Time-outs

Aidan has recently taken to giving his toys (and Daddy, Mommy, and Mason) time-outs.

 He tells them "you go be on time-out step!", then goes over and places the toy on the step and tells it "I come get you in a minute".

To top it all off when he goes to remove the toy from time out, he does exactly what we do to him, which is ask him if he understands what he did to get the time out. Most of the time the toys need to be reminded by Aidan that they were hitting, which is why they got in trouble.

Poor Mater, he was naughty

Then the whole "Cars" crew joined him in time out. What a naughty group!

In the recent week I've also finally managed to find some time and motivation to get the boys' name decals up on their walls in their rooms:



Birthday Build-a-Bear

I've always wanted to take Aidan to build a bear, but Ryan has always convinced me to hold off until he could really appreciate it and participate.

So yesterday we decided to take him to the mall to build himself a friend for his 2nd Birthday, which is this coming Thurs, the 28th.

We gave him the choice between a bear and a dog, and he chose the dog, who was pretty adorable.

Then, you take them over to the filling station where you pick out a heart to give them,

Choosing his heart

Giving the heart some love & kisses

placing it inside his doggie

and then they fill them with stuffing....

pushing the pedal to make the fluff machine work

Then you give them a bath....

and pick out an outfit....

He went with a Lightning McQueen tshirt and camoflauge boxers:

You can even make them a birth certificate and name them. We decided to call him Hot Dog, but Aidan keeps saying "he not a hot dog", and calls him Doggie instead. Hey, whatever it's his dog anyway!

On the way home with his new best friend

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

It's a bird, It's a plane, it's.....

SUPER BUBBA!!!

...and his trusty sidekick, Super Pooch, the super pillow pet!

Watch out, Bad Guys.

Aidan's Bowling Adventure

It was brought to my attention by my friend Amy that AMF bowling lanes offers free bowling passes all summer long for kids.

Like 2 free games per day.

WHOA.

(you can sign your kids up here: http://freebowling.amf.com/)

Which ones should we use?

So today we loaded up all 4, yes count them 4, of our combined kids and headed out to the lanes, where we also met up with one of Amy's other friends who has 2 kids as well.

Amy has a 2 1/2 year old named Benjamin and a 10 month old, Maddox. Aidan had a blast bowling, eating M&M's, and riding arcade motorcycles with Ben today!

Oooh boy this is gonna be fun!

I did it!

Ben was great at "keeping score"

Go Ben!

I particularly loved how they set up a little ramp along with the lane bumpers for toddlers to bowl. Aidan and Ben had a great time pushing their bowling balls down the ramp and cheering and clapping as they knocked the pins over.

Their attention didn't even last for half a game, and Amy and I even ended up rolling the ball a few times when the boys were distracted by other things that they found. I guess it was a good thing that it was free!! As an added bonus Mason slept through the majority of the adventure and woke up only to eat and spew down my back. Man I did not miss baby puke!

Thanks for a fun outing idea, Auntie Amy!

Paved roads!

I took Mason for his third weight check this past week, which finally he passed! Even though he gained weight at the last visit I was pretty annoyed that they made me bring him back again. He is now up to 7lbs 9.5oz, which is only 1/2 oz away from his birth weight so they said we can just go back for a 1 month well visit now. Sheesh, finally!

I also had to schedule a hip ultrasound for him since he was breech. The pediatrician that checked him out at the hospital said his hips seemed fine but that it was protocol for breech babies to get a hip ultrasound at 4-6  weeks old to rule out hip dysplasia. That should be a fun experience too........

Yesterday our road finally got paved. That is our excitement for the week! We bought our house in March 2009, and it was finally built in Aug 2009.....and we still had no roads or landscaping until this summer. There was much drama with the developer for the neighborhood. But I digress.

Aidan must have stood at the window for hours watching everything that was going on.....speckled in with a few "What's that, mom?" 's.

Family photos

The day that Mason turned 1 week old I had a newborn photo session with an amazing photographer. Her name is Erin and she also did my Maternity shoot back in May. She's awesome, so if anyone's looking for some great photos of anything they should check her out at http://www.egmphotography.com/!

