Last Monday, Memorial Day, we went to see a parade in our little downtown area. It was very small, but really cute and the boys had SO much fun waving at the fire trucks, the ambulance, etc. etc. The two town High Schools both had bands in the parade. I didn't realize until today that Logan even noticed them. This morning, he brought me a recorder (a "flute" he called it), he had a drum and Aiden had one cymbal and a stick thing. We had a parade around the house. I accidentally went to step in front of Logan and he said "no mommy...I'm the leader of the band!" Here are some pictures from our band practice this morning (I tried to upload a video, but I can't get it to work):


Here we are last Monday at the parade

L.A.B. Updates: Aiden and Logan both had fevers last week. Logan's was on Wednesday, Aiden's was on Sunday and Monday. Well, A broke out with a rash on his feet, inside his mouth, on his legs, bottom and feet so I took him to the doctor yesterday just to confirm what I already thought: Coxsakie virus (spelling?) also known as hand, foot and mouth disease. He's fine...just cranky for a few days and waking up entirely TOO early. Brady has been having HORRIBLE nights of sleep. So bad that, on Saturday night, I just put my pillow on the floor outside of his room, put a blanket on myself and slept there for a few hours so I could just get up, go give him his paci back and lay back down. I guess I was sleeping a bit heavily though because Brian said he stepped over me twice to go into Bray's room! Anyway, since I took Aiden to the doctor yesterday, I paid another $20 co-pay to have Brady inspected. Unfortunately, nothing was wrong. I only say this because, as I feared, it's just because he loses the paci and can't get it back in. We did this drill with Logan too and I took his pacifier away at 6 months which finally (finally!) got us a good night of sleep. So....Mr. Brady had his first night without the paci last night. It took some crying, screaming, back patting and even a little cuddling to calm him down, but he fell asleep and had a pretty good night. He did wake a few times, but nothing like the 15-20 times the night before. YEAH!

Look mom - no paci!! B cuddles Bro-Bear in his crib during nap time


Conversation at the Doctor's office:
(aiden is playing with a puzzle while we're waiting for the doctor to run a test then come back and look at Bray. A is on the exam table, L is sipping a Sprite in a chair...soda pop purchased to keep him still!)

A: look mommy...car! (holds up a piece of the puzzle)
L: I like cars!!
M: Haha - I know you like cars Logan!
A: I like balls!
M: Yes, you do like balls, don't you?! Hey...what do you guys think Brady will like?
L: Um...maybe....he'll like cars like me....and trucks and trains too!
A: no....balls!
M: I think Brady will probably like something totally different. Maybe he will like dinosaurs. Do you guys like dinosaurs?
L: no....we don't have any dinosaurs.
A: no....balls!


Memorial Day weekend: We had a lot of fun this past weekend. Saturday we did a BBQ with neighbors. Brian cooked on Jeff's grill (we didn't want all the kids in our neighborhood to have access to the mud behind our house in the empty lot so we did the cookout down the street, but Mr. Chef Boy-R-D here did the cooking...which was fabulous!) Bri made tri-tip steak sandwiches with roasted garlic mayo and chicken sandwiches on cibatta with roasted red pepper, fresh mozzarella and basil. Everyone brought tons of sides, desserts, drinks etc. Sunday we did dinner with Bri's family and Monday was the parade, our first trip to the pool this summer (and first EVER for Brady) and a BRLAB Memorial Day picnic on our front lawn a la KFC.

