Family Outings and Fun

We went to Bradley Lake park today and took a walk around the lake on the paved trail. Josiah said his favorite part was going through the "jungle" AKA forest of trees.
I said, "I bet you can't climb that tree," And of course, he could! And he gave me his cute, squinty smile to boot!

Here is Daniel with his "Future C.E.O." shirt. He wanted to pick up all the sticks and random bits on the path. He even went for a used cigarette butt. Ick!!

Caleb wanted to be out of the stroller almost immediately and loved walking hand in hand with Daddy until he finally got too tired to walk.

This is Josiah at Bradley Lake park on a different day that I took him there and he is enjoying riding on the teeter toter.

I snapped this one of Caleb-ee the other day when he was playing around on the piano.

Here is Caleb again at the Eatonville Park when we visited Grandma and Grandpa last Monday. He was checking himself out in the mirror. :)

Daniel was thrilled to find TWO steering wheels to turn at once here again at the Eatonville Park.

I had to include this shot, though it isn't the clearest. Caleb had stolen Daniel's drink and of course had his own as well and you see Daniel in the forefront crying about it. Grandma was getting off the couch to assist, hence her pop can and hand in the shot.

Here is a very sweet picture of little Caleb boy with Daniel behind him. He just had the sweetest expression here! This is in Grandma and Grandpa's window.

Grandma's B-day Fun!

Here is Grandma reading her b-day card from Josiah and the boys. Josiah wasn't too thrilled that I had the camera out as you can see, but he was very proud to have her open the card he helped pick out. At the store, he kept grabbing any random card and asking, "Can we get this one?" I answered once, "No that one is for a wife," and he said, "What's a wife?" So then I explained I am Daddy's wife. He proceeded to pick other cards that wouldn't be appropriate until I finally asked him not to touch the cards anymore.

Grandma requested a pie for her birthday, and so I made her one of my homemade apple pies. I was thinking at first that I would just take the heart cookie cutter and have Josiah help me make the top covered in hearts, but then I thought it would be even more fun to break out the letters and other shapes to decorate it instead. You see here Grandma's name on the top, with one big heart in the middle, three little hands for her grandchildren, many music notes, a butterfly, a flower, and a teddy bear as well. It tasted very nice and it was fun for Josiah to help make it as well.

Josiah was asleep when Grandma arrived and David thought it would be fun to take a picture of him as he looked so stylish while sleeping!

After dinner, we brought the boys outside to play and Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed watching them have fun outdoors. Daniel likes to climb up the slide and then go down again as well as he also loves to ride in the bumblebee swing. He also likes to climb the stairs on the deck whenever possible.

Caleb was traipsing all around the yard trying to get Josiah's ball whenever he could and you can see here that he was successful!

Warmish Watermelon Days

We have to take advantage of the sun when we have it these days, and last Sunday when the sun was out, the boys played a bit outside and on the deck. We have a way to keep the babies contained on the deck by blocking the stairs to the back yard. They don't seem to have any inclination that I can see to dive off the deck through the slats, so it is a fun area for them to roam around and yet still relatively safe (with my supervision of course). Josiah was hungry for watermelon, and apparently the babies were too and joined in on the feast.

Caleb is doing his version of Peek-a-Boo here by covering his face. You can't see him, right? Whenever we start talking about Peek-a-Boo, he does this. Another funny thing he came up with lately is when we talk about dancing, he marches really fast in place and starts laughing to himself. Daniel tries to imitate him and unless he braces himself, he falls down. Caleb keeps on marching though with his hysterical laughter. We are hoping to get this on video soon! Another very cute Caleb-ism is when his brother Daniel is crying, he will come over to him and bounce down and up around Daniel's face looking at him with a big smile. It almost always gets Daniel to laugh at him. They also love to chase one another and to be chased by Mommy and Daddy. I say, "I'm.....gonn--na......GET YOU!" and get closer and closer as I am saying that, and they try to run as fast as they can to get away, laughing the whole time. Caleb laughs so much, he starts running into things, so I have to be careful where we are when I catch him, so that he doesn't collapse somewhere where he will hurt himself.

Daniel loves to play Peek-a-Boo and has been doing this for quite a while now! He will take bibs, blankets, clothes, or whatever to hide his face to play. He gets a big kick out of it when I say, "Where's Daniel? Where is he?" He just laughs behind the hiding cloth of choice and then pulls it up and squeals in delight. He also does this deal when he wants me to do something for him where he just hollers, "MaaaaaaMaaa, MaaaaMaaa" over and over again until I figure out what he wants me to do. Sometimes he hollers that when I am holding him too and I say, "I'm right here silly, what do you want?"

As a side note, me and the boys got sick with strep throat this last week. David may have it too now, he is getting tested tomorrow. We were told that kids under two don't get strep by the doctors. Well, they do and we had the strep cultures done to prove it. Thankfully now, we are all on antibiotics and are getting better. You may notice in the first picture that Josiah has a little rash on his face. That came from him having strep and me not knowing he did. It cleared up on the first day on antibiotics.

