Trip to Birmingham

The boys and I took a trip to Birmingham at the beginning of October so we could visit my sister and her family. We had a wonderful time while we were there! We visited the zoo, museum and a pumpkin patch. All four boys were thrilled to get to play together and had a fun time just being silly with each other. Harrison and Barrett also really liked seeing Penny, their new cat.

It was a great trip and traveling by myself with the boys wasn't too bad since they were both good little travelers. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Here we are on the way to Birmingham. Southwest is awesome! The pilots invited Harrison to check out the cockpit and he was so happy.

Barrett is trying to play with Penny. He brought her the Wii remote, a domino, and some food from her bowl.

The first morning we were there we went to the zoo. The boys had a great time.

Harrison loved feeding the Lorekeets. They drink a sweet solution out of a little metal cup. We were the first people into their habitat that day so they were ready to eat!



Getting ready to ride the zoo train.




Riding the zoo train with Aunt Susie.



Harrison and Jeffrey fed the giraffes at the zoo. Harrison loved it!

Charlie and Harrison playing at the local playground.

We went to the museum on Sunday afternoon. Harrison remembered the dinosaur dig area (not surprising since he wants to be a paleontologist) and was excited to go there and find bones with Charlie.

The boys went into the wind tunnel together. As you can see it really does blow--in this picture it's up to 78.4 MPH!

The museum has a small aquarium in the basement. There is a touch tank where you get to touch stingrays and sharks. We thought Harrison was going to dive in (thank you for holding on Aunt Susie!) and he could have stayed there all day.

Barrett was very excited about the touch tank too. Good thing we were paying attention or he would have been head first on top of a stingray!

He had a great afternoon at the museum.

Even Barrett got to touch a shark!

We had a great time just hanging out at the house and playing outside. Barrett loved the big dump truck.

On Monday we went to a pumpkin patch out in the country.

Riding the tractor out to pick pumpkins.

Barrett loved the animals. He kept running away from us and going back to see them. Can  you tell he liked the goats?

Giant slide!

Harrison update

All is good here, although it sure seems like there is literally not a minute of downtime to be found. Now that Harrison is not napping anymore my blogging time has been negatively impacted, along with many other aspects of my day. The upside is that we get to spend a few moments together uninterrupted by anyone else and I really enjoy just listening to him talk when it's just the two of us.

Harrison started preschool at a new school this year. He is now going three days a week (9am to 1pm) and really seems to love it there. They have "Fun and Fitness" and visit the library on Monday. On Wednesday they start with chapel and also have music. Friday is special because they have pizza for lunch.

He loves his school friends and gets so excited to see them. Some days he tells me that he doesn't want to go to school, but when we get out of the car and he sees a classmate, he will RUN full speed to catch that person and yell at them excitedly the whole way there. He talks about his friends each day when we recount his day at school over family dinner ("let's talk about my day" he will yell if we aren't paying attention to him) and likes to tell us what he did and did not like that day. It is so incredibly different than when he was in school last year and couldn't even remember what I packed him for lunch that day.

He seems to get along quite well with a few of the girls. When I ask him who he played with outside, he will frequently cite one of three girl names (usually all three are mentioned) and tell me he played tag with them. He also mentions several of the boys, and talks about who he sat next to at lunch or chapel. The other day he told us he sat with "all the boys" at lunch and the girls sat at a different table. They get to choose where they sit, and I know it doesn't always end up this way, but apparently today it did.

There was an ice cream social on the playground in late September for his school. About half of his class attended. At one point he was joining up with a group of his "school friends" as he calls them and getting on the tire swing. Three of the girls fought over who would get to sit next to him! It was hilarious to see this, and really just opened my eyes to what life might be like years from now. These are the three girls he mentions playing with all the time, so apparently they do all have some sort of little connection.

Towards the end of September they studied a "farm unit" and learning about animals, food, planting, etc. One Friday "Farmer Fry" brought his baby animals to school for the three-year-olds to see. Harrison couldn't have been happier! Barrett got to see the animals on the way out after we dropped off Harrison so it was a win for everyone.

