Let's Go Fly A Kite

Skyler made a little kite at school this past week and got really excited when Jordan suggested going out to fly the big kite. So yesterday we piled the boys in our new-to-us bike trailer and rode over to the vacant lot near our house.

Skyler flying his kite

Helping Daddy fly the big kite

Chasing the kite

Chilling in the trailer

My Extovert of a Son

The other day, Skyler vocalized something I've known for a long time. He told me, "I want someone to play with me, I don't want to play by myself". That someone is me an awful lot. Sometimes I wish I could magically age Jonah about 18 months. I don't always have to play with Skyler, just being in his immediate vicinity is fine. He's also told me, "I want you to sit by me and watch me eat my oatmeal" and it's just fascinating to watch a 3 year old eat oatmeal, let me tell ya. I shouldn't be too surprised because in a 28 year old way, Jordan is the same. And apparently so is his sister and father. Fun times. Jordan's never asked me to watch him eat oatmeal though, watching him put up ceiling fans, yes, but eating, no. It's a good thing I love these boys.

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I Never Thought I'd See the Day
March 25, 2008

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Yesterday we went to the park and took some sandwiches with us to have a little picnic. Skyler requested that I -are you sitting down for this?- not cut the crusts off his sandwich and then at the park he -are you sure you're sitting down?- ate the entire sandwich crust and all. He did tell me that sometimes he likes crust and sometimes he doesn't, in other words, this was probably a one time deal mom.

I never thought I'd be one of *those parents* that gave into their child's silly whim and cut crusts off of sandwiches. One day Skyler decided he was no longer going to eat crusts. A few days later I gave in and started to cut them off because otherwise he was only eating a few bites (heaven forbid he come into contact with any crust by accident). Without crusts, he'll eat it all, with crusts he'd only eat about a fifth of it, and then ask for another of course, because in his mind the first was gone now because all that was left was the crust.

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My Extovert of a Son
March 28, 2008

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The other day, Skyler vocalized something I've known for a long time. He told me, "I want someone to play with me, I don't want to play by myself". That someone is me an awful lot. Sometimes I wish I could magically age Jonah about 18 months. I don't always have to play with Skyler, just being in his immediate vicinity is fine. He's also told me, "I want you to sit by me and watch me eat my oatmeal" and it's just fascinating to watch a 3 year old eat oatmeal, let me tell ya. I shouldn't be too surprised because in a 28 year old way, Jordan is the same. And apparently so is his sister and father. Fun times. Jordan's never asked me to watch him eat oatmeal though, watching him put up ceiling fans, yes, but eating, no. It's a good thing I love these boys.

I Never Thought I'd See the Day

Yesterday we went to the park and took some sandwiches with us to have a little picnic. Skyler requested that I -are you sitting down for this?- not cut the crusts off his sandwich and then at the park he -are you sure you're sitting down?- ate the entire sandwich crust and all. He did tell me that sometimes he likes crust and sometimes he doesn't, in other words, this was probably a one time deal mom.

I never thought I'd be one of *those parents* that gave into their child's silly whim and cut crusts off of sandwiches. One day Skyler decided he was no longer going to eat crusts. A few days later I gave in and started to cut them off because otherwise he was only eating a few bites (heaven forbid he come into contact with any crust by accident). Without crusts, he'll eat it all, with crusts he'd only eat about a fifth of it, and then ask for another of course, because in his mind the first was gone now because all that was left was the crust.

Happy Easter

I don't have great pictures of the boys looking for eggs in the morning because the camera was dead and I was confined to the charging cord.

Here's our annual family Easter picture. I'm not too terribly happy with how they turned out. Skyler really wanted Jonah on his lap, but Jonah didn't want to be on Skyler's lap, Then Skyler wanted to lay down, and boycott looking at the camera, and tug on my necklace and well, we'll just pretend that I'm wearing white tights :).

A special thanks to Jordan's mom for making the boys' ties. I promise that next time I ask for help with something, I'll actually stick around to help. 

