Bedtime

We have had some new twists to bed time. Thankfully they've been good. (I send lucky vibes to you Jennifer.)

Lucy has stopped napping so she is dog tired at 7. So her bed time has jumped from 8 to 7. I have cut out Ian's evening nap so he is going to bed around 7:30 instead of 8:30. Simon hits the hay (I wonder where that expression came from?) around 8. It's actually pretty smooth.

I'm usually the one that lays Simon down. We go up in his room and grab his blanket and we sit in the glider. I used to just hold him for a minute or two but a couple of weeks ago he started asking for a story. I started by giving a summary of his day, then we progressed to stories about things I know he loves, this week I've introduced The Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs. I leave out any violence against the pigs and the wolf.

Tonight after our story I was just holding him and being so thankful. Having two toddlers isn't easy but there are some awesome parts about this stage of life. As I held him I knew that these nights won't last forever. Sooner than I want he will grow out of my lap and my stories.

Perfect Morning

Even though it started a little early we've had a great morning. They all woke up happy. I made pancakes for breakfast. Ian went down easily for his morning nap. I got a shower while Simon and Lucy watched Super Why! and Ian slept. Ian was still asleep so we went outside and I got out the sand table for the first time this summer. Lucy and Simon played without major incident while I laid on the hammock and read. I was able to read 3 whole chapters before Ian woke up. He woke up cooing and not crying. Then we came inside just in time to catch Sesame Street while I made a pizza for lunch. I just love Sesame Street. I just love being at home. I wonder if I would appreciate mornings like this if I didn't have to work 9 months out of the year. I'd like to think I would.
The pizza is done and we'll keep our fingers crossed that the afternoon goes as smooth as the morning.

Vacation

On Lucy's birthday we left for Siesta Key in Florida. We were pretty nervous about an 18 hour car trip with our three little ones but thanks to portable DVD players and restaurants with playlands it wasn't as bad as I had imagined.

We haven't been able to write about it on the blog because it was a surprise to Nana that we were going. We went with Nana, Papa, Aunt Jessica, Uncle Dave, and Julian.

Since our kids are fair skinned we had limited beach and pool time. Most days we stared pretty early. We would go to the pool and then when Ian went down for a morning nap one of us would take Simon and Lucy to the beach for some sand time under the umbrella. We tried to have them in by 11:15.

I loved many parts of our time at the beach. Playing in the sand, watching Simon swimming with his life jacket, sitting around the table and eating together. I was so nice just to be away.

One funny story is that Simon got attached to these little toypeedos. He has a blanket and loves to sleep with it but doesn't carry it around or anything. He's not necessarily attached to any toys but he fell in love with these pool toys. They were Julian's. He wanted to take them to dinner and sleep with them. He carried them everywhere. When we were taking our family pictures he insisted on holding them. My mom finally got him to put them down.

Avacados

After rice cereal, avacados were all of their first foods. I looked back in our phots and found a picture of each of them enjoying them for the first time. The top is Ian, then Simon, and then Lucy. It's so fun to look at pictures of them when they were about the same age. They are all around 6 1/2 to 7 months in these pictures. Ian's hair really doesn't look that red in real life.

I usually try to make most of the kids' baby food. WIth Lucy I was pretty successful. With Simon I was mostly successful and with Ian we'll see. Making his avacados was quite and adventure. Lucy and Simon where running around and I was wearing Ian in a sling because he would cry if I laid him down. All I have is a Magic Bullet. It takes awhile to make a large batch. I think that if I had some thing bigger it would be easier. It's just hard to spend the money on a food processor when I'm pretty sure Ian will be our last.