Bubbles and boots and butts

Friday night, while I was out with my girlfriends, the boys spent the night at the cabin with Grandma and Papa. I went over to join them on Saturday for the rest of the weekend.

The boys had a lot of fun with Grandma and Papa! They always do fun activities like coloring, and reading plenty of books, and this time Grandma had a special Easter surprise for both the boys. Brody received a Little People Easter basket which he loves, and Dylan received a Toy Story bubble kit.

Despite the cold temperature and snow flurries that were starting, I took Dylan outside for a few minutes to blow bubbles.

If you click on the picture below, you might be able to see the snow that was starting to flurry around us while we played with the bubbles.

We left the cabin this morning with two very tired boys. Brody slept for a short while on the way home, and that was the only nap either of them took today. By 4 o'clock we had two ornery boys.

Dylan's latest thing is to run around naked after he goes potty. He's gotten really good about knowing when he needs to go, and he just goes. But oops, he somehow can't remember to put his undies and pants on afterwards. 

This afternoon, though he didn't remember to put on his undies or pants, he did remember the all important flashing Spiderman boots....

Thirty

Well, it's over. The hype, the dread...it's all over and now I'm thirty plus a few days old. Truthfully, it's not so bad. As long as I don't think about it or have to say it out loud.

Not sure why I was dreading it so much. I have a lot of great things going on in my life right now, and it's not like that changes once you turn a certain age. 

On my actual birthday, we had dinner at home with the boys. Then last night, I went out for dinner with some of my girlfriends. We had a really fun time!

Hark, my 30-year old duties call, so I can't type anymore about being 30....darn!

Is it spring yet?

We are ready to get outside for play time! I'm running out of ideas for entertainment. One rainy day last week we built a fort. It lasted about five minutes, then I proceeded to rebuild it fifteen times. It did keep them entertained for the morning though, so it was worth it.

Dylan is obsessed with food lately. Specifically, dumping food on his trains. Every time I turn the lazy susan, he eyeballs the flour. There's a gleam in his eye and I can see the wheels turning. Just imagine the beautiful mounds of snow on top of the trains!! 

So far, no flour incidents, but he did manage to get his hands on a bag of pretzels while I was vacuuming upstairs. Pretzels for eating, you ask? Oh no, pretzels for cargo. They do look like little timber logs don't they? 

Mommy sees a big mess to clean up.

Dylan sees cargo.

Brody sees a snack!

And of course, Brody makes messes of his own!

Just imagine

Can you imagine me, swinging like Tarzan? No? Well, I did it. Today. And my whole body hurts. I guess I really will be 30 tomorrow.

We went to Monkey Joe's, an indoor fun-place that has several inflatable bounce houses and big slides. The "referee's" warned me to accompany Dylan in one of the more challenging bounce houses. Whew, I had no idea what I was in for.

First, you enter through a tunnel then immediately must crawl over, under, and over these big cylindrical things that looked like car wash rollers. Then you use really small rocks to climb a rock wall, only to slide down the other side. Dylan was smart, he went down on his rear. I barely managed to get myself over the top and slid down on my belly and elbows - thereby getting some serious vinyl burn in the process. Lovely.

I'm starting to sweat now, if you can imagine. It's loud in this place, plus we have the noise of the vacuums keeping this obstacle course inflated. We proceed to wind our way between hanging boxing bags, and then over a big pile of something else inflated. Finally, we are near the end. We crawl through another tunnel and come face to face with a ten foot climbing wall. There is a rope hanging...the idea is you use the rope to pull yourself up this thing, while using the rocks to climb up. For me, fine. For a three year old? No go. I attempted to get Dylan as high as I could on the wall before I started climbing. Once I started though, he couldn't hold on any longer and we both fell to the ground. Twice.

By this point, Dylan is feeling a bit frantic. We turn around and go back the way we came. We get to the slide...and there is nothing to hang on to. No way to get back up this bad boy. I try to throw Dylan over it, but it's not working, the slide is too tall. Not to mention, how am I going to get myself over this once he's over? 

