Big boy swing

We rode our bikes today to a new park we'd never been to. It was a great park, but had no baby swings. He kept whining to swing, but didn't want to sit on my lap, so I tried him on the big boy swing and he did awesome! I didn't push him high, but he held on and sat straight up the whole time.

Noah's smile

I think Noah's smile and laugh are his best feature. He seriously has the best smile ever, especially when he belly laughs. His laugh has been the same since he was a baby and it truly is the best. It's really hard these days to get a real smile on camera though. He always acts cheesy or goofy and that's IF he's letting us take his picture. Usually he just plain won't cooperate at all. We've had a few lucky shots lately showing that amazing smile of his though.

He always has to do this with raspberries

Out playing with Paul

Is this the sweetest? No clue how Paul managed to get that out of him for the camera

And I just had to include this one. This is him napping this afternoon after our first pool day of the summer.

Today was an emotional rollercoaster

Paul will have to blog the details later, because I don't even know them. All I know is that it started out sad because we had to say goodbye to Wally. Paul was doing pretty good until Noah hugged him and told him not to be sad and it was ok that Wally was going to the farm. So Paul & Dena left around 9:00am to head to Arkansas to meet Wally's new owner.

I got a text about 12:20 with a picture of Dena that said "Meet Wally's new owner". At first I thought the new family must not have been a good match, then I saw the time. Yep. They called her 20 minutes from her house and said nevermind and turned around. I guess Dena just couldn't say goodbye. So she's officially the crazy dog lady with 3 dogs :) 3 happy dogs and we are SO happy! Now we don't have to say goodbye forever to our furry friend. He's just going to stay with a friend.

Tomorrow is going to be a hard day

As most of you know, we've been looking for a home for Wally for several months after he showed aggression towards Elliot. He was still in his puppy years when Noah came into our home, but as an adult dog, apparently it's not that uncommon for Chows to have a hard time accepting a new member of the pack. It's been hard, but we've kept Wally and E separated daily and have worked really hard to be sure that E is safe. We can't just keep doing it.

Tomorrow Paul is driving to Arkansas to meet a family that wants to take him on. They have on grown kid (21) that lives with them and one other chow. They are familiar with chows and we've told them all about Wally's quirks. Dena is also making the trip. He is at her house all the time (his 2nd home) and she is ready and willing to take him in, if needed. But, she has 2 dogs already and is busy. If this family and Wally seem like a good fit, he'll stay there tomorrow. If not, he'll come home with Dena.

This is going to be a hard day for Paul. At least I'll be home busy with the boys all day. I've been wanting this for months, to find him a home and get him out of this house. Trying to keep E away from him is a pain. But, now that it's here, I feel a pit in my stomach. I'll miss that dog. :(

Movie night

Paul & the boys went for a bike ride tonight and Noah came in crying because he fell and got hurt. He wanted some lemonade and to watch Shrek. These things, he claims, makes it all better. It's Saturday night, so I thought what the heck. I got him bathed quickly and let him have movie night.

Elliot even got to stay up an extra half hour after his bedtime. He came down and begged for a piece of popcorn and loved it. He hasn't been eating much since he got sick Thursday, so we were just glad he was wanting something.

Movie nights are pretty fun. I can never believe Noah stays away for them after a full day, but he does. He passes out the second his head his the pillow though.

Pitiful

Elliot woke up Thursday morning with one of his eyes completely crusted and swollen shut and snot all dried outside of his nose. Poor thing. He slept on my chest in the recliner from 4:30a-7:00 because he was having a hard time breathing lying down. Even after I got him cleaned up they looked awful. I took him in and he had a really bad ear infection in his right ear (it's his right eye that was the worst, too). His doctor said it was about to burst. Poor thing! Did I mention, this is his THIRD ear infection since April? He's had a total of 5 in his life. We know for a fact the 1st ear infection in April cleared up, but we never had the 2nd one re-checked. This time we got a stronger/broader spectrum antibiotic and eye drops. We are also planning to get them rechecked this time.

If he gets another one, I want tubes. Ear infections are just miserable. And so is the GI stuff that comes along with the antibiotics. Poor baby boy.

Hanging out at Crown Center

We've been hanging out at the Crown Center fountains a lot lately. No other pools/spray parks opened until today and it's been so hot out. Noah loves it! Elliot doesn't really want to go in it, but enjoys running around. Surprising to me, because Elliot loves the water.

