May 2014

Is May over already?

Charlie turned 35 this month!  Our plans for a party never fabricated, but we had a really nice day as a family.  We went for a walk through a nature trail and stumbled upon an awesome stick fort that someone had been constructing.  Instead of continuing on our walk, we just had to play in the fort for the rest of the afternoon.  Then, we finished off the evening by eating dinner at one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants.  Bruce was mesmerized with the waiters carrying the big trays of food, and we were sitting right by the kitchen, so we saw a lot of them fly by.  Bruce practiced balancing his little appetizer plate on his hand, and he did a great job, making it all the way until the end of dinner, and then of course it went crashing to the floor, devastating our little guy - commence wailing.  This was also the exact moment that the waiters, and their big drum, came over to sing to Charlie.  Abby, who apparently was not thrilled with the banging drum, huge sombrero, or singing waiters, also erupted in screams at this point.  Needless to say, we quickly paid, and exited the scene in high style... Happy Birthday, Charlie!

carving with a piece of glass he found

For Mothers Day, we packed up the van and went to spend the weekend at Charlie's parents' house.  We were so thankful for nice weather so that Abby could finally explore the outdoor magic that is Grandpa and K's house.  She loves animals, and the cows were no exception - she gave the biggest grins when the cows were slurping her toes!  It was a nice, relaxing weekend, and Charlie surprised me with some fun wind chimes that he had Bruce and Abby help paint.

helping to feed the bottle calves

washing the Polaris

Charlie had a really amazing opportunity to go to the Preakness Horse Race this month.  He got to eat a lot of crab cakes, but more importantly, he was able to meet California Chrome (the winner) and his owner and trainer.  Fancy stuff!

our little jockeys

Last month may have been all about Maisy Mouse for Bruce, but this month?  We discovered Peppa Pig!  It's a cute little British series that Bruce is obsessed with for the moment.  The best part is that he's picking up adorable little British sayings, like "ready, steady, go" rather than the usual "ready, set, go" and he calls cookies "biscuits" now, and is excited to go "on holiday" next month to the beach.  Peppa Pig and her friends love jumping in muddy puddles, so it's been perfect timing that we've had oodles of puddles to jump in after all the rain we got this month.  And believe me, we've taken advantage of every single one of them.

splash pad fun!

A secondary benefit to jumping in rain puddles, is that we've finally convinced Bruce that it's okay to wear something other than his overalls, red "Mike Mulligan" shirt and boots.  After all four red shirts, overalls and two pairs of jeans are soaking wet, he will finally let us put some shorts on him...

Mike Mulligan

One really fun new development for Bruce this month is that he has started singing!  He has always been interested in music, and loves when people sing for him (usually), but he has never really sang songs himself - until now!  His main tunes these days are The Itsy Bitsy Spider (yes, he's still stuck on that song) and The ABC song.  He even makes up his own songs too, which I'm a huge fan of.  AND, he likes to sing along with you, even if his words don't quite match up.  He's pretty tone deaf for the time being, but I sure don't care!

Another thing that he has started doing all the time, is naming things and wanting to know what everything's name is.  For ages, it seems, we have tried to get Bruce to name things without much interest on his behalf.  So his toys have super clever names... like "Crocodile" and "Daddy Penguin."  He did name his sock monkey "Ozzie" a while back, but that was a fluke, I think.  Now though, he's giving everything names, and changing up the names all the time.  The kittens have had more names than I can remember, including Chevy, Toyota, Coyote, Lollipop, and Mr. Car Keys.  Especially with car models, Bruce wants to know what their names are anytime we go anywhere.  Here's a conversation we have more than once on any given day:

"What is its name?"
"It's called a Ford."
"But what is it?"
"It's a Ford pick up truck."
"But what kind of Ford pick up truck is it?"
"It's a blue Ford pick up truck."
"But what is it called?"
"It's a blue F150 Ford pick up truck."
...this goes on for forever...then finally he'll say...
"Let's just call it a Chevy."

Sure.  Let's call it a Chevy.

