Eleanor Language and Anne Santa Cruz Trip

We had a fun 4th of July with some friends and their cute kids! We even did some kiddie fireworks which was a big hit.

Patrick has started to get annoyed with sharing Mommy lap space with Eleanor. The other day he was trying to shove her head away while getting a choice spot on Mommy lap and I told him that wasn't very nice, he should hug his sister. So he gave her a big hug and then instantly started shoving her head away again.

How Patrick thinks things should be

He also likes to roll all over her in as a sign of affection, which not always as appreciated as it could be. She's only got two or three pounds on him which doesn't help.

Standard morning

And we know that he can understand a great deal of what we say even though he's not particularly verbal yet. Whenever I say something about going to get Eleanor from her room in the morning or after naptime he'll run over to me and beg for cuddles. 

Bradley and Eleanor had dentist appointments the other week and I got to take all three kids. It was Bradley's second appointment ever and Eleanor's first. They both did great, although I credit Eleanor's success to Patrick's steadfast support and devotion.

So much devotion. Lucky Eleanor.

Such a little champ.

When Patrick wasn't "assisting" Eleanor he was running around like a maniac and cackling with glee while I hunted him down. His favorite places were behind the receptionist desk and down the roped off stairway. Filling out paperwork was an adventure while all this was going on. We're really lucky it's such a nice dentist office, they seemed to rather enjoy the manic toddler antics.

Outside is best for running around and general mayhem.

 I can't believe how big Patrick is getting. He's such a person!

Here the kids are racing to the next driveway. Patrick is racing a chair that he likes to push around.

And here's the crew throwing hedge apples up a slide at the park. I love how much of a crew they are these days.

The other day I had a friend over who has a little girl who is Eleanor's age and a boy who is Patrick's age and Patrick always drives his little friend nuts by insisting on cuddling with his mommy while she's here. I asked Patrick if he wanted to cuddle with me and held my arms out and the little stinker shook his head, looked back behind him, and backed up onto the lap of my friend. All while looking very pleased with himself. And all while his little friend howled with sorrow. Fortunately Patrick is used to having to look out for his own interests and wasn't unduly concerned by his friend's rather dramatic feelings about the matter.

He helps us read books to him now. He got a bit distracted by Nathan's phone but here they are reading Blue Hat, Green Hat together. Oops!!

Patrick also dances a lot now. The older two have a new favorite show that Patrick will sort of sit and watch with them for a few minutes at a time. And then he does some dancing that looks like it belongs in an action movie. Heavy on the stunts!

I got to go to Santa Cruz to visit my Aunt Diana, Uncle Bill, and Granddad and I had a pretty amazing time!

Ice cream time in matching hats!

It's amazing how easy and relaxing it is to go places without children. And yet I spent most of the time I was at these fun places talking about how much the children would have liked it.

So much fun playing cards with my wonderful Granddad!

I even got to live my out my stand up paddleboarding dream! Lots of fun. I like anything with a paddle. 

I might be a bit beach obsessed. I'm still very happy with Kansas City but we're going to have to do a lot of beach vacations so I can get my fix.

I'm just very happy that I have family who choose to live in fun and cool locations and don't mind me coming out to visit!

Nathan and his mom watched the kids while I was gone and things went very smoothly, although I've been home for a week and a half now and Eleanor still mentions upon occasion that she's so happy I'm home and checks that I'm not going anywhere when I say goodnight to her. 

They got to do a number of fun things to keep them busy while I was away. Pool time and swim lessons!

And a trip to Urban Air Trampoline. They keep begging to go back.

Apparently my children liked the dodgeball area. Nobody threw any balls at Patrick who thought it was cool to hang out in the middle. Eleanor left as soon as she was hit by a ball and Bradley just yelled at people when they threw balls at him.

Patrick was pretty sure he was going to starve while I was gone, luckily there was ham. This kid eats so much!

And this was my welcome home. So much welcome.

