4/21 - A playdate & Peeps

We got to have a playdate dinner with our friends earlier this week. We went to the local park which has tons of ducks and had our old bread and dinner ready to go. Eli was showing me the ducks in the first picture.

The boys played on the equipment first. Eli was being a stinkerpot and not wanting to let Aiden up the steps. I can't blame him because that is something Aiden does to Eli all the time on the playground at home. The difference is Aiden listens to me and eventually moves ... Eli doesn't.

I'm not sure why Eli was doing this but he'd want to go down the slide and then hang on the side of the slide and go down little by little. He thought it was funny and then realized it was work and would get whiny. 

It wasn't long before the kids needed to eat. Below is Stephanie holding Blaise while I sneak away and take a picture. I must give a shout-out to Stephanie. She has become such an incredible friend who speaks such truth and wisdom. It's so refreshing and I'm so thankful God has given me her as a friend.

Aiden didn't like the peanut butter and jelly I brought for him so he had lots of fruit. He is getting to be such a picky eater. Eli was loving the cantaloupe too. Aiden has his mouth full but that's not slowing him down from grabbing his next bite. I can what dinner is going to be like in the future with the boys if they both like the same thing. Every boy/man for himself!!

Aiden really likes playing Regan and Kyleigh. His left ear has continued to bother him and I finally got in touch with the doctor today. He wants me to start putting Afrin drops in again. Aiden does not like drops of any kind in his ears.

Now that dinner was over, the kids wanted to feed the ducks. I did my own little SuperSize experiment and was kinda grossed out by it. I bought a loaf of white bread from Publix about 2.5 weeks ago. I was shocked to find that it had not really even molded yet. It smelt a little moldy but there was no visible mold on it. I do not buy white bread normally but I feel like my wheat bread goes bad much faster than 2.5 weeks!

Eli still thought it was dinner time and sometimes tried to eat the bread. Aiden did great. He just wanted to take a piece of bread and go do it on his own. I still had to watch Eli some. He wanted to just throw the hole piece out there sometimes.

We were treated with spotting a group of ducklings. They were tiny and there was about 10 of them. They were adorable. Aiden and Kyleigh had so much fun watching the babies and the mommy. They tried to feed the babies bread but they were not so interested at the beginning.

Aiden loves corn on the cob and we haven't had it in ages. I bought some the other day and I made it the other night for him. He loved it. Eli had never had it. I tried to show him how to eat it. He started to get the hang of it but was getting frustrated so I finally cut it off for him.

The boys also got a box of goodies from Grandma Jo and Grandpa Dave. I bribed Aiden the other day for him to take a nap and then he could open one. He opened the blue package and it was purple peeps. I just about passed out. He has no idea what they are so I told him they are candy. He then said he wanted one. I opened the package and gave him one in a bowl and put him up to the table. He started off by licking it. I told him he was supposed to take a bit of it. He finally tried a little bite and then said it was "too messy" and didn't want it. I was kinda happy that he didn't want all that sugar even though it was just because it was making him dirty.

Aiden wiping off his hands since the sugar made them "dirty" and "messy." He cracks me up.

While I was helping Aiden get his Peeps out, Eli got in the box and found a present for him. That wasn't planned but at least he did pick one that had his name on it. Aiden wanted to read the book to Eli. It was too sweet.

Aiden was playing tug-of-war with Bronco the other night. They were having a blast and Bronco was pulling Aiden pretty hard. It was a great workout for both!

Below is Eli and his favorite blanket. I'm so mad I cannot find another one. He loves sucking on the tag. While he has other blankets, he is really attached to this one. 

Just for fun, I found an old picture of the boys. I wanted to see how similar they look at about the same age. Beside Aiden having a hair cut that looks like the barber put a bowl on his head, I can see some similarities. 

Finally, this last pictures is kind of blurry but it's for Brad. You can't tell the detail on the shirt but It got some layers of different material on it. I also had on my black chunky necklace.

