Happy Daddy's Day!

So I must say I think I gave Nick exactly what he wanted for Father's Day.....the morning to workout, and enjoy some "him" time!  Nick participated in the Motor City Triathlon, which took place Sunday morning on Belle Isle.  (Yes, the reason we travelled there on Saturday....to check out the place and pick up his race packet.)  The race was an olympic distance (1.5k swim, 23.8 mile bike, 10k run).

Nick's race results were the following; 36th overall (150 men + 50 women), 181st on the swim (37:14); 7th on the bike (1:01:04...or 23.4 mph avg); 29th on the run (46:15 or 7:27 min per mile)! We are very, very proud of him.  The bike course was actually on the Detroit Grand Prix Track, which made it really fun.  Of course his comment after the race was regarding what it would take to beat those 7 people on the bike...how silly!  (The answer is going faster than an average of 25.2 mph.)

The kids could not wait for him to get home and give him the bookmarks, and bags of candy "I love you to pieces" they made for him at daycare!

The kid's shirts for the day included "Daddy's Girl", "Daddy is my Hero", "I love my Daddy", and a bonus one for Tyler "My Dad Cracks Me Up"!





Belle Isle - Island

I think its pretty sad how much stuff we are discovering is so close to our house, and we are just now exploring.  I think our years before kids we pretty much spent the weekend working on house stuff...from putting in deck, landscaping, etc, etc.  Regardless, I think we should have spent more time exploring the beautiful areas around us.  Well there is no time like the present, so here we go again!

We travelled this weekend to Belle Isle, which is a small island just outside of Detroit.  It is approximately 5 miles in diameter.   The island has lots of fun & free stuff to explore.  We managed to check out the "Zoo", Kid's Play Area, the Aquarium, and the Conservatory.

I say "Zoo" in quotes since the only animals we saw were squirles eating at the bird feeders, and turtles.  They also had a "lovely" exhibit of animal poop examples, which I of course took a picture of.

The kids play area was fun, and included a "bumpy" slide.  I haven't seen one of these at a park in so long.

We also walked through the aquarium, which is the oldest aquarium in North America.  However, the most impressive builds of all was the Conservatory.  It was modeled after Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, and includes 5 different sections; The Palm House, Tropical House, Showroom, Cactus House, and the Fernery.  Check out the link above under "Belle Isle" and click on "Explore the Park" for more pictures!

Thumb Sucking...hopefully not!

So apparently our little man has found his thumb, and he thinks it's very nummy.  I am not going to divulge my secrets, but I happen to know that thumb sucking is not only a very hard habit to break, but also an awful way to pick up germs.  A binkie can be taken away when "you" are ready for them to break the habit, but regardless how much yucky stuff you paint on a kids thumb they won't stop until "they" are ready.  Very easily can last until they are 5 or 6 years old....once again by using some very good sources of information.  It also looks like Nathan might be a lefty, as its always his left thumb in his mouth.

 

Here are a few pictures I snapped, which I thought were pretty funny.

 

The top picture is of "Nathan being caught".

 

The bottom picture shows how he likes to push his binkie out of the way. 

 

So far we are actually winning in this thumb versus binkie battle, however he can be very sneaky in the middle of the night.

Tummy time skills! He is doing very good with all his neck control.

The things kids think of....

This morning on the drive to daycare we saw a beautiful deer only about 50 feet from the car.  I explained to Brooke it was about the size of a mommy deer.  To which her response was, "What size poop do you think the daddy deer have?"   Ah the things that go through little kids minds!

Yum, yum, yum...Strawberries!

This past weekend we went Strawberry picking at Whittaker's Berry Farm.  Not only were the strawberries amazingly juicy (as you can see by a few kids faces), their set up at the farm is awesome!  The farm is about 35 minutes from the house, and when you get there they assign you your own row to pick in, which hasn't been touched by anyone else that day..or at least recently!  This way you know you are picking the best, and you don't have to go all over the place looking for them.  This is also better for the farm, and making sure berries aren't missed.  It's a win, win situation for all!  (Easier to keep track of a few strawberry eating kiddos, too!) 