Snacktime
This is about as close as Elliot got to actually getting wet

Like Father, like son
Please click to enjoy his curls. You can't truly appreciate them until you watch them bounce up and down as he runs. Don't ever go away curls! NEVER!
PB&J time
Noah busted a few moves



Handsome

Summer Saturday

I forgot how much I love the weekends! From January-May, all my days pretty much ran together. I'm still getting used to Paul not working weekends and it's awesome. Saturday started out early, but I had a great day.

E is our early bird, up by 6am. Paul usually takes him out of the house on a walk, coffee run, etc to allow Noah to get some sleep. E is so loud he wakes him up early. After letting Noah stay up late playing outside until it was dark on Friday, he ended up sleeping in until 9:35! Woah! That would never happen with E in the house! But, instead of Paul taking him out, I decided to. We went on a long walk at Loose Park first. I love it early when it's peaceful and not crowded. He loves seeing the geese. After that we had breakfast at Starbucks. He loved sitting on the patio and standing up in his big boy chair pointing at all the dogs. I learned that there is only one thing more obnoxious than a yippy designer dog in a purse. That would be a yippy designer dog in a man purse being carried by a man. Elliot was amused though, so it made me laugh. After 'bucks we headed to the park to kill time until swim lessons at 9:00 and then came home by 9:45.

After I showered up I left E with Paul so I could have a date with Noah, too. We went to Kaleidoscope at Crown Center and then had some Topsy's popcorn by the fountains. He & my mom did this exact same thing awhile back and he hasn't stopped talking about it since. So we had to do it again. Since it was so hot, I let him play in the spray park fountains, too. I had to cut him shorter than I'd have liked since I didn't pack sunscreen and he was in his street clothes instead of swim trunks. But, we had fun and made plans to go back to play in the fountains with swim wear, sunscreen and his baby brudder the next day.

I love spending time alone with my boys. They are both so sweet and well behaved when I take them out (alone) and we always have so much fun.

I took a little nap that afternoon, then just hung out with the whole family of 4 the rest of the day. We went on a bike ride to the park, out for ice cream and hung out with my mom and little sister, Sam who stopped by after dinner. What a great day!

My boys at the "little park" as Noah calls it. Just a small park tucked away in the neighborhood.
Eating popcorn at Crown Center after Kaleidoscope
Being goofy at Kaleidoscope

"You take the C, then you take the A, then you take the T"

Noah just spelled "cat" out loud!

Paul asked him how and he just said casually, while playing blocks "You take the C, then you take the A, then you take the T."

Genius!

Sigh

The first nice day after several rainy ones and this is what we have to show for it.

E took a digger at our friend's house I think on the cement step, but I didn't see it. He got over it pretty easily at least although you could tell it hurt like the dickens.

Poor Noah fell down the cement steps at the church and hurt his mouth. I also didn't see it. I was sitting on the bottom step with my back faced to him. Him & Hudson kept going up and down collecting sticks. I heard his helmet thump two times though, so I'm glad he still had it on. He didn't want me cleaning him or messing with it much at all. I got him to let me clean him up and he's laying on the couch with some lemonade. He has a fat lip on the right upper and lower now. Poor kiddos.

The bunk bed

I had to put Noah's bunk bed ladder up on the top bunk.

Any guesses why?

Great Weekend

We had a great weekend. Friday night Paul & I had our usual early date night. We just have dinner out for a couple hours early and are home in time to get the boys ready for bed. This Friday since both boys had a good nap we let them stay up late and went out riding bikes for awhile. Saturday was a busy day as usual.

Started out with swim lessons for the boys. Much anticipation always leads to disappointment. E loves the water and is not afraid of it, but halfway through he was doing his signature ear piercing scream. I think he was ticked Paul was just holding him in deeper water doing silly songs and stuff. He wanted to run around in the zero entry area and splash. Then Noah's turn. He was the youngest in a group class and he didn't want to go without mom or dad. So Paul went in the water, too, but Noah wasn't learning anything. He's old enough now to really start to learn to swim. I think we'll do private or semi-private lessons for him instead. They pack 12 kids (or babies in E's case) into a class. It takes forever to get around to each student individually to give them any attention/direction. And the acoustics are horrible there so no one can hear anything. Not to mention everyone is waiting forever to get into the only 2 family locker rooms where you can change yourself and your kids with your kids semi contained.

