In our neighborhood, it's a bit of a tradition to go to Bouncetown for all kids' birthday parties. It's really the most awesome place for the little ones (two GIANT rooms full of GIANT bouncy toys requiring lots of running, climbing, bouncing and general wearing out), but it's becoming a bit tedious for all us parents. Finally, someone in the 'hood decided to go somewhere NEW. Last Friday, we went to Odyssey Fun World (think giant Chuck E Cheese). After our night there, and after catching up with the other moms, I am sure this will not be our last visit. "I-want-my-next-birthday-party-to-be-at-Odyssey-Fun-World" current count: 3 (including Logan!)

Here are the kids from the neighborhood...all lined up after having pizza and cupcakes to start the event. In this group, I can count a total of at least 7 past Bouncetown parties.
Every time we go to one of these places, Logan finds the game with this big chair. He never plays, but loves sitting in it for a while.

Poor Brady couldn't do much, but he had some pizza to munch on while his brothers ran around.

Daddy came to the party straight from work and every one was happy to see him!

The best part about his place was a giant climbing structure basically locked in one big room. It even had 2 ball pits. The kids played in there for about an hour and a 1/2. Some of the daddies played too....(that's Brian way up high on the 2nd or 3rd level)

Off to the side of the room with the giant climbing maze, there was actually a much smaller room with massaging chairs and a TV! Here are some of the neighborhood dads taking a break.

We finally found a small little play area perfect for Bray. Go baby boy go!!!

i want to preface this post by saying that, this morning, aiden got to my laptop keys and took off about 20 of them. the shift key is among the majorly injured so this post will have no capital letters.

that being said, i wanted to add some pictures of the art book aiden and i recently made. oprah was having a "clean up your house" episode and one of the suggestions was to take pictures of your child's art work, upload the pictures to a photo site and make a book thus saving yourself the storage space for all the art work. as part of the episode, snapfish.com was giving away a free 8x11 photo book. so i, and about a gazillion other oprah viewers (judging from the connection speed), logged on to make a book for my little artist. just to be fair, i will be making one of these for logan after his preschool projects finally make their way home. due to overwhelming demand, my book is not set to arrive for 4-7 weeks!



the artist prepares for his masterpiece...

...the cover for the art book


just a little goofing around with mom and the camera first

this is one of my favorite pieces...we'll call this aiden's "basketball phase". he took an art class through the park district and we were supposed to just goof around after completing one of the projects. he had me pencil in a basketball for him....then he created this "ode to a basketball"

one day logan and aiden went to memaw's house and came home with a bunch of flowers that they cut out for me. i saved them in a zip lock bag with this note. crowded space or not, i'm not throwing these out when aiden's book arrives!

another masterpiece...aiden colored himself last wednesday. just when we think we are past the "coloring on stuff that isn't paper" phase, he does it again! i think he was mimicking mommy putting on makeup because he did one line on each eyelid, color on his lips & some on each cheek. i sure hope i don't look like the joker after i'm finished with my makeup every morning. maybe he's trying a subtle intervention with me!

just for posterity...and...as another comment on the loveliness of the 2-year old phase, i should also note that last friday began with aiden washing my left contact down the bathroom sink while i was downstairs fulfilling his request for more milk. is it sad that i sometimes want a 4th child only so SOMEONE isn't in some sort of crazy stage and is being all sweet? i don't think i'll be able to bear it when bray starts all this non-sense...he is such a sweetie pie right now!

I'm so impressed with Brady lately. He has become quite the "stair master". He has climbed up from the first to the second floor several times and is learning how to turn himself around and go down the stairs on his tummy. Aiden took a LONG time to learn this skill (like...I think he may have been fully 15 months before he would go down on his tummy). He always wanted to mimic Logan and never wanted to go down backwards. It made me crazy worried all the time that he was going to fall and hurt himself. Surprisingly, Aiden's CURRENT bad influence has not adversely affected Bray's progress. See pictorial documentation below.


That a boy! Look at the stair descending form!
And look at that proud little face! ...aaaaand here comes big brother with his own brand of "going down the stairs on your tummy"

Oh that's just awesome Aiden. "Brady - turn away! Do not look at what your brother is doing! That is NOT safe for an 11 month old! It's not even safe for a 2 year old!"

