Monthly Archives: August 2007

August 18, 2007

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The boys stayed up LATE last night…didn’t get to bed until around 11pm. Levi got up early from nap, so I took him to the pool while Dee, Carlos and Trey slept a little more. We had fun and he showed me all that he’s been learning in swimming lessons, and he loved jumping off the edge into the pool to me. He’s a big fan of bellyflopping, don’t know why. While we were in the water, we played a game of me throwing him up in the air and catching him as he splashed in the water, saying “I’ll throw you away” then splash! I remember my dad doing this with my dad and it was a nice time of reflection for me playing with my son in the pool the same way my dad and I used to play.

After naptime, we headed back out to Linda and Scott’s for dinner and to hang out some more. We got some more time to chat with her dad and Sandy and Linda and Scott before we had to head back and get the boys to bed. We had promised them that we would go swimming when we got home, so there we were at 9:30pm…heading down to the pool. Crazy. It was fun, although Levi scared us half to death by almost drowning himself. There is a ledge on one of the rounded corners of the pool where the boys can stand. Dee had the little ones and was playing around while I had swam to the opposite side of the pool and turned my head for a split second, but when I looked back, I could only see Levi’s eyes. Poor guy, I swam over as fast as possible and scooped him out of the water. After he’d coughed up a bunch of water and calmed down, he said that he had been trying to push off the side and swim across like he does in swim lessons. Don’t think he’ll be trying that again real soon. That was about it for us in the pool so we headed up, got jammies on and settled in to bed.

Today has been BUSY!!! Papa B, Sandy, Linda, Scott and the girls came out to Shores to join us for breakfast, then we went to “Jolly Rogers” (a pirate store here in town) where we got the boys eye patches. They are big into pirates right now, not sure why.

Then we took off to the Jetty where we walked around on the rocks, Scott brought up a couple of starfish and the boys got to touch them. We walked down past the Jetty to the beach/ocean and the boys couldn’t wait to get in. They kept walking out almost to the water, then when it would come back in they would screech and run back in. Eventually they just stood there and got wet. They loved it.

We took them for ice cream and a ride on the slick track (a go kart track that is smooth, with no tread go karts and a wet, soapy track…basically it is just like it sounds, slick.) There were double go karts so the kids got to ride, too! LOVED IT!

Off to have seafood dinner at Linda and Scott’s…blog ya later.

August 17, 2007

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We are at the beach! YIPPEE! Just for the record…I hate dial-up internet (and having to join AOL for a 10 day trial again just to get my computer to dial anything up).

Seeing Dee’s dad and meeting his girlfriend was great, the boys were a little shy but warmed up quickly. We really like Sandy, too. She seems very sweet. Linda was making a sandbox for the girls and all the kids were around and helping spread the sand out a little. We got them some “dinosaur bones” to bury and play with and that went over well. We hung out awhile before the boys started melting down and we knew it was time for lunch and a nap. Got to the hotel, got all checked in and now they are all sleeping awhile before we head back to Linda and Scott’s place for dinner.

There’s a pool here and Levi can’t wait to get in it! Also, it’ll be fun for all of us to try sleeping in a King size bed….Dee turned the couch around so that it made a little place for one of the boys, we’ll see how that works out!

August 16, 2007

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Holy cow…yesterday was a TOUGH one for me. Started out having to wake Levi up and that turned out to be a gigantic mistake. He was having meltdown after meltdown and eventually I just sent him to his room to scream and cry. He stayed in there for awhile, then said he wasn’t going to cry anymore, but 2 minutes later he’d be bawling for no reason so back into his bedroom he’d go. This went on for about an hour and a half.

We got ready for swimming and headed to the pool, this time Carlos was screaming and crying because he didn’t want to go swimming. Day before yesterday, after telling the instructor to try to encourage him to get wet in the pool at lessons and not just let him sit on the side, the instructor dunked him. Yeah, that’s SO not what I meant…Carlos came up crying and now he doesn’t even want to go to swimming.

So we got through swimming and headed home for a bite to eat, and surprisingly it was one of the most mellow, cool lunches we’ve ever had. All the boys ate their food without griping, joked and laughed and were very pleasant. It was basically the calm before the storm….

We headed over to Silverdale to do a little shopping…Carlos peed his pants (it’s been a long time since that happened) so we changed him and went into the store. The whole time, the boys were fighting, Carlos was potty talking and spitting and it was generally unpleasant. We left, no brainer. Tried a go at Toys R Us to kill some time (the boys always like it there) and Carlos peed himself again, this time in the carseat. I had enough of that and put a diaper on him and loaded them back in the car and headed to speech. Of course, Carlos fell asleep in the car so I had to schlep him up to speech with the other boys following. It went ok today, not great but he actually did a teeny bit of work once he woke up.

