Gymnastics

I took a half day personal day yesterday and went and saw Corbin and Brody at Gymnastics. I also got to have lunch with Sabe and Tom before they left for Seattle. It was a great way to spend the afternoon,

Catch-up.

Just a little catch-up. Adam was gone this weekend so Corbin and I were on our own. We had a good time but I am exhausted. We ran a million errands yesterday and then went to Brody's 2nd birthday party! I did not go further than the back yard today and it was wonderful. One of the best things about today was playing pretend with Corbin in the sandbox. I had my chair out next to the sandbox and was going to read/hang out while he played. All of a sudden he came up to me with a little cup and told me to "tend eat coffee cake". It was so cute. He kept bringing me pretend coffee cake. We had banana coffee cake, blueberry coffee cake, strawberry, raspberry, and finally white coffee cake. We also drank some "tend water". It was one of the first times that he has really embraced the whole pretend play. He has done a little here and there but not like that. Then later he was riding his worm to school. He wanted a kiss and hug before he went to "school". He would get a hug and kiss and say "have fun at school" and then ride away. It was just too cute.

Here are a few pictures from the last week and a half or so.

We got two new chicks last weekend to introduce to our 4 hens. Hopefully this will allow us to continue to get eggs next summer as the hens slow down. Corbin thought they were pretty cool.

This was not setup. He just was standing like this and I happened to have the camera!

Our wonderful Mother's Day walk out on the North Lake Whatcom Trail.

Hanging out with his buddies at play group. Jack (on the right) became a big brother that day! My friend Liliana had a wonderful home birth while Jack was at play group!

We have been hanging out in our front yard so much now that it has finally gotten nice and we have our fence! I love it! I can just hang out in the hammock while Corbin plays or in one of the lawn chairs. We play outside almost every day after we come home from work. And now that Corbin has been going to bed a little later, we even go back out after dinner. It's a joy! Of course it's supposed to start raining again this week but spring is in the air!

One of my best friends from High School, Sabe, is coming in to town tonight with her husband Tom. I am excited to spend a few days with them. Maybe the nice weather will stick around?

Yo Mama!

A week at a glance

Just a couple of shots of our week...First, Corbin and Brody sporting their animal masks at their friend Bjorn's 4th birthday. It was at the Jump Around Fun Zone, a warehouse room with tons of inflatable jumping and climbing things. Corbin was hesitant at first but then he really got into it. He even figured out how to climb up the ladders to go down the big slide. He wanted nothing to do with the pizza/present opening part of the party. Corbin and Brody also started Gymnastics this week. Melissa is taking them to a toddler gymnastics class. They both LOVED it!

That night Corbin developed Croup. He had the classic seal bark cough all through the night. It didn't wake him up but sounded horrible! He woke up and has some stridder breathing, so we ended up taking him into the doctor. They gave him some meds and it developed into just a nasty cold with a nasty cough. He was one unhappy guy. We had to cancel our play group and just stick around home.

When we were home on Monday Corbin got to watch the guys come and finish our fence. He loves watching them work. This is the second home project, the first being the fireplace, where we had someone else come and do all the work. It felt a little weird to watch other people do the work for us but at the same time it was nice to not have to do it (thank you tax refund)! We think our fence looks great! It will keep Corbin out of the ally and front street if we have to turn our back for a second. And since the back yard is mostly garden, this is where we have most of our outside social time and play time. Although Corbin has already figured out how to open the gates, so we will have to figure something out to deter him a little :-)

This morning Corbin had left over waffles for breakfast when he first got up. So when we were eating our breakfast he was off looking for things to do. He brought us the art box and wanted to paint. So once our breakfast was over, he and Adam went and created a Sunday morning art project! I love it.

In other news. I am entering my 31st week of pregnancy, the end is in sight. Although everyone keeps thinking I am due soon and when they hear I have almost 2 months left they are surprised. I know it will go quick though, we already have things on the calendar for every weekend in May and through the beginning of June. I am busy looking for a new dresser for Corbin so the new baby can have his old one. And a real toddler bed for him too. Someday I will make some curtains for the upstairs space that will soon become her room. It's a little weird to not have a "room" to get ready.

My job is also very uncertain for when I return from my leave. I have received a RIF (reduction in force) notice because they are again cutting counseling hours. They most likely will not fill my position at the middle school again, leaving my co-worker with a ratio of 600:1, which is crazy for a middle school. It makes me very frustrated but I also know I am taking next year off and everything could change again the following year. It just makes me so mad at the state of our education system. We bail out banks and other corporate businesses who already make millions of dollars but we leave our schools in disarray because of budget cuts which eventually hurts our own futures... Oh I could go on but I promised Corbin I was almost done typing.

Tulips

My parents are in town this weekend and my mom has always wanted to go down and see the Skagit Valley Tulips. Adam has no interest in seeing the tulips again. He said he's seen them once and that's all he needs. I love going and seeing all the beautiful colors. Last year Aimee, Daylen and I took the boys down for some pictures. Today turned out to be a gorgeous day. After a yummy breakfast at Avenue Bread, my mom, Corbin and I headed down to the Tulips for an "Adventure" as Corbin called it. We got there at about 9:30 am, which turned out perfect because it got super super busy by the time we were ready to leave.

This trip turned out to not be as picture perfect. Corbin was too much on the move to want to stop and get his picture taken. He did want to go into the windmill and was quite sad when we said we couldn't go inside.

We said he could only touch the tulips gently and smell them. Even though tulips don't have much smell he became quite good at smelling them.

What was Corbin's favorite part, the PUDDLES! Good thing he wore his boots!

Oh, and all the air planes and helicopters that were flying around looking at the tulips from the sky.

Towards the end he started almost tasting them instead of smelling them.