After that it was fire safety, and a couple of weeks ago the fire truck came to his school and they all got to explore it and meet the fire fighters.

In mid-October they had Fall Fest at his school, which was a lot of age-appropriate carnival games where everyone got to win a small prize at each one. They had pony rides, bounce houses, face painting, etc. He had a wonderful time and loved playing with all of his friends. It's fun see him make friends and be so excited to see them and play with them. The downside is that now when we are home playing with just him, me and Barrett in the afternoon he wants more friends to come play. Hopefully soon he and Barrett will have enough fun that won't be an issue.

We spend a lot of time in the afternoons playing outside. Harrison's favorite thing to do is drive his monster truck around the cul-de-sac. He is really good at it and has a lot of fun. He is also getting quite good at Frisbee and we've had a good time playing that lately.

He is VERY excited about Halloween and keeps asking when the actual day is. He loves to see all of the decorations people have put out, and begged for a few for our house. We now have a spider web that lights up and another large spider. He has requested some ghosts, a skeleton and more giant spiders so I'll have to see what I can find. In early October we were at Target and hit the Halloween aisle. Man that kid was excited!!

Barrett enjoying the baby animals at Harrison's school



Here we are at Target doing some pre-Halloween shopping. They had such a great time trying on hats!



Harrison is great at driving and Barrett loves to be his passenger.

Mmmmm....cookie dough!

This is his favorite part of making cookies.

Harrison will load up his truck with cones and put them at the top of the cul-de-sac to help alert incoming traffic. He loves this job!

Our trip to Pittsburgh

At the beginning of August we went to Pittsburgh to see my grandmother (she is 97 and amazing!). She met Harrison two years ago when we visited her to celebrate her 95th birthday, but had not yet met Barrett. We met my sister and her family there along with my Mom and we also got to see my Uncle Bernie and my cousin Ali.

I think Harrison had as much fun in the hotel as he did anywhere, because he loved running up and down the halls and going back and forth from our room to Jeffrey and Charlie's room.

Each day we visited my grandmother at her apartment, and the boys ran around in the courtyard and checked out the big fish tank in the hallway. It was a bit tough to keep them contained in her apartment, but she had a good time seeing them in all of their craziness. We visited one fun spot each day we were there: the Carnegie Museum of Science, the Pittsburgh Zoo and the Children's Museum. All were big hits, and it was fun to have all the boys together to play and explore. Barrett did his best to keep up with the big kids, and somehow managed to hold his own pretty well. He certainly did crash at the end of each day but somehow still managed to get up way too early each morning.

Here are some pictures of our adventures:



Barrett loved the water play area at the Carnegie Museum



He was really excited to find a big water table full of balls. Really can't go wrong when you combine two of his favorite things like that!

Barrett playing with Uncle Bernie and Jeffrey

Barrett and Daddy, still enjoying the water area!

Harrison had fun pretending to be a giant animal climbing out of a tree stump.

Barrett and Nonny at the end of a very long trip to the Carnegie Museum. He was sooo tired.

There is a separate part of the museum where you get to try out a lot of physical things. What a great way to really make sure they were completely exhausted!

Barrett would have played with the train table at the Children's Museum all day if we had let him.

Yeah! Trains!



The three monkeys at the zoo :-)

Harrison on the slide at the Children's Museum

One of these days the iPad blogger app will work so I can get the rest of the pictures off of my iPad...these are all I have for now!

Three-and-a-half

My sweet boy is three-and-a-half! He is truly becoming more fun each and every day. For Harrison's half-birthday celebration, we had mini-cupcakes after dinner, and he ate four of them. He was so excited when we picked them up from the bakery, and just kept looking at the package all afternoon asking to have one (there's a reason I waited until 4:30 to pick them up). He even shared with Barrett, who ate several himself. I think Barrett couldn't believe his good fortune when one was put on his tray and he tasted it.

When I was talking to him at bedtime that night, he got a little quiet and asked why no one came to his birthday party. So sad!! I had to explain to him that when he turns four he can have a real party, but this was just a special little family celebration for his half-birthday. It took a bit of a discussion to help him process that, understand the difference make sure his feelings weren't really hurt. It was a great glimpse into how his little mind works.

