Gloomy day = library day

We woke up to cool, damp air and gloomy, cloudy skies again this morning - making three days in a row. It was the perfect day for a trip to the library! We had books to return and holds to pick up anyway, but it's always nice to have something like this to do on the days when playing outside is not ideal. As usual, the boys went crazy once we were in the kids section, pulling books off the shelves left and right. I eventually had to cut them off when our bag was overflowing and getting a little too heavy to carry. Ultimately, we checked out 24 items. And, as usual, they couldn't even wait till we got home to dig into their new books. They each had a stack of books to look through for the car ride home. I'm glad we are raising such book fans!

Brown-eyed boy

Usually it is Brayden who is noticed for his big brown eyes, but Jack has them too! And he showed them off quite nicely as he stopped in front of the camera for a second outside tonight and peeked up at me from under his hood! Photo buffs - can you believe I got this at 1/15 sec? I saw how slow my shutter speed was and was SURE I'd get subject blur but somehow we both managed to stay still enough to get this amazingly tack sharp on the eyes picture! Wowzers! Anyway... today was mostly gloomy and rainy on and off... but the boys still wanted to go outside and play... so after dinner they put on their shoes and sweatshirts and we sent them out to play and watched through the window. :) They were super hyper so it was good to let them run off some of that energy! Amazingly, it was while running around like a madman that Jack stopped and let me snap this one!

Brothers

The boys ate a great dinner tonight (for once!) so we rewarded them with popcicles on the front porch. Or, "pop-stick-les" as they call them. :) While Rob was taking them out of their wrappers, I asked if they'd let me take a nice picture of them together and this is what I got. Aren't they so good to me sometimes? I'm pretty sure there is more dessert bribery in their near future. :)

Lakefront property

Bet 'cha didn't know we live on prime, lakefront property, did ya? Oh wait. We don't. Our little townhome faces a valley-like courtyard. And when it rains hard and fast, that valley of a courtyard quickly turns into a lake! Today was no exception. The rain came on right around 4pm and within minute, we had a lake in our front "yard." (I use the term "yard" very loosely, considering it's really community property). There is a drain on one end of the courtyard which cannot handle the sheer volume of rain that comes down as quickly as it sometimes comes down. Hence, the lake. It goes up fast, and thankfully it recedes and drains just like it's supposed too, not long after the rain stops. But for a few minutes... we get to feel like we live on a lake.

Week 30 Layout

Yay! I stayed caught up for this week at least!


Credits: Kit is Revive by TaylorMade Designs; Template by Andrea Gold; Font is Rockford

Buffalo, Buffalo!

Okay anyone who has been at Folsom Field for a game knows that's not what we really chant, but that's what we've taught our kids. So when Rob dressed Jack in a CSU t-shirt today, and then we went to the mall, and I walked out of Dillard's to see THIS, how could I not get out my camera?Our trip to Park Meadows today was to run some errands I've needed to do, but of course there was some play time too. Unfortunately, this is about the extend of the "play area" at Park Meadows. It baffles me that as they have been remodeling over the past year or so, they didn't add a play area for the kids. All the other "premiere" malls (and even not-so-premiere!) in the area have them! There are a couple of spots of interest to the kids, but nothing really fun. If nothing else, I appreciate the buffalo.

Baby Shower!

Kim, Pam and I hosted a baby shower today for my sister-in-law Sarah. She is due with her little boy around September 11, and we can't wait to meet him! We had the party at Pam's apartment clubhouse, which was a great location. Kate came along too and kept all of the guests entertained... as did our games, activities, food, and of course present-opening! Sarah got lots of newborn necessities for baby Noah - lots of diapers and wipes - and of course plenty of adorable outfits, including this one from our family. :) Can't wait to see Noah in it!

Park and Pool

Among other things, we we ended our week with morning trips to the park and to the pool.

