Caroline is a big sister!

Congratulations to Leslie, Josh and Caroline! Baby Jackson was born last night and we know they are all thrilled to finally have him here. We can't wait to get the little boys together. Let the mayhem ensue!

We're big brothers!

Baby Hank was born Monday evening. The best part for Jack and Charlie was playing in Mommy's hospital bed. Luckily we made it out having only called the nurse once while frantically pushing every button in sight.

Hoppy Easter!

Jack and Charlie made their first bunny cake on Friday. Chip's mom has made a bunny cake every year for 33 years now. She came up for the day and the boys "helped" along with cousin Hayley. Then yesterday the Easter bunny visited. Daddy has to work today so we did baskets early. Thursday night he asked me if we had anything for them. I laughed, I think he was shocked to see just how much we did have for them.

Bowling, shoes

On Saturday the boys and I went to the bowling alley for Meredith's birthday party. I really had no idea how it would go. I expected that at least one of them would not like all the noise, etc. I was very wrong. They loved it. There was a little ramp type thing that they could put the ball on and push it down. They really enjoyed getting their yellow ball, carrying it to the ramp, pushing it down and running immediately back to the ball return to watch for their yellow ball. Charlie even bowled a strike once, but that was completely lost on them, they didn't care at all about the pins. Daddy was out of town so sweet birthday girl Meredith was stuck helping me to corral them both while we were there. They adore her and would much rather hang with her than me anyway.

In shoe news - we went yesterday to have their feet measured. I was pretty sure that Jack had outgrown most if not all of his shoes. It had gotten to the point that he would pitch a total fit when we would try to go anywhere and then we would battle to get his shoes on for 5 or so minutes. It turns out I was right. When we had their feet measured last year at this time Jack wore a 7.5 wide, and Charlie wore a 7 wide. Yesterday Jack measured just over a 9.5 wide and Charlie measured just over an 8 maybe wide depending on the shoe. The bad news is Jack has been wearing 8's and 9's (obviously too small, thus the fits and battles), the good news is that at least for the time being I'll only have to buy new shoes for Jack as Charlie can wear Jack's old ones. We bought Jack some cool new tennis shoes while we were there and boy is he proud of them. He ran several laps around the store before we left and kept them on for the rest of the day.

Times, they are a changin'

So we've been absent from the blog for a little while as I've tried to deal with 2 busy and constantly changing toddlers and prepare for the baby. We've had some really warm, sunny days followed by rain and cold. The boys got really used to playing on their swing set for hours at a time and I got really used to them sleeping especially well, so it's though to deal with the several days of yucky weather we've had here recently.


We've also had to adjust our longstanding 7 pm bedtime (gasp!). Charlie, who has always been our best sleeper, just decided that he didn't want to go to bed one night. After enduring a week of trying different tactics to end the 2 hour crying sessions each evening we have finally settled in with Jack going down about 7:30 and Charlie at 8. This has been a little tough on me as there's less time to relax/get other things done in the evening.


Charlie continues to potty train with mixed success. Some days we do really well, others not so much. Jack has finally started to show some interest and I think that may push Charlie to finish up the training. I was hoping to have one of them trained before the baby comes but with less than 6 weeks left now it's looking doubtful.


Other things they are doing/interested in these days are: dinosaurs, planets and space, Blue's Clues, spelling, states, French and drawing/coloring. Jack loves to dictate things for you to draw or words for you to write. He can recognize about 15 words by site. He can also correctly identify about half the states when you hold up their pieces from his puzzle. Charlie talks non-stop and frequently lists off colors etc in English and French. He is our puzzle expert and can complete any new puzzle within just a few minutes. He is also a very good sharer most of the time and is usually trying to ensure that everyone is included. They continue to have very different personalities and interests but really love and enjoy each other most of the time.


I'm busy trying to get us all ready for a third little boy. I've almost finished his room and am trying to get all our other ducks in a row for the next few months. As we are going on vacation at the end of May (read with a 5 week-old) I'm hoping to get as many of the logistics settled now as possible since I know I won't have time to think between his arrival and that time. I'm also working on getting the boys registered for preschool this fall and getting as ready as possible for another vacation in August. We've decided that the 3 boys and I should fly to both vacations so that adds an extra step to prepare for but I'm sure it will be the best way to go overall (I will have help flying with me).

Happy Third Birthday, Caroline!

Here's hoping you have a fun filled day. We love you sweet girl.

An update from the edge of Spring (hopefully)

Things around here are hopping. Charlie has been potty training for a few weeks now and is doing really better than I expected. What I didn't expect was how hard this has been on Jack (who is almost totally uninterested in going to the potty). He really gets upset when we have to interrupt something he is doing to run Charlie to the potty. Thankfully this is getting better too. We had an entire week of snow on the ground and big time cold last week, followed this week by temps in the mid-sixties to seventy. We've played outside a lot over the last 4 or 5 days but it is supposed to storm this afternoon putting an end to that. The boys have enjoyed trying out the hammock I got for Christmas. It's really pretty funny to watch as they are both very still and stiff, not sure how the whole thing works. Jack looks like he is holding on for dear life.

I've also been busy trying to get ready for the baby's entrance in the next couple months. Time is flying by and I'm feeling pretty under prepared although I'm not really sure why. We have pretty much everything we could possibly need, it's just a matter of digging it out.