Fun with Joanne!

I forgot to blog about the fun times we had when Joanne (my friend who was a coworker and now lives in FL with her husband and baby) came to visit. Molly really loved Brycen (3months). She wanted to hold him several times and loves making him smile and laugh. She was purposely hiding from the camera for this photo, though.

Courtney came over on Thursday morning with Evan, Achamo, and Grant. The kids had a great time playing together. It was Courtney's birthday, too. Happy Birthday Courtney!

On Saturday we all went to Como Zoo.... along with what seemed like all of the rest of the people in Minneapolis and St. Paul! It WAS a zoo, but we had a fun time together.

Joanne and I next to the sloth in the tree in the tropics exhibit.
Thanks for coming to visit, Joanne!

Bell Museum and our new kiddie pool

We went with Laura, Mado, and Elias to the Bell Museum this week. The kids weren't too impressed by all the taxidermy animals, which are what fill most of the museum. They did like the cool touch and feel room, though. In the above photo, they were seeing what bogs are like to walk on (lumpy and squishy).

Here they are at another display. They got to sit with a 1st grade class on a field trip and hear a talk all about snakes and how the milk snake has coloring similar to a coral snake (which is venomous) in order to try to fool its preditors.

Mado is spending the day with us while her family moves to a different house. It actually was sunny and quite hot out, so we broke out the new kiddie pool. The kids were so happy to get to play in water. :)
Last summer we had a gigantic rectangle "family swim center" inflatable pool. That thing was fun but really hard to dump. The racoons (ick!) punctured it at the end of summer, so we got a new one for this year. We went with a smaller one, and Molly was not impressed. I pulled it out of the box, and she said, "Is that it? It's so small. Will it get bigger when you blow it up?" Yeah, it's small, but I think we'll try to get to the Y more for "real" swimming in thier awesome real pool. This will do for play. :)

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Alex heard us cheering for Cory at the last softball games, and it "clicked" that Daddy's name is Cory. Alex has taken to calling him Cory 80% of the time, even though we keep telling him he needs to say Daddy.
Alex also has been favoring Daddy lately more often, and now whenever he's unhappy with something I'm doing, he tells me he needs to call Cory and tell on me. :P
I had gotten behind with laundry, and yesterday at nap time Alex had no clean sheets for his crib. I grabbed one of Molly's twin bed sheets and brought it into his room. Alex was MAD and yelled, "No, that is Molly's! Need Alex's sheets!" I got a different sheet that was just solid navy blue, and I put it on his mattress and tucked it neatly underneath so you would never have guessed it wasn't a crib sheet. He was STILL mad and not calming down. After trying for quite some time to explain that his sheets are in the washing machine and will be ready at bedtime and he just needs to try this sheet for nap, he declared, "Need to call Cory! Please call Cory now??? Need Cory!"
Thankfully Cory was at his desk and had a minute to talk to Alex, so they had a good conversation about the sheets and Alex reluctantly agreed to nap on them.


Molly had never really gotten into playing with her baby dolls, and they had been put away in a closet for probably a year now. Lately, though, Molly has seemed more interested in REAL babies and making them smile, so yesterday I got out her tub of babies and gave them back to her. She was SOOOOOO excited! She is totally into it, and she is loving Baby Annabelle, the doll that cries, laughs, sleeps, and makes other baby sounds. Last night before bed, Molly had to put her babies to sleep. Then Cory made sure Annabelle was turned off. Molly said, "What if Annabelle wakes up during the night and needs a bottle?" Cory told her that he thought she would stay sleeping but that Molly could get up and feed her a bottle if she did wake up crying. Molly frowned and said, "But then I will be SO TIRED in the morning!!!"

Wood Lake Nature Center

This morning we went to the Wood Lake Nature center in Richfield with Laura, Mado, and Elias. We had never been there before, and it was a great way to spend a beautiful morning. I love that there are so many fun, scenic areas tucked right in the middle of the city.

The kids decided they needed walking sticks as we walked along a trail. They kept grabbing different sticks from near the path. After a while, Alex grabbed this branch and drug it for quite a while. :) He thought it was a pretty cool stick.

