Tumble weeds

The big boys started tumbling.    We went to their 2nd class today.  
Cameron wanted me to, "stay mama, you'll stay here and watch mama ?!" he asked me over and over.
Problem was, when I went in, camera in hand....fully planning on photo documenting the moment for a couple of minutes, Cam didn't want to tumble at all.....he just wanted to stand by me and tell me with shaky voice that, "I'm too tired mom"
The teachers don't put up with this (parents aren't really allowed) and his teacher warned him that I would have to go if he didn't participate.    He was affecting the other kid in the class after all - Spencer.   ha ha  It's just the 2 of them.
Cam was still having a hard time so I left.
Upon returning to the car...Sydney had given both babies, still strapped in their car seats, gum....had eaten 1/2 of my orange tic tacs....had Christmas music blasting....both windows rolled down and had just applied a heavy amount of my bath and body works antibacterial foam to her hands.
I do believe she would have gone to pick up lunch at that point had I spent more time trying to get Cam to cooperate.   I was a little glad I came out.  :)

We sat in the van and watched through the window until the last few minutes of class, and I went back in.   Giving STRICT instructions to Sydney to STAY OUT OF MY STUFF.  oh and this time I took the keys with me.   I went back in the class.  Both boys were doing handstands and very happily I might add.   They both waved at me....and Syd.....who had joined me because there was no music in the car.
I snapped the pictures shown below, gathered the boys and left.   Both babies were in full hysterics by the time we got back to the car (2 feet from the glass door that I was sitting at) and all of the other mothers parked out in front next to my van reading their books while they waited for their girls to get done, acted a little put out by the noise level.
Ah well !
Here are some pictures of the boys doing handstands, arch ups and hurdle somersaults.

Conversation Wednesday

Sydney : buddies, don't run into me with your scooters.  You aren't trained professionals like me.   You don't know how to stop and turn really fast like this..(demonstrates a turn, nearly missing Cam)...Go, go and practice so that you can do this...(demonstrates again, only this time she runs into the chair a little) and soon you'll be good like me.
both boys watching her very unimpressed by her cool moves.



Ok.  So it wasn't a conversation between the 3 kids per se, more like a sassy monologue.

I chimed in though.  right at the end when I realized they had brought the scooters in from the garage.

Me : hey guys, take them outside.   No scooters in the house.


They all 3 jumped on their scooters and took off down the hall.  not towards the garage or even a close exit.  in fact...further from an exit.
(sigh) oh mama.  Now I have to get my angry eyes out and ready to put on because this won't end with any kind of cooperation.
I could really go for a chocolate chip cookie sundae right now.

Getcher tickets, getcher tickets hee-yah. Blanchard nightime freakshow. tickets.

Remember the post about how Ryan has to be touching us to fall to sleep any more.    It's worse now.   He actually climbs right inside of my abdominal wall and falls asleep next to my pancreas and kidneys.    I SWEAR if he could fit in my uterus he would.  (queue Patsy)..I'm back where I belong.
Ok, so I exaggerated slightly.  but seriously he would.   Instead, he will now grab my fingers, pull them down and place his foot in my hand.   He then tries to grab my fingers and squeeze them with his toes OR my favorite thing, he tries to run my fingers through his toes.

Our nightly freak show has only just begun.
Lately Ryan's preference, you know once he's tired of the toes thing, is to grab my 2 fingers and press them in to each of  his eye sockets.   Sometimes he presses quite hard and it not only freaks me out....but is super gross.   I've tried to move the placement to the inner corner of his eye...and he will pick my fingers up, move them back to the center of his eye and again press down.

Thing is.  When I was little, I remember doing weird stuff like this too.    I remember being 3 or 4 and pushing the corners of books in to my belly button.   It started out with just piling the books 3,4 then 8 at a time on to my stomach.   When I didn't get the kind of pressure I wanted I would press down on them and soon enough I started pushing the corner in until it hit my spine :)   I got this bizarre pleasure out of it.  
Because of this, I imagine that Ryan is getting the same feelings from the pressure on his eyeballs.  So I continue playing along.

He's not my first kid to do weird things.   Spencer has always had a binky in the mouth and one in the hand.   Never just one binky...2 binky mama, 2 !  He would pinch the 2nd binky between his pointer and index finger and then cup his hand around the nipple and flip it with his thumb.  

