You've Got Male: January 2007

Birthdays

Happy Birthday to Aunt Katie (here with newborn Joseph). Katie is getting married to a great guy - Michael - next July. We are so excited!

Happy birthday to Melissa, too! This is a shot of Vince, Melissa (the birthday girl), me and Scott taking a fun road trip to Chicago a few months before Joe was born - three years ago this weekend, actually. Vince and Melissa were our closest friends in Iowa. It's been tough staying in touch since we moved (they also moved) and since we were bombarded with kids. We miss hanging out with them!

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Some new words from the twins:
Luke: today, Hi!, Buh-bye (just like the flight attendants)
Patrick: get down, more, snow, Meh-mo (Elmo)

They were just repeating what they heard me say, but it was cute to hear it in their little voices. It’s ironic that “get down” is one of Patrick’s phrases because I say it to Luke all of the time. He’s constantly climbing everything he can find – the changing table, chairs, etc. I plucked him off of the dining room table 15 times today. Patrick, however, loves to play with the computer. It’s tough to type with him around. By the time I had gotten to him the other day, he had opened four windows of the Internet.

Trains!

Patrick (in the red) and Luke can't get enough of the trains.

There was much joy when the "conductor" pulled out the Thomas engine to attach to a train. All of the little boys around the depot were whispering and chattering in excited anticipation.

Joe LOVED watching all of the trains. They even had little train cookies in the lobby - a great way to get him to leave for the day. He was such a good little boy the whole morning and even shared his cookie with mom and dad. When mom bit off on of the wheels of the train, Joe protested: "Oh, no, mommy! Thomas needs a wheel!" At that point, there was only one wheel left of poor Thomas!

Luke

Patrick

Yes, I know we did this last year around this time. I also know that we got some of the exact same pictures. However, the fascination with the trains is always like new to Joe and was new to the twins. Plus, just seeing all of the pretty flowers puts me in a good mood - the winter blahs were beginning to set in.

Too Cool to Drool

I came upon Joe wearing a radio headset and trying on his dad's safety glasses in front of the mirror. "Awesome, Dude"

Joe has a large Thomas the tank engine and a smaller one. He calls them “Thomas and Thomas’ daddy,” and he has the same thing with two different sized red racecars. He makes them talk to each other and play together, and he even turned the racecars over and pretended that the daddy was tickling racecar’s tummy and wrestling (his favorite thing to do with his daddy.)

Joe was violently rubbing his nose this morning saying “Stop, nose, stop!” Huh? I asked him what his nose was doing, to which he replied “It’s going [scrunches up his nose]” and “That’s NOT very nice, nose!” Apparently, Joe is getting the little sinus cold that the babies have. Our house is the Snot Spot this week.

In other news, the twins MUST be teething. They’re grouchy and super drooly. (note the wet spot on Patrick’s shirt) It’s gross.

Another thing on my mind lately: Getting five servings of vegetables down a picky toddler seems like a daunting task. He basically eats NO veggies. I recently realized that the recommendation is “five fruits and vegetables” Joe usually had 3 fruit servings by the end of breakfast – a full banana (counts as 2, right? He’s small…) and applesauce. He’s been horrible about eating veggies, except for carrots, but he’s a fruit nut – apples, oranges, pears, strawberries, plums, you name it. Of course veggies are good for him, but fruit will get us through this super-picky eating phase. And my conscience is clear. My kids are healthy enough eaters. Eating balanced meals is tough, too, but there is no law that you can’t eat your fruit at one meal, a lot of protein at another, and mostly dairy at another. It balances out, right? And ketchup counts as a vegetable, right? (“tomatoes” is the first ingredient listed…)

Shoes

I forgot to mention that Patrick's shoes in the last post were significant because, I must confess, this was pretty much the first day of their lives that they have worn shoes. They spent much of the morning trying to pull them off, eat them, and pull them off of their brother's (brothers' ?) feet.

