Bradley's Bear Story

Happy St. Patrick's Day! This is what happens when I tell Eleanor to smile for a photo.

Bradley's favorite color is blue and he is very excited about blue items, wherever he finds them. I have no idea when he really picked this up or why exactly, I had never asked him about his favorite color so he must have picked it up on the street (aka Sunday School). He was very happy about his new blue shorts that I got him for this summer and I made the mistake of trying them on his head as a joke. Ask me how easy it was to convince him to wear them correctly after this.

Bradley with his shadow

Eleanor was pleased to get in on the new fad

Bradley's imagination continues to impress, he'll take something small and run with it to places we never anticipated. We've been learning about different kinds of animals and I decided to let him watch a few short youtube videos on my phone so he could see real versions of the cute cartoony animals he has in some of his favorite books. I happened to let him watch a youtube video where a variety of animals were stealing food from people in cars and it seems it made an impression.

We get so many Bradley stories and I love them so much. This was followed up by tales of a robot frog he could see out in the trees in our backyard. I could listen to his stories all day (poor neglected Eleanor).

The story face. This was when he was telling me about how the bear wanted to eat his mustache shirt.

Eleanor is quite impressive in her own right, it's amazing to see what an observant younger sibling can pick up. We were looking through Bradley's favorite animal book and he often likes to guess wrong for animals as a funny Bradley joke. Yes, it really is on purpose, he makes it abundantly obvious that he thinks he's hilarious whenever he plays this game. So I asked what a picture of a rhinoceros was and he said "elephant!" at the same time Eleanor quietly said "rhino". She also knows most of her colors and was bossing me around in the car yesterday saying "green light go!". In comparison, I'm pretty sure Bradley's communication with me mostly consisted of pointing and yelling about 10-20 key words at the age of 21 months.

Eleanor also bosses Bradley sometimes (shocking!). He was having a rough time one morning and I told him a few times about how he was going to be sent up to his room if he kept on being so upset and didn't start playing nicely. I was so lucky to have good backup in Eleanor who started pointing upstairs and saying "in yo ROOM!" over and over again and "no Badley!". A little girl is lucky mommy was there so she didn't get shoved by an angsty little boy.

Not to say that Bradley and Eleanor aren't still the best of buds. It hit 80 earlier this week so we broke out some serious summer gear complete with cool shades.

But in typical fashion, we ditched the sunglasses once we got the the place where they would have been useful. 

We like Ironwood park because it has plenty of swings but sometimes we still have to share. I can't believe these kids are for real, especially Bradley. He not only tolerated sharing a swing with Eleanor, he rather enjoyed it. 

Park outings have gotten more fun now that Bradley and Eleanor can follow each other around a bit, although if Eleanor could stop copying all the things that Bradley does that would be okay. I was talking to a mom at a park yesterday and she let out a gasp of horror at the tiny little girl climbing the ladder to the tallest slide all on her own and I got say "Oh yeah, she's mine. She's okay. She does that." And it's also nice because when 5 year old little boys are bratty at the playground and don't let Eleanor play near them and their stupid woodchip piles I get to do things like not intervene when Bradley starts destroying said woodchip piles. And Bradley always wins. Don't mess with my cute little girl.

The children have been begging for a picnic lately which means we don't sit at picnic tables anymore, picnics happen on the grass. 

I finally remembered our picnic blanket the other day and there was great joy. 

We also have a new park where we feed the ducks, which is a blast.

And with the warm weather the kids have begun to get to have treats like fudgsicles when they could use a cool treat. I don't know whose happier about the onset of spring, me or the kids.

Poor Bradley does have it tough at times though, especially when he's a little tired. Bradley started crying this morning when he woke up and Nathan went in to help a guy out and it turned out that Bradley had a myriad of concerns: 1) He couldn't find his pacifier. 2) He couldn't find his plastic egg. 3) His bottom hurt.
Nathan quickly located Bradley's pacifier by one of his pillows but couldn't find the plastic egg until he looked in Bradley's pajama bottoms where Bradley had put the egg for safekeeping at some point during the night. No wonder the poor guy had an ouchie bottom.

Nathan just got back from a trip to Columbia which is happily his last work trip before we are joined by the new addition. Mommy was okay company while he was gone but things are just a bit different when Daddy is home.

Bradley loves the soccer jersey that Nathan picked out for him and hopefully you can tell that I successfully got shorts on him in addition to his jersey that will surely fit even giant Bradley for a few years. He's not quite three and Nathan got him a youth medium. 

The countdown to baby Patrick is down to five weeks! We alternate between being so ready to meet him and terrified of parenting three small children. When Eleanor looks like this I feel very prepared to have another child.

But then she wakes up and I get to chase her around ... oh my. We're going to be quite the busy household.

Eleanor Loves Pink and Bradley Loves Friends

Eleanor has gotten particular about her clothes and it's getting increasingly difficult to get her into clothes that are neither pink or Frozen themed. We got her a new Frozen dress which also happens to be pink and there has been great joy in all the land. It is the outfit of choice for the third day in a row. I bought some new summer clothes and I could only get her to willingly try on the outfits that had some element of pink. How did this happen?

Also, the child can balance on the perimeter of playgrounds on her own and shakes me off when I try to help her.

In other shocking news, it seems that Bradley may be an extrovert. I guess we've had a fair number of play dates lately because in the last week or so Bradley has started to hopefully talk about visiting a friend's house anytime we've gotten in the car. Going to the grocery store instead has been cause for complaint and sorrow. "We already HAVE food!" He has a fair point, and yet we go. Luckily, the kids are able to share a car cart these days so the grocery store is not without its merits.

