Catch-up

Finally organized my photos from the last couple of months and thought I'd upload a few of my favorites to the blog:

Jack's breathing treatment - it lasted a few days and he did SO great with it! Thank goodness it wasn't too long though :)

Jack watching t.v. - how cute is that little booty?

The boys think it's funny to make their car toy fall down. I'm a sucker for their giggles.

Jack and Ben P. sharing a chair during an afternoon playdate :)

Playing at the park. I have to go down that slide with them because they go down, giggle, and run out of the play area around the building. Silly dudes.

This is Ben yelling for Jack because the swing next to him opened up. Seriously :)

Because who doesn't enjoy putting your feet up while you relax with a good book?

First trip to the Bass Pro Shops. Loved it.

I just love when Ben sprawls out on his tummy to read a book - he does this often. I also just love when they read. :)

My 3 cute boys!

This is their teachers' favorite outfit they wear -

because they can tell them apart: Ben in blue, Jack in red :)

Ben lines up his collection of trains

Enjoying a kolache while they watch Saturday morning cartoons

Playing with Mom

I love my afternoons with Ben & Jack. They are so busy & energetic and they go non-stop most of the day. I have joked that it actually hurts my feelings a little when I try to play with them and they mostly ignore me because they are so busy playing on their own. So when I can catch their attention with a new activity, we have so much fun.

This afternoon I walked out of the room to get their snack and returned to find Ben on the couch reading some magazines I'd left out. Jack had discovered a little bottle of eyedrops and was pretty intrigued with how it worked. Not for your nose, Jacks. He thinks it's funny when I put stuff in his pockets and I think it's funny to watch him try to get stuff out of his pockets: win-win!

We make forts sometimes - I'm really bad at them, but so far no complaints :)

Ben loves this giant rubber duck - he picked it out at the Home Goods store one day when we were shopping and wouldn't put it down and he really loves it! When we bring it in the bath, they act out Are You My Mother? with the big duck and the little rubber ducks we have - and if the big duck isn't there, they hold their rubber duckies up and sadly say "Mamaaa" - I will never get tired of this!

Jack demands "choo choo" every day and I like how he scoots all around his chair. Ben is nowhere near as interested in t.v. as Jack, or maybe his attention span for television is just shorter.

 

Here are the boys "cooking" beans in their kitchen - they love stirring :)

Afternoon fun with my sweet, handsome boys:

 

 

I think these 2 pics are of Jack throwing a mini-fit because Ben had the preferred "Black choo choo" - we have 2, now, so no more fits! (Hopefully)

Jack made his own cymbals and flinched every time he banged these together! 

Funny story about that green shirt. Ben has a shirt that says "Daddy's little dude;" both boys will frequently say "Dada's duuuuude!" and Ben will point to his shirt to repeat it. To try to make things fair, I've told them this green shirt says "Mama's dude!" So far it hasn't caught on, I just get "rawr" when I ask them what this shirt says. Sigh.

Are You My Mother? Buddy Recruitment

The boys were playing with their dog stuffed animals and decided to act out Are You My Mother? by fake crying "mama" and moving their dogs around the room. I asked them if a couple of different objects were the dogs' mama, and they would sadly cry "mama." After a few minutes of this, one of them (I can't remember who initiated) spotted Buddy walking in the living room and ran over to him, exclaiming "Mama!" with his stuffed dog held high. They put their dogs on Buddy's back and were happy as could be, giggling to themselves and trying to balance their dogs on Buddy. I was impressed that they made a connection between Buddy the big brown dog and their little stuffed animal dogs, and also impressed that Buddy passively took part in their play. :)

 

Later that day, we were getting ready to leave and I walked over to kennel the dogs up, to find that someone had put one of the stuffed dogs in Littlebit's crate. We did pick up the room together, so I guess one of these silly boys decided this is where dogs belong when we put things away. 

Houston

Doesn't that clever blog title just draw you in?

A couple of weeks ago we visited the Houston area to see family. We started in Lumberton, to see Ryan, Katie, and my very sweet nephews. We arrived Friday for dinner and the boys were all so happy to see each other and play! Saturday morning J played golf with Ryan & Dad, while Katie, Mom & I took the boys to lunch and came back home to play. Ben & Jack love playing with Connor and Cooper - they think they need to do everything Connor does! We had such a fun visit :)

The boys loved the little rides at the mall! This was their first time on these.

All 3 big boys riding cars while Cooper napped :)

Rest after playing outside

Cooper still waking up from nap with Gigi :)

On our way there we saw some Houston Firefighters and they let J&B sit in the truck - so cute!

After Lumberton, we drove to Houston to see J's grandparents Sellmeyer, Aunt Ali, Uncle David, & Christopher. The boys adore Christopher and it was so cute to see them playing trucks and running to Christopher's room to see all his cool stuff. He sat them on his bed to watch an Elmo show on his iPad, and for the rest of the weekend Jack would run back and put his hands on the bed, like, "let's watch that show again!" It's so nice of J's aunt & uncle to open their home to us, especially with my two little tornadoes, and it was great to see J's grandparents.

The boys did great in the car! They watched Veggie Tales, napped, and read books. On our way home I snapped a couple of pics of Jack hamming it up - we would look back and he would just be grinning at us. Little cutie!

 

Out with family & friends

Earlier in February, Uncle Barry & Aunt Sheri were in town and we got to have brunch with them. They came over to play for a bit afterwards and the boys had fun showing off and giving hugs. They love their family!

 

 

We were so excited to hear that the Maybens were coming in town this weekend for a big dance competition for Kenlie and we got to see them for dinner. The boys love Kenlie & Keyton (mostly Kenlie - they think she is a cool older kid!) and we love spending time with them. Towards the end of the dinner we broke out the iPhones - we had 4 going around between kids at one point! In the pic below we had all 4 kids on one side and Mitch made a comment about having 4 kids - it would be a little chaotic! J is worried about his zone defense skills, but I keep reminding him we have all that room in the SUV now.  ;)

The next night we got to spend time with Luke & Sami - yay! When we met and got the boys out of the car, Ben ran to Sami and Jack ran to Luke :) Here is Jack trying on Sami's glasses at dinner and Ben playing with Luke's iPhone camera: