Bella, Gabe and Josiah

M: Take off your eye patch before bed. Pirates don’t wear eye patches to bed. G: Actually they do. They have very good eyesight. M: They don’t wear eye patches if their mommies tell them not to. G: They don’t see their mommies for a long time. They’re off finding treasure. M: That’s the last things their mommies say to them before they get on the pirate ship. “Good bye. I love you. Don’t sleep in your eye patch.” And this summarizes much of our life right now...

For my birthday this year, Pat and my parents got me the best birthday present ever: a weekend away with just Pat and no kids! It was wonderful! We can’t nicely leave the state yet, so we flew up north and got a cabin on a river. And yes, I made him take all sorts of pictures with me, partly to prove that I do have the ability to take pictures of more than just the boys... Saturday morning, we got up and went for a run. This in and of itself should be shocking. In the last six months, Pat has gone on a crazy diet and made some serious adjustments to his eating habits, which resulted in losing 75lbs and suddenly having energy. It’s weird. I’m definitely not used to this side of him, but I’ll take it! Well, suddenly now he’s started running and I have a new running buddy and we are now one of those couples that goes on vacation and goes running together. The main event for the day, however, was a flightseeing trip over Denali. We were going to see the mountain and then land on one of the

Gabe adores his little brother.  Getting a baby brother was pretty much the best thing that could have happened to him.  He is so very sweet when taking care of Josy and he never wants to see Josy hurt, ever.  He gets upset when Josy has to get a shot at the doctors office and last time he refused to even watch because he didn't want to see something sad happen to his baby brother. That said, he's also four and doesn't really understand that sometimes you can love on him a little too hard, or that his enthusiasm isn't always appreciated.  Last night the boys were playing in the bathroom and they were both standing on the side of the tub banging on it.  (Not actually taking a bath, just playing on the tub.)  Josy can stand there, but he's not very stable.  And when your big brother doesn't understand that, it can make life difficult.  Well, Gabe tried to give Josy a hug and I really do believe that was what he was trying to do.  But when Gabe went in for the hu

After two long weeks, Gram and Gramps are finally out of quarantine! So naturally we had to have two dates with them today: first a donut date and then a park/dinner date. I think it’s safe to say that everyone is happy to be together again. They also brought over Josy’s birthday present. Both boys thought it was wonderful and we had many conversations with Gabe that it was Josy’s present and he needed to let Josy play with it. As soon as Josy was in bed, however, Gabe couldn’t stop playing with it. Also, this morning I was making breakfast and I had to get something out of the fridge. Josy was with me and he grabbed the whipped cream, which I figured he couldn’t hurt so I let him play with it. Then Pat decided that it he was going to play with it, he might as well get the whole experience.

M: You guys are wearing cute matching outfits! I need a picture. Here Josy stand here. *I put him on the floor next to Gabe.* M: Um, okay. That’ll work. Smile! M: That one is a little fuzzy. I’ll try again. Josy! This way! M: Josy! M: Nevermind. Wait, he’s standing up. Gabe, go stand next to him. Not like that. Well, I guess that’s cute too. M: Now turn around. And now Josy sat back down. This is not working. M: Let’s try outside. Gabe, don’t put your coat on. We’ll take a picture in the grass. G: This is not tshirt weather. And this is the best one I got...

Things are slowly getting back to normal around here. I mean, not truly normal, just not quite as weird. The boys went back to school last week, which meant that I went back to work in the office. Gabe even started gymnastics class last week. He’s super excited to be in the ninja class, which is all boys. (In his words: “the girls are outta here!”) I took Josy to his one year appt last week. He’s a healthy little guy, weighing in at 19lbs 9oz. We also weighed Gabe and he’s up to 26lbs 8oz. I clearly have two boys with very different builds... And other than that, life just keeps going right along... Gabe insisted that they wear their new matching swim wear from Grammy on their first day back to school. I told him to smile and he did that... Apparently Josy is a big fan of seaweed. Lucy was actually carrying String around the house, but she laid down before I could get a picture. Gabe was upset because “she’s carrying him by the tail and that’s even worse!” There is definitely a pirate

Since we still haven’t started up church yet, the kid’s program decided to do a fun summer kid’s project. I’m still not sure I understand all of it, but yesterday they delivered a box of goodies and instructions for Gabe. He’s got a piece of a paper flower that he’s supposed to color and return to church, plus a flower pot to decorate alomg with seeds to plant.  So that was our project this afternoon. We went through the craft box and found lots of fun things to glue onto the pot. At one point he wanted to glue the crayons on the pot, but luckily that idea didn’t get very far... Anyway, I operated the glue gun and only managed to burn my fingers twice, which I consider a win, and we ended up with a beautiful flower pot that is now full of dirt and seeds. We’ll see how it grows... And yes, Gabe has learned the art of the cheesy smile...