6/19 - Chuck E Cheese & swimming lessons

We had our garage sale on Saturday and we did pretty well. Aiden woke up not feel in too well which was kinda good for us because he was very content to just sit and watch tv in his new pirate hate that he got for his birthday. He woke up with a bloody nose for the 3rd day in a row.

Eli was feeling just fine and didn't feel like sitting in the house for the morning while Brad and I did the garage sale so he came out to help us. Here he is showing everyone how much he loves this car track. Eli was a bit hard to constrain because he had lots of energy. He came outside quite a bit and tried to help us. Overall, we had a successful garage sale and got rid of some stuff that is too big to move with us again.

On Sunday, I took Aiden to the ER while Brad and Eli went to church to celebrate Father's Day. It turns out that Aiden has bronchitis and an ear infection. Go figure.

On Monday, the boys were home with me and we went to exercise in the morning. They've been doing such a good job of going to the gym with me and not complaining that I wanted to reward them by letting them have some fun at Chuck E Cheese for a bit. I gave them each 10 tokens and lots of playtime in the tunnels. Here they are riding the carousel:

Aiden was starting to feel better because he had 3 doses of the antibiotics and they gave him a dose of steroids in the hospital after they saw the chest x-rays. He was still pretty tired but breathing better. Eli and Aiden decided to use a token on the basketball hoops and they did a pretty good job. Aiden actually made quite a few baskets and Eli made it over the glass partition quite a few times too. :)

Here are the boys enjoying "driving" a police car. Eli was having so much fun on this. We left for home at about 11:40pm to have some lunch and take a nap.

On Monday afternoon, Aiden had therapy. Here he is before feeding therapy and he was making frog paint prints before Terri convinced him to make a print with his own finger. That took a while to get to but he did eventually use his own finger and then even went a little crazy and we got a few toes for a partial footprint which is really nuts for Aiden.

After therapy we went straight to our first swim lesson. The boys were excited. Aiden is in a class where it is just the kids and 2 instructors while Eli is in the mommy and me class. Aiden thankfully bonded to the male teacher there on the first day and swam a few laps with him. Here is Aiden getting lifted over the bar for the platform.

He held on to the instructor and went down the length of the pool with his help while kicking his legs.

Poor Eli was freezing and didn't really fit well in this class. Many of the other kids were tiny babies and Eli was clearly already comfortable in the water and many of these babies were not!

He got a little bored and wanted to get out of the pool eventually. The instructor said he should be in the next class up which is Aiden's class but they are supposed to be at least 4 years old to be in that class.

We had swimming again today and the instructor did move him up to Aiden's class and Eli did great today. Both boys did great and used the kick board for a lap today. We were so proud of both of them. Eli is a little fish and is definitely in the upper half (talent-wise) of his class even though he's the smallest. We have swimming lessons Mon through Thur for the next 2 weeks for 40 minutes each day.

6/16 - A short visit to Nana's

Aiden started eating therapy a couple weeks ago and it's been going okay. He's feeding dinosaurs (and touching foods he won't normally touch) and realizing that touching foods and playing with them doesn't mean he has to eat them. Brad and I were questioning if it was working at all and then we found out he at 3 servings and beanie weenie at daycare the other day!  He's never eaten that for us before.

We had a quick trip to St. Pete for a funeral last weekend. I took a couple of pictures when we were out on our walk with Bronco which is what I'm showing you. God blessed us on this morning walk and we got to see crabs, string rays, fish, dolphins, and a egret. It was pretty cool.

The boys were staring at an egret eating a bird.

Here is a cute picture we took at the end of our walk. Aiden didn't real feel like smiling and looking at the camera.

The boys enjoyed playing with random things like this box that was protection for something else that was shipped. Go figure.

Here is Aiden flipping through Nana's bible; he loves her bible.

We came home on Saturday night and went to church on Sunday so we could say bye to Ms. Stephanie.

That night was Awana awards. Aiden was not so happy because things did not happen like they usually do. He had to sit in the main auditorium but not with us which created problems in his world. He is sitting by his friends Maddie and Lily but still isn't happy.

They called his name for completing his book for the year but still wasn't happy. I even walked him back to his classroom and sat by him for a few minutes before they handed out the awards they won. He still wasn't happy.

He wouldn't even walk up to the teacher, Mrs. Vicki, to get his award so she had to bring it to him. When she did that he covered his face with his hands. Poor guy. His friend Thomas even tried to come over and help make him happy but that didn't work either.

The whole class was singing and dancing .... except Aiden. He just stood up and pouted. Needless to say, he didn't have a great night.

Eli wasn't a huge fan of the schedule change but he still did alright. All the kids got to sit up on the stage for a bit and Eli liked that. It was very hard for him to wait his turn to get onto the stage though.

On Monday, I took the boys to the mall in the morning for a playmate. They had fun and completely wore themselves out by wrestling with each other. They were pretty gentle so I didn't mind.  Talk about a good workout. They were both sweating pretty hard.

