The Scotts: T-Rex Bradley, Tummy Time Patrick, & Ready for Action Eleanor

We've discovered that Patrick prefers to be on his tummy and will cry immediately if left on his back for any length of time. While this means that he is getting a lot of good tummy time practice and is a very strong little guy, it also means items like our swing and rock n play are essentially useless, since they require a baby boy to tolerate being placed on his back.

Bradley and Eleanor approve of all this tummy time.

I may have set a bad precedent by telling the kids to lay down so Patrick could do tummy time on his siblings. They LOVED it and Eleanor hollers whenever we get a tummy time quilt out and I try to place Patrick directly on the quilt instead of his sister.

Patrick is never going to want for love and attention from these two

After demanding Patrick tummy time on herself

Hugs!

Kisses!

The kids were ecstatic when Patrick joined in on our family hiding from the snow monster.

Grandma Colleen and Kerry came down for a visit last weekend and got to meet Patrick for the first time. But Bradley and Eleanor made sure they still got their fair share of attention.

We kept it pretty mellow while they were here and mostly played around the house and the park. As usual, Grandma Colleen had a fun craft planned with the kids and they made "stained glass" by putting flowers in between some laminate tape. Bradley enjoys looking at it and telling me that his grandma made it for him. Which is very true, Bradley had little to do with the actual creation of the art. Grandma Colleen asked Bradley and Eleanor to help find flowers and I'm told that Bradley would say "there's one!" and then stomp on the poor flower, rendering it rather useless for art. We're working on him loving nature instead of bashing it, but I may not be the best teacher ...

Me teaching Bradley the ways of the kitty mustache

Bradley's attempt to give me a mustache. No one feel sorry for this kitty, she wasn't crazy about her tail being used as a mustache but she was loving the attention.

For example: Tonight a fly got in the house and Nathan trapped it in the bathroom and then left it in there because we were in the middle of dinner. Bradley was VERY interested in the fly so after dinner we let him go in there with Nathan to finish the deed. He was very excited about helping to kill the fly. I guess it's not surprising that the kid who loves to play dinosaur isn't above a little fly destruction.

He looks so old in this picture. Pretty sure this is what he's going to look like at 16.

Playing t-rex has become all-consuming for our little guy and a few days ago I noticed that Bradley was choosing to eat his sandwich by mashing his face onto it on the tray. I told him to use his hands and he told me he was eating like a dinosaur so he couldn't use his hands. I was told "dinosaurs use their TEETH!" It's hard to argue with such sound logic and he wasn't being too messy so I haven't even tried to make him stop. I'm such a sucker for cute kid obsessions.

Bradley trying on a "bad guy" hat for me. I asked why it was a bad guy hat and I was told it was because there was a picture of a bear on it. Sorry Cubs fans.

Bradley continues to love to jump. I think he has about a 3 ft standing long jump already. This kid was born to be an athlete.

Eleanor has a number of cute quirks that we're enjoying. Here is a video of a previously mentioned "you're cute" debate.

She now says "mommy prepree" (mommy pretty) whenever you tell her she's pretty. Everything else she'll say "no, YOU cute" or "no, YOU nice." But Mommy is the pretty one. Such a little doll, I didn't even train her to do this.

She cares so much about clothes and it is so much fun letting her pick out her outfits and having her comment appreciatively whenever I put on a dress. However, she did have a ten minute meltdown last night because I wouldn't let her wear her turtle water shoes in the house. Fashion is important.

Such a cutie. I hope I got her a big enough smoothie from McDonalds.

Eleanor's fake smiles are so amazing. I love asking her to smile for pictures.

At Deanna Rose

The Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead (aka best petting zoo ever) has reopened and we enjoy going there and occasionally petting an animal while we run around on tractors and model horses and a cool playground.

Bradley happily ignoring Eleanor's attempts to get him off her horse

Baby goats!

Proud to be able to get up on playground chipmunk rocker on her own

These two are such buds. I cannot express how much I love the two of them being sweet together.

Bradley and Eleanor have so much fun now that they can talk to each other better and are able to do some imaginative play together. If Daddy won't give out horsie rides they now have other options.

Playing with stickers together

Hiding in Mommy and Daddy's closet. Eleanor always hides with a book.

I got Eleanor a bunch of hair clips and here Bradley is lamenting his short hair which means no clips for Bradley.

Here is what happens when I'm a little tired in the evening and go up to our bedroom to get a bit of quiet time. They find me. They always find me.

Good thing they were calm and quiet for me.

Bradley and Eleanor have a new favorite show called Team Umizoomi. It's educational, which is nice, so there is a lot of talk about numbers and shapes around the house these days. Bradley walks down the stairs in the morning and says "One! Two! Three! Seven! Rectangle! Rectangle!" When he gets tired he says that he's run out of running power because of one of the episodes he saw. Eleanor likes to repeat all of the catch phrases from the show and we'll be walking along the path at Deanna Rose when she'll start bouncing up and down as she's trotting along and say "ready for ACTION!" or "super shapes!" However she does call every shape a rectangle so perhaps we need to watch the show more.

Daddy and his selfish basketball watching ways are cramping our style though.

Daddy and Patrick are having a tough time these days.

Okay, I get a little bit of the tired boy snuggles too.

When Nathan is not busy cuddling the baby he's putting the older two to work. Or ... he's trying to sweep the driveway and children have mini breakdowns until they get to help. No exaggeration.

Bradley enjoys the social calendar we're keeping these days and I am regularly asked if we're going to see friends today. I have a few moms with small children that we see on a pretty regular basis and it's really fun to see how many kids we can squeeze into a wagon. Four is the current record but I'm sure Patrick will want to be in the middle of this soon enough.