Pirates, Part 2

My mother-in-law sent me a few extra pictures of the boys enjoying Talk Like a Pirate Day and they are so cute that I had to share them. She got a great shot of the pirate at the museum. He said he's done over 1000 shows! Wow!

After dinner at the Aquarium, we stopped on the stairs to check out the waterfall and Nancy captured this great series of pictures. Will and Pop are saying "ARGH" and making (polite) pirate gestures.

I think we've got our pirate crew together and we're ready to set sail now, don't you?

2 1/2

My sweet Henry is 2 1/2 years old today. He is a happy, joyful child and we just love him to bits! Here's what's going on with our smallest guy.
His loves:

• Brown Bear - I do not know what we would do if we ever lost his bear. Henry adores Brown Bear and takes him everywhere!
• the letter H
• rockets - Henry loves to turn sofas, the playset, beds, and the play tent into a rocket ship so we can blast off into outer space!
• trains - what boy doesn't love trains? Actually, Henry likes all things that go.
• planets, especially Mercury and Pluto, even though Pluto isn't a planet anymore.
• Mickey Mouse
• pirates - he loves pretend play with his Daddy and brother!
• books - his Babybugs are current favorites.
• music - he loves his Kindermusik CDs and all the special CDs we've made for the boys' birthdays.
• SoccerTots - running and kicking a ball is fun!
• playing games on our phones
• helping cook and then eating the results
• his brother
• and his daddy, his mommy and his grandparents too
• closing doors and drawers - it's a slight obsession; if it is open, Henry will close it for you!
• visiting the science museum, children's museum, zoo and library
• dinosaurs - stegosaurus is still his favorite.
• the color blue - he would be happy if everything he owned (except Brown Bear) was blue.
• school, especially his great teachers and all the craft projects they do
• saying silly things and then saying "I was just telling (or doing) a joke!"
• eating - the kid will eat anything! Henry is not picky at all.
• jelly beans - these are treats for going potty only!

His dislikes:

• not having his Daddy around
• firefighters - Henry is currently very scared of firefighters' masks. If we startle him by coming in to his room unexpectedly, he always says he thought it was a firefighter coming in. He knows firefighters protect us, but he is still very scared of them!
• going to school, though he is fine once he gets there. He just cries to make Mommy feel bad!

Other milestones:

• knows most of his letters, but gets tripped up on X and K (they do look alike) and for some reason just doesn't get C. We're also working on letter-sound correspondence and he's doing well!
• can count to 16, but skips 15, and 13 and 14 sound remarkably alike (just like his brother!)
• can count objects pretty well up to 10. Knows that 1+1 make 2 (and that you can't add H and H because they're letters, not numbers!).
• is completely potty-trained for peepee and has NO accidents. He's in big boy underpants except for naps/bedtime. We're working on the other!
• has an amazing imagination.
• does so well sleeping in his big boy bed.
• is extremely polite and says please, thank you, sorry and yes ma'am without being prompted (most of the time).
• has given up sucking his fingers for comfort (thanks to 3 1/2 weeks in a cast)
• uses his left hand a lot (did the cast turn him into a lefty?)

I just love this sweet little boy!

ARGH! Shiver Me Timbers!

Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It happens every year on September 19, and yes, we celebrated it! I have an entire pirate-loving family, so there's no way this special day can slip by unnoticed. Gene drew this picture in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day and showed it to me when we Skyped last night.
Here is Pirate Will, napping on his pirate ship (every bed in our house has turned into a pirate ship for the boys). He's clearly guarding his treasure chest, and if you look closely at the white pillow, the arrow is pointing to "Finished with Engines," which is fitting since the kid is completely sacked out. Here are some of the pirate books we've been reading lately. The Pirate Cruncher is a current favorite.
The Children's Museum had a whole slew of special activities planned for Talk Like a Pirate Day, so we headed out to join the fun as soon as I could wake the little pirates from their naps and get them off their ships. Henry wore his pirate shirt for the outing.
Will has a host of long-sleeved pirate shirts, but none for warm weather, so we decided that pirates would like this red shirt. He's practicing saying "ARGH!" and "Shiver Me Timbers" in this shot.
At the museum, Henry made a spyglass and decorated it with stickers.
I'm not sure that he could see much through the spyglass, though, since he kept centering it over his nose.
We invited Nana and Pop to join us at the museum. Pop can definitely talk like a pirate, and as you can see, he really got into the spirit of things!
Henry just wanted to take Pop's eye patch off.

Then we watched a pirate show. So fun!
Henry wasn't sure what to make of the "real" pirates.
But the boys enjoyed climbing aboard this little pirate ship once the show was over.
We decided the Aquarium Restaurant would be a fitting place to end our seafaring day. Will is entranced with maps, so he is studying this one very closely. And anyway, don't all good pirates need a map?
A nice gentleman even took a photo of the five of us after our fishy feast at the Aquarium.
With our tummies full and the little pirates completely worn out, it was time to head home and don some pirate jammies (thanks, Nana!) and read some pirate stories before falling into our pirate beds.
We didn't find any buried treasure yesterday, but we sure had a blast celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day. Next year, maybe Pirate Daddy will even be in town to join in the fun!