Bradley had a tough time the other night at bedtime. He was exhausted because he had skipped his nap and he was very sad because we only read one of his giant library books to him at bedtime and were insisting on stopping at chapter 5 of the other one that was 200 pages long. The kid likes books. So I took Bradley into his room while Nathan read to Eleanor, and I read a little more to him and then sat on the floor and held his hand as he was falling asleep. Nathan left Eleanor in her room and about five minutes later I heard someone fumbling at the door knob to Bradley's room before letting herself in - it was Eleanor! She had come to deliver Bradley's other library book to him. She pranced over to the bed, said "here's your library book, Badley!" and then pranced back out while Bradley hugged his library book to his chest with a huge smile across his face.

I decided to revisit the library the other day to see if Patrick would behave better now that it's been a couple months. We started out promising.

Patrick even looked at some of the toys that were available to him.

But running away from Mommy through the stacks eventually won out. He's far away in the middle of this picture. We played a fair bit of chase, Patrick loved it a lot more than Mommy did. 

 No more library for another couple months. Oh well.

We let Bradley and Eleanor share Bradley's bunk bed last weekend which was beyond adorable. They love each other SO much.

However, it also took them a lot longer to fall asleep and Eleanor was a wreck the next morning. Sharing a room may be an occasional treat for the immediate future.

Eleanor has many adorable quirks, one of which is that she demands a frozen muffin every morning for breakfast. I'm not kidding. I make big batches of muffins and then freeze whatever we're not going to eat within the next couple days. One morning I pulled out a few frozen muffins to nuke for breakfast and Eleanor begged for hers to remain frozen. And that is how she has eaten them every since. It's been at least four months of this.

And her quirk of calling me Mamu has extended to a wide variety of words now. Dadu, Badu, Patricku, Baintu or Bahnku (blanket), Agoo (nonsense word used whenever it seems useful), and then we oo up whatever else seems handy when the mood strikes us. "Ca moo mamoo!" Means catch me, Mommy. This girl is going to be amazing at Pig Latin. This is basically the three year old version.

I took a video of us playing Candyland together. She landed on the sticky spot and tried to talk her way out of it.

  It's scary how much these kids pay attention and remember things. The other night at dinner we were talking about the best part and toughest part of our days and Eleanor asked Nathan what the best part of his day was. Before he could answer she said "Coming home to your cute kiddos?" which is indeed his usual answer. She then told him her toughest part of her day was when he left for work and the best part of her day was when he came home. Daddy may be putty in Eleanor's hands these days.

Couch cuddles are alive and well

 Patrick cuddles even when Nathan is trying to get some work done from home. Fortunately for all involved, Nathan has yet to willingly turn down a baby cuddle.

We're so close to so many pics of the kids snuggling together on the couch during shows. Patrick wants to be where the big kids are but he lasts for about five minutes before he starts trying to grab their stuff so someone will play with him instead of watching a silly show.

Costco trip. They had to borrow my sweater for the cold room.

And here is Patrick with his future prom date, my friend Julie's little girl Mabel. They're pretty adorable together.

 The kids have been doing more arts and crafts together, which sounds pretty sweet and cute, right?

Patrick's face ...

Patrick not eating crayons. No sir.

 It's mostly sweet, until Bradley and I work on his cute fingerprint art book and he makes a couple odd looking fingerprints on the kitty page. He does the fingerprints and I do the drawing so I asked him what he wanted his kitties to look like. He said that he wanted the prints to be rocket launchers aimed at the kities ... he had quite the involved plans for rocket launchers all over the page but solo time ended and he had to go to bed. I swear I have never even mentioned a rocket launcher to the boy.

Popsickles on the front step!

 Naked for popsicles is best!

We had a naked butterfly running around the house the other day, and then when she decided she was going to use the potty (hurray for the girl potty training herself!) another little butterfly appeared ...

It was kind of a chunky butterfly but he seemed beyond delighted to be wearing his sister's special butterfly wings.

There's been a fair bit of baby skin and running around the house in diapers lately. I love summer! And I love these cute kids!

And they mostly love each other. Unless they discover the baby bathtub and everyone is desperate to sit in it at the same time. You should have seen them with the baby bumbo chair.