Saturday, July 14, 2012

Big Boy Bed

The other day when I woke up, I found a Fredrick up and wandering around. This was quite a shock considering I had no idea he knew how to get out of his crib and open the door. That day at nap time, he decided That Was IT! and he refused to go in the crib. I put him in; he climbed out. This freaked me out because his crib is a sleigh style and is really high up for such a small guy. So we decided to transition his crib into a toddler bed before he cracked his cute, cute head. This transition was not without much trepidation on my part: when we transitioned Wesley (I was pregnant with Fredrick and couldn't lift Wes in and out of his crib) it was a bit of a nightmare. He cried and cried and hated going to bed for a long time. I think it was about the time Fredrick was a new baby he finally settled down at night and wasn't so hard to put down.

Night One: Fredrick was really excited about his big boy bed. Wesley was such a sweet big brother and insisted on laying down next to Fredrick to help him feel comfortable. I stayed in there singing to Fredrick and trying to help him settle down, but eventually I just left the room and let him cry for a few minutes. He settled down after maybe ten minutes and did go back to his little bed, crawl up, and go to sleep. Wesley went back to his bed, and this is what we found a few hours later:


I did lift him back in bed gently and he slept there the rest of the night.

Night Two: I did pretty much the same thing as the first night, but I wasn't so concerned about leaving and letting him cry. I accepted the fact that they would probably be little monkeys and get up and play a little, trusting they would end up in their beds. They did! When we went in to check on them, this is what we found:

Night Three: Fredrick pretty much had the hang of things (or was it Mom getting trained?) and they went down very smoothly. It is so cute to see them such good friends and Fredrick being old enough to really play and interact as a brother with Wesley. And it is very sweet to see Wesley take Fredrick under his wing. When we went to check on them, this is what he found:

I love these little boys so much. I hope they always stay close, close friends.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Summer Fun

We have been busy having some fun around here. These boys love playing in the sprinkler at Grandma/Papa's house! I don't think I've ever seen a bigger smile on Fredrick's face!


Wesley loved to oblige him by chasing him with the hose. 


They also love digging in their dedicated garden space. They even planted some corn that has sprouted quite nicely! Wesley's favorite part is finding worms to put in his bucket.


Fredrick just likes to dig, dig, dig.


Wesley helped Papa build a birdhouse for the back yard. He got to use tools just like Bob the builder!


This hat on Fredrick cracked me up!


Wesley looking so grown up helping with his own shovel.


The boys eating snacks in their little tee pee fort. Which my very cool mom built for me when I was in grade school and wrote a play that needed one as a prop.


Look at that dapper young man! So handsome!


Noodle Bath



Thanks to +Lindsay Brems and her idea published on her blog "A Teacher Mom" (link at the bottom), I decided it was time we gave the boys a noodle bath. I had no idea how much pasta it would take or what I was getting myself into, but the thought of seeing them squish around in a tub of noodles was worth the try. So I cooked up 10 lbs (dry) of spaghetti and dumped it in the tub. It took the little one a little time to relax, but once they spent a couple minutes with their dad dumping noodles on their head they had the best time and didn't want to come out for over an hour. The whole thing stressed +Alicia Johnson out, but I thought it was just great. I have the maturity of a five year old so I was tempted to jump in myself until the little one urinated. The temptation went away.

Things that didn't surprise me
It was a lot of fun for the boys, more than I've seen them have for a while and we do fun stuff.
It made for some fun pictures and videos.

Things that did surprise me
It was a lot of work to cook up that much pasta. We have a big pot, but it still took forever.
It was a lot of work to clean up. I didn't think much beyond "put boys in pasta".
It was cheaper than I thought it would be. Ten 1-pound bags did the trick and the whole thing cost less than $9.
It was difficult to get pictures and especially videos that were peenie-free.

