I'm TWO!

There Ain't No Party Like a Run Up and Down the Ramp Party (Aidan, Brady, Gavin front to back)

The exciting news we have this week is we will be moving! NO, not back to the motherland, but to a new place with a yard. We are PUMPED - can you tell by the pic above? Basically we will have a 3 BR, two story duplex with a back yard big enough for a GRILL, baby pool and Curt to sit in a lawn chair with a supersoaker to spray the boys as they run past. We can't WAIT! It's also been a good chance to clean sweep our apartment and get rid of loads of paperwork and other junk we have accumulated over the past 3 years. It's only 3 speed bumps away and we have packed about half of our place so far for the "big" move.

In our packing I have found some stuff from the hospital when the boys were born. I can't even BELIEVE how tiny the little bracelet/patient ID thing was! And they used to slip it over their feet/ankles because it was too big for their hands/arms!!! Two years feels like an eternity ago . . .

We have been walking the boys down to the new house in the afternoons when they are squirrely and we can only bear to be outside for a few minutes at time. yes, it's that hot right now.

Aidan and Brady take a walk with Mom

Brady is a complete parrot right now. He loves learning new words and is really getting good at getting his message across. He still narrates everyones day and we still run through lists of people he knows and what they are doing right now. Brady has also begun exercising with me. Many mornings after breakfast he will come in our room while I am getting ready for work. He must have seen me do abdominal work a few too many times because he will lay on the ground next to me and pick his legs up. So funny! He also KNOWS when he is funny. Even if he's not. One thing curt and I have issues with is discipline with him. When he has to spend time on the naughty mat (and he exceeds his brother's naughty mat time by a HUGE margin) he will giggle and laugh and scoot off the map and drive us ABSOLUTELY INSANE. So what do we do? Ignore him? Yell at him (OK, so sometimes that is what happens)? Continuously sit him on the naughty mat for the length of the minute? Lock him in a closet? Maybe you can tell, this behavior exhausts us . . .


What are YOU lookin' at? (Aidan)



Aidan is learning all kinds of new human tricks. The other night when I said "who's going to help me clean up the legos?" (and I thoroughly expected all three boys to continue running in circles around the couch) Aidan walks over to me and begins to pick up legos! And not just the ones around the box!! he must have picked up half of the legos that had been strewn about. it was AWESOME!!! He also LOVES stickers. His first action after taking the sticker off the page is to put it squarely on his face or forehead. So cute. he has also begun putting them on mom and dad and occasionally his brothers. :)

He is a big boy too! He has begun trying to really get himself dressed. He often gets his own shoes on and tries REALLY hard to put shorts on. even if he already has a pair on. he's growing up so fast! :)

Gavin loves when Dad tickles him tummy . . . that's the most still he was all weekend!

We think Gavin may be getting his two year molars - at least we HOPE there is a medical reason for his tantrums and behavior lately. He has also been showing us how much he actually watches us. When he sees mom stretching, he will lay on his side and do the same stretches putting his arm in the air. He is becoming more verbal (though still not where Brady is yet) and LOVES to say Arianna's name - "NA-nana". I would say he probably says her name the best of the three of them and he CLEARLY loves her already. That is a good feeling because we were a little worried how the boys would react to Marie retiring without really having a chance to say goodbye.

Today when I came home, Gavin wanted me to pick him up so he could point out grandpa and others in pictures on our book case. When I did and he found Mommy in the picture, he then puts both of his hands on me and says "MOMMY!" and I did the same to him and said "GAVIN!" it caused him to giggle like crazy. He is also our little helper. Even though he was CLEARLY not interested in taking PJs to the laundry when we first began instituting chores for the boys, he now will take ALL of the laundry for us in the morning. It's like one day his light just turned on and he decided he it would be fun to do.

You may be wondering about the title of the post ("I'm TWO!"). I'm going to go ahead and out us as parents who are teaching to the test. I was thinking the other day that it would be cool if when they turned two (in just over a month - oh my goodness!) if someone asked them how old they were they could say "I'm two!". so rather than teach them "I'm one!" and have to then learn they aren't one anymore, but they are now two because of how aging works and the earth's journey around the sun and all, i figured i'd just start with what they should say. If you ask "How old are you?" all three boys will say in their own sweet little way "I'm TWO!" It literally melts my heart. :) It makes all of them laugh and they look so proud of themselves too. we will have to get some of that on video (which BTW, we just uploaded 68 videos to our external hard drive the other day. 68. at least we can start the process of editing them down a bit . . . 68 - bleh)