Scenes from this Week

Visits from grandparents

A trip to the zoo for dad and the big boys

Oliver finds his thumb

Enjoying the newest member of our family

Getting mad

Oliver gets his turn to wear a baby outfit that belonged to daddy. Jordan said he should wear it now before he gets too big. But um, Oliver still has a couple pounds to go before he even reaches Jordan's birth weight, I'm sure it'll fit him for a several more weeks.

Oliver Anders

Baby Oliver joined our family two weeks early on May 20 at 2:08 am. He weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz and was 19 inches long. It was a quick one just like Skyler. I wasn't even paying much attention to the contractions (I was too used to all the false labor I'd been having for the past month) until 9:30 pm, when I decided maybe I should time them. I still thought that I'd be able to sleep through the night and we could have the baby the next day, but he clearly had plans of his own. We left for the hospital at about 12:30 am, and he came an hour and a half later. I was so worried about the pushing since I'd had to push for nearly an hour with the other boys, but this time was "easy" - Jordan estimates just about 10 minutes.

He was having trouble warming up, but hasn't had any other troubles. So far, he just loves to sleep. He and I are both doing well.

Skyler and Jonah are very excited. Skyler loves to hold to him and Jonah is always saying "hi" and asking him what's wrong.

This Boy Loves the Dirt

This past weekend was the fathers and sons outing. One weekend when I'm especially happy to have all boys!  Anyway, Jonah apparently took the title of dirtiest kid. He was quite covered with dirt when they got home and Jordan said he had even wiped him down before they left!

 

  

And Skyler did dishes!

A good weekend was clearly had by all

Post #294, In Which Winnie-the-Pooh is Discussed and I Realize that Maybe I am Sad for Skyler to go to School

On a whim, I picked up Winnie-the-Pooh to read to Skyler. He loved it, so we borrowed the movie from the library and also got the second book, The House at Pooh Corner.  The second book ends much like the movie, Christopher Robin grows up and essentially leaves behind his imaginary childhood world.  The movie pretty much links this directly to Christopher Robin going to school.  The book, not so much because school is mentioned in an earlier chapter and not the last chapter.  It all makes me just a tiny bit sad that Skyler will be starting school soon (just a teeny, tiny bit though, mind you). Skyler has a crazy imagination. He is always going off to work to fix watches or teach kids, he packs for trips and goes camping. If he would focus his imagination on his stuffed animal collection and not so much on various occupations, he would be Christopher Robin. In his mind it is all so real, and sometimes most of the time it drives me insane. But I know the day will come when I'll miss that.  That day might come too soon.

Jordan explained the end of the book to Skyler, and Skyler explained it me. Skyler told me that Christopher Robin was saying good-bye because he was getting older and he didn't think that he would be having adventures with his animal friends anymore.

But he will, Skyler added, because we can just go and get the book from the library again.

That's why I write this blog - so I can keep going to the library and reading the book of his childhood.

And I let you read it so I will actually write it. :)

Two Things

In Joy School today (and on Tuesday and last week for that matter), Skyler talked about families. They made chains where each link had a name of a family member and then there was a link with joy written on it and one with love. Skyler was showing it to me and explained  that joy and love was what "linked" the family together. Then the chain broke, the mom one had come off.  Skyler said, "I guess mom keeps the family together too".  Amen to that!

--------------------------

Tonight we were outside and Jonah was hitting balls off of the tee. Skyler would clap for him each time it went anywhere. Eventually Jonah started saying to me, "clap Mommy" each time he hit the ball.

I Jonah

Last Thursday, Jonah started coming up to me randomly and saying, "I Jonah". It was really the first time I'd ever heard him say his own name.

On Friday, if I called him by anything other than Jonah, he'd say, "no, I Jonah"

On Sunday, Skyler started messing with him. Skyler would say to Jonah, "you're Skyler" to which Jonah would reply in a very upset and serious tone, "no! I Jonah!"

He's Jonah and we wouldn't have it any other way.

First Catch

We had a ward picnic/fishing day yesterday. The fish in the children's pond were definitely biting and the boys each caught one or two.

 

Jonah especially like playing with the fish after he had caught it!

Strong Man

Skyler decided to do some re-arranging in his room in order to prepare for Jonah sharing it with him.  I went into his room after his rest time a few days ago, and his toy storage thing was no longer where it normally goes.

He had moved it into his closet all by himself!

Not to be outdone, Jonah has been busy building lego towers.

What I Love About My Boys Right Now

Jonah: When I tickle him he just giggles and giggles and calls out "ickle, ickle".  It's adorable.

Skyler: When I make something for dinner that he likes, he goes on and on raving about it. He'll give it 47 thumbs up if I'm lucky.