Saturday night was our highlight. Cousin Charlie came over for a sleepover. We did a movie night. The kids got all cozy on the floor with pillows, blankets and of course, popcorn. With salt. Lots of salt. They watched Toy Story and both of them loved it! They were being really sweet all night:

N "Chaw-lie. I love this movie. This movie is great"
C "Yeah, it is, Noah"
N "Chaw-lie, I love popcorn. Do you love popcorn?"
C - "Needs more salt"
N "Yeah, needs more salt"

They slept in the bunk beds that night and it was funny listening to them wake up. Noah was sleep talking, but still asleep telling someone not to drink so much (probably dreaming about me drinking his lemonade).

N "don't drink too much! If you drink too much, you just might turn into one!" zzzzz
C "Noah go back to sleep."
N - zzzzzzzz
C "It sometimes helps me to just lay real still and then I'll go back to sleep, but you have to be quiet"
N - starting to stir
C "You can talk some......but, don't be too loud"
N - "good morning Chaw-lie"
C - "Good morning Noah. Hey, did you know there is a Toy Story 3? I heard it's Great!"
N "YEAH!"

And so they got up, pretty early for having a late night. We went to Starbucks for breakfast and then sent Charlie home. Later that afternoon Sarah came and picked up our boys and took them for a few hours so we could have an empty house. Much needed to get a deep clean the house has been lacking for at least a month. We divided and conquered. Paul took upstairs and I took downstairs. Toilets are sparkly, floors steam mopped, everything vacuumed. Whew! We will have to do that again soon!

The only bad part was Sarah got the kids all hopped up on candy. Therefore, Noah was out of control (typical sugar reaction for him) and E was happy as can be but very awake. Just awake and hyper past usual bedtime. At least he was happily awake :) All in all, totally worth it and a great weekend!

Just a cute one of little E in his Mizzou hat

Total destruction

You would think I'd know this, being a male and all, but holy crap, do boys have a destructive gene. They must wake up with a seek-and-destroy message flashing through their subconscious. The day starts with doors slammed as hard as possible - if we didn't have door jambs, they'd be littering the neighbors' yards.

Next is giving rides on the ice cream truck, at full speed and straight into the french door or the drywall. Or one of us, just for good measure. Along the way is slamming of toilet seats, throwing of balls - inside, utensils being flung every which way, random banging stuff into walls, corners, floors and ceilings

We remodeled our house shortly before our marriage, and it was beautiful. Now it's less beautiful. I can't imagine any new furniture purchases before the year of 2023 or so.

Postscript - I guess we don't have it too bad

Of course he can unlock the gate

Of course he can. Why should I have been the least bit surprised when Noah ran to tell me "Elliot opened the gate and ran into the front yard."

Time to lock up the fence gates. Just add it to the list.

The Leaf Shop

Yesterday we were leaving Chick-Fil-A and Noah pointed to a bank and said "Mommy! I want to go to the Leaf Shop!" The bank has a leaf as their logo. It was so hilarious and cute. A shop filled with leaves would be a fun place for him. Noah loves leaves. He has been collecting them for about a year now. Every time we take walks, bike rides, etc, he grabs several leaves that we have to take home. Here's the bank's logo.

I'm downright giddy

When we baby-proofed our house 3 years ago, we talked about gating off the kitchen (since our stove/oven are totally NOT baby proof). For aesthetic reasons, we decided not to, and just kept Noah out of harms way. The 2 entries are over-sized and we'll have to get special gates and a put up something to mount them against.

I can't believe it has taken me this long to do it, but I called the guy who did our baby proofing 3 years ago and am having him gate off the kitchen. I CAN'T WAIT! I can't tell you how many times a day E opens the oven doors and I tell him no and that it's hot and move him away while he goes limp, bucks and screams. It's really getting old. And when I cook I have to not even let it get that far.

What finally drove me to do this, is his new trick. Being a climber, he now thinks it's fun stuff to open the doors, climb on them and then he can reach the knobs and the stove top. That's it. This is an accident just waiting to happen. The gates will be ordered today. Can't wait till they are in. I can only imagine how ticked E will be when he's locked out :) The only challenge will be reminding Noah to lock the gates when he goes in and out. That I can deal with.

And this is an example of why all furniture has to be tethered/bolted to the wall...

