Running with the Cows was a pretty cute theme for a race in Bucyrus, Kansas. It was only a 15 minute drive from our house, pretty convenient. And yes, I saw plenty of cows while running.
Nathan brought the kids to the finish line of the race about 10 minutes before I finished. Quite excellent timing. He even had the kids make cute signs for me, which I would have noticed if I hadn't literally been sprinting for the finish line once I saw the big race clock and realized I could clear 2 hours if I went for it. I said I didn't care about time ... but I'm competitive so that was a lie.
We got some major grub and the kids drank Gatorade, which seems to be a life changing discovery.
It was tiring but not as bad as I thought it would be. Respect to anyone who completes a marathon. I was DONE at the end of 13 miles. Although I did discuss the prospect of going out and running the race again rather than go home with our 3 year old daughter who raged the entire way out to the car ... I really do owe all my fitness accomplishments to my children.
That same little girl made me this Mother's Day card at preschool.
Vacuuming is just the best. I don't remember the last time I ate broccoli. But she may be spot on with the coffee ... What a cutie.
This was my mother's day, by the way.
And with the whole crew in Costco who decided they hated the cart and all wanted to hold hands as we walked along.
Nathan was gone on work trips for almost two weeks straight at the beginning of the month. He was home for literally 36 hours one weekend and that's when we did family pictures in the park and celebrated our anniversary.
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| Fancy wine and sushi for anniversary dinner at home. Not too shabby! |
I got a lot of help from Bradley and Eleanor when we transitioned Patrick to his big boy bed. We were all in his room as a group so I could make a big deal about the bed for Patrick in front of the people he cared about impressing the most. I told him not to get out of bed in the night, but to call for me if he needed me. Then Bradley and Eleanor enthusiastically said the same thing to him. I have to be careful now because if I say it's time to wake him up from a nap Eleanor will often run into his room without saying a word to me and try to cuddle him awake. Patrick sometimes does not fully appreciate the level of sibling devotion and love he receives.
So sleepy at nap time ... can't you tell?
Because of new bed business and Nathan travels there have been mornings where the only way I get to take a shower is if I have the two year old join me. Did you know Patrick's new favorite shower activity is to fill a giant cup with water and pour it over my head? All with a terrifying look of pure joy on his face? He also cackles maniacally while doing this. And good news, it has yet to get old despite many mornings of doing it on repeat.
We attempted having Bradley sleep with him one night but it didn't go so well. Eleanor was mad to be left all by herself and Patrick needed more space to spread out in the night. Oh well. Soon enough we'll have all three sleeping in Bradley's bunk bed together. All these bedrooms and we really don't need them most of the time. Everyone is too cuddly.
It's nice that Patrick still really likes Bradley, despite Bradley doing things like telling our little 2 year old that there are monsters in the basement when Patrick asks to go down there and Bradley doesn't want to go. Nathan worked with Patrick on the monsters thing after this and now he says "no monster today!" in a cute little high pitched voice whenever we turn out the lights in a room. Thanks, Bradley. Nothing like a little sibling trauma early on.
Why would you ever traumatize THIS? Yes, that is one of Eleanor's hair clips on his head.
We took the boys in for their annual doctor's appointments after turning two and five.
Eleanor was very nurturing. We had been trying to prep Bradley for getting his first physical and she brightly told the doctor that she would have to look at Bradley's penis and give Patrick shots. Despite her sweet hugs the boys might not want to bring her along next time.
Our boys are sturdy.
And in happy news, Patrick is now tall enough to ride the Ferris Wheel at Scheel's! There has been much joy at this development.
And he's working on singing his ABC's and can sort of count up to 14 if you don't mind skipping roughly half the numbers along the way.
Patrick is also now bound and determined to keep up with older siblings in anything and everything, which is particularly difficult when it comes to our agile little Eleanor at the park. There's generally a lot of yelling and frustration and if I try to assist him he hollers "myself!" at me.
He finally deigned to accept some assistance to get on top of the slide like Eleanor. I hear there's such a thing as a timid child.
Eleanor got both the boys with this particular move.
This is as far as Patrick got.
And Bradley banged his head attempting to replicate what she was doing so she had to comfort him/lecture him about how he was too big to do it properly. He didn't appreciate that last bit quite as much.
This park excursion took place while Nathan was gone on a work trip so we made a little video to send to him.
Video turned out great. Patrick only had to be rescued a little at the end.
Obstinately pulling the wagon on his own and refusing all help. That's my Patrick.
He jumps as high up as Eleanor does on the stairs now. My two year old jumps from four steps up. Insanity.
We went to Deanna Rose as well and Patrick had to try to copy Eleanor a bunch there too.
Thankfully he didn't try for this particular trick. Eleanor was particularly proud of herself.
Mostly Patrick just loved goats while we were there. We're still working on him not kissing them.
Bradley is my little rock these days and I can hardly stand how cute he is. I know I'm biased, but I'm also right. That is one cute kid, inside and out.