Got back in the car and he said he was ready to put underwear back on (bummer I didn’t have any..so he had to go commando). We did that and piled all the boys in the backseat, since Carlos’ carseat was still peed in. It was like the Volvo on our worst day…hitting, taking toys, screaming. Glad they were so far in the back!

We stopped at Payless shoes since we were killing time again before Carlos had a doctor’s appt. We found Trey some super cool Shrek crocs (super ugly but he loves them) and a little pair of skater shoes for our friend, Josiah, who is about to have surgery. You gotta look cool in the hospital! Anyhow, the shoe store didn’t last long, as Carlos had to go potty and they were all being hideous. We went next door and got myself a gigantic Starbucks coffee and let them share a cookie. It was 5 minutes of peace in a rather hectic day.
Dee met us at the doctor’s office, didn’t think I could do it alone when they were being so bad and the appointment went fine. Carlos is still gagging and spitting out his food and it’s odd. There’s nothing physically wrong, she thinks it’s just him being anxious about swallowing the dime and she made a big deal about telling him that the doctor had checked him out and he was all better! We’ll see how that works.
Came home and had dinner, at that point I was ready to hit the liquor store, and Dee had had a really rough day so she wasn’t up to dealing with a lot of garbage either. Laura came by to visit and play with that boys, so that was nice and gave me a chance to cook dinner. We ate, got them through the bath and they started melting down again about watching a movie (it was too late at that point) and so we read a book in bed. Carlos has a cool tent type thing around his bed and we usually all crawl in and read with a flashlight, but Carlos was having a hemmorage about holding the light so that didn’t work. For some reason he just couldn’t calm himself down, so I put the other boys to bed and held him in the chair until he went to sleep. Didn’t think Levi and Trey could fall asleep with that noise and Carlos was hysterical. I think they all got too tired and didn’t get even close to enough time to burn off energy….today they will all nap.
Oh, and the first two pictures are from when Holly, Maddy and Gabe were over for dinner. We put our friends to work…pull that wagon! And Trey with the goofy teeth. Nice.

August 15, 2007

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Each year I try to come up with a clever and do-able costume idea for my three boys (ages 4, 3 and 2). They’ve been Superman, Batman and Spiderman and also Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2 and before the baby they were Tigger and Pooh.

I’m not feeling so creative this year and am hoping there might be some creative, inspired Islandmoms that have an idea. I want it to be fun for them (I personally think “Rock, Paper, Scissors” would be hilarious but what preschooler wants to dress up as a rock!?), too!

Thanks in advance!

August 11, 2007

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We didn’t end up going crabbing today with Jenn and Rob, turns out Jenn wasn’t feeling up to par so we decided it would be easiest to try for another day. Looking forward to that and will surely make it happen soon!

The boys have been wanting to go to Wilkes (Levi’s school) for awhile now to ride their bikes so we pumped up the bike tires, got helmets on and headed out. They had SO much fun and Levi and Carlos took to bike riding like champs. They were zooming along and racing eachother while Trey decided he’s more of a playground kind of guy. There were two spills, one Levi and one Carlos, both because they made too tight a turn and dumped the bike but they were fine. We took about 30 pictures of the boys on the slide, trying to get the perfect shot, but ended up with about 28 duds and 2 ok pictures. With three there is always one kid who isn’t looking, or has his eyes closed or who knows what.

We decided that we would BBQ tonight and Holly and her kids are coming, as well as Alisa and Holly. Should be fun!

Tomorrow I get to be a grown up for a little while and go to a Pool Party I got at the Island School auction along with Mary. Dee’s going to go to the shop and goof around awhile and the boys are going to hang out with Nana and Papa so they can have some bonding time before they leave on their trip.

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The boys have been wanting to watch a Veggie Tales Silly Song video non-stop! It’s funny to be up driving the van and hear them sing along, then all three start belly laughing.

Here’s their favorite, Endangered Love. Carlos knows all the words and is funny when he sings it, ask him to sing about Barbara Manatee for you next time you see him, you won’t be disappointed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzuiWinyCW0 – veggie tales version

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-187944277294079158&pr=goog-sl
– Carlos singing Endangered Love (it’s better in person!)