And those kittens.  They sure are cute.  They're now about six weeks old and no longer nest in the shower.  They still spend most of the day sleeping, but are venturing out to explore the rest of the house now, having ninja sneak attacks in the hallway, and pooping under all of our furniture.  Eye yie yie... what did we get ourselves into?  Bruce is learning a lot about proper animal handling techniques, being gentle, and keeping himself under control.  It is understandably difficult though - who wouldn't want to snuggle inside of a pile of kittens?  We were planning on waiting until they were 8-12 weeks old before adopting them out, but if we don't get them litter box trained soon, we might be posting ads tomorrow.  Any takers?

L to R: Mack Truck, Sandwich, Toyota, Ham, Mr. Car Keys, and Coyote

The mamas even let an orphan kitty join the group.  Eh?  Why not?
It's the gray one and Bruce named it Ocoseeko

Charlie trying to get some leather work done...

Bruce isn't the only one obsessed with the kitties.  Abs keeps her eyes on them also.  And when she has the chance, she practices some not-so-proper animal handling techniques...  When she's not reaching for fur balls, these days she loves rolling a ball around and jumping on the bed.  She doesn't have any teeth yet, but has serious issues with food envy!  We can't eat anything in front of her without having to share!

I love that Abby and the strawberry on the ball have the same expression

chowing down on an apple core

Abby isn't crawling per se, but that girl can sure get around!  She's effortlessly rolling around any which direction, can scoot backwards (getting herself stuck in the most awkward of places), and pushes up on her knees with her belly off of the ground regularly.  Exactly like Bruce - backwards first, forwards should come soon.

I'll tell one way she's NOT like Bruce - nothing is safe from this babe's mouth!  We were really lucky with Bruce and never really had to worry about him putting things in his mouth.  I don't know if it was lack of coordination, or lack of interest, but it just wasn't a big deal.  So we let him play with pretty much anything and everything.  But with Abby, she zeroes in on the single grain of colored rice wedged in the carpet, concerts every effort to pinch it, then raises it triumphantly to her watering lips.  Other instances she's much more stealthy.  We'll briskly walk by a tree or shrub bush, and the next thing I know she's got leaves poking out of her mouth.  Wait, what?  How did you have time to grab those, let alone eat them already?  She's got a "tell" for when she has something in her mouth, thankfully, otherwise we would be in a world of hurt.  It's a lot harder to have her help me weed in the garden, because instead of just playing with the grass like Bruce would at this age, she insists on eating it.

Speaking of the garden - it is coming along nicely!  We've been enjoying dinner salads from the various greens we have growing, and are getting ready to finish pulling up our beets and turnips soon.  Our seedlings are off to a good start, and I noticed the first squash blossom today, so hopefully we'll be benefitting from those soon!

watering the tomatoes

picking mulberries

My mom and Rick came up for a nice visit over Memorial Day.  Charlie had an extended weekend for the holiday, so we all had plenty of time together.  It was a fairly rainy week, but we still had a good time playing outside, going to Ozzie's Diner for breakfast, playing games, going for walks, visiting the library, and loving on Littles.  

trying to get out of a "bear hug"
like Cubby in one of our storybook adventures

sending Jake the monkey to the moon

We're thankful that Summer has arrived and are looking forward to our "beach holiday" and other fun adventures that this season has waiting for us!

April 2014

We had a lot of fun things going on this month!  Thank goodness Spring has finally arrived!

Every year, Norman hosts a Medieval Fair in the beginning of April.  It's nothing like the Renaissance festivals in Texas, but for a weekend gig, it's pretty great.  We try to go every year, but just when I thought I was beginning to lose my interest in the fair, this guy changed my outlook:

Bruce has really enjoyed watching the Mickey Mouse Musketeers movie lately, so when I asked him if he wanted to dress up like a Musketeer for the festival, he thought that was a great idea!  It's times like these that I love having closets filled floor to ceiling with tubs of odds and ends of arts and crafts supplies.  While Bruce took a nap, I made him a felt tunic and Charlie made him a cardboard sword.  (A parenting tactic we've been waiting to use for awhile - make a sword before you go so you don't have to buy one when you get there). Bruce was so excited about his costume that he asked to wear it for the next few days - great success!

