Bradley is loving school and is quite the social guy, he anxiously asked me what our phone number was one day on the way home from school and thinking it was a safety thing for his field trip the upcoming day I asked him if he needed to know it in case he got lost or something. No, it was because all the boys had been talking about birthday parties and he wanted to make sure he was invited to all of them.
A little while after this, another little boy's mom messaged me to see if Bradley could come over to play sometime. I was delighted but hedged a bit, wanting to talk to her first. Finally I saw her one day while I was in car line to pick up Bradley.
Me (yelling out the car window): I just wanted to check in before we set up a play date at your house ... is your son okay with a fair amount of roaring?
Other mom: Roaring?
Me: Like a dinosaur.
Other mom: Our nickname for our son when he was younger was "the velociraptor." We'll be fine.
We may have a new best friend.
We haven't let cold weather keep us away from the things we love, like milkshakes at Chick-fil-A.
Here's a bathtime video of Patrick singing "Jesus Loves Me." If you love Jesus and baby buns then this is basically the best thing ever.
Or it's Puff the Magic Dragon at the grocery store. So darn cute.
We snuck in one more outing to a Royal's game, which went much better than the first time and the kids actually sat and asked questions about the game for a few innings. Great success!
Of course it helped that we were there with friends who brought along a cute baby for Bradley's enjoyment.
It was super fun but super tiring, even if you were a sweetheart of a little guy.
Eleanor has been getting a fair number of play dates with her friend Ava these days where they adorably dress up in princess costumes and run around and play together during their little brothers' nap times. However, I did walk by as they were reading stories out of the Bible to each other that went something along the lines of "once upon a time there was a princess ... and she tooted" followed by hysterical laughter. Sometimes as a parent it is in your best interests to not listen too much and make yourself scarce.
Listening to Eleanor talk about princesses and play with them is always something special.
Eleanor had been eagerly anticipating being a flower girl in her Aunt Abby's wedding for months and was adorable trying on her dress while we packed for our Idaho trip. Although I didn't count on a growth spurt when we ordered her dress during the summer. We put shorts on under her dress and called it good!
We were so excited for the Idaho trip. Our kids have become quite the seasoned travelers. We counted and this is Bradley's 10th or 11th trip involving plane flights. All by age 5!
Nathan and I tried to smooch obnoxiously in front of the kids the other day in order to make them laugh and it backfired when Bradley said "Can I get in on that??" and demanded that we smooch him as well.
Patrick was my little buddy for all of our flights and was a champ despite missing quite a few naps over the course of the trip.
But sometimes a little guy still has to catch a few z's, even when so much fun is happening all around him.
Our enthusiasm for all things Grandpa Dan did not wane over the course of the trip.
Of course it helped that he gave rides on his riding lawn mower and had a big trampoline in the back yard.
Patrick even got to help Grandpa mow the yard later on in our trip. I watched and it mostly consisted of Patrick screaming in delight and trying to push Grandpa's hands off the steering wheel.
Cuddles.
It was great to see Uncle Tim too! My calm children ran amok all over his house to we ended up going to a park, which was perhaps a better fit for all involved.
Later Nathan and the two older kids got to see Karla as well. The last time we had been in Idaho had been for her wedding with Tim about two and a half years ago!
Patrick's fake smile is one of my favorite things in the world right now and I will take as many pictures of it as possible.
Eleanor adored playing princess with Grandma Kati and would always like to be around grandparents because it means she gets unlimited cuddles and always has a willing buddy to play princess with her.
So many cuddles on this trip.
Aunt Anna! We had quite a time with names on this trip yet again, especially since Bradley and I had just visited my Aunt Diana. Aunt Diana, Aunt Anna, and Nana ... I think the kids finally had it all down by the time the trip was over.
Cousins were a big highlight of this trip! So much joy, so much love, we are quite the fans of our cool big kid Idaho cousins.
Especially when they go on the giant trampoline with us. If you're wondering if 6 kids on a trampoline is hazardous, you would be correct.
And Happy Halloween!! I know this picture is amazing. Patrick got naked while getting changed into jammies for bedtime and grabbed a pumpkin. Perfection!
Our sweet kids slept in three different places over the course of a week and changed time zones twice on this trip. They were such troopers. Eleanor loved sleeping on the floor and cried when we made her and Bradley sleep in a bed at the hotel we were staying at for the wedding.
More cousin time at Grandma Lea's.
Games were a big part of this part of the trip. We love that our cousins like games as much as we do!
Although games with Patrick do add another dimension to most game play.
Reading books proved to be a somewhat calmer activity.
