Swim Lessons!

Justin had his last swim lesson tonight. He's come a long way in two weeks- though if you watch the video you might not appreciate it. He screamed bloody murder the first couple nights when they took him away from Dave. Then he still cried the next two nights. He would be better once they got him back there but the initial walk back was not so good!

At the beginning he wouldn't even put his face in the water. Now he's going under! He still needs some work - he doesn't quite have the hang of it just yet but he's much better. I think we might sign him up for a few private lessons and then enroll him in another class that meets once or twice a week to keep him going.

Arg!

This video is still making me laugh - days later.

Baby Klye is 9 months!

Kyle at 9 months- has 1 little tooth. Those others are evil and won't pop through. Stats from the doc today:

Weight: 17 lbs 7 oz (10th percentile - little guy!)

Height: 27 3/4

Head: 17 3/4

Kyle is a mad man- he's all over the place and pulls himself up on everything. I have money on him launching himself out of his crib before Christmas. 

He's eating puffs/cheerios and some table food now- and he does not want to be fed baby food any more. He puts his hands in front of his face and turns his head. He wants to do it himself. He's been doing it to me at home for a couple of weeks -and now that daycare has been giving him some table food he does it to them too. Guess we're done buying baby food!

9 months!!

Fun at the Museum last weekend

Justin at 9 months- was nearly 22 lbs! He couldn't sit up very well - so was always sitting in the middle of pillows and blankets- cause he would fall backwards constantly.  He wasn't crawling. He had 4 teeth though! And some crazy hair!

I haven't seen these jammies in Kyle's stash yet..
my guess is they are all 12 mo size and Kyle will have them out come December!

What a day..

Picked the kids up from daycare last night..everyone seemed just fine. Two hours later Justin is burning up and not feeling so well. Thankfully he's generally okay other than a fever and some random tired, cranky spells. It seems to be whatever has been going around that is causing just a fever but (thankfully) not much else. Steady dose of ibuprofen and Tylenol is about all we can do. When it starts to wear off the kid starts burning up again.

So - no work for me today. I decided to try and take Kyle to daycare anyway because I didn't need him around the sick kid all day- and just maybe I could get some work done from home if I had just one kid. I didn't want to drag Justin in daycare with me (and this morning I wasn't for sure that he wasn't going to start hurling on me or something) so my sweet sweet friend Apryl came over and hung out with Justin while I ran Kyle in to school.  

I was reminded what wonderful friends we have. She made time to come over- was late to work for us - and when she left here she went to the store and arrived back on our doorstep with stuff for dinner tonight- and some strawberry ice cream for Justin. She went above and beyond and I really really appreciate it - and am lucky to have her as a friend! 

Justin chatted her to death while I was gone. He acted fine all morning - then suddenly was "tired" and feel asleep on the floor!

"I'm a farmer" he says..

Making "cake" while wearing tool belts

And...out..

My lovely co-workers brought me my laptop at lunch. I had joked with Ian yesterday as we were leaving work that I should know better than to leave my laptop..as I'm just asking for a kid to be sick..and sure enough..

Since Justin was fine - other than the fever I loaded him in the car to pick up Kyle this evening. The receptionist came out and sat in the car while I went in for Kyle. And then we had a mostly pleasant little evening- lots of laughs at dinner. Kyle was having a good ol' time. 

Still...just.one.tooth.

And then it was bedtime - and the little rascal kept doing this - and screamed his head off for awhile until I finally went back in and got him to sleep. You should see how fast he pulls himself up. I've seen him do it on little things but this was the first crib pull-up. He thought he was hilarious.  He is not so graceful on his dismount just yet. Looking forward to the 1am practice round he'll likely have in his crib.

I'm likely home tomorrow..think I'll try to take Kyle in again so I can try to work from home in the morning at least - trying to finish a project! Sandy was supposed to come to town with Isabella this weekend but she decided she'd better not - she just got done with having 1 kid with this fever issue..she doesn't need another! Dave will get home sometime tomorrow night...

Pool Time!

Apryl and Adam kindly invited us over for some lunch and pool time on Sunday. Since Dave was out of town, Kelly came with us to help out!  Justin has been super timid around the water and I knew there was no way I could get in alone with both kiddos. He started freaking out a bit when I took him in but he got over it and actually had fun! Kyle enjoyed some water-time too!

Kelly got him "jumping" to her.

He looks thrilled, right- he was actually enjoying himself..

Fell asleep playing after we got home..pool wore him out!

When Dave gets back in town- Justin starts swim lessons! He goes for two weeks (Mon - Thur) after school. It's the type of lessons where you go in and drop off your kid..should be interesting! Dave is going to be taking him and dropping off so hopefully that will make him a bit less likely to completely freak out. I think he'll enjoy it but it may take a lesson or two before he does!

Lovely Little Saturday

Love how he lines things up..

