First Snow of the Winter!

We got some SNOW! Not very much. Three inches, maybe? Enough for it to look pretty, get a day off of school (and a delay today), sled in and play in. Basically, the good kind.

The boys went out a couple times and just hung out all day.... I tried out Tom's snowblower I gave him for Christmas. (who knew how fun that was?!?!).  

Ben has finally stopped calling this "The Worst Winter EVER!" (he was convinced it was never going to snow) ;)

Keeping Them Busy.....

Today we went to Home Depot (exciting!), but struck out on cold weather veggies for our garden, so we went up the street to Valley View and picked up some broccoli, kale, and a lettuce mix. Apparently all should do well until the frost and it said the lettuce can even survive a few frosts!

We spent a TON of time checking out the pond part of the store... the koi had just been fed and were acually coming OUT of the water to slurp up the food pellets left on the rocks. It was crazy! The boys got the biggest kick out of it!

After that, we went for italian ices. Came home and cleaned off the sticky by playing outside in the hose and now they are having a little screen time. I downloaded the new Muppet Movie to the TiVo for later since it looks like it's going to storm.

Five more days of summer!! ;)

Feeding the Goats....

Simon and Jonathan got the biggest kick out of this. Ben, you can hear in the background, was totally disgusted. "Ew. Wash your hands!"  ;)

What We've Been Up To....

I have been trying to keep the boys busy and out of the house as much as possible lately.  Otherwise, the day usually ends up something like this.

 The pool hasn't really been an option because it has been chillier than normal, although we might try today if it's as warm as it was yesterday....

So what have we been up to?

Well, for starters, we have done a tour of Baltimore and Harford County Playgrounds. We have discovered we prefer the ones with swings, although in a pinch, any playground with do, including the ones at the boys' schools.

We rode bikes on the NCR trail... more accurately, the boys rode bikes. I pushed/pulled Jonathan and chased the older boys. 

 We ate lunch out... a LOT.

We roasted hotdogs and s'mores at Grandmom and Poppy's....

We painted some pottery.... two dragons and a "Lego Holder"/goblet. ;) They will be ready on Friday. The boys are super excited to pick them up and see how they turned out!

We took a hike with cousins and climbed rocks and played in a creek near a waterfall.... 

We took a trip to Washington to see the American History museum. Turned out all the best stuff was closed for refurbishment. Had some lunch and took a quick run through Air and Space. Jonathan had had enough by that point.  We were reminded how hot D.C. can be even during a cool summer.... no one wanted to walk around and see any monuments. We just happened to walk by the Washington Monument....

Monday, we hit yet another playground, had yet another lunch out and went to the farm store to get some veggies to add to the sauce I want to make from the tomatoes in our garden. 

Yesterday, we dropped by the school library to help out with a quick project, then headed out for an errand that put us near Aunt Sarah and UNcle Taylor's house. Texted and they were around so we stopped in to play outside for a bit, then went to ANOTHER lunch and to another playground.

I am running out of playgrounds and running out of ideas..... seven more days until school starts!!! ;)

And five more days until someone's biiiiiiiiirthday! :) :) :) (which is why I had to get my blog caught up!!! Birthday post coming soon! :)

Dutch Wonderland 2014

Ben has been asking to go back to Dutch Wonderland since we went LAST year, so we promised before the end of the summer. Well, summer weekends are quickly dwindling.... so we took advantage of beautiful weather yesterday to go.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea because it was WAY more crowded than last time we went. Still not ridiculous though.

As we worked our way through the rides, an amusing pattern emerged.

Simon was pretty good about riding everything, but not without complaining and worrying he would throw up or the ride would be too fast or scary.  At the Turtle Whirl, he actually tried to climb the fence to get out of line before we got on. (you may also remember he got us kicked off of Splash Mountain last time we went to Disney because he screamed so much getting into the boat.....)

Ben sat out the majority of rides for fear of various and assorted random things including "sparks" on the bumper cars, drops, spinning, speed, and "lameness" (translate: I'm scared but don't want to say so, so I'll say it's too lame).  He is my child through and through. Tom was getting SO ticked at him. People seriously HATE going to amusement parks with me because I always just want to sit out while everyone else rides the scary stuff. (on the positive side, I will happily watch your stuff while you ride!) Anyway, Ben was having fun in his own way..... so all good. I always encourage him though that if *I* tell him a ride isn't scary, he shouldn't worry about getting on it. We're working on it....

