Family business

 Scott and Ryker found one of my old stethoscopes and got to work practicing their clinic skills.

And when we go to my office Scott likes to have a turn adjusting mommy after he gets his adjustment.  His position in this picture is dead on, contact points and everything.  What a crack up!  And we have had some serious conversations about not adjusting his friends, brother, cousin or dog - mommy only....he grab Owen's head one day and told me he needed his adjustment, don't worry I got there in time.

The chocolate milk incident

 Life is not all sunshine roses with a two year old.  Ok well it is actually, but we have our challenging moments.  Last week we had Scott was using a big boy cup (no lid) and straw to drink his chocolate (almond) milk.  He asked to take it in his kitchen (which is in the playroom) and I said no, that he needed to have the cup only in the kitchen.  Infuriating to a two year old.  So he went to the door between the kitchen and playroom and chucked the whole cup in...no lid.  You have to look pretty closely in these pictures because its brown liquid on dark brown floors but let me just say it was EVERYWHERE.  Windows.  Walls. Baseboards. Furniture.  So I set about mopping it up while Scott had the longest time out of his life.  Side note: we don't usually do "time outs" we call them "breaks", so that he can take a break from what was causing the problem and return to it, basically same as time out but I feel like it was a little less of a negative connotation.  This time is was straight up TIME OUT. I told him he had to sit there the whole time it took me to clean up.

So fine we cleaned it up, no harm done.  We talked about what happened and hopefully learned something from the experience.  The worst part was about half an hour later Scott made up a song about it....."time out, time out because I threw the chocolate milk".  I kind of felt mocked.

The boys, lately

 First of all Scott turned 2&1/2 of Monday.  SLOW DOWN!!!  So that is crazy, even though I have been calling him 2.5 for a while now already.  He is as smart as can be and full of lots of {fun} two year old attitude.   Of course he is good and tries his hardest to be a good listener but sometimes that is hard and this is definitely a time of testing limits.  

Scott is a great big brother and loves spending time with Owen.  This day he asked to get in Owen's crib with him after he woke up from his morning nap.  It was sweet and Owen LOVED it.

 Let me also say I don't think the boys look at all alike anymore.  Every once in a while there is an expression that looks alike to me, or sometimes I will see it in a picture, and don't get me wrong I still think they look related but not identical like I used to.

Look how Owen looks at his big bro.  Sweet.

A few days or weeks ago now Owen decided overnight it seemed that sitting unassisted was possible.  So now he can sit (with the occasional face plant) and he is working so hard on crawling.  It seemed the same day he decided to sit he also decided to pop his knees under himself and get on all fours.  He assumes this position and rocks back and forth and hollers for the majority of the day.  Its pretty funny to watch.  I'm in no hurry for mobility because I know when the boys are both mobile and can head in different directions life is going to get a lot harder.  But I am excited for Owen!

Look at these two: wrestling already

Charlie

 We couldn't ask for a better dog than Charlie.  And what's better than eating breakfast outside at Mimi's with Charlie to keep you company (or beg for scraps depending on your point of view)?

Or waking up early and having a dog to play with?

Owen are Charlie being buds!

And for old times sake, Scott and Charlie playing trucks together.  Scott is slightly younger than Owen right now in this picture.

Sunday funday

 We finally made it out to a Sunday at the beach.  A bunch of our friends have been inviting us for the past month of Sundays and with the move and all we haven't been able to make it, but this week we did and, aside from a little forgetting of the cooler with ALL of our food in it snafu, it was a blast.  It has been H-O-T HOT here and it was at least 85 at the beach yesterday which made for scorching sand.  We spent the majority of the day under our compound of easy ups and in the water.

 Owen is loving exploring the sand these days and since he can sit basically unassisted he was occupied.  Scott got to run around with Ryker so he was in heaven.

