Friday, December 26, 2008

Out like a light

Apparently Benton wasn't quite ready for breakfast one morning. I putt him in his highchair with some bananas and went back to bed. When Tab got up and I took him in for breakfast this is what I found. He had taken his bib off and thrown all of his food on the floor and went back to sleep. Poor kid.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Bedtime Story Reading

Every night before bed we read a story or two as a family. This is one of the rare nights when Benton wasn't running around like a wild maniac during story time. This is likely only due to the fact that he had a sippy cup for some reason (yes yes I know, and no he does not usually have a sippy of milk right before bed, so stop shaking your head, lol). Nonetheless, I love being able to read to the boys when they are both sitting there pretending to pay attention. Also note, if you have a little boy and don't own this book, you should...thanks Alissa!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Babaloo

A little while ago our local library had Babaloo come and do a concert for all of the kids. I took Tab and we had an absolute blast. I just love taking the boys to things like this.


Here is the guy. He was hilarious. In the picture, he is drumming on a toaster. Tab thought that was pretty rad, especially since it had a piece of toast in it.He brought buckets and sticks for all of the kids to have a drum. It was REALLY loud and a complete blast. It was amazing that nobody got hurt, lol.After a while Benton decided it was easier to bang on his drum with his hands.And of course, what is a kid's concert without a bubble machine?Tab and Benton talking to Babaloo about his guitar.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Cheezer

When everything went on super clearance after Halloween, I bought Tab some of the glow in the dark "vampire teeth". He thought these were the coolest. He called them his sharps. This is all due to my brother Matt. When we were home visiting over the summer, he had fake (that looked real) vampire teeth and they were very sharp. Tab loved them and wanted his own sharps.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Fall Leaves

Again, I'm behind in posting these as it is now snowing, but just wanted to share.

We had a great fall. We have a huge tree in our front yard that absolutely dumps on us each fall and I just love it. I am the kind that could play in the leaves for hours even as a teenager. So we took the boys outside and they helped us play in and then clean up the leaves. This first picture is from the first few leaves that fell. Tab really enjoyed throwing them up in the air and then having them rain down on him.Benton really enjoyed throwing 3 leaves at a time into the bag.A few weeks later most of the rest of our leaves fell. The boys helped me rake and bag them all. They were real troopers. Tab honestly filled on of the huge bags by himself. I just held it open and he kept putting big armfuls in.Of course before we could back them all up we had to play in them a bit. Benton was not a fan of being thrown in the leaves.
But he warmed up to the idea of playing in them.Tab on the other hand wanted to be repeatedly thrown in the leaves.And the best I could get of a group shot.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Superman to the Rescue!

Over the summer I found Tab these superman pj's at a yard sale, so I picked them up and threw them in his dress up box. He didn't care about them at first, but now loves to wear them, always over his clothes. This particular time he wore them for 2 days straight to bed and everything. I didn't feel it was worth the fight, so he wore them. He insisted my hairband was part of the costume. So we let it be.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

A Night to Ourselves

Well.... sort of to ourselves. Last quarter was a pretty rough one. There were a lot of tests right on top of each other for what seemed like the entire quarter. Jason had been getting home kind of late from studying so I decided to surprise him. I fed the boys earlier and put them to bed and had dinner on the table for just he and I to enjoy by ourselves. Dinner wasn't anything super special, just broccoli calzones, but it was nice to spend it together without having to feed the boys at the same time. We then had baked apples for dessert! Yummy yum.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Did I mention the Tubes...

Oh yeah, I really am that far behind in blogging. Benton finally got his tubes put in his ears at the end of October. All last year we fought ear infection after ear infection after ear infection along with congestion all winter which caused him to be consistently on a prescription decongestant. I asked my pediatrician about tubes multiple times but she didn't seem to think that 6, 8, 10 ear infections in a row warranted them. I finally just told her I wanted a referral for an ENT and so we went in he looked in Benton's ears and saw the fluid that has been there oh forever and said yep we needed to do tubes. We scheduled a time and went to the hospital at 6:00 AM with both boys in tow. Benton had a slight cold and they made us reschedule, which I understood. Same thing the next time and the congestion kept getting worse and worse even after his pediatrician put him on an antibiotic. So we went back to the ENT and decided to do tubes and adenoids. This time because he would be intubated to do the adenoids, it was ok that he was sick. His tubes went in and his adenoids came out without a hitch. The poor guy though. He was a trooper.