Jonathan, on the other hand....the kid got on EVERYTHING. And I mean.... EVERYTHING. It started with the slides where he declared it was like Tower or Terror and "SO AWESOME!". Then Tom took him on the log flume -- "Let's do that again!" We passed up the Kite Flight on the first go-round because it seemed a bit much for a not-quite-four-year-old. But on the way back through, he wanted to go.... so..... he did.  I could barely watch.  I asked Tom (who had to ride with him) what he was saying and Tom said he was just yelling "Wheeeeeeee!!! This is so fun!!"  OMG.



I was in line with him for the Frog Hopper but there was a huge kid in line in front of us who took the adult seat in the middle. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to wait until the next round or go by himself. You can see which one he chose.




We did get Ben AND Simon on the cars.... Ben sadly, was two inches off the height requirement even though he would have been totally fine driving this thing himself. He was rightfully irritated. I had a flash forward as I sat in the passenger seat....



We got everyone on the Merry Go Round.... though not entirely without angst.

Everyone handled the pretzel picture okay....

And after Tom threatened to make Ben pay him back for his ticket if he didn't ride SOMETHING that wasn't a ridiculous tiny-kid ride, Ben acquiesced and rode the hopper with Jonathan. Then he loved it so much he rode it two more times immediately after. (Again, so me.... when I finally rode Test Track at DW, I rode it six more times that day until I could keep my eyes open during the "barrier test")

We also spent some time in the water park, which was absolute and total craziness, but the kids had a blast there too. No pictures because I was chasing Jonathan in a Where's Waldo scenario the entire time. 

All in all, a totally successful and great day. We left the house at 9 and didn't get home until six, which is HUGE! We are finally to the point where we don't have to leave places for naps. :) It's a hard-earned milestone, for sure!

All in Good Time.....

After months and months of painfully slow and steady progress on the potty training front, Jonathan is finally there.

He FINALLY tells us when he needs to pee pee and even when he's in the POOL, which I'm super impressed with!

Poop is an entirely different story (sigh), but we're working on it and he is motivated by his big reward of getting to camp out in Simon's room.  I'm still hopeful we'll wrap the whole thing up by the time school starts, but even if he's still not quite 100%, I at least know he'll tell his teacher he needs to peepee, which is a huge step from last year where I had to rely on the teacher to remember to make him go and when things got busy, that didn't always happen.

Still needs a Pullup at night because that's hit or miss, especially when he sleeps in a little.

After this, it will be time to tackle the binky.... but one thing at a time!

He is a stubborn one!

Water World....

We had SO much fun at my Aunt Gail's pool yesterday with Luke and Faith! And I got to try out my new waterproof iPhone case which, thankfully, works... ;)

Last Swim Meet....

Last night was the final swim meet of the regular season. It was away against a team that had also lost every meet of their season thusfar. LOL.

The kids were psyched.

Simon is counting down the minutes until he gets his trophy on Sunday.  Every half hour, he asks me "Is there at least a 50% chance it's shaped like a cup?" "Do you think it will be tall?" "Will it be gold, silver, or bronze?" I finally had to say, "I don't know anything about the trophy, can we please just wait and see?"

Ben was just in full-on swim manic mode, excited to swim, excited for another chance at a 1st or second-place ribbon, excited for his new shirt.... EXCITED! Bouncing off the wall.  It was quite a ride with him last night.

Here he is in his butterfly shirt, which of course he insisting on posing in while striking a butterfly stroke position.  (we won't discuss how I am annoyed about the question mark placement on the shirt..... that would be totally off topic and crazy.... LOL)

The swim director also had a surprise for the kids. Under Armor shirts with their names on the back. OH BOY were they thrilled with these!!! 

Lined up for their last team cheer of the season.....

