Summer Vacation Week(end) #1

We've had a whole lotta fun around here since last Wednesday.  Once I (we) decided not to pursue potty training, I text Nicole to set up a zoo trip.  They weren't busy on Thursday, so off we went.

I have never personally been in the butterfly house, so that was awesome to see:

Other fun:

Hard to see, but they were checking out a turtle.

Poor Nicole and I tried so hard to get a picture with our kids but they were having nothing of it, so this was the best we could get!

Logan loved pushing the stroller, which Ellis was okay with - well until Ellis wanted to push and Logan didn't want to give it up.

Friday, we had a playdate scheduled.  I haven't seen Caryn (and her boys) in forever and although I've seen Sheila and her kiddos somewhat recently, it was good to finally get together and hang out - let the kids play and catch up on things going on with each other.

The boys fell asleep on the 10-ish minute drive home, so I hung out reading in the garage in order to let them sleep a bit.  I totally wish they were the type of kids that would either stay asleep or fall back asleep easily when transferred from the car to their bed.  No such luck though, but they did sleep a good 45 minutes, which I hoped would hold them over since we had plans that night.  After dinner, we took the kids to a festival in Oxford.  There was a carnival going on in one of the parks and at dusk, they were having fireworks.  We got there at a decent time that the kids had time to play at the playground, walk around the carnival in awe of the rides (they especially liked the motorcycle ride and of course the carousel), ride the carousel, and hang out to have a snack before fireworks.  During my packing for the night, I forgot bug spray, so for about 10 minutes before the fireworks, we hung out in the car to prevent too many bug bites.  We actually had a good view from the car, so we just watched them in there (plus being in the car dampened the loudness of the fireworks and all the car alarms going off around us).  Ellis shared lots of "wow"'s and Logan liked identifying all the colors he saw.  All in all, they seemed to enjoy it.  We did a great job wearing them out too because less than 5 minutes after we left, they were both passed out!

"Hey mom, can we ride this one?!?"

Me and Logan

Carousel selfie!

Not quite tall enough for this ride, and my luck they would freak out the second they realized we couldn't ride it with them.  For now, they enjoyed watching it go, though.

Eating a snack, watching the carousel, and listening to some live music.  It doesn't get better than this!!!

Pre-fireworks selfie!

Saturday, I went to my moms and scrapbooked with her and Nicole.  Not gonna lie - although I started out strong, we had a couple good conversations that kept me talking more than scrapbooking (surprise, surprise huh?), but I did get a little bit done.  It was a good start in my pursuit to getting caught up this summer.

On Sunday, after the boys napped, we headed up to our local bowling alley to cash in some coupons for our free summer bowling.  The kids loved it although I think it was a bit confusing for them to see Troy and I bowl normally while they used the ramp to get the ball down the lane.  A couple times Logan wanted to throw it himself which ended up as a loud thump on the lane, which clearly went no more than 10 feet before rolling back to the beginning of the lane.  They seemed to like fact of playing glow-in-the-dark bowling though!

Ellis making sure that we were watching him.

Logan making sure to have his ball ready to go

Logan is more excited to push his ball down the ramp than whether or not any pins fall.  

Today we hung out at home.  We've had some air conditioning issues so we had a guy come out and refill our refrigerant.  Yay for a cooler house - boo for another unexpected expense.  Lots of outside and inside play though - bike rides, sandbox, water table, pool, swing set, trains, cars, puzzles - yup, we stayed busy!  Oh, and then there was the interesting words that Ellis said right as we were about to eat.  Hmm...I wonder what it was?!?  I will keep you hanging on that one - perhaps he will say it again and then I can share.  I don't want to get ahead of myself.

And a few of our indoor activities:

A busy bag activity I've had for a while.  Ellis can obviously match colors easily, but watching him try to use the clothespins was a bit nerve wracking.  I didn't realize how hard it would be to really watch your kid struggle without helping.  He was able to open the clothespin with no problem but trying to keep it open long enough to attach it to a paper plate really drove him nuts.  There were even a few thrown clothespins, but he did do it very well, multiple times without my help.  Good work Ellis!

I've been working with them to draw circles and straight lines (precursor to letter formation) and when Logan was doing that here, he said "mama - an elephant".  And in a weird way, I think I do see a little bit of an elephant in there! 

This week we have a play date scheduled tomorrow with a few days of nothing major planned the rest of the week before a fun weekend ahead.  Happy July everyone!

