downstairs bathroom, part 2

Nick and Oliver made a little bit of progress on the bathroom over the weekend. They worked on gluing the floor tiles down. You can see Oliver was a big help by stacking spacers on top of individual tiles :)

balance bike

Oliver started riding his balance bike this week! He couldn't be happier and had been waiting almost a year to grow tall enough to use it. He already can get going pretty fast and pretty soon I'll be running to catch up to him.

interview with Oliver (2 1/2 years)

A short interview with Oliver! I plan to repeat something like this on his birthday every year.

Penny's birthday video

Here's a little clip from Penny's birthday last week. I was mostly playing with the manual video settings on our new camera and I learned two things: 1, it is nearly impossible to shoot in manual while holding a baby in one hand, and 2, a baby in a bouncer is very hard to focus manually.

preschool pictures

Oliver had his preschool pictures taken two weeks ago. All the kids were so cute dressed up for picture day! There was a group photo taken as well which I haven't seen yet, and the photographer was nice enough to take a few shots of the boys together. I love them! These are just the proofs so they are a bit blurry.

 

best friends

sharing the drinking fountain

lawn mower

Oliver couldn't be more thrilled with Nick's most recent purchase! Yes, we finally bought a lawn mower and Oliver could not wait for the test drive.

five

Our beloved Penny (or Miss P as Oliver calls her) turned 5 today! Happy Birthday to our favorite puppy!

two and a half

Oliver turned 2 1/2 this week! It is such a fun age and I can't believe how fast he's growing up into a little boy. It's so much fun to have actual conversations with him and he's a great helper around the house, especially if tools or the vacuum cleaner are involved. He also gets very excited to pick up dog poop with his daddy in the backyard - be my guest! We bought him some "work" gloves and he loves to wear them when he's outside digging or helping Jim Baer do little jobs around his yard or shop. Nick and I were surprised at the speed of which his language took off after he turned two. He went from literally saying just a few words at a time to full on sentences in just a few months. Because of this, we've also discovered that he has his mommy's really good memory (I still get strange looks when I recite my credit card number to purchase something if I don't have my wallet with me). He knows his colors, can count to ten and knows a lot of the alphabet. We've even discovered that he recognizes some words, "Oliver" and "dig" are two of them!

He's starting to lean out now  and he's losing the toddler/baby look about him. He loves to wear his Thomas the train underwear and is getting pretty good at dressing (or undressing) himself. Nick got him dressed for coffee this morning and a few minutes later he was surprised to find Oliver naked from the waist down. This kid has never liked to have pants on!

A few of his current favorite things: baby Elliott, trains, trains, and more trains, garbage trucks, tractors and any construction equipment, "Run Baby Run" by Caspar Babypants (or Baby Casparpants as Oliver calls him), bacon, seaweed rolls with mayonnaise and sliced turkey, Jim Baer, Miss P (Penny), playing Duplo with Daddy, opening packages from Gramma, using any electronic kitchen tool, preschool, going to the playground with Daddy, riding his wood airplane around the house and telling me that he's either going to the airport to pick someone up, or going to wherever Jim Baer is if he is out of town (Mexico was the last place), mommy's milk and cuddling in bed at night.

I need to get better at writing down the funny things that he says, but here are a few that I can remember. We also have to be careful about what we say, because he repeats EVERYTHING.

• He calls me "Mommy Rae-Rae" (Rae is my middle name, but he has a friend named Rachel who he calls Rae-Rae).
• He says 1-2-3, go bye bye, when he wants Nick or I to leave his room at night.
• He's perfected the use of "ONE more time", "ONE more sip", "ONE more minute" etc. Although as he learned his numbers better, it became "TWO" sips, etc.
• This morning (Sunday) he asked for Reggae Saturday, a radio program on a local station and Bob Marley - someone has been spending too much time with Jim Baer! 

You can see what a good big brother he is! He is always concerned with where baby Elliott is!

Riding his airplane, decked out in his safari hat and backpack!

We love you Oliver!

Elliott talks

Recently, Elliott has become a lot more verbal, and he has been "talking" in a kind of high pitch squeal. It's pretty funny to watch and he does it all day long, even while I was checking out at the grocery store today.

4 month update and video

Elliott had his four month check-up yesterday and he's healthy as can be, except for a minor cold that he has right now. I knew it was inevitable that he would get sick sooner than Oliver did because his big brother likes to bring home lots of germs. Too bad he's not a fan of the nose sucker yet. He continues to be such a happy baby and I think he's going to be the social butterfly of the family. He loves to smile and coo at, and be held by anyone. He especially likes it when I walk into the room if I'm not holding him. He's grabbing for lots of things now, including my hair - ouch! I won't be cutting it like my mom did when I did the same thing to her, but I may be wearing it up more often. EC is still going well, and he had a stellar (and unusual) day yesterday, not one accident! Here are his stats from yesterday:
Weight: 16 lbs 1 oz (60%)
Height: 25.5 in (60%)
Head: 41.9 cm (50%)
So, he's only about 10% larger than his brother was, although you wouldn't know it by his rolls :) We love him to pieces! Here are a few month four clips:

egg hunt 2012

A little video of Oliver's egg hunt at our house this morning. He was so attached to his chocolate bunny!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! We sure did, and we had nice weather to go along with it. Here are some pictures from the weekend's events:

Saturday egg hunt at the community center, Oliver couldn't wait to get started!

looking for eggs and looking cool with his hand in his pocket

showing off the bunny ears he made after the egg hunt

dying eggs with mommy, see me in the background?

lots of fun!

the Easter bunny was at our house!

Easter morning

Elliott in the ridiculous bunny suit that was passed down to us. A bit girly, and much to warm for today, but we had to take a picture of him in it. We have one of Oliver wearing it too.

I know I look silly in this outfit

Mr. Smiles

waiting for everyone else to get in the picture

Family photo at brunch this morning. And a note to self, don't leave camera in manual mode when giving it to someone else to take pictures (this picture is quite blurry although I touched it up a bit in Picasa)

4 months!

Yes, our littlest man is 4 months today! Where has the time gone! I'll update more after his 4-month check-up on Tuesday.

 

broke down in Mexico

Here's a video from February of Oliver working on his airplane because, according to him, it broke down in Mexico. Jim Baer was in Mexico for about ten days at the time and Oliver would hop on his airplane every day and tell me he was going to Mexico to see him.

rainbow

My walk in a torrential downpour yesterday was worth it because of this view! A complete double rainbow, and I got to watch it for a good mile until it disappeared when the rain stopped. My camera phone doesn't even come close to showing how beautiful it was.

pictures from the weekend

My mom (now called Gramma instead of Muh-Muh by Oliver) was up here visiting the boys and celebrating my birthday. We are always so busy when she's here that I often forget to take out the camera until the day she leaves. We had a wonderful time with her and Oliver woke up Monday morning asking to wake Gramma up, even though he knew she left the day before. Here are a few pictures of my birthday party (which was a lot of fun!) Saturday night and of the boys with their Gramma.

Birthday party, hosted by Nick, my mom, and friend Kaila. We had a little dessert party at our house with about 20 people and lots of baby boys.

Boys with Gramma!