We're pretty crazy about this wonderful daddy.
He is a pretty amazing daddy, it's no surprise they couldn't wait to give him presents. He and Bradley finally worked on assembling Bradley's birthday volcano kit and it was a popular move.
Patrick basically yelled "volcano" the entire time we were erupting volcanoes.
Nathan did another round of backyard camping with the kids over Memorial Day weekend. It was a big success, especially for Mommy who got to sleep inside the house on my own cozy bed.
He had some excellent help keeping cool with the kids' new misters after his hard work setting up the tent.
'Smores were mandatory (obviously).
This picture pretty perfectly captures how the night went. Patrick was SO HAPPY to be in on the action.
Also we have been going to pool almost every day since it opened on Memorial Day weekend and Daddy pool time is not to be equaled. Most other places we go everyone still is a Mommy fan but at the pool they can't ditch me for Daddy fast enough. Patrick was crying at the side of the pool yesterday yelling "sand!" at Nathan because he wanted him to go over to the kiddie area with Patrick and he was very dejected that he was going to have to go over with lame Mommy instead. I sat in the shade and checked Facebook once we got there. Perhaps he was right to prefer Daddy.
Eleanor gets cold after swimming sometimes and burrows into all of our towels. It makes it really fun when we leave and all the towels are already wet.
But the best cuddles are always brother cuddles.
Patrick, on the other hand, really enjoys the cool music they play at the pool. (Bonus shot of Eleanor bundled in towels in the background of this video)
But sometimes we are too goofy for dancing.
Okay, yeah, I can see how Daddy may be considered the "fun one".
We also had been getting out to the park a bunch before the summer heat set in.
Sometimes a girl's snacks get cut off at the park after she's eaten almost an entire sleeve of graham crackers and the only one who can comfort her properly is her little brother.
The same little boy who proceeds to open mouth leech attack my face on repeat a few minutes later. It's not kisses. It's a giant open mouth sucking against your face and you just pray he doesn't find it funny to use teeth.
But he does find the face attack terribly funny. And does it on repeat. This went on for about 5 minutes straight.
Bradley and Eleanor have been great role models to Patrick in park behavior.
He is a rather apt pupil.
Let's hope he doesn't pick up this particular trick anytime soon.
We also went mini golfing over Memorial Day weekend (it was quite the fun-filled weekend) and we found the perfect cheapo course 10 minutes away where we had full range of the place and could run around and hit balls as we wanted. There was no keeping score.
It was a bit of chaos but it was a lot of fun.
Ahh, sibling dynamics. How dare Patrick be in the way of Eleanor's ball when she hit it straight at him.
We've also been making good use of our zoo pass and embarked on what I call "ride day" aka we went to the far part of the zoo and pretty much sat on trams, air rides, and a boat for most of the time we were there. The kids were still exhausted by the time we were done.
More sibling dynamics. This is what we're mostly used to with the sweet kiddos. Hugs and cuddles!
Of course we went on multiple carousel rides while we were there. Getting the unlimited rides package as part of our membership was a very wise decision.
However, it got a bit crowded and Eleanor had only one horse she wanted to ride on on the entire ride. There were two other horses to choose from but I have it on good authority that this was the best one. We had to ask an older boy to get off of it so Eleanor could ride it for our final carousel ride. Worth it.
Yeah, she was a slightly happy girl.
Patrick, on the other hand, yelled at me when I tried to rest a hand on his animal because it seemed likely I was trying to help him and he did NOT need my help. Here I am showing him that he got to have a Mommy free ride.
Daddy has also been responsible for a considerable amount of back yard fun. I believe the picture below features kids on a swing trying to throw water balloons at Daddy.
And then slip and slide fun!
Kids on a swing going over sprinklers. Eleanor was not interested in joining in on this particular thrill.
Eleanor, in fact, was quite tired after the whole endeavor.
Bradley was at a birthday party at place called Pump it Up a few weeks ago and was insisting on trying to climb the very difficult spider crawl section which was basically six levels of bendy criss cross rope material that led up to a slide about 20 feet above the ground. I was his best cheerleader calling out things like "It's okay to give up! There's no shame in it. Pretty much every other kid here hasn't been able to do it, Bradley. You can come down!" He persevered despite my pep talks and after about 15 minutes of serious effort he finally figured it out and made it to the top a couple times. In all fairness to me, out of about 30 kids he was one of maybe 3 who managed to climb the thing. Oh well. I think there's a good life lesson in here somewhere.
Daddy makes us fancy pancakes and we like that too.