Letting go

Letting go of anything is not easy for anyone with a Type A personality, such as myself.  Being a slight perfectionist, competitive, analytic thinker, has its pros and cons.  Pros - I get shit done.  Give me a project (at work or not at work) and I will get it done in a reasonably short amount of time.  I create lists like its my job and love crossing things off, once those tasks are done.  I don't procrastinate with getting things done and even think ahead as much as possible to reduce the amount of things I have to do in the coming days/weeks.  The cons - I'm always moving at 100 mph, mentally.  My mind moves too much and it's hard for me to truly relax.  I'm pretty hard on myself and analyze things too much.  I also don't like to give up on things.  My expectations can be too high.

So where am I going with this?  It's hard for me to deal with things when I put my mind to something and it doesn't work out.  Case in point - potty training.  I had a plan that once school was out, we were going to go full throttle with potty training.  They've had exposure to sitting on the potty at preschool and at home a little bit and a few times Ellis has told me he pooped.  They've been receptive to wearing underwear few times before.  Plus, they are a few months over 3 years old, so since I would be out of school for the summer, I figured it was a good time to get the ball rolling.  I read some books and articles on potty training and they seemed to show most signs that they were ready.  Of course none of those books or articles talked about potty training two at the same time, but well, as I always thought - I don't know what it's like with "just one", so just like everything else that is new, it will be hectic at first, but it will work out in the end.  So right away on Saturday, I thought we might as well start.  I knew the sooner I started, the sooner it would get done.  I anticipated a lot of accidents as they would start learning how to sense the urge to go, and not surprisingly there was.  For a first day (with Troy gone at a golf outing), sure I was stressed a bit, but it wasn't horrible.

Sunday through this morning have been a bit of a roller coaster though.  Some very good times and some times when we had accident after accident.  The analyzer that I am tried to assess everything to see what I was doing wrong and try to fix it.  Unfortunately if the things you are assessing are strong-willed little 3 year olds, there are no definite answers.  Yesterday I was so proud in the morning when Logan went twice on the potty with no accidents.  Ellis peed and pooped on the potty too.  But after nap yesterday, it went all to hell.  Accident after accident.  No attempt to even move towards the potty when the stream started.  I tried helping them get to the potty and there was resistance.  I was at my wits end.  I figured I would reassess after today.  Well, this morning I had to head to school to drop off my laptop and since I had the boys with me, we stopped at a park on the way home.  What also sucks about all this (although obviously expected) is that during this whole process you really should stay close to home since there is no telling when either one has to go to the bathroom.  And with summer here now, all the boys want to do is play outside.  Try keeping them at home, mainly in the house (I tried taking a potty outside with us Saturday but that was a no-go), in the summertime and you have two cranky boys!  So, since they had a diaper on for the trip down to school, I took advantage and let them get some energy out.  Once we got home, there was meltdown after meltdown.  I always give them the option of diaper or underwear and every day so far they've said underwear.  When we got home today, Ellis didn't want anything to do with it.  Logan said he wanted to wear underwear but within 40 minutes he had 2 accidents, again with no attempt to get to the potty on time.  He didn't even want me to take his wet underwear off.  That was the last straw.  I clearly am not going to force Ellis to put underwear on, and something just isn't clicking with Logan.  Not yet anyways.

It was noon when I made the decision today, day 5 of potty training, to let it go for now.  I read that while kids don't necessarily master potty training in 5 days, if they are truly ready, they will show quite a bit of progress in those 5 days.  While I did see some progress, the frustration/anxiety I saw in Logan wasn't a good thing after all this time.  And it was obviously some sort of sign when Ellis didn't even want me to take his diaper off today.

Here comes the over-analyzer in me:  Am I giving up too soon?  Should I only try to potty train one at a time?  Is it bad that they are over 3 years old and still in diapers?  Am I putting too much pressure on them?  Are my expectations too high for only 5 days of training?  I know kids can sense anxiety from others, but I really thought I was doing a good job staying calm during their accidents.  I searched google quite a few times to look for different potty training tips/suggestions to try, but the only main thing that was consistent in everything I read is that every child is different.  There is no right way to potty train and there is no time limit as to when kids need to be potty trained.  We know that all kids will be potty trained when they are ready.