An Indoor Campout

The boys love to go "camping" in the house. Earlier this week, we set up our tent in the front hallway and went on an indoor adventure! As you can see, Henry drove his car to the campsite.

Henry loved hanging out inside the tent.

After we unpacked the Mickey Mouse suitcase and got settled, the boys were ready to start their adventure. We hiked up a mountain (our staircase) to a lake (the boys' bathtub) to go fishing. They got a bundle of fish and crabs (bath toys) and then we hiked back down the mountain. Next up we gathered up some sticks (from a building kit) in the forest (living room) and built a fire near our tent. Will was in charge of cooking up a delicious dinner for all of us.

Henry was too busy playing peekaboo to help cook, but he sure helped eat!

Yummy fish!

What's a campout without some ghost stories? We got out our flashlights and I told some spooky stories inside the tent. We tried to stay away from bears, but instead of avoiding them, it looks like one came along for the ride!

The only thing we didn't get to was making s'mores, but I've got the ingredients now, so the next time the boys decide to go camping, we'll have a sweet finish!

War Paint

It was so nice and mild yesterday morning that the boys got to play outside. They baked cakes in their sand table (and we discovered that half our plastic sand toys are broken, again!), swung on the swings, and climbed aboard their rocket ship. Henry requested that I write his name in sidewalk chalk, so I happily obliged. He then took over the designs, and we ended up with sidewalk chalk all over the sidewalks AND the back door AND even on his face!

In this picture, Henry is examining some chalk on his finger. This is what he used to make some lovely designs on the window of the back door.

I'm not sure if you can see the pink streaks on his face, but he looked like a little warrior with war paint all over his cheeks. I love these little cool-weather teasers. October with its real fall temps can't get here fast enough!

To Be a Chef

Will and Henry love to help out in the kitchen, so when my friend Belinda decided to have her daughter's third birthday party at a local cooking school called Chefs 2B, I knew the boys would love it! I have known about Chefs 2B for awhile, but classes don't start for kids until they're 4 years old, so we've never been before.

When the kids arrived, they all got to decorate their aprons and chef's hats. Then they divided into two teams -- Team Icing and Team Cupcake. Will and Henry were on Team Cupcake. They helped stir the dry ingredients.

Will loved it!
It took Henry a few minutes to warm up to Chef Elizabeth, and even longer to want to put on his apron and hat.

Can you see Will cracking an egg here? When we cook at home, that's usually a grown-up's job, so Will actually ran over to me to ask permission before he would crack the egg!

Henry mostly watched the cupcake-making part.

He finally put his hat on!

Will really got into pouring the cupcake batter into the cups. It was definitely a little messy! Can you see the overflowing cup in the middle, closest to Will? He kept adding batter to it and it turned out to be one huge cupcake!

After we put the cupcakes in the oven, it was time to move on to the pizzas. The kids all rolled out little pizza doughs and added their own toppings.

Cheesy goodness.

In this picture, Will is sneaking a piece of pepperoni while sitting next to the birthday girl's big sister, Chloe. Chloe is Will's best friend from school and it just happens that they live right around the corner from us. Perfect!

Making lemonade.

And finally, the pizzas are done! YUM!!!

After pizza, they all decorated their cupcakes with the icing made by Team Icing.
We sang happy birthday to birthday girl Bella, and then everyone dug into those homemade cupcakes!
What a fun birthday party! The boys had a blast being chefs for the morning and can't wait to go back again. Thanks, Belinda, for inviting us and planning such a fun day for the kiddos!

SoccerTots

I enrolled both boys in SoccerTots and they began classes last week. SoccerTots isn't "real" soccer where the kids play on teams. Instead, it's a one-hour class where the kids learn lots of soccer skills, run around like crazy, and have loads of fun. I wanted to find a Friday morning activity for Henry when Will is in school, and we've outgrown Gymboree, so when I heard about SoccerTots and found out they had a Friday morning class, I knew it just had to be!

Here's Henry getting ready for his very first class. Gene was home last Friday, so Henry got to go to soccer with Daddy while I took Will to meet his teacher. Gene reported that Henry did really well in class, had fun, and followed all the instructions! Good job, little soccer player!

I had planned on having Will play real soccer this year, but after his reluctance to do swim lessons by himself in the summer, I thought maybe we should try SoccerTots first. Will did NOT want to go to class last week. This is his grumpy face.

The first class did not go well. Will refused to participate, cried a lot, wanted me to be with him, and then finally had fun at the very end.

I wasn't sure how Will would act in class yesterday, after our first session, but this time it only took Will 10 minutes to warm up to Coach Nicki, and then he absolutely loved class. I could not believe the transformation. He was laughing and running and having a ball (no pun intended!). He listened so well, followed all of the coach's instructions, and actually learned some new soccer moves. Now Will tells me he can't wait to go back to soccer and that he wants to do it all fall and in the spring and even when he's five! I'm so proud of both my little soccer tots!