The video below is pretty standard kid behavior these days. I can't stand how cute and sweet they are sometimes. And so good at their abc's!
We went to Deanna Rose with Daddy so we could take advantage of all the perks that came along with our membership that Mommy refuses to take part in without an extra adult around.
We mined for gold. Found rocks. Kids were probably happier than if we had actually found gold.
Awwwwwww. This crew!
Patrick got to "cuddle goats" (as he says on repeat whenever we talk about going to Deanna Rose).
And Eleanor and Bradley got pony rides! When Patrick turns three he can do this too.
And then there was the fishing. I hate fishing. Honestly, Patrick and Eleanor weren't into it that much either.
But they came over to admire the fish that Daddy and Bradley caught!
And we got sodas. Membership perks are the best sometimes.
I'm responsible for some child fun at times as well. I make them homemade whipped cream and instruct them to clean out the bowl upon occasion.
And when Eleanor and I went shopping at Kohl's I let my three year old talk me into buying her a plastic flamingo margarita glass ...
I read to them when I sub in Sunday school at church.
And I hug cute naked two year olds.
We do crafts (once in a blue moon) and went through a big painting kick a couple weeks ago.
There is a reason we don't do this too frequently.
I take them on outings with friends.
And oh my how we love our neighbor Addison. Patrick goes nuts for cuddles with her on our big swing.
She is so so nice. It's a little ridiculous what she puts up with sometimes.
And oh my if we aren't getting enough popsicles this summer I'm not doing my job right.
Bradley has been on a bit of a germaphobe kick and constantly asks us if it's okay that he's touching things like his ear or the outside of his nose. But then he'll get naked for bath time and thinks it's hilarious to bump his naked rear end against Eleanor's. We also think it's a bit hilarious so we're not pointing out the inconsistencies in his quest to avoid all germs.
But oh my is he cute. He spent a lot of this particular park outing cheering on Eleanor and telling her to "just do her best!"
And helping her with her dismount.
All of my children are quite determined when it counts. Patrick yells "myself" at me for evvvvverything from washing hands to getting in and out of the car. If I help him he'll undo my help and go back to where he wanted to start from, so it's really best to leave him be if I want things to take less time. He even does this on the playground and often yells for me to keep away from him even if he's precariously hanging from monkey bars or something. The other day he did this and ended up falling off the little bridge, but then he liked it and did it on repeat.
My boys. So cute.
Sometimes Patrick likes to play "monster" at the park and it's really cute once we get him to stop biting his siblings.
More popsicles! They put themselves in this formation and started making "choo choo" noises.
Our favorite sprayground! The first time we went here I thought it was a little chilly and probably no one would want to get in the water. Haha. The joke was certainly on me.
We also love doing open gym time at the little rec center a couple minutes away from our house.
Once again, Patrick is determined to do everything the big kids do.
Bradley started hugging and smooching on Patrick while Eleanor was taking her turn and Patrick mostly tolerated it. He gets a LOT of affection on a regular basis.
We have multiple pools we're going to this summer and the gym pool has been a favorite, especially when I bring lunch along. And by lunch, I mean Pringles and raisins ...
We even tried going to a cute hipster coffee shop with friends. All went well until I split the donut into three pieces in front of the two year old. I thought that by warning him in advance he would be able to handle it. I was so terribly, terribly wrong.
And we went to Nathan's company's annual family picnic and had a blast. There were bouncy houses!
Treats!
Rides! (I didn't even throw up. I am so sorry for ever making fun of my father for not being able to handle carnival rides when I was a kid).
And the best ride as far as the kids were concerned was the bungee bouncy ride. You were supposed to be 40 lbs or up to be able to ride but they were very nice and let all three kids go on it.
And then we went over to the "egg"ineering area to launch eggs against targets and see if they broke.
Bradley and Nathan made a beautiful creation. I helped Patrick who got bored after I tied a pipe cleaner around the egg in a plastic sack so we just went and launched that. Um, Patrick ended up winning second place in the five and under category. His egg kept landing on a grassy hill and never broke. And because it didn't have a bunch of wind resistance it went pretty far. It was pretty hilarious. But Bradley's certainly would have won for style points. It even had a parachute!
We left after the cotton candy machine broke when we were three spots from the front of the very long line we had been waiting in for about 30 minutes. It did not make for a very happy exit.
And this is another day, but the boys hold hands now when we're in the car and one of them is upset.
They washed the car with Daddy last weekend. Daddy was very fortunate to have so many eager and willing helpers.