As much as I felt some major weight off my shoulders as I put a diaper on Logan, all I could think to myself was, damn I'm giving up - I felt defeated.  I don't like to give up.  But I also need to know that I can't control everything and I need to be okay with that.  I think moms in general put too much pressure on themselves to do everything perfectly (or is it just me?).  I often joke about being Type A, but this is one time that it is a slight curse.  I have to be okay with the fact that I can't control everything.  I can't blame myself for things that don't work out the way I expect them to work out.  I can't worry about it when I hear about other people whose kids were potty trained by 2-2.5 years old.  I will worry myself to death if I play the comparison game with everyone else's kids.

It took me a minute to come to grips with the choice, but I knew it was a good decision within an hour and the boys were just running around playing (not napping, like they should've been) and having fun.  No more meltdowns (which later made me realize that they probably could sense some sort of anxiety in me earlier).  I could play with them and run around with them without worrying that they weren't within eye sight of a potty.  Once they fully rebelled against their nap, we went to the library and played around there.  We came home, rode bikes, and played in the sandbox.  This is what summer is about.  Sure, maybe we will try in another month, but right now, we aren't ready.  And I'm okay with that.  Like I said in the last post, that "bucket list" isn't a must-do list.  It's not meant to be a challenge to get everything checked off that list and I'm now finally okay with the fact that potty training won't be checked off right away.  It will be -- some day.

Happy Summer!

This blog was meant for yesterday, but considering that yesterday was the first day of potty training the boys, I had very little time to take my eyes off of them and do anything!

The beginning of summer always reminds me of a few things.  While it always excites me to know that school is out by this point, there a few more important things that I'm reminded of.  June 21 is my grandmother's birthday and while she is no longer here to spend summer days with, I think it's pretty ironic that her birthday is the first day of summer.  While I'm not sure what her favorite season was, it was definitely the season I enjoyed spending with her the most, mainly because that is when we saw her the most.  My grandma and grandpa lived 4 hours away, but it wasn't uncommon for Nicole and I to spend a week or two at a time, a few times each summer, with them.  And we always had a blast!!  It was obviously awesome that they lived on a lake and we spent a lot of our time at the lake, but there are so many other memories I have of her too.  She was very crafty and often helped Nicole and I make barbie clothes, cabbage patch doll clothes, and hair scrunchies.  When we got older, she let us help her in the kitchen and to this day I still can't use a vegetable peeler because I'm used to just peeling things with a knife like she did.  She was an avid shopper and loved taking my sister and I shopping (and we didn't exactly mind it ourselves) and we would often travel nearly 1.5-2 hours to a "bigger and better" mall to walk around, try clothes on, and pick out a new outfit.  She let us play with her Avon make-up stash, and we thought we were the bomb!  We looked forward to the nights when we walked up to the party store, or took a boat ride across the lake, to get some superman ice cream.  She was also so patient when showing me how she did her crossword puzzles.  I always wish(ed) I knew more words to be able to complete an entire puzzle like she could.  And I will never forget that caramel popcorn she always got for me and Nicole to share!  I could go on and on...but looking back, I realize that it didn't really matter what we were doing, it was just the fact that we got to spend extra time up north with both her and my grandpa, doing things we wouldn't normally do at home, that made it exciting.  Memories that I will never forget!

So where am I going with this?  Grandparents, don't worry, I'm not saying that we are sending the boys off to you for a week or so at a time this summer, but I relate to these memories myself because the summer time is the time of year that I get to spend more time with the boys, since I don't work.  So while I was creating a summer bucket list of sorts, I was trying to think of activities both in and out of the home that the boys (and us) would enjoy.  Some activities are repeats from previous years, but now that they are older, they may enjoy it a bit more, or just as much as they did last year.  My grandma never seemed stressed and always went with the flow (or if she was stressed, she never let it show!), so I'm trying to go with that theme too.  Let things happen as they happen.  Allow the boys to experience, play, create and do things that we don't always get to do other times of the year because of the seasons, or because I'm working.