Happy Baby - at our picnic

Park!

He rode his bike - then played for awhile with his sweet helmet on..

Turned my head and he became thug baby!

Doctors, Dentist, Trolleys and more!

I took Monday off because Justin had a check-up at the Allergist and a Dentist appointment - and I thought we could do something fun afterwards. Dave ended up taking Monday off too- but because Kyle had some crazy 24-hour fever bug and even though his fever had disappeared by Monday morning I wasn't sure he should head off to school quite yet!

The trip to the dentist was fairly terrible. They tried really hard to get Justin to cooperate. I was REALLY impressed with the dental assistant and the dentist- but in the end it was my holding him in my lap while he screamed bloody murder while they looked at his teeth. His teeth look great- so that's good at least.

Afterwards he told me "I was crying" when we talked about the visit to the dentist - or when we told others about the dentist visit. We met Dave and Kyle for lunch and ice cream and then Justin and I parked in my office parking garage and walked over to ride the trolley. This was our first trolley trip and he rather enjoyed it. He was exhausted by the time we got back in the car to head home!

Justin has sort of regressed a bit this week. I had thought we were in the clear on potty training but he all of a sudden is having the "pooping drama" again. I really hope we get back in the groove soon. I was so happy we had moved past it! He's also being a general whiner again - arg. Hoping we can rectify it before Dave goes out of town for another week - or it's going to be one long week!

Sweet onesie from Reagan!

He loves telling Kyle good morning :)  Yes- Kyle sometimes hangs out in the bathroom.

STILL JUST ONE TOOTH!

We were having fun with the camera before work -
love that they both have the same sort of weird look going on.

Tractors! Bulldozer! Backhoe! Construction Site! Hay Bales!

I love Justin's enthusiasm for tractors and construction equipment of all sorts. It's fun to just go for a drive with him because there is always construction equipment along the route! I really will be incredibly sad the day he stops shouting about equipment from the back seat of the car.

We had a bulldozer on the street behind us leveling a house last week - we stopped to see it on our walk. It was not easy to convince him to go back home!

He looked back to be sure it wasn't moving ;)

Yesterday it was hot and gross out and we were trying to decide what to go do. Grandma had suggested the John Deere store when we were FaceTiming with her - and well that's where we ended up after a stop for cheesesteaks at some fairly authentic place in the burbs.

The tractor store is about a 40 minute drive from us so we don't do it often. Justin was SO excited. They have a bunch of equipment outside and then inside they have more equipment AND a ton of toys. He just ran in circles you will see in the video below.

He wouldn't look at me cause he was busy trying to decide what to run to next.

We decided Grampa should upgrade. Justin liked the back seat.

There is a Rita's Water Ice place in the burbs (it's a Jersey original) so we stopped there too.

And both boys took a nice little nap on the way home!

Week of single mommyhood

Dave left Saturday and doesn't get back until next Friday..lucky me! We had an okay weekend minus one cranky Kyle on Saturday afternoon.

This was my attempt to pass some time on Saturday. It was 100 degrees and Kyle was super cranky and this ended up with my pulling a wagon and holding a baby under my arm. It didn't go so well.

And breathing treatments...THREE TIMES A DAY for both of these guys. Thankfully their coughs are getting better so hopefully two times a day will suffice this week - so I don't have to haul both nebulizers to school.

Here are some videos:

Kyle is officially crawling. He's everywhere and putting everything in his mouth. It's hard to leave a room with him on the floor. He manages to find something he shouldn't have!

We made a new game on Saturday..I drew shapes and Justin ran, hopped, skipped, jumped on them. I was doing my best to wear him out.

Grandma had put some longhorns in the box she sent us. Justin had them eating my hair. I said "get off me - cows don't eat hair - they eat grass." Next thing I knew he was packing up his longhorns and taking them outside.

Fun with puzzles while Kyle was napping. He did this every time he found the next letter..

Kelly did come over for a few hours today so I could go meet Sandy for lunch and run a couple of errands without dragging children with me - which was lovely. And I'm not ashamed to say it - I have help coming Monday and Wednesday night after work. I figured - why torture myself all week. Noemi is coming over at 5:30 and will likely beat us home and can start dinner and help me with one of the kids so not every night is a total chaotic race to get children in bed. 

Happy 4th of July!

Well - I've had better 4ths. We invited a bunch of peeps over to our house before the neighborhood parade so we could all walk over together- and then have lunch at our house afterwards.  I have zero photos because I was sick. It's super fun to get ready to host people at 9am when you don't feel well. Maybe I had a touch of a stomach bug that perhaps sent Kyle home from daycare on Tuesday? Who knows. But it was the longest 6 hours from about 7am - 1pm when the guests left. I love hosting people - but it's not easy to do when you'd rather curl up in a ball and sleep.

The kids were cute anyway:

See my tooth?!

Riding his bike!!