Growing Up

At this stage in their life, you don't have to look very hard to know that your kids are growing up fast. The signs are obvious.

Chay is potty trained. He still needs a bit of help getting dressed after using the toilet, but its odd to see him jump up...announce his intentions...and run off to the bathroom.

The gates guarding our stairs are gone. The twins are able to navigate the stairs by themselves. I think it was the first or second day after we took down the gates that Jenner took a stumble down the stairs, but since then both Jenner & Jace have been pretty good about slowing down and taking their time getting down those steps. I could probably take the gate mounts off the wall, but I figured I should leave them up for a while just in case.

The toddler food on the shelves has all but disappeared. We used to get a few toddler things from Gerber as the twins were learning to eat solid foods. But now the twins are eating whatever we eat so no need to buy Gerber toddler foods any more.

The three boys can now sit in any car seat they choose. The car seat in the middle was hardest to adjust the height for the shoulder straps. So Chay used to sit in the middle. The seats on the ends were for the twins. But now that the twins are taller, all three seats are set to the same height. This means Chay is no longer forced to sit in the middle which he loves. Chay thinks one of the funnest things to do in the world is to drive around town with the window rolled down.

Now that the fence is up, I have put the patio furniture out on the deck. Last year, we just skipped it. The twins were about 5 months old mid-summer and we didn't want to have to worry about them on the deck so we were barely out in the backyard last year. This year is a different story, especially with the fence to corral the kids.

So as I look around the house, there seems to be big changes every once in a while that are there to remind me, as if I didn't already know, that the kids are growing up very fast. 

Long Time

It's been quite a while since I last posted. We have been super busy. The week flies by. Normally by the time we all get home from work/daycare, its cook supper, do the dishes, play with the kids for a while, and then its bath time and put the kids to sleep...repeat the next day.

Our weekends have been real busy lately too. There was Mother's Day. The next weekend, we had Lakken's graduation party and Hannah's Confirmation/First Communion. Then it was Memorial Day which had another graduation to attend and a short camping trip with the Espeliens.

During that trip, here is Chay & Carter feeding the goats at the zoo:

And Jenner & Jace being silly in the stroller:

And then just when you think things would start to calm down, we decided to put up a fence. Big thanks to Todd for giving up his entire weekend to help me out.

There is still lots to do with the fence, but it is up and does a nice job of keeping all 3 boys in the back yard.

So the week has been busy with life as usual and the weekends even busier. Somewhere in there, we even crammed in a pool party for the boy's cousin Taylen's second birthday.

Chay starts swimming lessons today. Last winter during skating lessons, Chay wanted to do his own thing instead of what the class was doing, so we'll see how he does with swimming lessons.

Chay has started doing really well in potty training. He only wears diapers when sleeping now, but he still has an occasional accident.

Jace has still been eating everything in sight. But now he's become quite the climber as well. He can climb up on the toilet seat without any assistance. He is starting the master the art of dragging something to use as a step stool. Sometimes, that "thing" has wheels on it and he falls down. And I think that Jace has started the "terrible twos" way ahead of schedule.

Jenner has been quite the talker lately. He's started to say "uh-oh" quite a lot. This word joins "ouch" as ones of his favorites. And he has been known to say "hi" once in a while, but not that often.

We normally dress the twins in the same shirts. If one is dirty and the other is clean, you know that the clean one is Jenner's. At Lakken's graduation party, the kids were playing in the sandbox with Jace making the biggest mess of himself. Jenner showed us that there is a different way of playing with the sand. Instead of actually crawling into the sandbox, apparently you can stand on the edge of it and play. I never knew that.

Jenner is also teaching Jace to share. This morning was pretty typical in that Jenner found two toys to push around and he walked over and gave one to Jace. I will now see Jace start to share things with Jenner. Once in a while, the "sharing mentality" will rub off on Chay, but it seems that with 3-year olds, the effect is temporary and very short lived. Our dining room table is covered with trucks and cars that Chay put there so that his brothers can't reach them.

While Chay doesn't want his brothers to play with his toys, Chay is getting a kick out of be "like brothers" as he says. We got the twins some sandals and Chay had to have a pair just "like brothers". And Chay now has a pair of tennis shoes just "like brothers". We have a backpack with Chay's name on it and Chay liked that we got each of the twins a similar backpack with their name on it so all 3 boys have the same thing.

Well I think that about covers it for now. I'm sure that we'll have a busy summer ahead of us. If nothing else, the boys will keep us busy!