Here is a link to a video I took yesterday. Brady is trying to climb the stairs and Aiden just wants to help....or be his cheerleader....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLk_5MerkCo

More random pictures?? Yes please! It's these last days of summer....it makes me want to take a picture of anything just so I can look back in February and assure myself that yes, trees in this area of the country DO actually have green leaves at some point during the year.

9:2:08
Here we are killing time on the driveway (playing one of our favorite games...car wash) while waiting for grandpa to come watch Logan. Aiden and Brady are heading to their park district "tumbling" class. This is Brady's VERY first class. When preschool starts, Logan will be there while the younger boys have some quality run-around-with-mom time.

Aiden wanted me to draw him a heart so he could color it in with "lotsa colors"
A & B crawling around at "Come Play with Me"
That's Aiden's rear. While he actually DOES like to roll forward, he's even more fond of just standing on his head for brief periods of time.
Brady's first time in the foam pit!!
Crawling through a tunnel....
Back at the house, we try "real" food for the very first time.
Um....I don't think he likes it that much.
Noticing his brother in need (mean mom), Aiden steps in with the baby food....
....and saves the day!
Wow - time flies! This guy is pulling up on stuff now...he is usually standing in his crib when I go get him in the morning. :( :(
9:7:08

GO BEARS! It's that time of year again! I spent a good deal of last weekend sorting through fall / winter cloths to see what everyone had in the way of long-sleeved shirts, pants, sweaters and...Bears jerseys of course!
This swing is a God-send. It keeps Bray from crawling around eating grass when we play outside and he LOVES it! Wheeeeee!

Whoa - someone was camera-happy last week! What can I say though...there was a lot going on and it's just that time of year. As the summer draws to a close, I think I'm even more inclined to take on my self-appointed role of family chronicler (that's a real word too people - I looked it up!) It's only a matter of days before L starts preschool and then...it will turn crisp outside, we'll pick apples and pumpkins and then it will snow and then Brady will turn 1 and then they'll all be leaving for college before I know it.......deeeeep breath. But seriously, we had a great week and what kind of mother, let alone blogger, would I be if I did not whip out my camera and make you all bear witness to all of the activities at the 554!

Monday: Aiden was sick with a HUGELY high temp over the weekend of the 23rd and 24th. I didn't want to take the boys to our neighborhood playgroup and risk infecting the other kids. I felt bad though...we had already spent the weekend in quarantine so I tried to plan something fun.......Jungle Safari!

Here, the boys have a Jungle snack (bananas obviously).....
....and they watched a bit of The Jungle Book while I got everything ready.
In order to do it up right, we needed the correct equipment so we made binoculars out of toilet paper and paper towel rolls. Below, Logan tests out the materials before we do binocular assembly.
I appointed Logan as the safari photographer and gave him my old camera.
There were 5 clues and stuffed animals hiding all over the house. This was the first clue (the cards had monkeys on the front of them too....left-over thank-you notes from Aiden's birthday party).
Can you see the monkey swinging from the curtain rod?? This one wasn't really hiding since it actually lives up there in Logan's jungle-themed room.
Aiden uses the binoculars to look up at....um....the ceiling? Logan snaps a picture of the monkey in his natural habitat. Our next stop was mommy's room where we hunted Elephants.
I think the scariest thing we found was a tiger under Aiden's bed...
ROAR! He looks voracious doesn't he?!
Aiden finds a lion hiding in the ball pit.Our final stop took us to the basement where we found a giraffe. After the hunt, the boys took a break to do some "dot art". I made them coloring books with a picture of each animal (thank you free internet coloring pages!)
Logan actually asked me if it would be OK to paint his elephant purple. I told him that purple elephants are MUCH better than gray ones!!
Here, Brady plays with his own brand of animals....little people ones!
On Wednesday, we went to Blackberry Farms (where there are no blackberries as Logan pointed out). We met up with our Wednesday playgroup, rode the carousel, rode the train, saw some animals and had a picnic lunch. Here is Logan on the carousel.
Aiden gets ready for the ride! He wanted that paper band off of his wrist the moment I put it on, but you had to wear it while inside the grounds. He made me rip it off as soon as we got back to the car!!!Mom and Brady on the train ride.
The boys absolutely love to see animals...especially baby ones. Here they are watching some chickens running around.
Thursday night: here we are getting ready for our webcam pizza party to celebrate the birth of baby Ryan (Tuesday, the 26th at 12:24am!) We had balloons, hats, cupcakes, noise makers etc. We dialed in and shared the party with Den, Nana, uncle Tom and a few hospital visitors. Den didn't know that we were planning such a party on our end.
The boys even had mom-made tee-shirts to greet baby Ryan (they said "What's up Cuz!")
Here, Aiden enjoys his pizza in his usual style....standing up on his chair.
On Thursday, Logan came down with a bit of a temp himself (103 range). He took a nap with daddy who rolled in from NYC early in the afternoon on Friday. I think this was a poor decision on daddy's part since he ended up sick the next day and spent the majority of the long Labor-day weekend trying to feel better.
Brady updates: oh yes...it's that time again....time to put up the gates on the bottom of the stairs. Bray already has his sights set on climbing them.