Jordan: He brought home my mother's day gift all wrapped up and just sat it on the counter. I like this because it beats the alternative, him leaving it at work and therefore me not getting to open it on Sunday. I also like the early morning backrubs while we both lie in bed and wonder why Jonah thinks he needs to get up at 6 in the morning.

He-who-has-yet-to-be-named: If ever I think that I haven't felt him move around lately, I'll just poke around a bit and he'll poke back.  It's nice to have at least one cooperative child.

The Backyard

We're working on putting up a retaining wall in our backyard (and by "we" I mean Jordan and some guys from the ward, I'd so be out there helping, but, you know).

Jonah was in charge of eating donuts. Apparently between the one I gave him, the one he got from Skyler, and the first one that Jordan gave him, he ended up eating three!

Anyway, the wall construction creates a great hill of dirt for the time being that is far cooler than the sandbox.

Maternity Pictures

Perhaps it's due to my Superman obsession

or maybe it's because as a child I hated pink and all things girly

or maybe it's just my love affair with breakfast cereal

Whatever the reason, we'll be welcoming our third little boy very soon.

I just laughed when I saw it on the ultrasound (so far he's just like Skyler, he wanted us to know!) and I've been so excited since. Not to knock on mother/daughter relationships, but I just love the very special relationship a boy has with his mother. I've seen it with my own mom and brothers and I'm so excited to share it with another one of my sons.

Here are some pictures of me and my two-soon-to-be-three boys.

Yes, we've known the gender since week 20, I just spaced putting that bit of information up here for whatever reason.

Tumbling, Dinos, and Band-aids, oh my!

So far this week....

Joy School was at our house. We talked about creativity. One of the definitions that lessons give is simply creating something by yourself. Pretty cool and basic definition, I feel like I can fall into that category! Skyler said I came up with a fun activity for them to do. Little does he know I come up with nothing when it comes to Joy School!

Skyler had tumbling. Jonah gets really excited about going too, since he tends to participate in some things.

Jordan started planting our garden (or was that last week?). Skyler likes going outside to help him. Jonah likes playing in the mud. Jordan also started prepping the yard for the railroad tie retaining wall that he'll start on this weekend.

We went to the Natural History Museum with the cub scouts. The big thing here is the dinosaur bones. We've been once before but Skyler had no desire to check them out and Jonah was too little. Jonah is very into dinos right now, so he loved it. He also thought the fish tank was cool because he loves fishies!

Skyler has started reading. He was frustrated that he couldn't read the words that would pop up on the screen when he played Wii (who says video games are bad?) so he said he wanted to learn to read. We borrowed some readers from a friend who has a daughter in kindergarten and he's starting to get the whole blending thing down (which has been his biggest struggle thus far - he'd just say each letter sound and then move onto the next word without putting the sounds together!)

Skyler pinched his palm in the folding door to the laundry area. It left a mark that was about a half an inch long. This was right before leaving for the museum and he was refusing to go because his hand hurt, so Jordan offered to wrap it up just like he used to wrap his own ankle to play volleyball. Suddenly, all was right in Skyler's world. Despite the fact that he still looks so sad in this picture. He kept it on until after the museum and then happily took it off and hasn't complained about it since.

 

Now on to next week!As soon as this one is over, I guess.

Happy Easter

We've had a fun week doing a few fun Easter things.  Skyler really got into filling the eggs with candy, so we filled way more than we needed.  We also made some little origami baskets to fill with treats and give to Skyler's friends (well, most of then got filled with treats...).  We got together with some friends for an Easter Egg hunt.  One of the other moms made cute little bunny hats, Jonah wouldn't wear it at first, but then I sneaked it on him and he kept it on for awhile.  Skyler didn't want one on until the very end.

On Easter morning, the boys were excited to have their baskets all filled up with sand toys and baby dolls.  The buckets will be sand buckets now that the Easter festivities are done.  Skyler kept saying how smart the Easter Bunny was to bring him a new shovel, and Jonah just kept shoveling jellybeans in his mouth.

Then, there's the traditional Easter family pictures.  I was the only one to sport new clothes.  I asked Skyler if he wanted to go to Target and buy new clothes for Easter (he normally loves to go clothes shopping for himself) and at first he wanted to, but then he changed his mind and said that he didn't need new clothes because he already had a blue tie and a blue shirt to wear.  Okay then.  These are last year's Easter ties, and Skyler probably hasn't worn his since last Easter because he prefers the zipper ties that he can get on by himself.  But, even though the kids didn't have new clothes, we still had to take a picture because we always do!

Skyler decided he was done and tried to leave.  This was unfortunate because Jonah had just decided that he'd stay where we wanted him to.  He was especially excited to look at these pictures, so I think he was escaping not so much because he was bored, but because he thought it would make for a funny picture.