I decided a few days ago that I would have a garage sale this saturday. Not ideal planning but next week is out because I have a sunday school function on saturday morning and we won't be here the next saturday because we'll be moved to Alabama. I read hanging stuff up helps at a garage sale so I am going to hang up all the clothes I have with these pipes laying across a ladder. We'll see if it works.

After talking with Stephanie who recently did a garage sale, I'm trying to find something to do with the boys (somewhere to send them) so that they won't be around when I'm selling their toys and I can have an extra pair of hands and eyes to help me out (that winner would be Brad if I can find someone else to watch them). 

6/4 - Sunday school party & the cousins

On Saturday afternoon after Aiden's party, we had a sunday school party to go to. The kids were allowed to wear their bathing suits to play in the kiddie pools. Both of the boys wore their suits and I brought extra in-case the cousins wanted to get wet too but they decided not to change into suits. Here is Eli in the red swim trunks trying to fill up a water gun thing.

Here is my dear friend Stephanie. I can't believe she is going to be moving to Texas in less than a week. I'm pretending like she's not really moving yet though. In case I haven't mentioned it, her family is moving to Houston, TX to plant a bilingual church. They are not bilingual (yet) but have been taking spanish lessons for the past 6-7 months. God is going to use them in amazing ways. Their church is called Advanced Church of Houston. Please pray for them as they start this new journey.

OK. Back to the party. The cousins were pretty worn out from getting up really early to drive to Jax for the party and from playing so hard during the party. In fact, they all fell asleep on the way to the sunday school party that started at 4:00pm. Aiden fell asleep in the car too since he didn't take a nap. It took the cousins a while to wake-up but once they did, they were having a good time.

Grayson was helping Aiden and Eli and showing them how to put water in the guns and squirt them. Aiden even "washed" Grahams feet off with the water. Once we all ate, we inflated the bounce house and the kids had lots of fun playing in there. Poor Grayson was such a good sport. He was mobbed by all the kids but he was still playing with them all. Look how red Aiden's face was after the bounce house. It's a little hard to see but it was actually bright red. He rehydrating with daddy by drinking some water.

We came home and my boys went to bed right away and the cousins went to bed not too long after that. On Sunday morning, the cousins were playing while we got various kids ready and got things packed up. They played so well together at the train table. Aiden and Eli don't play well with other kids at the train table .... except with their cousins. It was quite amazing.

After church but before nap time, we blew up the bounce house. This thing weight 175 lbs and Brad was such a trooper for setting it up again. We also needed to set it up so I could clean/sweep the inside of it though. Daddy and the boys played for a bit and it was fun to watch.

Eli loved running over to Brad and tackling him. He had the cutest, most determined look on his face too. It was adorable.

The boys actually did well chasing each other too. It was a good way to burn some energy right before nap time.

In this last picture of the boys, the were about to gang up on daddy and try and catch and tackle him. They were all having fun.

I decided to flip around for a bit too. It's been years since I've done anything but I did some backhandsprings and some back flips too. These first two pictures are as Aiden says, "flips with my hands" and the last one is a "flip without hands."

It was fun to play around for a bit. We had a great time with the bounce house and thought that for $120, we got our use out of it since we had it from Fri late afternoon to Sunday late afternoon. :)  The boys went to daycare today and I've been busy working on a few projects. I need to go help Steph move and get a workout this morning before Aiden has his feeding and speech therapy later this afternoon. 

6/3 - Aiden's 4th birthday

Aiden turned 4 yesterday at 2:20pm. I can't believe it's been 4 years. We decided to get a bounce house for this occasion. I really wanted the monster truck bounce house since that was Aiden's theme this year but it wasn't available so we settled for the crayon bounce house. The first two pictures show the boys helping daddy put in the stakes to hold the bounce house in place.

The party started at 10am and Aiden was pretty excited to wear his crown that he got at daycare. He was also excited to jump in the bounce house with his friends.

Here is his monster truck cake:

It was great for Papa to drive up with the cousins. Here are Graham and Aiden playing together in the bounce house. They played so well together and had so much fun.

Aiden worked up a serious sweat before it was time for cake. Here he is cooling down and excited that he gets to blow his candle out.

We got a family picture. I'm determined that next year we'll be able to get one with both kids looking at the camera at the same time. No promise of normal faces and/or smiles, but at least eye contact with the camera is what I'm hoping.

I even got in the bounce house and played with Aiden for a bit. He was having lots of fun.

He was excited to open his presents and had lots of fun with his friends around.

Aiden got another surprise when Mrs. Lisa stopped by his party to say hi (his former OT). He has a special bond with her and trust with her that's pretty neat.

I tried to take a picture of the entire group but I kept cutting just one child off so I've just included 2 pictures to make sure I got all the kids. They had fun and so did Aiden = successful party. Back row: Sydney, Alyson, Kyleigh, Graham, Grayson, Eli, Raymond, Aiden; Front row: Maddie, Logan, Lilly, Blaise and Jordyn.

Aiden was so excited to have his cousins come that he couldn't nap. I was sad for that because he played hard but I don't blame him for being excited. In the afternoon, we had a sunday school party to go to but I'll update you about that later.