Yesterday was the park. I actually OFFERED to take the boys to the park on Wednesday, and I was met with screaming resistance from Brayden, who just wanted to stay home and play with play-doh. And I didn't feel like taking a screaming child to the park (even though I was fairly sure once we were on our way, he wouldn't be screaming anymore). He actually put up the same fight yesterday, but after disappointing Jack the day before, today was Brayden's turn to be disappointed, and off we went. As I expected, once we were on our way (and I mean literally, in the car, driving... up till that point it was still a battle!) all was fine. And they had a GREAT time at the park. We didn't stay long... just long enough to run off some energy! This particular park has a merry-go-round which the boys thoroughly enjoy spinning each other around on. It seems the merry-go-round has been oiled since last summer, when we could barely get it to move! They also like hanging off the side and letting it drag them around.

Can you tell I took this one with my "bad" camera? :) Today we hit the pool at Lifetime Fitness. We love the pool there because it's zero-entry, which is pretty low-maintenance for a pool trip with kids who don't like to actually SWIM. We met the Gumm's there and as usual all the kids had a great time. Jack and Brayden played with their dive sticks, boats, the basketballs at the pool, and their trucks. As usual, we were wiped out when it was time to go home.

That's it! I'm all caught up again!

Week 29 Layout - finally!

I struggled finding a good kit for this one... I've realized that I have downloaded a whole lot of JUNK when it comes to the digiscrap freebies I hoard. I really need to go through and delete a lot of it... for the sake of my external hard drive! Ha ha... like I have time for another project right now! :)

Anyway here it is... click to see bigger!

Credits: Kit is Baby Bliss by Digital Designs by Lisa; Template is by M Originals; Stitching is by Christine Nash; Font is Pea Carol

I like it! I didn't think I was going to.

Coming tonight (hopefully)... pictures from yesterday and today. Then I'm officially caught up!

The band

This is the band. The boys set their chairs up next to each other, get their instruments, and play "band." They play guitar, piano, bass drum (aka, box turned over), and if we're really lucky, the flute. They sit together and play and sing and generally crack us up until they get bored and move on to other things.

We're blessed to be surrounded by such talent.

As you can tell, Jack was cooperative today about getting dressed, but Brayden insisted that he didn't know how to put his clothes on. Hence, he's in his underwear. Last month he had to do everything "ALL BY MY SEWF(uh!)" and this month he needs help with everything. Gotta love toddler/preschooler phases. :)

Caught up on pictures - check.

Well I haven't picked today's photo yet, but up till today, I'm caught up on photos, as of this post. :)

This past Saturday we had our usual baseball game, which resulted in some mediocre photos by me... followed by an awesome girl's day with my best friend, during which I took no photos. So I'm cheating again for the weekend, and using two pictures from Sunday.

Sunday morning we went to Kidspree in Aurora - a free even with lots of vendors hosting games and prizes and activities for kids. It was HOT HOT HOT, but the boys had fun. Their favorite part was the bus ride from the mall parking lot to the park... but they had fun at the park, too. One particular booth Brayden really enjoyed involved - of course - dress up. But instead of dressing up as a princess, this time he dressed up as a blade of grass at the "Wildly Beautiful" booth. He also got to strut down the catwalk - super cute. Jack dressed up as a Preying Mantis but wasn't nearly as excited about it. :)

Then Sunday evening I had the awesome opportunity to take maternity photos for my brother Chris and his super cute wife, Sarah. With my sweet little niece Kate, too. As an aspiring photographer I love chances to practice different kind of photo shoots, and maternity is one I've never done before! Lucky for me I had great models, who I happen to adore! I thoroughly enjoyed photographing them and got some great shots, if I do say so myself! More of my favorites are posted on Facebook! Thanks Chris and Sarah for trusting me with this task!

Brayden was super cute during his naptime on Monday. After reading him stories and settling him into his bed, he decided he wanted all of his dogs to lay on the pillows with him and have a slumber party. So he carefully lined up all of his dogs, and then added some of his zoo animals as well. Soon there was no room left for him. So he scooted some of the dogs out of the way to make room for himself, and I tucked him in between his animals. I planned to sneak back in toward the end of his nap to sneak a picture... hopefully before he woke up. Success! He'd wiggled his way out from under the covers (thank goodness - it's hot in there! But he insists on having covers!) but was still nestled in between his dogs and other animals.