Anyway, she came right to our house and hung out while Mason was changed and ate, etc. It was neat that she was able to get pics of him in his own bassinet too.

I personally think she got some amazing shots and we even managed to get a family photo in as well (even though I'm not really a fan because I'm all puffy from surgery still and I LOOK like I had 3 hours of sleep that night...).



On our Own

Well, it's official. The last Grandparent "post c-section helper" has left. Until my brother comes to visit tomorrow night we are on our own! I'm actually enjoying my afternoon alone with my boys, and Aidan is behaving much better than I thought he would once all his entertainment left. Although, so there was the "sharpie incident" today...

Thankfully he only drew on his legs and not the furniture! Bad Mommy for leaving a marker in the room!!

 I'm looking forward to Ryan getting home tonight and spending our first night alone as a family of 4.

:)

Thanks again to Grandpa Larry (my dad), Nani & Poppy (Ry's parents) and Grandma Di (my mama) for all their help in the last 2 weeks.

Bili's, weight checks and time-outs

Just like Aidan....Mason lost a significant amount of weight after he left the hospital. He went from 7lbs 10oz at birth to 7lbs 1 1/2oz at his first Dr's appt. 

So we had to go back a few days later for another check. Of course at that point he had lost another 1/2oz and was down to 7lbs 1oz. Ugh.

So yet another weight check was scheduled and this time he weighed 7lbs 4oz, but apparently that's just not good enough because he's not back up to his birthwight. So once again we need to go to the Dr's next week for another weight check and then the week after that is already his one month checkup. Mind you, each of these weight checks and visits is a freakin $15 co-pay. I'm sorry but I think a weight check is considered a "follow-up" visit and that there shouldn't be a co-pay. I mean when I went for a heartbeat check at the OB every month I didn't get charged! Argh.

He also had a high bilirubin when we left the hospital so that had to get checked again at his initial Dr's visit. That result came back within range and w didn't worry about it. Then at the 2nd weight check they said he looked yellow so they freakin had us check it again that day. Which came back even lower than the last time. Ugh this poor kid!!

Aidan seems to be adjusting nicely to his role as big brother, although he is acting out a little bit so he has been put in time out quite a few times for misbehaving. So this morning he grabbed my hand and dragged me to the bottom step of the stairs (which is his time out spot) and said:

"you go in time out"

Then , he looked at me and said in a stern voice:

"cry!"

When I said I wasn't going to cry, he touched my face and said :

"be sad."

When I asked him what I did to deserve a time out he couldn't answer me, but I can tell you I was laughing so hard I almost was crying!

He also cracked me up this afternoon when he pulled up a chair in front of his Mickey and Clifford stuffed animals and said "talk to me, boys".

Seriously, where does he get this stuff?

Baby, you're a Firework

Happy Independence Day!

Last night our town had a pretty impressive fireworks display. It was surprising because we live in a little town, and we certainly didn't expect such a big show.

We got Aidan ready to go (by putting him in jammies before we left) and decided it was worth keeping him up 2 hours past bedtime to see the show.

The fireworks started and I turned to him and asked him if they were cool, and he said "yeah!"....and then started to cry hysterically. Yikes.

You can't tell, but Nani's glasses lit up

Ryan got him calmed down and he was ok laying his head against Ry's chest while his ears were covered by Ry's hands. Then he kept telling us the fireworks weren't scary......and we could tell he was definitely trying to convince himself of that, haha.

Look, at that, Poppy!

Hanging with Gramma Di

By the time we got in the car to come home he was saying he liked the fireworks and that he wanted to watch them again. Yeah, ok.

On the other spectrum of things Mason slept through the entire show and to top it all off he slept for a 6 hour stretch last night!! Yayyyyyyyy!!! Hopefully it isn't a fluke and he will do it again!

I got Aidan a cool light-up toy for the show, and he was too terrified to even appreciate it!

Well, it was just me awake with a sleeping Mason but now the house is starting to stir, so off I go!