Boys in Fall

We met Darren for lunch downtown yesterday & "leaf suffled". So cute. The boys have started to make silly faces at each other & they were facinated by the drinking fountain in the park blocks.

Playdate with the Edwards girls

We are fortunate to have some neighbors who have kids our age & we love. Unfortunately, they are moving at the end of the year to southern california. Here are some shots of thier girls w/ our boys at today's playdate.

Aneka & Oscar gave us a puppet show.

Kiera & Calvin toddled around each other...

Oscar enjoyed the leaves on the way home.

Home Improvement

This weekend we decided to tackle one of our many home improvement projects. In front of our house we have two HUGE maple trees. Over the last few years the lowest few branches have gotten lower & lower and most recently - since they are loaded with leaves it is not uncommon to brush you head on several leaves while coming up our front steps. SO... we borrowed a chain saw, rented a chipper & went to it. Here are some pics. The boys LOVED it.

Boys boys boys

We just found out that this little baby is a BOY!!

Oh my. Yes three little boys in our household.

We are already trying to figure out where to put the third refridgerator.

What would you do with 24 hours

I have been a stay at home mother for almost 4 years now. We have two active boys & I'm 4 1/2 months pregnant. We are 90% sure we'll be homeschooling the boys for the first few years. And to top it off my husband travels 50% of the time. You can see how rare it is for me to have time alone. I remember reading during my first pregnancy how it is imparative that a mother gets 30 minutes to herself every day. At the time Darren & I thought, "No problem." Then the baby came.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. I do have occasional breaks from the boys. Granny comes over to play w/ the boys. I have monthly bunko night w/ my girlfriends. I also go to the occasional baby shower, candle party, etc. Grandma & Grandpa take the boys once a month for an overnight. This used to be husband & wife time alone. Then I got pregnant for the third time. And I was really really sick. So they started offering to host the boys during Darren's travel weeks once a month so I could throw up in solitude & moan on the couch as loud as I wanted. This reduced our date nights quite a bit, but was critical to my survival of the first trimester. So now I'm 20 weeks along & feeling better. We haven't shifted back into weekend overnights yet. And today, the boys go to grandma & grandpa's house for an overnight. Darren is out of town & I feel pretty good. I have been given a gift of 24 hours! What would you do?


Garden, clean, shop, cook, lunch w/ friends, see a movie (all at once), sleep, get a massage, make an uninterupted phone call?

I've been stewing about how to best use this time. Since I'm pregnant a good long sleep is a priortity. And since I'm a respectable woman I also made an appointment for a cut & color. Beyond that? The meet up w/ friends thing is hard since they also have kids & no offense but I am not sure I want to send mine off only to hang out w/ any of yours. Sorry if that sounds selfish! I'll clean a bit & decorate for Halloween because I'm type A like that. I might watch one of our netflicks movies that we've had for 3 months. Oh and I'll catch up in Oscar's, Calvin's & my pregnancy journals. I'm so excited.

So... what would YOU do if you had 24 hours!

The importance of sensorship

We have worked over the past 4 years to purge all bad words from our language & house. We've even purged grey area words like instead of "butt" we say "bum". Or "oh my Gosh" is not allowed, instead we say, "oh my goodness". This has been very successful until tonight. Darren was watching the SNL spoof of a Palin / Clinton speech. It is VERY funny by the way & here is a link if you haven't seen it yet.

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

Well at somepoint while Darren is watching this, Oscar goes into the office & looks over Darren's shoulder just in time to hear "Clinton" say "boner shrinker". Oscar laughs & says, "boner shrinker? What is that?" Oh my...that was one of those hilarous moments that you are not allowed to laugh at or the kid will think they are being funny & repeat the phrase for a year.

Anyway - I guess it just goes to reinforce the one time a kid sees or hears something they shouldn't will be the one time they are paying attention.

Why can't kids sleep when they are tired?

Let me re-phrase. Why can't babies & small toddlers sleep when they or tired. Or maybe even better. Why can't MY babies & todders sleep when they are tired. Oscar is almost 4 & is an awesome sleeper. Sleeps almost 12 hrs at night & 1-2 at naps. Love that. He wasn't always that way. I don't think until he was about 2 1/2 did he really start sleeping good.



Which brings me to Calvin. The last few days have been TERRIBLE. I remember Oscar when he was just over 2 going through a nightmare phase or a fear of us going away phase. It was like he reverted to infancy all at once. We had to sit w/ him while he fell asleep & at least once a night when he woke up. We gradually worked into "we'll be back to check on you" every 5, 10, 15 m. You get the drift. Well apparently Calvin has hit this now. We spent the weekend w/ family in Seattle & all slept in the same room. That must have made Calvin realize he doesn't want to be alone anymore. Tonight & last night I've had to sit in the rocking chair for an hour while he dozes off - his little head continually popping up to make sure I'm there. Today at naps he refused all together to be in the room (and yes there was MUCH crying). Finally when I was in tears too I let him out of the crib. He proceeded to crash on the couch while I read a magazine for 1 1/2 hrs.

Here is Oscar after coming downstairs from his own 2 hour nap in his own bed looking at Calvin sprawled out.



What is wrong w/ this kid!! I'm wondering if it is time to move him in w/ Oscar now? Any ideas???