Brothers!

Oliver is an AMAZING brother. Can't even describe it in words.

This above series was perfect moments caught. Oliver is so silly.

This was one of the first time I attempted to catch them together. Haha...Yeah....

It only got crazier over time.

Oliver's super cheese face.

Crappy cell phone pic but so sweet. Oliver asked for a photo with his brother...so, uh, I had to!

Perfection.

Morning cuddles...Melts my heart.

Mr. Feefs

Mr. Felix is growing so fast.. I so vividly remember being the in the hospital and looking at him. In my mind I had fast forwarded 4 months and so told myself to cherish every moment because with each child time flies just a little bit faster. Welp, here we are, 4 months later and it happened in the blink of an eye.

Twice to the zoo in his short life and he's slept through it both times. Thank goodness for that membership...

No more hernia!!! Yay!

 Felix is really beginning to look identical to Oliver at that age. Here is Felix sleeping in my lap and Oliver's picture... Pretty darn similar.

There was no point to these pictures other than I made an ADORABLE baby! He is so good natured and so happy all the time. He is a true joy...except for when he's teething...

How cute is he?

 Felix LOVES his bouncer. He is even beginning to jump pretty vigorously in it. This is where he and Oliver are very similar. Scarlett just sat in it and never really bounced. Then again, even on the lowest setting her feet didn't touch the ground. She has been very tiny compared to her chunky brothers!

  Lots of tummy time. He still only rolls from back to tummy to his left. With a teeny bit of help he cal turn to the right. He's a huge fan of sitting assisted and standing assisted!

Felix has an engaging little (huge) smile. He is infectious. Definitely my most happy baby. I remember thinking Scarlett was happy. Having Felix has proved to be a joy. And he's got dimples!!! One on both sides though one is deeper than the other!

Oh just modeling that squishy baby goodness.

It's still weird to see him in clothes. He spent the beginning of his life in a diaper with the heat we were having!I'm actually having a hard time fitting him into clothes. He's wearing 6 month clothes now...

First time in a swing! He loved it. I thought I'd have to wait until next spring. Luckily he's huge and sturdy. He did just fine sitting up!

Ollie Ollie Ol

Oliver's turn to have a few things written about his escapades.

He's elusive in pictures and has just gotten over his behavioral hump, so he doesn't have many pictures taken in the last few weeks. I've always had to sneak him with the other kids.

Here is Oliver sleeping on the ground. As I mentioned with Scarlett's entry, he is so used to it that he never sleeps on his bed. Notice the mess in the background... I'm proud to say that does not happen anymore! I can't take credit for doing anything special, he believes no spiders can get him if his room is clean. I was telling him a while back how spiders enjoy messy places since they can hide. It had to do with some story I had read them...Apparently this resonated with Oliver since he (on his own) realized spiders could hide amongst all the stuff on his floor. After a few days of noticing a spotless room I asked him why he was taking such great care. "Momma, the spiders can't get me now." Smart kid. I'll take it.

Oh you know, just chillaxin and watching TV. I put a kibosh on the TV. NO MORE! Its great that their play room has a TV and all. It served as a great distraction when Felix first came home. Especially the part about Oliver knowing how to turn it on all by himself. However I started noticing his insatiable need for TV. He would throw fits if I refused to turn it on downstairs or during meals. This is when I noticed the whole TV thing was getting out of hand. I unplugged the cable in the playroom and dealt with a lot of whining for a few days. I gave Oliver allotted times he could watch his shows but the rest of the time it was Mommy's shows or no TV. Luckily we have it all under control now.

Oliver is super obsessed with Jake and the Neverland Pirates. He's Captain Hook here.

I love Oliver's outlook on simple things. Here is decided that his cracker needed to stand up instead of lie down. He found some chip clips and invented this. I'm pretty proud of his ingenuity.

Hey Captain Underpants. He's weird. I love it.

I tried to get him to look at the camera. Sometime he dies well and actually wants his picture taken. This was not that time!

He's a pretty cool dude. I love him a whole lot.

Oliver always needs to test out all of the cars at Toys R Us.

Oliver is mega into learning. * Proud Momma* over here!! He must take after me, hehe. Oliver hasn't been napping very often for the last few weeks. Sometimes I just send him upstairs to "rest" when I need a break. Other times he practices his letters. That's the trade off. No nap = learning. He TOTALLY digs it. Right now we are working on writing letters and letter recognition. I'm not pushing anything as Ollie won't even be going to Kindergarten for another almost 2 years. But is is already noticing letters and numbers on his own so I thought I'd catch him and have him understand what he is already seeing.

He knows his alphabet like a champ. He can sing the song like nobody's business, however actually knowing what the letters look like is another story. He does recognize O (for Oliver), X, Z, and S (sort of) He knows S is for Scarlett but he keeps calling it a C. That's okay, its cool that when he sees an S he associated it with Scarlett's name. :) Once I see him getting bored with letters, I'll switch to numbers.