Skyler was excited for a new maze book

Checking the contents of the eggs

Easter Egg Hunt

On Wednesday, we went to an Easter Egg hunt that my MOMS club hosted. Here's Skyler beforehand. He was so worried that he wouldn't be able to find the eggs, but I assured him that it'd be pretty easy since he's one of the oldest kids in the bunch.  

I sat Jonah down to see if he'd go for an egg. He thought about it, but another kid came and snatched it.

 He was quite disappointed as you can see, or something like that.

That kid's mom moved another egg close to Jonah and he went for it.

And here's Skyler showing off his loot.

Nine Months Old

Jonah is now nine months old.  He still doesn't care too much for solids, yet could eat his weight in Cheerios.  He'll go from a sitting position to his stomach, rock on all fours for a second then maybe scoot forward a bit, then do this:


Yes, he's not much of a fan of being on his stomach, he'd much prefer to sit.



He loves to play with toys, pull himself up to a standing position (or be put into one) and take baths in the big tub. He still just has two teeth. He weighs 20 lbs 6 oz and is 29 inches tall. He's a lot of fun, I think we'll keep him!

Peek a Boo with Jonah

You'll have to be patient while Skyler hijacks the camera and I get it back.

The Broken Freeway

Skyler can be annoyingly observant. Before he was even two years old, he knew more or less how to get to his friend Jane's house and he would throw a fit if we got close to her house, but then didn't turn down the right street. So needless to say, he quickly noticed when I took a different way home yesterday. The freeway off-ramp that goes to our house is closed, so I took some side streets instead of getting on the freeway. And I spent about ten minutes explaining to Skyler why we weren't going on the freeway (since "just because was are" doesn't work on him). My favorite was when I told him they were fixing the freeway, he asked me how it broke.

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131 Days Until Skyler Turns 4
March 06, 2008

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Why do I know this? Skyler will be attending two birthday parties in the coming weeks, so naturally he wants to know when his birthday is. In July isn't good enough, he wants to know how many days. I've been giving him random numbers, but wanted to count to see how far off I was. I've been telling him 120, so not bad. He wants to know if that's how many fingers he has. Nope, sorry buddy, that's more fingers and toes than everyone in our family.

To say Skyler is excited about these parties would be an understatement. It's all I hear about all day. One of them will have a pirate theme, and the invitation includes lots of fun words like aaarrghh and shiver me timbers and ahoy maties. Jordan did a lovely pirate imitation when he read it the first time, and now Skyler always wants me to read it like Daddy does. Though he's started to say he'll read it how he reads it, or that he'll read it in Spanish (which is mainly English with an uno or dos thrown in for good measure) or now French (a lovely mixture of English and jibberish).

He chose birthday gifts for both kids and for one of them chose a ball, which he wanted me to wrap. Um, how 'bout we throw it in a bag instead? So then he wants to put the other gift, which was wrapped, in a bag too. Whatever.

And all this makes me wonder if Skyler remembers what birthday parties are.

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The Broken Freeway
March 12, 2008

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Skyler can be annoyingly observant. Before he was even two years old, he knew more or less how to get to his friend Jane's house and he would throw a fit if we got close to her house, but then didn't turn down the right street. So needless to say, he quickly noticed when I took a different way home yesterday. The freeway off-ramp that goes to our house is closed, so I took some side streets instead of getting on the freeway. And I spent about ten minutes explaining to Skyler why we weren't going on the freeway (since "just because was are" doesn't work on him). My favorite was when I told him they were fixing the freeway, he asked me how it broke.

131 Days Until Skyler Turns 4

Why do I know this? Skyler will be attending two birthday parties in the coming weeks, so naturally he wants to know when his birthday is. In July isn't good enough, he wants to know how many days. I've been giving him random numbers, but wanted to count to see how far off I was. I've been telling him 120, so not bad. He wants to know if that's how many fingers he has. Nope, sorry buddy, that's more fingers and toes than everyone in our family.

To say Skyler is excited about these parties would be an understatement. It's all I hear about all day. One of them will have a pirate theme, and the invitation includes lots of fun words like aaarrghh and shiver me timbers and ahoy maties. Jordan did a lovely pirate imitation when he read it the first time, and now Skyler always wants me to read it like Daddy does. Though he's started to say he'll read it how he reads it, or that he'll read it in Spanish (which is mainly English with an uno or dos thrown in for good measure) or now French (a lovely mixture of English and jibberish).