Last weekend Nana was here for a visit - yeah! We had so much fun running around during the day and relaxing at night (I highly recommend the movie we watched on Friday - PS I Love You! What a tear jerker!) It was so nice to have an extra set of super helpful hands! I mean...dishes got cleaned without me setting foot in the kitchen, pancakes were made just because I said "maybe we should make pancakes" (see picture!) and the laundry fairy made a visit while I went to a baby shower on Sunday. AMAZING! What I don't understand is the efficiency! My mom can do like 12 things at a time without looking like she is running around all stressed...and everything is done well! Is this a skill that I will acquire someday? Will I learn how to accomplish such amazing feats in time to use them with my kids or is this a Grammy thing?! No....no.....I remember this same efficiency from my childhood! Maybe it's just MY mom (I've seen my grandmother do the same thing - hopefully it's genetic)!!!
Sunday night, after Nana had gone to the airport, I told Brian "What we really need around here is a mom!"


Sadly, I didn't take many pictures. This is Nana and Logan right before she left to go home! Logan was being such a ham!
I had to say something funny to make him do a normal smile.
Yesterday, I went into the changing closet to get Aiden ready and noticed the chalk board. Ah....a little memento from Nana! I am assuming that Aiden trapped her in there at some point and demanded that she draw fish for him (this is his new favorite drawing request....lots of fish plus stingrays...which are surprisingly hard to draw!)

Logan saw me with the camera and said "take my picture too". This is a huge closet under our staircase that serves as a changing / organization area for now (until everyone is out of diapers I guess!)

I didn't want to leave Brady out of the picture taking. Here he is drinking his afternoon bottle on the living room floor! This is the kind of picture I'll look at in another year when I'm trying to do an album for Bray and think "why in the world did I take this picture?!" Thanks to the blog....I'll know!

Pardon the horrible picture (scanning didn't work so I took it with my iphone, emailed it to myself, downloaded it from email and then cropped it...what....not professional enough for ya?!) Ok but seriously - have you ever seen a time traveling baby??!! I don't know if you can make that picture any bigger by double clicking on it, but tell me that Brady didn't just warp back to 1973! That is MY CHILD...down to the super chunky thighs and everything! Brian's mom brought this tiny picture over today and seriously....I think it's officially true...I tell Brian all the time "I was just an oven for that kid!" (ie: I baked him up, but he looks JUST like his daddy....and not much like me)

I've been collecting some pictures of the various games and activities that my boys (young and old) have been playing around the house lately.

After our trip to the pumpkin farm on the 26th, I found the boys building forts with daddy in the living room. It looked like so much fun, I had to climb in too! Here is the top view of the fort that daddy helped them make on the couch with the help of one dining room chair.
Daddy and Bray in the fort. Logan was having a rest on the carpet. The fort was bascially a square tunnel built around the big leather ottoman that we have in front of the couch.
I spotted Aiden under another section of the tunnel making roof adjustments.
Logan climbed up on top and I'm afraid to say that this was the beginning of the end. He got very excited to show me everything and ended up knocking the whole thing down. After that, the big boys decided that it was more fun to jump on top of the fort than to rebuild it. Daddy tried to fix it all a few times....and then wisely gave up.

On the first day of "daylight savings time", daddy had a Bear's game so I was left at home with some overtired little boys. They wanted to play outside and of course I said it was fine...gotta get out there and enjoy the warmer weather before it disappears (which it definitely did this weekend!) I went in to check on Brady and returned a few minutes later to see this game that Logan and Aiden had invented for themselves. It basically involves taking turns knocking each other off of the slide. I remember thinking....only boys would play this and have so much fun doing it! Here is a link to the youtube video of the pictures below:

Logan is yelling up to Aiden "ok go - knock me off!" And then when he did, they both collapsed in laughter. Next it was Aiden's turn to sit at the bottom. I got a little worried here since he is such a peanut. Heeeeere we go! I'm anticipating tears, but they both thought it was just the most fun!

After I dropped Logan off at preschool this morning, I took Aiden and Brady to the polls to "help" me vote. I was laughing because Aiden kept asking "are we going on a boat?" and I would say "no honey....we're going to VOTE". Aiden: "are we going to eat on the boat?" Me: "no baby...I said VVV VVV Vote". Anyway...we managed that whole process, ran a few more errands and went home. I wanted to share a couple of pictures I had taken earlier this morning. Aiden had been busy playing with his fish (the ones that go in the fish catching game) and I think these shots might explain a few things...

These fish were spotted on the kitchen table about to board a shuttle and blast off into outer space...

...while these little guys were found in the playroom...obviously setting sail on a pirate ship. I guess he had "boats" on the brain this morning. I wonder if they got something to eat on the boat???