Oh We're Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

How about you, you, you? Is that a real song or something my mom made up? Either way...we've got zoo plans this afternoon. Our membership (which we'll renew someday) expires today so we're going to go. And since Circle Time was this morning we're gonna hit up the zoo after naps. This time of year is crazy with all the school field trips but they all go home as the day wears on so hopefully it'll be less crowded. Last time we were there I was shocked at the amount of kids snapping pictures on their camera phones. Times sure have changed since my zoo field trip days. And I got a cell phone pretty early on (when I left for college in '96) but it was truly for emergencies. It was about the size of a shoe and lived in my glove box. Anyway...

So the other day when I last blogged, Easton never did end up falling asleep for a nap. He was in there for a good 2.5 hours and wasn't misbehaving or being obnoxious or anything, just not sleeping. And I was pleasantly surprised when his behavior was just the same as if he had had a nap. Yay! Plus, he went right to bed that night and slept nearly 12 straight hours. Woo hoooooo! And to make it even better he took a 3 hour nap yesterday. Score!

While I'm "on" yesterday...my mom is off school this week and wanted to come hang out with her adorable grandbabies...so she did.

She showed up before Dalton even woke up for the day and played with the boys and came to Gym with us. Gym went well again. The question of the day was what was their favorite season. When it was Easton's turn I listed them for him and he chose summer. That's my favorite too! When it came time for the gymnastics Mr. Ken made a little announcement, "Now remember, parents: let Steph and I try to do the instructions to get the kids to follow us. If they're not listening to us then you can speak up and give us a hand." Because I'm the paranoid type what I heard was, "Yo! Easton's mom! Keep your mouth shut and take a step back unless Easton really needs you to coach him." So I tried my hardest to truly have him listen to his teachers and Easton did fine. When I'd remind him, "Mr. Ken wants you to sit on the mat" or whatever in the past I thought I was helping...guess not. At least not with their goals of getting the kids to listen to authority figures other than their parents. Easton is such a good boy. My mom and I both welled up a little bit watching him follow instructions and sit quietly with the other kids while we watched from afar. He's growing up.

Here's some highlights from play time at Gym yesterday:

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That basketball thing he's doing proved to be rather dangerous when he took a nose dive off the side into the goal and bruised his cheek, scraped up his ear, and apparently hurt his nose too. The nose shows no signs of damage but when we talked about it later he said, "Hurt face, nose, and ear." So I believe him. He cried loudly for a moment and Mr. Ken asked, "Does he need ice?" code for "Please don't sue", right? No...he's not like that. Anyway, my mom was super impressed with E when he got right back up to "try again". Trooper.

The other clip in the above video is him getting to do the zip line without riding in the rocket they had to ride in in the "younger" class. He'd have held on fine without Mr. Ken there but...safety first.

Could he at least act like he was having fun?


My mom treated me to lunch at Panera and bought me a bagel for breakfast for today (yay!) then we came back to the house. She gave Eassie-Doodle his yogurts while I fed Dizzle and when Easton went down for his nap I snuck back to Kohl's to spend more money. 2 kid-free shopping excursions in just a few days...whoa.

After yesterday's late 3 hour nap Easton was up--but being very quiet--in his room till at least 9 last night. Oh well.

This morning we went to Circle Time and one of the books was called "Yummy Lunch" so Miss Jenny asked all 4 kids there what they have for lunch, "Lunch meat" was Andrew's answer. Cael likes noodles. Angelina's grandpa said she liked to have spaghetti and then it was Easton's turn. I said, "What do you have for lunch every day?" and he said, "M Ms!" Way to make me look bad. Yes, he often gets to have 5 M&M's if he eats his yogurt and takes a nap. And if we remember. Sometimes we forget.

They're both napping now and then it's zoo time. Yippee!

Oh yeah...pictures of Dalton. The other day Jason liked the outfit Dizz was wearing:

He said it made him look like he played for the Miami Daltons...err...Dolphins:

Showing what good balance he has:


And he's starting to outgrow some of his 3-6 month sized stuff now:

At the same time it seems like he's eating less (well, he's spending less time there but he's probably more efficient at sucking than he used to be too). His face seems a little slimmer to me too...but not the rest of him. He has got the biggest thighs ever.

