More swimming videos

From videos

In approximately 5 days, William has gone from a child who didn't like his face in the water and refused to jump in without holding onto someone's hands, to a child who is jumping in & swimming underwater with his lifevest & even swimming short distances without. Here he is jumping off of his daddy's shoulders. At the end, you can hear me trying to get Daniel to jump in, but he wasn't in the mood. Poor little guy had his toenail pulled way back by our heavy bathroom door at the pool & his foot was hurting, so he was "grumpy", as he puts it. Maybe next time!

And, here is Colin "watching". Isn't his head control crazy for an 8 week old? He loves, loves, loves his tummy time! Please excuse my extremely shrill voice in the background. Do I REALLY sound like that???

From videos

And, here are a couple of front shots of the little pudge. He's gotten so fat. Check out those cheeks. My scale says he weighs 15 pounds!! We go back to the doctor on July 8, so we'll see how much he's grown. He's 2 months old today--happy 2-month BD, little one!

 

 

More little fish

And here is one of Daniel and two of his friends getting mighty brave in the big pool. Daniel also jumps in off the side & swims with his floaties. I'll have to try to get a video of that soon!

From videos

Little fish

William has finally overcome his dislike of jumping in & going under. Here he is in his lifevest jumping in & swimming underwater for all he's worth. He's so proud of himself! And we are so proud of him. He's now allowed to be in the big pool by himself with his vest on & is starting to swim short distances without it with Mommy standing right by him!

From videos

Random morning cuteness

Here is what my three boys were doing this morning:

Daniel was lining his cars up for a race:

From big kid pics

From big kid pics

William was eating his breakfast & looking mighty cute while doing it:

From big kid pics

And Colin was swinging and talking to his fish:

From videos

Happy Tuesday!

Scott's Fathers' Day

Here is how my hubbie spent his morning this Fathers' Day. Needless to say, he was in heaven. I think he's starting to see forward to the days that he can escape at least once a weekend with his boys to hit the golf course!

From big kid pics

From big kid pics

From big kid pics

Happy Father's Day!

We just want to wish all the current daddies, soon-to-be daddies, granddaddies, and whatever other kind of daddies there are a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

A big day

So, each of the little guys in our house had a big day today. First, Colin managed to roll himself over AGAIN. This time, he was in the pack-n-play and I was hoping for a nap, but he'd decided to try to see himself in his mirror, so he was pushing up onto extended arms. Well, one of them couldn't hold & collapsed, so over he went. It was pretty funny to see the shocked look on his little face. Of course, I had no camera as I wasn't expecting it, so maybe next time!

In the late morning, Scott took the big boys out front to do some bike riding. Up until now, Daniel hasn't been very interested in trying to cycle. He'd get on the tricycle, put his feet on the pedals, push his little heart out, and if they didn't start to go around, he immediately got off & was done. Today, he let Scott help him for a few minutes & "Presto!", he figured it out. I was just coming home from a shopping trip & Scott was dealing with both of them, so again, no pics! I'm aiming for a video soon.

And, William got his training wheels off today. Since Daniel can't use it yet, we took the wheels off his smaller bike so that he can still ride when he wants to, and also b/c we figured it would be easier to control the littler one since his feet reach the ground. He was able to go a few feet on his own. He was quite excited! I managed to get a few pics later in the day, so here he is. The sun was pretty much gone & he was moving, so they're dark & blurry, but you can get the gist:

From big kid pics

And here he is crashing into the grass:

From big kid pics

And, our neighbor Maddie is getting ready to start trying to ride her bike without training wheels, too, so she took a turn on William's bike. Here she is so her daddy (who is TDY right now) can see her:

From big kid pics

M&M's for breakfast

There are many things I swore I'd never do once I had children, the biggest of which is bribery. Well, my 2 year-old had M&M's before he ate anything nutritious because he woke up dry for the first time. We've been waking him 1-2 times per night for a week and a half in an attempt to get him completely out of diapers. I figure if I choose to call it a reward, it's not really going back on anything, right??????

Here's the very proud & excited little guy as he gobbled down his "reward". The third picture is his non-spontaneous picture smile. Ain't he cute?

 

 

 

Four good things

Colin has apparently decided he no longer needs to sleep during the morning & some days, the afternoon doesn't suit him, either! On Tuesday, I had some errands to run while William was at vacation bible school, so Daniel, Colin, and I headed out to grocery shop. He managed to take 3 catnaps between 6:50 and 2 PM--one 10 minutes long, one 20 minutes long, and one 30 minutes long. Needless to say, by 2 PM, he was hysterical and I wasn't far behind. I hadn't eaten yet, so I decided to let him fuss while I grabbed some lunch. Within 10 minutes, he had cried himself to sleep & then slept for 3 hours, nursed, and then was crying insanely again b/c he was still exhausted. It took him an hour to go back to sleep & then he slept for only 45 minutes before he was crying again. When I went to check on him, HE'D ROLLED OVER!. I settled him down and he slept for his usual 7 hours for the first part of his night sleep. (Thank goodness he's a great night sleeper!) I resolved not to let him get so overtired again, with no plan in sight as to how I was going to do that! On Thursday, he did much better and was able to sleep in a baby carrier on my chest for an hour and a half while we were at Scott's work picnic. When we got home, he nursed & then settled in for a nap around 3:15. He didn't wake up until 11:15 at night!! Yes, you read that right: he went down for an afternoon nap & slept for eight hours. I thought that surely he'd be up all night, but he went back to sleep, slept 6 hours & then went back to sleep AGAIN after that. Long story short, he woke up only to eat twice in 16 hours. Think my poor baby was tired??? But he appears to have re-set himself as he's back to napping today. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

So, back to the four things. Well, the first is rolling over. Colin sleeps on his tummy. I know, I know, not supposed to do that, but he sleeps sooooo much better & has extremely good head control, so I'm okay with it. What happened last night was that he had his arms and legs tucked up under him & I'm guessing that when he woke up, he was trying to get them out & managed to flip himself over. When I went to lull him back to sleep, he was laying on his back & wailing at the top of his lungs. He almost did it the other day when he was having some awake tummy time & had pushed up onto his extended arms. He was getting agitated & started rocking back & forth & almost went over. We'll see how long it takes him to do it again!

