it, I like it, Mama!"  He used his best Roz voice from Monsters, Inc. to share this beauty with us. 
 

The.Best.

Farming - it's the life they love right now and can't get enough of it. 

 

Saturday, they packed a lunch box and water jugs so they could work as long as they wanted.  With auto steer, they even get to sit in 'the seat' and drive!  Saturday, when they were working smaller fields and couldn't sit in 'the seat' and it was bumpy, Kurt declared it was time for them to go home.  Brody told his dad that he needed to go knock down weeds in his fields anyway, so no one exited the tractor kicking and screaming.  I had made them fields on the floor with blue painter's tape and of course, one of the blue tape farms was Aunt Bessie's and the other farm was Henton.  Who knew blue tape could make for many happy hours of play?

Mother's Day 2013

 

 

Working together.

I think I sometimes remember their fighting and instead should remember that they really do love each other and can work together.

(Allison, please note that they CHOSE to wear matching shirts!)

Riley loves him

Grant is most definitely loved by all, but Riley has an extra special love for this kid. He only calls him by his full name, Grant Hayden 'Ellic'. He stood on a chair and watched him in his bouncy seat for a very long spell yesterday evening and then wanted to hold him. It was not okay if I held him. They are spending the day together so hopefully Aunt Michelle finds him as helpful today!

This is how we roll!

 

The weekend

I told the boys about 12 hours to soon that we were going to stay in a hotel over the weekend. Riley told us about every fifteen minutes leading up to our departure that he was 'ready to go to hotel!' Brody was just ready to get in the car and watch Peter Pan while we drove south.  It's rare I drive on family outings, so a car full of sleeping people made for some nice drive time, complete with my choice of music!   

 

Most important part to them, they got to swim! 

Horribly blurry, but Brody had no fear when jumping in.  Riley and Eli were a little more clingy! 

I believe Riley could quite possibly be a difficult student for his swim instructor this summer... 

Riley is ready to go to a hotel again.  In fact, he has asked constantly since we arrived home if we can go again!

 

Brody

A few words about Brody:

• Brody has started skipping nap time on days he doesn't go to school.  The picture on top was a school day he skipped his rest and cried part of the way home and then fell asleep (complete with drool).  Some days no nap equals a long evening and other days it doesn't phase him.  
• He definitely likes to be a helper.  This particular evening he wanted to chop up strawberries for everyone.  He did a great job with his butter knife and cutting board and was definitely proud of his work.
• He is my shadow.  Whatever I do, he likes to help me for awhile at least.  We have worked our way through the flower beds, which resulted in me touching more worms than I have in a lifetime.  We have built natural habitats for them and he names them.  The only name I remember is Wormie though.  I am always just working hard to keep them out of his pockets and out of the house.  
• He is riding a bike with training wheels.  I don't think he needs them after conquering the balance bike last year, but for now he has them.
• He crossed the street by himself a couple weeks ago to visit our neighbor with Ms. Mahnke.   She fed him a popsicle and played in the rocks with him so I believe she might have sealed the deal on their friendship for a lifetime.  
• He still enjoys school and has worked through several different units and is working hard at mastering his letter and number writing skills. They have talked about the devil at school and anytime Riley misbehaves or doesn't listen, Brody informs us that Riley is following the devil.  
• B is looking forward to summer so he can SWIM!  He showed us his skills this weekend and amazingly hadn't forgot much of what he had learned last summer. 

bowling

Riley has asked to go bowling since Brody went with his school back in January.  We promised to take him once he was potty trained.  As of Thursday, Miss Julie gave him her seal of potty training approval and starting Monday he gets to play in the special toy room and play in the yard instead of just playing on the deck.  Woo-Hoo – no more diapers!  With the Ellis’ visiting this weekend, it worked out well to take the clan of potty trained kids bowling. 

I think Kurt decided that after loading/unloading four kids this evening that two kids is just the right number for us.  I will admit, crawling in and out of the third row to buckle/unbuckle two kids was kind of exhausting. 

YAY for being potty trained!! 

Crewe turned ONE!

Grant is here!!

The perfect day.

What perfect weather we had today! 

Riley started his day with a fever, but a morning nap and meds has seemed to fix him, hopefully? 

Speaking of Mr. Riley..

• this past week he took an interest in actually driving the gator.  He always wanted to ride, but never wanted to drive.  That all changed though and now he doesn’t think Brody should ever have a chance to drive.  With the help of Noah “Hide, Riley figured out how to throw it into high and reverse. 
• Good Friday, we FINALLY took his beloved PAC - E (PAC-E = paci) away.  It was past time…way past time actually.  We are all tired, but he doesn’t ask for one anymore and threw the remaining few away on Saturday all by himself. 
• Last Saturday, I was ready to auction him off.  We had a horrible morning of potty training…HORRIBLE.  It ended with a pile of poo on his bedroom floor.  We put him down for his rest and the break from each other helped things improve slightly the rest of the day.  Side Note: I think he was retaliating after losing his PAC-E. 
• This weekend the kid rocked the whole potty training thing and I do believe he is so very close to officially trained.  Woo-Hoo!  Now, we must apologize to our neighbors though.  Riley isn’t shy about dropping his pants anywhere to pee while he is outside.  So, next weekend we will work on at least going to the south side of the yard.   
• Now that he wears undies everyday, he refuses to wear anything but jeans.  Drawstring/elastic waist pants would be so much easier to get up and down on his own, but I don’t argue with him about it because he willingly gets dressed in the morning if his jeans are out and ready. 
• His current favorite things to eat are strawberry cereal bars, raspberries, strawberries, peanut butter & jelly and salad with ranch dressing.  Swedish fish jelly beans are his favorite special treat for successful potty training events. 
• He can’t wait to go to school this fall with Eli.  He knows he can’t go until he is potty trained so he has been working towards that goal.  He told us he has to go to school with Eli because he loves Eli.  Can’t argue with that. 
• He gets excited to go to Miss Julie’s now because he is the teacher.  He is teaching the boys that are just a bit younger than him the ins and outs of potty training or at least that is what he tells us.  Noah ‘Hide, Briar and Atticus are in for some enlightening lessons for sure.
• He has hit a growth spurt lately because he could wear 24 month pants most of the winter and now needs 2T and 3T to go around his waist and for the length. 

So a whole lot of randoms about that kid.  And now I better get some rest so I am ready for his fever to spike up again or for his nightly pilgrimage from his bed to our bed.  Thankfully, each night it gets closer and closer to morning before he kicks his way in between us.  Hopefully one more week post-PAC-E will get him back to sleeping in his own bed all night again.  Until next time…

Easter 2013

Coloring eggs was a hit this year.  Brody was mesmerized that one of the eggs magically had his name on it!