Pa Pa and Kiki

Last week, we were lucky enough to spend the entire week with my parents. Through toddler tantrums and sleep strikes, they did not kick us out. Despite their request to be called Darth Vader and Princess Lea, Everett has named them Pa pa, which is more like pa PAAAA, and Kiki! We will continue to reinforce "Grandma" and "Grandpa", but it's pretty cute in the meantime. :)  Here are some highlights from our visit.

Grandpa took some time off of work and took us to the Dallas Aquarium, the Children's Museum, and an awesome aquarium at Grapevine Mills. Everett had a blast watching the fish and playing with everything (water in particular) at the Children's museum. I really loved seeing the manatees at the Dallas Aquarium, but most of all loved watching Everett's exuberant excitement!!! Pax slept most of the time, which was really nice as well. :)

There was lots of time spent in the pool. Everett learned the words pool and swimsuit among others he picked up along the way. As a side note, today is day 74 of over 100 degree weather this summer. Whew!

Pax laughed for the first time! And another two times! It was so awesome. One of those times, Everett actually made him laugh by doing an exercise from yoga in which he pumps Pax's arms to and fro and says "choo choo". We call it choo choo arms. Pax was cracking up! It was the first time I saw them really interact with each other, and I just loved it.

Though Everett pretty strongly refused naps and bedtime, he DID open his mind to some new foods!  One struggle yielded to another.   He began this streak by gobbling down broccoli, saying "more! more!" while our mouths gaped open in shock.

And the quote of the week goes to my mom. While looking at Paxton..."I think I'm going to look like that someday. You know, with my cheeks resting on my shirt."

Everettspeak and Funnies

Love these verbal leaps!  Today Everett said his name for the first time that I know of!  It was so exciting!  Both boys were sitting in my lap, and he started naming us off...Pa, Mama, Ewewett.  Wow!  So cool.

And here's him yesterday as we were driving out of the garage...

Da-da boppee (bye-bye water)
Da-da zee (bye-bye fish)
Da-da Mama
     What?  I'm right here, Ev!  But glad to know I made it after the water and the fish.
Da-da Daa (Dad)

And as we're leaving today...

Da-da poo (it's exactly what it sounds like - hah!!!)

And finally, something funny that happened the other day.  He took his snack of goldfish crackers and placed them in the water he was playing with.  I stepped away to tend to the laundry, and when I returned, this is what I saw...

So he really learned a lot by this experience.  Goldfish can't swim.  They get soggy when wet.  Then you can't eat them.  He can't reach the sink to dump them in.  And when trying, they dump ON him!  And when you have soggy goldfish all over your body, your mom makes you wait while she grabs her phone to take a picture first because it's just too funny!  The one on his face just cracks me up so hard!!!

Update:
One I must add from just now when getting him up from a nap...
Me: "I love you so much Everett.  Do you know how to say 'I love you?'"
Everett: "mama daa"  (Mama Dad)

:)

Fun New Developments

Well, it seems both boys took a developmental leap at the same time.  This past week has seen some fun new words, activities, and smiles from everyone.

Paxton will be 8 weeks old tomorrow.  Over the last week, he has been responding to us and delighting us with big smiles.  Such a joy to see these.  He can hold his head up high in tummy time, and rolls belly to back with some effort.  Though he is not a fan of regular naps yet, he is sleeping 9-10 hour stretches at night, with an additional 2-3 hours after nursing.  What a blessing!  We moved him into the guest room, which is next to Everett's room, and luckily they haven't bothered each other with their noise yet.  I adore his big scrumptious cheeks and kiss them as much as I can.  My favorite thing to do when bathing Pax is massage his face so that I can mash around those cheeks and cause him to make some really funny faces.  Haha!

Everett is 21.5 months old.  He has had an awesome verbal leap over the past few days.  All of a sudden he is surprising us pulling out more words and really cute pronunciations.  Potato = pa-tote-tee.  My favorite.  :)  He makes simple sentences, usually about something falling down.  "Oh no!  Boppee down!" = oh no!  The water spilled!  Another great one is "no, no, no ka" pointing to the crayon mark on the wall and shaking his head = don't color on the walls.  :)

His favorite thing to do right now is play in water.  Since it's about 106 degrees everyday, we set up a towel in the kitchen with bowls, cups, and spoons, and he has a blast.  He also loves dinosaurs and requests to watch "saur choo-choo", Dinosaur Train, a PBS show.  Side note:  I have really learned a lot about dinosaurs.  :)