We ended up coming home with just over 30 lbs of berries.  They got eaten, frozen, and turned into some yummy strawberry jam.  Then Brooke asked if we could make jam for all her buddies at daycare...looks like we may need to make another trip to the farm before the season is over! (P.S. Don't put your child in white pants when going strawberry picking...some how they did clean up in the wash though.)

And finally the weekend ended with Brooke's sign pictures.  The last set until she is 4 years old...crazy, crazy.  The exciting news I have to report about Brooke this month is, we decided to try reducing her Flovent inhaler from twice a day to once, by cutting out her evening dose.  Instantly, her night terrors stopped!  After dealling with them for like 8 months, you have no idea how exciting this is for us.  Just disappointed we didn't try this earlier, but I guess everything is a learning experience with kids!

Nathan's two months old!

I don’t think I mentioned in Nathan’s previous post with him in the frog outfit, how much I loved the frog outfit.  Therefore, yes it needed to be in one of his month pictures quickly…since he is almost outgrowing it!  I took pictures in both the morning & evening, as he appears happier at night…which proved to be true as you can see.  I think it even looks like he grew between the two sets of pictures.

His officially stats from the doctor’s office are 13 lb 14 oz (90%), 23 ½ in (75%), and 16” on his head.  I was also thrilled to hear he got a perfect report.  No concerns and we just need to keep feeding him as we are.  She did mention “no ponds, lakes, etc until he is 4 months old.”  I guess he will need to stay on the sand at the cottage, with no swimming this year.

The other great milestone for the little guy is his eating and sleeping skills!  He is already drinking 5 oz bottles at daycare (3 total), and nursing another 3-4 times a day.  He takes lots of random naps throughout the day, but the real treat is for the last week he started consistently going from around 10:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m!  Woo hoo  (Note: this doesn’t mean the other two aren’t waking us up throughout the night, but this sure helps a ton!)

Other than that they just love him at daycare, and I love hearing the comment that he is so easy to take care of and loves smiling and watching the other kids.  A mom couldn’t ask for a better report!  This just makes my work day that much less stressful.  So with no farther ado, here are his pictures!

As we start off the summer....

Since Nick & I are now back to working full time, we have very little time to get house work done.  Our evenings pretty much consist of getting dinner on as quick as possible, cleaning up dinner, bath time, and then bed time.  Therefore, the only time to get laundry done, and other house chores is on the weekend.  HOWEVER, we decided since we don't get to do fun stuff with the kids all week, the weekend is all we have.  Therefore, we decided the house is going to be messy, landry will need to be done later, and we are trying as hard a possible to find different fun activities on Saturday & Sunday, and limit our running errands, and cleaning only at nap time.  Well the house isn't spotless, but the kids are having fun!

Here are the pictures from the first weekend in June!  I am soooo into matching clothes for the kids! 

We spent Saturday morning at the community pool.  Tyler was literally dancing in the water until he took a wrong step and slid under.  He loved it, but someone always needed to be nearby to scoop him up!

Planting maple trees!  Hopefully they grow nice and strong.  One of the trees in our backyard was actually transported from Cincy, and originally planted by Nick as a seed when he was really young.  Now the tree is huge!

Final May Pictures

Boy have I been slacking on blog posts! I don't want to lose my five fans, so maybe by doing a final May post I will keep some of you interested in coming back to check on updates!

Here are lots, and lots of pictures with some short little captions. 

For starters, we have some yoga, kids playing with Shelly's water bowl, and Nathan's new frog outfit.

This then takes us to my 33rd birthday.  The year of 3's with three kids!

A new playground in town!  I think Nick enjoyed it as much as the kids.



 Our second family picture, outside of the one at the hospital!  Maybe we will have better luck next time.

Tyler's 22 month picture.  Sorry dude if you wear an outfit like that...I WILL take your picture. Also, Tyler can almost count to 13...I say almost because the #6 always seems to be missing.

A trip to the Cincinnati Zoo over Memorial weekend.

Anyone see a gorilla in the picture?

Cousins, cousins, cousins..

8 wks old, and Nathan's first day of school...also my first day back to work.  Boo hoo.

And finally we ended May with Nathan's first smile caught on camera at 8 wks 1 day old!  So fun! (And some very colorful toe nails.)