A couple of movies of him "talking" and being his happy self:

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Alright...time to run to get zoo snacks and sunscreen and stuff. Buh bye!

We're Not At the Hospital!

Today would've been Easton's surgery day if we didn't witness the eye miracle. I'm really glad we're not doing that today. That wouldn't been fun for anyone except for maybe Gramoo who would've gotten to babysit Dalton.

Speaking of Dalton...he did his first belly laughs yesterday! Oh I love baby laughs. They're so contagious, aren't they? It was after dinner and Dalton was in the swing. Jason was doing the dishes (as always...I'm so lucky!) and Easton was in a timeout for not listening to Daddy about the dishwasher. Anyway, I was in Dalton's face singing him the Oobi theme song when he bust out with some belly laughs. He likes the part where you just say, "Oobi Oobi Oobi" a bunch and bob up and down. Even if I say Oobi now it still gets a smile. Here is video from when Jason finally wrapped up the dishes and could get the camera...Dalton isn't really laughing at this point but he's still cute. And E's out of time out and faking laughs for us.

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Dalton also has the cutest pout EVER. I keep wanting to get a picture of it so I can remember it forever (and share it with all of you) but you can never be sure he'll do it. So...yesterday I was nursing him on the couch and Easton was playing with his Little People farm. Every time he'd play the Old MacDonald song Dalton would pull off and pout at me. So, once I noticed the pattern I got up to get the camera and asked Easton to do it again. But this time Dalton did this:

Stinker.

Jason came home a little early from work yesterday so after our early dinner we went for a walk:

We stopped by the little park near our house to swing:


And say "Oobi" to Dalton:


The last two nights Easton has been very good at bedtime. And today he even slept until 7:30 without waking in the wee hours or anything. Yay!

The downside is that he's been in his bed for the last hour for the purposes of napping but he is WIDE awake and looking out his window at the rain and stuff. But he's doing it from the bed as best I can tell. And he's being very very quiet about it all. Sneaky boy. I keep catching him in the act of opening his curtain while laying in the bed. He'd better nap, is all I can say. He's just not as nice to be around when he's not getting enough sleep.

But, with a full night's sleep behind them, they were happy for my photo ops this morning:




We also went Wal-Marting and Easton got a new giant ball. Just 'cause. I rarely buy him things for no good reason. Even if we do buy something just for fun we usually don't give it to him right away. But this time I did. And he likes it. I almost had to put it back while we were shopping but the threat of losing it was enough to keep him from continuing to try to open the bottle of barbeque sauce he had. I took it away and he screamed, "Want iiiiiiiiit!" at me and that's when I came in with the threat. Good times. He shaped up right away...but he still needs his naps, if you ask me.

By golly, I just realized Dalton didn't wake at the 45 minute mark. I took his duckie mobile down for his nap just now because he's always looking at it and smiling at that 45 minute point. I think it's probably a coincidence though...because it is stormy outside his room is dark so he probably thinks it's nighttime and went back to sleep. Whatever reason I'm happy. Now I've just got to go see that Easton is working on a nap and not checking out the storm. Adios!

ETA: It has just occured to me that I stupidly let Easton have a few sips of my Chai Creme Frappacino (J's named them Frappa-CHAI-nos...clever). Oops! No wonder he's not ready for his nap. But, he's getting there. I just checked and Dizzle is still O.U.T. and Easton was laying quietly in his bed until I disturbed him.

Memorial Day

Annnnnnnnd, I'm back...with my zillions of pictures. Photobucket gave me a little scare just now but it's working. Whew!

So, we'll just jump right in to the pictures I was too lazy to upload Saturday night:
A goofy one of D...obviously:


And the globey water feature from Boulder's new mall:

We "had" to go back a second time. Dalton didn't care:


On Sunday we ate our bagel breakfast and J headed in to work again for the morning. Dalton took a giganticly long nap--of course still waking at the 45 minute mark, but he went back to sleep eventually and I had to wake him so he didn't think it was nighttime or something. My sleeping angel:


While Dizz got his beauty rest Easton and I did a bunch of stuff, starting with laundry. Since Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer as far as wardrobes are concerned we broke out some of E's new stuff to wash. He had fun playing with the size stickers:



Eventually we headed outside for some $5 Big Lots croquet:

Bug watching...