Mother's Day 2010

Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
~Anne Taylor

It may turn out not to be entirely memorable, at least for all the right reasons, but at the end of the day, we understood what was important.

The weekend was busy with many things, not the least of which was hosting our annual Mother's Day grill-out. Sunday morning dawned cloudy, cool and gray. Mandy had stayed out until 1:00 AM the night prior - an unheard of hour for us, given our offsprings' sleeping habits. Elliot woke up for the day around 6:00 - blessedly late, but not late enough - and I quickly changed him and got him out of the house to give the remaining two occupants a chance at some additional sleep.

Babbling the entire way, trying to tell me about his night apparently, Elliot and I headed first to the park we went to the previous day. The purpose of this visit was the mysterious disappearance of two perfectly good sippy cups. Not finding them, we headed to Eggcetera for breakfast. It was a dicey proposition, as Elliot has taken to indicating displeasure, acceptance, and "hey, a new thought" by screaming this ultra high-pitched scream that makes the nerve endings in your skin retract.

Luckily, we were the only ones in the place. He chowed. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, fruit, etc. He even reached for my coffee a few times to wash it down. As Mandy says, he'll eat anything but carbs. Only this time he did, although once he tasted the bacon, even the pancake with syrup was spit out like it was toxic.

While we were waiting for the food, I gave him a few condiments to play with - half-and-half, and a jelly packet. After about 10 minutes, he 'strong-baby'd' those two props into a Vegas volcanic sideshow, squeezing each of them in perfect unison as I shot out one napkined-hand to catch the flying jelly and the other to catch the flying cream. I only partially succeeded in either, but at least the table wasn't a total loss. Before breakfast was served, anyway.

Around 2:00, everyone started coming by, and as usual, they all felt inclined to bring a side dish. This year's theme was apparently "dessert", as we had about four times as much dessert as there was people to eat it. The sugar had an immediate, and predictable affect on Noah.

After polishing off dinner, the boys eventually convinced Uncle Todd and me to take them to the park for an afternoon of play. I asked Mandy if she wanted me to leave Elliot behind, and we had a few moments of polite "whatever you want to do, honey", before it dawned on me she would really appreciate me taking E with me. What they hey, it's Mother's Day. Off we went.

Bath time finally rolled around, and we got to wrap the day up. No gifts, no cards, and given the busy-ness of our lives these days, nothing to show for Mother's Day except my undying appreciation for all that she does, day in and day out. It's a tough, tough job. And you have definitely risen to the occasion.

Happy Mother's Day.

Busy little worker

We start them young in the Thomas house.

Elliot's injury of the day

I am guessing that I could probably post one every day at this rate. Today's was from him running away from me at the park. He was running down the sidewalk and fell down. He scraped his knees up a little and got this lovely bump on his head. Didn't stop him for long.

My little yard ape

Elliot has become a WILD CHILD! He is a climber. A fearless climber, mind you. He doesn't learn from his mistakes (aka injuries) either. He's at that stage where I literally have to watch him every minute. He loves running as fast as he can, preferably down steep grades on concrete and laughing wildly as he wobbles like a drunken sailor. And last week we officially reached the milestone where there is no more going out to eat, unless it's at a Chick-Fil-A (or anyplace you get your food almost instantly and can run around and climb, play, and be wild after your meal).

Today he & Noah were playing in the backyard. I needed to get ready still. I brought stuff downstairs and went inside the kitchen just to put toothpaste on my toothbrush (I literally brush my teeth while watching him and run inside to rinse).... when I heard a loud crash and crying. CRAP!

One of the most dangerous things in our backyard are the chairs. Elliot climbed up and was standing on it facing backwards and although I didn't see it, I'm positive he was rocking back and forth and then it tipped over forward. Luckily he just scraped up his knuckles/fingers and somehow got a small scrape under his cheek. It could have been much worse.

I never thought I'd say this, but I think he is wilder than Noah. A little bit later in blossoming, but wilder for sure. A couple of hours later at the park, he climbed up the stroller and tried to do the same move. I caught the stroller as it was about to tip over. He.doesn't.learn.

He wouldn't keep bandaids on, but playing with them sure distracted him and made him a happy camper pretty quickly

And it was hilarious watching him squeeze with all his might and shaking trying to get stuff out of the neosporin. Of course, I had the lid on tight so nothing came out.Quickly becoming a tough little cookie.