Animal BDs

On Valentine's Day, we went to Allie's (our neighbor's) birthday party. She had it at a place called The Tye-Dyed Iguana in O'Fallon. There was a demonstration with several animals (which we missed 2/3 of due to Daniel desperately needing a nap!) and after each demonstration, the kids were able to hold the animals if they so desired. Now, I figured William would be hesitant to hold some of the animals:

From animal pics

What I DIDN'T count on was Daniel being brave! The first animal we saw was this little iguana and I had to hold him first:

From animal pics

After I had a turn, Daniel was very eager to take a turn himself:

From animal pics

And, THEN they brought out the albino python. Daniel had to be restrained to wait his turn with this one!!

From animal pics

And, then after all the excitement, a pic of the boys with the birthday girl while she was opening their present:

From animal pics

Duck, Duck, Duck.......Oreo???

So, William's pre-school class has been stuck indoors due to weather the past few months. They've been playing all of the kiddy games that I tend to forget about: Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose; Simon Says; Follow the Leader; A Tisket, A Tasket; etc. I guess Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose is their favorite & their teachers are quite imaginative at injecting daily happenings into it. On Groundhog Day, William came home talking about playing Duck, Duck, Duck, Groundhog. They had PJ day at school the other day & they apparently played Duck, Duck, Duck, Pajamas. Today, the boys lucked out & Mommy let them have Oreo cookies for their snack, so afterwards, off we went to the basement for a rousing game of, you guessed it! Duck, Duck, Duck, Oreo!! Now, the general state of affairs in my house is that William wants everyone to play all games with him, but the catch is that you must play by the rules & the rules are always "according to William". Daniel, on the other hand, LOVES to play any games with William, but generally doesn't get the rules according to ANYONE, much less according to William! So, this is how the game went today:

William: "Come on, Daniel. Let's play Duck, Duck, Duck Oreo. Everyone hold hands & sit down in a circle!"

Daniel runs off to find a toy he needs to have before he can start the game.

William: "Come ON, Daniel. We're playing Duck, Duck, Duck, Oreo. You need to come and sit in a circle so we can start!"

Daniel: "NOOOOOOO!"

William: "Daniel, PLEEEEEEASE play Duck, Duck, Duck, Oreo with us!" (starts to cry)

Mommy: "William, he doesn't want to play right now. Let's you & I play. It'll be fun."

William: "NOOOOO. I need Daniel to play, too!" (Sounds of loud crying coming from the 4 year old)

I finally convince him to play with just the two of us. He starts to make circles around me & tap my head, saying "Duck, duck, duck" and then finally smacks me & shouts "OREO!" as he runs to the other side of the basement. I obligingly get up off the floor (in the 10 seconds it takes me these days) and chase him. Now, what do you think happens? Daniel, of course, wants in on the fun, so he starts chasing us shouting "oreo, oreo, oreo!", then decides he wants to play, too.

William: "Daniel, sit right here" (points at a spot on the floor)

Daniel proceeds to sit 180 degrees from where he's "supposed" to.

William: "No, Daniel. You have to sit RIGHT here! We have to make a circle to play the game!" (points at the same spot on the floor)

Daniel doesn't move. William again starts to cry. Fast Forward a couple of minutes & I've somehow convinced him that where Daniel is sitting makes a better circle than the other spot.

William: "Duck, duck, duck...."

Daniel, standing up & tapping himself on the head: "OREO!" (proceeds to run to the other side of the basement)

William: "NOOOOOO, Daniel. You have to wait for ME to say oreo!" (starts to cry AGAIN!)

Daniel runs back & sits in his spot.

William: "Duck, duck, duck....."

Daniel, standing up & tapping himself on the head AGAIN: "OREO!" (again runs to the other side of the basement)

I'll give you one guess what happens now!! Picture William jumping up & down in frustration, shouting, "Daniel, I SAID you have to wait for me to say OREO! Do you understand me????" as he again starts to cry. The whole time, Daniel is having a ball, giggling & laughing & completely oblivious to the fact that he's not playing the game right &, in the process, completely ruining William's game.