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By the way: Please forgive me whenever I don't use the apostrophe correctly to notate plural possessive. It's tough to figure out just what I'm trying to say as it is without that extra confusion. I try, but please kindly overlook any glaring errors!

The Good Night Game

Joe and I play the “Good Night” game – we pretend to be asleep, put our heads down, sometimes even snoring, then one of us pops up and screams. Giggling and tickling ensue. Unbeknownst to us, the twins were watching and wanted to participate. Both of them put their little heads down, (Luke even made a snoring sound!) and pop up suddenly and laugh.

They haven’t quite figured out that the screaming is what “wakes” us all up, but it’s SO cute to see how they interact with each other and Joe in this little game.
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Luke wanted you to see how he can walk, too.

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Luke standing up

Practicing falling down!

Patrick wanted to get in this post, too. Check out his cool red shoes!

Walking pictures

Patrick practices walking.

Whoa! Patrick practices falling down.

Joe's first portrait shot. Pretty darn good for a little guy!

Ahhh, the sweetest thing.

Birr

We took a really quick trip to the zoo on Saturday. Some of our favorite exhibits are indoors, so it's easy to visit in the winter. This time, however, it began sleeting half way through our time there, so we cut it extra short. Daddy and Joseph enjoyed watching the fish.

On our way out of the fish house, we were almost overrun by a flock of peacocks running for cover from the sleet. Luke was fascinated by these lovely creatures and said a new word: "Birr." We are assuming that he means "bird" and not "brrrr," as it was a pretty chilly day!

Not to be outdone by his brother, Patrick also produced a new word later that day while playing with toys: "Mine!"

10,000

If you are reading this, you may be the 10,000th visitor to our blog! Can you believe it? We're so glad that all of you think we are important enough to spend a little time reading about our lives. Thank you!

WWJFD

To all those Love and Logic fans out there, I have a story for you. I have only heard bits and pieces about Jim Faye’s parenting methods, but so far, his methods seem to make sense. He’s all about natural consequences for kids’ actions and helping kids be more responsible by handling their own problems. I recently read his first book cover to cover. I’m not such a good reader and I rarely finish books, but I couldn’t put it down. It was so interesting to hear how he handles all sorts of situations with kids.

So, here it is: With all of that new information rattling around in my head, Joe found an old bag of baked chips, opened them and flung them all across the floor in the babies’ room and the hall. I walked into the room to see Joe squishing the chips into Patrick and Luke’s hair while they happily munched.

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At first, I got annoyed, but then I remembered – Ah ha! This isn’t my problem. Joe will have to clean it up. I explained the situation to him, gave him a trash bag and shut the door behind me. I checked on him every 10 minutes or so and found him doing everything but cleaning up the chips. For two hours he rolled around in the chips, ate them, played in the babies’ beds, and goofed off with their CD player (turned it up, then to AM fuzz and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off again, poor guy). He had to take his nap without lunch (he had eaten PLENTY of chips and seemed like he might have felt a little icky because of it – another natural consequence.)

When he got up, he was ushered back into the babies’ room. I then realized that the chips were getting smaller and smaller (because of being stepped on and rolled in) and harder for his little fingers to pick up. Joe was offered the vacuum (which he was previously afraid of) with a little instruction on how to use it, and was left alone in the room again – by now he had been in there for almost 3 hours, with no result. He finally decided that he had had enough when I announced that the babies and I were going to watch a video and that he was welcome to join us after the chips were off of the floor. It took a little more prodding, but he started vacuuming and did a pretty good job.

The final result – 3 hours of time to hopefully keep myself from having to clean up frivolous messes again. Maybe he will learn the lesson, maybe not, but besides the checking in on him, it wasn’t much harder on me than cleaning up the chips myself. In addition, Joe was very proud of himself for learning to vacuum and announced to Scott, “I picked up the chips, Daddy!” He failed to mention that he was the one who flung them in the first place.
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Click on the headline for a little more information about Love and Logic.