Not to be left out, I made Abby a costume too.  Since I was planning on keeping her in the carrier, I just made little felt fairies and hot-glued them to her socks.  She wiggles her legs constantly, so the yarn tassels looked adorable!  (Watch those fairies fly!)  Man, we've got some cute kids!

It was a wonderful afternoon at the fair!  We met some pirates, saw the camels and elephants, ate some fair food, and closed out the afternoon with some dancing to bagpipes.  (Watch that Little Fella do his jig!)

We've had a lot of warmer weather this month, so we've started going on walks again. We used to just walk to the Sonic or gas station, but we've discovered that the local library is within walking distance also, so now that's a favorite destination.  Bruce still has some trouble focusing for Story Time there, but always loves reading books with us at home.  He's becoming friends with Ms. Maureen and Mr. Mark, the librarians, which is nice to see, and I get a kick out of the other kids flocking over when Bruce picks out a book for me to read with him.  Satisfaction for my teacher-heart.  We cycle through books pretty frequently, but some of his favorites this month have been from the Maisy Mouse series.  You can look at some of the other books we've enjoyed this month on our storybook blog.

Like our Pumpkin Carving Party, our "annual" Easter Egg Coloring Party was also just a party of four this year.  Having two kids makes organizing big events challenging!  We still had a good time though, and hopefully next year we can have friends join us again!  All of our chickens are regularly laying eggs these days, so we had about four dozen to dye.  Bruce did a great job coloring them this year!  We ended up with a lot of green eggs though because that was the color cup closest to him.

For the Easter weekend we made a quick trip to the Kansas farm for the Kolarik family reunion.  All of Charlie's aunts and uncles were able to come, along with most of the cousins and just about all of the grand kids.  We had a weenie-roast by Bluff Creek, hunted for Easter eggs, and tried to catch up with family members as best as we could between taking care of our kiddos.  Uncle Bruce quickly became (our ) Bruce's best friend after he let him "drive" the big excavator, and I even caught Charlie's brother Willie talking to Abby a couple of times when no one was looking.  Whirlwind of a weekend, but it was great seeing everyone.

with Uncle Bruce

 

 

 

 

in lieu of baskets this year, we just got them giant eggs...

jam session with Uncle Willie

Unfortunately, the day after we came home from the farm, we all took turns getting sick.  Poor Bruce was first.  Abby came next.  Charlie and I rounded out the evening.  I guess I can't complain too much -  we made it two and a half years without having to clean up kid vomit.  And this was short lived and gone within 24 hours.  Not bad, not bad.

 

I spent a lot of my "free time" in the evenings this month working on a painting for a friend's nursery - it was nice to carve out some time to relax and be enthusiastic about a hobby again.  We have three families in our house church group having babies this month, so working on the painting has also been a fun way for me to celebrate in this season of new little lives!  Charlie, always needing multiple projects to work on depending on his mood, started renovating our master bathroom this month, but has also been spending a lot of time working on our lawn and garden, and fixing up his Firebird.  He hasn't driven it hardly at all in the past two years, so the plan initially was to fix it up so we could sell it.  All this work I think has rekindled his (and Bruce's) interest in the car though, so we'll probably end up keeping it around for awhile longer.

We planted some spring veggies, but this cold weather has prevented us from getting much of anything growing.  We'll plant our main seedlings next weekend and hopefully have better luck with them!

playing next to the "lettuce patch"

the tractor pull at the Farmer's Market

The bathroom renovation was temporarily put on hold because...

The two neighborhood tramp cats, Mark and Princess, are raising their seven kittens in the shower.  We're pretty fond of these cats, and thought Bruce would love seeing the kittens.  So, we're letting them live with us for now, and then will find homes for the kittens after they've been weaned.  It's been fun having all these cuddle-buddies around.  Bruce has named one kitten, "Ham" and another, "Sandwich."  The three orange ones are all named "Mack Truck" and then there's "Porcupine."  The pretty calico one he named "Princess" after one of the mamas.  We didn't watch the births, so we don't know which kittens belong to which cat, and they don't seem to know either.  They seem to have a Boston Marriage of sorts though, are sharing nicely, and both mothering all of them.  I look at them and think it would be nice if humans had a baby-sharing set up like that, but I think I would die if I had to nurse seven babies at once...

