Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Things I Love | THREE

I seriously cannot keep up with my life any more, so even though this is a few months late and I know probably missing information, I am at least posting something about these cute boys of ours because they are too fun and adorable right now to not post anything!!
I am hoping to do some official three year old pictures this summer, but for now, this is what we've got.













Ian
33.73 lbs (71%)
38 in (65%)

Has really started talking up a storm. He says the funniest things and has more original thoughts instead of just repeating back things. For instance, I got a text from the babysitter that said "Hey, where's my mac and cheese Bibbin?" (Bibbin is what they call their sweet sitter, which I think is adorable) 

He comes up with little games that he and Briggs play



Probably their favorite toys right now are stuffed animals and they constantly play mama and baby animals with giraffes and elephants and any other animal they have big and little ones of. Ian is usually in charge of the mama animal while Briggs acts out the baby animal.


Gets pretty passionate about his food and if he likes something he will say "Mmmmmm SO good!"

They LOVE playing with fish in the sink. They will easily spend an hour or more playing in the sink and then head straight to the tub for another 2+ hours. They might just grow gills and turn into fish themselves.



Their favorite book right now is the Pout Pout Fish book. He has a decent chunk of it memorized and even knows some of the biggest words in there such as "astounded" or "aghast."



He is still pretty even keeled for the most part although when he gets tired he can start turning very indecisive. It makes it quite tricky to know what he wants.

He loves milk and requests it far more often than water these days. He also frequently requests chocolate milk. I'm not quite sure when they discovered chocolate milk, but a carnation instant breakfast seems to do the trick!

They both are very agile and active. They jump all over the tramp, Ian almost dives into his somersaults on the tramp, they can run up the stairs, and basically run everywhere. They are so fast that if they get ahead of me at all I have to sprint to catch up to them quickly because if I just jog they get so much further down the road.

He frequently asks "Howdada doooing" wondering what we are doing.

He can make his eyes go really big and will open his eyes as wide as possible as he asks for something he wants or just to put emphasis on his sentence.

He still loves his minky blanket and likes to have it while he drinks his milk



He likes to make "train tracks" out of paper towels or toilet paper




Briggs
32.85 lbs (63%)
38 in (65%)


He is the best little snuggler and loves to snuggle with his mama before bed (and in the middle of the night, and in the morning when he wakes up, and any other time)


He is quite the chatterbox but does not speak as clearly as Ian does. He is definitely a mimic and copies anything you say. One of our favorite mimics was when he hollered at my mom's dog, "London, chill out!"

They both have very little fear of people or things so we have been working on looking both ways before crossing the street and not running away from mom and dad. It's a struggle.



Another favorite quote is from Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs which happens to be their favorite movie right now. He says, ' "Peaches. I like peaches! They're sweet, and round, and fuzzy, just like you. "You think I'm round?" "Round is good! Round if foxy..." ' He says this multiple times a day just out of the blue and it is hilarious every single time! 

Is a bit more of a bully. He likes to steal whatever toys Ian is playing with, and Ian is sweet enough to give them over to Briggs even if it makes him sad. I've heard Ian crying but saying "Briggs' turn" and won't take the toys back. Briggs is a lucky duck to have such a sweet brother


Loves to be naked. We have had some impromptu days of potty training due to his refusal of diapers.


On that note, they both are still in diapers, but their days are becoming more numbered. Briggs is more ready than Ian, but I'm hoping to take the plunge and potty train this summer. Briggs probably would already be potty trained if his mom wasn't scared to do it! haha.

These crazy kiddos still don't consistently sleep through the night. I don't know what it is, but it seems like at least one of them has to come into our room every night just to see me and snuggle. And since I'm at three years of interrupted sleep, I've gotten lazy and just let them come snuggle for awhile until I can get up the energy to put them back in their own beds. Briggs is the preferred child in our bed though because he snuggles in so peacefully while Ian usually is laying perpendicular to us and sleeping a little more wild.


He is a little firecracker and bounces from one thing to the next and has a bit of a temper if things don't go his way.

He kind of likes his mama. He likes me to "Hold you" or requests to be a "backpack" and just likes me to snuggle with him. He is so sweet too and likes to play with my hair or rub my arms.



He doesn't seem quite as enchanted with his blanket. He has always like the tag of these particular muslin blankets and we somehow lost one blanket at some point, another blanket had the tag fall off somewhere, and his last blanket has a big hole right under where the tag part is so it is on its last leg. Fortunately he doesn't seem like it will bother him too much to not have it because I have looked long and hard on the internet and any store with muslin blankets and haven't been able to find ones with tags just like he likes them.We will see how that goes.


We still just adore these boys and love how much fuller they make our lives.
We are blessed to be their parents.


Monday, May 2, 2016

Birthday Boys | Party

Because these boys have been obsessed with Octonauts for months, it seemed natural to have an Octonauts/ocean birthday party for these rambunctious three year olds.



I tried to go simple yet fun on decor, food, and activities.

I knew I had to order them this Octonauts cake topper sheet when I saw it. Once again simple, but the boys loved it!




We attempted a fishing game which the adults rather enjoyed but the boys just wanted to play with the fish! 

Although they did enjoy holding out their fish to get on the fishing line. 







My dad snapped this picture and then realized we were standing right in front of our wedding picture so he thought we should recreate it.

Apparently this is what my husband thought we were doing. 

Even when we tried though it wasn't much better. Plus, sheesh someone should have told me to stand up straight!

Next up on the agenda was our "Are You Smarter Than a 3 year Old Marine Biologist" game. We had 22 three year old approved pictures that we showed to the adults to see how many animals they could recognize. We then let the boys see all the pictures to give the answers.  Of course this sent Ian into a fit because we kept trying to distract them from this slideshow initially so they wouldn't give away the answers and he was not happy with us.





I felt like this game was a hit. While our boys could recognize all 22 animals, (at least between the two of them. A couple of them were pretty tricky) the winner of the adults only got 13 answers right! (Go Papa!)

We then had lunch of pizza, veggies, and salad. 
Pizza might be Briggs' favorite food. He can eat as many slices as a grown man. 
Ian was still throwing a fit over the fish game so he wasn't too fond of lunch either. Once we finally forced some food in him though he calmed down. We get hangry over at our house.


We then opened gifts.
I think this was the first time they have actually understood the concept of opening gifts and thoroughly enjoyed it.



We even had a race to see which of us could assemble a scooter quicker. 
Considering I can barely put together a 100 piece child's puzzle, it wasn't much of a competition. 




We snapped a few pictures of a few of the guests, but of course I didn't remember most of them.
Just important people like Jesse and I.



And Mimi and Papa

And my adorable grandparents.

Then there was some quality reading time.


And of course scooter practicing.



And then we remembered we had cake to eat!



And then on their actual birthday we still had grandpa in town so we spent our day at the aquarium and came home with these little sharks.
It was the perfect birthday weekend and we still can't get enough of these two!
{B}             {I}