"Cars" Christmas

Okay, it's taken me some time, but I've finally compiled the definitive list of all of the "Cars" items that Joe got for Christmas. Here goes:

Cars sheet set
Cars towel set
Cars plate, bowl and silverware
Stuffed Lightening McQueen
Cars pillow
Small stuffed Lightening, Sally and Mater
Two cars PJ sets
Lightening long-sleeved shirt
Two pair of Cars socks
Three Cars books
Talking stuffed Mater
Cars movie poster
The actual Cars DVD
Cars toothpaste – "Fruit Pursuit" flavor (to go with his “Flo” toothbrush)
Two pull-back cars – Mater and Lightening
Two small cars – Mater and Sheriff
Lightening night light
Three Cars cups with lids and straws

The other day, Joe was protesting having to go to bed. "It’s not bed time – it’s Cars time!" he declared.

Zooming like a rocket

Joe says, "Whoa!" (These are some pics I didn't have a chance to post yet) All of the little cousins had a jolly good time playing with my dad while he blew up specially designed balloons that shoot around like rockets as they deflate. They even make cool sounds as they zoom about the room.

Patrick wanted a front row view of the rocket show.

Kolbe holds his ears while simultaneously hollering for the continuation of the fun game.

One came back to attack poor Grandpa. This left everyone in stitches!

The toy bucket became THE place to be once it was emptied of its toys.

Patrick gives his grandma Eskimo kisses.

Scott and I on our way our to see the Nutcracker. It was a wonderful Christmas gift from my wonderful husband. I've really been appreciating Scott lately. He's had a very busy and stressful schedule at work, and then, of course, we've all been sick. He's been a trooper, and through it all, we can still make diaper jokes and have fun even in the midst of the misery!

Praying hard

Patrick

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Luke

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The twins found the rosaries that we were giving to our confirmation class. We hope that they are praying for the angel of diarrhea to pass over our house. It's been a week now. Yuck!

Charming

Joe has had a particularly funny day of comments. It all started just as he got out of bed. We were watching the "Letter of the Day" segment of Sesame Street. The letter was "P." Joe piped in with "Oh, 'P'! Pah, pah, poopy diaper!" And, yes, he did indeed have a poopy diaper. Way to know your letters, Joe.

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Next, we went to drop off some dry cleaning at the drive through down the street. Once my window was down to talk to the attendant, Joe began yapping away. He apparently thought we were at the McDonald's drive through, and he was giving his order: "Pancakes and apple juice and a toy and fries and cheeseburger..." The nice lady got quite a chuckle when I told her what he was doing.

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Finally, we did actually go to McDonald's on our way home. Joe must have had a little crush on the woman that took our order. He kept saying "What a cute lady!" The young woman really loved that. What a charmer.

Breaking News

Luke and Patrick have taken their first steps!!

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It happened tonight after baths. We stood Luke upright and he just took off - 5 or 6 steps before standing still then falling over. He did this several more times, too.

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We thought we should give Patrick a shot at it, so we stood him up and he took several very excited steps sort of toward Scott, but mostly in place. We think it counts.

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So, yes, they both took their first steps on the same day. It was wonderful!

Christmas Photo Gallery II

Joe checking out a new DVD.

Luke and Aunt Katie.

Luke decides to take a break from his gift opening to sit in a box. Isn't that just how it goes!

We think Patrick makes a great gift, too.

Joe gives his Great-Granddad a hug. Too bad all he could reach was his leg. It's still pretty sweet. This is the grandfather that Joe's middle name came from: Carrol

Luke poses with Scott's cousin Erin.

Patrick enjoys his new bath toy with Scott's cousin Melissa.

Joe couldn't get enough of his toy grinder. He was having so much fun, we didn't have the heart to tell him he was playing with it wrong. Maybe daddy will show him the right way to use a grinder. That is one of the product lines that he manages, afterall.

Christmas Photo Gallery

The whole family after Christmas Mass - clockwise from left - a random altar girl, Kolbe, Jeff, Ken, Scott, Luke, Patrick, Suzanne, Joseph, Janelle, Judy, Elizabeth and Shannon.