Abby had her six month check up towards the beginning of the month.  She's developing right on track, and they're not worried about her weight anymore.  She's currently in the 12th percentile for weight at nearly 15 pounds, and the 76th percentile for length at just about 27 inches.

The biggest news was that because she's growing well, I was given "permission" to stop feeding her at night - hooray!  Since she was still eating two times at night, I slowly weaned her over a couple of weeks, and she's doing great.  She's still waking up some and crying a bit, but is putting herself back to sleep with not too much difficulty.  The downside to no night feeds?  She's now waking up at 6:00 am instead of 6:30.  It's crazy how 30 minutes really does make such a difference when it comes to dragging myself out of bed in the mornings.  Oh well.  I'm thankful Bruce and Abby are both on a similar sleep schedule at least.  And kid-free evenings are pretty wonderful.

Other news on the Abby-front?  She can now pivot in different directions when she's on her belly, so she can face any direction she chooses.  She can also wiggle/rock side to side a little to get a toy that's just out of reach.  She can push her whole chest off the floor, and is working on how to pull her legs under her, but I doubt crawling is coming anytime soon.  She can almost sit up by herself, which has been really exciting (and helpful)!  She's also found her feet, and while she doesn't chew on them too much, she does enjoy grabbing them.  She can be awfully cranky when it's time to eat, but doesn't show any specific aversions to or preferences for certain flavors of baby food.  She loves toys and what-nots, but gets bored pretty easily and needs to have things changed up frequently.  She's now tall enough to reach the floor on her "exersaucer" and has been enjoying playing in that some, too.  She always brightens up when we go outside, or when I let her drink from my cup, or when she gets to bury her toes in cat fur or sand.  Just recently I think I've maybe seen her start to dance to music.  Maybe that's just wishful thinking.  She loves being rough-housed with, and especially loves hanging upside down.  Her favorite thing to do though, is to watch whatever her brother is doing.  Well, maybe her favorite thing is to grab and pull things.  She's got sneaky hands and a darn good grip.

And what can you find that big brother doing?  He still loves his tractor toys but lately enjoys playing with his monster trucks more.  It's nice living in Oklahoma because you can find "monster trucks" driving around just about anywhere you go.  We also left him a corner in the garden to be his dirt pile, and now that the weather is getting nicer he loves using a variety of tools and trucks to get "work" done.  He's almost always in overalls, and always "in character" still.

with his new "Arthur" shoes

Our neighborhood had "Big Trash Day" recently, and Bruce scored several new toys from the scavenger hunt, including a child-sized convertible car and 4-wheeler.  The motors don't work anymore, but Bruce enjoys playing with them nevertheless.

surveying the loot

Interests at the forefront this month include bugs and pirates and bad guys.  Sometimes I start to worry that he's a little too fascinated with bad guys, but I guess that's just part of life.  Kids have been playing cops & robbers and cowboys & Indians for decades, right?  I think Bruce is starting to grasp the concept of good verses evil, exploring motivations and morals, and trying make sense of it all - as best as a two and a half year old can.

Bruce found a ladybug!

Our main challenge with Bruce these days has been with "hitting," We've muddled through trying to figure out how to deal with this for awhile now, but have had to become a lot more firm lately.  Nothing about parenting is black & white, and this is no exception!  He doesn't hit out of anger, and very rarely hits out of frustration.  I think it's mostly just an impulse that he doesn't have control over yet.  He's so energetic, and I think because there are so many games that involve a form of hitting, not to mention good ol' fashion rough-housing, it's hard for him to distinguish healthy physical play from hurtful hitting.  Regardless of how "age appropriate" it is though, he's been hitting other kids on a much more frequent basis now, so it's something we're trying to work on with him.  All in all, he's still a great kid, and these Terrible Twos aren't so terrible.

With warming weather, a few rain storms, and the coming of Spring, a couple of bluebonnets decided to make an appearance in our flower bed.  Sometimes when we still feel like transplants in this community, little reminders like these - far away from the Texas fields -  assure us that we really are thriving, and life is good.  Real good.