Over the past week or so Jack has developed a new favorite activity - word searches! I think it started on our little trip to Colorado Springs - one of the kids menus had a word search and rather than just coloring the letters, he actually wanted to try and find the words. Since then we picked up a free kid's activity word search from Michael's and received an activity book from Grandma with word searches in it. Then at Kidspree on Sunday, one of Jack's prizes was an activity book with yet another word search in it, and he got one from the dentist booth there as well. He's been hard at work on the word searches almost every day - it's so cute!

So far behind!

Okay in hopes of not falling hopelessly behind, I'm going to do a little bit of catch up tonight at least. :)

Starting with... last Wednesday. This was a good portion of my day on Wednesday. Not quite the blue screen of death, but not good. I was watching a slideshow of a friend's maternity photos when my computer overheated (as it tends to do) and wouldn't restart. It did THIS for almost an hour... scanning for a problem to repair... seemingly getting nowhere. Even when it finished it took a couple of tries to get going again. Sigh....... it is always nerve-wracking when your computer has problems... especially when it is barely 6 months old! And you didn't get the warranty. I really hope it's just an overheating problem.........

One of my favorite views... PAPER! I have a paper addiction. Paper and pens, actually. Goes along with the scrapbook habit. I hit up Hobby Lobby on Thursday because paper was 50% off. Always the best time to stock up! I am caught up to Jack's 6th month in my scrapbooking, which means I'm a little under five years behind still... but making progress! Sadly, I haven't had much time to scrap in the past week because I have had so much else to do... my projects are getting out of control again!

Friday night Rob and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Our neighbors offered to watch the boys for us so we could go have a date night. We saw a 6:10pm show and were home to pick up the boys around 9:00. They had a great dinnertime play-date with their neighbor friends, and we thoroughly enjoyed the movie! I really want to re-watch the first 5 movies now... and more than that would love to re-read all the books. I wish I had more time!

Okay that's all for now... hopefully I'll have another batch to catch up with later tonight or tomorrow!

Boooorrrrr-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnng!

Yup, that's been our week. Not to say we haven't done anything, but I've really lacked in the department of taking interesting pictures. The boys hung out with Aunt Sarah and Kate on Wednesday while I went to the dentist, Thursday we had a playdate with the Gumm's, and Friday we hung out at the pool with the Easter's. And I did not take a single picture of any of this fun-ness! :) Therefore, I have been unmotivated when it comes to editing the lame photos I DID take, and then putting them in my P365 layout. Today again... with baseball this morning and my "girl's day" with my BFF, still no fun pictures. Sigh..... I'm in another funk!

Nonetheless, I will attempt to take a good picture tomorrow, and then catch up and post the pix from the past few days that I did take... good or not! :)

Just thought I'd check in though. :)

Beauty and the Beast

We kept the boys busy today! We hit the pool this morning for a couple of hours with Aunt Sarah and Kate. Came home for lunch and naps, then after some playtime headed back out to meet Aunt Sarah and Kate at Monkey Bizness. That's an indoor play area with a coffee/snack bar for the parents. It was family night so admission was reduced and they had $1 slices of pizza. As always the boys had a blast playing and running around. Toward the end of our visit Brayden found the dress-up clothes and picked out a princess dress he wanted to wear - of course! He LOVED it and was running around telling everyone he was a princess. So stinkin' cute! Then Jack got jealous and wanted to dress up too (but not like a princess!). We found a lion hat that he could wear, which was good enough for him. Then it occurred to Rob... Beauty and the Beast!!! We got them to pose for a picture. :) Hilarious! Ironically... Brayden is usually the beast in our household....

