Right Now

Right now, the boys are eating cereal and watching Clifford. They shouldn't be eating in the family room, but Jonah took his bowl from the table over to this desk and they are just too darn cute (and they aren't yelling at each other!) that I can't bare to stop them. Sigh.

Bunk Beds

We finally got the boys' bunk beds all ready to go:

 

And Jonah wasted no time in figuring out how to climb to the top (pictures courtesy of Skyler)

Needless to say, bedtime sure has been a lot of fun around here!

Joy School Graduation

Graduation was originally scheduled for last month, but someone had the nerve to have her baby two weeks early, so it was postponed. It really isn't all that big of a deal, but I have no photographic evidence of Skyler's Joy School experiences! Each Christmas party or Halloween parade or graduation, my camera gives up and thus no cute pictures or video of Skyler singing or walking around in his costume or holding his diploma.  I'm glad that my fellow joy school moms humor me and are patient because guess whose camera wasn't working?  Yup, our video camera was acting strange and our old digital cameral that does video was only taking stills for some reason - though both had worked fine a week (or even a few days) earlier!

I was able to get some stills however, which is more than I have from any other school event!  And I was promised some video footage, so I guess all's well that ends well.

Here are the kids singing their songs

 

And here are the happy grads holding up their certificates not at all how I asked them to (or maybe I just shouldn't have cut the top off?)

Now on to Kindergarten!

One Month Old

How can it be that sometimes the minutes and hours creep by, but that Oliver is already a month old? This past month has really just flown by. He's still just a tiny guy, just now starting to fit into the 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers. Oliver has already experienced a lot - several heal pricks due to his jaundice, many outings to the park, the library, and the store, and even a plane trip to make an appearance at his great-grandma's 80th birthday party!

He's been held, rocked, loved, and nearly smashed (by his big brothers, who sometimes love him a little too much).

It's been a wonderful month.

Jonah is Two

Jonah turned two years old on Sunday. He still seemed to be a little young to really understand what a birthday is, each time we talked about it he'd say "Blue's clues" because we have a Blue's Clues birthday video. We still tried to make the day special for him though!

On Saturday, we went swimming at one of the city pools. We thought he'd totally love it because he loves baths and has so much fun in our backyard blow-up pool. At first, he really wasn't in to it, but when it was time to go, we had a hard time getting him to leave! So, I'd call that a success.

 

Later that night, we went to dinner at Red Robin. Jonah got a birthday sundae and knew it was his - he totally refused to share with Skyler. Well, actually, he refused to share his spoon. Once Skyler had his own spoon, he was much more agreeable to sharing the ice cream.

Jonah loves strawberries, so why not give the kid what he likes? His birthday cake was a simple angel food cake, strawberry, whip cream concoction.

This is Jonah telling us that he's two while showing five fingers. It was right after he told us he was five and showed us two fingers.

 

Jonah definitely inherited my bad habit of showing very little emotion during gift opening - he really didn't get very excited about any of his gifts. Skyler, on the other hand was so excited about all of them. It's a good thing he doesn't have to wait too long for his birthday to come around.

Jonah is such a sweet little boy. I would have thought that when I came home with Oliver, Jonah would seem so big and so not baby-like anymore. But that hasn't been the case at all! Jonah is still very much my baby. Though he tells me all the time, "I not baby, I Jonah, baby in bed!". He talks very well and you really kind of can have a conversation with him. He loves dinosaurs, fish, books, puzzles, and trains. If Skyler builds him a train track with the Duplos, he'll play forever with the trains. He's such a happy boy and can always make me smile. We love you, Jonah!  Happy Birthday.

Cleaning Time

I really want to have some sort of structure to our summer days (nothing like having a baby to make me realize that I tend to be a control freak at heart), so I'm slowly working out a schedule of sorts (and by slowly, I mean I'm sure I'll have a fabulous one in place by, oh, mid-August). So far the schedule includes cleaning time before dinner. I figure if I shift the picking up and what not to the end of the day, I can start the next day with a clean slate and perhaps we can be ready and raring to go earlier in the day (to where, I'm not sure, I'll figure it out).

Cleaning time is so far a fairly good success. The boys sort of pick up their toys, but are more interested in dusting and wiping down cabinets. Which is fine, because it keeps them occupied doing something that won't make too big of a mess while I can do some cleaning.

Here are the slaves children in action:

Froggy Boots

The boys just love these. Jonah doesn't ever want to take his off. I think they're adorable and worth every penny spent on them. Though that's easy to say considering Jordan bought them and therefore I don't yet know how much they cost.

Swimming Pool

One of Jordan's co-workers gave us an inflatable swimming pool - it's huge and the boys love it.

Here are some pictures from yesterday while it was filling up.

It's "Gaint size for family and friends" (yes, there is a typo on the box), so come on over and play with us!

And, here's a picture of Oliver for good measure:

On My Own

My first trip out with all the kids was to the lab so Oliver could have his blood drawn for the newborn screen. Apparently this is tradition - I know my first solo trip out with Skyler and Jonah was so Jonah could get a bili test done. Some highlights:

- In the waiting area, Skyler told Jonah there was a worm in one of the potted plants. So Jonah was trying to dig through the plant to find the worm. Then back where the blood is drawn, Jonah saw another plant and tried again to find the non-existent worm.

- I explained to Skyler what was going to happen to Oliver and Skyler started saying how he was going to suck the blood out of his animal crackers. He'd take a bite and then say (loudly, because he doesn't know any other way) "more blood" and take another bite. My sweet little vampire boy.

- Jonah saw a sink in the blood drawing area and suddenly had an irresistible urge to wash his hands.

- Skyler told our life story to the poor workers while I kept an eye on Jonah who was busy watching the random fish that was in the blood drawing area.

- There was a can of non-dairy creamer near the fishbowl and Jonah kept grabbing it saying he wanted to feed the fish.

- I decided that my boys would seem much less unruly if they just weren't so dang loud.

I seriously should have done this on Saturday without the older boys in tow, but honestly, where's the fun in that?

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.