Ev is much more gentle with Pax now.  He wipes his mouth with the burp cloths, pats his belly when he is upset, and says "oh no!!!" when he cries over the monitor.  He did have a hard time for one night when we moved Pax next door to him.  He cried for awhile before going to sleep - not sure why that change was hard for him.  Hopefully we don't have to move him to a big boy bed too soon as he has demonstrated change DOES affect him right now.  We'll try not to alter his world TOO much more at this point.  I really love seeing Everett communicate with us more easily, and I love his conversations with himself in the car.  I really wish I knew what he was saying as it seems quite intricate and interesting.  He has a great sense of humor in his play as well, putting a funnel over his hand and poking me and the cat with it, pretending to feed the Elmo on his plate, etc.  Every day seems to bring something new and funny from him.  I can't wait to see what these two come up with together in about a year.

(Barely) Doing It All

Everett screaming.  He insisted I hold him despite having my hands full already. (I love how they're both looking at the camera/Daddy)

Seriously?

Sympathizing.

Now Pax is crying, flailing, and in need of better head control.

Ok, braced against my face.  All is good again.

Daddy can do it all too.

Another Well Rested Baby

When Everett first shocked us with an amazing night of sleep we took a picture of that well rested baby face (click for Everett's post).  I thought since Paxton blessed us with this amazing feat last night, he should have a well rested baby picture too (or three).  :) 

Not only is he sleeping long stretches, but I put him in bed awake and he actually goes to sleep on his own!  I never believed that was possible when reading the sleep experts recommend it.  Not sure if Everett wasn't able or if I didn't give him the chance. 

We are doing the same sleep training method, except this time we already knew what to do.  Instead of waiting to be instructed at our 2 month pediatrician visit, the only thing we waited for was the scale to say 11 lbs.  ;)  When I look back at that blog post and see that Everett slept from 9pm-9am with one wakeup, I think to myself, "9am?  When is the last time I got to sleep until 9am?  Probably that day!"  Paxton slept from 7pm-7am with one wakeup at 4am.  Awesome.  You can see we have scaled our sleep times earlier as we don't know what it's like to sleep until 9am anymore. 

I love this expression.  I wish I could come up with some hilarious caption.

Muah!

I Eat My Veggies, Mom!

No, not talking about the boys this time, but ME!  I love my veggies, Mom!  I thought this time I'd write about me and this preoccupation that has taken over my brain - vegetables!  Huh?  What?  I know, I didn't expect that either.  Several years ago, my sister taught  me what a CSA is, and I've been hooked ever since.  If it weren't 107 degrees on a regular basis this summer, perhaps my garden wouldn't be the barren, crunchy, sad thing that it currently is.  I am still able to order fresh, local produce here, and I love ordering a CSA basket every few weeks.  When I first signed up with a farm, there was an element of mystery.  I didn't always know what the veggies were.  I'd look them up, figure out how to cook them, and sometimes how to pronounce them!  Sometimes it would be a success, sometimes not, and I was still developing a taste for them.  It was an adventure.  Lately, I order from a company that lets me order when I want versus on a weekly basis.  So I actually see what's projected to be in the basket before ordering.  This does produce a lot less waste for our household, and even minus the fun of the mystery, it's great fun planning how I'm going to use them.  The fun part for me this time is planning it out so that it ALL gets used. 

So it's a culinary adventure around here, right?  Sometimes.  Eric is not the veggie lover that I am.  In his defense, he never complains, and I think he tries to be stealthy when he scrapes 75% of his dinner into the trash.  It continues to be my fantasy, however, that I can somehow transform his tastebuds into something that craves sauteed Swiss chard, tomato and onion salsa, buffalo mozzarella, and a big basil leaf sandwiched between two slices of breaded and pan-fried eggplant.  It's really quite fantastic - try it.  This week I made a veggie lasagna featuring eggplant, squash, portabello mushrooms, and spinach - two of those ingredients he really does NOT like.  But he ate it!  He didn't have seconds, but he ate his entire portion.  How did I achieve such a feat?  Why, by covering it with two of his favorite things of course - cheese and tomato sauce!  :) 

So my plan (I realize it's a LONG term plan) is to turn Everett and Paxton into vegetable loving, gardening, foodie chefs.  Then it'll be 3 against 1 we'll all be healthy.  :)

Here is Everett (15 months old) "helping" in the garden earlier this year.