I wanted to post these now because tomorrow Aiden and I will be going to a fun Easter Egg Hunt party. I will hopefully post pictures from that before Sunday. We are going to be traveling to see Nana and Papa soon which we are excited about.

4/19 - Aiden report card and using the potty

First of all, Aiden got his first "report card" from OPK South, his daycare. He started about 3-4 weeks after his second birthday and I guess they rated him certain things. They then graded him last week on things. Overall, he's doing great. He's a smart little kid. He did do pretty poor in one category, Purposeful Motor Activity. I asked the manager what this meant and she gave me a copy of his entire test. Many of the items on that section are about being independent on everyday life skills. For example, putting on/taking off clothes/shoes (Aiden won't do this), brushing own teeth (he does every now and then but he's getting better about actually brushing versus biting the brush and/or just doing his front teeth), and going potty. There were a couple questions about potty and Aiden doesn't do the big boy potty.

I should say Aiden didn't do the big boy potty until yesterday. He peed for the first time at daycare into, I mean, on the potty. They had him sitting and he started peeing and it went everywhere. I took a picture of what they wrote about it to send to Brad so he could see for himself. This is pretty exciting for him and us. I put him on the potty for up to 30 min at various times and he's NEVER actually peed. So, at 1.5 months before his 3rd birthday, he just peed for the first time in the potty! Better late than never!

The other good news is that he did it again today! This time they had him stand and he went just great. I asked him a couple times tonight to sit/stand on the potty at home and he wanted nothing to do with it. We'll see how it goes.

4/19 - Bounce House (from last week)

On Thursday of last week, I met one other military spouse from HS-11 at JumpZone, a local bounce house place. Aiden has started to show more interest in bounce houses (at least at Stephanie's house) and Eli has shown absolutely no interest, and in fact, normally cries if I try and make him go in. Needless to say, I wasn't sure how this would go.
They had a little kid play area which was good. It got the boys into play mode and they went back there a few times.

Eli did NOT want to go on any bouncy thing at all to begin with. He would cry if I put him down. Once he saw Aiden enjoying himself and saw that is fun, not a punishment, he started to like it. He's still unbalanced so walking on the bounces houses was difficult for him.

They had a Lightening McQueen bounce house and that is where we spent quite a bit of time. Aiden could go up the steps by himself and did a great job in this house. An hour into our experience, Eli was also climbing up these steps by himself which really surprised me.

Aiden didn't really want to sit still long enough for me to take a picture of them.

They also had a Spongebob house that was pretty easy for toddlers. Aiden started getting in to that one by climbing over the structure in the middle. I was very thankful I was allowed to go in these houses with the boys. I wasn't allowed to jump or go down slides but I don't think either of them would have done anything if I couldn't have gone in to show them what to do and that it was fun. 

Here is a picture of the boys and I.

While Eli didn't mind going in to some of the bounce houses, he found other things to keep him busy. As you can see, the water fountain was a hit.

They had this REALLY tall structure that was supposed to be a ladder in a firetruck. It was the tallest/biggest one there. We saw something very similar at the squadron childrens christmas party this year and I had to walk Aiden up to the top and then go down with him. This structure was built a little more solid so there wasn't as much swaying and instability in the steps on the way up. Aiden climbed it himself and went down the slide quite a few times. It was so tall that Eli didn't even really like being at the bottom to wait for Aiden. 

The boys got to spend some serious energy (as did I). I was sweating running around trying to keep track of both of them. They also had fun in the video game area. I love that they have no idea you are actually supposed to put money in these things and "play" them yet.

Overall, the boys had a great time. It was the perfect size place with just enough different bounce houses to get them used to it. I hear there are a few more bounce houses in the area. We'll have to investigate them a little more. I'm already of thinking of when we can plan another trip to a bounce house place. I told Aiden that when daddy comes home he can bring him here and they can a date together. Aiden was pretty excited about that.