We stopped to have lunch on a bench, but then Alex spotted a worm trying to cross the dirt path. He hopped down off the bench to watch the worm, and then all the kids had to get a closer look. Elias tried to feed the worm a piece of bread. See the bread in the middle of the kids? The worm is right there next to the bread.

Gazing at the scenery.

Alex was disappointed he couldn't pet the goose. Molly was just grossed out by all the goose droppings on the trail. She called it, "Double Ick!" and wanted me to carry her so she didn't have to worry about stepping in any. Ha!

Fun at the MN Zoo!

On Monday morning, we went to the MN Zoo with a group of friends. It was really fun, though we all spent a lot of time either chasing children or getting children to catch up to the group. That's what happens when there are so many 2 yr olds together, though!


Jerusha and Alex were checking out the Tigers. It was fun to see one just on the other side of the viewing window!!! Usually they aren't so close.

Here is most of our group. There were 4 other little ones not pictured.

The kids spent quite a long time climbing on these fake pigs outside of the pig barn.

Molly Chicken!

Happy Mother's Day

My parents came to visit this weekend. Here's a Mother's Day photo of my mom, Molly, Alex, and me. We had a really fun weekend together. :)

Molly and Alex love all of their grandparents. This weekend, my mom told Molly that when she woke up in the morning she could go wake them up and play. Alex is an early bird, but Molly typically sleeps in until after 8. On Saturday morning, though, she woke up at sunrise and went down to see them. Later my mom said that they had been playing in Molly's room the night before and Alex pulled up Molly's blackout shade... so that sun woke Molly up. On Saturday night, we made sure the shade was shut at bedtime, but again Molly woke up really early. On Sunday morning we were talking to Molly about it, and she said, "I snuck out of my bed and opened my shade so that I could wake up early this morning to play!" Little smarty-pants.

More Dinosaurs... and Sunscreen issues

Evidence of more dinosaur injuries. Molly said the T-Rex (who is imaginary, by the way - we don't actually own a toy T-Rex dinosaur) bit the Brachiosaurus on the head. Ouch.

He got this Stegosaurus again too, so his feet and hind leg are bandaged with tape too.

Molly woke up on Wednesday morning with a red, puffy, rashy face (see above photo). :( Later we noticed her arms and lower legs were red and rashy too. Poor girl. She had a reaction to some sunscreen that had been applied the day before at a friend's house.

That rash was just beginning to clear up on Thursday. We played outside all morning on Thursday, and I used our usual baby sunblock on her that morning. When I picked her up from preschool at 4pm Thursday, I couldn't believe my eyes. She was REALLY red and itching all over. She looked way worse than she did initially, and it was obvious that she again had a delayed reaction to the sunscreen. Strangely enough, she was fine with our usual suncreen last week, and it has a different formulation than the stuff that caused the first reaction.

Molly was so itchy on Thursday that I took her to the doctor to make sure that it really was the sunscreen and not any other kind of illness. He confirmed that it was definitely contact dermatitis from the suncreen. He gave us some suggestions for helping to soothe the itchiness, but we still have no idea which chemical(s) caused the reaction.

I've been researching natural sunscreen options, which are out there but harder to find and more expensive. Hopefully these work better on Molly and we don't have any more reactions.

If you are interested, this website: http://skindeep.ewg.org/ is a great source of information on different skin care products (sunscreens, hair care products, toothpastes, lotions, makeup, etc.) with hazard rankings so you can see which products are best to avoid and which options are better for you.

Funny Stories

Molly and Alex were playing up in Molly's room on Wednesday night. All of a sudden there was a loud noise, and Cory heard Molly tell Alex they needed to "fix it quick!". Cory went upstairs to see what happened, and it turns out Molly's door knob had fallen out of her door. Molly and Alex ran downstairs to the basement (where the toy tools and workbench are), and Molly put on the hard hat and grabbed a bunch of tools. They ran upstairs and starting working on her door, determined to fix it. Here are some photos of Molly working hard! How cute is that?!?

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Today after our MOPS meeting, I asked Molly and Alex if they would like to go to the library. They both said, "Yes!" and cheered. We parked at the library and started to walk inside when I realized Alex's diaper had leaked and the back of his pants were really wet.