Cute boys

Sunday we were invited to attend Kendra's 5th birthday party - Kendra is Jack's school friend/girlfriend, and he was the only person from school she invited! The two of them are so cute together! The party was at a gymnastics gym, and the kids just had an absolute ball running around like crazy! Brayden especially was just in his ELEMENT, it was the perfect place for a little monkey like him! They had a little obstacle course set up for the kids to run through which was a serious hit... once again, especially for Brayden! He ran through that course over and over again, long after eveyone else was done with that part! It didn't take very long for both boys to be completely drenched in sweat and flushed hot pink. They loved every second of it. The party confirmed for us that Brayden definitely needs to be enrolled in some kind of gymnastics class to work off all that energy! And don't you like that little leg pose he's doing??? :)

Tonight just as I was serving dinner, this little guy said he had a tummy ache. Not sure what that was all about... but he wasn't very interested in eating. He was more interested in laying on the couch and asked me to come rub his tummy. So when I finished my dinner, I did go rub his tummy. Which made him sooo happy. Does thist look like someone who has a tummy ache, or someone who just wanted a little extra attention this evening? Cutie. :)

Week 28 Layout

And here we go with Week 28. Now that we're halfway through 2009 and I am running low on templates that I like... I've started re-using the templates I've already used for previous weeks. I am also continuing to experiment with resizing my layout slightly larger so that when you "click to see larger" it's actually larger. Let me know if it's working out. :)


Credits: Kit is Happy Birthday Poobah by Kristine Pocock; Template is by M Originals; Font is Pea Daniel San

I like this one. :)

Pictures from yesterday and today coming later tonight... hopefully. :)

Cheeseburger

Yesterday we had McDonald's for lunch. (Yes, we had fast food two times yesterday - eek!). For once, we managed to talk the boys into trying Daddy's cheeseburger (they are "chicken and fries" boys). They both liked it - especially Brayden! Now Jack eats hamburgers normally (well, since this summer, anyway!), but Brayden only ever eats just the bun. So when Brayden started asking for his own cheeseburger as soon as lunch was done yesterday, we were skeptical. We had planned to grill last night but our trip to the pool went long so we ended up grabbing Chick-fil-A. Brayden was not happy. All day today he continued to ask over and over again for a cheeseburger! Finally we grilled tonight for dinner and Brayden got his much anticipated cheeseburger! Much to our surprise, he ate it right up! Not ALL of it... but most of it! (Unlike Jack who also wanted cheese, but then once it was made with cheese, decided he didn't like cheese on his burger after all). Here's the little guy and his cheeseburger in all its glory! :)

Ice Cream

Rob and I are total suckers for ice cream. It's a serious weakness. It has been as long as we've been together. I know my personal ice cream weakness began when living with Castara who is a huge ice cream fan as well. We'd just sit and devour pints of ice cream... because we could. Ahhh... the days of our youth and good metabolisms! :) Anyway, for some reason we very rarely give the boys ice cream... in fact they don't have much in the way of candy and sweets at all. They usually get one "treat" a day, if they eat a good dinner and behave like good boys. Often times, that treat is just a couple of M&M's. That said, ice cream is a serious treat for them. This afternoon we went to the pool, and then to Chick-fil-A with Aunt Sarah and Kate. We got home later than planned so given the need for a bath, and a good night's sleep for baseball in the morning, we had to cancel the boys' much anticipated movie night. To make up for it, they got ice cream. Neither of them said a thing about skipping movie night. :)

Parking lot

After kind of a break from playing with hot wheels all of the time, the boys have a renewed obsession with their parking lots. Back when Brayden was a baby and used to get into all of Jack's stuff, Jack would climb over the gate at the bottom of the stairs and set up his cars on the stairs so he could have some space from his little brother. He'd also set cars up on the countertop where Brayden couldn't reach. The countertop parking lots stopped two Christmases ago... when we set up the decorations we told Jack he couldn't park cars up there anymore, and thankfully that habit never re-started. However he still really enjoys playing cars on the stairs. Now that the gate is gone, the boys set cars up together on the stairs... they each have their own stair (or two or three) that they'll set cars up on. This was the view from the bottom of the stairs this morning. Complete with feet sticking out around the corner.

