Window Project, Part 2

So yesterday was Day 2 of the window project.  The window crew said they would need at least until 2pm to finish the job so that meant that I needed to go to Megan & Sky's for lunchtime and naptime again.  Before that though, we had a great morning at the Braly household with Kyndal, Kaiser, Porter and Miss Malone.  Here's that sweet girl (totally enthralled with some trains going round and round).

She actually didn't really get to see her buddy as she was napping when we arrived and Penn went to nap before she woke up.  But Penn greatly enjoyed her toys while she was sleeping.  Thanks, Malone!

Tavin LOVES going to the Bralys.  They are Digger Central.  Here's Tav hard at work.

The Braly boys also have an affinity for Thomas trains which is yet another thing they have in common with Tavin.  Here are Porter and Tavin working with those steamies and diesels!

Kaiser and Porter are very gracious hosts and share so well.  They also play super well together too.  Quite the little buddies for each other (and for Tav when he visits!).  Here are those cute B Boys!

We would've loved to just stay all day with these friends, but it made more sense to head back to our 'hood for lunchtime and naps at Megan & Sky's.  Tav did well leaving the wonderland that is all the toys at his friends' house.  =)  We had a nice lunchtime once we got settled back at the apartment and due to the rain I played with Tav indoors and oops, let him ride his scooter indoors!  Sorry, Miss Megan, but he's just too cute playing mailman on his scooter.  Don't worry, the wheels were clean!  

Penn had a little fun himself chewing on toys and watching Tav move around.  I just can't get enough of this adorable smile.  I know I post a lot of similar pictures of him, but really, does it bother you?  I could look at it all day every day...oh wait, I do.

Well, the little guys were pretty tired from their fun morning out and then playing at the apartment.  Tavin went right to sleep despite the very different surroundings and Penn took a super long nap in his pack and play.  Koen had his long day at school and got to the apartment around 3:30pm.  He used his ticket and by the time that was done it was time to pack up and head back to our house.  It was so fun to get home and see the finished work.  The windows look great (well, for how much of an investment they are I kind of wish that they had ten other functionalities in addition to awesome windowness).  But I'm also just so glad that the project is done and we can live in our house again.  Good job, Melder boys.  You were very flexible with the last few funny days.  Love you guys! 

Koen Loses Another Tooth Already!

Doug and Koen walked in from swimming lessons at 7:30pm calling for me.  What's this?  Koen's bottom front tooth was bleeding and hanging on by a thread.  Doug refused to yank it out, so that left the job to me.  As a mom of 3 boys, I figure these moments are like a rite of passage.  I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and do it.  So I did.  I pulled out his tooth.  Koen was so brave!  He never cried and he didn't pull away afraid.  I was wincing myself just waiting for the resistance and the little click noise (which did happen...yuck!).  Here's Koen who is super proud that he has lost two teeth in two days and his proud mama (proud of my boy and proud that I didn't waiver at my mommy task).

Koen then began explaining that his friend at school was missing his top two teeth and he is missing his bottom two teeth.  He used me as an example of what he was talking about.  Doug shot a pic.  I think it's cute because you can see in my smile I'm busting with pride (and the amazement that I have a child old enough to lose two teeth!).

Love you, Koen!  Heading up soon to put yet another dollar bill under your pillow!

Big Brother Bath!

So with being out all morning, I totally missed out on giving Penn his bath (I usually give him a bath before his morning nap rather than add his bath to the evening routine).  The poor little guy has some sort of minor cold, or perhaps just a teething symptom (he's cutting about 3 teeth right now) and so he looked like he needed a little freshening up this evening.  I had a brainstorm...why don't I give him and Tavin a bath together!  What fun!  (Koen happened to be out at his swimming lessons with Doug).  Tavin loved the idea of sharing a bath with Penn.  Penn is so agreeable that of course he was fine with the plan too.  Here's Penn and his big brother, Tavin, splish-splashing away!  Clearly very happy!

You know, just playing.  "No big deal...I'm a big boy!" (thinks Penn).

"I'm so happy I'm in the bath with Tavin!"

"Back to my favorite bath toy now, my book, clearly Tavin lost interest in me anyways."

Window Project, Part 1

After years of saving and plotting, we have finally embarked on replacing some of our drafty, ill-installed, cheap vinyl windows.  Yay!  We hope to do the whole house essential in the next two years.  This is round one.  It includes the first floor, 2 windows on the 2nd floor and 2 windows on the 3rd floor.  That means that these guys have taken over house inside and out and with a 100 year old house that's bound to have some lead paint hanging around in those window trims, the boys and I had to stay away today (and will be tomorrow as well, that'll be part 2).  This morning we dropped Koen off at school and then headed over to my friend, Allison's house.  Her youngest, Samuel, was there and he and Tavin played pretty well together.  Here they are chasing some bubbles.

