Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Steve Visit and Eleanor Turns One

Well we had quite a time while Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Steve were visiting. We did our regular morning park walks which were certainly more exciting with Grandma and Grandpa coming along.

Bradley's face here is great

Bradley got carried a lot more, which he enjoyed quite a bit

Grandpa is the best at swings!

Eleanor is the best at making Grandma nervous as she climbs up the play structure

Trying out new playground equipment

My parents quickly had to get used to a more verbal Bradley. My dad was joking about how Eleanor walking around was like "baby zilla" and then Bradley repeated "baby zilla" and Grandpa was asked never to describe Eleanor like that again around Bradley. Later in the trip Bradley wanted me while I was upstairs in the shower so my mom told him that I was in the shower and asked if you got clean or dirty in the shower. He said "dirty" and then said "dirty mommy". Later when I was taking him up for his nap I said something about my shower to him and he said "dirty mommy" again. BAD grandparents!

However, they quickly redeemed themselves when they babysat while Nathan and I went out to a baseball game for my 30th birthday (yay!)

Nathan and me having a great time at the Royals vs Mariners game. The Mariners won, hurray! And there were fireworks. And Paul Rudd made a celebratory appearance! A most excellent birthday all in all.

Meanwhile, back at the house Bradley and Eleanor got to experience the joy of baking cookies.

Grandma let them get a lot more hands on than Mommy does.

Apparently cruel hearts tried to exclude Eleanor from the fun but she howled and kicked up a fuss until she got to get in on the action. They were cracking up about it, they just didn't think that the not quite one year old would care about mashing down the cookie crust!

Finally touching the exciting thing!

We were nervous about having the grandparents handle bedtime because Bradley has gotten a bit trickier lately but apparently if you jam pack the evening full of exciting activities the kids collapse into bed and go right to sleep. Good job, grandparents!

And they got to be here for Eleanor's 1st birthday party, which was a blast.

Eleanor wearing the birthday dress Grandma made for her. SO CUTE!

Here we are outside with the balloons that Bradley wasn't supposed to discover until after the party. Oh well. Bradley quickly discovered that if he said "peeees gwampa" he could get away with pretty much anything.

We had a few neighbors come over to join in on the party fun and Bradley about lost his mind when the big kids showed up.

He had to go tackle the birthday girl, he was so excited.

Luckily she was saved by sweet Easton. We love Easton.

This is the birthday crew besides Bradley who was off to the side pillaging, I'm sure.

Eleanor's first experience with cake seemed to be a successful one. She had a few sweets before her first birthday but never chocolate frosting, which appears to be the best sweet of them all!

Yes, we are fairly confident she enjoyed the experience.

My mommy instincts tell me that chocolate is officially a go for Eleanor!

Eleanor was incredibly fortunate to have plenty of assistance when it came time to open presents and Bradley even tested out her toys for her to make sure they were up to par before he let her touch any of them. What a thoughtful big brother. She literally didn't get to touch the doll in that box until the next day.

And since we didn't get a family photo at the party, here we are the next day enjoying a few of the many leftover cupcakes! (We might have overestimated the number of cupcakes reasonable human beings eat at a party).

Good news, both children still like chocolate!

The birthday balloons got a lot of good use, Bradley insisted that we take them with us to the park the day after the party which made for a lot of cute photos.

Joy

Loves

Smooches

We did family pictures the day before the party and I think our amazing photographer managed to get at least a few good photos despite fussy and whiny child behavior. Next year we are bringing balloons along, balloons fix everything.

We also took my parents to Deanna Rose Farmstead which was a blast.

Bradley got to see a cow poop. We heard a bit about this from him.

Practicing milking

When you're first to feed the baby goats you are popular. Eleanor was cackling the whole time we were in there with the goats, apparently most one year olds are a little more hesitant. Our little animal lover!

At one point we split up so Grandma and Grandpa could help Eleanor fall asleep for her nap. It's a good thing Bradley and his friend Eli are close and don't mind sharing a stroller (this lasted for about 5 seconds)

Fortunately it was all worth it because Eleanor got the coziest nap on the happiest grandma.

Also on this trip my mom worked on her latest "nerd books" with Bradley and Eleanor, which was hilarious to watch. The kids were game!

Switches and buttons and fun!

Here are my children in their matching "nerd" shirts. Grandma is pretty awesome.

Eleanor is ALL up in Bradley's business these days. Her favorite moments to strike are when he's watching a show or on the floor in his room having his diaper changed. She'll crawl over to him and start whacking at his face. He is not a fan. My parents said she toddled over to his chair while he was watching a show and gave him a kiss and tried to hug him. Alas, hugs and cuddles distract from the show and are not to be tolerated. But he loves it when she follows him around while he's playing!

Mornings got more interesting while my parents were here because Bradley figured out how to open doors (I had been trying to hold him back from that particular achievement for weeks) and one morning I found him on the main floor at 6 am holding a couple my little ponies in his hand and he happily shouted "ponies!" at me and then demanded to be taken downstairs to Grandma and Grandpa. Another morning he decided to go wake up Eleanor at 6:10 and I woke up to them happily chattering at each other on the baby monitor. This morning I woke up when he shut the door to the master bedroom for us. Not sure what we're going to do to contain the social boy's morning rounds.