Week 27 Layout

I actually had this MOSTLY done before we left, but just got the chance to put the finishing touches on so here you go!

I resized this one slightly bigger than I usually do, so if you click, you *should* see it slightly bigger than usual. Still not very readable though...

Credits: Kit is Tropical Popsicle by Miss Mint at Peppermint Creative; Template by Simply Yin; Font is Pea Bandit (a new favorite!!!)

I was feeling like this one might be a bit too busy, but I'm not changing it now! I used the same kit as I used to make my new blog background. How cute and matching. :)

Staycation

Because we couldn't afford a "real" vacation this summer, Rob and I decided we'd like to do a little hotel vacation instead. Something small scale, local, but since it involved a hotel makes it feel like a vacation - to the boys at least. At first we were thinking of just doing it really locally, but then figured, if we're going to get a hotel, we should at least venture somewhere else in state with stuff to do that we wouldn't do otherwise. Thus was born our "staycation" in Colorado Springs, just an hour away from us. Maybe next summer we'll venture further away from home.

So we booked our hotel with the plan to take in some of the local sights (Garden of the Gods, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo...), and mostly just hang out by the pool and go back to the hotel room to sleep.

Sadly, when we went to check out the pool we found it empty. We were sooooo disappointed. A couple of "talks" with management got us nowhere... maintenance had to be done and couldn't be foreseen and lots of people were angry but they were working to fix it as quickly as they could. Blah blah blah. We had narrowed down our hotel choices to three different places, and picked this one partially based on the review of the pool. Awesome.

It all worked out though. We had to change our plans for the afternoons but it ended up being good. We're still bummed about missing the pool time, but we're trying to make up for it now that we're back home.

So about the trip! We left Monday morning, checked into our hotel, discovered the empty pool, then headed over to Garden of the Gods. I hadn't been there in many years... not since college with Kerry. I think we toured around a completely different part of the park this time... not that there's THAT much to see, I just couldn't find the spots I remembered seeing with Kerry. Brayden was grouchy for most of the trip... it was about his normal naptime and I think he was just tired... it was hot, he wanted to be carried... so it wasn't the MOST fun trip. It was pretty though, and I think Jack enjoyed it. My landscape photography needs some serious work, but I tried. ;-) Managed to get a couple of pictures of Brayden looking happy.

We had planned to go back to the room and then swim till dinnertime, but obviously that wasn't going to work out. We had seen a mini-golf place on the drive in and were thinking about doing that, then inspiration hit. Let's take the boys to the movies! Neither of them had ever been before. So we headed to the closest movie theatre (in a ghetto old mall where the movie theatre is across from K-Mart) and got tickets for Up, 3-d glasses, popcorn, and soda. The full movie experience. The boys did great, and very much enjoyed the movie. They weren't thrilled with the 3-d glasses though, and both took them off eventually... which made the movie slightly harder to watch, but they didn't seem to notice. All in all, it was super fun, and I'm glad we did it. After dinner we headed back to the room and tried to settle down for the night, but the boys were super hyper and it was late (for them) before they eventually fell asleep.

Tuesday the plan was the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which we've always heard great things about, but have never actually gone. We also heard it was quite hilly and were fully expecting trouble from Brayden wanting to be carried the whole time (which isn't that easy anymore... he's getting BIG!). Thankfully he did GREAT! Toward the end of the trip he started asking to be picked up, but even so he still mostly walked around on his own and without argument. The terrain wasn't as treacherous as we were anticipating, and the exhibits were very cool.

While taking a snack break, Rob took this super cute picture of me and the boys. Brayden couldn't be bothered to stop eating... but it's still cute. :) The highlight of the trip was the giraffes. You can get very close-up with them, and feed them crackers. Jack was pretty nervous about getting near their long tongues but eventually warmed up to it... Brayden thought the whole experience of having a giraffe eat out of his hand was completely hilarious. We hit the giraffe exhibit on the way in and out of the zoo. Pretty amazing. We also enjoyed the baby chimpanzee, the playful bears (which scared Brayden), the leopard ("that leopard really likes kids!"), and the chipmunks ("SQUIRREL!).