Here he is having fun in the ball pit (or ball box or whatever it actually is....the big toy that takes up the front living room and causes me much anguish when the balls get thrown everywhere. But do I move it? Oh no....because it makes them all happy!) How could I refuse that smile??
On Sunday, our neighbors had a party in their backyard. Aiden immediately found the pool toys and proceeded to get soaking wet. He was shivering so much his teeth were chattering, but he refused to stop jumping and splashing. God love him!
Aiden pauses on the lawn, contemplating his next move. Jump?? Throw yourself in face first?? Option #2 seemed to be the prevailing course of action!
There was actually a man at the party brave enough to: 1. admit that he could make things out of balloons and 2. carry some on his person! The kids just swarmed him! He was kind enough to make Logan a green sword. I asked L if he thanked the man and he literally RAN back and pushed his way through the little crowd to say "thank-you". It was sweet (unless you were one of the other kids thinking he was pushing his way back in for another balloon creation!)
Jumping in the bounce house!
Aiden finally let me wrap him up and dry him off... Somehow I was lucky enough to find an empty swing amongst the dads already pushing their own kids. I don't even think they noticed the extra one in the middle. I snuck off to find a cookie!
Brady...chillin in the stroller, having a chat with one of our neighbors :) Daddy wandered down eventually, felt sick and took Bray back to the house with him.
On Monday, daddy was finally feeling better - Hooray! We hit the local water park for the last day of the season.

Logan and Aiden in the giant kiddie pool. I think we have pictures of them going down the little slides here, but they are on another camera.
Look at that amazing structure behind us - a kid's dream come true. EXCEPT....every 2 minutes, a GIANT bucket of water tips over and pours over everything. The look in Logan's eyes the first time he got caught in the wave of water was pure terror and he never set another foot up there! After the kiddie pool, we hit the lazy river and the wave pool.
I had to run to the ladies' room and crossed by a bunch of kids playing with these cool quirt things. I had to track some down! This is the filling station (high-pressure water that comes out in a fine stream and fills......)
THE BIG SQUIRT! This is like the coolest thing ever. Basically, it's a re-fillable water balloon that you can open and close to shoot out a pretty powerful (and long-range) stream of water.
Aiden complains that his balloon is empty again (he kept trying to blow it up!)
Well....there were SO many other pictures to share, but I feel like I really posted the best 38 in the bunch (haha). I'm trying to tone down the camera this week, but Brady DID just have his first "real" finger food for lunch today so.....no doubt you'll all be waiting on pins and needles to see his reaction to chopped up mozerella and ham! Spoiler alert: he likes baby food better!!