Mothers Day Flowers.....ok, maybe not

Grayson set off to pick all the white flowers with yellow centers in the yard today.  Silly me - I thought someone was doing something nice for me for Mothers Day.  Nope.  Grayson quickly informed me that they were NOT for me.  They were for PopPop.  Oh well...he's still pretty darn cute.

New Glasses!

After our visit to UVA last week, we learned Grayson's vision had improved slightly.  We had noticed he was looking over his glasses a lot and the doctor said the new script should help.  We went to pick out his glasses on Friday.

He got two pairs (because they get broken pretty often) and he was THRILLED that he found TWO pairs that were blue:

Chilling with Grayson

It's time for another overnight trip to UVA with Grayson.  Even though this involves going one doctor to another to another - he loves it.  Leading up to the trip he kept asking when we were going to go to the "show and tell--" (hotel.) For reasons only a 5 year old can understand, staying in a hotel is the BEST thing ever.  His favorite things about the hotel are the unlimited access to the tub (he stayed in for over an hour!) and getting to use the iPad all by himself.  We packed snacks and just spent some quiet time together after a really busy day.  

He also thinks the second bed is for him to put his "stuff," because he is thrilled with the fact he can sleep in the big bed with me.  

Other exciting things about this trip - getting to go to a restaurant.  Of course, he gets to do this at home - but going all by himself with Mommy makes it super special.

While I don't really like having to travel and spend two days visiting various doctors - I do enjoy the time spent with Grayson by himself.  Without his brothers around to compete with his super sweet personality really shines.  The meltdowns and "grumpy" fits are pretty much non-existent. 

I love him so much :)  I hope he stays this sweet forever.

Busy Morning

Grayson headed into school

Doug continues to drop the twins off in the morning.  Some mornings they walk in together, some they get the kiss and ride lane.  Today they walked in with Doug so he snapped a quick picture of Grayson on the way in.

When did he grow up??

Reece working hard!

After the twins are dropped off Doug and Reece have about 30 minutes they can blow before they really have to be on their way to drop Reece off at his school.  I love the fact that Doug uses this time to let him explore and do cool kid stuff.  They have been digging a retaining pond on the way out of town and we have stopped wit hall the boys to let them climb the mountains of dirt and rocks and look at all the heavy equipment.  Today they were actually working on it and Doug stopped and let Reece watch.  This, apparently inspired him to get out his own tools and help!

Four Eyes

I wish I had better pictures of this - but at lease I have a fuzzy picture!  We were tucking the boys into bed and Grayson asked my why I always had my glasses on.  I told him because they helped me see better.  A few minutes later he had pulled some little googly eyes off something in the room and stuck them to help face - and was giggling up a storm.  He said - look I have FOUR EYES so I can see better!!  He clearly knew this was funny.

I don't have pictures of the silliness that followed, but it involved him taking them and sticking them to me so I could see better, too.  (Laughing hysterically the entire time.)

You have to drink, boy!

Sleeping while fluids go in...

Grayson has had the crud again and the poor little boy has no reserve.  He got over the sickness (the horrid "throw ups" that keep going around and around the schools), but he got terribly dehydrated in the process and we couldn't get him hydrated.

We ended up in the doctors office, where they stuck him 6 - yes 6 - times to try and get an IV in him.  After several hours and lots of bravery from him, they sent us over to the ER.  My sweet little boy even stopped at the nurses station and said "thank you" to the nurses that stuck him as we left.

Once we got over to the ER we sat in the waiting room for over an hour (even though the Dr called and said we had a dehydrated/lethargic child), then in a back room for another hour before being seen.  All in all it was almost 9 hours away from home all to get the poor little boy a bag of fluids.

Pre-K Chemistry

 Now that Reece is going to the Montessori school the same days as the twins, it has gotten a bit harder to carve out time where I have ONLY the twins by themselves.  This means that some of the 'bigger kid' activities have been put on hold.  So the fact that I had just the twins for a few hours after school today meant we could pull out something fun to try!