And we were so pleased to discover that the hotel near the wedding venue had a pool!
Uncle Jake got in on the pool fun and was very popular!
And more Grandpa Dan cuddles. Patrick kept asking for him once we got home from our trip.
Cozy morning in the hotel lobby.
And then wedding action! Eleanor got to try on Abby's dress and I'm waiting to get to see pictures from the wedding photographer!
Our cute little crew.
Aunt Abby gave the boys bow ties as a gift for the wedding and they worked with the shirts that we brought so the boys enthusiastically wore them so they could be as fancy as everyone else! (Bradley was a bit jealous of Eleanor's big wedding role as the flower girl).
Eleanor and her cousin Caitlyn were the flower girls, Connor and Logan were ring bearers.
Practicing!
Eleanor did very well during the ceremony although she did throw leaves AT a woman towards the end of her walk up the aisle. Everyone laughed and Eleanor was quite proud of herself. And then I'm told she would turn and wink at Grandpa Dan during the ceremony but I didn't catch that. But she was quiet and very very cute.
The reception was great fun, there was a chalkboard and paper and crayons for the kids so we were in heaven!
Bradley had a blast and kept inviting himself in to family photos.
And oh my the dancing. We have quite the dancing crew and they all desperately wanted to dance with Aunt Abby.
And Daddy.
And with everyone else!
We were quite tired the next morning from all of our serious wedding fun.
But we got in some cousin pictures! The last time these kids had all been together was two years prior, it was so fun to see how much the cousins enjoyed each other.
This was a lot of the trip too. Youngest two clinging to me while Bradley flashed his million dollar smile for photo ops.
Aunt Abby and Uncle Michael, the newlyweds! And sweet cuddly Bradley.
Another big perk of this trip as far as Eleanor was concerned was the car seat situation and set up. We had all three kids in a row and she and Bradley both had backless boosters that we borrowed for the trip so she mostly cuddled hard on Bradley whenever we had a long drive.
There were also video monitors on the back of the front seats, so the children just thought this was an amazing car to have in general.
Milkshakes despite the cold on our drive home from the wedding to Boise. Because we could do milkshakes in a snow storm if necessary.
We mostly cuddled our way through the end of the trip after Abby's wedding.
Except for Patrick who found a giant stake in Grandpa's backyard and rained down some terror.
Do I look properly terrified? Because I was.
We got to celebrate Nathan's birthday while we were there! Leftover wedding cake can double as birthday cake in a pinch. There were no complaints from the children!
Did you know that Eleanor had wanted to be a flower girl ever since she was a baby? Aunt Abby makes dreams come true.
We were sad to leave but also were very concerned about the color of the plane we were about to ride on (we only like red, or yellow, or blue planes and Eleanor can't for the life of her figure out why no one makes any pink planes).
And the Boise airport may be our favorite because it has a small arcade area, which included a dinosaur game Bradley had seen in Santa Cruz and had been begging to get a chance to play. What luck!
It was cute and very fun, which is good because our flight was delayed out of Boise and we literally had to run across the Salt Lake City airport while I carried Patrick and held Bradley's hand and Nathan carried Eleanor. And we both hauled some luggage as well. There was a slight amount of pressure to make our flight since it was 9PM local time and we would have gotten to spend the night at the airport with small children if we didn't make our flight. But make it we did, Bradley gets many points for running as hard as he did even though it was very late and it was literally from one side of the airport to the other with his mother shouting encouraging things to him as he ran.
And oh my were there joyful reunions when we got home. Patrick's love for Mabel remains undiminished.
And we were a little loosey goosey with bedtimes the first few nights back because no one knew what time zone to be on so kids who came downstairs after bedtime were given to Daddy for cuddles and got to watch basketball on tv for a bit. Daddy cuddles have magic sleeping powers.
And the second round of cuddles, this time complete with kitties!
Patrick had his 2.5 year checkup shortly after our return and we found out that this kid didn't gain any weight in the last 6 months but that's because he grew 3 INCHES. In 6 months!! Holy moly growth spurt.
I also discovered that I could have gotten the kids their flu shots on this trip to the pediatrician instead of having to make a special afternoon trip after Bradley got out of school a couple weeks prior. Curse my policy of honesty with my children, I told them on the way to the doctor's office where we were going and our purpose of going there. Both boys took the news about the flu shot rather casually but Eleanor started sobbing hysterically. She cried for most of the car ride, was fine while watching a show in the waiting room but once our name was called she began crying again and I had to pry her hands off her chair. Then we went into the curtained off area for the shots and she shrieked and clung to the curtains while Bradley calmly sat down and got his shot and then Patrick hopped in the seat and got his shot while Bradley held his hand. Neither boy cried. I then pried Eleanor loose from her death grip on the curtain and held her in my lap while the nurse gave her the shot. Afterwards ... Eleanor continued to cry. Some years I don't work too hard to give my children a flu shot but we are now exposed to public school germs and all three kids have all been sick at least once since school started so we're not messing around.