Here they are sharing a seat at our neighbor's house. Bradley wins a nice older brother award for tolerating this.

Eleanor likes to hold items to her head and says "hat". This is cute for a lot of things but is less cute at mealtimes. She also is an outrageous flirt and wherever we go she soon has a dedicated follower or two - can be either a child or adult, doesn't matter. Eleanor charms them all. She's the master of watching slyly out of the corner of her eye and then scrunching her eyes shut and smiling and laughing when someone looks at her. It gets results.

We also just love hats in general

Being a cool kid in her hat at the playground

In crazy Kansas weather news, we had snow one weekend and sunny days in the 70's the next. We have been spending a lot of time outside because of this, I don't think Bradley is prepared for my dedication to getting children outside. He begged to stay in and play with his toys a few days ago and I said no. If there is sunshine the children must play in it.

Here we are playing in the snow! Bradley desperately wanted to have a snowball fight with the neighbor children (despite not knowing how to make a snowball) and was covered in snow in short order. Eleanor, on the other hand, preferred to not touch the snow or really even to walk in the snow. She liked to be carried around in a sled or to stand on a cleared off section and whack at the snow with a shovel. 

Pulling her highness in a sled

Lucky Daddy getting help shoveling the driveway

And then about three days later we were doing this.

So crazy. I may never get used to this.

Last weekend we went to Wichita for a friend's wedding shower. The highlights of the trip for the children were eating at Braum's Ice Cream Shop, checking out a cool new park, and getting to sleep in the car on the way home.

Our kids remain good eaters

Bradley had ice cream to go with this cone but he assured us it was crazy nonsense to try to combine the two items.

With our friend Amanda!

Playing calmly at the ice cream shop ...

At the park

Highlights for Nathan and I were getting to see our friend Amanda and being the only ones to bring children to her fancy wedding shower. I like to think we livened things up a bit.

Eleanor started sucking her thumb about a month ago when she started to get a couple teeth in and she hasn't stopped ever since. I've never heard of a child picking up sucking her thumb out of the blue at 20 months old but apparently it happens because I have one. She's pretty darn cute about it, I don't really mind it so far.

Also, a fun game to play these days is find Eleanor's penguin and find Bradley's egg in photos. Both kids have a favorite toy and it is rare they are without penguin or egg.

Egg

Penguin and egg and cuddles

Lucky Eleanor

Egg

 And yes, the kids are adorable these days and like to read to each other.

Melts my heart every time.

Egg by Bradley ... of course.

Both Bradley and Eleanor are super chatty these days but one of my favorite things is hearing Bradley play with toys. He does not need any additional "real" toys, glue sticks are exciting enough these days it seems.

Eleanor is embracing her inner imp and most conversations with her quickly fall along certain lines. Like when she wants to hide.

She decided to be a little maniac the other day at lunch and started nodding her head up and down and letting out roars for my benefit. As soon as she saw I was cracking up she REALLY got into it.

Is this how I get attention? I live for this!

I think the cute pink accessories really make this series of photos of my impish little girl.

It is a mystery where she learned how to be so silly. Here are my sweet children begging to be spun around on the office chair.

Pleeeeeease!

 Things remained calm.

Learning from the master. Oh my. 

And somehow feeding Bradley has become a thing again. I don't know which child enjoys this more. The problem is that Eleanor loves doing it so much she'll give him food that she would eat given the opportunity and she has to beg for more food after she's done feeding the Bradley. It's a tricky thing for a little girl to figure out.

But she loves food, must eat it!

Bradley is not subtle about letting Eleanor know when he's hungry

Her face ...

 Mealtime conversations complete with high fives:

I took the kids to the nearby Rec Center a few days ago and practically killed them by taking them to the open gym time for an hour. Bradley never stopped moving until he started lying down on equipment periodically in the last 15 minutes and telling me how tired he was. And then he would have to hop up and chase his friends around and play some more. It was rough for a little guy.

Eleanor cackled hysterically when Bradley and his friend joined her on the trampoline and kept bouncing her around and making her fall down. I love how she's so game to keep up with her big brother. 

Shortly after the video below was taken we were alerted to the lame rule of one child at a time on the trampoline. Sheesh. It's like they think things could get wild and out of control.

It's funny looking through these pictures and seeing just how few are of only one child. I get photos whenever the kids are being cute or funny and in general their cutest and funniest moments are with each other.

Cute foot bath. Bradley still gets stinky feet, one must take measures.

Playing in our backyard

Animal bead crafty time

Couch cuddles. Bradley is SO HAPPY about Eleanor grabbing him and snuggling him.

Yelling at each other through Nathan's back exercise tool:

 Bath time. This has a bonus of Bradley telling a story about his egg.

There have been lots of Daddy loves lately. Nathan has been scoring a lot of points with his Ford Explorer (here he is driving 10 feet in to the garage with the help our little drivers). Bradley complains when he has to ride in my minivan and tells me that Daddy's car is his favorite.

Daddy secrets

Inevitably how these things end

And Bradley tells Nathan stories. Amazing stories. I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing about the robot snow monster. Warning: if you are touched by the robot then YOU turn into a robot. I swear we're only letting the kids watch a moderate amount of very tame children's programming, I have no idea where he gets this stuff.

These sweet children. To know them is to love them. Just ask our cats.