You can tell in this picture how tired he was from being woken up before 6 AM and then having to sit around and wait.They had him drink some "stuff" that made him "relax". It was hilarious. It made him totally loopy at first. He thought everything was just hysterical. He couldn't stop laughing. In this picture he was litterally laughing just because I was taking a picture.Then he got really groggy. I thought for sure he was going to fall asleep because he was so tired. Alas...He was so out of it.
Then after waiting forever more, he started to get really mad. Boy was he ticked off. Tab was a real sport. Jason had a test that morning, so I had the boys all to myself for the most part. Tab just chilled on the bed and watched movies on Jason's Ipod.
A little while later they brought Benny-boogs back to me. It was nice to get to snuggle him while he was waking up.When he finally was a little bit awake he got mad until the nurse filled his cup with milk. The poor guy hadn't eaten in about 14 hours and was starving. He downed a sippy and a half of milk while we were there waiting to be discharged.I am happy to report that we haven't had a single ear infection or cold/congestion since then. I would however be very happy if he would start talking now. Really all I want to hear is mama.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Tab's First Day of Preschool

Tab had his first day of preschool today. I know that it is a very odd time of year to start, but someone dropped out and he was next on the waiting list! He is attending the part day afternoon Head Start program. Here he is all dressed and ready to go for school. He kept insisting that he needed to have a backpack but they told us not to send one because they won't use it.I was planning to take him and pick him up today, but the bus showed up and he wanted to ride it. So I took him outside and he got on the bus and never looked back. (My camera battery had died at this point, so I was a little sad about not getting any pictures of this.) I went inside and put Benton down for a nap and it kind of settled in. I thought I was ready for this, but I was sooooo not ready. I was especially not ready for him to just climb on the bus like a big boy with not a single fuss or concerned glance that he knew nobody on the bus. I guess that is because he has no concept of stranger danger. I got a little sad. He is growing up and I'm not ready for that. I have to admit that I got a little teary eyed.

As it approached time for him to get home, I was anxiously awaiting him. I was so excited to see what he thought and how he did, and, and and... So when the bus pulled up I ran out with my camera. They are so good to pull right into our driveway. (By the way, this was my one beef and probably isn't a big deal, but his coat wasn't zipped up and it was freaking cold outside.)
And another cute picture of him getting off of the bus.
When he got inside, he ran straight to the cupboard like a ravenous wolf. He pulled out a bag of arborio rice that I had in there and was eating it raw. The poor kid was starving. (They feed him lunch and a snack.) Perhaps it was the long day at school? I tried to get him to tell me what he did at school and he kept saying he didn't know and just wanted to go to bed. I noticed black paint on his finger and he said that they painted reindeer bodies. Other than that, I have no idea what they did. I just know the kid was starved and exhausted and a crank for the rest of the night. This is what I am most worried about. The bus picks him up around 11:15-11:30. He usually goes down for a nap at 11:00 for 2 hours. I'm hoping he either adjusts to all of the sudden not having a nap or that we can figure out some other napping/sleeping schedule. Because I don't know if I can handle him like this every night and I feel bad for him being so exhausted.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Crashing

This is a picture of what happens when a particular little boy thinks he is too old for naps. He decides he is tired and is found having pulled a pillow from the couch and his brother's blankie from his room. I guess it isn't a nap if he just falls asleep on the floor. And yes, apparently he was playing with a can opener, not the safest. And don't judge me because it was nap time and he was still in his pajamas. What can I say, it was a Saturday.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A Good Snuggle

One afternoon I was letting Tab watch a movie and he was snuggled up under a blanket. He asked me to come over and snuggle him and of course I couldn't resist. My boys are so rarely snugly, that I had to seize the opportunity to get some loves. Jason just happened to be home and walked in and snapped the picture.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Where the Wild Things Are