Once again, borrowing from the Play at Home Mom site, I pulled out the baking soda and vinegar.  And to make it even more inquiry based, I colored the vinegar with food dyes so they had some primary colors to work with.  Now that we have been doing this sort of open ended play invitation for a little over a year, they boys jumped right in and started as soon as everything was out.

They got to use the medicine syringes to pull up the vinegar and then squirt it out onto dishes of baking soda. This was a great activity that held their attention for 40-50 minutes (until we ran out of baking soda and vinegar!) They were really excited to see the foaming and hear the noises it made.  Then they started mixing colors and the play took on a whole new direction.  They were eagerly seeing what colors they could make.  

When all the vinegar was used up they started stirring with spoons and were surprised to find the baking soda was gone!  When we decided it was time to clean up and start making dinner they both happily helped pick up the dishes and bring them to the counter.  

Making Ornaments

Once again, I am borrowing ideas from the Play at Home Mom blog and trying some of their activities with the boys.  A few weekends ago I bought a bunch of random little Christmas trinkets and some clear plastic globe style ornaments.  Now that everyone has recovered from the stomach bug that knocked the whole house on it's butt, I decided to give this activity a try after school today.

I set out all the goodies on the table and invited the boys to come and see.  I showed them how to get the salt (snow) in the globes and then told them they could put what ever they wanted in them.  This turned out to be a GREAT activity.  They were very engaged for over 30 minutes.  If I had had more ornaments to fill, they would have kept going!  Once they ran out of materials they were very excited to hang their creations on just the right spot on the tree.

When Doug got home later in the evening, they both raced over to tell him that had made "Beautiful Ornaments" for the tree and wanted him to come over and see what they had done.

I'm pretty sure we are going to have to do this again.

Helping Daddy...

Grayson helping Daddy make scones for breakfast before school.

Halloween Project

The boys were a little stir crazy when I got home this afternoon, so it seemed like a good time to break out a crafty activity to refocus attention.  Since it was nice outside  we set up on the front porch.  I gave them

Look Mommy! It has 3 eyes!

• a bright yellow desert plate, 
• few tubes of glitter glue, 
• some white glue, 
• fall colored pompoms, 
• googly eyes, 
• crayons. 

After about 15 minutes, Grayson brought me his.  

Bikes and Puddles

The weather has been a bit wild - and it is getting dark so soon after we all get home - and the boys are dying to ride their bikes more.  The solution : Daddy let them take their bikes to work and ride!  Needless to say, this was a big hit.

In typical little boy fashion, the puddles in the parking lot were like a magnet.

...and he ran out of steam...

Sometimes little boys just won't quit.  

...and sometimes they just collapse,

 in their PJs, 

with the lights on, 

right where they were when they were playing.  

(Of course, the lights were off and bed time was called over an hour earlier...)

First Day of Pre-K

I can't believe today is the first day of Pre-K for the boys.  Not that they didn't go to "school" last year, they did.  But somehow this is different.  (Just bear with me...)  It is different because it is the last year that they don't have to go.  Don't get me wrong, they love, love, love school.  But this means that they are now one year away from going to Kindergarten and I am terrified of sending them to our local public school.  Which is bad, because I work in a public school.  Which probably is why I am so freaked out about the whole thing. 

So today was the one year of worry mark.  Ugh.  I hate that I am such a worrier, but I can't help it!

A little surgery for the 4 year olds...

Tonight Doug decided it was time to take out his massively wide stitches he got about a week ago when playing with the table saw.  The boys have been very, very interested in his thumb all week and taking inventory of if has healed yet.  So this combination of events led to a little preschooler surgery in the kitchen tonight.

Doug gave each boy a hemostat and then snipped the stitch and let them each have a tug and pull one out.  (Pictures to come when I can get them off the camera)

I have to say I thought this was pretty brave on his part - and the boys thought it was very neat.  (Gabe wanted to actually keep the nasty, crusty stitches - but luckily we convinced him it was not a good idea.)