From the beach we drove straight to my parents (after a quick stop off at our house to shower and feed Charlie, love living right off the freeway!) for family dinner with Hilary's fam and GREAT Aunt Charlotte!  Uncle Matt busted out his skateboard and the big boys went nuts!  Just another dangerous activity to peak Scott's interest!

Gettin' big

We haven't started on baby food yet (Owen is not as interested as Scott was at this age, Scott started right around 6 months and it was all I could do to make the kid wait that long).  But the sitting in the high chair during dinner or dinner preparation sure is fun!

5 months

 My aren't we growing up fast?!  5 months old and doing so many things already. Owen has mastered the tri-pod sit and can even sit up completely unassisted for a few seconds to a minute but he does not fall down gracefully and can't get himself back to a seated position so I "spot" him while he sits.

He is so ready to crawl and SOOO frustrated that he can't yet.  He can push up with his arms to a crawling position and he can pop his butt up but can't really do them at the same time.  He can do a little bit of an inch worm crawl both backwards and forwards that can get him where he is going most times.  But oh how he screeches in frustration when he is watching his brother run around and he can't do it.  His most favorite position is being held up standing.

 Now that we are "settled" in our house (using the term extremely loosely) Owen has developed a bit of a nap routine and has even taken a few naps in his crib, and actually his naps on his own have been longer each day.  I guess its something about a cool, quiet, dark room without a T-Rex roaring at him (Scott's favorite way of waking Owen from slumber) makes for great naps.  Poor guy hasn't even had a room or a bed until now.  

He has also survived a nasty round of teething (? still no actual teeth) and/or his first virus.  We had a helluva first week in the new house with Owen's fever reaching the high 104s and ranging from 100 on up for a week.  He slept most of the day (on me) and when he wasn't sleeping he was crying and wimpering and it was just heart breaking.  I took him to our ped who confirmed it was teething plus or minus a virus.  So we waited it out and let the fever do its thing and now our baby boy is back to being healthy and happy!

Its so much fun to watch Owen develop his little personality.  He is almost always happy and is becoming so curious.

 And here is a quick comparison of Owen and Scott at 5 months...in case you weren't convinced they were brothers!!! HA!

Being boys...

Don't let the picture fool you, they were not going slow.  I guess its a boy thing.  I had moments of panicking, and almost stepped in to stop the whole thing (due to no helmets and concrete) but I realize that this is what my life is going to look like for a long time.  I thank God every night for another day without stitches or a trip to the ER.  We are thankful for good buddies that our boys can get crazy with!

After: Part I

We did A LOT of remodel projects in the new house and I have already posted some 'before' pictures.  Well here is the first in a series of 'after' pictures.  The master bath, its basically done except for we don't have a mirror for over the vanity yet.  We're working on it.  But I love how it came out.  So clean and inviting.  Just beckoning you to come and get clean!  And if you had ever seen the "master bath" in our old house (I say it that way b/c it was a pathetic excuse for a master bath") then you know that when I saw this completed project it was like the heavens opened and played beautiful music.  I know its not huge but its at least 8 times the size of the one in our old house.  Glorious!

Easy prey

For the most part I would never categorize myself as the mom who said "I will never..."  I pretty much knew better than to ever say never.  I knew there were things I would likely not do or do my darndest to avoid but there weren't too many things I said I would NEVER do/let my kids do.  I have never been the biggest fan of "light up" shoes...even back in the 80s/early 90s when light up shoes first came out and I was in the target demographic - they just weren't my thing.  So I always thought "I will never buy those for my kids".  I didn't see the need - now all of a sudden BAM - lightning mcqueen light up shoes adorn my two and half year old's feet.

It all started when we were moving out of my parents house into our own house.  For about a week every time we put Scott's shoes on he would complain that they hurt, we were smack in the middle of moving so it probably took me a full extra week to make it to the shoe store for him (mommy's bad!) and when I did sure enough he had been wearing size 7s and he's now a size 8 (whoops buddy, seriously my bad).