I attended a program called Read From the Start through our local Parents as Teachers Program (an awesome program by the way). They gave us a bunch of books and talked with us about different ways to read with our kids and make the books come alive for them. So one day while Benton was down for a nap. Tab and I pulled out one of the books, Where the Wild Things Are. I sat Tab down at the Table with some hot chocolate and we read it. He thought it was, well, another book. It wasn't one of those books that is automatically his favorite. But then I got out some of his paper from his art easel and some markers. I drew a tree and he helped me color it. He drew a sun and some monsters from the book. Then we taped them up on the walls of his play room, where they still are located weeks later.I had to take a close up of this picture because I was so proud. This is the first time he has really tried to draw anything. He always just scribbles. It is one of his monsters, complete with eyes, nose, mouth, hair, and arms coming out of his head. The scribbles below he said are its body. This is now one of hid bed time stories of choice. He frequently talks about his friend, Max.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Pumpkin

A little while back Tab and I decided to cook a pumpkin. Ok, I decided to, but he fully enjoyed helping. He thought that it was pretty cool to scoop out all of the seeds and pulp.He thought it was really weird to sort through the stringy stuff to pull out all of the seeds. We roasted them in some yummy sweet goodness and both of the boys loved them.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

St. Louis

Over Thanksgiving break we decided to take the boys for a few days to St. Louis. We left Friday shortly after Jason got out of his last final. I apologize in advance for the mass amounts of pictures but we really had a blast.And I just have to mention what made this little trip possible.We got into town and ate dinner and bummed around the mall there. And of course Tab would find a train. That boy can find a train everywhere he goes.After dinner we checked into our hotel and let Tab watch a "show". He thought that getting to watch Mickey Mouse Club House was a treat in and of itself. Jason and Benny were even thrilled with having the TV.The boys, especially Benton, just loved checking out the view.The next day we took it very slow getting out of bed. We were originally planning on "taking it easy" in the morning but after an eventful evening we really took it easy. At 2:45 the hotel's alarm went off. There are loud speakers in every room. There was a voice on it that repeated over and over again something to the effect off, "Attention, an emergency has been triggered on our alarm panel. Please proceed to the nearest stairs and emergency exit." So we put the boys coats on as it was freezing outside and headed down 11 flights of stairs to come to a dead end at an emergency exit door. So we pushed the handle and it didn't open. So, I thought this must be one of those emergency exits that you have to hold for 15 seconds before it will open. So I tried that and nothing. The door wouldn't open. So we went back up one flight of stairs to try to go and find another set of stairs to see if we could get out that way. In our search, we ran into another guest who had been down to the front desk where they told him it was a false alarm and that we could take the elevators back to our room. So we did. The alarm continued to go off until about 3:45. We put the boys back to bed and fell immediately to sleep. 15 minutes later the alarm went off AGAIN. This time we called down to the front desk and they said another false alarm. The alarm continued to go off until about 4:30 at which point we went back to sleep. the alarm went off AGAIN at 6:00. You would think we had stayed in a Super 8 or something. But no...we were in the Hilton at the Ballpark. Grrrr... I would like to say that our hotel stay got better but alas on day two we had sewage back up into our bathtub and we couldn't take a shower. Lovely eh. I'd like to say they comped our room or something but we got a free breakfast...woohoo.

Anyway...on a brighter note, we did enjoy our trip. We headed to the Magic House/Children's Museum. The boys had an absolute blast there. We spent 4 hours there and could have easily spent more had we not been starving.

In one room they had several different sections such as Art, Kitchen, Science and Building. It was at this point that I realized my camera battery was dead and wanted to cry when Jason remembered the charger was in the car. So we found an inconspicuous outlet and plugged it in long enough to get us a few pictures. Tab loved playing with these magnetic balls and sticks. He and Jason had fun building all sorts of shapes with them.In the building workshop Tab and Benton both thoroughly enjoyed these pieces of PVC pipe and connectors. Sometimes we wonder why we don't have genius ideas to use things like this instead of buying expensive toys that work essentially the same way.In the art portion they had clay for the kids to mold and take home. Jason helped Tab make a train, of course.And Benton... well, we left his there for another kid to use. But he had fun with it until we wouldn't let him eat it.Also in the art part they had painting. Tab thought that this was pretty cool. He really like smearing the paint around with the feathers that they had.After we finally convinced the boys that there were other things to see, we went to the Lewis and Clark Discovery area that they had set up. They had dress up clothes that they could put on and all sorts of thing for them to handle. The boys really enjoyed their canteens that they got to carry around for a while. I think they mostly liked that they doubled as a drum.
Benton thought the plastic fruit was pretty awesome. But that is mostly because it looked like a ball that he repeated threw into the baskets.
And of course they had a log that was carved out like a canoe that Tab pretended he was going down stream in.Next was on to their Goodnight Moon display. The boys have recently fallen in love with this book and so this was surely a special treat. The had a leaver to rock the rocking chair. A switch to dim the lights and a leaver to move the moon up and down in the sky just as it changes with each page in the book.The rest of the Magic House was filled with all sorts of fun game, science and makebelieve.