After the zoo came the afternoon debate again... "what to do in Colorado Springs when the hotel's pool is still closed." We looked online (thankful for free internet in the room) for parks, and found a sprayground park downtown, decided to check that out. The boys had a blast, and we hung out in the park downtown till dinnertime. We also noticed people setting up chairs on the side of the main street, and that the meters were blocked off after 5pm so you couldn't park... so we figured something was going on downtown. Turns out, it was the "Pikes Peak or Bust" parade (a pre-rodeo parade). We had nothing else to do and figured after dinner we'd camp out and see what the parade was all about. We had to wait 20 excruciating minutes after dinner (I can't imagine people who'd camped out for hours!) for it to start, and it wasn't the world's most exciting parade, but the boys LOOOVED it. It was their first parade. So the lack of pool worked out again, and we had a nice night together. Again, headed back to the hotel and went to bed... the boys settled down faster this time... lack of sleep catching up with them!

We had hoped that maybe just maybe by Wednesday morning the pool would be back open but it wasn't... it was nearly full with ice cold water but not ready for swimmers yet. So we checked out early and headed back to Denver. The boys crashed in the car almost immediately. We knew after that they wouldn't nap again that day, so we decided to go home, unpack, and then head to the pool in our neighborhood and continue the vacation. They did great at the pool, testing out their new innertubes and floaties. Brayden is the more brave of the two, but Jack is slowly but surely warming up to swimming. He's so scared of falling underwater that he refuses to even TRY most anything we suggest, even if we're holding him and he's completely safe. He's getting there though. By the end of our trip, he was practicing holding his breath and putting his face in the water. HUGE step for him!After two hours at the pool we were all pretty wiped and headed back to the house for a chill evening at home. Thus ended our "staycation." Rob's off the rest of the week and we hope to get in some more pool time.

I'm going to edit and post a bunch more pictures (from June in general, and our staycation) on facebook in the next few days... so keep an eye out for those!

Holiday weekend

I think I'm only three days behind - again. Blame the holiday weekend. ;-)

Friday night Rob and I went out on our usual date - Toys R Us for something for the boys, Rio for dinner, then Kohl's for something for me. ;-) This was our birthday present from my mom - dinner and babysitting. So we snapped a quick picture outside the restaurant after our fab (as always) dinner. Especially fab - NO WAIT! That never happens at Rio on Friday night! I could seriously eat there EVERY SINGLE DAY. Love it.

Saturday was the big holiday! One of our neighbors organized a bike parade for our little group of kids that hangs out all of the time. They decorated their bikes and scooters and then rode around the whole neighborhood. They had SO MUCH FUN. It was topped off with popsicles. Does it get any better to a bunch of little kids? I think not. I got the patriotic boys to pose for a couple of pictures... can you tell who is more into it?We spent the late afternoon and evening with the Gumm's - at Travis' parents' house. They have a great view from their driveway of a fireworks display in Lakewood. The boys were a little overwhelmed by the serious (illegal) fireworks the guys were shooting off, Brayden had a little "incident" involving too much milk and vomit, and then they were sort of underwhelmed by the actual fireworks display (which was pretty good!)... but overall it was a good time. I think they were just pooped by the end of the night... as evidenced by both of them crashing into the car, and barely waking up to get upstairs to bed. Thankfully, we brought their jammies with us so they indeed could just go straight to bed!

And today... kept the action going with my mom's birthday. We celebrated this morning with brunch at her house... the three sibs, spouses, and kids. It's getting quite crowded at these family get togethers! Brunch was delish (as always). I think my mom's favorite gift was her cuddle time with baby Carter... he sure love his Grandma! (Of course, I got in some cuddle time, too!). Happy birthday Momma! We're glad you were born! :)

Tomorrow we are embarking upon a family vacation - or "staycation" as they are called - a little in-state trip to Colorado Springs. Plans include sight-seeing at Garden of the Gods, a trip to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, eating out, and playing at the pool. Not sure if I'll be posting or not while I'm gone, but hopefully I'll have fun pictures when I get back!

