Memorial Day Weekend

 I love long weekends with extra help with the kids and we usually get around to doing some productive and fun things.

This weekend we managed to take down a couple of dead aspen trees in our front yard, re-seed our dying lawn (hopefully it takes!) and we attempted an angel food cake from scratch.  It was a fail.  We aren't defeated, we will try again.  (Angel food cakes take A LOT of egg whites.  We think we over beat them and that's why the cake fell but it could have also been our pan.  But what do you do with all those egg yolks left over?  You make the most amazing bread pudding, that's what.  It was definitely not a fail.)  Oh yeah, and we also got those awesome family photos taken.  We were busy!

But we did make time to see the traveling wall - a replica of the Vietnam Memorial in DC.  It was pretty cool, not as striking as the real deal, but pretty neat just the same.  Jacob especially liked it as he hasn't been to DC.  Someday he and I will go.  I'm pretty sure Isaac didn't care at all about the wall despite our efforts to explain it's significance.  But, whatever, he's two.

 

 

Isaac did, however, love the retired army helicopter.  I think he wanted to fly it for real.

 

 

 

Don't let the expression fool you.  He did not want to get out of that thing.  No big tantrums or anything but he could have stayed much longer if there weren't a line behind us.

We packed a picnic dinner and stayed to eat it at the park. 

And don't worry if the thing Isaac has been talking about all week long are these silly excavator toys at the park.  He keeps asking to go back to the "digger park with the excavator."   I knew he'd love it, I just didn't realize how much he'd love it.  He had played on it last year but was too small to make it work.  He's still a little too small but that didn't stop him from trying with all his might.  He got pretty good too.

And mostly Ben slept.  Well, by mostly I mean for about 20 minutes of all the excitement.

And then on Monday we went to a different park to ride the trolley.  Another hit with Isaac.  We rode it a couple of times last year and I'm sure we'll be back this season.  It's a restored care from the early 1900s.  It's pretty cool and is cheap entertainment for the two year old.  

 

 

But guess what, Ben loved it too!  He would stare out the windows and occasionally smile at something, not sure what.  It was so funny to see looking out the window with such intensity.  He would barely stop looking long enough to snap a few photos.  Funny,

 

 

 

 

 

And then Isaac and Ben crashed on the way home.  We rode the trolley and played at the park with the Bills family and then they invited us over for an impromptu dinner.  We stopped by the store for some soda and loved seeing Isaac fast asleep with his sandwich safely propped up on his cup.  Cute.

Hope your Memorial Day weekend was also a good one!

Family Photos

Our friend from our ward (and actually she is related on the Carter side, Uncle Alma's granddaughter to be exact) took some pictures for us this past weekend.  Jamie did a great job and we are grateful to have some new photos to update our photo wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grass for the First Time

We are loving the spring/summer weather.  It seems like we went from snowing one week to 90 degrees the next.  Crazy.

So, the other day while we were waiting for Daddy to come home I put Ben on the grass for the first time.  He loved it!  Not one weird look or attempt to pick his legs up.  He just kept stroking it and pulling it and trying to eat it.

And Isaac liked getting his photo taken.

 

I love everything about these brother photos.  Isaac can be so cute with Ben when he tries to teach him about something or tell him about his toys or play games with him.  I think they will be good buddies when Ben is a little older.

 

 

 

Love them!

 

Happy Spring/Summer!

Oldies But Goodies

I recently uploaded some pictures from a camera I don't use too often.  I found these cute photos of Ben from the very end of December.  It was about a week before going into the hospital with RSV and he was not yet a month old.  He looks so tiny!  I remember taking these photos because he was outgrowing this newborn outfit and it was the one he wore when he was brought home from the hospital.  I loved it.  Looking at these pictures now I recognize my older babe in this little babe's face, but my how he has also changed.  

