The Boys are Fighting!

Okay, having two boys, I never thought I'd have to say this, but my kids have been fighting over the baby doll! Of course, they both want to play with the baby. I told my mom about it and she found one of our old cabbage patch kids. Great solution - two boys, two babies. Guess what? Nobody wants that other baby. Apparently it is just not as good. So they continue to squabble. Boys, what can you do? It's funny because this past week the baby and cooking have been two of the daily "games" we've played. I just love having boys!

Luke has started to parrot EVERYTHING we say. Every word, he repeats it right back. Fun, yes, until my brother decided to test this... Yes, Luke repeats everything...

Today he decided to build a tower of blocks. This is really the first time he has built anything and check out the tower he made! Could be we have another engineer in the family. The funny thing was he got a bunch of blocks from the basket and carried them all to the table. Then when he used those up he looked at me and said "More blocks, mommy". So I fetched him blocks as he worked on his masterpiece.

I also let the boys paint a picture together this morning. They actually did pretty good sharing the canvas, although Calvin's painting took up about 75% of the page and Luke's a small corner, but neither one cared so neither did I. Luke only painted one stripe on Calvin's clothes and only licked a little bit of paint off the brush... He's getting better...

I just love how they are at the point where they actually can play and do things together. It makes having two close together totally worth it!

Weekend Getaway

We took advantage of another one of Dave's cross country's to get away for the weekend, this time to Austin. Since my sister lives up there, I drove up on Thursday so we could spend the night with them and let the kids have some play time. My sister's youngest, Gunner, is 5 months older than Luke. Now that they are getting older, the differences between them are not quite so great and I think they will have a lot of fun together as they grow. Here they are, hanging out together.

At one point while we were there Luke disappeared. I went to find him and my sister said "He's just washing his hands." Well, turns out he was actually "washing" his hair. He would get the hand soap on his hand, then smear it on (one side) of his head. He was so proud of himself. And what did I do when I found him?? Run and get my camera, of course.

On Friday I went and picked Dave up at the airport and we staying in a hotel in downtown Austin. Calvin loved "making coffee" in the little coffee pot and opening the door with the key card.

On Saturday morning we got up and went to the Austin Children's Museum. The boys had fun but I really wasn't impressed at all by the museum. I guess for a bigger city, I thought it would be alot better. It was crowded, not alot of room to move around, and seemed to be geared more towards elementary aged kids. It was okay for a day, but I probably wouldn't go back. The San Antonio Children's Museum is much better.

One thing Calvin liked - dress up.

Putting shingles on a roof.

After lunch and driving around while the boys slept, we went to Zilker Park in downtown Austin. It's a huge park and we only went to one small part of it, but it was really neat. And can I just say, you would not believe how many people are out running in Austin. I saw so many people all day long, it was really great. Anyways, the park had a big play area for the kids and a little train you could take a ride on. Dave bought tickets for the train ride, but somehow only purchased one adult ticket and didn't realize it until we got on. I went to get another ticket and they were sold out. A woman sitting behind us overheard us talking about it, said she had been on the ride many times, and was nice enough to give me her ticket so we could enjoy the ride as a family. I was touched by her kind gesture.

After a long day of playtime for the kids, they were ready for bed. However, Luke didn't want to go to sleep in his pack n' play. When we made a bed for Calvin on the floor, Luke laid right down on it with his blanket and everything.

I let him stay there, just to see what he would do. He tickled Calvin for a little bit, then I gave him books to look at. After awhile it was quiet and I looked down to see that he had fallen asleep, right there next to his brother. We moved him to his bed but I thought it was so sweet that he just snuggled next to Calvin and actually went to sleep.

We headed home early Sunday morning, so it was a pretty quick trip, but so nice to get away from all the chores and routines of home!

Just Another Day

Games We Play

Somehow, this morning, playing with a bouncy ball turned into a game of fetch and both of my children turned into little puppies eager to crawl after a ball and bring it back to me, in their mouth of course. Who would have thought that something so silly would be so much fun, but both of them loved "chasing" after the balls. Never thought I would be scratching my kids behind the ears and telling them "Good doggy"! And let me tell you, this was not a short-lived game, either. I had to draw the line though, when Calvin told me it was my turn to "fetch". No thanks, I'll pass on that...

Cheap Entertainment

My garage door has been broken for months. I finally got somebody out today to fix it. Of course they didn't get there until after five (since I had been waiting since noon...) but as it turns out, their timing was perfect. As I finished getting dinner ready the boys sat, enthralled, at the garage door and watched the men work. I just had to snap a picture.

Independent Reader

Tonight I read Luke his stories and went to put him into bed, but he jumped down and grabbed another book and got back in his chair. So I said goodnight, walked out, and closed the door, just to see what he would do. I opened it back up to check on him right away, he looked at me and said 'Bye, Mommy'. Well, I can take a hint, so I left again. But I couldn't resist and had to go back to check on him. I opened the door just a tad so I could peek in and I watched him "read" his book, then get down and search for another book in his basket, get back up into his rocking chair and read the next book. He did that three times before he apparently found a book that I just had to read to him, at which point he came calling for me, and then led me back to his chair to read the last book. I thought it was pretty cute, but I hope this is not the beginning of bedtime stalling tactics.

Once Again...

Catching up. I always think of things to write about and then by the time I get around to actually sitting down and writing, I just draw a big blank...

We had a great Christmas. Calvin was so excited about Santa coming, but still young enough that he went to sleep and wasn't up too early in the morning. He got his first "big boy" bike and loves it. We have been out riding almost every day. In fact, I even dusted off my bike, pumped up the tires and took a few laps around the block. I forgot how much fun that was.




Luke got his very own "turtle bike" (that's what he calls it).


It was a hard wait, but Calvin did it and was so excited to rip open all of his presents on Christmas morning.

Posing with their stockings.

Calvin also got an astronaut costume, which he loves. In fact, he put it on that morning and didn't take it off until that night, even though it was very warm and sunny on Christmas Day. He actually wore it every day for about a week. To Home Depot, the gym... Got some cute little smiles too as he went waltzing by.

Luke liked trying out Calvin's bike. Who says you can't talk and drive at the same time?

We spent Christmas morning at our house (for the first time in three years), then headed over to my parent's house for dinner. My sister and her family came down that day and we had another big gift exchange that night. Which is really pretty crazy and chaotic with five small kids. My parents got all of us "big" kids a gift card to a local steak restaurant and were kind enough to offer their babysitting services, so the next night we all went out, kidless (how absolutely wonderful). Here we are, getting ready to go out.

The mandatory family picture in front of the Christmas tree.

After dinner we went back to our house to play some games. (Okay, really we were afraid the kids would still be up and we needed a place to hang out until it was late enough to return to my parent's house). I decided it might be fun to play Animal Scramble, which is a kids game where you run around and tag animals with this wand thing. My sister had a little too much fun with it and I just had to throw in this picture. Ha Ha Jenn! It's a neat game though.

Take a close look at this picture. Does anything seem off?

You can't really tell, but that's Calvin's shirt on Luke and vice versa. We were getting the boys dressed one morning and I threw down clothes to Dave, who got them dressed, naturally. I walked down, took a look and just laughed. I mean, the football shirt is a 4t and the other is 18-24 months. But really, the shirt sleeves are just a little short on Calvin and other than that you couldn't tell so much. Won't be long before they're sharing clothes...

One last picture - Calvin got an umbrella for Christmas and was so excited when it started raining the other morning. He ran inside, got his umbrella and just stood in the driveway with the biggest smile on his face.

Can you believe its 2009 already? Seems like the last year has just flown by. Wishing everyone a fantastic new year.