The Scotts: Bradley Turns 3!

Bradley's third birthday party was a blast. We had a good crew of family and friends in attendance (thanks to Colleen and Kerry for making the drive down for the weekend!) and despite Bradley having to hide on his chair while we sang Happy Birthday to him, we are quite sure he had the time of his life.

Friends!

We repeated the popular balloon room concept from his party the previous year and if anything it was more fun this time around.

And we had the kids decorate Easter eggs, which was fun but rather tricky with a crew 2-4 year olds and we are very grateful for Grandma Colleen's work taking care of the all of the egg decorating so we didn't have to. We had to get in a fair bit of r&r for the kids around party prep and festivities, we are so lucky that Colleen and Kerry were up for the task.

They also got to see the kids participate in our neighborhood Easter egg hunt in the park on a very chilly Saturday morning.

The Easter bunny himself even showed up!

We got to try out the new wagon that I'm more than a little in love with. I'm not alone in my admiration of the wagon, the kids are big fans as well.

Luckily it warmed up later in the day for the next park outing.

And did you know all that it takes to make my children beyond happy is to strip them down to underwear or diapers and give them balloons? So much joy.

The first video is when we blew up a few token balloons the day before the birthday party, the video below is when Bradley and Eleanor got to see the balloon room for the first time on the morning of Bradley's birthday party.

And party toys were a hit, my favorite is a construction vehicle that plays "hard rock" music for about five seconds when you push a button because Eleanor's dancing is kind of the best thing ever.

Nathan's favorite Bradley presents were the comic books he got for his little boy. He's been planning this since Christmas when Bradley would cuddle up on his lap so he could look at Daddy's comics. Both boys are so happy to get to sit and read comics together although now we have yet more bad guys for our little guy to earnestly tell us to watch out for. He'll turn out the hall lights in the basement and then tell us a bad guy penguin or snow monster is at the end of the hall. Eleanor LOVES it because we all hide under a blanket together and then she and Bradley run off to battle the monster and then run back to hide again.

I took Bradley and Eleanor in for check-ups the day after the party, on Bradley's actual birthday, which wasn't too bad since neither of them had to get shots and they love every other aspect about going to the doctor. Bradley is in the 90th% for height at 3ft 4in and 96th% weight at almost 40 lbs while dainty Eleanor is a dainty 80th% height at 34in and 44th% weight at 25.4 lbs. I'd say we need to feed her more but I don't know how that would be possible, she already eats like a little champ. If she would ever stop moving that could possibly help.

Bradley insisted that Eleanor sit on his lap at the doctor's office. These two are such buds.

Nathan and I took them out for birthday doughnuts afterwards which were a hit!

Another picnic

Lucky Daddy at mealtime. Bradley's been getting a little clingy at dinner and then Eleanor can't see why she shouldn't get to sit on Daddy's lap too. Nathan thinks this was a one time thing (hahahahahah)

We eat all the time in the Scott house, here we are eating gigantic apples that I thought would be a good idea after Bradley flipped out over a friend eating a cool apple in front of him at the park a few days before. Perhaps I could have started with a smaller variety.

I ate a lot of leftover apple this day. Half of what I eat is my children's leftover food.

And here we are on a shopping outing to Costco.

The kids love going into the cold rooms for veggies and milk - but I think Daddy may love it even more!

I LOVE the faces I get when the kids are told to smile

And more Eleanor smiling. Be still my heart.

And sometimes this is what happens when I tell them to smile:

Is he a teenager already? Who taught him this??

I'm a strong believer in using incentives to motivate the children to do things but I guess Nathan and I have both been using the threat of taking Bradley's favorite toy away a bit too much lately. The other day I told Bradley to go grab Eleanor's favorite stuffed toy penguin from the play room and when he wandered away and obviously did a very poor job pretending to look for it I huffily told him that I was disappointed in him (I was trying to get the kids ready to leave the house, it can be quite the process at times). Bradley responded by saying "Awwww mannnnnn, don't take my egg away." Oops. Poor child. I hadn't even mentioned the possibility of taking his egg away but I guess it's such a regular threat for disappointing behavior that he thought it was coming. Also, I didn't realize that I say "Aw man" about things but apparently I must because he says it all the time now. But he also says "whoopsi daisy" and I KNOW that I never say that. Once again, I blame Sunday School.

Eleanor talking as much as she does continues to surprise me. She's not quite at Bradley's verbal level but she's not too far behind. When she says no water and does this there is little confusion as to her feelings about having a drink.

She also finds it valuable to be able to chat with me when I do foolish things like walk into her room after she's been playing in her bed for an hour and try to convince her that it truly is nap time.

For the record, this is how she ended up falling asleep for that nap. What am I supposed to do with this??

She also likes to play in the crack between her bed and the wall and Nathan walked in on this the other day.

Ridiculous child.

Or we won't be able to see her playing on her bed while she's supposed to be going to sleep and will encounter this when we go to check on her:

She climbs up the toy chest to get on her changing pad and then wreaks havoc. Generally we find her clock upside down and she's figured out how to turn on the radio.

Here are some bonus sleeping Eleanor pics. She's an imp but when she sleeps she is pure angel!

Easter was a blast, Eleanor was delighted to dress up for church and Bradley cried when I put a sweater vest on him so things were as they should be. But first, here are Palm Sunday pictures of the last little boy in the Sunday School parade who insisted that his palm frond was a hat and refused to complete the parade once he saw Mommy and Daddy.

Hiding

He did get a birthday doughnut hole out of the experience so church was a great success as far as Bradley was concerned.

We didn't manage to get an Easter picture in at church so we sat the kids down on the couch and told them to smile. Bradley said he was not going to smile and maybe I shouldn't have laughed as much as I did.

A show and a kitty made him cheer up considerably.

We had a couple of friends over for Easter and they were happy to help the kids with our Easter egg hunt in the back yard. The eggs were color coded and both kids were adorable and cute about giving eggs to each other although at one point I did catch Bradley eating the contents of a pink egg before handing it over to Eleanor. It seems one can only ask so much of a three year old around candy.

Reading with Kory and Fatima.

Bradley is pretty impressively snuggly and lovey around his sweet little sister on a regular basis. I can hardly stand the cuteness sometimes, although I fail to understand why he'll kiss her at the end of a meal and then immediately start oinking like a pig.

They both think it's awesome when she gets to sit on his lap.

Eleanor fell asleep on me after a rough day yesterday. Bradley was SO delighted to get to cuddle up with the sleepy little girl.

Eleanor passed out on Bradley's lap after a tough no nap day. Bradley was soooooo happy about the sleepy cuddles, he's going to be in heaven around his new baby brother!

We're gearing up for baby Patrick's imminent arrival, as I'll hit the 38 week mark in just a couple days. There's a lot of baby in this belly!

I don't know if it's just the number of pregnancies in a rather short period of time or chasing after two small children every day but the end of this pregnancy has been considerably tougher than the first two. We will be very happy for Aunt Abby's arrival this Thursday!

For example, Nathan took this picture of me meal planning for the week ahead. Such a mellow and easy task.