Puzzled

Bradley has taken a sudden interest in puzzles. It seems like, at 20 months, he's too young to understand how to do puzzles, but he gets it. Rachel's been a puzzle lover for so long now, and I guess Bradley has learned from watching his big sis. Today, Bradley found his fishing pole puzzle which is just puzzle pieces of fish with little magnets on their back and a little stick with a string and a magnet on the end. Anyway, Bradley loved "fishing" for puzzle pieces with this magnet stick/rod. He was so patient as he steadily held the pole over the different little fish. I was very impressed with his hand/eye coordination. Of course, I think it's a sign of brilliance that he was doing this at his age. And, he did have trouble putting the right fish into the right spots, but he tried. It sure was cute watching him concentrate so hard.

JuJu turns 4!!

Waiting to eat yummy pizza!!!

Playing pin the sticker on the pony

Trying out JuJu's new swingset

JuJu's swinging hard!

Bradley trying out JuJu's new slide

It's hard to believe that the girls are growing up. This weekend, we went to JuJu's 4th birthday party. It was a great party, but the trip down wasn't that great! It turns out that this coming week is the BIGGEST week for Spring Break! There was an unusually high number of cars on I-75 from up North. I couldn't believe how many cars there were from Michigan heading south to the beach. The weather was very yucky...constant rain that makes traveling dangerous and miserable. When we reached Perry, GA, we decided to take some alternate side routes to get out of the congested I-75. That definitely sped things up and we made it to Julia's party in plenty of time. Both kids traveled exceptionally well...very little fussing or complaining and they watched a steady stream of DVD's. Anyway, we checked into the hotel and then got to Julia's party and had so much fun. Julia invited us, both sets of grandparents and her best friend from school, Bella. So, it was a very intimate crowd of her very favorite people and Rachel, Julia and Bella had a blast running around giggling and playing. Juju's party theme was My Little Pony, so Wendy and Matt had cute pony decorations, balloons and an adorable cake! The girls even played stick the flower on the pony (blindfolded). It's the pony version of Pin the tail on the donkey. Bradley enjoyed the party too. He loved playing with all Juju's toys and running around their house.

Our hotel experience went fairly smoothly. Bradley had a little trouble falling asleep. It took him about 15 minutes to quit trying to get off the bed. He finally gave up and fell asleep on my arm. The poor baby was exhausted...he hadn't slept a single minute the entire way down to Bainbridge. After we got dressed and ate, we headed back to Wendy and Matt's house for more playtime and fun. JuJu had gotten a great swingset for her birthday and we hadn't been able to play on it yet since it was raining the day of her party. Rachel and Bradley LOVED her new swingset. We played on that while Nick and Pop went to get some lunch. We left shortly after lunch and had a rain-free, uneventful drive home.

What a wonderful, fun-filled weekend!

Cousin Best Friends

Rachel thinks of JuJu as her best friend. She tells everyone about her, saying, "remember my best friend, JuJu?" She talks about her all the time and misses her. Needless to say, she can't wait till Julia's birthday party this weekend. Those 2 precious little girls have been friends since Rachel was born. Julia met Rachel in the hospital when Rachel was 1 day old and Julia was 1 month old. Since then, the bond that formed was as close as sisters, I think. The girls do fight alot, but they have such a good time together and it's so cute seeing them go off and play and do their own thing when they're together. They could really care less about anyone else when they have each other. What a special relationship the girls have. I hope it continues to build and build as they grow older. How cool it must be to be "Cousin Best friends!"

Puddle of Mud

We went outside today and got our first glimpse of the hot days to come. It was so hot and muggy that we were sweating! I set up a small obstacle course for Rachel because we thought that might be fun to do. All it consisted of was a golf putting hole, a few jumps on the trampoline, shooting a basketball and then tossing a ball into a bucket and running to the finish line/jump rope. We were only able to do it a few times because Bradley wasn't that into it. Rachel thought it was cool, though. Then, we watered the bushes and created some huge, messy puddles. So the kids decided it would be lots of fun to jump in the nasty mud and get really dirty. Rachel watered her sunflower garden and saw some green sprouts coming up (hopefully they're not weeds!) and she was so excited. I'll have to take a picture in a few days to show the progress. I moved the slide to another location in the playground and both kids thought it was so cool! It's funny how a little change like moving the slide can make the playground so much more appealing!

