Day 302 | Birthday Party Bash

Happy birthday party day, Robbe!

Today was the purr-fect celebration of our little guy. Good friends, yummy food, sweet babies. What could be better? Oh...your first cupcake would make it better. Obviously.

Day 301 | Field Research

We took a break from birthday party prep today to do some field research on kitties at the Washington Animal Rescue League. The boys loved it!

Day 300 | 300!

Three hundred and still going strong! Here's our team update for this round.

Name: Sara
Favorites: visitors! We're heading into another season of visitors. On the list, my mom, then my brother, then my good friend, then my parents...all in two months. Woo hoo!
Biggest hurdle to overcome: conquering the great potty training challenge of 2015.
Dreams for the future: get back to yoga. I practiced twice (2!) last week and absolutely loved it. It just feels so good for the body and soul.

Name: Chris
Favorites: honing his new-found talent of iPad animations (another one of the ten hours of presents). His doodles-turned movies are quite entertaining. Especially for the two year old demographic.
Biggest hurdle to overcome: survive the last stretch (we can hope anyway) of winter commutes. Walking to and from the metro in freezing temperatures/biting wind/damp precipitation is not fun. The guy never complains, though. He and I are very different.
Dreams for the future: winning the lottery (and not even the real one, but that would be nice). The public school lottery for Chase's 3 pre-k next year. Applications need to be in Monday and we find out at the end of the month. Think happy thoughts!

Name: Chase
Favorites: brainstorming ideas for birthday gifts (for himself). At least once a day we have pretty detailed discussions about which trains he's going to ask for for his birthday. It's a tough choice for this little guy. I'm confident he'll pull through with the right ones in the end. Other favs: saying "no no Miles," blueberries (he's consistent), saying "I love you [fill in the blank]," trains (obviously).
Biggest hurdle to overcome: do I really have to say it? Definitely completing his potty training course work. He's been a rockstar thus far. I know he can do it.
Dreams for the future: teaching Robbe to talk. During most meals and most car rides, Chase enjoys repeating words for Robbe to learn. He does it very deliberately and in an exaggerated way: "mama mama mama", "dada dada," "yeeesss" (with head shake), "nooooo" (with head shake). Isn't Robbe lucky to have such an amazing coach? He'll have him talking in no time.

Name: Robbe
Favorites: tumbling acts in his crib. He thinks it's absolutely hysterical to wake up and meet us by doing acrobatics in his crib. He stands by the railing and then falls onto his tummy, he does seriously silly rolling, he wedges himself against the rails. It's quite entertaining. Other favs: eating (any and everything), brother snuggles, daddy's glasses, Miga (of course), finding everything that's not a toy to play with.
Biggest hurdle to overcome: teeth. These phantom annoyances have been plaguing our happy little tyke for weeks. He still only has two (and he's had those for months) but I see probably four that are on the cusp. Just pop through already and give us all a break!
Dreams for the future: walking. I'm in no rush for this physical development (have you heard me say, "the later they walk, the smarter they are about it?") but you can see the wheels turning in his mind about taking steps. He gets how life-changing it's going to be. Now if only those wobbly legs would cooperate.

Day 299 | Cat Craziness Continues

Just a quick snapshot of a few of my cat decorations for the big (actually really small) birthday party this weekend. Good thing I like looking at cats. :)

Clockwise from top left: cat cup sleeves, yarn-wrapped letters (cats like yarn, in case you forgot), cat garland. 

Day 298 | Two Babies, Two Years Apart

Overall, I think having two babies, two years apart is great. I love watching them grow up together. It's nice that our older child still has the same interests (bigger toys, same songs, etc) as our little guy. And I hadn't completely forgot what it was like to have a newborn and all the challenges associated with that.

It's taken me almost an entire year (358 days to be exact) to feel completely at a loss for how to manage both babies at the same time. That's not too bad, right? You might be wondering, is it because Robbe is getting into EVERYTHING? No, but that's true. Or is it because Chase has finally started having his terrible twos/threes meltdowns on occasion? No, but that's true, too.

Did you guess potty training? Ding, ding, ding. Chase has transitioned half of his bathroom duties to the potty, no problem. The other half (you know what I'm getting at, right?), is another story. Until yesterday, he just held it until we put a diaper on for nap or bedtime. I had the great idea to get mini trains to encourage using the potty so we picked some out yesterday. Now, he really really wants to use the potty and spent 15 minutes on the potty five times today in an attempt to go. No success. Have you figured out the problem yet? Yep: how can I be supporting one baby on the potty for 15 minutes at a time while entertaining a very active crawler at the same time. The bathroom is not exactly baby-friendly, nor does a baby roaming around encourage any focused potty-time.

The epitome of this conflict occurred tonight before dinner. I needed 15 minutes of cooking time and that's when Chase decided he needed to, once again, use the potty. I decided to try a tip from another mom: put Robbe in the bathtub with toys (confined=genius!). So Chase on the potty (who needed a book read to him, obviously), Robbe in the tub (throwing toys down at Chase's feet), and dinner borderline burning on the stove as I ran back and forth to the kitchen. Ahhh!

I'm going to win this war. I know it. But today's battle was definitely lost. Think happy thoughts for tomorrow. Chase really wants to play with those trains.

Day 297 | Birthday Prep: Take Three

Who thought it was a good idea to fit three family birthdays in a two week period? Lesson learned for next year: start the prep work right after Christmas. :)

So now I'm hustling trying to make Robbe's first birthday party as special, but not over the top, as possible. I'm confident we can pull it off. 

The theme is going to be cats. And I swear it's not because of my love of all things cat-related. He really does like cats. He can't handle not attacking, I mean snuggling, Miga when she's in the same room as him and if you ask "where's the kitty?" he strains his head in every direction looking for her. So a cat theme it is. 

First up on my craft list? Making sweet cat ears for all/any of our willing guests. Although not the quickest project, it is really simple: just felt, hot glue and headbands. I used paper to decide how big I wanted the ears and then just cut and glued the felt. Chase was pretty excited about them when I showed him the mock-up so hopefully at least a few of our guests will feel the same way.  

Day 296 | Artwork

After a decent amount of snow yesterday, the sun is shining and it's 45 degrees today. I'll take it. We're still playing catch up around here: cleaning, laundry, dishes (did I mention we have a broken dishwasher?), prepping for a one year old's birthday party, etc.and in the midst of tidying, I realized I never shared a photo of the artwork the boys made Chris as one of his birthday gifts. The horror!

The one on the left is from Chase. I cut out a bunch of shapes and he decided what should go where and glued them down. I was really surprised, actually. I thought it would be fairly abstract but he had a more accurate image in mind. Impressive. And, of course, he selected blue for the background because, "that's daddy's favorite color."

The one on the right is made with Robbe's hand and footprint. Turns out paint + squirmy baby + one adult = tricky crafting. The finished product, though, ended up ok so I just went with it. 

There you have it. Thank goodness these boys humor me when it comes to projects.