Logan and Aiden enjoy popsicles at the neighborhood BBQ


Brady at the BBQ in a borrowed exersaucer. It was actually pretty cold outside.
The men stand around the grill and grunt (not really....but almost)
The kids were all playing in a sandbox that was full of pink sand (house full of girls!) Some of the kids decided to pour sand on each other. Here is Logan's pink sand-filled head.
Aiden on the neighbor's play set climbing around
Our first trip to the pool. Logan goes down the slide in the kiddie pool. Sweet goggles dude! Aiden plays in the kiddie pool.
Our Memorial Day lawn picnic
Our sad little "shade tree". It's only 3 years old, but we did set up the blanket in the small shaded area it made on our lawn.
Aiden wasn't feeling well at the time so he just wandered around our picnic drinking water
This is Brady in his Bumbo chair (where he eats his cereal). When I walked around the table to clean Aiden's face after dinner one night, Bray wanted to see what we were doing.

As I wind down this evening, I have to laugh because, overall, we had a really great day today. However, it did start with Logan locking himself, me and Aiden in his room. You see, because he is such a terrible sleeper, we actually turned the knob on his door around so that it locks from the hallway. This morning, I woke Brady up, got him dressed, took him into Aiden's room where I put him in A's crib to watch the aquarium toy, got Aiden dressed and then went into Logan's room. A followed me and, as I was picking out some cloths, Logan said "look mommy," then he locked the door and shut it!!! I tried not to lose my cool. I looked around for something to open the door. I took a picture down from above Logan's bed, took the nail out of the wall and used that to unlock the door. My friend Lisa called me Macgyver mom. So....that was the start of the day....but then we did a lot of fun stuff. We went to the gym, then the park, then we ate lunch together (me and my boys) at McDonald's, we ran errands to gather stuff for the garage sale tomorrow and we played outside with our friends. One other note-worthy occurrence though: We ran into Walgreen's to get stickers to price the sale stuff for tomorrow and I was REALLY proud of how fast we got in and out. I had Brady in a sling, Aiden in a small cart and Logan walked with me. I was about to re-load everyone into the car when I noticed that A only had one of his shoes on. I asked him where the other shoe went and he said "kicked it!" I took them all back in and searched the store. About 4 employees were trying to help as well. We didn't find the shoe. I took everyone back to the car, loaded them in, locked the doors and ran in one last time. Low and behold....I FOUND IT! When I saw it in the stationary aisle, I picked it up and yelled "got it!" and everyone cheered.



Spotlight on Aiden

Logan and Aiden take baths in big master bathroom bathtub (instead of the one between their two rooms). One night I was trying to get everyone out of the bath by putting the toys all up on the side of the tub so they didn't have anything else to play with. Aiden helped me organize all the water-ways crew men (the dude with the red hat on the end who looks like a truck driver actually pilots a submarine in our tub....go figure). Anyway, after I put the little men all in a row, Aiden laughed his crazy little laugh and said "dats cute!" For some reason, that really made me smile. Aiden's favorite game is this fishing game. I think we've all seen it before. He will point up to the games on the shelf and say "fishy fishy!" I taught him how to track one fish until it opens its mouth and then get the pole in there. I'm actually really impressed that he can do it by himself. Here he is one day, happily playing fishy. I walked in the playroom and had to take a picture.
Per usual, when mommy pulls out the camera, we've got to say cheese, stop the nice activity we were doing and pose. It's my own fault...but you've got to love the kids of a photo-happy mom!

