Thomas Day at Port Discovery

We went to the Port Discovery children’s museum yesterday because they were having a Thomas the Tank Engine event this weekend! It was also our first chance to use our new membership that we got for Christmas!! (Thanks again, Nana and Papa!!)

We brought some friends along since we could get them in free (and we felt so fancy) and I think everyone had a GREAT time. We didn’t get too many pictures, as between the 3 adults we had 5 kids to keep track of and Spencer was always trying to run away…but here are the ones we took ;)

They had a huge train table set up – he was in heaven!
This is his camera smile, ha ha

We had to make a stop at the percussion room, it’s Spencer’s favorite!

It was really busy, but not so busy that we couldn’t have fun. I think we spent the most time with Thomas, at the water tables and in the diner. The kids had so much fun, they didn’t want to leave, even after we’d been there for 4 hours! I’d say a definite success :)

Nana’s birthday visit

Alriiiight I’m finally posting things that happened THIS month! ;)

My mom’s birthday was this last weekend, so she came up to visit, which is always a treat for us. :) The week leading up to her visit I was working furiously on a few birthday surprises for her. The original plan for our Harry Potter party was that I would make Harry Potter robes for everyone in my family. I ran short on time AND fabric (hello, 6’2” brother who took up all the fabric ;) ) so I only managed to make robes for Jason and Eryn. I had half the fabric I needed to finish my mom’s – and she had really wanted one made by me – so I got the remaining fabric I needed and finished up her robe. I’m getting pretty good at them now, it doesn’t take nearly as long to put together. And then I made her some birthday cookies!

She only came up for the day, but we spent every minute capitalizing on our time with Nana!

Stories are usually demanded requested the moment of her arrival ;) She’s stylin’ in her new Hogwarts robe, yes?School themed birthday cookies!
And I packaged them all cute in one of my new fancy bakery boxes ;)
We went to Chuck E Cheeses – we’ve taken the boys a couple of times when we’ve been visiting my parents and they love it. We happen to have one really close so we gave ours a try. Definite success.
You know those games they have that are really just gambling for kids? Well, we tried one for fun (it was pirates, why not?) and just so happened to win the jackpot for that game! We were laughing hysterically as all those tickets came out.
And then we found a LIGHTNING MCQUEEN RACING GAME. The boys were in heaven. We played that game several times. Even after Nathan had moved on to something else, Spencer didn’t want to leave his seat. ;)
And let it be known that I BEAT JOHN in our last race!! (because honestly, we were driving – the kids can’t even reach the pedals!) ;)
After Chuck E Cheeses we went to Chick-fil-a for lunch where Nathan was a selfie master.

With our winnings from Chuck E Cheese, we got some cotton candy and Spencer devoured it on the way home.
He loved it, if you couldn’t tell ;)

The boys had naps and quiet time and then it was time for Nana to go home. Thanks for all the fun Nana! It was so fun to see you!!

I am Grape. You are Cherry. And the Great Star Wars Conspiracy

So, if you've never heard of Brian Regan, he's this great comedian with this skit about being in Little League. And how he wasn't very good. His favorite part was the snow cone at the end of the game. And he was going to get a grape flavored snow cone. Because it's favorite. He likes cherry too, but grape is more favorite.

This is the basis of an inside joke we have in my family. I, being the oldest, am grape. My brother Jason, the second oldest, is cherry. He's favorite too, but not as favorite. He believes that as the second oldest he's gotten the short end of the stick his whole life. Though if you ask me, being the favorite has less to do with birth order and more to do with the fact that I was the more obedient child growing up. (I'm telling the story Jason, so it's going to be my point of view) ;)

Now that I have a second child, Jason has decided that he is Spencer's biggest fan and support system for being number 2. If you have been following Spencer's monthly pictures, I have a running joke that Spencer really wants to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens this month and that Jason is going to smuggle him into the theater to see it. I didn't realize this was an actual thing until I intercepted some top secret intelligence that was going back and forth between my brother and my second son.

