Wearing All Your Clothes

More from the bath last night.  Avery got out of the tub first.  She walked right over and grabbed Jack's boxers and took them to Geoff.  He put her diaper on first then obliged her request.  Then she made a run for it.  In case he changed his mind.

 

She returned and grab his jammy top.

 On it went.

Then the pants...

More!

  She grabbed Wyatt's jammies...

 Pants x2 please.

She meant business.

 

Don't forget the second pair of boxers!  Is this not straight out of the "Friends" episode when Joey puts on all of Chandler's clothes?  Ha ha!  If you have seen the episode, Joey then starts doing lunges-it is hilarious...

 Time to brush my teeth.

 With Jack and Wyatt's toothbrush.

She loves her brothers.  And apparently wants to be them.  :) 

The Wonder of Bubbles

 Geoff blew some bubbles for the kids during their bath time last night.  And I wanted to practice shooting more in manual.  I am getting better but still have lots of work to do with lighting and getting the photos sharp.  I always have to increase "tone" and sharpness in Lightroom.

This photo makes the boys laugh out loud.

Are there many things in life better than seeing a kid experience the wonder of bubbles for the first time?

Here are the boys the first time they saw bubbles.  They were a little more contemplative about it.

Magic.

 
 

    Fun comparison from above to below.  Jack on the left in both and Wyatt on the right.

200 Hours

 I finished my 200 hours of yoga training this past weekend at the Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas!  Yay!  I took my first yoga training in 2009 when Geoff was deployed and it took me almost three years to complete.  But it was a perfect pace for me to work on my hours around moving, having a baby, and having a couple of injuries during that time.  What I know now for sure is how little I know about yoga!  :)  It has been a fun journey and I met some really great people.  I loved traveling to all the locations:  Texas, Silverdale and Seattle WA, Hood River OR, Long Beach CA, Las Vegas NV, and Eugene OR.  The instructor for my last training took this picture and e-mailed it out to us.  The lady on my left is Noriko.  She was in my anatomy and seniors training in Seattle when I was pregnant with Avery.  Since then she got pregnant and now has a 9-month old!  Although this training location wasn't on the strip...there was no denying we were in Vegas.  I walked past Elvis about five minutes after I checked-in, I could buy a bottle of water for $8 and a small pack of Advil for $6 in the mini-bar,  when I got onto the elevator at 4:30 in the morning to catch my flight home, the couple in the elevator was just returning from their night out...and just a few moments later I walked outside to get in a cab and security was gathered around a cab because there was a man unconscious in the back seat.  They were calling an ambulance.  Only in Vegas right?

I shared a room with Krisann-who I met in my Long Beach training.   She is Italian, hilarious, and so fun!  I loved hearing her talk about her college-age son and her daughter in high school.

 I got to spend an afternoon with my good friend Lisa...her and her husband were our sponsors when we arrived to Japan in 2000 and are now stationed in Vegas.  It was fun to shop by ourselves (I think we were in Anthro for two hours) and have lunch.

 This is Julia...she was in my Thursday training and she reminded me so much of my college roomate Katie.  I had to take a pic to show her and at first Katie thought this was an old picture of us.

I loved the trainings but I missed Geoff and the kiddos though and was so happy to get home and squeeze them.  Thank you Geoff for taking time off work and holding down the fort while I went to all these trainings.   Geoff kept them busy while I was gone.  He took them rock climbing, bowling, frisbee-golfing, and had fun making them treats from a Star Wars cookbook.

Avery was happy to see me but she didn't run to me this time and she kept smiling without showing her teeth.

Speaking of teeth, W is about to lose his two lower center teeth...his two adult teeth have already broken through behind his baby teeth.

Jack has two loose teeth on the bottom too and the two adult teeth are there but haven't broken through yet.  Crazy to me that Avery is just getting teeth, Wyatt has two new big teeth and that both boys are about to loose teeth.

I am not sure I am ready for baby teeth to fall.

18 Months...Sweet & Sassy

Avery passed the 18-month mark at the end of March.  She just had her well-baby check and she is growing but has her own curve.  She is still in the third percentile for weight:  19.9 lbs and she is 30 inches long.  

