Bella, Gabe and Josiah

We decided to build a fort today. The boys thought it was wonderful. Josy has still been a cranky mess, but as long as he was playing in the fort, he was happy. Unfortunately, the first tent collapsed. This obviously meant that Gabe needed to dramatically rescue all of his animals that were now stuck under the collapsed tent, but I can confirm that all animals survived the event. Once we rebuild the tent (with a few structural changes so that the cat couldn’t knock it over again), the boys thought it was great. We even had a box of kleenex “in case someone has a booger on their thumb” and a collection of animals, toys and books. All in all, it was a good way to spend the afternoon.

Another week of quarantine has gone. Hopefully we’ll be able to end this soon. Poor Gabe is desperate to see his friends. I went grocery shopping for the first time in a month yesterday (all by myself!) and I may have walked down every aisle just because I was happy to get out of the house... Josy popped tooth number two this week and then turned into a cranky mess. I thought maybe he had an ear infection but no. His top two are working on coming also, so he has been, um, rather cranky in the evenings. Hopefully those two come soon and my happy baby can return. In other news, my favorite food blog did a Giant Cookie Bake Along, so Gabe and I made some giant cookies. I got some pictures of an adventure that Bella went on. She’s clearly grown up in the last year. We’ve got a nanny that comes and hangs out with the boys while I work, because working from home with this two little crazy boys is just not realistic. Having Emma around has definitely made this much easier to handle. She’s als

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. It’s actually starting to feel like spring. It’s light and (sortof) warm and even though we still have a massive pile of snow in the yard, it definitely feels like winter is over. Hopefully. I’m still not planting flowers yet... Anyway, Pat and Gabe started the morning with a Daddy/Son date. When they got home I asked Gabe how it went. He told me that “we went to the beach and checked out a dirt pile. And we went to the harbor and checked out the boats.” Sounds like a pretty good date. Plus, they got coffee... After naps, the boys and I went outside where I put Josy in the grass. It turns out that he refuses to put his left foot in the grass. Seriously, he was out there for an hour and didn’t put his foot down. Sometimes it would get lower, but then he’d pick it back up again. We did some yard cleanup and then the boys played in the grass and it was pretty wonderful. And then we went on a family bike ride. When we got back, Gabe decided he wanted to

So, we couldn’t find Josy. I mean, he was around, but he was playing in the other room and it wasn’t an issue. Then I realized that he had been quiet for too long, so I started looking for him and couldn’t find him quickly. When I did, I discovered him in the bathroom, next to the toilet, eating wet toilet paper.  Um, there is only one way he could have gotten toilet paper wet... Ewww...

This popped up on my facebook memories this morning. I could have written most of that post about Josy at 10 months, although he doesn’t say “I”, he just screeches. But Gabe was 12 months adjusted, so that would mean that Josy is two months ahead of Gabe. If he follows that curve, he’ll be walking in two months. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll wait that long...

As much as it feels like spring in a lot of places, we still have huge piles of snow in our yard. A good rainstorm would clear that up in a day or so, but no one wants to wish for that. So instead, we’re just waiting for the snow to melt as slowly as possible when the temperature sits in the 36-38 range. Anyway, the patch of grass under one of the trees has finally grown enough that we could go sit outside. For Josy, this was his first time in the grass... It works pretty well to take a baby in the grass. He thought the whole thing was so weird that he just sat there and picked up funny things on the ground and tried to eat them. Then he’d stick his hands down to crawl, decide that was way too weird, and sit back up. He wasn’t going anyway! I could have left him there (don’t worry, I didn’t!) and not worried a bit about where he would end up. I’d have to worry about what’s in his mouth, but that’s a different issue... Gabe found something strange in the snow. He was pretty sure it was

Apparently the pantry is the best place to play??? I have the cutest little coworker... Gabe insisted on wearing a tie... The cat has recently decided that she likes to snuggle my neck. Luckily she loves to snuggle with Gabe too. The weather was so lovely that we decided to go to the beach. Gabe insisted on dressing up like Spiderman because “Spiderman has a mask.” This one was supposed to be napping, but that did not work out like that... I went to check on him in the middle of the night (while doing Easter Bunny business...) and he was asleep like this... Gabe made Gram a hug since she can’t hug him. If she needs a Gabe hug, now she can hug something!

Happy Easter! Yes, I did make everyone get dressed up so I could get Easter pictures just so we could sit in the couch and watch church online. But it was worth it! Gabe insisted on getting a centipede selfie, which led to some great outtakes... Gabe and I decided that we should make rolls for dinner, then he decided that he needed to play in the extra flour... Needless to say, he had to change his clothes... My parents came over for Easter dinner. Since they can’t come into the house and we can’t touch each other, we all sat in the porch and ate our fancy lamb dinner. Eventually it got a little cold, but that’s okay. We’ll take what we can get. All in all, it was a pretty great Easter.

The whole world might be a bit crazy right now, but we’re trying to have things be as normal as possibly. And this week, that means dying Easter Eggs. Pat bought two sets of egg dye, but one of them was Paw Patrol, so I’m not sure what the point of the other egg dye was...  It actually went pretty well. Only one egg got cracked bad enough that it had to be instantly eaten when it got dropped on the floor. There was only one sudden bathroom trip that resulted in an apron falling in toilet water. And Josy managed to sleep through most of it, which made life much easier...