So we get to the shoe store (mimi in tow, THANK GOD!) it's 100+ degrees and nobody wants to be there - especially Scott.  Side note: he's always been totally freaked of the shoe store, mainly getting his foot sized, and the scale at the doctor's office...go figure.  So Owen's in the front pack napping/crying/teething/screaming/sweating, Scott is not cooperating what-so-ever and the sales ladies start to circle.  They saw me (mind you they didn't know we were mid move with a toddler and teething 4 month old but from my clothes, hair-style (lack of) and overall demeanor (and smell?) they just knew...they looked at each other like "here she is girls, the one we've been waiting for, the sucker, let's see if we can get her to buy 40$ toddler shoes, won't that be so funny!"

Sunshine Susie asked if she could help us and immediately offered Scott a "sucker" if he would get his shoes sized.  Hind sight, this should have been my first clue to GET.THE.HELL.OUT.OF.THERE.  Fortunately for me Scott doesn't know the word "sucker" and mimi saved the day and declined the offer.  Then S.S. starts pulling shoes in the size I guessed we'd probably be looking at (8 wide - do I know my kid or what cuz that was exactly what he needed - word!) so she starts with spiderman light ups, well Scott is not familiar with the super hero world yet so I felt like I won when he looked at her blankly and continued to sulk about getting shoes.  Then, imagine me standing all cocky in front of S.S.  "you offered my son fancy commericialy shoes and since I'm such a good parent he doesn't even want them...hahaha (evil laugh)" then BAM, I'm flattened by the lightning-mcqueen-light-up-shoe-train.  That's where she goes next and his face lights up brighter than the shoes.  We sit down to try them on and he is on cloud 9 (I'M SCREWED!).   With lightning mcqueen on one foot and a sandal on the other (he really needed new shoes, of all varieties, and they were buy one get one at some sort of discount or free, I'm not sure, it was all a blur after the train hit me) I try to convince him to wear the sandals out of the store (DUMBEST MOMMY EVER).  "No mommy lighting-a-queen shoes!"  DAMMIT!  I check the prices and it turns out lightning mcqueen was only 5$ more than the other tennies I was going to buy and aside from cutting his foot off, I already knew that I had no choice but to take them home.  So Scott stands up and grabs Mimi's hand and says "I need to go to my car", he's no dummy.

At the end of the day look how happy it made him.

I learned my lesson, never say never.  Now the only reason I'm mad is that I bet you those sales ladies high fived each other after the sale at my expense.  And for the record I was not really so cocky as to assume my "great parenting" made my kid not want the spiderman shoes, he really just doesn't recognize him.  Here's to hoping Scott's feet stay this small for slightly longer than average, that he does not throw them out of the stroller/lose one so that Owen can enjoy them as much in a couple years!

Toddler grub

 So one might say I have a picky eater on my hands.  I can't complain too much because he does like fish and broccoli, but mostly he loves carbs and not good, fruit carbs, processed breads, cracker, cereal...crap.  So I have been trying the whole "toddler buffet" style lunches lately (yay pinterest).  I used baby food containers instead of ice cube trays because I have lids for these and Scott rarely finishes a meal so I can cover it and bring it out for snack time.  Its really no different than how he usually eats (a little bit of anything I think might appeal that day and hope for the best) but the goal of the tray was for him to think its "cool".  Today's lunch consisted of chicken, grapes, bananas, green peppers, goat cheese, pretzels and raisins (which I know is the same thing as grapes but we were low on choices).  I limited lunch to one processed carb...and it was the first to go.

And as you can see Scott does not think this lunch service is "cool", I'm pretty sure that's a "you're lame mom" face.

Backyard fun

We love our new back yard.  You can find us out there every morning until about 10 when its been too hot and every evening after dinner when its just perfect out.  The other day we busted out some bubble paraphernalia and I am definitely going for the double meaning here because I found this pipe Scott is using to be questionable. HA!