With that in mind, here is our list of activities that I hope to attack this summer:

• Hit up more local beaches - Stony Creek Metropark or even Rochester's own Spencer Park
• More frequently go to our Farmer's Market
• See a fireworks show - wishing more cities had actual shows over 4th of July weekend, but it looks like many cities do them during the week of, or the week before.  Weekday nights aren't as easy with Troy working!
• Detroit Zoo - an oldie but goodie place to go, but also go to Toledo Zoo, which was on our list last year but we never made it.  With Dan and Rosie less than an hour away, hopefully we will make it there this year.
• Pick strawberries at a U-Pick Farm
• Bowling - awesome free bowling for kids - check out it out!
• Splash Pad - HUGE favorite from last year
• Storytime at the library
• Eat dinner outside more
• Hit up a local carnival - still wondering if they might be too young for this?!?
• The boys love airplanes and cars, so I'd like to find an air show or car show to take the boys too
• Lots of playdates with friends I don't get to see much during the school year, and their kiddies - I see parks, water play, and lots of hands-on activities in our future!
• As far as home activities, I have a ton of different possibilities - too many to list here, but when I try some out, I'll try to share on here, if they were a success.  The first one I want to try is making bird feeders!
• And of course, not quite an activity, but tackling this potty training business is priority.  I don't want to push the boys into anything, but they have been responding fairly well in only the past 2 days, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that we make good progress in the next week or so!

One thing I do want to say as well, is that I'm not going to try too hard to get everything "checked off" this list.  Last summer it almost seemed like a challenge to get everything done, but this year, as I said above, I'm just going to go with the flow.  If we don't get to see fireworks, well, so be it.  This is just a brainstorming list of things we could do if the cards fell just right.  As long as we are having fun, that's all that matters!

So, to you Grandma - Happy Birthday!  Missing you tons and thinking of you daily! xoxo

Karma

Yes, it is slightly odd that I would plan to take off of work on the second to last day of school.  Not so odd if you are a teacher at my school, however.  Most of the non-8th grade teachers would agree that today is just a day of babysitting.  Yesterday was the day the students gave their final project presentation and tomorrow is the promotion ceremony (today was reserved for the 8th graders). Many of the students said they weren't coming today (I don't blame them - there is literally nothing productive for them to do today), so I decided I could better use the day getting stuff done at home and running errands that aren't as easy/quick to do with 2 kids in tow.  Or so I thought.  

As I was within a mile of the day care yesterday, the wind picked up and it started pouring.  Perfect timing, right?  Then, the traffic light at the intersection of the day care went out.  I pulled into the day care parking lot and noticed that the lights were off at the day care too.  I was happy I just got there - nothing like the boys hanging out somewhere with no power for an extended period of time.  It wasn't until I was on the way home that it dawned on me that if power wasn't restored by this morning, they wouldn't be going to day care today.  And while I already planned to take the day off, it would definitely throw off my plans.  So, the OCD person I am, logged on to DTE's website and noticed that 1600 people were out of power in that area of town and there was no restoration estimate.  And knowing that 20,000+ people were already out of power from the day before, I had a feeling that DTE wasn't going to rush right over to fix the power in that area when some people were going on over a day without power.  This is what I get for planning to take off of work today, right?  Karma sure is a bitch!

I woke up this morning to work out (before the boys woke up) and looked on DTE's website again and saw that power still hadn't been restored.  Our day care had also posted on Facebook that they would be closed today.  Okay, time to re-plan today's events.  Some plans and errands just had to wait, but some of them I could hopefully do with the boys without much problem.  They are awesome with errands like Target, so we could still do that, and I scheduled a 30,000 mile maintenance at the dealership (unfortunately the appointment was at 12:45, a mere 15 minutes before their normal nap time), and I didn't see a way around that.  I usually make Saturday appointments, but between both Troy and I, either one of us has plans for the next couple Saturday's.  

Off to Target this morning.  They were way excited to pick up some big boy underwear for our adventures in potty training that start next week (in case you are wondering, Ellis picked trains [Thomas] and Logan picked Cars).  Then we stopped at the library for them to play.  I figured if I kept them busy and let them play as much as possible, they would be okay sitting in a waiting room for 1 or more hours at the dealership.  Then it was time to head to the dealership.  I'm not gonna lie.  I was not excited about taking them.  A) How would they deal with not napping? (they've dealt with no nap before but only when they are having so much fun that they are so wired that they don't even realize they might be tired and I doubted that sitting in a waiting room would be "so much fun")  B) Is it possible to keep them entertained in a small space for an hour or more?  After all, if there is any sort of tantrum, we can't just pick our stuff up and leave!

I also learned today how attached Logan is to my car.  After I drove into the dealership, someone came to drive it down the main aisle to get it out of the way of the entrance and Logan started screaming!  "Mommy's car, mommy's car!!"  He must have thought someone was stealing it or something.  And try as I might, he didn't understand that it was okay for that person to take it.  I walked just around the corner of the service area and showed him that mommy's car was still here and everything was alright.  This is the moment I wondered if I should just get out of dodge and reschedule my appointment.  Thankfully, I was able to distract him with some lunch (I purposely brought lunch with us as something else to distract them with and make time go by faster).  PHEW!