I (or I guess I should say Spencer) got this in the mail this week:

The document contains the following:

Congratulations operative. You have been selected to begin the next phase of your training. 

You will now be referred to as 'Agent 2'.

This family is being overrun by what we call 'number ones'. Recent intelligence has discovered that everyone you currently trust has been named as a number one: Mama, Dada, Nana, Papa, Eryn, and even your brother Nathan. It is imperative that you don't release any information into the number one's communications network. 

Number twos stick together, therefore, the following section outlines the details of Operation Force Awakens:

Phase 1:
Convince Nana to buy a large bag of sour patch kids.
Coax Mama into eating all of the sour patch kids (that should be easy) or at least empty the bag.

Phase 2
Wait for my arrival at the rendezvous point.

Phase 3
One the day of the movie, sneak into the bag.
I will volunteer to harbor the candy (with you in it) and bring it into the movie.

Phase 4:
Sneak out of the bag and sit on my lap and watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens (try not to cry). 

I have included a communication device with this message. Put them on if you need to contact HQ. 

Remember Agent 2, trust no ONE.

Agent II

The pair of socks is the communication device. Or so I assume. I'm going to have to debug them to put them through the laundry. In any case, Jason gets major Uncle points for being so creative and hilarious. We loved it! So glad Spencer has Number 2 support. :)

Nathan At Night

So Nathan does some pretty hilarious stuff at night...

I'm thinking of making this a new blog series, as I seem to have an abundance of stories of Nathan's shenanigans when he's supposed to be sleeping.

He still miraculously stays in his room, so while he might make me crazy with his shouting through the crack at the bottom of his door, I can't complain too much - he never comes out of his room!

So without further ado, some fun anecdotes that I really need to have written down to embarrass him later ;)

Out of Bed
I feel like it all started once he realized that he could get out of his bed. We used to keep a towel placed at the crack in his door to block out any extra light because when he was younger, any light to see anything would distract him and he wouldn't go to sleep. So his first idea was to start pushing the towel away from the door. John was cracking up the first time he saw that little hand coming out and pushing the towel away. John would put it back, and then a moment or two later that little hand would be pushing it away again. We don't keep the towel there anymore...

Stalling Maneuvers
It was a little warm that night, but he insisted on requested his warm Lightning McQueen pajamas, so that's what he went to bed in. A few minutes after we left his room for the night, he's at the door requesting his motorcycle pajamas. I thought "fine, it's really warm, he's probably too hot". So I go in and we change pajamas. I tuck him back in and leave. 2 minutes later he's at the door "Mamaaaaaa, Wee-oo Wee-oo (firetruck) Jammas!" At this point I know he's just messing around and he's most definitely not getting his firetruck pajamas, as they are even warmer than the McQueen ones. After about 10 minutes of ignoring him and he's still going strong, I go back in and tell him he's not changing clothes any more. Tuck him back in and leave.

2 minutes later: "Dadaaaaaaa Wee-oo Wee-oo Jammas!"
It takes another 10 minutes of this before John goes in and tells him the same thing. We get about 5 minutes of silence, then he comes back and asks some more.

We ignore him. He finally goes to bed.

Just Like Mommy
I love having a video monitor, I get to see the funniest and the sweetest things. Through the video monitor the other night I watched him pretend his stuffed puppy is his baby. He lifted up his shirt to feed his puppy, then put the puppy on his lap and burped it by patting it on the back (rather vigorously) and then held the puppy in front of him and smiled and talked to it. Then he tried to read a story to it (in the dark). It was pretty much the sweetest thing ever.

