Colin Stories

I sent Colin to bed without story-time because he wasn't listening. He cried for about 20-30 minutes, then it was pure silence. I went upstairs after another 20-30 minutes and found him in my bed with about 10 books stacked up. Reading away, he looked at me and said, "I took deep breath-es and I'm okay now."
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Me: Justin it's time to get up (Justin refusing to get out of bed)
Colin: Mom, if you're mad, you can sit down and take deep breaths.
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Me: Making a smoothie before work, I splashed yogurt all over my black dress. I screamed.
Colin: Put his hand out and said, "STOP!"
Me: stop screaming
Colin: Take a deep breath.
Me: I'm curious, so I listen to him and take a deep breath.
Colin: Now Think! What can you do?
Me: So I took a sponge and started wiping the yogurt off of my dress. I tell Colin that it was a good iea.
*Glad to know that my child can parent me now.

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Colin: "mom, how do you spell 'I love you'?"
me: I spell it out, then walk over to where he is to see what he is doing...

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Brother moments:
*Colin giving Justin kisses on his hand, arm, forehead. So kind.
*Justin wanting to do everything that his big brother is doing. Including saying "why?" after I tell him to do something. We know he is just imitating Colin, but really, it's too young to start!

Wonderful weekend weather

Out to Ben & Michelle's for a BBQ. They have a great cabin and lake area on the westside, and the boys loved playing there all afternoon.

Justin held a football for about 20 minutes, enjoyed the slides with like-sized kids and relaxed in the swings.

 Colin enjoyed riding in the canoe, controlling remote boats and swinging with new friends.

Colin & Jack even fished in the lake.

Sunday treated us with perfect weather. The highlight was good sprinkler fun in the backyard. Love the Blues Clues sprinkler. Best ever!

 Then we tried out some Crayola colored bubbles. Warning parents: Don't use it unless you are okay with your children looking like this...

 And if you are okay with it, then know that it washes off pretty easy. Justin got most of it off by washing his own face and body in the sprinkler.

 Additional information about this post:
1. Jack was in charge of sprinkler time with the children (including the clothes required for such an activity.)
2. I was in charge of editing the pictures for the blog.
3. I promise - Jack has more than 1 orange shirt in his wardrobe. I'll see if I can get him to wear a different one next weekend.
4. And I promise - I exist. Just need to find someone else to take the pictures.

Have a great week!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! Our weekend festivities began with TRAIN DAY in the Metroparks.

 They had all different sets of indoor and outdoor model trains. And of course, we even rode the kids train.

 My favorite part was this lego set. The entire thing is made out of legos - including a train that runs around the entire thing. The pictures don't do it justice. It was amazing.

Jack wanted to try a family bike ride and crayfish catching for Father's Day...so off we went! (For the record, Colin insisted that he dress just like Justin!)

The boys scarfed down their chicken baos from my favorite place, Koko Bakery.

We tried to have a picnic lunch, but Tinker's Creek was too much temptation for the boys.

 They all started out looking for crayfish...walking in the river, lifting rocks.

 Colin quickly lost interest when they didn't find any under the first 5 rocks. So Jack took Justin out while Colin swam. I didn't exactly know what crayfish catching entailed...and had I known, I would have packed swim suits and water shoes for the boys. =)

 Took a break from crayfish catching. Jack taught Colin how to skip rocks.

 Justin desperately wanted to try - so he and Jack went off and started throwing rocks in the water.

 Later on, Jack went off to look for more crayfish. Meanwhile, Colin was in the water screaming, "I'm a Colinfish. Can you catch a Colinfish?" haha.

 My boys. Happy Father's Day, love.

 Love it.

 And to my dad - Happy Father's Day and we'll see you in 3.5 weeks! Put away the breakables! Love you.

"It's a Leela Day"

For the last 3 years, we've seen Aarti and Leela almost every week for our weekly dinners. Colin & Leela have a great friendship, and Leela treats Justin like a little brother. On days that we see Leela, we sing the Leela song, "Today is a Leela day, a Leela day. My, oh my, today is a Leela day."

We're not the best about pulling out the camera during our dinner dates, but here are a few shots of our laid-back, fun dates.

We always eat at each others homes, but last week Aarti invited us out to celebrate Leela's birthday. So we went to eat at Tommy's because we heard that a balloon clown comes to visit. It was a blast! After Colin got over the "his nose is funny. why does he have paint all over his face," he was able to enjoy the balloon creations. 

 Waiting patiently for his pig. Justin just asked for a bird but got a palm tree with a parrot and a monkey!!!

 The festivities continued this weekend with Leela's birthday party! You know it's a good party when there's a bubble machine!