Tav wasn't the only one that got to play with Samuel.  Penn was super excited to join in on the fun and pass the ball with Samuel.  Seriously, it seemed like he really understood that he was playing with a big kid and he was so proud of himself!

Soon after all that fun, it was time for Penn's morning nap.  He was a good little bug as usual and calmly went to sleep without a fight in another room not to far from all the loud fun the big boys were still having int he living room.  We stayed until about 11:30am and then we headed back towards our neighborhood...but not home...we went to a friend's apartment.  They are on vacation in Hawaii (yeah, just a little jealous), so we were able to crash their place for lunchtime and afternoon naptime.  The boys were so excited to be at Dr. Megan and Mr. Sky's house.  Here they are enjoying their lunch.  Please note the adorable smiles!

After lunch I bundled them all up for a scooter ride so that we could walk past our house and see the window project.  They loved that.  But they were also happy to return to Megan and Sky's for this fun and different afternoon naptime.  Tav went down first and then Penn was exhausted so I quickly got him down next.  Then Koen got set up for his rest time.  He had his DVD tickets to burn, so I set him up in a cozy spot with our portable player.  He was pretty pleased.

Penn went to sleep pretty quickly, but Tav talked to himself for quite awhile.  I think he finally fell asleep after 3pm.  Around 4:15pm I went in to wake him up.  Look at how he's passed out in the setting sun!  So sweet.  I was so proud of him for getting some shut eye in a different location.  

After I got Tav up, I packed us up and Doug helped us get from Megan and Sky's home.  The window guys were gone, but the project is definitely midway and so the house is in disarray.  I'm dying to set things back where they go and do a good cleaning (although these Pella guys are pretty impressive with their cleanup).  That'll be tomorrow night.  Stay tuned for more updates on the adventures of mom and her boys when they have to stay out of the house for two days!

Koen Lost His First Tooth!

My big boy, Koen, lost his first tooth this morning!  I can't believe my son is almost 6.  I can't believe my son lost his first tooth already.  I can't believe how quickly these little ones grow up.  Ugh, it pulls at my heart strings!  Anyways, back to Koen and this big moment.  Well, we almost missed it.  After breakfast the boys and I were heading into the living room to read a story and Koen whizzed past me (in classic fashion) and I caught a glimpse of his smile and noticed a big dark gap.  Wait a second!  "Koen did you lose your tooth?"  He had no idea!  Then I wondered if he had swallowed it during breakfast (yuck!).  We quickly went back to the kitchen on a hunt for a little tooth just in case somehow we could find it for the tooth fairy.  And yes, there it was underneath Koen's stool (right next to a similarly sized, shaped and colored piece of scrambled egg).  So exciting!  Here's the proud, big boy.

I'm about to head up and be the tooth fairy.  Koen was pretty bummed when he was reminded that the tooth fairy doesn't bring toys (he was hoping for Legos under his pillow).  I'm hoping a nice $1 bill does the trick.  Yeah, we're cheap.  But don't worry, we made a big deal about the gaping hole in his smile and he was pretty happy about that.  He was really excited that I was going to be the tooth fairy.  He doesn't want Doug to do it.  He says that it has to be a girl.  It'll be fun to see if he wakes up!  

3 Scooter Walks in One Day

Can you tell I'm ready for Spring?  It was above 32 (maxed out at near 40) and I had the boys out 3 different times on little short walks around the neighborhood.  It felt great!  We all enjoyed the change of pace from being stuck indoors.  Here's a picture of my 3 boys on our last of the 3 walks.

And here's the adorable Penn Rye.  Just because it is so easy to get a perfect, adorable smile out of this cute teddy bear.

When we got home I sat Penn up in the corner of the porch while I folded up the stroller.  When I turned around Tavin was sitting next to him with his arm around him to protect him from falling over (melt my heart!).  I had to get a pic and Tavin was such a proud big bro!

These walks were quite the highlight of my days.  I'm still a little amazed when I walk around with 3 children.  Really?  This is me?  I have 3 kids?  Oh, I'm so blessed.  Love it!

Let's Do An Experiment, Mommy...

So this weekend Doug's preaching.  That means Doug leaves mid-morning on Saturday.  He had a nice start to the day with the boys and it was nice that I wasn't "on" with all 3 little guys from the get-go (and got some extra snuggles with Penn).  After I laid Penn down for a nap at 10am, Doug had to get ready to go, so I took K &T out on a quick scooter walk before Doug had to depart.  On the walk Koen was curious about the plan for the morning.  And then he had his own vision..."hey Mommy, while Tav uses his ticket to watch a DVD, how about we do an experiment."  Hmmm...now there's a challenge.  Maybe we'd just make cookies?  Then the gears in my head started to churn and I remembered something I saw on Pinterest.  Simple baking soda/vinegar bubbly fun.  "Sure Koen, we can do an experiment...let's make lava!"  And he was hooked!