River!

Wow- it is has been so stinking hot here the last week or so it has been literally unbearable.  I know I should be better equipped to handle it, but I guess I've gotten soft in my old age.

As the summer has progressed I am trying really hard to come up with a few new and fun things to do with the boys each week.  Today I decided that we would try going and playing in the river at Elizabeth Furnace.  I was a little worried about getting to a good spot since I know Grayson doesn't have the best footing in the world and I didn't want to walk with little kids down the side of the road along the river (Doug and I do it, but not with kids in tow!)  Doug and I drove along the river the weekend before and found a good place to park OFF the road and that had an easy in access that Grayson could navigate.

 So today I packed a little snack picnic, loaded up the boys in swim trunks and lathered them with sun screen and off we went!  We spent several hours there and eventually had to leave to get home in time to make dinner for Doug and Reece.  I think they could have stayed longer :)  This is something we will certainly be doing again.

Worn Out!

Apparently we had a little too much fun this afternoon.  I left the room to get a refill on my drink and when I came back, this is what I found.

Dip in the River

It is has been pretty hot and today Ms Patti decided to take the boys on a special little field trip to the river boat landing at the park after school.  She told us she thought they would be tentative - and it would be a short little diversion.  Not so much, it turned out they went in as far as she would let them and they spent hours and hours.  They didn't even want to stop for lunch.  Finally at 4:00 she insisted that they leave and go get something to eat.

When I got home Gabe informed me they got in the water with Ms Patti.  I asked if it was the pool and they said - noooo.  So I asked if was the ocean - again they said - nooooo,  Was it a lake? - Noooo, it didn't have lily pads.  (well ok then) Then they declared it to be a river.  Too funny.

Beds and Bikes

The boys had another full day with Doug. It was a bit of an unusual day because they had to go all the way to Winchester to school, then all the way back to Strasburg for Grayson's speech therapy after lunch.  They ended up just staying at home in the afternoon.  Gabe got a slow start in the morning and we found him all curled up under blankets on the couch.

As usual, there was lots of outside play.  We have potatoes coming up in the garden, so that was a fun thing to check out.  And while you are up there you have to be on the look out for the garden snack that lives in the wall. 

The older boys continue to be very into riding their balance bikes.  I think they may very well be ready for 'real' bikes by the end of the summer.  Gabe is getting pretty good at holding his feet up and coasting for 10-15 seconds at a time.  Grayson is also getting much smoother in his riding.

Reece was out of sorts because he didn't get enough of a nap with the crazy schedule, so he actually ended up going to bed early.  But not before he let us know he really thinks he can use the potty.  He grabs his pants and signs "potty!" and takes off running for it.  He ended up a running around with a naked butt for about an hour and at one point he decided he had to pee so he ran out the back door and peed in the grass - then went back inside to play.  Not exactly what we want, but at least it wasn't on the carpet!

When Reece was in bed the boys worked on putting the final coat of paint on Grayson's new bed with Doug out on the porch.  They are so cute being little helpers :)

They have all been so busy lately.  I still can't believe how big they are getting and how much they they want to be like / do everything their Daddy does.

Let me tell you a secret...

It is so fun to watch the boys figure out new things - like what is funny, what is silly, what a secret is, etc.  We were doing an 'everybody wash your hands' event before going to dinner and the cutest thing happened.  Gabe went over to Grayson and told him to he had to tell him something. 


Then he leaned in and whispered (as well as a 3.5 year old can) "Grayson, I'm telling you a secret!"  That WAS the secret, but still, pretty darn funny.

Trampoline Hair

This weekend was pretty dry - and Grayson suffered from some serious trampoline hair.

There was so much play and outside time that around 2:00 Grayson simply gave in to the need for sleep and laid down and fell asleep on the trampoline for over an hour!