The second is that he managed to get his pacifier back into his mouth twice last night ON HIS OWN!! Now, that's key because if he can do that on a regular basis, I won't have to help him as much for naps. Here's to hoping he figures out what he's doing quickly!!

The third is that he seems to have decided he likes his fist when he can't get the paci back in. See #2 for the reason why that's important!! I go back & forth about whether it's better to use a paci (can take it away at some point) or fist/finger/thumb (harder to wean but easier for them to access on their own & they NEVER lose it in the middle of the night!).

And the fourth good thing is simply the fact that he SLEPT FOR EIGHT STRAIGHT HOURS!!! All of these things bode well for us that he'll be sleeping like a champ sooner rather than later. Wish us luck!

More pool days

The heat has definitely set in here!! It's been 95 degrees the past two days. Yesterday, we had a picnic on base for Scott's work at high noon, nonetheless, (I forgot the camera!) so we couldn't go to the pool in the morning, but this morning, we were there as close to opening as we could (which in my house means 30 minutes after!) and stayed until naptime. The boys' friends Luke & Will came to meet us and as per our typical summertime routine, we all brought lunch & had a picnic at the tables around the pool. Here are a few snaps of the boys playing in the pool. This is my gameplan for every nice morning when we don't have other plans for the whole summer.

William playing with his Spiderman "surfboard":

From swimming pics

Daniel playing with Luke (green floatie) and Will (blue floatie):

From swimming pics

William borrowing someone else's ring:

From swimming pics

And William and Will playing horsie with one of the pool noodles:

From swimming pics

And here are a couple of snaps of my happy baby just after he woke up from an hour long nap smiling & cooing at Mikki:

 

 

Isn't he a cutie pie????

Smiley baby

Colin has started smiling and gooing and cooing at anything that comes across his field of vision. Sometimes, the sounds seem to come effortlessly, and sometimes he has to work pretty hard to get them out. I'd forgotten all the effort it takes for them to "say" something when they first start!! One of his favorite things to talk to (other than Mommy & Daddy, of course!) is the elephants that hang over his pack-n-play. He laid there for 20 minutes today, just talking away. Here is the end of the "conversation". I didn't think to grab the camera until he was winding down, so he's pretty done with the "easy" noise-making, but he's pretty cute anyway. You can still hear a sound or two, but pay close attention to his mouth & how hard he's working to try to talk. And, ignore all the toys at the top of the pack-n-play. His brothers love to pile stuff in there for him to "play" with!!

From videos

A space ranger, a cowboy, and a little orange fish

So, we had some friends over to play and the kids all wanted to play dress-up with our old Halloween costumes. That is my kids' favorite activity these days! The kids did great with taking turns getting dressed up.

Here is Will, one of the twins who is in Daniel's class at school:

From big kid pics

And Will (otherwise known as Buzz) and Daniel (aka Nemo):

From big kid pics

From big kid pics

And, here is Luke, the other twin being Woody (if you haven't seen Toy Story, check it out!):

From big kid pics

My eensy weensy baby.....

isn't so eensy weensy anymore!! I'm afraid I'm going to have to move my little guy out of his bassinet soon because he doesn't fit into it anymore. He loves to snuggle up against the side of his bed, which makes his room even less!! Isn't he getting big?

 

 

 

Tornado!!

We were at the Y tonight (I'm finally allowed to exercise!!) and in the middle of my class, one of the staff came in and ordered everyone to the locker rooms. Sounds pretty simple, right?? The catch was that I had William & Daniel with me and they were in the childrens' center, so I had to make sure they were being rushed to the locker rooms, too. William, in standard William fashion, wanted every detail of the "storm" and why it was outside & what it was doing. Scott was at home with Colin and had to pull him out of a nap to rush him down to the basement! The Y had no damage & our house was fine, but a neighborhood about 4 miles from us was hit pretty severely. It was a very lucky day for us to say the least!

Our little swimmer

Our neighbors gave us an old lifevest that their girls have outgrown so William could try it out & see if we wanted to buy him one. He LOVES it! We took it to the pool today & he jumped into the big pool without worrying about going under. Then, we managed to convince him to jump in without Scott directly under him. Scott was about 10 feet from the edge, so William knew he was going to have to swim a good bit. It took A LOT of sitting down, then standing up, leaning forward to jump, sitting back down, etc, before he did it, but he did it!! He was so proud of himself. Here are a few snaps of him in the water swimming:

 

 

 

Colin snaps

So, our littlest one is growing like a weed. He's turning into a complete pudge & has now been smiling for the past 2 weeks, off & on. He's doing great with pushing up & holding his head up when he's on his tummy. He managed to prop himself up on his little elbows & look in his mirror for 5 minutes the other day. That's a LOOOONG time for a 5 week old. On the downside, he's been getting a rash on his face very similar to the one William used to get. I'm fairly certain we may have another allergic one. You can see it on the left side of his face in the last picture. Poor little one!

From Colin pics

From Colin pics

From Colin pics

Check out his little rash:

From Colin pics

And, here he is just post-smile:

From Colin pics