We spend twenty minutes going back and forth between the rock wall and the slide. In my mind I'm thinking, crap, we're stuck! Surely this must have happened to someone else before? What do they do? Is there a trap door we can go out? Are they going to deflate this entire thing for us to get out? The "referree" can't see us, and surely can't hear us in here. WE'RE STUCK! 

In a last effort before we have to start yelling for help, I launched Dylan up this slide as hard as I could. He managed to grab onto the top of the slide. Hooray! I decided to take a running start and see if I could climb up this slide. Smack...no. Okay, what else can I do? I noticed the slide is just a piece of slick vinyl velcroed on the inflatable, so I lift it a bit and use it as leverage as I climb up the slide. I get high enough to grab the net covering the top of the slide, lunge for it, and swing like Tarzan up the slide and over.

Oh my gosh. I'm never going in that thing again.

Get out and play

It feels like spring is here! Dylan helped Brian wash the motorcycle this morning while Brody and I went for a bike ride. This was Brody's first ride being towed behind a bike. It's hard to say if he liked it or not. He is not a fan of things on his head, so he was tugging at the helmet a lot. 

We rode up to one of the nearby playgrounds and I pushed him on the swing for awhile. I am reminded of the great exercise benefits of biking - whew, it was a tough 40 minute ride! But, it's only the first ride of the season. I wonder what it will be like to tow both of them behind me!

We came home and the boys played outside for quite awhile. They tried to catch bugs with their bug nets...

Brody mowed the garage floor...

And Dylan chalked up the driveway.

It sounds like our nice weather will continue for a few days, so we'll be getting out for more bike rides and to the playgrounds. We are SO ready to get outside to play.

Vilas Zoo

We have gorgeous weather this weekend! We went up to Madison to the zoo for the day today. It's always a fun zoo, they are continually making improvements and it's free!

This wasn't Brody's first trip to that zoo, but it was the first time he seemed aware of the animals. He really enjoyed looking at the Prairie Dogs.

Crouching down to get a better view.

Great view of the Bison!

Brody loved riding on Daddy's shoulder's!

Dylan's first time on the big tortoise. The last time we were there (summer of last year), he was a bit scared of it. This year he ran toward it and couldn't wait to get on it!

3 year pics

Finally, we did Dylan's 3 year pictures! We had them scheduled a few weeks ago, but I took him in for a haircut the day before pictures, and oops, the lady gave him a buzz cut. So, we rescheduled to today, to give the hair a little time to grow out. I told him that we were going for his pictures, and his response was "Oh goody, it's my turn and Brody will have to sit and watch."

Just have to share a funny thing. This is totally up my alley as far as ironic humor is concerned. I tried to use a $3 Kroger coupon at our local Kroger store last week. The front end supervisor told me they don't accept coupons over $1, as anyone (but of course she wasn't suggesting I would do it) could fraudulently edit the coupons. I politely questioned the policy, as the coupon was directly issued by Kroger. She called the manager to ask him, and I overheard her telling him "She's having a fit down here.....". Ummm, lady, do you want to see a fit, because this isn't a fit? Moving on... I returned home, feeling offended that she had questioned the validity of a Kroger coupon, while five people were staring me down in line. What the heck? It's not even a manufacturer's coupon, it's issued by the store itself! I sent a complaint via e-mail to Kroger. Today I got a response:

Dear Ms. Luther:

Thank you for contacting the Kroger Co.  I apologize that the Roscoe store would not accept your coupons.  I can understand how frustrating that would be. 

I am forwarding your comments to the store manager for review and consideration.  I am also sending you a $5 coupon.

If you have any further concerns please feel free to contact us at 800.KROGERS. 

Sincerely,

Christie Metropulos

Consumer Affairs

Does anyone else see the humor in this situation? If the store won't accept a $3 coupon from me, they sure as heck won't be taking my $5 coupon!!!! :)

No surprises there!