All in all, it was a great time and I'm glad we did it. It was hilarious watching them chuck pasta on each other for an hour. They just loved holding, squishing, and experiencing the noodles. Thanks for the idea, Lindsay.

link-- http://www.ateachermom.com/2012/07/09/messy-challenge-give-in-to-some-dirty-fun/

It's a great blog on teaching your kids, check it out

Saturday, July 7, 2012

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion

I started a new blog for original knitting designs, and other musings. You should check it out!


Oh, and a shout out to my lovely models. Aren't they pretty? 



And thanks to Ashley, photographer extraordinaire!

Reunion Adventures, Part 2

So we came back from La Grande, OR on a Wednesday afternoon, expecting to leave for Federal Way, WA on Friday morning early to attend cousin Connor's birthday party before the big Johnson family reunion being held in Cle Elum, WA. Wednesday night Fredrick went down to sleep with only a tiny runny nose. Two and a half hours later the poor boy woke up with croup so bad we ended up taking him to the hospital for a breathing treatment. That was a long, scary night with not a lot of sleep. The trip to the birthday party was cancelled, because although he bounced back pretty quick from how sick he was that night, we didn't want to infect any on the little infants we would have been staying around. 

We headed up to Washington Sunday afternoon and made it as far as Auburn, where we stayed in a hotel for the night. About four in the morning, Wesley woke me up by climbing in bed beside me, burning up with a temp of about 102. So as Fredrick was getting better, Wesley went down for the count. Nasty cough, high fever, lethargy . . . just in time for the reunion.  Big time bummer.  

We were so  blessed in our accommodations. Each family had their own individual cabin, so while we were quarantined the whole week, we had a comfortable place to stay.

Here is Wesley's cute bed


The little kitchen table, fridge/microwave counter leading off to the bathroom.


Our bed and couch.


Fredrick immediately got into mischief by coloring his head with a green marker. It took a good week for it to come off his scalp.


My poor Wesley.


Wes did get a fun adventure on day of riding a horse for the first time. He was a little trooper and tried really hard to have fun even though he was really not well.


After a particularly rough night where Wesley's fever got up to 105, we decided to cut our losses and leave the reunion a couple days early. We were so disappointed to miss spending time with family we get to see only rarely, but we didn't want to get anyone else sick. Plus LeGrand and I were both coming down with fevers (and had some serious sleep deprivation going on) so it was time to head back. But we really loved to see everyone in passing, and we can only hope we can actually make the next reunion! (We don't have a very good track record with these events. Reunion #1: Alicia was pregnant with Wesley and puking the whole time. Reunion #2: pregnant with Fredrick and unable to travel. This was supposed to be our year, darn it!)

Reunion Adventures, Part I

We've had an eventful past several weeks. It has been a mixed bag of very fun and kinda hard, but I guess that is what life is all about. The beginning of our adventures was a quick road trip with Alicia's parents back to La Grande, Oregon (yes I was born in La Grand and married a LeGrand, a bit of foreshadowing?). My parents rented a mini van--which Wesley LOVED--so we could all drive together.


These boys did a great job on the trip!


Sorry, but I had to pot Fredrick's "Pooping is hard to do" face. It was just too funny and cute.


Fredrick loved to show Great-Papa how to drive the cars!


Great-Grandma was really good at reading all their favorite stories too!


We took a trip to a really fun park in La Grande. Fredrick was NOT shy about making new friends. Little flirt!


I was a bit horrified that he just took off and climbed on to some random dad's lap. He was aware it was a stranger; he just didn't care. 


 Both boys loved the slides.




 Wesley was able to overcome his apprehension of the swings with Daddy's help.

Fredrick having fun with Grandma!

We also took a really fun trip to a fire truck museum. Talk about every little boy's dream. They had all these cool antique fire engines, from a model T on up. 


 Wesley even got to meet a real life Mack! (If you know the movie Cars, you'll know why he was so excited.)


I love how these boys are such good friends.


We even got to see our cousin Sonia while we were there for a little bit!


Just chillin' on the way back.