Mr. Stylish:

One of my parenting techniques is to offer Easton reasonable options so that he can make a decision we're both happy with and hopefully avoid tantrums and such. For example, "Do you want the Elmo or Ernie diaper tonight?" "This shirt or that one?" "Do you want to walk or Mommy carry you?" So, one of our summertime questions is "Do you want socks and shoes OR sandals?" To which yesterday he answered, "Socks and sandals". So I repeated the choices as socks with sandals was not one of them. But again he repeated "socks and sandals" so since we were just going to be in the backyard I really didn't care and socks and sandals it was. As you can see. At least they weren't black socks, right?

Then it was time for E's nap and Dalton woke up to watch me unload the dishwasher.

That shirt would NOT cover his belly. No biggie. Jason has always thought the outfit was kinda girly looking. I'll just call him "Dolly"...you know, the girlie version of Dalton. Okay, not really.

I went shopping with Ellis's mom after that. Once both boys were awake again I took more of Dizz:

Does he look like Dieter (Mike Myers' character on the Sprokets sketch) to anyone else?

Interested to watch his big brother:

Showing off:

I just like this one 'cause of his eyes:

And so sparkly:

Horsey rides:


When Dalton napped again, Easton and J went out to mow:

How cute is J's little shadow?

Cooling off:


And you already heard about our adventures in dinner last night. When we got home it was time to do the bedtime routines and Easton went down quietly (well after he bonked his head on the wall getting in bed). But, it was so nice not to have to go in there repeatedly to pick his Cuddles up off the floor or cover him back up or whatever.

Today Jason went to work again. This time for a full day. Blah. But, to make up for it today was declared donut day and everyone was happy about that:


That is one of Easton's silly expressions. I can't remember what he was doing it for at that moment but he does it quite a bit.

Easton easily polished off 2 donuts (first time for 2!) and then helped me clean up the crumbs. This job required his two vaccuums plus my Swiffer Vac:

Not really. It wasn't that bad he just thought two were better than one.

About an hour after his 2 donuts Easton told me, "Want yogurt!" so he had one of those too. Man, when he's not drinking milk he certainly has more room for food. He didn't have any milk till lunchtime today. Wow!

In honor of Memorial Day I've got the boys dressed in some all-American attire. Did you know the holiday is not really about BBQ's? :) Kidding. Dalton's outfit:


When looking at the above picture I like to imagine he's singing a festive Happy Memorial Day song.

I asked Easton if he could salute and I demonstrated. He gave me this and said, "Loot":


Once I showered and dressed and got Dalton back to sleep after his 45 minute waking, Easton and I headed out to the backyard. He played some soccer:


And picked me flowers:

The dandilions are insane around here this year. Not just our yard but EVERYWHERE. I've never seen it this bad.

We laid out some bread for any hungry birds too:

We do that every once in awhile but never see any come eat it. Till today:

Easton's reaction:


Since Easton had already eaten a yogurt around breakfast time we had orange noodles (Kraft mac and cheese) for lunch and we ate it in the backyard:

That was quite exciting too. Many birds came to visit to get some bread while we ate our food too.

After lunch it was time for E's nap. It was time to come inside anyway because his little cheeks were getting red from being hot. We stripped off his clothes and he carried Doggie upstairs for their nap. Li'l O has been replaced by Doggie for now. He carried the dog so carefully and cradled it like a baby:

Very sweet. Doggie has his own Cuddles too.

Once I put Easton down I peeked my head in to check on Dalton. He was laying there quietly looking around. Not sleeping:
"What are you doing here? Did I call? No, I did not."

But he was happy to see me anyway:


When they wake up this afternoon I want to do something fun. Maybe just a trip up to the little park nearby or something. When we were out doughnuting I saw all kinds of families doing "day off" type stuff together and got jealous. We'll have to come up with something. For me. Since the boys don't know or care that it's a federal holiday.

Anyway...