He chose birthday gifts for both kids and for one of them chose a ball, which he wanted me to wrap. Um, how 'bout we throw it in a bag instead? So then he wants to put the other gift, which was wrapped, in a bag too. Whatever.

And all this makes me wonder if Skyler remembers what birthday parties are.

Park Day

On Wednesday we took a walk over to the park. Jonah rode on the swings for the first time and Skyler climbed up some of the equipment that he had been to afraid to last year (that's not what he's on in the picture though).

He's On To Us

In an effort to um, not yell at each other in the middle of the night, Jordan and I came up with a compromise. Jonah does not get fed unless he wakes up after three o'clock, so essentially, Jordan handles the pre 3 am wake-ups, and I get the ones after. No, that doesn't divide the night up very evenly, but guess who has started waking up at 3:00 exactly most nights? And on the nights that Jonah decides to wake up earlier (like, say oh, two o'clock) Jordan will get up with him, he'll go back to sleep quickly and wake up promptly at 3:00.

He's on to us, I tell ya.

How Many Duplos Tall Are You?

If I remember correctly -
Jonah: 34
Skyler: 51
Me: 81
Jordan: 94


An alternate title for this post could be "how you know when you have too many duplos". Because yes, we have enough square ones to stack them over six feet tall. Throw in the non-square ones, the people, the trains, etc., etc, and that's a lot of duplos. Any time Jordan says he thinks that Skyler has too many toys, I offer to pack up some of the duplos. He stops saying such things.

Oh, and I know there was a very good reason that Skyler only had on one sock, but this was over a week ago, so now I have no idea.

Eight Months Old

Jonah hit the 8 month mark on Valentine's Day. As you can see, he is way more in to standing than anything else. He can pull to standing in his crib, but I have to put him in a standing position on anything else.  I didn't think he'd be able to do so well that I'd be able to sit away far enough to take a picture (usually I'm right there spotting him) but he surprised me.

No new teeth in the past month, though he sure has been acting like a new one is coming. He might like sweet potatoes, or maybe that was just a fluke.

  I give him cheerios and he throws them all on the floor. He seems to only like nursing and eating toys.

A Peek Into Skyler's Head

I very much think that Skyler thinks like this, not only when it comes to torturing his little brother, but with anything. Sometimes I'll tell him he needs to listen to me or he'll get timeout. He thinks about it and then says, "okay".

Jonah Meets The Snow

This is from last week. There was just enough snow to cover the ground and it was melting fast. I had missed my other opportunity to take Jonah out in the snow and I wasn't going to miss it again (because at the rate the snow is falling this winter, this was as good as it gets). As you can see, he wasn't too thrilled by it all.


And here's Skyler. He wouldn't go out in the snow, which is not too much of a surprise, although two weeks ago when it snowed he walked out in it and threw some snowballs. I really should have gotten some photographic evidence of that.

Um, Thank You?

I am at the computer nursing Jonah and Skyler just brought me a graham cracker sandwich. Complete with butter in between each layer. That kid truly has learned that he can pretty much do whatever he pleases while I'm feeding Jonah because there isn't a whole lot I can do about it.

It's Tough Being the Little Brother

I pulled out the pack 'n' play so Jonah could have some space to play on his own. As in, Skyler isn't allowed in the pack 'n' play with Jonah. But never fear, Skyler still finds ways to torture his little brother even though he's been threatened with a "really long timeout" should he climb in. Like throwing in toys for example. He put the Weebles Treehouse in there and it landed on Jonah's head. Oops. Now Skyler will get a "really long timeout" should he decide to do that again.

And doesn't Jonah play the role of bullied little brother well? Really the incident was not as traumatic for him as the look on his face would suggest.

Jonah

Last Month a friend came over to take pictures of us. I wanted her to take some of Jonah especially to mark his six month birthday. He was quite the charmer and was loving the camera.