Daddy Daughter Dance and Uncle Jake and Grandpa Dan Visit

Patrick has turned into such a little love bug lately. He'll say "I love you so so so so so much" to a family member and expect an equally ardent reply. Which isn't too tough, there's a lot to love about our sweet Patrick. Even when he comes into our bedroom before he's supposed to in the morning, gets sent back to his room where he stands in the doorway and loudly cries until we permit him to come back into our bed, at which point he snuggles up to me for a few seconds before he says "do you want to see my hat?" Then he grabs my hand and places it on his head and says "that a bootiful hat!" and puts his own hand on my head as a hat. Then the hats start to fall off a bunch and you're supposed to catch them and put them back on the head. It's not the most restful start of the day.

He's lucky he's so cute.

He can even pour his own milk now! He's very proud.

Eleanor quotes are my favorite thing these days:
Me to Eleanor: Did you know you got the best Daddy?
Eleanor (narrows eyes): JESUS is the best daddy.

Me talking about plans for next year for Patrick: Next year you'll get a bit of everything!
Eleanor: He won't get everything ... he won't get a sleigh!

Me: What animals are you most excited to see at the zoo?
Eleanor: Unicorns!

Sometimes it goes the other way though:
Bradley (singing): The dinosaurs are partying late at night, late at night
Eleanor: The princesses are dancing ballet! Ballet!
Bradley: The dinosaurs are killing princesses ...
I cut it off there. Luckily Eleanor seemed to think it was funny.

Eleanor has also really come into her own when it comes to singing and performing. I love it except when she does this at the top of her lungs in the grocery store parking lot. I do get looks.

Sibling play times are so fun. Usually there's a fair bit of fighting but then they settle in and play and it's so darn cute. The worst punishment I can dish out is to banish someone to their room, these kids just want to be together.

Building a fort together and screaming when Eleanor came nearby. Patrick says "blow fire!" whenever he is pretend fighting someone now and it's one of my favorite things.

At evening prayer time the other night I prayed to God about a couple of my great aunts who passed away in the same week and Bradley had a lot of questions about death and heaven. So when I started to write a note in a bereavement card I was sending to a great uncle Bradley took it upon himself to draw some pictures in it to send to him. What a little dear.

Parenting has been a lot of cuddling kids to sleep for naps lately.

Yep, sometimes this mommy gig is tough work but someone has to cuddle all these tired kiddos.

It's been really fun having them help me bake cookies lately too. We made heart cookies for Valentine's day! Eleanor found a fancy cupcake book that I've had for ages and is begging to try out a few of the recipes and there is much interest in making our own ice cream. Lots of baking activities to come!

We also really like to do art together. Generally what happens is Bradley decides he wants to do something and then everyone else follows suit.

The church sent us home with pop rock candies a few weeks ago and even had us do an experiment with the candy, soda, and a balloon. The kids didn't particularly care about the experiment but the candy was a big win.

Patrick with his best friend Marcus at the gym. They hug when they see each other and they hug to say goodbye so of course I take pictures.

And Patrick with his other two best friends, Lauren and Mabel, at library story time.

Mabel and Patrick had a little smooch fest during story time and I taught the adorable end of it.

Bradley has been the fortunate recipient of a truly impressive amount of Patrick love and devotion lately. They'll come into our bedroom in the morning and then choose to cuddle with each other over Mommy and Daddy cuddles. This sounds cute, but it's fairly active cuddles and when they were doing this two days into daylight savings time I was not quite as much of a fan as I could have been.

Me: Why don't you go into the bathroom and say hi to Daddy? (He was already in the shower)
Bradley: And we can tackle each other!
Me: Yes, Daddy will love that.

The boys ran into the bathroom and I could hear Nathan hollering things about cutting out the rough housing. Meanwhile a cat jumped on the bed and snuggled me sweetly. Ahhhh co-parenting at its finest.

Pictures of the cuddles:

No wonder Patrick is obsessed.

Sometimes Patrick's devotion is so deep that he'll absolutely refuse to go to sleep for his nap if he knows Bradley has a friend coming over for a playdate and he'll play hard for two hours with big boys and then pass out on the playroom floor five minutes after the friend leaves.