Syd played with hair.  She played with mine when she was a baby and then when she grew her own, she played with it.   She would pull her fingers through the same piece every night until it was soft and then twirl it around her index finger until it flipped out of her fingers and then she'd start again until she fell asleep.   It was the only way she was able to fall asleep at night.    Oddly, when she gave up her binky she quit playing with her hair.   She told me that they went together and that one didn't feel right without the other.

Cam has tags....he's always worried tags on blankets and clothes...so we bought him a taggie blanket and he has to have it to go to sleep.

Nathan, thus far, hasn't shown any weird little behaviors.  He does snuggle with his baby when he goes to sleep but he doesn't HAVE to have it.    I think it's sweet so we put it in there. 
One day when he brings a date home I plan on pulling out lots of pictures to show.  ooh that's mean huh ?

So there you have it.   Little strange freak show things that help my kids go to sleep.   And it's all about them going to sleep.  So I'll stick my finger in his eye and rub my fingers through his toes damn it.  :) ha ha

funny this started about Ry-guy and now will end with pictures of all of the children BUT him.    I need to capture the eye socket thing and post a picture.

These are older pictures that I took to document these wonderful oddities.  I always want to remember them.

A babe-eee ! Babe-EEEE !

My kids LOVE babies.  Nathan's love goes far beyond love into an obsessive, gimme gimme gimme, hold a baby..NOW, sort of state.
Emma, lucky for us, came just in time.

Sweet little Emma, unaware of the love that she was about to receive.

Are you just going to stand there and take pictures while he man handles me ?

Kisses !

If I could just get you out of here.....it would be so much easier for me to hold you and love you.

ooooh, and I love your cheekers and your nose and your mouth....

So much that I think I'm gonna kiss it !
(I suppose this is where the term "kissing cousins" came from :)

Cam : "ok Nathan...that's enough...come on buddy"

Thank you for unfastening the seat belt Aunt Liz, I got it.   No no, really I got her. 

Two to the 2nd power !

Grandma Bessie, Aunt Jo, Aunt Susan and cousin Lindsey came for dinner and cookies.

Ryan wouldn't blow his candles out....so Syd and Nate helped.

We headed up the canyon for Papa's birthday.....there were balloons and the babies got them so we celebrated their birthday as well.  Thanks for being such a good sharer Papa.

Our newest addition to the family.   and OH MY GOSH is she cute.   I don't know how you spell it, but her name is Mollabelle.   Everyone calls her Molla.   I sometimes call her Bella :) cuz that's the way I am.

Sweet sweet puppy.

And there you have it.   Our babies turned 2.  Each year I feel like I get to exhale just a little bit.  Because by golly.  They lived.  We all did.

Happy Birthday (officially tomorrow) Nate and Ry-guy.

Stuppeee Hero's

Grandma Blanchard made the boys these awesome reversable capes for their 4th birthday.   I love how creative she was and put a C for SuperCam on Cam's cape.

Spencer's cape makes him feel really BRAAAAAVE.   Because that water was spraying directly at me, the camera and the inside of the house.   LUCKILY for his stuppee (super) hero powers the water didn't do any damage.  To me or the super hero.

This is the other side.   So great !  The boys love them.

Thanks again Grandma !

The whole reason Spencer had the hose was because we were playing an alphabet game.    Or, I was incorporating a little learning with playtime.   They love to spray the hose, why not make them learn something too.    I took some chalk and wrote letters on the fence.    Then would ask the boys a letter and they would find it and spray it off.  

Sydney wanted to play....but letters were a little too simple for her, so I wrote some words and would ask her to find it.

"Fundamentalist"

"Flourish"

We also had "friendship" "flour" "flower" and "forever"

Big boy bed

Probably not. We are currently stuck between a rock and Nathan. He won't stay in his crib. crawls out. We got the big boy bed out thinking it might work and for 2 naps and 2 nights he was GREAT. and now he won't stay in his bed.

If it were just Nathan, this whole situation would be nothin'. But as we have Ryan who has to be touching you, wrapped around your arm, hands on feet snuggled against you to sleep lately. Well...that doesn't leave a lot of hands to keep the other one in his bed. It also makes for a fun game of, ok, right as you start to settle down I'll make noise and scream and then you can get up and then right as I'm settling down you scream.
I suppose all we have left to do is to put barbwire over the crib buddy.   and I highly doubt that'll keep you in either.  *sigh*