Tom had a work dinner last night, so I was flying solo at the meet. It worked out okay. Jonathan played a little iPhone, spent some time in the baby pool, and cheered on his brothers in their races. Also showed his team spirit. ;)

It was a good one. Super fun. The other pool did a lot of neat, fun little things throughout, like randomly announcing certain heats were "Sweet treat heats!" and the kids who won (though it ended up being all the kids who were in that heat) got vouchers for a free treat at the bake table. They also played music the entire time, which made it fun and helped keep the kids pumped up. 

Simon swam his freestyle well, second heat. Last place, but good swim for him! He also swam backstroke.... used arms more than usual, tried to kick hit feet really hard like we had been working on. Great job!

Ben swam back and swam it SO HARD. He was outmatched in size though... came in 4th. His time was a good one for him though and his intensity was the best I have ever seen from him!  He also swam fly and ROCKED it.... strong swim with another too close for me to call finish. 3rd or 4th.  He was mad again, but the timer in his lane even told him he swam it AWESOME. He should be proud of himself. 

The coach put every kid in relays last night, so Simon swam his first relay. Not sure how those went because I was busy packing up.

The other team won (again, their first win of the season.... all losses, just like us), and it was really cute how they celebrated -- all jumped in and splashed and yelled and the music got cranked up again. 

What a great season! We did our first away meets, and competed in more meets than last season (only missed the one when we were on vacation!), Ben got his second place ribbon and improved his times, Simon swam in his first meet and he got better with every meet he swam in! It was a success all around. 

Saturday is the championship meet which will be another first for Ben. He's nervous and it's a little out of his comfort zone, but I think he's also excited about it. Can't wait see he how proud he is of himself for doing it! :)

Swimmer!

A year ago,  Jonathan was taking swim lessons from the same teacher the big boys were and he was doing great! She'd let him go and he'd kick and paddle to her under the water. I thought for SURE he'd be swimming unassisted by this summer.

But then that teacher left AND Jonathan's world got rocked by preschool separation issues, which were challenging, to say the least.... when we tried to pick up swim lessons with a new teacher, he was having none of it. We tried again with a third teacher, but he would immediately start screaming, "I WANT MY MOMMY!!" and so we dropped it.

This summer, when we got in the pool, it seemed he had forgotten all those fun things he used to do in the water. He hung out on the step and wouldn't even come out into the shallow end in his floatie. 

Eventually, he did figure out he could do that and all was well. I was content to have him safe in his puddle jumper, paddling around. He was happy. 

And THEN? One day I got in and he decided he wanted to play with me without it. So now that's our thing, we do rides and he jumps to me and mostly he clings like a monkey. He remembered he knows how to swim underwater and has gotten really brave. This is all great except that he no longer wants to wear the puddle jumper EVER. ARGH. 

But yesterday, we may have had a major breakthrough. He figured out that kicking his feet really hard keeps him up and he started doing a a doggie paddle and going short distances from the step this way. (maybe three feet or so) Then he'd swim back to the step and start again. He did this for an hour yesterday back and forth. He was pretending he was on swim team and would even do the "beep!!!" LOL! Now that he has a way to keep his head above water, I think I have a shot at actually teaching him how to swim. And he is SUPER motivated because he does NOT want anything to do with that puddle jumper. 

I'm hoping he is receptive to doing swim lessons in the fall with Simon's teacher. I've been talking it up... how when he learns to really swim he won't ever have to wear the the floatie.... yada yada.... and once he can swim the length of the pool (probably year after next), he can do swim team. (he thinks swim team and big kids and swim caps and goggles are just the most awesome thing ever) 

Here's to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and having three competent swimmers eventually!  Now, if I could just get him to use the potty consistently, my life would be exponentially easier. :)

July 4th!

Despite it being a little bit unseasonably chilly thanks to Hurricane Arthur to the east, we headed to the pool for July 4th. It was a last-minute decision and I"m glad we went because the boys had a blast! We stayed for almost five hours.  They had all sorts of fun games planned for the kids and great food! 

Afterward, we had Tom's parents over for wine and cheese on the deck in the evening and the boys did their second round of sparklers. Jonathan has yet to last long enough to see fireworks or sparklers. LOL. Oh well... maybe next year. ;)