He even got this cute princess to help out. The video below is quite long (almost five minutes) but Eleanor goes into amazing detail about how she is Queen Elsa and she needs a subject to command (she was trying to recruit Bradley) and if he did enough chores then maybe he could be the king. And then she told me about her powers. We hit the jackpot with this little girl. She makes me so happy.
Okay, all three are pretty much jackpot material. We were walking to The Museum at Prairie Fire for Bradley's dinosaur class here. Bradley decided to close his eyes while walking and holding hands and only ran into two bushes.
In a show of Daddy popularity, Patrick was not okay with Daddy meeting us at the museum and going into Bradley's class with him. More Mommy time for Patrick? Are you kidding me?
The class itself was a bit of a treat, the title was Dinosaurs Big and Small and they handed around pieces of coprolite for the kids to hold. Bradley doesn't care if it has turned to stone and came from a dinosaur, he knows poop is poop no matter what fancy name you try to call it.
Making dinosaur footprints. These classes are so cute.
Bradley is so sweet and I can't imagine having a better kid as a big brother to Patrick and Eleanor. They don't know how lucky they are. However, sometimes he loves a little too much and he had a mini meltdown as we were walking through Costco a couple weeks ago because he was thinking about how he didn't get to marry Eleanor when he grew up. I tried to comfort him by telling him Eleanor was already part of his family so she would be around forever and that I didn't even meet the person I was going to marry until I was 24 years old so he had a lot of time to figure things out. This had a rather opposite effect than I intended and Bradley started to holler about how he didn't want to marry someone that he didn't even know! He has a new favorite friend and we've had to talk about how Olivia is a potential marriage prospect in his future and he really likes that he knows her already.
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| At Olivia's house playing on her trampoline. One of many reasons to admire and love our friend. |
A frequent sighting these days. Eleanor mostly doesn't nap anymore and we have been running around a lot so she often falls asleep waiting for Daddy to come in for extra reading time after putting Patrick to bed.
The other day as we were about to go out to the car Eleanor started screaming that Bradley had "mooped" her. I asked her if she meant smooched and she said "NO, mooped!" So I asked Bradley to demonstrate on me and he leaned over and gently grabbed my bangs between his lips and pulled away. Huge grin on his face. I started laughing and told Eleanor how I could see how she wouldn't be a fan of this. Mooped. I think that described it perfectly.
Eleanor likes her new swim suit I picked out for her. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy certain aspects of having a girl?
I've been having to train Patrick to fall asleep in his bed on his own for nap time so I gave him a bunch of stuffed toys to play with in the bed until he falls asleep (And also as punishment/confiscation material when he gets out of bed when he's not supposed to. I've got all my tricks down with the third child). I've been having to watch him closely on the baby monitor because he got out of the bed a lot at first, and it's pretty hilarious to hear what he has the stuffed toys say to each other. There's a lot of "Help meeeee! Help me!" as he has toys fall off and get in trouble and he also has some favorite kitty toys that say "Kitty eat! Kitty eat! Kitty fwow up." Yes, this is all very accurate.
He's lucky he's really cute once he finally goes to sleep.
In this photo he is cuddling the baby toy that I had threatened to take away from him if he got out of bed again. Poor little guy. He needs these naps though, we play hard in the summer time!
He also enjoys a good game of "I Spy". We may be slightly crazy for having our kids so close together but the perks are beginning to add up. Ages 2-5 play games like this on a fairly similar level.
And I've decided Patrick is old enough for me to teach him good manners and how to get things from his wise and beautiful mother.
If you read that and think, oh dear, these poor children, please do not fret. Bradley was on top of retraining Patrick instantly. These children are very well able to handle silly Mommy games.
Bradley asked me to teach him how to play Euchre at nap time a couple weeks ago and I was excited to get a deck of cards out and start teaching him the basics. However, he was less than enthused about Solitaire, thought War was incredibly boring (can't fault him there), and only perked up a bit when I taught him a Speed game.
Generally he still prefers to make up his own games. Which I love and adore.
Family song and performance time is a lot of fun when it happens. Patrick really likes "Ba Ba Black Sheep"
Bradley with his backup accompaniment.
Patrick was stacking markers and starting saying "pop water boons!"
I love cuddle and reading time with this crew.
Although bedtime reading is more fun than early morning reading.
And we have a tradition now that whenever a child falls asleep in the car the other two kids get to go smooch on the sleeping child until they wake up. Rarely does this happen to Bradley and the younger two were pretty delighted to get to cover him with cuddles and smooches.
And a sweet Patrick song to close out this blog post.
Eleanor's birthday is coming up and we're going to a Royal's game to celebrate my birthday next weekend. We love summer!!
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