My cuddly crew. If Nathan has a work trip now I'll sometimes let them eat an early dinner and then we'll change into jammies and watch a movie before bedtime.

And then this is what my life looks like once the kids are asleep.

Bradley brings home armloads of art from school every day and when I take a minute to look through it I generally find some gems. I asked what this picture was and Bradley said "read what I wrote!" I had to have him help me a little but it says "Zombie is attacking our house." 

And this is a big fish who is about to eat a bunch of little fish. I really like how he draws expressions.

The biggest night in a little girl's life happened a few weeks ago when Eleanor got to go with Nathan to a Daddy Daughter dance at our gym. I even got her a new dress for the occasion. It's safe to say she likes it.

My qualifications for picking a dress were: pink, sparkles, and tulle. Check check check! She borrowed a pearl necklace from me for the big night.

And yes, she was wearing pink sparkle shoes. She already owned those. As one ought.

She got to help Nathan pick out his shirt and tie, both looked very fancy for their night out!

I love this picture.

Meanwhile, I got to take the boys to meet up with my friends and the younger brothers of Eleanor's friends who would also be at the dance. We took them to dinner at what I hoped was a child friendly restaurant but I don't know if they were ready for us.

We were loud. We reigned down chaos. We stacked up piles and knocked them over and yelled and also threw things. My evening was just a little different than Nathan's.

Just a little different.

They also had good food at the dance I'm told. We know enough to pregame this things and feed our children real food before they leave the house so they can focus on chocolate covered things once they get to the event.

I'm told there was lots of dancing, fancy balloons, good food, and friends.

Official picture

Nathan took a picture that adequately sums up Eleanor's feelings about the evening.

This was the rest of the weekend. I guess it wasn't too much of a surprise that Eleanor fell asleep while the boys played video games the next day.

I really enjoy the end of winter in Kansas City because you get some really nice days where you can go outside and play with bubbles and chalk.

Sometimes Patrick really wants to play baseball with me and Eleanor and this is about the best we can give him.

Patrick likes to find the neighborhood cat Chewie and love him within an inch of his life. He comes running out meowing at us most of the time when we go to the park, he knows that the Scott family is always good for some Chewie loves.

Eleanor wore her Daddy Daughter dance dress for four days straight after the dance and I didn't even try to stop her, even when she wore it out to the park.

I just think it's adorable that this is what she considers appropriate outside play attire.

Meanwhile, here's Patrick. I got a lot of questions this day about if I let him dress himself.

If you zoom in on Patrick's face in the picture below it's just pretty amazing. Bradley and Eleanor raced off without him and Patrick is just bereft.

A new tradition has been rolling down the hill by Bradley's school when we go to pick him up. We did this for at least 20 minutes one day.

It does a bit to a girl's hair to roll over all those leaves. I couldn't get most of these out. Lots of baths these days!

We have a new babysitter, our friend Natalie who lives just down the street and who the kids have been playing with since she was about 8 years old. The kids were so excited to have her come babysit one morning and Patrick complained a lot when it was time for her to go, cuddling her arm and telling her "don't leave, don't leave." We saw her that afternoon on our park outing, the separation was brief. 

I love our park, this time of the year we spend most of our afternoons there.

Cute Bradley!

Eleanor may have a bit of a performer within her soul. We let her sit with us during the Sunday service one week, bonus points to you if you can recognize the praise song she is using as a base for her made up song with lots of made up words.

Nathan with his mini me. We didn't realize he and Patrick were so coordinated until after we had left for our walk.

Bradley can do the monkey bars at the big park now and is very proud of himself.

Little Patrick can do monkey bars at not quite three years old! At our friend's house on their very small child friendly play structure. But even so, what a good boy!

He's only a little proud of himself.

I made the mistake of telling Eleanor there was such a thing as stick on earrings before I had any on hand to give to her so she made her own out of regular stickers. She also put "stick on earrings" on her fingers and on a eager and willing Patrick volunteer. The other day during Patrick's nap the special girl activity Eleanor and I did together was go through my entire giant jewelry box together. I have quite a lot and Eleanor is very excited about her future wearing all of it.