On Saturday, we went to an beautiful outdoor nursery to buy some grasses for our front landscaping. This place is AWESOME and I wish I could just live there. They have this great big sandbox under these beautiful trees in the middle of the nursery for the kids. Logan, Aiden, Brady and I hung out there while daddy "shopped". While they played, the boys and another little girl pretended that they were searching for buried treasure in the sand. I started thinking about how cool it would be to have "real" buried treasure in our sandbox (currently it's the only thing in our backyard to play in and has been the highlight of outdoor activity for the past 3 summers). I got this idea to paint rocks and bury them in the sand. After naps, Brian was doing some work in the back yard and encouraged me to get my "little project" going with the boys. Well, some of the neighbor kids were out, saw us and all ran over to play. I told the parents what I was doing and asked if they wanted to paint rocks with us. Everyone was in...ESPECIALLY the two little girls in our group of close friends. The kids and parents, including Brian, hunted for rocks in the empty lots behind our house while I ran to the local craft store about 5 minutes away for supplies. I returned with 10 different colors of paint, brushes, and 5 new sandbox shovels to find a bunch of wet and muddy kids with a bucket full of clean rocks. (the shovels were an impulse buy based on the fact that I'm sick of neighborhood kids fighting over the 2 we currently have at our house) Upon my return, Brian said "ok...now you take over this mess of a project!" The dads all grabbed a beer and a seat around the wall of our patio. The moms all manned the painting. It was crazy. Messy kids....a messy play table and LOTS of fun. Here are some pictures from the event. Also, for those of you concerned, as our neighbor Jeff was, I bought a sealant for the rocks that I'll spray on them sometime this week so the paint won't wash off during the first rain. We'll bury them and then the kids can all play "hunt for treasure" on our backyard.



Aiden, Ryan and AJ clean the rocks. I guess it's obvious how they all got wet and muddy...never give a kid the hose!
Aiden plays with the rocks in the water. You can see the empty lots behind us. I swear they are the last lots in the subdivision that aren't built on yet. Oh how I wish for grass behind us!! (but then again, grass doesn't make for good rock hunting!)
Here's the project in full swing. Anne mans the table. Brian told me later that Anne said "with all her artsy-fartsy-ness, you would think that Renay would want a girl". Well, to that I say...boys do art projects, you just have to disguise them as something else...like painting buried treasure!!
Mackenzie shows off her painted hands before heading in to wash up. The paint comes off REALLY easily (and washes out of cloths no problem! I had to keep promising the other parents that it really wasn't a big deal!)
AJ paints more than treasure
Brady sat with the daddy bunch in his carrier. He went with me to Michael's craft store so that is why he is in his car seat on the back porch. It seemed easier than dragging out a bouncy chair or something.
The paint supplies. We finally figured out that we should not LEAVE the paint on the table with the kids. We gave them Dixie cups with a little of ONE color each at a time.

My grandfather gave Logan this cool American flag blanket at Christmas (it wasn't like a real gift wrapped under the tree, but Logan liked to play super hero with it by tying it around his neck like a cape so GGpa let him have it). Anyway, L wanted to put it on the other day to play super hero and so, of course, Aiden also demanded a cape ("pay uper ero too!"). Well, I don't have another blanket the same size, but I DO have a scrap of fleece that I was saving to make a blanket for a potential niece. Now that I know "she" is a "he" (Denay's baby Ryan due in August), I decided to cut the fabric and make Aiden a cape too. Poor kid...I hope he doesn't end up on a therapist's couch someday saying "Mom never loved me. She made me wear a girly flower cape while my big brother got a cool American flag one!" Good thing he's not even 2, doesn't even care right now and is actually developing an affinity for the color pink! I just had to post because it made me laugh!

It's hard to take pictures of boys running around so here are some fuzzy ones of the fashionable super heros at the 554.


check out the cool flag on the back of Logan's cape
Flower Power!
Does that look like fun or what?!
Logan always wants me to take pictures of him and Brady. He went to lay down on the floor next to Bray and said "mom, go get your camera". This is Brady on his 5th month birthday, May 5th, with big brother Logan.
After I take his picture, Logan always steals my camera and takes about 40 of his own. Here you can see both the string on the camera and his little feet next to Brady. He actually takes some good pictures
There's the string again and a picture of Brady's new best friend "Bro-bear". He likes to eat Bro's little arms and his pointy nose.

I have to add another note here about Aiden. I just love his speech lately and the fact that he calls Brady "Bray bear". The other day, he woke up early and was laying in bed with me and he said "Bray-bear seeping, bray-bear, bes frien, me" which means "Brady is sleeping. Brady is my best friend". Then he said "daadee, bes frien, me. Mommy bes frien me, Yogan bes friend me". He is just so awesome!