Time with friends

Tonight we had some friends over for a BBQ (unfortunately held inside due to this unseasonable, rainy weather), and I captured a little video.  Although we see the Chandlers every so often, this is probably one of the first times I've actually seen the boys try really hard to "play" with Delevan and get his attention.  Ellis had Val and I cracking up as we watched this take place:



Poor Delevan had no clue (nor did we) of what Ellis was trying to say, but I do know that we'll have to teach Del how to give high fives soon!

What we've been up to

It's been a while since I've updated on anything more than my scrapbooking, so it's about time to let you all know what the boys have been up to.

First a little recap on our summer bucket list activities so far (activities we've done are highlighted):

• Have a picnic at a park - Just me and the boys having a picnic at a new-to-us park in Troy.

• Story time at the library
• Go to a parade
• Splash Pad
• Detroit Zoo (maybe Toledo Zoo, too?)
• Camping at the Pinery
• Go to a local beach
• Hit up the farmers market
• Go to a new park - Boulan Park in Troy - not too far, but one we haven't been to before

Why must I have boys that LOVE to try to climb on everything?!? Sure, that's what they are meant for, but it's not too easy for me to help both of them when they both want to climb different ones at the same time!

• Attend the Big Rig Gig - FRIDAY - Anyone interested?
• Ride the trains at Starr Jaycee Park - SATURDAY - Anyone interested?
• See fireworks (or at least play with sparklers) - Nope, this one didn't happen...
• Take a walk (sans stroller) on a local trail - Paint Creek Trail in downtown Rochester - connects right to the park we usually go to.

"Hey mom, are you coming?"  

So excited to have the freedom to walk on their own without having to hold my hand (like they have to when we walk around our neighborhood).  I seriously think that after this walk down the trail, Ellis would rather go for walks and explore, than play on the playground at the park!

• Feed the ducks at the park (without Ellis freaking out!) - At the same park that we play at, in downtown Rochester

Ellis was a bit more skeptical at first (which is why he is so far back), but luckily he could throw his bread far enough to make it to the ducks.

And here is a little video of them feeding the ducks.  In case you are curious, I keep saying "feed the ducky" because I swear Logan said it just before I started the video.  And sorry for the not-so-good footage.  It's not very easy to take video, give them some bread and make sure neither of them go too close to the water!

• Make homemade ice cream - soon, soon!

So, now that I look at our list of things to do for the summer, I feel like we still have a lot more to accomplish in these last few weeks.  Of course I'm not going to push it and force anything to happen, but it kind of reorganizes my thoughts and reminds me of what fun things I thought we could do.

There is quite a bit that we've done, also, that wasn't on the list.  

I'm so proud of Ellis for being willing to try some painting.  Arts and crafts is one thing he was NOT interested in, during the Parent/Tot class we've taken them to as part of their speech classes.  He has actually been much more interested in it than Logan lately!

A visit from Grandma last week.  It was a nice day for the pool so we spend the afternoon in the backyard playing.

These boys love the water (and showing off for Grandma, of course!)

Last week we went to the Bairds, and had a fun day playing in the water.  Cole was so kind to show the boys how to use a slip 'n slide.  Unfortunately for Cole though, once he showed them, they hogged it and wouldn't always give him a turn =( .  We are still working on sharing!  

Here's a little video of the slip 'n slide action.  I think Logan was more excited to sit in the mini "pool" at the end of it, but watching Ellis go down it cracks me up!

Last week we also visited Cari, an old friend from my CMU days, that I haven't seen in way too long.  She has 3 girls (which includes 1 set of twins) and the boys were just in heaven.  Logan just followed them around - hopefully not annoying them too much - and loved watching them play.  Towards the end of our visit the girls put on a show for us and Logan and Ellis got a kick out of joining them in the dance portion of it!  Hopefully we can meet up like that more often! 

Okay, so this picture might not be very appropriate, but I am trying to highlight the fact that Ellis' last two pacifiers are no longer in the house, hence the picture of our garbage.  He hasn't used them (or held them, as he did primarily for comfort after we cut holes in the tips) in quite a long time, so about a month ago, I took them out of his sight altogether to see if he would even notice that they were gone.  NOPE, he hasn't.  So, when I came across them when I was cleaning earlier in the week, I thought it was time to say goodbye.  Bittersweet moment for this mama!  

Aside from our normal pool fun, a lot of time has been spent outside playing on our playground.  The boys usually play on the slide the most, but this week they have been all about the swings.

And thankfully they seem to be done with the throwing sand phase of their life (hopefully).  They actually like to scoop it instead of see how much they can get in their hair!

And last but not least, this picture is a little older, but it cracks me up.  When reading about ways to help kids develop more speech, I read that sometimes kids need to build up their mouth muscles more.  One way to do that is to have them use a straw sippy cup instead of just the basic one.  I frankly never thought of that and never really got them to use a straw one because, well, let's be honest, who wants to clean out straws all the time?  Some of those cups have so many darn parts to them, it's ridiculous!  Well, anyways, I went to the store and bought some trainer straw sippy cups that help you teach a child how to drink from a straw (you push the bottom of the cup and liquid goes up the straw without them sucking - it teaches that they have to do some work to get the liquid up the straw - hence sucking from a straw).  Thankfully, they caught on really quick so I went out and bought some that aren't quite as easy to suck from, to get them used to using those muscles.  What made me laugh about the day I took this picture is that Ellis was having a hard time keeping the cup down so that he could actually suck up water.  They are so used to tipping the cup back to drink from it, but as we all know, if you do that with a straw cup, you won't get much of anything in there, so in this picture, he was trying so hard to keep the cup down so he could get some water to drink.  Too funny, Ellis.