JuJu's Baby

Rachel is so excited about JuJu's baby. We talk about him often and Rachel can't wait until she can see the baby. Today, we went shopping with Gege and got a few new clothes for the kids. But, Rachel kept running around the store looking for a present for JuJu's baby. At first, she picked up lots of baby girl clothes and then she finally picked up a darling baby boy outfit for baby Lane. She was so proud of herself and can't wait to give the outfit to "Winnie" and Uncle Matt and JuJu.

Poison Control and Batteries

I had my first experience with Poison Control on Friday. Little stinker Bradley got a hold of a sharpie permanent marker and ate the tip. I had left him upstairs for a few minutes while tidying things downstairs, but I was checking on him frequently. He does really well playing by himself and I thought I had the playroom pretty toddler-proofed. But, I had a black permanent marker on the top of the desk next to the computer. Apparently, Bradley climbed up into the computer chair and found the marker. When I found him, he was in the chair and had marker all over his mouth, teeth and fingers. His breath smelled horribly like stinky permanent marker. I tried to wash his hands and face with soap and water, but of course the permanent marker was not coming off. It faded to a purple color which looked really awful. I figured I might as well call Poison Control just to make sure that Bradley wasn't going to be poisoned from ingesting the marker tip. Well, in case you haven't had to make the call before, Poison Control was extremely nice and helpful. I had a man who calmly answered my questions and assured me that even if he had eaten the entire marker, there wasn't enough of the chemical in it to poison Bradley. He said that the worst-case scenario was an upset stomach. I was relieved since I was envisioning a trip to the emergency room where we would have to wait for hours for help. Anyway, I think I have removed all the markers (of any kind...even the kid-friendly ones are too tempting to eat) from sight and hopefully we'll be able to keep Bradley from eating anything else "poisonous".

On another note, I have mentioned MANY times that Bradley is into EVERYTHING! Today, he found a AAA battery in a drawer in the den. I was drying my hair in my bathroom. Rachel came in the bathroom with the battery and said, "I got this away from Braddy." I made a big deal out of her helping get the battery away from him, because I really did appreciate the help. Who knows what Bradley would do with the battery, but it's certainly not something we want him to play with. Anyway, I told Rachel, "thank you so much, you are such a great helper and I'm so glad you got the battery away from Bradley so he wouldn't eat it, because that would be bad for him." Then Rachel said, "yes, cause it (the battery) might make him walk all the time." I thought that was adorable since she thought the battery would have the same effect on Bradley (giving him power) as it does with toys. What a cute little connection! What a wonderful helper she is!!!
I need all the help I can get trying to stay one step ahead of Bradley!

Crazy Dancer

I wish I had one iota of my kid's energy levels. They seem to be able to go and go and go and go. I only seem to be able to putter around, and I'm not even that old! One of Rachel's favorite things to do is get out her pink keyboard and play all the demo songs. There are about 10 songs that play one right after another. She loves to dance, jiggle, wiggle, twirl, etc...while listening to the songs. She also loves me to turn up the tempo on the music while she's dancing. She thinks it's so funny to move as fast as she can to the music. I always watch her and wish I felt like dancing with her. I know it would be great exercise for me if I would join in! But, I usually just sit on my rear and watch her have fun and laugh. She's such a precious child who really reminds me how fun it is to do silly things like dance crazy! She can do all that dancing and still have energy left to play endless games afterwards! What an amazing amount of energy! Of course, both kids are in bed between 7:45 and 8:00 every night, get at least 11 hours of sleep each night and their days are filled with endless amounts of fun and games without any demands being placed on them! Maybe my energy level would improve if I was treated that "well" too!