 

 

 

 

 

And then there is this gem.  The brotherly relationship between Isaac and Ben has been tenuous.  It started out pretty good and then got a little rocky as Isaac began acting a little more physically aggressive with Ben.  He still sometimes does, but it's gotten much better.  It kind of comes and goes in waves.

This moment was somewhat of a turning point.  Isaac had really scratched Ben's head good, drew blood and all.  I think I was crying out of frustration and I know Ben was certainly crying.  I can't remember exactly how things transpired because it was in March, but I am fairly certain I put Isaac in his room for a good long while after I had tended to Ben.  I talked with Isaac about kindness and hurting his brother and how sad that made me and Ben, the usual sorts of conversations that I was certain didn't really stick.  And then Isaac actually saw Ben bleeding and something clicked.  He was suddenly so worried about Ben and wanted to apologize to him and make sure he had a bandaid. It had to be a digger bandaid too.  I took this picture later that day when Ben was napping because I thought it was both so sad and so cute.  I guess that is life, seldom cut and dry, usually a mixed bag of good and bad, some days more bad than good, some days more good than bad.  Anyway, for most of the time the scab was on Ben's forehead Isaac was really gentle and kind with him, sort of a constant reminder of how he had hurt his brother.  I sort of wished it would never heal so he could always have that reminder.  But, he still sometimes isn't the most gentle or kind with poor Ben.  If he survives his big brother it will be a miracle.  (That might be slightly overly dramatic.)

Isaac is a Funny Little Boy

I suppose most kids are funny...but lately Isaac has been killing me.  Both with the things he says and his dramatics.

Lately I've been letting him pick out his own clothes, except Sunday.  Some days he does just fine and some days not so much.  And 9 days out of 10 he chooses pajamas.  Here's an example of one of his wonderful ensembles:

 

We recently had root beer floats for FHE dessert.  Jacob accidentally spilled his and Isaac erupted in tears.  Like total and complete melt down kinds of tears.  He finally stopped crying and then realized he had spilled some ice cream on his shorts.  Again, melt down city.  I cleaned up the ice cream and encouraged him to be a happy boy if he wanted to finish his dessert.  He then started laughing, and ate the rest of his root beer.  Silly boy.  Jacob and I were trying very hard not to laugh at his drama.

And now for some of the funny things Isaac says:

He calls sneezes "bless yous."  For example, "Mom I just bless youed on Benjamin" or "Dad, your bless yous scared me."

He has learned the word pretend.  He says it "tendtend" and I think it's adorable.

He also has many expletives and uses them often.  "Awesome!"  "That's Amazing!" But when he says them it is very drawn out.  Aweeeeesome!  Ahhhhhhhhmazing!  = CUTE

Jacob and I were watching the tv series Eureka.  I had picked up the next season from the library and took the dvd out of a bag.  Isaac asked what it was.  I told him it was Eureka.  His response:  "Ooohhh, I like myreka."

He recently learned the word diagonal.  I'm not even sure if I can describe or spell how he says it. Nope, can't even do it.  I'll have to get a video.  It's very nasally and repeats the middle section of the word several times.  Very funny.

After prayer one nigh Isaac looked at Jacob who had his eyebrows raised making his forehead wrinkle up quite a bit.  Isaac said "Daddy's forehead has stripes."

Isaac was playing on his dump truck and apparently stood up in it and tried to ride in it that way.  Not safe in the least.  He fell and was crying.  I was upstairs and Jacob was down with Isaac.  When I got down stairs I asked Isaac if he had crashed and burned.  He looked at me and seemed even more upset and then said emphatically "I didn't burn" and began crying again.  So literal.  Just crashed, no burn.

I sent Isaac to his room for a time out and when I went to get him a few minutes later his hair was wet.  I asked him why his hair was wet and he said he was cleaning it.  I asked with what and he said he had cleaned it with his spit.  Jacob referred to it as "cat style."  Awesome and gross.

This is a super old photo of (from December or something) but I thought this napping position was awesome because he pulls the mattress off to sleep on the box springs...crazy kid.