My favorite part is that I genuinely do not have to force this. He loves his work books. They are dry erase so he loves the responsibility of writing his letters then erasing them and going to the next page!

He is going through a fearful stage right now. A lot of things scare him or turn him off. Lots of smells are 'gisgusting' and loud noises are frightening, even ones he used to enjoy (police sires, fire trucks, airplanes). However, other times he does things I would never expect, such as wearing a frightening mask!

Daddy and son had a nice date and went to the Burien Kid's Day at the fire station. Oliver LOVES fire fighters and fire trucks so this was perfect. Above he posed with a real like fire fighter and wore and fire fighter's outfit. He got to explore emergency vehicles and traverse through a real burning house. After several activities Oliver won a prize. He loved the whole time alone with Dad doing something really cool!

P.S. he got a fudgesicle so he mouth is all chocolaty in the picture!!

All About Scar

I'm hoping I'm not repeating any photos...
This is how bad I've been at blogging!!! I have no idea what I've written about...

I thought I'd do a little recap of each kid and add any cool stories about what's going on with them. I would feel terrible if I forgot some of their little quips!

Above is Miss Scar sleeping in her doorway. The kids slept in their doorways sharing our one fan during the heat wave. They got so used to it that they still prefer the ground to their beds. No matter if I read her bedtime stories and tuck her in, inevitably she will end up on the floor.

Here is Oliver "fixing" Scarlett's broken binky.When Oliver reached 2 we cut the top off of his last remaining binky and that was that. No more binkies for him. I know Scarlett isn't two yet but she's got so many binkies laying around I figured I could cut a few tops off. Anyway, this is the very first one I cut off. Scarlett was so perplexed and Oliver felt so bad that he thought he could grab his tools and fix it for her. I'm trying to keep the binky only for sleeping and the car... She's a lot tougher to wean then Ollie so far...

Above is my little girl with many clips in her hair. She is not one to under-do accessories. Ha. She is definitely NOT a girly girl, but certain things are a must. And this picture is actually before she made me put in about 6 more bows. Thankfully she likes having her hair played with. She lets me put it in a pony tail or braid it. I like that about her!

These two pictures are a great illustration of Scarlett. If you don't know her, this is a perfect representation. She's crazy and is giving me a run for my money. And I thought Oliver has been tough... Hahahaha, silly Mommy...

She LOVES swings. 'Nuff said.

Super annoying at the playground though.

Yep, everyone can be having a good time climbing, running, and jumping. She will spend over an hour in a swing begging to be swung as hard as possible.

Daredevil! She is not afraid of anything, including heights (as her brother is). Again, I thought I had it rough with Oliver. Boy was I wrong! At least i knew Oliver would never take it too far. Scarlett will cross all the lines my OCD son will not.

Not a fan of sweets. She will, however, eat any cupcake you put in front of her.

This happens a lot. She's a trickster.

Someone learned how to open doors only AFTER learning to climb her gate. I cannot repeat how these things never happened with Oliver. Scarlett is such a different kid. It's amazing how you can raise kids almost identically but they are so wildly different.

For a long time when Scarlett slept we put a baby gate at her door and left it open. This is so she wouldn't wander the halls in the middle of the night. One day during nap Oliver yelled down to me that Scarlett got out of her room. I did not believe it for a second...I went up to investigate and saw that she indeed had gotten out. I thought it was a fluke so I stuck her back in her room and hid to see if it would happen again. 2 seconds later I see Scar climbing the gate. I closed her door with a child safety lock on it...Yeah she figured that out in literally one second. I was shocked!!

Oliver is/was a crazy kid. However he knew how to accept things. He NEVER figured out his door lock because I don't think he ever tried tampering with it. He just knew he had to be in his room. Scarlett on the other hand is VERY headstrong in a different way than Ollie was. I don't want to make it seem like Oliver was some softy or some easy kid to raise. He just lashes out differently. Perhaps its an attestation to gender? Who knows...

Anyway, George ended up taping the lock in place so she couldn't pop it off! It works and she can't turn the knob!

No problem eating sand at Alki...

Tough time pooping it out....

Just wanted a pic in her new undies. She gives me this. SOOOOO Scarlett.

Jealous of Felix, much? Haha. Scarlett was doing great with the new baby until recently. Oliver and her switched. Oliver had the behavioral issues but is now back to normal and Scarlett went from being a caring, loving big sister to a complete wreck... Ugh.

Daredevil again. Yep. Oliver has always been more level headed and aware of danger. This girl...nope.

Always crazy. Here is was climbing the windowsill. She's always testing us.

"I'm So Proud of Scarlett"

Oliver is the sweetest thing! His behavior has vastly improved lately. I think his weird attention issues have been sorted out.

I've been telling him more and more when I'm proud of him, now that he can comprehend what pride is. Scarlett has been forcefully potty training (against my will) and every time she goes he tells her and me how proud he is of her.

