Slowly Coming Around....

I'm not going to lie...it's been a crummy few weeks. A roller coaster. But, finally, all is improving. Slowly.

Other than the dramatic work events and dramatic emotions, May has been a GREAT month!

The boys have been so fun and loving the warmer weather. I have so many pictures from the past couple of weekends that I will post eventually.

But for now, here are a few of my favorite pictures from a couple of weeks ago.

If you stand in our backyard and look around, you might really confuse yourself and think you are in the "seasonal" aisle of Walgreens. Nathan just cannot help himself with the <$5.00 outdoor toys. We have sling shots (airplane, not weapon), we have 500 water balloons, we have a poly pool, we have a plethera of squirt guns (air pump and standard)...shall I go on?

Oh yea, and an electric bubble gun. Henry can literally cover Charlie in bubbles and Charlie loves it!

Even though we own the seasonal aisle at Walgreens, Henry prefers chemistry work.

He loves moving water from one thing to another.

And another:

Charlie? What are you doing?

"nothing. what?."
"nothing." And that, my friends, was the last time Sassy ate dirt. For now.

He is actually likely to move on to rocks and boulders seeing how ALL of his molars are peeking though! Maybe not all, but I felt 4 the other day,

See no evil.

Hear no evil.

Um. See no evil.

We'll work on this.

Love, B

"What?"

Happy 15th Months!

Happy 15th Month Birthday Sweet Charlie!

Love, B

Free the Fishes!

Last night, Henry and I were having a conversation about what animals live in the ocean...

Henry: "Whales, crabs and dolphins live in the ocean!"

Me: "That's right! What about fish?"

Henry: (thinks long and hard for a minute) "No, fishes don't live in the ocean. They live in a cage at the Mall."


Love, B

It's not screaming day...

Daddy picked the kids up from daycare/Grandma today. Henry is first on the pick-up route and then they go get Charlie. As Daddy is buckling Charlie into his seat:

Charlie: "Scccrrreeeeeeech!!!!!"

Henry: "Charlie, Its not Screaming Day, it's Mother's Day!"

That's right, Henry.

Wordless Wednesday

Green Eye

Me (talking to Nate about Henry's disturbing red-rimmed eye): "I wonder if Henry has pink eye?"

Henry: "No mommy, I have green eye."

A Day in the Life....

What exactly does a Sunday in Chez Barton look like? The best day ever!!! A day where we never make plans, but rather let the day unravel at its own pace. Saturdays, we usually plan a get-out-of-the-house-for-the-kids-sake-day. Sunday is almost always Pajama Day - all day (during the winter...summer will likely be different).

Charlie is always the first up. On weekdays, he'll sleep until 7:00 or later (naturally, since we have to be out of the house at 7:30). However, weekends are much different. I usually hear Charlie's sweet cooing somewhere around 6:30 in the a.m. Of course, I loves me some sleep, but I have to admit, my early morning hours with Charlie are the best. Just the two of us. We bundle up and walk down the street to race to the newspaper box (its usually empty), we/he enjoy a bottle and we have some uninterupted play/snuggle time.

Charlie is usually hungry for breakfast before my sleepyheads wake up, so I usually make him something early and then he eats a second breakfast when the men wake up.

This day, Charlie is noshing on bananas and toast - of which he ate no toast.

After breakfast, Higgins contorts himself best possible to catch the remains on Charlie's high chair seat. It's disturbing.

Henry usually graces me with his presence around 8:30 or 9:00...Hmmmm...much like his daddy he is. Good morning Henry! Henry always has the best sleepy eyes and puppy breath in the morning and before he can even open his eyes squeaks out "I want juice and chewy yunga bar" (granola bar, but since it is so cute, I notice that I, Nate and my Mom all call it a yunga bar)
This Sunday, we sent Daddy to the bagel store. Mmm.Bagels....
And then Charlie does his best George Jefferson imitation.

"Weezeh!"

Wait. What? Did Henry initiate a brotherly photo opportunity? Your not "hugging" your brother are you??? Not sure what prompted this sweetness..maybe it was the sugar in the yunga bar which he is holding in his hand?? Even Charlie is like..."what the?"

And then Charlie did some deep sea discovering in the house since it rains all of the time here. Good thing Daddy bought the boys Lincoln Logs because someone is going to need to build us an Ark. And soon.

And then, for a brief moment on Sunday, then sun came out. And we rushed to get out of our pajamas, into grubby clothes and outside to soak in a small dose of Vitamin D.

This is the beauty that blossomed in the backyard this past week:

There is funny...and then there is hilarious! Henry was hilarious as he helped Daddy mow the lawn. He mows right along side Daddy and even does the "back and forth and back and forth" as he approaches the edges of the lawn.

Charlie watched from the sidelines and laughed hysterically at the roar of the lawnmower.

The louder, the better.

After naptime (which for Henry usually means trying on several different pairs of shoes, unloading every book off of his shelf and taking at least one poop), Henry helped me make dinner - Homemade pizza! (sidenote...I really didn't mean to put the words poop and pizza in the same sentence - but thats just how it is in our house!) He had so much fun making the pizza and he actually even ate it for dinner. I was scared his stomach was going to revolt seeing how it only knows chicken nuggets and peanut butter and jelly. It didn't.

And then it was back into Pajamas to close out Pajama Sunday.

And time to give Daddy head-loves.

And belly-laughs...

Is it bedtime Charlie? This guy can "turn it on" like a switch..

And then turn it off just as quick if he sees a laptop....

