Video Catch-up

Nate is remarkably good at blowing bubbles!

Nate is so into Simon these days and imitates everything he does:

The boys enjoying some time on the beach:

Nate has started to understand the concept of "two", and will tell us when he has two of something...he's also just stinking cute here while waiting for his turn to get his hair cut.

Visit from Grandma and Papa

As I mentioned, Grandma and Papa were in from NJ just in time for Simon's party last weekend, and we had a very busy weekend!

They got in mid afternoon on Friday and Mom and I went to pick up the boys. Simon was VERY excited to see Grandma and told his teachers and friends that she was there to visit him! He was just as excited when he got his big present from them...a real robot!

Saturday morning we spent around the house, doing lots of fun things. We picked blackberries out back, pushed Nate on the trike around the yard, played stomp rocket and helped Simon with his homework.

After naps that afternoon, we of course had Simon's party, which was great! We relaxed that evening afterwards, we were all pretty exhausted.

On Sunday morning, we went to the beach to play at the playground and take a walk on the beach. The tide was out, so it was a little rockier and slimier than expected, but that didn't bother the little guys very much.

That afternoon we headed to the wading pool for its last open day of the season. It was pretty windy, so before long we got the boys dressed and headed to the school grounds right nearby and flew our kite. Both boys took a turn, and then Matt got to show off his sprinting skills when Simon lost his grib and the kits headed for a tree.

After a delicious dinner, we put the kids to bed and wrapped up the weekend!

Here are some pictures of the visit:

Thanks for a great visit, Grandma and Papa!

Birthday Party!

We celebrated Simon's 4th birthday this past weekend, with a robot gymnastics party at the Seattle Gymnastics Academy. We had 16 kids there, and they were led through some activities by 3 teachers and then we were given some free time in the gym. After an hour of running around at full speed, the kids had some snacks and cake, of course! We had a great time, Simon thoroughly enjoyed himself, and we even had Grandma and Papa in town to help us celebrate. Here are a ton of pictures, enjoy!

Foam pit!

Nate had a ton of fun too

Check out speedy Simon on the left of this picture

Summer Olympics, 2032?

I'll be back with more about Grandma and Papa's visit, thanks for celebrating with us!

Musings on recent Nobel Prize winners

OK. This isn't really about Nobel prize winners. I'm just trying to make up for what this post is really about, namely Macklemore and his music. I came home with the lyrics from Thrift Shop in my head, Simon overheard me and starting repeating them:



And that of course cued a dance party of epic proportions, where both boys showed off a variety of moves.

It started slow for Nate, but he was soon inspired by Simon's enthusiam:



Then they performed the "jazz hand" dance simultaneously:



We then moved to the Macklemore song "Can't Hold Us" and Nate's signature move, the fist pump, came out in full force:



Finally, a little monkey see monkey do to wind things up:

Trip to Portland

We went down to Portland last weekend, both to visit Aunt Karyn and then to have a procedure down with a doctor down there, for Nate.

We headed down on Saturday, with 9 (NINE!) bags in tow, not counting the baby carrier:

The car trip went really well, both boys passed out for the first 90 minutes or so and then just hung out for the rest of the ride. We stopped for snacks and once to run around at a rest stop and overall, it was a great trip!

We got to Aunt Karyn's house, where we would be staying...actually, she gave us her whole place for the 2 nights we were there, which was such a help. The boys got to meet Fluffer...

And we all met Fernando for the first time and then headed over to a nearby park to play for a while. When we got back, we still had some time before dinner and it was pretty hot out, so Fernando got the hose out and played with the boys outside.

 Karyn and Fernando made a delicious dinner on the BBQ, and Bevin came over to eat with us and meet the boys. After dinner the boys got in their jammies and then headed to bed...and they actually went down fairly easily; Nate was in Karyn's bed and Simon on an air mattress in the second bedroom.

After a birthday cake for Matt that Karyn had ready, Matt and I each headed to bed and slept with one of the boys, and we all got pretty good sleep!

On Sunday, the boys were up bright and early, as usual, and Matt took them out for some coffee (well, for Matt) and a drive around town. We had a relaxed morning and then Nate and Matt went down for a midday nap.

Karyn, Fernando and I went back to the playground for a while...

...walked around a farmer's market, and then got some ice cream.

That afternoon we headed over to the Portland Children's Museum and had a lot of fun! Simon put on some rock climbing gear:



He also really enjoyed playing vet and helping animals feel better:

Both boys enjoyed the waterworks area:

 And Nate brought a fake flower with him everywhere he went:

Both boys asked for a ride on the way out:

 We had a pizza dinner that night, said goodbye to Aunt Karyn and got another pretty good night of sleep.

The next morning we had an appointment for Nate to have his upper lip tie lasered. Quick background: he had a tongue tie when he was born that made nursing difficult and we had it clipped when he was tiny. They didn't notice the lip tie at the time, but as his teeth have been coming in it's been very apparent that his is severe, as far as lip ties go. This is what his looked like:

It actually connected all the way from his lip through his teeth to his palate. Aside from potential teeth spacing issues and the likelihood this would need to be dealt with when he was older anyway, with this thick and tight a lip tie, tooth decay in the front can become a serious problem quickly. So we found a ENT doctor in Portland who was trained to use laser to revise it.

Matt and I were both really nervous, but it all went really smoothly. They weighed Nate, and then gave him some Versed, which is in the Valium family, to calm him down. Calm was one word for it...but if I'm being honest, Nate was high as a kite for a while. He was being silly, he could barely walk and generally was just a relaxed little dude. Yes, I took a quick video.

The doctor came in and thoroughly checked out his mouth. It turns out that his tongue tie grew back, but we left that as it's not likely to cause problems for him. Once Nate was fully medicated, they took him back to the laser room (we legally couldn't be in the room because of the laser) and brought him back within about 4 minutes. He clearly wasn't happy, but he wasn't crying when he got back, which was great!

We headed right out of town and both boys passed out in the car for almost 2 hours. After that we stopped for lunch and got this cute (and still a little dopey) smile from the patient!

All in all, it was a great trip! Everything went really smoothly and Aunt Karyn's hospitality and her great, comfortable apartment made everything so much easier. Thank you Karyn!!

PS. I don't know how it's possible, but I don't have any pictures of you, Karyn, from the weekend! So just for fun, here's one of my favorites of you with Simon. :)