For the first few days after he turned three-and-a-half, it was fun to ask him how hold he was. He would say three-and-a-half-and-a-quarter. I think he has it down now, but that was just so funny to hear!

This age is a lot of fun. I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again as the boys get older, but it really is great to see the world through the eyes someone this age. He has been asking for a pet for quite a while now, so for his half-birthday he got fish. He went to a local really cool fish store with Dad and Uncle Richard and picked out two small fish called "platys" and a tiny little shrimp. The fish look basically like really small goldfish. The shrimp didn't make it past the first night, but somehow Harrison was OK with that.

He loves his beanie babies. All 20 or so of them. He has a few favorites that sort of rotate through over time. For awhile it was the caterpillar, and now it's the snail, his white kitty and his newest addition (another half-birthday gift) Sammy the multicolored bear. He makes those three a home multiple times some days, either bundled under blankets, in a box, a basket, anywhere that seems appropriate. He includes small things that are their toys, and checks on them. It's really very sweet and I love that as much as he is a crazy boy he has this sweet side.

What seems like work to me is fun to Harrison. He wants to help with just about everything. He loves to take out the garbage and if we let him he would take the kitchen garbage out a few times each day. I usually stack up boxes (we do a lot of online shopping...much easier to return things than it is to take the time to shop and try them on!) in the garage and periodically flatten them for the recycling bin. Lately if Harrison sees a box on the garage floor he insists that we stop what we are doing and take care of that task immediately. He also likes to empty the kitchen recycling can into the big blue one in the garage so that Barrett doesn't take the things out of the can in the kitchen and run around the house with them. I can't really argue with him here. As far as laundry goes, he enjoys sorting the things into darks and "the other pile" as he calls it, and his favorite laundry job is to find stains and spray them with oxyclean. I kind of feel like Tom Sawyer pulling one over on him but he really likes to do work, and asks to help, so I am not going to turn that down!

He has a great sense of humor and likes to make jokes or laugh with me at Barrett. He and I do a lot of that since we don't always know what Barrett wants when he decides to grunt and point. We've been listening to music a lot lately while we play, and he knows a TON of songs. He loves to sing along whenever he knows the words, and even makes up some of his own to songs like "Down by the Bay". He can sing "The Eyes of Texas" and ends it with the blowing of his imaginary horn.

There are a lot of other things to say about him, but right now I'll just leave you with some fun pictures of him at three-and-a-half!

Typical afternoon playtime at our house. Harrison tells me he wants to wrestle with Barrett. Should be interesting in about a year when Barrett can fight back!

Fifteen Month Update

Here are some pictures of the boys from the day Barrett turned fifteen months old. They were definitely in need of haircuts as I look back at these!

At his fifteen-month check-up Barrett did great. He wasn't very happy about the shot he got but was good other than that.  He weighed in at 21 pounds, 12 ounces (15%) and 31 1/2" tall (60%).

Harrison wanted to be weighed and measured too. He's a small giant. He is 42 1/4" tall which is above the 95% for a 3.5 year old and 38.8 pounds which is right around 90%. No wonder someone asked me the other day where he was going to start kindergarten in the fall.

Barrett is quite a funny little man these days. He has a lot to say, and even though it's virtually impossible to understand most of it, it sure sounds like a complete paragraph that he's rattling off. He has tone, inflection, and a definite start and end to his statements.

His words:
mama
dida for Daddy
shoe (this is his favorite, and he will bring you shoes and demand to wear them if he is barefoot)
dis (which means "this" and he will point at what he wants until you figure it out and give it to him)
hi
bye
sit (which he says while standing on the couch)
night night (which he says when he's ready go to go bed or take a nap. love it!!)
no no

He knows that a cow says moo, a dog says woof woof and a duck says quack quack. A dinosaur roars...loudly.  Trains say choo choo and cars make a vrrrmm noise.