Anyway, this went on for another 5 minutes or so before I finally convinced William that he & I could play, & we'd just let Daniel do his own thing. We were then able to play for a few minutes before everyone tired of the game. But, the whole thing was just so funny, in a "poor William" sort of way, and Daniel was so happy to be playing & running off some energy!! And, the funniest part was that he had NOOO idea he was doing anything wrong.

Williamisms

So, being a military family and all, we've got quite a few of our friends who blog. Cute & funny kiddo sayings has been a topic of conversation on several of the blogs we keep up with lately, so I thought I'd post some of the funny things William has said recently since our goings-on haven't been too exciting lately.

First of all (and this is kind of sensitive material for those of you who are easily grossed-out!), we had a tummy bug a few weeks ago. No puking, thank goodness, but it made for some interesting bathroom trips! Immediately after one of them, William called for me to come & clean him up & as I entered the bathroom, he exclaimed, "Mommy! I had fireworks coming out of my butt!"

A few nights ago, we were reading his favorite book, The Little Engine That Could. If you've never read the book, the story goes that a little train breaks down while pulling special treats for children over the big mountain. The toys on the train have to find another engine who's kind enough to pull them over the mountain so the children can get their toys & treats. One of the prospects is a freight train who's not very nice & thinks he's too good to pull the toys & treats over the mountain. William asked me why he wouldn't help the toys out & I said he was a snotty train. William then said, "Mommy, that snotty train needs to blow his nose & then maybe he'll be nice!" Oh, the hazards of perpetual runny noses!!

And, lastly, William has been into his friends lately & whose little brother/sister is whose. I think it's because we've been talking about the new baby being both his & Daniel's little brother, as well as because I point out every baby we see & how they fit into their family. Anyway, we drove past Wal-Mart the other day & William proclaimed, "Mommy, that's Wal-Mart, Target's little brother!" The Target marketing department would be so proud!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Scott surprised us with a Valentine's Day delivery! I got beautiful flowers & the boys got some new balloons to run around with. Boy, were they excited because the Christmas balloons are dying a slow death & these new ones are so much more exiting. Thank you so much, Daddy, and we can't wait to have you home!!

 

 

3-D US!!

Tonight, the boys & I drove a few miles up the road to this fabulous ultrasound place that specializes in 3-D and 4-D ultrasounds. I took my baby-sitter along for back-up--and boy, did I need her. The whole thing took about 30 min, but the boys were only interested in the first five. There were 2 or 3 flat-screen TVs on the wall that you could see the ultrasound on & the best part is that Scott got to log in & watch the whole thing live from Afghanistan!! We got a few pictures, a mini-photo album, a teddy bear with a recording of the baby's heartbeat, and a CD and DVD of all of the pictures that they took. Good news is that he's still a boy!! Maybe one day, we'll officially name him. He kept his arm in front of his face for a lot of it, but she still managed to get some good shots in. Here are the best of the lot:

From 3D US pics

From 3D US pics

From 3D US pics

From 3D US pics

Swimming lessons

William has been doing swimming lessons on Tuesday nights at the YMCA for the past 6 weeks. He's steadily gotten braver & seems to have no fear of the water. They start them out with what they call "floater belts", which are nylon belts with foam pieces attached. They start out with 3 & gradually work down to 1 & then none as they get progressively better. William is still at a 3 level, but is starting to swim a little on his own. Here he is with his belt on:

From swimming pics

And, if you look closely, he's the one holding onto the red noodle swimming by himself in the middle of this picture:

From swimming pics

Opposites and Line Leaders

So, today was "opposite day" in William's classroom. They were encouraged to wear their clothes inside out and/or backwards. William got SOOO excited about the whole process. He's doing really well with opposites & we've been having fun "challenging" each other at home. Here are a few pictures of him with his clothes on backwards (note the shoes on the wrong feet!), and of course, little brother had to jump on the bandwagon, too. The last picture is William's friend, Hayden. He & William love to play together at school.