I am just so happy that I got a girl and it's THIS.

Eleanor's dance class had a parent participation class and it worked out that Nathan got to go which was a lot of fun. She has her big performance coming up in May, we can't wait!

Bradley had a kindergarten performance last week at school and it was ridiculously cute. They sang quite a lot of songs and Bradley did very well singing along and doing all the motions.

He also made a lot of kissy faces at us from the stage. Bradley sweetness is something to behold.

Nathan's dad and brother came out to visit us this past weekend and we had a blast with them. 

Nathan took it upon himself to recreate at least part of a Hawaiian shirt themed family photo and Patrick was pleased to offer his assistance.

They got to go and watch a basketball tournament while they were here.

And see my efforts to try out hair coloring for the first time ever for crazy hair day at Eleanor and Patrick's preschool.

It was ... very colorful.

Their hair was so crispy after I did this, and it took three rounds of shampoo to wash it out after school. But the kids were delighted with it and that's all that matters!

Patrick with Mabel in his class, he was far too busy to pose for another picture.

Meanwhile, the men got to do a brewery tour at Boulevard.

They got some great quality time in, I'm so glad this trip worked out.

And then lots of park time in the afternoon when it was nice out. Patrick even got some bonus Natalie time in when we saw her at the park!

As always, many of my favorite pictures are reading cuddle time.

And the next day was Legoland! The kids had been excited about this for weeks leading up to the visit.

This is how we keep warm in line.

Sometimes I see Bradley do something a little silly and I think "where did that come from?" Then I see a picture like this and say "ahhhhh, there it is." They're so cute together with their muscles, I think Nathan likes Legoland as much as the kids do.

Bradley does a thing ...

And so much Patrick.

You can check out Lego kits to build.

Finished product!

Dan found a new friend to spend some time with.

Eleanor stationed herself in the pink Lego room where the same song blasted on repeat every three minutes. She stayed there for at least thirty minutes, directly underneath the speakers.

Patrick and Grandpa built racing cars together.

Bradley really enjoys the racing car builds as well.

This was the cooler design he eventually came up with.

Girl room! Eleanor and I made a series of connecting houses.

One last Lego sculpture before we had to go home.

Patrick is a joy to ride with in the car. Grandpa Dan was trying to rest on the way home from Legoland and Patrick wanted to show him every single fruit snack he was eating. Individually. Actually he wanted to show every adult in the car each and every fruit snack he ate. So he started hollering, "Why you are closing your eyyyyyes, Gampa?" on repeat. Good news, Gampa didn't really have the opportunity to close his eyes for the remainder of the drive so it was no longer a problem. Well done, Patrick.

And then lots of Legos when we got home too!

Followed by one more park outing.

I think this is my favorite photo of the bunch.

Jake was being the mountain prop in their playtime. It was very entertaining.

Eleanor decided she was the princess and the boys were her servants and she sang a bunch of songs about what everyone had to do and it was pretty great.

They even got to see some taekwondo. Bradley is doing so well in his classes!

We were sad to see Jake and Grandpa go but I think it was a very memorable trip for all involved.

Back outside at the park the next day, what else are we supposed to do when it's over 50 degrees?

We made it out to brunch the next day at Pinstripes, the nearby bowling alley and fancy restaurant. We found out kids ages five and under eat free so we need to go there as much as possible before Bradley turns six.

I ended up bringing Eleanor a full plate of mini muffins, to her delight. What every breakfast could and should be!

Nathan and I even got some fancy drinks! Responsible parenting at its finest!

Marshmallow dipped in chocolate? Breakfast of champions.

I didn't supervise how much the children were eating very closely but I guess Bradley did pretty well because he said he had to lay down because of his full tummy and said he was going to sleep.

He woke up to smooch Daddy a bit.

The kids were very excited about all the chocolate covered desserts followed by a game of family bocce. We divided into a boy team and a girl team and Bradley immediately started talking some serious smack about the boys winning so I told him, "Hey Bradley, have you ever heard girls rule and boys drool?" He responded "No, girls mommies, boys zombies!!" I think this is a much better saying. We're going with it!

So ready to play!

A very accurate picture of what it's like to play bocce with three children ages five and under.