Bradley drew pictures for the small number of co-workers who were in the office on the Friday between Christmas and New Year's Eve. There were a lot of cool dinosaur and dragon creations and I'm told the coworkers were properly impressed.
The kids were very excited for the arrival of Grandma Colleen and Kerry.
Bradley got to show off his new taekwondo skills.
And we enjoyed seeing the trains at Union Station! Although Patrick started begging for a ride on a real train and we had a bit of trouble talking him out of hitching a ride on a freight train.
This is what happened after we sent Eleanor upstairs to change out of her tights once we got home from the Union Station outing. Apparently grandparent fun and an exciting outing is just too much for a sweet little girl.
Because Eleanor was asleep we actually have a photo with Grandma Colleen with another grandchild. Eleanor is just a bit possessive when Grandma is around.
We barely saw Eleanor while Grandma was here. They played a lot of princess, I don't know who enjoyed it more. At one point Grandma Colleen walked downstairs to see how the boys were doing and took a couple pictures. I think Eleanor started hollering for her to return after she had been out of the room for 15 seconds.
It's fun to play with Eleanor, you get some gems. Nathan was playing with her the other day and talked about his princess having a wonderful Daddy. He asked Eleanor about her princess' daddy and she said "Her daddy died a few weeks ago, but she doesn't really care because she can't remember what he looks like." That'll show you, Nathan.
The kids are eager to put on Seahawks attire these days because they know it's an easy way to make their daddy very happy.
Seahawks clothes to close out the trip with Colleen and Kerry. The kids had a blast!
Eleanor is accustomed to playing princess for 3 hours straight now given the opportunity. Good luck seeing your boy grandchildren for more than 20 seconds before being dragged away by Eleanor the next time you come, Grandma Colleen!
Fortunately for Eleanor, I like to arrange play dates for her. Greenlee is one of her very sweet and cute friends.
And her brothers aren't half bad little playmates. How cute are these kids when they help Patrick go down for his nap?
It's a little rough when the boys steal a girl's toys and tell her they're playing astronaut. I wish I could say that Eleanor handled it with grace but it's tough when your brothers are being "silly rotten eggs!"
Nathan has been making some rather legendary marble runs for the kids lately.
Bradley had a play date with his friend Nate from school and they were very fortunate that wonderful Nathan was around and happy to play marble run with the boys. It was a hit.
The new fad at the Scott house is to play "Guess My Animal" at the dinner table. Both children and adults enjoy it very much. Eleanor usually picks a cheetah or kitty for her animals and Bradley picks dinosaurs. Patrick is our favorite though, because he's a little shaky on the guessing aspect of the game but if very enthusiastic about participating. It will get to his turn and he'll say with great excitement "It has five paws! It is a monster!" and then we'll guess various aspects about the monster's appearance or habits "Does it eat chipmunks?" Does it live in a big cave?" all while he nods vigorously to anything and everything we suggest. It's adorable.
Bradley and Eleanor have their little quirks as well, one time Eleanor told us that her animal lived in the desert. We guessed and guessed with no luck. Turns out she had selected a desert rock ...
And then one time Bradley had a certain animal in mind but it was a dinosaur and he didn't know what its name was. We needed to guess a bunch and tell him what its name was. That proved to be quite the difficult task and we did not succeed.
As always, Patrick is an exciting addition to game time.
This is the phase she makes when you play with her. She's probably averaging two hours of game play per day right now.
Bradley got to go to an amazing dinosaur exhibit a couple weeks ago. It was a father son outing for him and Nathan, they had a blast.
Videos of the dinosaur rides. Nathan and I are geniuses and made sure they got there right at the minute the place opened so it wouldn't be crowded when they went through. I guess there were huge lines for everything by the time the boys left at noon.
Apparently whenever someone there asked Bradley if he liked dinosaurs he would tell them that he liked dinosaurs AND dragons!
