New Friends

I met my friend Miranda in 2001 at a shower - can't even remember whose shower.  (eight years ago - crazy to me - time goes by so fast!!)  Sadly she doesn't live in AZ anymore but I got to see her on Wednesday while she was in town for a visit.  I had never even met her youngest little boy Joshua and the last time she saw my boys, Davis was in an infant seat.  At first it was looking like Madelyn was not thrilled about playing at a house with a bunch of little boys, but then Davis won her over with his pet frogs.  As you can see, they worked it out!  I think Davis was quite smitten with her.  They all played great with one another and Davis keeps asking when he will get to play with them again - sadly it will likely be quite a long time.  I am so grateful for friendships and that I had the opportunity to see Madelyn and Joshua and watch them play with my kids!  

Out of their mouths . . .

More funny from Davis:

After his dentist appointment - 

Billie (his Grammie): "Davis I have a present for you for doing such a great job at the dentist."

Davis: (see her getting something out of the closet) "Oh yes!  Is it cash?"

Cash made me laugh every time I think about it - not sure what association he even has with that word.

Today after I finished nursing Grayson before his nap-

Davis: "Are you done already?"

Me: "yep, all done"

Davis: "Wow that was fast . . . did you only do one boob?"

(too many babies early in life has probably given them more of an anatomy lesson than necessary)

Bye bye baby food

As Grayson gets bigger and bigger, I am a little nostalgic sad to see things go (favorite jammies all three wore, the swing, some favorite baby toys) but I am not sad to see the baby food era come to an end.  Last night, Grayson kept pushing my arm away as I brought the baby food spoon to his mouth.  Thinking he was just being obstinate, I just let him sit there for a while.  When I came back he did the same thing and was grabbing for the table that had everyone else's dinner on it.  I broke up a ground beef burrito for him to see what would happen and he ate the entire thing (green chiles and all).  My other boys never ate that type of table food this early so I tried to keep feeding them the baby food so they would get meat and veggies but I guess G is all done with food mush and ready for the real deal.  Fine with me!  It is so much easier to me to feed them all the same thing and not have to mess with remembering baby food if we are out.  Today for lunch he happily ate a sandwich and pile of blueberries.  Hooray!!  He is probably eating better than Parker - sadly a true statement.

Davis the Dr.

It was a full service dental exam - teeth and heart :)

This is a less than glamorous post (mostly for my own pride) but since this is the only form of baby book history it appears I am going to keep, I might as well just make note.  Davis had his first, overdue trip to the dentist two weeks ago and went back today for some "extra work".  I had very traumatic childhood dentist experiences (no need to post commentary Liss) and so I was dreading taking Davis to the dentist.  He did have cavities (mostly on the fronts of teeth from thin enamel - which I think is largely due to the lack of milk Davis drinks - my opinion).  He went back today and just had a great experience.  The dentist was patient and kind and he did a fantastic job.  He let Davis have a mask and gloves and D has been playing dentist since we got home.  I came downstairs to find him 'treating' Parker and he said, "Mom, do you think you could be my helper lady who hands me my tools when I need them?"  He was being very official: "okay open nice and big for me . . . okay now I am going to check you with Mr. Whistler (the water sprayer thing) . . . Please shine the light for me here, Helper (me) . . you are doing just great Parker!"  It was cracking me up.  It is a good thing Parker is such a patient patient!!  I think Davis looks quite great in his doctor get up - I think I see it in his future - haha.   

Caught Ya!

Grayson has become quite mischievous.  He is on the move and can scurry extremely quickly which has allowed him to get in more trouble, more quickly.  Besides making every attempt to spoil or grab at whatever his older brothers are playing with, his favorite mess to make is toilet paper mess.  I say, "please shut the bathroom door behind you" about twenty-five times a day trying to keep him out of the potty rooms but he still manages to take advantage of Davis leaving a door open.  My other kids didn't do this often, but if they did, they just unrolled the paper into pile.  This is not Grayson-style.  He goes in and takes big bites out of the roll and then spits wet wads of paper on the floor - while also unrolling and ripping shreds of course!  It is extra special.  It makes me laugh sometimes to walk in Davis' bathroom and see a roll on the roller with random bites taken out of it.  When he gets caught he just laughs and smiles and then shakes his head no-no like he anticipates it coming out my mouth.