Well, I think that's it for now.  It is way too late and I should be sleeping, but damn this Mt. Dew slurpee hasn't gotten out of my system yet.  

Tomorrow's agenda - continue working on the deck restoration (for as much as the weather will allow us) and have a BBQ with some friends at night.  Once the deck is done I will show before and after pictures, but with the progress we've made so far, I'm very excited to see the finished product.  Good night everyone!

Mission Accomplished!

Yup, I got my last 4 scrapbook pages done and I'm complete with my July goal.  I was actually done a few days ago although we've been so busy with working on redoing/staining the deck that I haven't had any time to post the last few pages.  So, here goes:

Both Logan and Ellis have two "Christmas" pages.  The first page for each of them are really activities in December that lead up to Christmas and the second one is actually Christmas Day.

Logan's first page

Logan's second page

Ellis' first page

Ellis' second page 

For their 2nd birthday, I thought I'd do a 2 page layout but I was actually able to get everything on 1 page!

Ellis' birthday page 

Logan's birthday page

So, there you have it.  I'm pretty pleased with the pages I made and even more pleased to be caught up (with this project!).  I actually do have two more layouts that I could do for each one, but I don't have the pictures for it yet, which is why I didn't include them in this month's challenge.  

Next up, on the scrapbook front, I want to document our camping trip to The Pinery, then of course get caught up again on Project Life.  Let's see how much of this I can get done before, gasp, I go back to work in a few weeks.

Monthly Challenge - Update #2

Woo hoo, I'm staying on track!  Just wanted to share my most recent layouts that I've done.  I'm officially 10 days in and I have 8 of the 12 layouts complete.  All of the layouts below are two page layouts.  What I indicate as page 1 is the left side and page 2 is the right side.  Again, you can click any picture to see it a bit closer!

Ellis' first birthday - Page 1

Ellis' first birthday - Page 2

Logan's first birthday - Page 1 

Logan's first birthday - Page 2

Ellis - Port Crescent Camping Trip - Page 1

Ellis - Port Crescent Camping Trip - Page 2

Logan - Port Crescent Camping Trip - Page 1

Logan - Port Crescent Camping Trip - Page 2

As I work on these pages, I've realized how difficult it is to make two different layouts for each child so they don't have "cookie cutter" pages - which isn't easy.  I'm not 100% loving the last page I did (Logan's Page 2 of camping), but I was getting to the point where I just needed to finish it.  What's nice is that it isn't horribly difficult to add an embellishment later, or totally redo the page if I'm still not feeling it.  I realize that it's sometimes helpful to just walk away from it for a while and come back to it.  

Last up are pages for each one for Christmas 2012 as well as their 2nd birthday - and I still have about 10 days to finish them up!!

Summer time fun

Since we've been home from our camping trip, we've had quite a bit of fun.  Here is our past week and a half, in a nutshell:

Ellis, Mr. I-hate-crafting-activities, actually got in to some "painting".  I just started with water, but earlier this week when I pulled out the paints, he actually painted a little picture.

Last Tuesday, we headed to the zoo with the Baird's, Derrickson's, and Kennedy's.  It was a bit of a muggy day, but luckily it remained cloudy so that helped.  The boys loved walking around (instead of being in the stroller), loved splashing in the mud, and of course checking out some animals!

Wednesday, we went to visit Grandma.  Lots of fun in the water table (literally), and cuddling Grandma.  Oh, have they missed her...

Friday, another trip to the zoo - this time with Nicole, Morgan, and Parker:

I love how Ellis is making sure Morgan can see the horses!

On Saturday, we headed to the Chandlers.  As I mentioned last time, they were SO generous to watch Bella while we were camping, so we wanted to thank them by making them dinner.  The boys had fun playing outside, we had a yummy dinner, and relaxed outside after dinner chatting before heading home.

I only wish I took video of this so you all could hear Delevan laughing.  He wasn't even paying attention to the TV but it seemed as though he was laughing at Logan and Ellis - who knows why!  The laugh was quite contagious!  

This week, yesterday we had Grandma Bush visit us for the day.  We didn't have a ton planned but decided to venture to McDonalds for lunch.  The boys have never been there and since the one by us has a indoor playground, I thought it might be fun.  Logan was not much into the food and Ellis was only partially interested, but the playground was a sure-fire winner.  I was a little skeptical at first because the playground consists only of tubes and slides and there were other kids playing there (obviously).  They quickly adjusted to the closed-in tubes and slides, loved the slides, and had a TON of fun.  Surprisingly, Logan even followed some of the bigger kids up the higher tubes and came down the biggest slide all on his own!!

Checking out the playground for the first time!

Ellis coming down the smaller slide!

Logan went all the way down that tall pink slide!

Today we headed out to Heritage Park in Farmington, to meet up with Nicole, Morgan, and Parker at the Splash Pad.  The boys LOVED it and I didn't have to do much prying to get them in the water (as I had to last year).  Of course this year they are a bit more adventurous so they pretty much went around on their own, but they loved every minute of it!

And a trip to the Splash pad isn't complete without a few runs down the hill!  Last year the boys just watched them do it, but they sure were quick to join in this year (although they typically cheated by giving themselves a head start!)

WOW - what a busy couple weeks so far.  I think for the rest of the week we are going to hang low - maybe a trip to the library, but thats about it aside from staying cool with the water toys outside and in the air inside!  Hope everyone is keeping cool!!