Here he is making it fizz and bubble.  He loved it!  Quite the mad scientist.

Here's a video for you to see and hear a little of the action.

After we completed our experiment, Tav wasn't quite done with his Thomas show, so I asked Koen if he wanted to notate what he learned from his experiment just like real scientists do.  Koen and his classmates keep journals at school to practice writing out their thoughts, so I asked if he wanted to start an experiment journal for this purpose.  He was all in...so excited!  He really wanted to take a picture for Grampa to see what he learned.

In case you can't read it, it says: "Experiment 1: I learned about reactions.  Baking soda + vinegar = fizzy bubbles.  Color + color = new color.  Saturday, February 23, 2013.  A little scientist in the making?  Now I'm going to have to do my research and find some other simple home experiments.  My how this guy loved it!

Children's Museum Again. Yay!

On Thursday we hung out at the Children's Museum for the morning with Aunt Megan, Alex and Andy.  It's great getting there right at opening as the place is pretty bare and it's just the moms and little ones before the buses roll in with all the big kids.  We went up to the nursery floor at first to let Penn and Andy stretch a little bit before they hit their morning naptimes.  You can see the two got along quite nicely.  Andy is such a mover and can marine crawl anywhere!  Penn just sits up and takes it all in.

Tavin stayed busy over in a little work area.  He was so into the birdseed flowing through the toys.  He had quite a project going on.  And he was super proud of himself because he shared one of the working toys with a little girl next to him and found another one.  Good job, Tav.

Poor Tav was super bummed (crying for 5 minutes) that the display with the huge inflatable rainbow tunnel had been taken down so they could prepare for a new exhibit.  Thankfully we eventually got his spirits up.  Here he is in the Garage area of the museum in a huge tire (where shortly thereafter he pracitically got run over by the big kids that caught up with us).

He loved this treadmill.  It was hilarious.  Every 6 steps or so he would trip and fall to his knees, but he loved the feel of moving that fast.  

Alex and Tav had a nice drive in the Smart Car too.  Always a crowd pleaser.

At this point, the Garage became overrun with big kids and we literally had to pull Alex and Tav out of the car from under a very pushy group of undersupervised kids (ugh!).  So we decided to move on to some crafts.  Tav was thrilled.  Tav, Koen and Doug had enjoyed some printing crafts a few weeks ago and Tav remembered everything and showed me the ropes.  He wanted to make a poster for Daddy's office.  Here he is waiting for his work of art at the end of the dryer.

And here's it is!

He also made another one for himself.  It's so fun to see Tavin developing his interests and his pride in his own work.  Oh, what was Penn doing during craft time?  Yep, being amazing sleeping in the car seat/stroller.  Penn continues to be such a chill, go with the flow (especially when his favorite blanket is around) baby doll.  I love these little guys (I love the big guy too, he was just busy at Kindergarten during this excursion).  Thanks for the fun morning out, Aunt Megan, Alex and Andy.  We'll have to do it again soon!

Lovely Morning with My Little Men

Nothing out of the ordinary this morning, but I did keep my camera out so I got a few pictures of the boys just doing their thing.  Enjoy a glimpse at my lovely morning with my little guys.  

Penn is loving sitting up on the floor and watching his big bros play.  In this pic he seems to say, "is there something going on behind me?"

And in this one he says, "seriously, I don't know how to play trucks, Mommy."

Penn also had some tummy time.  He's doing better with it, but it's still not a favorite.  I got down next to him to encourage him and he ended up giving me some super sweet loves.  Penn is the snuggliest baby yet.  He is always burying his head into my cheek, lips or shoulder.  I love it.  It's great to try and capture it so that I can remember this special, sweet phase!

Then I got a closeup of each of the little guys and oh my heart melts.  I look at these sweet faces all day and I can't get enough of these pics when they are in bed.  =)

Here's a quick video of Tavin showing off his new toy from Lisa (we had a great visit with our dear friend yesterday when Koen was off for Presidents' Day).  It's hilarious.  This puppy dog shoots a ball out of his mouth by Tav pushing the air out from his tummy.  Koen's is a T-Rex that does the same.  So clever, simple and has been so enjoyable for the boys.  It keeps them running chasing balls for hours.  Love it!

Later in the day I got a picture of proud Penn wearing Tav's bib for the first time (I was getting pretty tired of him ripping off his velcro bibs, so it was time for the rubber straight-jacket I've used with K & T).  Tavin was happy to share it.  He said, "it no bother me."  

Clearly Penn was super psyched about his sweet potatoes, the bib or both (or perhaps his mommy smiling at him behind the camera?).  Later in the afternoon I got Penn to do his new trick for the camera.  Say "NO" Penn Rye...

Well, that's just a little glimpse of a simple morning with my sweet little men.