All this excitement and drama could tire a girl out.
But we all get so tired around here.
We tested out an inflatable T-rex costume for Bradley this year but ultimately decided that it may be a bit too ungainly for regular use and returned it for a cute cape version of a dinosaur costume.
But all three kids tried it on before we packaged it back up to return it and it was quite the festive Saturday morning in the Scott house.
This is what it looks like when Eleanor cuddles Daddy while wearing a giant T-Rex costume.
Bradley is quite the artist these days and we are so impressed with some of his artwork he creates!
This is a picture of Bradley and his friend Lorelei from school on the back of a Brachiosaurus. I adore the backwards "me." I must say I did have quite an interesting conference with Bradley's Kindergarten teacher where she discussed his excellent academic progress but mentioned that she was trying to keep him from animating all of his numbers and letters into drawings and that his casual raids of her art closet were a bit of an issue at times. Ohhhh my. Fun times.
Nathan and I enjoyed our annual outing to the Brewfest at the Arboretum in celebration of his birthday and were accompanied by our lovely friends the Rutherfords!
Nathan poses are always my favorite.
Do you notice the beautiful sky in the background of these photos? Does it look like it's about to storm? Because it did. Two hours into the event. Nathan kept giving me updates about how the storm was 15 and then 10 minutes away and I believe I kept asking "Doesn't that mean we should leave?" but nobody seemed to be going anywhere and they kept handing out samples of food and beer so we stayed until the skies opened up and we literally had to run for our car through a thunderstorm. There was a bit of hail, during which Nathan stopped and ran back for free water as I loudly questioned his life choices.
Eleanor loves cuddling with the cats so much now that she has realized they are basically living pillows. They are at times less enthusiastic about her love.
Patrick has discovered the way to instantly be in Bradley's good graces is to give him loves and I will never get tired of sibling cuddles and smooches.
Eleanor even shares her treats with Bradley, like when she has a giant fruit by the foot and Bradley has already finished his. Bradley does not know how fortunate he is to have these siblings.
We've been enjoying as much outside time as possible before the weather turns on us.
We even got to go to a 'smores event thrown by our church! They had dinner there too but we gave the kids the option to eat before we got there if they wanted to go straight to roasting marshmallows and they wisely took us up on our offer.
I think we limited Bradley to three 'smores but I have no idea how many marshmallows the kid consumed.
Eleanor's friend Ava and her little brother Marcus was there which was tons of fun and meant that everyone cried a bunch when we had to leave. Friends are just too much fun.
The kids have been so cuddly and good lately during shows that we decided to have a family movie night on a Saturday night. We watched The Parent Trap, because it is a classic show and everyone loves it.
Well, most everyone loved it. Patrick made it about 30 minutes before he was thoroughly bored and ran around the basement for the remainder of the movie trying to find the loudest toys he could find and would then sit directly below the tv while hitting loud buttons on toys on repeat.
Finally we banned him to the other side of the room. So naturally he started climbing up the back of the couch and hollering "hi!" at Nathan. We may wait a bit to do another movie night.
Although, the big kids have learned that if they aren't too tired at bedtime and come downstairs and make cute faces at me I'll probably let them watch a show with me. How was I supposed to say no to this?
They even got a little football with Daddy. One must be truly desperate for a show to agree to watching football.
Eleanor is still my shopping buddy because both boys already hate anything that isn't food shopping and Eleanor literally squeals with glee whenever she sees anything she likes, which is often. "Eeeeeee! Mommy, you have GOT to see this!"
Meanwhile, Nathan was at home trying to convince Bradley that football was better than cartoons. Go Seahawks!
Bradley mealtime entertainment has been on point lately. If you have the chance to have him sing a song to you, say yes!
Sometimes you don't even see it coming. I like how all three kids are involved in this one.
I enrolled Patrick in gymnastics for a Mommy and Me class while Eleanor's class is taking place. However, our first class was interesting because Patrick wanted absolutely nothing to do with me and just wanted to follow Eleanor around. I think only once he yelled "go away" at me (while all the other Mommy and Me kids happily followed around or cuddled their mothers). Fortunately, he eventually agreed to my presence and ran around like a maniac trying to find the biggest things possible to jump off of. At one point he was told he could run or roll down a big mat and he just did a standing long jump to the floor, which was a rather impressive height and distance.
