Birthday Dinner

Kyle's birthday was last weekend. He turned 32. Since my birthday is in July we had a joint birthday dinner at The Melting Pot. This was the first visit for both of us. We had yummy Love Matini's (coconut rum, peach schnapps, cranberry juice and a heart shaped strawberry), the cheese course, main course and chocolate course. Our main course had lobster, beef sirloin, pork loin, ahi tuna, key lime shrimp, chicken, and veggie dumplings. For the chocolate course we got the bananas foster and the milk chocolate with peanut butter. Both were super yummy!! It was very good. Kyle's mom bought the cookbook while we were there so hopefully we will make time to try having some of their fondues at home!!!

Gus is 11 months old

It is so shocking our baby is a month away from 1 year old!! How did so much time go by lickety split? It feels like he's just arrived!
He is growing and changing so fast lately. I have on the calendar April 10th Gus Sat. Only a month and half ago he figured out how to get into a sitting position on his own. Now he's crawling at turbo speed, pulling himself up to a stand, cruising the furniture, taking steps while we hold his hands, practicing with a sippy cup, WAVING BYE BYE (as of tonight), loving the bath tub and even though he is still TOOTHLESS loving to eat!
He especially enjoys jelly toast.

He's so cute, crossing his little skinny legs.

and a little looney.

This nose scrunching smile cracks me up. When he thinks something is hilarious, I mean really a knee slapper he scrunches his nose and does the ET neck while he chortles and shrieks. It is pretty funny stuff. He is one sweet boy. I'm sure it's the age, but it is so delightful to have a child who eats readily and happily without bribery! Gus loves to play with Reese and with Reese's toys. Reese does not really like the play with Reese's toys game. He goes to bed so agreeably and has absolutely no desire to sleep in our bed. I can not express how delightful this is. Reese, on the other hand, still never wants to go to bed, though we have had 2 nights in a row with him waking up still in his own bed. However, that bed is his mattress on the floor beside our bed.
Gus really is pretty easy going and so sweet. He laughs and giggles at us all the time.

Gus Gets his Drink On!

Gus can pull himself up. He can sometimes cruise really well and other times he's still pretty tentative. But so far he can never get back down once he's up.

So he just pulls up to the table and stretches until he gets what he's after, in this case his sippy cup.

Then he just rests his chin and elbows on the table while he gets his drink on.

Brothers

These boys are just too cute! I just love it when they are playing nicely together.

Gus ALWAYS laughs and smiles so lovingly at his big brother.

Reese SOMETIMES is so sweet to his little brother.Sometimes he is a mean turd...we've taken to 2 separate Costco carts because they just can't keep thier hands to themselves. If Gus touches Reese, Reese has a fit a whacks Gus. This shot looks like he's about to hit Gus though in this case they were sharing the cart nicely.
Mostly they are able to play pretty cooperatively.
I sure do hope they grow up being best friends.

Playground

About 100 years ago we bought a playground and we finally started building it! The reviews recommended labeling all the parts first so I spent what seemed like forever in 80 degree weather doing that so Kyle and his Dad could start work.

Whew look at all that back breaking work going on! Ha ha!

It was ridiculously hot. I tried to lay Reese down for a nap on the couch in the man room in the basement. I went back out to work for awhile and then came back to check on him. This is what I found:

One sweet boy asleep on the basement stairs. He had a little rhino coating impression on his forehead and elbows. I moved him to a more comfy place!
It has been raining every opportunity we've had to work on the playground so it hasn't gotten any farther than that. I'm hoping it will be done by the beginning of June so we can start having playdates at our house!

UW High Risk Infant followup Clinic

On Wednesday Reese had his 3 year old assessment at the UW High Risk Infant Clinic. This is where they followup with high-risk infant like preemies to assess how they are progressing and determine if they need any additional services. The appointments are scheduled based on what their age should be if they were born full term. Reese was due in May so we had our appointment this week. Though he has been 3 years old for 3 months, from the moment of conception he just turned 3. They want him to test at 3 years 0 months.