Eleanor said "hi gam" at my dad at one point while we were in the playroom and I'm pretty sure that melted Grandpa's heart. Eleanor is going to be talking as well as Bradley before we know it.

One of the grandparent's favorite moments was when I went to put the kids in the bath and discovered that Bradley had a poopy diaper as I was taking it off of him. I drug him back out of the bathrom and into his room all while he was yelling "Ellnor poop! Ellnor poop!" It's harder to claim your sister is the one with the poopy diaper when she's already naked in the bathtub and I have seen the poop in your diaper. Ridiculous (and hilarious) child.

We've been putting our deck to good use lately and bubbles and the little wading pool on the deck have been a hit with all.

Please note how Grandma is hogging all the tubes of bubbles (Bradley would steal as many bubble wands as he could get his hands on)

Here is Grandpa showing that age doesn't equal maturity

Eleanor LOVED the baby pool and would cackle whenever she splashed herself in the face.

And Bradley ended up with a frisbee on his head. We know how to have a deck wading pool party!

We were sad to see Grandma and Grandpa go but at least I got a few group photos before they went, despite Bradley yelling with glee through half of my attempts.

But what does it say that a yelling photo is my favorite one? Love this kid.

And here is the photo my mom would like best. Cute but the yelling one is SO Bradley these days.

Now we're back to our normal routine for just a few days.

Normal buddy bike rides

Normal wrestling matches

Normal play on the stairs (heaven help us).

Grandpa Dan, Grandma Kati, and Aunt Anna are visiting us next week. June is officially the month of fun family visits!

Eleanor Has All The Words and Grandma Colleen Visits

Eleanor is such a dear and is making us so proud with all the things she's picking up almost instantaneously. Last week she learned how to wave while saying hi and has been doing it non stop ever since and last night at bed time I decided to show her how to blow a kiss and she picked that up instantly as well. She also is our little mimic and I have no idea how many words she has now because she repeats much of what we say back to us if we ask her to. She says things like "all done" and even a version of "help please" which is ridiculous for a child of her age to be able to say. I think she's even starting to say "I'm sorry" because Bradley has to apologize to her so frequently for knocking her over or stealing her toys. Oh, and she also kisses now! While saying "mah!" It's unbearably adorable and also happening four months earlier than it did with Bradley. Bradley was more into smashing and yelling for what he wanted than using overrated words. Honestly, he still is half the time.

Bradley running through the best puddle ever. I tried to tell him he couldn't play in it but then he wanted to bash his stick in it and I said yes to that and two minutes later this was where we were.

Other words that Eleanor can say: "hat" (while bringing me a hat and putting it on my head and then snatching it away and laughing), "hot", "down", "out", "ick", "hi kitty", "yumyum", "heart", "Daddy", "Mommy", "dog" (while bringing us her favorite doggy book and then cackling while Daddy reads it to her). And I know there are other words I'm forgetting to add to this list.

She's also walking down the stairs and has only fallen twice while doing so. Fortunately, Mommy has been around to catch her both times. Phew. Crazy child.

Crazy children being cute at the park together.

Eleanor feeds herself with her spoon sometimes now but she generally still needs some help. She's a bit of a stinker about giving the spoon back though. Being the good examples that we are, we egg her on by laughing whenever she does this.

We also laughed a bit hysterically when Eleanor was running around in the baby walker and Bradley was chasing after her, crying and yelling for her to stop so he could get on and she could give him a ride. She ran into him a few times at a pretty good speed but he found that funny. But then there was more crying as Eleanor gleefully ran all over the room WITHOUT HIM. Poor Bradley.  

Grandma Colleen came for a visit and we had such a good time. She's the craft guru so she does a fun craft or two with Bradley when she comes to visit and this time he had a great time coloring a tin foil covered can with ribbons creation and painting rocks.

Important work happening

Grandma is hilarious

Blowing on the ribbons

Rock painting. Or at least painting near a rock. It counts.

Apparently as Nathan was putting Bradley to bed the first night she was here Nathan told Bradley "I love you Bradley, do you love Daddy?" and Bradley said "Love gramma". I think Grandma melted a little when she heard that story.

We went to the park and that was quite fun as well, Grandma does crazy fun swing rides and helps check out all the cool pebbles.

Grandma played with the kids almost nonstop while she was here which was great because I was able to do a bunch of prep organizing photos for Eleanor's birthday party next week. 

However, things did get a little wild and unruly on Grandma's watch. Okay, it isn't her fault that Bradley likes to jump off the stairs. She did a great job watching over the kiddos!

Nathan has been recovering well from his hip surgery last week and Bradley has really been enjoying perks like watching shows on our Kindle with Daddy in Mommy and Daddy's bed. I don't know who is happier in this picture.

And we had a lovely Father's Day today. We went out for frozen yogurt in the afternoon and the kids were fairly adorable. The geniuses at the yogurt place were playing Frozen on a tv and we could barely get Bradley to leave. But we also were big fans of the frozen yogurt itself and the kids had a blast so we will certainly be coming back for more!

And here is Nathan taking one final Father's Day photo with the kids as he read to them at bedtime tonight. They loved it. Such good kids and such a wonderful Daddy!