 Colin loved his ice cream - and at one point when nobody was looking, he started scooping sprinkles straight into his mouth.

 Justin insisted that he feed himself.

 Aarti + me! Love our time together.

Weekend updates...

 A great weekend with friends - but few pictures to show for it. Sorry. Weekend highlights:

• Enjoyed lunch at Grandma's. Jack & I ended up falling asleep, and Grandma played with the kids and Justin mastered climbing up and sliding down the slide. What a fabulous impromptu nap. Best ever.
• Spent the afternoon at Gary & Tara's party and saw lots of Jack's friends that we haven't seen in forever. It was great to catch up with everyone!
• Checked out the Children's museum and their new space exhibit. Awe-some. Both boys loved flying in the new rocket ship and driving the moon car!
• Had a fabulous dinner at Colin M.'s house. (Colin's friend from school and part of the reason why Colin will spell his name with an "E" at the end. His name was "Colin E" for about 6 months while both Colin's were in the same class.) In any case, the night ended with us parents finding the Colins in the corner of their living room in the middle of a sand pile. They had emptied out a pillow that had sand/grains inside. When Jack walked up to them, our Colin put his finger over his lips and said, "shhh." Meanwhile, Justin's highlight was riding Colin M's scooter. Looks like we'll be on a hunt for a scooter for Justin this summer!

The few pictures we have from this weekend...
You know you're not in San Francisco anymore when you see this in the grocery store parking lot!

Colin absolutely loved driving this 4-wheeler around. Gary & Tara also have a big 4-wheeler and Colin got to ride it a handful of times. He loved every minute!

 

Justin was too little for the 4-wheelers, but he loved riding this car around. Other Justin highlights include him pointing up to the sky when airplanes pass, saying "please" whenever he wants anything, chasing Colin around, giving high fives and blowing kisses to everyone.

 Pictures from Colin M's house. Justin on his first scooter!!

 And here's the sand pile. Our Colin ran away as soon as he saw the camera.

And lastly, I ended the weekend with a first - I mowed our lawn. Yes, I mowed. I absolutely hate it when our grass is too long, so I took matters into my own hands and mowed the lawn when we got home. Jack took pictures and videos to document it all.

We're ready for a fabulous week.

Rain = Modified Picnic Plans

Colin had a school end-of-the-year picnic planned for today. A huge rainstorm came through, and the picnic was canceled. Boo.

Well, the weather cleared up by dinner time, so we decided that the weather wouldn't ruin our picnic day. We decided to have our own picnic day!

Alexis joined us and we spent over an hour at the playground - Colin & Ethan (classmate) were running all over the playground. Colin ran straight to Alexis when he knew he and Ethan wanted a push on the swings. She couldn't say no, and the swinging began. Both boys know how to pump their arms and legs, but getting pushed by Alexis was obviously a better idea.

 

 Justin loves going down the slide and gets so frustrated when he turns around and realizes that he can't just climb up to do it again. Walking around just takes so much time!

 We didn't do a picnic at the school because it started to get a bit dark and windy. So instead, Colin said, "let's do it on our front porch." And that's what we did.

And that's how you make the most of a rainy picnic day.

And for those of you interested in another Colin story...
Jack worked until 3am last night, so I had to drop Colin off in the early morning daycare room, the Koala room. For fun, I always refer to it as the Giraffe room. Here's what happened...

Jamie: I get to drive you to school today!
Colin: yay.
J: And you get to go to the giraffe room.
C: No mommy. it's the koala room
J: Oh, you're right. How do you always remember that?
C: Because I use my brain. (as he points to his head) I have a brain.
J: That's good thinking.
C: Do you have a brain?
J: Yes, everybody has a brain.
C: Why don't you use your brain?
J: Okay, I'll try and use my brain to remember next time.
C: Yes, and you can use your brain for moving your arms and for wiggling your legs.
J: You're right. You're brain tells your body what to do.
C: Yes. so why don't you start using yours to remember things too.
J: Good idea, Colin.

Relaxing weekend

We had a great weekend relaxing in nice weather. No big travel plans...we played at home, visited our neighborhood playground, visited with neighbors and took it easy.
It's "water table" weather!

And it's "picnic lunch with neighbors" weather...

Another big weekend on the food front - Justin ate a whole bowl of fresh strawberries!! Yahoo!! Jack even gave him fish and rice for dinner. Okay, maybe it was more like shoving it in his mouth. But he still ate it in the end. YAY! Colin, we are happy to report, still has a great appetite and eats all of his dinner, snacks, fruit and vegetables. The great weather is Colin's only distraction from eating all of his food!