This morning as I tried to think of what I could bring to keep them busy, I dug in my huge bag of busy bag activities that I've had for a year or two now.  Most of them were from swaps I did with friends that have older kids, so at the time many of them weren't something the boys could do yet so I put them in the closet until they were ready for them.  And to be honest, I've kind of forgotten about them so I hadn't pulled them out yet.  I wasn't sure how they would respond to these new activities, but it was worth a shot.

And I am so glad I thought about them for today.  For almost 1.5 hours, the boys completed most of the new activities I brought, in addition to a few things I knew they would like doing.  A few people that were in and out of the waiting room commented on how good they were (we were sitting by the coffee machine so many people, especially the elderly people, felt the need to strike up conversation with us).  So, although I always feel like I'm taking too much when I pack for any trip longer than just going to the store, I am especially thankful I packed so much this time.  

Here's a sneak peek of what the boys did:

Time to color

Color/size puff ball matching

Number practice (an oldie but goodie!)

Pattern matching (and alphabet practice underneath)

And some good ole' book reading

I think he was making a horse sound here although it looks like he is taking a dump!

A potty-training book - like my subliminal message to him of what's to come next week?

So, although I didn't get everything done that I hoped (nor any free time to relax - since of course we didn't get home until 2:30 and they had absolutely no desire to nap at this point), I would have to say that today was a success!  Plan ahead and prepare for more than you think you'll need and you'll be all set.  

And in case you are wondering, yes I did pack the iPad (desperate times call for desperate measures and I just didn't know how desperate I would become), but that is the one thing the kids didn't play with - which I am totally cool with!  And I'm very excited to see how the boys do with the activities I planned for the summer.  I want to keep up with doing some "learning-of-some-sort" activities this summer to keep them progressing with everything they've done at preschool these past few months, so this was just affirmation to me that they are a whole heck of a lot more willing to do things like this than they were last year at this time!

This is what it's all about

What an awesome, fun-filled weekend!  If this weekend is any preview of what the summer looks like, I can't wait.  Oh, if only we could speed through the next 5 days.  We have 5 more days of wasted time school left and then I will have 8 weeks of freedom!

So, back to this weekend.  Yesterday, we took a trip to Rockford.  It was Mitchell's first birthday party, so we headed out there for the day. Because of all of our hectic schedule's, this was also our first time meeting Mitchell too, so this visit was long overdue.  In the past, we tried to take longer road trips while the boys would be napping in hopes of them sleeping in the car, but that wasn't going to work this time, so we thought we'd plan for a couple stops along the way to keep us all sane.  First stop - donuts at a local donut shop in Flint that Troy hits up every so often.

Then, after 1.5 more hours driving, we stopped at a park in Carson City.  Cute little park that the kids loved playing at and had their picnic lunch.  I was shocked that the park was completely empty - until we left and saw that 1 mile down the street, there was a much larger, newer looking, busier park (with absolutely no shade, in the middle of a field).  I'm happy we stopped at the one we did!

An awesome wooden train to play on

A HUGE slide built into the side of a big hill.

And then finally to Rockford!  What a great time.  Both catching up with Bryan and Erin (and their families), meeting Mitchell and seeing the kids play.  The boys were very well behaved and despite no nap, they had no meltdowns, and had a blast.

Logan actually kept the party hat long enough to get a picture.

It's always fun watching a 1-year old dig into their first birthday cake!

Guess who was super excited when it was cake time?

Ellis surprisingly took 4 bites of Troy's cake!  This was quite the shock since he isn't (or hasn't been) a cake person.

Angie (Erin's sister) reading Ellis one of Mitchell's new books!

Boy they LOVED the playhouse outside!

They both fell asleep within 10 minutes of leaving their house and except for a few where-the-hell-am-I wake-ups where Logan was trying desperately to get comfortable, it was a quiet ride home.

Ellis, not even 5 minutes after leaving.