And this right here...is just pure trouble. This is Henry and Charlie scheming on the laptop. They must have had fun becuase I later found the colon/semi-colon key on the floor.

I love these boys!

And that, my friends, was a Day in the Life of our Sunday. A very good day. Love, B

Ah Nuts.

Very rarely do I spend an evening away from my Little Children and husband, but every few months, I tag onto a book club with my college friends. More often than not, I haven't finished the book because I only have time to read right before bed, which means two pages in...I'm out. It is not at all unreasonable to assume that one adult book can take me several months to read. Sad, I know. But give me a crack at Good Morning, Good Night or Alexander and the Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day and I'm golden. It just so happens that I DID finish the book club book, The Soloist. Last week, our book club met, which meant that Nate was on Little Children patrol by himself. This is the photo I found in the camera:

That would be Henry with his bee-hind stuck in a Lincoln Logs container.

After seeing this, I thougt it wise not ask what he served them for dinner.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery aka Charlie likes to copy anything anyone else is doing and it is soooo cute.

Two baby bottles without tops = Like $10 with inflation

Two large tumblers = Free, I would never buy those

A plastic watering can= Again, free because it was a gift

and 3 food coloring additives = $7

Entertaining Henry in the kitchen sink on a typical Portland rainy day for ONE AND A HALF HOURS???? Priceless.

Later, as I looked through my photos, I wondered to myself how wise it was to let Henry put several drops of red, blue and green food coloring into Charlie's BPA-laden (they were purchased well before BPA became a household acronym) bottles....but then I thought, whats a little red #3 and sodium benzoate going to do that Big Bad BPA won't cancel out? Am I right?

For the record, Henry didn't drink the colored water and I safely sanitized said bottles.
Because it was all Portlandy outside, Henry explored the deep inside the house:

Shirtless food fotos of Charlie are becoming quite common. I should work on that. Or not.

To a parent, they are adorable. To an outsider, I am sure they think said parent is nuts.

Here's to being nuts! Love, B

Wordless Wednesday

Mini-Golf for a VERY Big Boy! Oh...and some Baseball too!

It will come as no surprise that we had a wonderful weekend at home. Unless the Little Children are sick, every weekend at home is a wonderful weekend. We thought we would hone Henry's innate golf skills by exposing him to miniature golf. Conceptually, mini-golf was the most absurd thing he's ever seen. I mean, why can't you just SET your ball down 10 inches from the hole and hit it in the hole? Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you start all the way back there, when it isn't possible to even see the hole from there? Therefore, this is how we played the game:

1. Henry forges ahead to the next hole (I will say, for the most part, he did go in order) and sets his ball down a few inches from the hole and just starts putting away.
2. Meanwhile, Daddy starts where you are supposed to. Waits patiently for Henry to make his putt, or at least move far enough away that Daddy's ball has a chance.
3. After Daddy hits the ball (which I swear every time he would say, watch this, its gonna be a hole in one) the offense in Henry's blood is just too strong to fight...so he blocks Daddy's ball with his foot and kicks it back toward the tee, picks up his ball and quick steps to the next hole.
4. Meanwhile, Mommy is following Charlie around trying to avoid what seems to be an inevitable disaster as Charlie-Baby has a strong fascination with any and all water features and bridges. I am absurdly strapped down with a diaper bag crossed one way over my body and a camera strapped the opposite way, which obviously means I cannot bend over to pick up my little child, who is staring danger in the face, because it upsets the balance of my baggage and sends everything hurling forward. I am sure we were quite a sight for others.
And so it goes...just like that....18 holes...in less than 30 minutes. Impressive.

And a short pit stop for a photo on the 9th hole: And then on to the batting cages. Let me set this stage for you. Nathan just couldn't help himself. He needed to hit a few balls. It was cold. It was misting. We were T minus 2 hours past our normal naptime (really? need I continue?) and Henry was still getting over the fact that his ball disappeared when he put it in the cup at the 18th.

And then Henry saw the helmet. He loves helmets and hats and headlights of any sort. I was certain his neck was going to crack as he held this bowling ball atop his little neck. As you can see, he worked hard to hold it up strong. But he had trouble walking, or seeing for that matter.

So, Daddy got him an XS red helmet and a little tiny adorable bat.

Henry watching Daddy hit balls and just waiting for his turn to be like Daddy.

It fits! Sort of.
It balances a little better if I tilt my a head a little to the right just like this...now...don't move!
A very proud, sweet moment below. Of course, it took me a while to get to my "moment" seeing how Nate had no hesitations of bringing our first-born into a batting cage with rogue softballs flying toward him at 80+ miles per hour. Ok, it was slow pitch, but still. And Nate, where is your helmet? You don't have much room for error buddy.

Together, they won the game.

And when the balls stopped coming, and the red light turned dark, Henry turned to Daddy and sweetly whispered "Daddy, can I take the helmet home?" to which Daddy had to say "No, Henry. We need to leave the helmet here. We just borrowed it to play the game." To which Henry responded:
And then, we headed home for naptime.

Love, B

ELVIS....is in the building!

But, before we see Elvis, how about a little fun!

Charlie jumping on our bed. He would stand up and fly/flop face down.

Nathan caught this great action shot:

There really aren't any words to describe this beautiful little guy:
Hello there baby! Its baby Elvis:
He can immediately snap out of his Elvis character as seen below.

"Um, what did you say mommy?"
And right back in to character:
And that apparently wraps up Black and White Thursday.

Love, B

One Word Wednesday

PERFECTLY PRECIOUS

Love, B