Her favorite things to find and destroy:  chapstick and dental floss (notice below how she is just about to find the floss)

Her favorite things to do on her own:  open cabinets and drawers - especially the cereal cabinet (she gets out her own cereal and eats fistfuls while walking around the house carrying the box)

-She just discovered how to climb on the table.  I went outside the other day for a minute and came back to see her having some fun on the table:

Some of her sweet vs. sassy actions:

Sassy:  If we give her milk in a sippy cup vs. her bottle (she won't touch it)

Sweet:  Snuggles and giving goodnight kisses to everyone

Sassy:  When it is time for naptime or bedtime

Sweet:  How she walks

Sassy:  How she walks when she doesn't get what she wants...she puts her chin to her chest and swings her arms and kind of shuffles her feet

Sweet:  How excited she gets when she sees something in the oven...she will pull out the oven mitt and hand it to us

Sassy:  If we try to hand her something as a distraction she grabs it and tosses it on the floor

Sweet:  How much she wants to play with her brothers

Sassy:  If someone leaves the house without her 

Sweet:  How much she lets everyone love on her 

I was cleaning the house the other day and found these old photos my mom gave me from when I was little.  I was surprised to see more resemblances between Avery and I now that she is more toddler-ish.  I had some seriously round cheeks...brown eyes and a mop of hair.  Avery's eyes are bright blue and shaped more like daddy's and the boys.   I think our noses are the same and she has the same birthmark between the eyebrows.  Avery's hair is lighter than mine was at this age but it is growing in in a similar pattern with a side sweep and some curls.  

Me in the rockin' 70's...those pants are quite fashionable right now actually :)

Comparing this photo of me filling up the pool with the photo below it...

             

    I asked Wyatt who was in this photo (he already knew they were old pics of me) and he said "that is   

   Mommy and Uncle PJ swimming in a tomato sauce pool."  (from the red tint of the photo)

It was fun trying to find pics of Avery with similar expressions to mine in my pics.  She has her own unique look and spirit.

We were out in the front yard the other day and the mailman pulled up and said "that's not the baby you just had is it?"   It is so funny how fast we notice time pass with little ones around.  Here she is enjoying her lollipop after her well-baby appointment (and shots)!

91.

We were tucking the boys into bed last night and W asked me to snuggle with him.  I laid down with him and he just started talking about lots of different things...who sits at his new team at school, who sits on Jack's team at school, what someone said, etc.

We just had our 3rd quarter parent/teacher conference on Wednesday.  The boys are right where they need to be.  Their teacher said she is teaching many things that used to be in the first grade curriculum so we are glad we waited for them to start school when they were six years old versus five.

The one things their teacher said she wants them to work on more is to recognize the numbers 11-19 quicker when they set up items in groups of when they are not in order.  They can count forever as long as they start with 1.

Returning back to our bedtime conversation....Wyatt started talking about math.  He said "I can count to 100 by 10's..." and he did.  Then he told me that he could count to 100 by 5's...and he did.  So I asked him:
Me:  What number comes after 14?
W:  15
Me:  What comes after 16?
W:  17
Me:  What comes after 18?
W:  19
Me:  What comes after 19?
Pause
Pause
W:  91--then he burst out laughing

:)

Drop-Off

The bell rings at school at 8:15.  It took seven months for the boys to fully adjust to school.  They still have ups and downs especially returning after time off or long weekends but they look forward to seeing their friends now.  They love lunch and recess.  The biggest difference I have seen in the last few months is in the morning drop-off.  Probably in January or February, Wyatt started hopping out of the van and just walking toward the school - ahead of Jack, Avery and I.  He notices (and has pointed out to Jack) that most of the other kids are "dropped off."  Jack wants me to walk them in all the way to their classroom.  Which I do everyday--they are in only in kindergarten and I know as they get older they may not even want to be spotted with me so I will take it while I can.  Wyatt kind of walks in front of us...and Jack (until about a month ago) would proudly hold my hand all the way to class.

In the van this morning:
W:  "Why don't you want mommy to pull up and we get out and go in?   Are you afraid you will get tooken by a big kid?"
J:  "No!  I am afraid I will miss our class...get lost in the big kids...and that I will miss YOU."

I turned on my video so I could record more on my phone while they were putting on their coats in the car.
W:  "Mommy, why does Jack everytime like going inside?  Because he thinks he'll might get lost and  never make it back to the class that's why."
J:  "Yeah because I....because I....
W:  "I never get lost bc if I get lost I'll just head straight back down the stairs and find Rylan because he everytime stays by the stairs when I see him.  If we are in the line know what we'll happen we'll not get to see Rylan."
J:  "Because our class goes before Rylan"

I will have to ask them who Rylan is after school...I have never heard them mention him before.

I thought it was so sweet to hear Jack say he didn't want to miss Wyatt (lose Wyatt).