"Momma, there's a 'cat' in the back yard!!"

A couple of days ago, I looked in the back yard after the above statement to see this opossum sauntering around in the back yard. I let Echo out to investigate and it played dead and she seemed to leave it alone. I then brought her in and the opossum crawled under the fence and I assumed it went back to wherever it was going. Then I let Echo out again later and she was frantically barking at something on the other side of the yard. It was our friend the opossum again. I was quite surprised by the whole thing and decided to document with a picture. David said, "Haven't you seen an opossum before, you must be a city girl!" Well, I didn't deny being a city girl and no I hadn't seen an opossum live in my back yard before!

Our Almost 4-year-old

Today we had an impromtu 3-year-old well child visit for Josiah. It was late because his previous well child visits were late also. I just happened to call this morning to ask about some of his recent symptoms as he was sick with a fever and stuffy nose yesterday and decided to schedule the well child visit. Our doctor happened to have an open time that day, which was surprising! David took him because as it happens, his company has a policy of late that if anyone in your family has a fever and flu-like symptoms that they are required to stay at home for 3-5 days or until a doctor clears that person for the swine flu. Josiah was given a note saying he did not have it, which David can then take to work.

At the doctor, Josiah at first didn't want to cooperate (as usual) and so Daddy had to weigh himself first and then hold him to get his weight. He was afraid to stand up to get his height, but somehow they managed to get that too. He weighs about 38 1/2 pounds now and is in the 75% for weight. He is 3 feet 5 inches tall and is in the 90% for height. He is a tall little boy! And I am sure that all his activity accounts for his lower weight, though it isn't that bad either. The doctor asked the normal questions about his eating habits, bathroom habits, etc. and when David asked Josiah, "How many times do you go poopers during the day?" He answered, "20,000 minutes," which of course got a nice laugh out of the doctor. He also apparently impressed her by doing a headstand with no hands holding the ground has he braced himself with his legs on the chairs on either side of him.

Later that day, Grandma made a surprise visit and as we were telling her that the doctor was really pleased with his language skills she said, "Well, I am not surprised!" Josiah promptly added, "I'm not surprised either!!" Touche! So sweet...our oldest pumpkinhead! He is becoming quite the little helper around the house. His main job is letting the dog out and then back in for me. He also opens doors for me and locks them when I need him to. He also fetches things I need when I have the babies in hand and FINALLY he is to a place where he comes willingly with me from whatever "fun place" we go to during the day. He used to throw fits every time we would leave a friend's house, the gym, or the library, et. al. Now I say, "It's time to go Josiah, get your shoes on." And to my great delight....he obeys and doesn't throw a fit! Now that is progress! We still struggle a bit getting him to treat his brothers gently. He runs down the hall and bumps into them and knocks them down and then reports, "He fell down by himself." Yeah.....riiiiight. So as you can see there is room for improvement, but hey don't we all have things we need to work on?

The Latest...

A rare moment...3 boys all in one place, literally for less than 30 seconds I think while I took this. They are not all looking at the camera, but I think it really captures the movement and activity of our household. You may notice that David is holding on to Daniel's collar to make him stay put and Caleb is constrained by his arm. Josiah is preoccupied telling Daddy something, so he didn't move as much.

On the last day of Bible study, I was walking back in through the doors to the room where he had been playing and he was following me, and I didn't realize he was holding onto the door jam as the door slammed on his finger. He cried for almost the entire half an hour on the way home. Poor pumpkinhead. It doesn't hurt him much now, but I thought I would take a picture of his black finger for posterity's sake.

Caleb and Daniel both take great pleasure in climbing on the kitchen chairs (and most anything else that looks climbable for that matter) and if not detered they also enjoy climbing onto the kitchen table. This has resulted in me having to keep the table completely cleared, so as not to provide any bait for the boys to want to climb up there. As you can see Caleb is clapping here and is very pleased with his accomplishment. When we say to him, "Can you clap for us?" he does it without seeing someone clap first now. He also is learning to make monkey sounds when Daddy or Mommy ask him what sound a monkey makes. He also waves with both hands by bending his hands over and over at the big knuckles.

Daniel and Caleb both also love to read books. We can take a board book in hand and suddenly there are two toddling boys sitting in our laps. Daniel "reads" to himself sometimes too and climbs into the rocking chair in Josiah's room with a book and turns pages and talks very meaningfully to himself. He also loves to take any object and turn it into a phone and talks into it. Today, he took a school bus puzzle piece as his phone and had many things to tell the bus! We think that he also has created a sign for asking for his pacifier. He puts his finger to his mouth as if he was saying he was hungry. I tried to feed him when he did this (after he had just eaten an hour earlier) and he didn't really eat, but he seemed very satisfied when I gave him his pacifier.