We tried to get another mom and Corbin shot here but he didn't want me in the picture, only him. And he wanted to sit. I was not going to sit on the muddy ground. So instead we got a Corbin sitting shot.

He did let Grammie sit with him but then he wanted her to get up. Silly boy!

He started to melt down as we headed back. But after a quick snack he was ready to go again! We had a great day in the sun with Grammie and Buppa.

Big Boy Bed

On Thursday we moved Corbin into his "big boy bed". We have been telling him about it all week and he was pretty excited. New baby girl will need a crib after sleeping in the co-sleeper for a while and so instead of getting a new crib, we just decided to switch Corbin sooner rather than later. He amazingly enough has not tried to climb out of his crib. He climbs everything else but not out of his crib. This way he would have less transition (ie new baby and new bed) and we can then move him into a real toddler bed once we find one. Adam and I went away for a night last week. Grammie Susan came and spent the night with Corbin so we could get a night away before #2 comes along. When we got back we went out and got an clock and told Corbin tonight was the night. Corbin of course wanted to help daddy turn his crib into a big boy bed.

Adam had to go and get some new screws (2 times to Lowes) to make the railing fit, so while we waited for him to come back, Corbin practiced, going in and out. He LOVED it. I thought, Oh no, he will do this all night and never go to sleep. He then brought one book in and "read it" then took it out, then brought another one in, over and over again. We also tried practicing the number 7, saying that was what time he could get out in the morning. Our friends Aimee and Eric did this with their little guy. They taped over the minutes and wrote a 7 on the other side. They told Alden that when he saw two sevens, he could get up, but not before then. We had no idea what to expect.

So when it came to bedtime, we tried to read stories from the chair, but he wanted to sit in bed. Adam sat next to the bed while Corbin climbed in and out and looked at the pictures every once in a while. He was all over the place. He kept saying "big boy bed!". He also took out all of his stuffed animals from his toy box and brought them into bed with him. Every single one of them. Finally we decided it was time. We said, "Ok Corbin, night night time." He climbed right in and laid down. We put the blanket over him and left the room. He instantly cried out "Mommy!" So I went back in and he kept repeating over and over "Mommy come right back. Mommy come right back." I think he was not sure if I would be there in the morning, since we had been gone the night before. I told him I was only going downstairs and I would come up when it was time for me to go night night. He repeated it again, crying. So I rubbed his back, sang some songs, told him I wasn't going anywhere and then left the room. He still was crying. We watched him on the monitor (yay video). He cried pretty hard for about 10 minutes. He kept saying "ok Mommy" which we weren't sure if he was saying, he was ok, or if he was agreeing with me. I was going to go back in and let him know I was still here but after about 10 minutes he started to calm down and laid back down and finally fell asleep after about 20 minutes total. The whole time, he NEVER got out of his bed! I was amazed! I also expected him to wake up at some point in the night and get out. But nope, he slept right through till 7:30 am! He woke up talking to himself. We watched him, he just laid there. Finally he said "Mommy", so I went in and he said, "time to get up?" I said "yep, your clock has 2 seven's on it, time to get up". He was so excited he jumped out, then back in again. He played doing that for about 10 minutes and let me go back to bed and lay there while he played! He never does that!

He went down great for his naps too! It's been 3 nights and 3 days of naps and he still goes down when we say so and doesn't get up till we come in the room! It's great! Yay for big boy beds!

Snuggles, playing and Easter Baskets

Corbin wandered upstairs the other day and when he has been gone a while I had Adam go and check on him. This is what he found :-) Gryffin has been very patient with Corbin lately, as long as Corbin is not screaming at him or chasing him. Now whenever Gryffin lets him snuggle, Corbin says "hear Gryffin purring."

Corbin's new obsession."Train tracks train tracks. Play trains. Help Bridge. Mommy play trains now."

"What are you doing Corbin?"
"Shopping mommy."
"What are you shopping for?"
"Fruit."

We don't celebrate Easter in a religious sense. But it's a good time to celebrate spring, rebirth, eggs, friends and family. So this year we decided to see how Corbin did with some egg dying. Adam saved out all our light colored eggs from the chickens. We headed to Fred Myer to pick up some egg dye. Corbin was fascinated with the box. He studied it pretty carefully. The whole thing was actually pretty anti-climatic. You just drop the egg in and wait for it to change color. He kept wanting to see the eggs. And then touch them when they were all done. But it was still fun and now we have multi-colored hard boiled eggs to eat!

Adam is so awesome. He wanted to create a treasure hunt for Corbin to find his Easter basket. We went out on Sat. night for a kid free dinner while a friend stayed home with Corbin (Thanks Liliana!). When we came home I went straight to bed. Adam stayed up and cut out eggs with directions on them, put together his Easter Basket, and had everything ready to go for Easter morning. Corbin came downstairs and we took him the kitchen to begin his hunt. He did great! I tried to get a video of the whole thing but the disk ran out of space right before he found his Basket. It was pretty fun to watch him do it. Once he found his basket, he went "Wow!"

And here is his basket. Full of Adam's old Hot Wheels and eggs. We also had two new rakes and a shovel for working in the garden that went along with it. Being out parent's children, the plastic eggs were filled with nuts, raisins, cheerios, and animal crackers. No candy for this kid yet.

Tonight before I put Corbin to bed I told him that on Thursday we are taking the railing off his crib to make it a big boy bed. He instantly grabbed the railing and said it was stuck. I said we would take it off with tools. He said "Sammy's tools?" Sam is Melissa's husband and I guess they have gone to see his tools. I said, no Daddy's tools. He kept repeating "take railing off. Big boy bed. Not stuck. Tools. On Thursday." He seemed pretty excited. He is now in his crib repeating that whole sequence. Every once in a while he says "take railing off, next week, Thursday."