Look, Look!

Did you see my new background? Designed by yours truly... with special thanks to Amanda on kevinandamanda.com for the great blog background tutorial! :)

Sticker pictures

That's right, we're back on the sticker picture kick. And clearly I don't have anything else very interesting to take pictures of this week. Brayden started making the sticker pictures again earlier this week and quickly used up all of his dinosaur stickers (and Jack used up his cars). So when they both did great at their dentist appts on Wednesday, we made a trip to Michael's (across the street from the dentist office) and they each got to pick out another set of stickers. This time we brought home zoo animals (Brayden) and sparkly letters (Jack). It's amazing the rate at which they pump these babies out. Brayden especially works essentially non-stop. It's cute though because he's starting to make up stories about some of his pictures. Of course, I have NO CLUE what to do with all these pictures. This pile is just what they did this week (not counting Friday). I think we'll package them all up and send them to Uncle Ryan. We know how much he loves and appreciates children's artwork. ;-)

The past three days...

I disappeared again. I have no excuse. I'm becoming a bad blogger. Or maybe I can blame the fact that I was overcome with the need to make my kitchen sparkle... and back up some pictures... and make new computer desktops for myself and two others for the month of July... yeah probably wasn't any of those things. ;-)

So Monday was the day I was bitten by the cleaning bug. I'm not sure how it happened... one minute I was standing in the kitchen stewing over what to do that day. I started wiping down the counters... one thing led to another, and next thing I know I'm pulling out the stove to clean out literally a whole box worth of macaroni noodles that had overtime collected down there. I spent almost the whole day cleaning the kitchen, and believe it or not, it's not sparkling. I think sparkling must be reserved for cleaning services. The amazing thing was that the boys were unfazed by my cleaning frenzy. They played SO WELL together on Monday. This after days of constant arguing and general unrest in the Roe household. Is this God's way of telling me I should clean more often? I think not. However, I did spend some quality time this day with my wonder mop and mop 'n glo. Seriously. WHERE IS THE GLOW!?

In other news, the elder boy in our household, Jack, has all but given up his afternoon nap. Not all the surprising given that he's well into age 5 now. But he's always been that kid who just NEEDS his sleep to re-energize for the second half of the day. He's a sleeper, that one. Yes, he gets up early. But when it's time to sleep, sleep he does. (He's making up for the fact that for the first 5 months of his life he would not sleep unless being bounced on the end of the bed, swaddled up like a burrito, sucking on a pinkie becuase he wouldn't take a paci, while we went "shh shh shh" over and over with static playing on the radio). Anyway... we converted his "nap" time into "quiet" time about two years ago... that is, he sits in his room or ours or the playroom for an hour or two with books or toys or games and his favorite cds playing. Still, I'd say 90% of the time he'd fall asleep anyway. Until recently. He hardly ever falls asleep anymore. Which is fine. But on those days he IS tired... there's a good chance I'll find him like THIS on the couch when I come downstairs after putting the little guy down for his nap. Like I did yesterday. So cute.

Last on tonight's agenda. Today the boys had dentist appts. This was just a regular 6-month clean and check for Jack, but it was Brayden's first formal dentist appointment! Another milestone... the little guy is growing up (and way too fast, I might add). We started prepping them a few days ago, and then last night read the "going to the dentist" book with Brayden. Oddly, my kids are EXCITED to go to the dentist. No clue where they get that from. But I'll roll with it as long as it lasts! Jack went first, and the hygenist explained everything she was doing for Brayden's benefit, and he watched very intently through the whole cleaning! Brayden was more than ready to hop in the chair for his turn when Jack was done! And he did great! He was a super star at holding his mouth open, following instructions, and he has a mouth full of clean, cavity-free teeth to boot! Both of the boys do - yay! Check that one off the list for another six months, thank you very much.