Dylan's first painting

Don't ask me why, but I got a bug one day to buy something messy, so I splurged on paint supplies. I guess I was bored doing the same old thing with the kids. I was tired of coloring and stickers and games and toys. The pool was nice when it wasn't scorching hot. The kids didn't care how hot it got, because they were the ones in the water. I, on the other hand, was sitting in a chair sweating through the long agonizing minutes. I tried squirt bottles filled with water. Brandon loved that. Dylan's tiny hands just couldn't get around the squirt handle, so he had to try holding the bottle with one hand and pull the squirt handle with the other. I don't think he could get much more frustrated.

So now I figure Dylan has never painted before, and he can hold a paint brush. How hard could it be for a almost 2 year old to paint? He's going to love this, and sure enough he did. Brandon is always bringing home paintings from preschool, so I knew he'd have blast painting with his brother. I set them up side by side and let their creative juices flow. You'll see Dylan's painting above. He did surprisingly well for his first time. He was having such a great time, he was dancing around while he was painting. It was pretty darn cute. Brandon was pretty methodical as he painted (see below). He mixed colors on his paper, and he had to think about where certain colors were going to go, before brush touched paper again. His finishing touches were the dots. Mommy scored big points with the boys that day.

Irony

(If you haven't read "I'm a snap happy mommy", please read it before this entry to appreciate the irony.)

Yesterday I was editing some video for this blog, and discovered that I had taped over Brandon's 4th birthday and birthday party. I spent the better part of yesterday sick to my stomach and periodically crying. The birthday party I eventually could have lived with, but losing the first time Brandon rode his first big boy bike is something that I'm taking very hard. I do have photos of everything, but the video was just as important to us. Russ feels about video the way I feel about photographs. He doesn't want to flip through photos and just see that one tiny moment. He wants to see every second there was, and depending on what it is, I feel the same way.

I'm a snap happy mommy

Every month I send out just a portion of the photos I've taken over the previous month. Mostly it's just pictures of the kids. It is something that I really really enjoy and feel very strongly about. I want our children to have a vast visual record of their childhood and our lives together. As a result, I have built this incredible library of photos saved by month. My goal is to burn copies of all my digital photos for each of my boys. I have albums and scrapbooks that we can flip through, but I'm not crazy enough to make three duplicate copies for each of my three boys. I do want them to have access to their childhood pictures within an arms reach, though. I realized this was something that I really wanted to do while we were all at my mom's house one day. Russ wanted to see pictures of me when I was little. Mom dug out an old photo album for us. It was a lot of fun looking back in time. But, you know, the sad thing is that my dad took some of the photos when they got divorced, so we weren't able to look at those. That's when it clicked in my head. When my boys are older and married and possibly have children, they will have every digital picture I've ever taken. The day they get married, I may need a forklift to give them the cd's, but by God they will have them! Then I will pretend that they will actually look at them.

We also have hours upon hours of video that we've recorded but never really watched. I had the grand idea of editing it all and burning it to dvds. I started that project a few years ago, but let it fall through the cracks. Now I'm considering just converting all the tapes to dvd without editing because the whole process would take weeks of nothing but converting and editing. The prospect of even attempting this old project just feels so overwhelming. Maybe I'll just try to post snippets of our videos here in the future...

One step closer

Brandon is inching his way towards pottytraining. We took him to the store a couple of weeks ago to pick out his own underwear, in hopes that he would want to wear them. No dice. They were cool to look at and fun to pick out, but that was about it.

So the other day, I just told him that he was going to wear his new underwear. We were going to play in the backyard, so I told him that I would bring his potty chair outside with us. If he had to go, then we could do it outside. He was all for it. He really liked how soft they felt. You could also tell that he felt like a big boy with them on. He wore them all day without one accident. Of course, he didn't have to use the potty chair all day either. He waited until he had his pull-ups on at nap and bedtime. Just getting him to wear the underwear was a small victory. Now he asks to wear them. Hoping to be well on our way down the pottytrained path soon. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

What is extra cute is that Dylan has underwear too. So when Dylan hears that Brandon is going to wear underwear, Dylan runs in the bedroom and grabs his too. He's not quite there yet for pottytraining, but I'm praying he'll be ready sooner than Brandon was.

Brothers Bonding

Brandon sure is growing up. It wasn't too long ago that all the contact he wanted with Owen was a pat on the head. This morning he was holding Owen, and even asked to feed Baby O a bottle.

He's also been telling D to come sit on his lap when they watch cartoons. Dylan isn't always interested, but when he does it's adorable. It's so sweet to see him bonding with his brothers.

We need a car!!!!!!!!!!!

Three big car seats. That is my problem. We are no closer to finding an SUV or truck that can fit all three kids. Before yesterday, I'd been thinking that it's really nice not having a car payment, so let's not rush into anything.

Then I had to walk to preschool with the stroller to pick up Brandon...it may have only been around 91 degrees, but after 30 minutes there and another 30 back, it felt like I was walking through fire and brimstone! The walk there was hot but bearable because I had Dylan and Owen in the stroller. They weigh a combined 40 pounds. Before I left preschool I stood under the air conditioning vent listening to, "Mommy! Can we go NOW?!!!!" I didn't want to move out from under that cold air knowing the walk back was going to be a little more difficult pushing 60 pounds and carrying 15 pounds in the Baby Bjorn. Good work out, but I'm never doing that in the afternoon again! Everytime I walked from shade to direct sunshine, I thought I was going to melt into one of the cracks in the sidewalk!

I've done the walk in the morning to drop Brandon off, and that's easier just due to how cool the mornings are. I also make a pit stop at Starbucks for a treat for myself and Dylan. A decaf ice mocha, chocolate milk and a snackie for us to share. If Brandon ever knew that we stop at "coffee place" without him, he'd have a fit. So nobody tell him!

Brandon's 4th Birthday

Brandon had two fun filled days of birthday activities. On July 27, Brandon received his very first big boy bicycle with training wheels. He loved it. He made it 3/4 of the way around the block before he got too tired peddling. Russ ended up pushing the bike back to our house from Carlson Drive. That same day, after Dylan went down for nap, Brandon and Russ went down to the river to do some "fishing". I use the quotes because his Batman fishing pole has a plastic fish attached to the line. Brandon had the best time.

Brandon had a big birthday party the next day at my mom's house complete with a pool, Spiderman bounce house and a Spiderman pinata. I even went Martha Stewart and made cupcakes that went with the whole Spiderman theme. Brandon was grinning from ear to ear when he saw his friend Ethan from preschool show up. The kids played hard, and all the parents were wolfing down all the food my aunt and mom prepared. In the end, Russ and I wondered why we even bothered to order pizzas.

I'm published!

A few people have told me over the years that I should submit some of my work into photography contests. Well, on a whim, I did. I was notified a few days ago that my work will be included in The Best Photos and Photographers of 2007 publication Endless Journeys (Library of Congress ISBN 0-7951-5306-6). I can't believe my photo is going to be published in a book! I don't think I'll really believe it's true until I see the book myself. The link below is the same photo you see to the left. http://www.picture.com/display.asp?ID=2262909