Eleanor, on the other hand, was learning to do flips on the big bars. She's doing so great in the class, it's a lot of fun to watch her!
From that we went to Mabel's birthday party. We love Mabel and we love cake so it was a sure fire win!
One of her party favors were gloves which were well timed because Patrick's been going through a bit of a glove kick and generally is wearing just one as he runs around the house and plays. We've been calling him Michael Jackson because of this.
And then he wears the gloves and sings teasing songs about his siblings.
Mabel and Patrick found a little spot to sit together for storytime at the library this past week and sometimes even paid attention to the stories.
And in big news, Bradley's name was finally selected to fill the display area at our local library. He had been waiting for years for a chance to show off his dinosaur collection at the library!
It took quite some time to fill up the display case and he required some hugging breaks.
We didn't actually fit his entire collection into the display because he has SO many dinosaurs. I also didn't bring any of the ones with removable pieces that he still plays with on a regular basis. The librarian said this was quite the impressive collection.
Proud boy by the display case! They will be there for the next month.
Outside time has been fun, although the boys are trying to kill me with their daredevil tactics on the playground.
Patrick wanted to show me his new "trick" on the slide and when I turned I saw this.
And whatever Bradley does Patrick must do. On repeat. Dear grandparents, I have enforced a rule where they are only allowed to do this when both parents are present so someone is available to carry a child with a broken arm to the hospital while someone else takes care of the other two kids. Responsible parenting at its finest.
Eleanor has her own little quirks. Lately she's been coming out of her room sobbing whenever she finds old clothes or shoes because "she misses them and wishes she could still wear them." So the other day we crammed her into some 3t clothing for the sake of the memories.
Then we did a picnic at the park. We've been doing quite a few picnics lately, why wouldn't we when it's shorts and t-shirt weather?
But now we like to find stick "guns" and shoot everything. I don't know who taught Patrick about guns but he's a big fan.
After playing with stick guns Bradley informed me that he now wanted to be five things when he grew up (for the past few weeks he's been talking about four). They are: A teacher, a Daddy, a police officer, a scientist, and now a hunter too. He's going to be a busy guy, especially since he says he wants to have 10 kids. To that, Eleanor says she wants to not get married and she doesn't want to have kids, and she just wants to be a mommy who lives by herself. "Even if someone wants to marry me, if I don't want to I'll just stay at my house on the wedding day. And it would be really good because if he doesn't know my house number he won't be able to find me to marry me. Hah!"
Her ideas on marriage in general please me to no end. The other day while playing dolls Eleanor was explaining to Nathan why her Barbie doll was ready to marry a boy: He's handsome, he has matching hair, and he has matching underwear."
I love her so much. Although she's going to have to write a parenting book regardless of whether or not she has children. I'm taking notes from what she tells Patrick while they're playing.
Eleanor to Patrick (yelling) "Sonny I'm really annoyed with you for jumping off the cliff!" (calmly) "If you jump off the cliff you may land on a poison monster and he would eat you."
Patrick is looking so big. And he's SOOOOOO cute. I'm biased but I'm right. Here are some Patrick quotes to accompany cute pictures.
Patrick (with just Eleanor in the room with him): Anyone want to play this fun game? Anyone want to play this football?
Common Patrick phrase these days: That's not fair! (yelled whenever something doesn't go according to his wishes).
(sing song voice in bed): I want to fight bad guyssssssss so muchhhhhhhhh. I want mamaaaaaaaa so muchhhhhhhhhh. I want beautiful mommyyyyyyyyy. I want beautiful daddyyyyyyyyyy. Hahahahah (he has quite the naughty laugh).
He's lucky he's cute, this was the nonsense that happened instead of nap the other day.
Sometimes Patrick shares popsicles with Bradley instead of Eleanor and her face is amazing.
Eleanor had her school pictures and was appropriately adorable. Here are some additional Eleanor quotes to accompany cute pictures.
Me (to little girl who is loudly sniffing): Eleanor, do you need a tissue?
Eleanor: No, because we are BOTH princesses. Princesses don't blow their nose.
Eleanor in response something I said: Hey, that's like one of our stories about Jesus! You know, in the old days, when the dinosaurs were alive ...
We are so ready for Halloween, we got to do our annual trip to Nathan's office for their trick or treating event and had a blast with our little dinosaur, princess, and superhero.
Can all trick or treating be done indoors and with a warm fire to sit in front of as we enjoy our candy?
They're getting so big. Just watch them go!