Dylan always seems to find the funniest ways to take his nap. Lately he's been wanting to sleep on his floor, like he's camping. I'm fine with that, but I do make him sleep in his bed at night.

One afternoon last week, this is how I found him:

We had his pre-school screening earlier this week. He's such a little smarty pants, I expected him to whip off the answers the teachers were asking him. My only concerns were behavioral, namely that he doesn't listen well and is impulsive. He had a hard time sitting through the vision exam, but it went fine, as did the hearing test.

After that, we went down to a gymnasium where there were several tables set up. At each table were two testers. I realized then that there were several children scheduled for each time slot and each table was for a child. Dylan again had a hard time sitting still, and kept running off on the testers. They finally asked me to sit at the table with them so he could try to be more focused. I was rather surprised at some of his answers. There were things he was asked that he didn't answer even though he knows the answer. They asked him several times to identify a circle, but he kept calling it a triangle. I started to wonder what his scores would be like. Not because I believe he needs extra help, just because he obviously wasn't working up to his potential. He is just such a little smarty, I couldn't believe here we were, the big day for him to show what he knows, and he wasn't doing it!

He must have had some good answers though, because the end result is that he scored as a five-year old in the areas of language, vocabulary and concepts. The only areas where he scored as a three-year old (imagine that!) were his motor skills and behavioral. They gave him scissors and asked him to cut. It was rather funny watching him try to use them, because I've never let him get even close to a pair of scissors! The one teacher told me afterwards that he was very anxious to use them!

And so, Dylan doesn't exhibit a need for the program that is offered in our school district. That is what I expected, and the reason we've already enrolled him in a private preschool. I'm happy to leave the free program to the families that really need it.

New Things

I'm a little behind in posting! I've been too busy with my new Cricut Create! Yes, that's right, I have the upgraded version of my favorite scrapbooking tool! And I have my wonderful in-laws to thank for that. As an early birthday present (and an extremely generous one at that!), Diane took me down to Michael's last Sunday and bought it for me!! Wow! Enough exclamation points? Well, I was and am very excited about it. But enough about me, back to the boys...

Both boys have had continued diarrhea. Gross, I know. The rota virus is gone, I can tell by the odor, but their digestive systems haven't returned to normal yet. Their laundry alone is keeping me busy. Brian just about ran out of clean underwear and I realized I hadn't done anything but kid laundry for over a week!

I took these pictures on a day when Brody wasn't feeling particularly great. He has become very attached to a few items, namely his blankies, his babies (pooh bear and softy dog) and a pacifier. Yes, that's right. Somehow I managed to let a 13 month old START using a pacifier. He loves it, and screams when I take it away. And honestly, I've never had a baby that wanted a pacifier, so I kind of think it's baby cute. He sucks on it just like Maggie Simpson and makes that suck, suck, suck noise. It moves up and down in his mouth and it's just so cute. SIGH. Just one more thing to take away now, and I know it will only get harder as he gets older, but I'm tempted to let him keep it for the rest of the winter months. At least that way he'll be putting fewer toys in his mouth and maybe will pick up fewer germs?

And one other big event for Brody - he got his first pair of shoes! He often still wears his Robeez at home, but when we're out and about I prefer he wears his shoes. With a big brother he goes so many more places than Dylan did at this age, and of course now that he's walking, he wants to walk everywhere!

Here he is, sucking on his paci and wearing his new shoes.

Let's Dance!

Just a few funny videos of the boys. Dylan is really getting into music lately, and his new favorite song is "We will rock you" by Queen. Well, it's not his new favorite, more like an old favorite revisited. He used to hear this song when he went to daycare at Noelle's house. Her son Noah had a truck that played this song, and when Dylan was barely over a year, he'd push the button on the truck and dance to the song.

And here's one of Brody dancing. I like this video because it shows him bopping away, and then his cute little toddle walk.