I knew that I had some DVD's on hold waiting for me behind the desk, so I hoped to just run in quickly and grab those and then deal with the diaper issue later. I didn't want everyone to see his wet pants, though, so I took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Alex did NOT like that, though, and refused to keep it tied and around his waist.

I decided I should change him then, so we went back to the van and did that. I had a bag in there with some extra diapers and clothes we keep for emergencies, so I grabbed that. Unfortunately, I hadn't restocked the bag in a while, and there were no pants - only a small pair of shorts.

At this point I should mention that every warm day this spring, we've tried to get Alex to wear a short sleeved shirt, but he refuses. He gets one on and once he realizes the sleeves are short, he starts screaming. He tries to pull the cuff down to his wrist and when that doesn't work, he just cries and tugs until he gets the shirt off. He does NOT like the feeling of bare arms. We hope once it gets hot and stays hot he'll eventually adjust.

So.... I was wondering if the same was going to happen with the shorts. Sure enough, it did. He let me put them on fine, but as soon as they were on he looked down in shock at his legs and started pulling at the shorts, trying to make them longer. He was MAD! I told him that as soon as we got home, he could have some real pants to wear, and we would just run quickly into the library. He said, "No, go home NOW. Need pants now!!!"

I told Molly we'd have to just go home and skip the library. Then SHE melted down. She collapsed on the floor of the van crying, "I really want to go to the library. You said we could go to the library. WAAAAH!"

I told her we could come back after Alex's nap this afternoon. She was not having it. She was crying every time I mentioned leaving. I tried again to convince Alex to just run in quickly in the shorts (he hadn't stopped pulling at them or crying, either.). He refused.

AAAH! What to do... either way ONE of them would be screaming and unhappy. Then, it hit me... I had the solution! I asked Molly if she'd wear the shorts and give Alex her pants. She said yes. I asked Alex if he would wear Molly's pants. He happily agreed. YAY!

They both swapped clothing. I told Molly the shorts would be really tight and might not zip, but she squeezed into them. I had to roll Molly's pants up several times so Alex wouldn't trip on them. It worked, though, and they were both really happy.

We picked out some books, read a book up in the reading loft, picked out a couple of movies and came home happy and ready for lunch. When we walked into the house, I checked the tag on those shorts Molly was wearing. You will never believe it - they were size 12M! Twelve months! Molly was wearing 12m baby boy shorts and Alex was wearing size 6 girls pants. I just had to take a picture for proof. Here it is (below). :)

Fun with... dinosaurs and tape?

The other day I walked into the office and found THIS. It is a stegasaurus suspended from the desk by long pieces of tape. ????

Later on, I asked Molly what was going on with this dinosaur. She said, "He was falling off the desk, so I saved him with the tape."

Then when I was heading to bed that night, I noticed a triceratops dinosaur on the piano totally wrapped up in tape. I was going to take a photo of that, too, but Molly unwrapped it the next morning before I remembered. I asked her what happened. She said, "He was hurt, and the tape was his bandages." I told her that it was great she was using her imagination so well with her dinosaurs, but I would appreciate it if she didn't waste tape.

Later, Cory and I discovered the stegasaurus with tape on his feet. I asked Molly why he had tape on his feet. She said that he was bitten by another dinosaur and the tape was making his feet feel better. :)

Como Zoo

On Tuesday we went to Como Zoo with some friends. It was fun!


This photo isn't from the zoo, of course. Molly and Alex were eating breakfast, and then all of a sudden they were standing and hugging each other. They said, "Mom, we're hugging. Come take a picture!", and I did. :)

It's funny how when you go to a zoo, you see all kinds of animals, but you can't get good pictures of the kids and the animals in the pens at the same time. Therefore, zoo pictures are usually just the kids on or next to the fake sculptures of animals. :) Here Molly and Alex are riding some baby giraffes.

Here they are on a tortoise scupture.

On the way back to the car, they found the HUGE grassy area outside the conservatory to be a great place to run, roll around, and play. It was fun to see them having such a fun time just being outside.