The Beach - One of my favorite places!

I know this is tons of posts but I wanted to get everything on the blog so that when I print it in my journal I have all the pictures :)

My favorite thing about CA is the beach.  I love being on the beach and the boys love everything about it.  They love to play in the sand, look for shells, and swim in the ocean (Davis more than Parker).   The water was almost frigid the first couple of days, but on Saturday it was really nice.  It warmed up enough outside that the water was comfortable.  Parker would only wade in about knee deep, but D was willing to get in with me.  While I was teaching Davis to jump when a big wave came in he said, "This is great mom, I love you".  I was overwhelmed with how special it is to build these happy memories with the boys.  I am so thankful that we could do that and have so much fun together.

What was he doing?  Not sure, but I know that they did attempt to get as covered in sand as possible!

Parker in his full garb - good thing he doesn't realize yet that most people on the beach are wearing much less.

Grayson still isn't a huge fan but he liked it much more this trip than he did a couple of weeks ago.

Some friends of ours from Phoenix met us on the beach one afternoon and the boys had a blast with Anna, Becca and Clara.

Davis in his sand hole - it is mandatory that we dig a hole big enough to sit in as soon as we set up camp.  First order of business!

I will be finding flecks of that coppery sand in everything for months I am sure.

They even talked Mark into coming down and digging them a hole one day.  Mark is not quite as big of a fan of the beach - but Davis is quick to remind me that Dad digs a better hole.

San Diego Zoo

One of the highlights of the week for me was our trip to the San Diego.  I love the zoo.  I think it is fun to see the animals but I really enjoy watching the boys get excited about seeing new things.  It was a beautiful, sunny day in the 70's in San Diego too so you can't beat that!

Mark has a picture in front of this gorilla when he was a kid.  He was fascinated that the gorilla was over thirty years old :)

Obligatory family pic in front of the elephant statue - if only this picture was bigger so you could see how THRILLED Mark is to be taking this picture - or walking around in the sun for that matter :)

My Gram and Davis on the Sky Ride

Grayson and I - his favorite position - on my hip and facing out so he can see!

My dad and G enjoyed some good bonding time at the zoo - doesn't he look so old sitting on that step (sniff sniff)

Taking a break in the shade while I took the boys in the bug exhibit - I'm so glad we got to spend a bunch of time with my parents and Gram in CA

Looking at the giraffes 

Davis and I by the lions - my favorite exhibit I think

Parker the caterpillar and Davis the butterfly :)  Davis said that his favorite thing at the zoo was the bug exhibit.  This is no surprise.  I almost didn't see it and thought we would just do a quick pass but it really was impressive.  Some of the bugs were huge (like a screaming roach the size of your palm - ugh!).  I had to catch myself because I would look in a window and say "Oh gross" . . or something to that effect and I could tell that Davis didn't understand why I thought it was yucky and not cool.  They had a huge beehive behind glass so you could see the thousands of bees working in the honey comb.  That was his favorite exhibit in the room.  They also had a very impressive, enormous ant farm the size of a wall.  

Parker with the goats - this was so sweet to me.  The only thing you could really pet in the petting zoo were goats (the sheep were closed off).  I figured - pet one goat, you have pet them all - but not Parker.  He wanted to pet and talk to each goat in the petting zoo.  He would get down near them and pet them so nicely.  He didn't want to leave when it was time to move on.  That night, he said the petting zoo was his favorite part of the day.

On the Road

Some funny things from the drive to and from CA:

Rachel Crutchfield drove with me over to Coronado because Mark had to fly over and meet us later in the week.  This was very helpful as you can imagine!  Parker knows Rachel, but he would random shout, "Hey what's your name?" (in his deep, Parker drawl).  Not sure why, but it started making us laugh.  Sometimes he would say it five or six times in a couple of minutes.  