However, Bradley did help Patrick out in the game I call "bring flowers to the statue/idol in the garden." This is still at Deanna Rose and my children cheerfully picked as many exotic flowers as they could to add to the stone flower basket despite all my efforts to the contrary. Why do we love flower girl statue so much? I do not know. She has quite the hold on all of my children.
Cute bench swing on our way to the exit.
Deanna Rose is really fun but also pretty exhausting.
Good thing we can always relax and play calmly on our big swing in the backyard.
Or play a game where Eleanor has to rescue her brothers from a whirlpool in the kitchen. Eleanor deserves an award for her effort here.
Other activities we participated in while Daddy was away: we went to a retirement home and impressed all the people there with our doughnut eating talents. And also we did a craft. But mostly we ate doughnuts.
We went swimming with Mabel and spent a lot of time playing with Mabel and mostly we talk about Mabel around here.
Patrick likes to say "Mabel, friend of me!" a lot. It is quite dear.
We also went to our favorite dinosaur museum a bunch aka Museum at Prairiefire. Here Patrick is pretending to eat Eleanor because her shorts have ice cream cones all over them and her shirt has cupcakes.
And directing one of our favorite people at the museum to show him a cockroach and then refusing to touch it and telling her to put it away. Even when she got it out for another child. Good boy, Patrick. I'm with you 100%.
We went to the Wonderscope museum as well (so many fun museums for kids around here) and had a blast with friends from church.
We had to cuddle up to do puzzles.
And there are often obligatory tickles.
Eleanor fell asleep on the floor in her room during naptime last week and Bradley REALLY enjoyed waking her up.
To be clear, I said "cuddle her awake, please."
Fortunately Eleanor is resilient.
Eleanor trained herself out of her pull-ups and now gets to sleep in underwear at night. This has meant some middle of the night trips to the bathroom and lucky me, she likes to have company. I would groggily stand by the sink while she went potty and then help her wash hands and get back into bed. EVERY TIME no matter how asleep Bradley seemed to be he would wake up and ask if she had washed her hands. "Did she wash hands for you? I'm just checking. Did she use soap?" Who taught this kid to be so concerned about germs? It certainly wasn't me! I told Patrick to wipe his messy hands off in the grass in front of another mom at a picnic the other day. Championship parenting right there.
Bradley really likes to invent his own games and they are too darn cute. I got to play this one with him, we took turns rolling a die and moving dinosaurs along the tiles. The goal was to get to the nice dinosaur instead of the volcano. There were a lot of changing rules. You'll be happy to hear that Bradley somehow managed to win every time we played.
Art these days mostly consists of finding things we want to cut with scissors. Some nice bushes were targets the other day.
Bradley colors though too. Pretty much just dinosaurs. On everything. Sometimes this requires me to give explanations to other parents in advance, such as when Bradley insists on drawing dinosaurs on birthday cards.
We literally have a drawer full of these dinosaur drawings. Nathan wants to save them and hand them out at his high school graduation party.
This is a Diplodocus. He's even branching out to drawing other dinosaurs. I must confess that we did have him draw dinosaurs on graduation cards for the three grad parties we went to. It's just too amazing. And he's always so happy to draw another one!
I know it's far away but Nathan got a couple pictures of the dare devil child jumping off a platform at least his height or higher when we were at a graduation party this past weekend.
And we had Eleanor's final dance class. She complained the entire last couple of weeks about having to go and then did this when we went. And asked me today about doing more dance classes in the future.
You know that kid that knows she is the star of the class and has no qualms about showing it? That would be my child.
Patrick has been a little extra tired most mornings these days because of early wakeups due to new exciting big boy bed. Usually he rages until he turns into the sleeping angel pictured below.
And then it's back to go time. Gotta climb a tree.
He finally will watch a show or two now! And doesn't just fight with his siblings over the seating arrangement on the couch the whole time! We LOVE Paw Patrol and all it does to bring this mommy a brief respite. I mean all it does to teach my children about friendship or something along those lines ... yes.
Bradley had a super adorable graduation ceremony for graduating from preschool.
He did keep asking "what am I getting?" and was disappointed that I did not bring him flowers. Or a trophy.
My favorite part of this picture is Patrick.
But then we got cookies and all was well!
Today was the kids' last day of preschool and I managed to be on top of it enough to get pictures with their teachers.
They both eagerly told me about how many treats they had gotten from school when I asked them about final day activities so I'm happy to report that my children remain excited about education. Or popsicles. Maybe both?
I mean, they all sometimes grab books and sit themselves down on the couch while I'm cleaning up from breakfast. So we must be doing something right!
We are SO ready for summer. Eleanor distributed birthday party invitations this week so she could get them to friends before school was out and there is already widespread excitement for her princess tea party plans in June. And we're excited about pool time and travels and our new favorite park with the big beach volleyball sandy area.
It's going to be a great summer! Hopefully Daddy will be around a lot more and we'll get to help share dessert with him on a regular basis. Such sharers, these children.