Barrett attacks Harrison on a regular basis, coming at him aggressively and biting him regularly. Harrison laughs and thinks it's hilarious as long as he doesn't actually get bitten hard. He is really good to Barrett and for all the beatings he takes from Barrett he rarely does anything in retaliation.

Barrett also loves to growl, and his roar has gotten much larger as he's gotten bigger. He throws his arms in the air, and roars/growls loudly, all while laughing. He has a love of small toiletries that is a bit amusing. For some reason he is obsessed with carrying around his toothpaste or oragel, a small tube of Aquaphor, a small bottle of baby ibuprofen or some other little treat.

Anything that Harrison has Barrett wants. Lately Barrett has been attacking Harrison's beanie babies, which are his prized possessions. Barrett will grab one, stick it in his mouth and run away, as fast as he can. He does it just because he knows Harrison will chase him, so it is rather amusing to watch as long as no one gets hurt!

For a fifteen-month-old he is great at following commands. He can get his "other" shoe when he brings you only one of them. He can bring something to mom or dad. He can come stand at his high chair when it's time for dinner. And when you tell him it's bath time he knows to run the other way if he wants to keep playing!

It is a lot of fun to watch these two boys turn into great friends and playmates. I can only imagine what the next few months are going to be like as Barrett gets a bit sturdier and probably even more feisty!




My two sweet boys in need of haircuts!



Laughing at Barrett doing something

A typical day in our world...Barrett attacking Harrison. This time he wanted Harrison's wallet.

Got it!

Ohh...now what should I do with it?

My little cutie :-)

My bigger cutie :-)

Beach Trip

In mid-June we went to Rosemary Beach in Florida for a week. We met my sister and her family there along with my mom, and the boys had a fantastic time! It took 14 hours by car, but the boys were really good and somehow managed not to totally melt down on the way there. By the time we arrived Harrison was so excited he couldn't stand it. He went straight down to the beach and started fishing for things with his net.

Barrett was a bit intimidated by the beach at first. There were some pretty good waves each day as there was a tropical storm brewing out in the gulf. Once he realized I wasn't going to throw him into the ocean he enjoyed sitting under the umbrella and playing with the sand toys. He could only handle about an hour on the beach, but that was fine, because by then he was too hot to stay out any longer.

Both boys loved the pool and we had a great time there every afternoon. Harrison did really well practicing his swimming, and Barrett loved sitting on the wide steps and run cars back and forth.

Harrison had an amazing time playing with his cousins Jeffrey and Charlie. They ran around all day and played so hard, that by the middle of the day he was asking to take a nap. He and Charlie were inseparable, and on the few occasions that one was without the other there were some tears until they got back together. Barrett was convinced he was one of the big kids, and tried his best to keep up with them. It was so fun to see the boys just live outside and have such a great time. We have already talked many times about how we will go back next year, and Harrison asks weekly when we are going back.

It was a great trip and I think next year will be even more fun since Barrett will be able to do so much more. Here are a few pictures from the week:

Harrison couldn't wait to get down to the beach. As soon as we arrived at the house he took his net down and started trying to catch things in the water.

Charlie, Jeffrey and Harrison heading to the Sugar Shak for a tasty treat.

Eating his tasty treat!

Here are the boys in their matching Sugar Shak shirts. We were very good customers this week.

Barrett thought the beach was a little overwhelming at first, but once he warmed up to it he had a lot of fun playing in the sand.

The Charlie's Donut truck has some of the best donuts around. We took the boys there one morning for a treat. They sure enjoyed their sugary breakfast!

At dinner to celebrate Nonny's birthday. We loved Charlie in his batman sunglasses!

Barrett turned 14 months old today. He made it a point of showing off his newly acquired walking skills by strolling just about everywhere we went.

Taking a little break from walking.

Getting a hand from Jeffrey.

Barrett sure loves his sunglasses, and he insisted on wearing my hat for awhile too. So cute!

Family fun at the pool!

We went on a walk one morning and came across the sprinklers...they had a great time getting soaked in their clothes!

 

More sprinkler fun!

Our attempt to get a picture of all four boys with Nonny for her birthday...it had been a long day!