Benton enjoyed swirling the sand over the lightbox.Both of the boys enjoyed building towers and playing with the color sticks on the other light box.Much to Jason's disappointment, I caught a picture of Tab playing with the dolls in the doll house. I tried to consol him by telling him that at least he was putting the girl on the toilet and not trying to do her hair or something.Jason helped Benton with his name on the peg board.They had a little house with tunnels that Tab enjoyed crawling through.Also in that house they had all different types of light switches. If you know Benton at all, you know that he was in heaven here.At this point my camera died again, but the remaining highlights were: "fishing" where they caught magnetic fish in a little pond and took them "upstream" or to the other side of the room where they put them in another pond and followed them through a glass sidewalk as they swam back down to the first pond! They also enjoyed the "pretend" library, the shadow room and the "magnetic room" where the walls were magnets and they had all sorts of stuff for them to build with. And of course I can't forget the 3 story corkscrew slide from the top floor of the magic house back down to the bottom.

After charging the camera overnight, we went to the Zoo before heading out of town.Tab really thought that the Zebras were neat until they brayed like donkeys, which took us all by surprise. We thought that the camels were pretty cool. It is gross how much the slobber. As we were leaving that area Tab said, "Goodbye, Sally and the Camel". I died laughing. He is too cute.
As we were walking on too something new, Tab kept getting mad at me and we couldn't figure out why until I finally stopped walking. He apparently had been trying to "step on my legs" or my shadow and it was too difficult when I was walking. So after letting him jump over my "legs" a few times he was content to move on.
The wallaby's were probably one of the coolest things we saw. We watched the baby crawl out of the pouch and poke around a bit and then went diving head first into the pouch as another older wallaby came out and the mom started "boxing" with the other older one all the time while the baby was trying to get the rest of its body in the pouch. It was amazing to see. All I got was this picture afterwords of the baby reaching out of the pouch to eat while the mom was doing the same.Tab spent quite a bit of time watching the various monkeys and such. I think Tab was secretly jealous that he couldn't have any of his peanut butter that was smeared on the papers.
Just Tab and I admiring some more of the monkeys.
It was about at this point that Benton decided that he needed his nap.
Heavens isn't that boy cute. He has to be just like his daddy.Jason treated Tab to a ride on the Carousel.There just happened to be a train that ran through the Zoo. Poor Tab wanted to ride it so badly but we just weren't willing to pay the $5/person to ride it. So instead Tab wanted to stop everytime we walked over the tracks and wait for the train to go by. We willingly obliged whenever the train was in sight.Then we walked past the penguins. I think this ended up being our favorite part, once I got over the very very strong fishy smell. For those of you who know me well, you know the smell of fish makes me gag. I had to really take my time getting used to the smell. GAG. Tab liked petting the fake ones that they had.
The coolest part was how incredibly close you were to them. This guy was swimming right in front of me. No zoom was used in this picture. It was so tempting to touch them as I easily could have. I was just to scared of losing a finger and of course setting a bad example for my kids.More cool penguins.
Again, more penguins.This was pretty cool to watch also.
Tab got a little nervous when I offered him up to "Bruce" for lunch. If you can't tell he was trying to slip down out of his coat so the shark wouldn't eat him. Yeah, I'm mean.Lastly we went to the bug and butterfly house. "Riding" this big bug was pretty fun.Jason wasn't opposed either.
And of course we couldn't leave the sleeping kid out of all of the fun.
The butterfly house was amazing. Tab and Jason were lucky enough to watch a butterfly exit it's cocoun. I couldn't get Tab or Jason to look at me for this picture.
There were so many different types of butterflies and they were gorgeous.We had such a fun trip. This picture pretty much sums it up.I don't think that Jason or the boys wanted to go home. They were both enamored with eachother and the opportunity to spend so much quality time together.