Just Like Mommy...sort of...
I struggled with my milk supply when I was nursing Nathan, but I have excess milk this time around and it has been wonderful. As a result, I pump fairly often to relieve pressure and build up a freezer supply so I can get out of the house. ;) Nathan finds this fascinating. A week or so ago I was getting Nathan ready for bed and he was playing with this plastic tubing that was a part of an air pump for our exercise ball. As I'm getting him into his pajamas, he is holding the tubing to his stomach and saying "milk!". I'm only half-paying attention, so I think he's asking me for milk to drink so I say "no, no more milk for tonight, it's bedtime". He keeps saying "milk!". It takes me several minutes to realize he's pretending to pump for milk and I say, "Oh! Yes! That's just like when Mommy gets milk for baby Spencer!"
Then he puts one end of the tubing on his knee, saying "knee!"
"Oh, are you getting milk from your knee now?"
"No, juice!"
Oh. Of course. ;)   

Book Worm
Recently he has been having a harder time winding down for his naps in the afternoon. One day he messed around for almost the whole 2 hours he was in there. He was jumping off his bed, opening his curtains, playing with his kitchen toys, etc. He finally fell asleep when he went and got a book and started looking at it in bed. He promptly fell asleep with the book on his chest. The next day I was Sneaky Mommy and was all enthusiastic about having books in his bed. I even opened his curtain a little so he had some light to see his books. He was asleep 20mins later. Score 1 for Sneaky Mommy. So now it's a staple for naptime and helps him calm down and stay in his bed to fall asleep.

But the other night he wanted to read books at bedtime. But it's much too dark, even if I were to let him, so I found him in search of some light to read by:

The crack under his door is pretty tall, so he was able to get his hands through to stand the book up. He was rather upset when he realized he still couldn't see it. After a few moments of listening to his frustration (he couldn't seem to get it back down to pull it back into his room) I closed the book and slid it back under the door. I then hear a disgruntled "thank you..."

Yes, It's Dark at Night
Just this past week I was up every 2 1/2ish hours, with both Nathan and Spencer. Spencer woke up to eat around 1 and then at 3:30am I hear Nathan shouting at his door that all the lights are off. I run over to his room (I don't want him to wake Spencer up!!) and tuck him back into bed. He tells me again that the lights are off. "Yes, it's the middle of the night. Go back to sleep." At least he didn't get up again until morning, but I was awake at 5 for another feeding for Spencer. If Nathan hadn't gotten up that would have been a pretty good night by Spencer's standards. The injustice. ;)

Halloween 2015

AHH! I can't believe I didn't get these pics up on the blog. I had them up on facebook...so I forgot...

Oh well - Happy Belated Halloween from us - and may the most adorable force be with you ;)

For my costume I used THIS tutorial, but then made my belt out of felt because that's all I had by the time I was finishing up our costumes, but it worked out really well, and I didn't have to spend any more money, ha! My hair buns were kind of sad, but I guess that's what happens when you part your hair on the sides and you have uneven amounts on each side... ;)  For John's costume, we scored big at the thrift store and found a pair of navy slacks and some black womens' boots that weren't too girly and fit him (barely)! We then hot glued strips of red bias tape to the sides of the pants, cut up a plain white T-shirt, and I whipped up a black vest pretty easily. Nathan's costume was pretty easy, we scored again at the thrift store with a kids' karate vest, and we just painted over the decal that was on the back. Then he wore a white shirt underneath and khaki colored pants. I found these very fun light sticks at Target and covered the handle in black electrical tape and ta-da! Toddler lightsaber. For Spencer's onesie, I used THIS as a reference and attached the design in felt with double-sided fusible web. BAM! Awesome Star Wars costumes! (If I do say so myself) ;)

Picture Dump!

Here's that picture dump I mentioned in my last post. Brownie points to you if you get to the bottom and look at ALL the pictures!! ;)

Look at that milk mustache!

 

Make that a milk beard all over his face...

 

Soooo sleepy... ;)

Nathan likes to pretend he's the baby ;)

Why yes, I did coordinate their shirts, why do you ask? ;)

 Thanks for looking!