I brought Cantelope in the hope of appeasing Grayson if he was really fussy.  I brought it out about an hour from San Diego.  Rachel was willing to break it into smaller bites to keep him from choking on it.  After feeding him over the seat for like twenty minutes she says, "do you have any wipes?".  I say, "Sure . .  why . . are your hands getting super sticky?"  She says, "well yes, but I'm also really allergic to cantelope, it gives me hives!"  What!?!  Crazy girl - so willing to help she is elbow deep in something that is going to give her an allergic reaction.

Davis was literally asking "are we there yet" like he had heard that it was a cliche thing to do in a car ride.  He didn't do it once on the way home so I'm thinking it was the eager anticipation to get to CA.  He knew Eli & TJ had been there for several days and kept asking when he could join them.  On the crazy road to Gila Bend there are some pretty steep dips in the road.  On the way over, Davis started laughing really hard on the dips.  I said, "Pretty fun huh buddy . . is it tickling your tummy?"  He said, "No . . it is ticking my wiener".  Okee dokey!

Finally a praise!  Grayson is not a good car sleeper AT ALL which has made car rides pretty insane.  He did pretty good on the way over but he did amazing on the way home.  He even slept from Yuma to just outside Maricopa!!  I hate to call it a trend, but maybe we are getting over the hump.  

Family Fun

We only got to spend one night with Johnsons at the end of their trip - but my boys love to be with their cousins!  They got a little bit of beach time with each other and Uncle Troy helped Davis take his first (and only - it was freezing that day) ride on a boogie board.

Best buddies!

My mom reading to three very tired little boys.

Dad trying to teach G to walk on the board walk at Sea Port Village (as a side note - I think Grayson is really close to walking)

The three boys on the carousel with my parents

Happy 4th of July!

I have probably only spent the 4th of July in Phoenix two or three times in my life and the moral of this story is it is H-O-T here to really enjoy any kind of celebration!  While we didn't get to go to the cabin or Coronado this year for our usual festivities, we did search out some things to do with the boys.  We took Davis to a bike parade at Tumbleweed Park.
We decorated his bike with balloons and streamers.  It was a contest and some people had some crazy decorated bikes/wagons.  Mine definitely didn't compete, but Davis thought it was pretty awesome to decorate his bike.

Parker rode in the wagon in the parade and had a good time despite his cherry red cheeks from the heat!
Grayson is always having a good time and looked super cute in his 4th outfit!  We had planned to eat some carnival food at the park, but my boys (namely my hubbby) was much too hot to stay.  We headed over to Red, White and Brew to eat and to our surprise they had a big bounce house obstacle course thing set up in their parking lot.  My boys pretty much got it to themselves.  They had a great time and we had some yummy food.  After the boys were zonked out in their beds - the fireworks started and we ended up having a great view from our backyard so Mark and I got a private fireworks show.  Yeah - Happy 4th of July!!

Out of their mouths . . .

While riding in the car, we saw a crane working on some new houses in our neighborhood.

Davis:  "Mom, what do you think they are doing with that big huge crane?"

Me: "I don't know - maybe lifting something on the house."

Davis: "Maybe they are lifting the frame onto the foundation"

(hmmm, okay Bob the Builder - ironically - when we got closer they were in fact lifting pieces of frame)

Davis: (with much authority) "Yes, yes, that is what I thought."

Last night before bed:

Davis: "Do you know what is really wonderful?" (What buddy?) "Having a mommy, dad, and two brothers."

Oh melt my heart.  What is particularly sweet about this to me, is that earlier in the day my mother-in-law was asking him what he thought was "wonderful".  It was almost like he had thought about it for a while and decided that our family was really "wonderful" to him.

Before they go to sleep, I let the big boys look at a book in bed while I put G to bed.

Me: "D, what book do you want tonight?"

Davis: "I want my Bible"

Me: (lazily not wanting to go upstairs and get his Bible) "Okay, here is a book of Bible stories you can look at".

Davis:  "But I want to look at God's words and these are not God's words so I need my Bible don't you think?"

Alrighty then - glad that lesson sunk in - up the stairs I go.