On to today - just a chill day close to home.  After I woke up, I made Troy breakfast, but since he was up for me, I ordered him upstairs to bed, so he could have breakfast in bed (with 2 crazy kids playing around him)

Troy was originally planning to go fishing today, but because of a lot of paperwork he had to get done for the week (which he couldn't have worked on yesterday since we were gone all day), he spent a bit of his Father's Day unfortunately doing that.  We had a quick lunch/stop-through visit from Grandma and Grandpa as they drove through on their way home from up north and then a laid back afternoon since the boys took a later-than-normal nap.  After dinner though we headed to the park where they got out all of their energy running and climbing around on the playscape.

Now, Troy is just jamming on his guitar on the deck (and yes, our neighbor brought over a tip jar with a dollar in it to ask him to play loud enough to entertain his guests at his house), while I sit here updating the blog.  Oh how I'd love for all days to be like today, weather-wise, too.  Just an awesome night to sit on the deck!  

I'm looking forward to little day trips like yesterday, or anything that resembles fun or relaxing, this summer.  Soon-to-come = our 2014 summer bucket list.  Any can't-wait-for ideas from anyone out there?  I'd love to here other's ideas, especially those that are kid-friendly!

The growing words of L and E

I cannot believe that it was only 3 short months ago when the boys started preschool for speech.  Prior to them turning 3, they were in a 1-day/week class with 1 home visit a week from a speech therapist but now they are in class for nearly 3 hours a day for 4 days.  And I am so thankful they have this opportunity.  They have grown SO much during these past months, especially with their speech.  Some recent highlights:

• No more grunting to indicate they want something.  They use words for most of what they want, in addition to "please" that comes afterwards.  One proud mama that they use their manners already!
• Ellis' vocabulary has exploded!  He was literally saying maybe only a dozen words regularly back in March but now he is frequently using 2 (or more) word phrases and saying more words than I would even be able to count.  Go Ellis!
• They frequent repeat what we say now - time to watch our own language!
• They are close to making full sentences.  One morning Ellis woke up and told me "I want cookies please!"  I about fell over, but quickly got him something to eat.  As tempted as I was to give him cookies almost as a reward for saying that to me, he was content with the Cheerios I gave him instead!
• Now that they say (or can repeat) almost everything we say, they are quickly learning that if they don't verbally ask for it (versus grunting or only pointing), they don't get it.  Damn, that is harder than I thought to not give them what they want if they don't verbally ask for it!  

And along with the explosion of talking recently, I've been documenting some of the cute things they say - or should I say the funny things they say that caught me off guard.

• Logan: "Water, please".  I hand him some water. Logan: "Thank you".  Me: "You're welcome". Logan "I'm welcome" and laughs uncontrollably as if it was the funniest thing he's heard.
• Ellis comes up the stairs, where I am in the bathroom and Logan is downstairs crying.  Ellis: "He's crying.  What happened?" As if I should know!  It's probably something Ellis did to Logan - haha!
• Last Saturday morning the boys were up bright and early.  We are barely out of the bedroom and Logan tugs on me saying "Come on mommy - I'm hungry" and repeats it over and over until we are downstairs in the kitchen.
• Last weekend we lost power for a few hours and I was on my phone checking the update through DTE.  We were outside on the deck and Logan walked up to me and said "Excuse me mommy - let's go play!" 
• Ellis was crying and Logan walked up towards me, then looked at Ellis and said "What's your problem?"

To many parents, some of these things are pretty regular occurrences at a much earlier age, but for us, these are major milestones and I am SO happy with their progress and all the speaking improvements they've hit lately.  

Can you tell what one of Logan's favorite shows is these days?  It's not totally clear, but see if you can figure it out:

And Ellis has a recent fascination with stoplights.  Ever since I taught him red means stop and green means go, he always says it now when we drive up to a light.  Well, a couple weeks ago at the Reaves' birthday party, they got little party favors and his was the Lego Police Motorcycle that comes with a stoplight.  Usually when we get home from daycare they want to play outside, but both days this week so far, Ellis wanted to come inside and immediately opens the bin of Legos and dumps them all out to find the motorcycle (or as he sometimes calls "race bike") and the stoplight.  He then proceeds to say "red - stop, yellow - slow, green - go" and then he races his motorcycle around the kitchen and hallway back into the living room.  Last night, he had to eat with the motorcycle and stoplight close by, so he gave us a little rendition of his stoplight understanding then (in between bites of macaroni and cheese, of course):

That's it for us lately.  We've been up to a lot lately, but since another 2.5 months went by since I've posted last it's almost impossible to fill you in with everything.  Hopefully once school is over I will get back into the swing of it and post more frequently.  Only 8 more days of teaching and I'll be free for a while!!