August 9, 2007

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What a treat today…we had a visit with some of our friends from our old playgroup (PCC). I made up PB&J for the kids and they all sat down in a row and ate. It was cute, couldn’t believe they were all mellow for long enough to go in and get the camera and get a photo! It was great to see Jani, who moved to St. Louis. She’s been such a mentor to me and I miss her a TON. The visit was short, but I was touched that she made time to see us. I’m hoping we’ll see her again soon.
Took the kids out tonight to Battle Point park to pick blackberries and then Mary came to meet us with dinner. The kids were pretty good at picking, too and we are hoping to make some jam tomorrow if we have enough berries. I figure the boys will like squishing up berries and stirring in the sugar. We will have to do this much more often.
Soccer tomorrow then crabbing on Jenn and Rob’s boat on Saturday! Should be fun!

August 8, 2007

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Where to start…today was BUSY….got up, brushed teeth, ate breakfast, got dressed and headed off to swimming. Today was even fun at swimming for Trey because Nana went in the kiddie pool with him while the big boys had their lessons. He’s been so patient during the lessons but he wants to be in the pool so badly.
Came home shortly for a bite to eat and a little lie down (or supine….that was for you, Allie!) before heading off to speech. Dee came with us to speech today and she was glad she got to meet Julia and B. Carlos was his now-typical goofball self and didn’t really settle down and get work done. He did get homework to do so hopefully we can get things done during the week. It was the last time Carlos gets to see B, unless she does some private speech therapy !
We stopped in at Steelhead to see Gay’s new office and chatted with the ladies there for a few minutes. We’d promised to take them to Coldstone Creamery for some green apple ice cream with gummy bears, got there but Trey and Carlos couldn’t settle themselves down long enough for us to order. It was quite traumatic when we told them all we were leaving without ice cream. The van ride home was not pleasant, as they were all crushed that they didn’t get their treat. Levi was a rockstar at ice cream, and was going to get some cookies in the car as a reward since he shouldn’t have been punished for the little boy’s behavior BUT….he was bawling and couldn’t pull it together so he lost that as well. That lead to a chorus of bawling and screaming. It was lovely…not so much.
We came home and got to have dinner with my cousins, Nathan and Andrew and Andrew’s girlfriend, Mindy and Nana and Papa. Andrew and Mindy live in Montana so we don’t get to see them all that often and the boys were showing off in a gigantic way. We got out the parachute and I don’t know if the boys had more fun or the grownups. You’ll see by the video. The other video is the boys running in circles, this will prove just how amped up they were. Nathan’s watching in the background…is this how he babysits? 🙂
Parachute Play –
Wild Boys –
Exciting day tomorrow, our friend Jani (who moved away a few months ago) is coming back to visit us. I just can’t wait, we have missed her SOOOOO much. She ran the Parent and Child Center and we got to see her a couple of times each week when we took the boys in to play. It was so nice to have someone to chat with about parenting and life, I do miss our talks and friendship but realize that people have to move on in life sometimes. It will be great to see her and catch up and see what’s been going on with her since her move.

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August 6, 2007

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We had an amazing weekend, with a lot of down time with the boys. We did a BBQ with Alisa and Holly. So relaxing, the boys drove their Tonka trucks around their property (with many cool trails) and we hung out and had adult conversation. Imagine that! Ended the evening with a campfire and s’mores. I had more fun poking the fire and listening to the boys hoot and holler. Carlos didn’t want s’mores but he ate his weight in chocolate!
We had our Sunday morning coffee at the Bakery with Margaret and saw Holly and Gabe down there as well. It’s such a great tradition, the boys know every Sunday that we go to the “pullapart house” to get breakfast and they love it.
Another thing we are working on here is having the big boys pee standing up. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is hard because we can’t really show them what to do. We threw Cheerios into the toilet and they thought it was fun to aim at them, and they get the idea of it. Levi thinks that he needs me to put Cheerios in the toilet every time he has to pee…I don’t think so! Levi would probably die of embarassment if he knew this picture of him was on the blog, but I was walking by the bathroom and saw him and it was adorable so I had to snap a photo.
Speech today was great, the first picture on the blog here is Carlos with Linda Raquer. He does so well with her and it really is amazing to watch him slow down and say words he doesn’t usually get out clearly. He still has a long way to go but I see huge progress being made and Carlos always looks forward to Mondays with Linda Raquer. She brings SUPER cool toys to play with, too and he loves her.
Other pictures….Dee got one of the Blue Angels smoke loop, she got to watch while the boys were napping and I was grocery shopping. We saw them practicing and they flew right over the house, the boys were in awe of the noise and the cool blue planes flying by. Also, Trey today was so wiped out after we took the big kids to swimming lessons that he crashed before lunch…pretty cute pic, though. That boy LOVES to sleep.