He is extending his pride past the potty as well, but it is so sweet when he genuinely tells her he's proud, hugs her and gives her a high five. With the amount of fighting they do, this is VERY refreshing and a good reminder that at the core of their normative sibling rivalry, there is a mutual respect.

Forced Potty Training

Oliver was a piece of cake to potty train. I introduced him to the potty around 18 months. He say him on it before bath time ever night but didn't expect anything. This was all just to make the idea less scary and more real.

A few times over the months he asked to use it, and did successfully. It was awesome but I was waiting for Scarlett to be born, THEN I waited until Oliver was over the shock of a new baby in the house.

One Saturday morning I decided no more diapers. I hid the remaining pack, but underwear on him and stayed in the whole weekend working on training. That first day he successfully pooped and peed in the potty, all while I blogged about the experience.  After that weekend he only wore Pull Ups for night time but otherwise he was trained. Accidents did happen, but that's normal. Overall I was ecstatic about how easily I had it when boys were supposed to be so hard.


Fast forward to Scarlett. She began getting interested in the potty all on her own close to her 1st birthday. She constantly wants to keep up with her brother so he takes note of everything he does. Of course I didn't mind because I thought it would be great for her get comfortable with little effort on my part. Oliver also took the liberty of explaining how the potty worked, bonus points for him, even less work for me!

Around 15 months she tried actually using the potty. I was against it because I was super pregnant and was too tired. Plus I knew the possibility of regression was very real with the baby due soon. I vowed that I would begin after the baby was born, early in the summer....

3 kids proved to be quite difficult to handle and the thought of potty training on top of it all was repulsive. This whole time she pushed the potty on me. Pulling off her diaper, sitting on the potty, etc. She forced me to have to keep up with her!! I finally decided that I would pick a weekend and attempt the same I had with Oliver...

Then yesterday happened...

We bought her some big girl undies several weeks ago to try out from time to time to get used the idea. So she  woke up the in the morning, stripped the new diaper I had put on her off and used the potty. I was very proud of her but didn't take anything seriously. I put a new diaper on her and almost immediately she ran to the bathroom yelling "Pee!" "Pee!". By this time she prefers the on the potty potty seat as opposed to a little potty on the ground. I put her on it and she pooped. I was amazed that she knew her body so well. I let her hang out in her undies and she went to the bathroom successfully for quite some time. Eventually I had errands to run outside the home and forced her into a diaper.

Now this morning came around. Before I even had a chance to change her out of her Pull Ups (Oh yeah, we bought those in preparation for potty training but she insists on using them already) she yelled "Pee!" and rain to the bathroom.

A poop and a pee! Wow...

I thought, okay lets just try the undies and when she has an accident I'll switch her to a diaper. I figured an accident was sure to happen, I mean I don't have time to check in with her at regular intervals and take her to sit on the potty. I've got a crazy 3 year old and a hungry, teething 3 month old!! No need to worry.

She had 0 accidents. Scarlett ended up wearing the SAME undies ALL day! She told me when she needed to go and went. Wow is all I can say. I can't even begin to formulate the words. She is a fabulous passive potty-er!!

Its too soon to say anything. It could just be a fluke, but tomorrow I'm putting her in undies again. I'm excited! 2 kids OUT of diapers is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than 2 IN diapers!!

Lullaby

I CANNOT forget this!

I few weeks ago I overheard Oliver talking. Or so I thought it way talking...

It was nap time and I put the two older ones in bed. Scarlett and Oliver have grown accustomed to sleeping in their doorways because of the heat. We have one fan that I put in between their rooms, so to get maximum benefit they get really close! Scarlett has a gate at her door because she still will escape her room and start rummaging through every room upstairs. Anyway....

Scarlett usually falls asleep right away, however she was having a rough time on this day. I realized Oliver's "talking" was really him singing lullabies to his sister. After some time I went upstairs to check on them. Scarlett was passed out and Oliver was still looking at books in his room. I asked him what had happened, he said, "I was helping Scarlett sleep. I sang her a lullaby, Momma!" He had such a proud tone to his voice. It was hard not to tear up and squeeze him tight from my own pride.

I still catch him from time to time either singing lullabies to his sister or Felix. He makes up the silliest little songs....

Catchphrases

I have to remember some of the things my kids say. This may make no sense to most, but these are things that I never want to forget because its such a huge part of our family's dynamic.

Oliver: "I need yo kiss and hugs."

Oliver: "I need to go to the beach and get some she-shelfs."

Oliver: "I want Squish to go back to the hos-tible."
Me: "Okay, lets give him back to the doctor at the hospital. Do you wanna go now?"
Oliver: "Okay Momma, maybe I don't want to take Squishy to the hos-tible."
Me: "You sure, I have time."
Oliver: "No, I love Squish."

Oliver: "Momma, push me up high!" (Swings)
Oliver: "Stop!! Momma, STOP! I said push me slowly!"
Me: "Are you sure? You asked to be pushed high."
Oliver: "No, I'm 'fraid of heights, Mom, remember?"

I know there are so many more, but this will have to do until I can remember more.