From school pics

From school pics

From school pics

And, in Daniel's class, they've started introducing concepts like a "line leader". Each of the children gets to be line leader for a day, which basically means that wherever the class goes, this child gets to be head of the line & everyone else gets to follow behind him. Sounds simple, but it's a VERY hard concept for 2 year olds to grasp!! This is a picture of Daniel the other day. He'd lined up all of his cars & was instructing them on who the line leader was & saying, "Now, Guys, you all have to stay behind Guido (the teeny-weeny blue car in the front of the line he's playing with)!" It was too cute. He didn't know I was watching him until I took the picture. Should have gotten a video instead!

From school pics

Speaking of fifty-six....

So, it actually did get up to the mid-fifties today. While Daniel & I napped (thank you, Aunt Sarah!), Aunt Sarah took William out to play in the backyard. Ironically, he had to wear his snow boots since not all of the snow has melted. He put several large snowballs in his wagon & pulled them around the yard. When Daniel & I woke up, we headed out to one of our favorite parks. Here are a few snaps of them enjoying the spring-like weather:

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

My Little Monkeys

The high today was FIFTY-SIX degrees, so we originally thought we'd head out to the zoo. But, unfortunately, it was very slow to warm up, so when it was still in the 30's by 10 AM, we changed our plans & went to the new Monkey Joe's out in Fairview Heights. It's a huge place with several bouncy houses & my boys LOVE it. Mommy loves it, too, because I get to sit down & rest while they run wild. What more could you ask for on a Friday morning?

Here they are climbing up one of the walls in the big obstacle course. There are several of them climbing up the ladder to do the huge slides, and some of them in the actually jumpy bouncy houses with their friends. What a blast!


**Be sure to click the pic to see them all**

Monkey Joe's

Daddy's chain

So, one of the projects William has been looking forward to is making a paper chain to count down the days until Daddy comes home. I figured it was a good project for us to do with Aunt Sarah on one of our down days. So, we got out the construction paper, the scissors, and the glue. William was so excited to cut out the strips for the chain. And, you should see him cut a straight line. Aunt Sarah & I were very impressed! Here he is cutting them out with a little help:

From Daddy's chain

From Daddy's chain

And, helping Aunt Sarah putting glue on the strips:

From Daddy's chain

From Daddy's chain

And, the big helpers with the finished product:

From Daddy's chain

We counted out to April 10th from today & the grand total was sixty-four! Daddy should be home sometime between the 1st & the 7th (we hope!), so once we get a firm date, the game plan is for me to remove a few. Keep your fingers crossed that I get to take a few of these down!!

A Day of Fun

We took off for the Children's Museum, The Magic House, in St. Louis on Wednesday. They've just added a HUGE addition & it's been about 9 months since we've been there. The main part didn't open until noon, but one of the areas was open at 10:30, so we were able to do Fairy Land for about an hour before the rest opened. Here are the boys making some music on one of the large exhibits in the main area:

From Children's Museum

And playing with the alphabet wall. If you look closely, you can see that the letters are little doors & when you open the door, you find an object that starts with that letter. They had so much fun guessing what the item would be!

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

And here are the pics from Fairy Land. They got to climb up the beanstalk ladder & slide down the slide on the other side:

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

William got to count the gold coins Jack gave to the Giant:

From Children's Museum

They took a ride in Cinderella's coach:

From Children's Museum

And, Daniel was King for a day:

From Children's Museum

And, then the main museum opened. Aunt Sarah taught Daniel a little about pulleys:

From Children's Museum

They boys got to play with water & William learned how water can be used to make wheels turn. He had so much fun directing the hose!

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

And their favorite part--FISHING!! First, you grab a fishing pole & catch a fish at the "pond":

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

Then, you have to go "upstream" and release the fish so it can swim back down the stream to the pond & you can catch it again. If you look closely, you can see the fish in the water:

From Children's Museum

We finished by playing in the big LEGO block room & playing with the cars--driving & giving the cars gas:

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum