Cake, Playdate, Car Seat, and Lawn Mower Noise

We were feeling brave, so we took the boys out to a Mexican restaurant.  This is the same restaurant where we had their 1 year birthday dinner.  They did really well.

 

Alex in red saying "Cheese!"  Ben in black

 

 

Ben with a fork

I taught the boys a valuable life lesson: Always accept cake from strangers.  Okay, so it is not a very good life lesson, but c'mon.  Cake.  A table nearby was celebrating a birthday, and someone from the party came over and asked if the boys could have a piece.  Dinner was winding down, so I thought cake would be a great distraction.

 

Ben eating cake

 

 

Compared to their one year birthday pictures.

 

Alex

 

 

Ben

 

 

Ben looking at the man who brought the cake over. 

 

 

The boys had a play date.  A friend of ours has a 2/3 week old baby and a son that is 20ish months.  Our friend is on maternity leave and going crazy, so she came over with her boys.  The results were mixed. 

 

Her older son was not a big fan of our boys.  He warmed up to them more right before he left, but it was a rough road.  First of all, our boys are very, VERY friendly and lacking in a bubble.  He was wearing a hat, so Ben kept pointing at his hat.  A lot.  Also, Ben would also follow him around and pet him.  The boy just kept repeating, "No... No....No...No..." and walking away.  Finally, Alex and Ben fell in love with his mom.  The boy ran to sit next to his mom on the couch.  Alex and Ben took that as an invitation to join.  She ended up having all 4 boys crawling all over her.  Her older son was not happy when one of our kids would touch him.  I tried to redirect Alex and Ben, but they are just too friendly.  By the end, our boys stopped touching him and he did interact with them a bit.  Overall, we had a good time.  My boys were pretty devastated when they left.

 

Anyway, I brought out the Rock and Play for her to use for her newborn if she wanted.  After she left, the boys claimed it as their own.  Ben yellow/grey.  Alex blue

 

 

Alex blue Ben yellow

 

Looking at a remote for a remote controlled car

 

Ben lounging

 

 

 

We have done a horrible, horrible thing.  We turned their car seats to forward facing.  Technically you have to keep them rear facing until they are 1 and then it is fair game, but really rear facing forever is best.  We had the car seats out to clean the car, and somehow we decided to turn them around.  Really, it is legal, acceptable by seat standards, and lots of people do it... but the cloth diaper mom groups I read on Facebook would NOT approve.  They also wouldn't approve of the Dairy Queen we had for dinner.. so I guess I'll have to be okay with that.

 

To be fair, the boys spend almost no time in the car.  Almost everyone we know is within walking distance, so we just don't take the boys out often.  We can always flip them back if we need to, I guess.

 

Honestly, we all enjoy it way more.  The boys are happier, it is easier to distract them, and they can see lots of cars and trucks, which they LOVE. 

 

Cody thought Alex's face here was hilarious.

 

Ben.

 

Ben has been driving me crazy with this blanket.  It is the comforter for his crib bedding set.  They had been dragging around the sheet from the set, which I was not happy about either, but now  Ben drags around this blanket.  It is huge and he happily throws it in every mess he and his brother create.  He is also getting exceptionally territorial over this blanket.  If he comes and snuggles up with me while holding it, and Alex comes to cuddle also, if Alex touches the blanket Ben starts screaming and pushing him away.  That is not going to work.  I wish he would've picked a smaller lovey.

 

Anyway, Ben insisted on taking the blanket in the car with us.

 

I've posted before about how the boys like to watch Cody mow through the windows.  A couple of days ago, the boys were watching Cody mow through the kitchen window and I noticed they were making a weird noise. I started paying attention, and I realized Alex was making his version of a lawn mower noise when Cody drove past the window.  Eventually Ben started doing it as well.

 

Alex's lawn mower noise

 

Lil Tikes Cozy Coupe

The boys and I made a quick overnight visit to my parents when Cody was travelling last weekish.  One of the toys my parents had collected for the boys was a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe.  The boys really enjoyed it at their house. 

There were minor fights, but they sat in it together.  (Don't know which baby is which)

 

And took turns pushing each other (Ben green Alex blue)

 

Then mom and dad came up for a few hours on Saturday.  They came up to bring back Shep, but they forgot him.  Eh, it happens.  They watched the boys for a few hours while we went to see the new Transformers movie.  The first movie we've been able to see in YEARS. 

 

They brought the cozy coupe up to give to the boys.  Apparently they fought over the car so long and so hard here that mom immediately had another car shipped to us from Amazon.  She said she didn't want me to have to live through them fighting over it every day.  Very nice.  Their battles are pretty epic sometimes.  So, we all thank you.  Then they had to drive home Saturday night.

 

The boys recognized the car from the picture on the box.  They started making "EWW EWWW" excited noises and saying "Baby?... Baby!.... Baby..?...." and pointing at the picture of the kid in the car on the box.  As soon as I got the car part out of the box, this is what they started doing.  Alex pushing Ben.  They tried to sit in it together, but that didn't work out.

 

When Cody got home, he put the new car together.  We brought the other car in from outside.  Then Cody pushed them around the floor.

 

Alex up close.  Ben behind.  (The deflated Jumperoo on the floor.  I was going to blow it up for them, but the pump was too exciting for the boys to ignore.)

 

Ben left, Alex right.

 

Ben

 

Bumper Cars

 

Their hair is hilarious in the cars.  There is a lot of static electricity build up.

 

Alex topless looking at Cody. More bumper cars.

 

Discussing where they should go next.  Ben closer, Alex behind.

 

Sometimes they get in car accidents.  Usually it is because they are trying to crawl in or out without using the door.  (The door opens and closes.  There is a key that clicks when you turn it, and there is a place to fill up the gas.  Very neat.)

 

Ben under the car

 

Don't worry, he thought it was funny

 

 

The other type of accident is when they get run over by the car, or they fall out of the bottom. 

 

 

 

This usually happens because both of them are fighting over territory in the cabin.  One will get pushed down.

 

 

 

It also happens when one pushes with his feet Flintstones style and runs over the other on the floor.

 

Ben stuck under car

 

He doesn't think it is nearly as funny as before

 

They are having a lot of fun with their cars. 

Splash Park (and first playground injury) and Ice Cream

Cody drives through a small town that is about 10 miles from our house every day on his way to work.  I noticed they had a nice looking park, but he wasn't interested... until he realized they

 put in a splash pad! 

 

It is not the most exciting splash pad.  There are like 8 nozzles in the ground.  It is totally on the honor system.  The valve to turn it on and off is to the side.  I would not have figured it out without Cody.  You turn it on when you get there, and turn it off when you leave.  On the positive side, we were there for over an hour and only one other family came with 1 kid for maybe 15 minutes.  The rest of the time, we were alone.

 

Ben in green Alex in blue.  They kept their binkys in for the first 15 or so minutes until they were comfortable.  I gave up on pictures after I took these shots.  It was too difficult to chase babies and worry about getting my phone/camera wet.

 

 

They were really excited

 

This is how high it sprayed.  Since you got to turn it on yourself, you got to control the pressure/height of the water.

 

Playing

 

Then they started going back and forth from the equipment to the splash area.  (and later to the gravel because they LOVE rocks) 

 

This is about the time the other family came with the kid.  He was older, maybe 3ish.  He was very, very nice. 

 

The boys threw a ball back and forth with him.  Alex walked up to him, got right in his face, and started talking up a storm.  The kid didn't quite know what to do, but he stood there and listened.  Ben offered his binky to the boy.  Luckily, the kid wasn't interested.  He helped the boys climb up the equipment and they sat up near the slide together chatting.  More specifically, my boys babbled and he talked back to them.

 

I was starting to chat with the mom when Ben took a spill.  Cody went to pick him up and yelled, "We have a bleeder!"  I thought he was kidding, so I didn't react quickly.  It turns out, Ben tripped on the ground and hit his mouth on the stairs.  He bit his lip so hard you could see the full outline of each front tooth on his bottom lip.  Ben's shirt had a bunch of blood on it.  Cody's shirt had a bunch of blood on it.  I took him from Cody and got blood on the inside of my sports bra.  All this time Alex sat calmly on the equipment with the stranger boy.

 

The bleeding stopped pretty quickly and he wasn't acting too upset, so we didn't leave immediately.  He still wanted to play and Alex was doing well.  We all looked pretty rough, but whatever.  My boys are tough. 

 

As we were leaving, some helpful small town gentleman stopped on the side of the road to make sure we knew how to turn the splash pad on.  There are some benefits to small town life.

 

Here is a picture of the park from the street.  Not the biggest in the world, but NO other kids!  It is also built out of a material that doesn't get very hot.  Lots of fun!

 

 

As we were pulling out, Cody and I both said, at the same time, how nice it would be to get ice cream.  We took that as a sign to go see what was around.  We drove down main street and found a neat little building/shack thing that sold what you would expect from a little building/shack.  They had some ice cream, floats, weirdly named treats, also basic food like corn dogs and cheeseburgers.  Delicious.

 

The line was really, really long.  Especially considering we were in a small town.  The boys waiting

 

 

They had a little seating area in the back, but it was in the sun.  Instead we walked down main street a ways and sat on the ground to eat.  The ice cream shack is where the people are gathered.  Cody feeding the boys ice cream.  They were not very happy to be stuck in a stroller that wasn't moving.

 

They didn't really love ice cream, so I gave them each a squeeze pouch.

 

Ben was looking a little red

 

I put in this picture to show his mouth boo boo.  If you don't know, you can click on the picture to make it bigger.

 

Here is the same picture with the boo boo outlined in black so you know what to look for.

 

Alex was ready to go.

 

Look how similar they look!  Multiple strangers commented about how much they looked alike today.  They ARE identical silly strangers.  I would say, "Yes, they are identical twins" then they would say something like, "They have the same hair color!" Yes... Yes they do.

 

This life size cutout of a woman was in a really random spot holding a sign for a candidate during the last elections.  It looked like she was going to run in to the street at any moment.  It creeped out my friend and me.  I was super excited to see her holding a new sign in this other town.  I think that is even creepier.

Happy 4th of July!

We survived the 2nd 4th of July for the babies.  We had a lot of fun.

Our neighbors invited us over for a swimming pool day and cookout.  We have drank a significant amount of their alcohol (SIGNIFICANT... have you met Cody?  :) )  in the past, so I thought it would be nice to bring something to their get together.  I settled on Strawberry Margarita Jello Shots, IN a hollowed out strawberry... that stands up on its own!! 

Sidenote:  I chose this recipe after seeing it on a Pinterest Fail blog.  I don't know why seeing someone else fail horribly at something made me think, "I can totally do that well enough to take to someone else's house!"  Anyway, someone else's Pinterest Fail was my Pinterest Win!

These took FOREVER to make.  It is a lot harder than you would think to dig all of the stuff out of a strawberry.  It was delicious and totally worth it.  I poured the extra booze jello in plastic cups both because Cody hates strawberries and because I'm too lazy to prep that many strawberries.  After the jello booze set, I rolled them in sugar and gave them a tiny lime wedge.

They were awesome.  Awesome.  AWESOME!  (The booze jello in the cups was not awesome.)

Strawberry Margarita Jello Shot

 

I took them up with us.  They were a big hit.  I was worried that taking jello shots to a laid back midday family get together would be weird, but they went over really well.  Luckily, our neighborhood runs on booze.  You can't go wrong with that.

 

After our hellos, we got in the pool.  Ben and Cody.  The boys are a little iffy about the pool for quite a while.  They do warm up to it though.

 

Alex spent a lot of time with this empty can.

 

Ben getting out of the pool and being greeted by a neighbor dog.

 

Alex with his can

 

Ben getting thrown in the air by Cody

 

He really enjoyed it

 

Cody bringing the boys out of the pool.  Alex still has the can.

 

 

Note: Alex didn't spend all day with the can and avoiding the pool.  I didn't have my camera to take pictures for very long, so I didn't get any good pictures of Alex in the pool.  He loved floating on a lounger raft thing.  They both did a few random jumps in to the water, thankfully it was always when someone was there to catch them.  They splashed and played a lot.  Cody threw Alex in the air like in the pictures with Ben.  Alex didn't have shorts on though, so when he would come out of the water, his diaper would sag and you could see his baby buns.

 

Eventually, we got out of the pool.  Here are the boys talking to the neighbor and his 2 sons plus 2 neighbor dogs.

 

Alex, of course, found a hose to wrap around his neck like a necklace and walk around with.

 

After we came home and put the boys down, we made smores using our grill.

 

Then we watched our HOA's fireworks show from our back deck.

 

Happy 4th!