Reese had appointments at 4 months, 12 months (we got to skip 8 because he was doing well), 24 months and now 36 months. Last year he was pretty significantly delayed. I just tried to locate a blog post about it and apparently I didn't...weird! Maybe I was traumatized by how far behind he was. He is first seen by a developmental pediatrician who is really looking for steady growth on his own personal curve (i.e. staying at 3rd percentile for weight is a-ok, but suddenly dropping is not.) He asked a million questions about his growth and development: using silverware, cup, sicknesses, hearing, vision etc etc. No problems!
He also sees a developmental psychologist who performs the Stanford-Binet, Peabody Picture Vocabulary and Beery Drawing tests. Reese tested at 3 years 1-2 months for all 3 tests! To be at level he only needed to test 3 years 0 months! The doctor said he had made "remarkable" progress. Woo Hoo! He also said it is not typical that children test the at the same level on all 3 tests, so he was very happy with Reese's progress. They recommend we keep up with the preschool and private speech and expect him to be completely "caught up" by kindergarten.
Hooray!!! We are so happy the services he's been receiving have been working. It definitely validates our choices, so we feel confident we've been doing the right things.
These photos are of Reese playing with his new favorite: Iron Man!

Growing Gus

Gus is getting so big!! He has moved into 12month sized clothes. He pulls himself up, crawls like a crazy man, pulls toys out of their bins, and uses his bean bag.

He even shares with his brother. He is so happy when Reese plays with him.
Later this same day we went over to Grandma and Grandad's house. Grandma leaned too close to Reese's pudding and Gus snatched it in a flash.
He really enjoyed chocolate pudding. He scooted all over their deck. He is really enjoying being outside now that the weather is getting nice, but man does he eat everything---rocks, leaves, dirt. Gross!
He REALLY enjoyed his Hong Kong noodles from Chungs's. He just snatched up two fistfuls at a time and kept shoveling it in!
We feel like this boy is just growing so fast and getting pudgy (he does have a round belly now) but I suspect he preparing to sprout upwards and return to his normal skinny self.

Hot in the City

Woo hoo finally some hot weather. We had a 80 degree day last week(according to our thermostat---the weather man may have called it something different). It was great for some water gun fighting!

Is it me or is this one below so very Charlie's Angels?
Gus couldn't figure out how to get the water out.
He wasn't overly impressed.He really preferred hunting for rocks to taste.
Reese got so wet he actually had to put on new clothes to go inside. Do you see Gus is sitting at the picnic table?!
Gus is holding one of Reese's counting dinosaurs....Gus prefers to slobber on them and then fling them, but we'll get to counting....Reese is teaching Gus how to roar in the proper T Rex style.

Menu Plan Monday

We have seriously got to get back into the swing of normal post-sickness life. (Potentially TMI) Last week Reese missed 2 full days of school and Thursday the teacher called to have him picked up early. I can't ever remember a time when we have had one sick spell after another all back to back. First it was Gus and I with snotty colds and Reese got it. Then I had nausea and the "d-word" and continued snotty cold. Then Kyle came home from work vomiting and "d word." Reese kept having a fever and snot and feeling blechy. Then last week Reese had a Monday night big boy vomit fest ---the first time for us, so I probably shouldn't be complaining---but O.M.G. GROSS!! All over my hand, arm, Reese's arms, chest, Kyle's pillow and the surrounding sheet. So one $120 tempurpedic pillow replacement later I think his issue was the recalled Yuma, AZ lettuce infected with e. coli. I wonder if I can get them to reimburse us for the pillow? UGH! Hopefully this week we'll remain healthy!

Monday: leftovers
Tuesday: Asparagus and Ham Lasagna this is seriously the best dish ever!
Wednesday: All day appointment at UW High Risk Infant follow-up clinic
Thursday: Chicken tetrazini I am going to throw in asparagus for a one dish meal
Friday: jambalaya--I use zatarain's with turkey keilbasa and shrimp
Saturday: Kyle's birthday at The Melting Pot
Sunday: homemade pizza

Check out what everyone else is cooking up at orgjunkie.

Another Train Lover

This is Gus' idea of playing with the train table.

He flings everything off. He just pulls and tugs until he gets it apart.
He is in hog heaven since Reese is napping that means he is free to revel in all the joy of flinging things without a big brother around to try to stop him.
Really his mission is to get ahold of the Sodor Milk jug!

Let the planting begin!

I got the backyard flowers planted.

All our flower beds surrounding the house have smooth rocks filling them. I plant my flowers in pots. This means essentially no weed pulling and we never have to replenish beauty bark. Hooray!

The flowers along the back fence.

All the back fence flowers up close.

Reese sniffing the combo pots.

See that silver oval container in the background? veggies! I'll show you my veggie gardening soon. Right now they are a little too small to look like much.