The got to pet "baby dinos" and go on rides and bouncy houses and there was even a bungee run. Not to mention all the giant dinosaur displays. Bradley was in heaven.
Quality food. Bradley had nothing but good things to say when he got home. Whenever I tell myself I should try to make fancier things for dinners I need to remember stuff like this.
One dinosaur satisfied customer on the way out. Such a great father/son outing!
And it turns out they were lucky to fit it in when they did, because we've had a house full of sick kids ever since they went to the dinosaur event a week and a half ago.
They have to sit on the couch and watch a lot of shows together. If only my children liked to cuddle.
The kitties think they may be sick as well. Cuddles, please?
At first it was the flu for all three kids, then Patrick got a bit of a tummy bug to end his illness with a bang. Now it looks like Bradley has walking pneumonia. It took us a while to diagnose him because he certainly wasn't acting sick during the day time, his school had an in-service day yesterday and Bradley and Patrick had a ball running wild in the basement. As I took him to taekwondo in the evening (I had no idea the boy who had been running around all day and eating big meals wasn't feeling well) I discovered some white debris in his hair and asked him how he had gotten popcorn ceiling in his hair. Well, it turns out that the little shelf in the wall above the couch in the basement is a lot of fun to jump off of. I knew they were playing too happily and for too long in the basement ... oh well.
Taekwondo was very exciting, Bradley was quite pleased to get to hit a block of wood.
Things you do while kids are sick but you think they're probably mostly better:
You make them do their chores like vacuum under the dining room table which of course means they have to build forts.
They use up the entire island counter playing sticker princess.
You play Headbanz, yet another guessing game.
You bring in snow to play with!
You take the big brother to toddler library storytime with a very pleased Patrick.
Look at this video. Does he seem very sick to you??
Then you run errands at Target and Bradley shows you all the Legos he wants. Hint: bigger is better.
Whenever Bradley and Patrick have been playing together and Patrick gets mad at his big brother, Bradley has been trying to cheer him up up by falling down on repeat and hitting himself in the head and saying "I'm so stupid!" It worked, and apparently made quite the impression because Patrick started doing it too. I had to give both boys a little talk about how I don't like them calling themselves stupid, and to say silly instead. So Patrick now mostly falls down and calls himself silly, but when he's feeling a bit impish a "stupid" or two may slip out.
Or they play wild games together. Throwing a pillow at the dragon seven times in a row to defeat him has been popular lately.
These kids are so sweet ... when they aren't sick and incredibly whiny. No one's legs work in this house when they are ill. Or if they think they might be ill. Although I did give Bradley a mini lecture about doing some things for himself approximately an hour and a half before he threw up one morning. Oops.
I also gave them a little talk about how one shouldn't howl with despair even in the face of a horrible injustice like an incorrect spoon being brought to their spot at the table. Instead we just say, "Tut tut! This isn't the spoon I prefer! I shall go get a new one I desire without causing a scene. No big deal!" All three kids laughed and Nathan seemed more than a little dazzled by my parenting (laughing and shaking your head signals respect, yes?). Then sweet, sweet Bradley said "Tut tut ... I love you, beautiful Mommy!" How could this kid be any sweeter?
And here are all the pictures from today where I finally figured out Bradley was really and truly still ill. We got the X-ray this evening that officially confirmed he has right middle lobe pneumonia. Fortunately he has the boxed set of 14 Land Before Time movies to see him through this tough time.
He also has caring and devoted siblings who are willing to sit with him on the couch all day if necessary in order to watch these movies.
But he really has been a sick little guy, he took a nap today.
And he was feeling rough at the doctor's office. They were really nice and the children's hospital where we went to get an X-ray of his lungs was so fun that Patrick threw a tantrum when we had to leave.
We're really hoping to be healthy soon. Bradley is the only sick child left and we have a definite diagnosis and medication. In the meantime, let there be dinosaur shows galore for the little sweetheart!
