Friday, May 29, 2009

Wrasslin'





This is what we do most evenings before bedtime. The boys love, love it. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Daddy loves it too.

The View From Up Here

We are spending the weekend in Orange Beach, AL for Todd's first triathlon. The weather was absolutely beautiful today. We have been blessed with a condo that Todd's company owns. Check out the view from the 15th floor...








Thursday, May 28, 2009

Road Trip

We are heading out today on a trip down to the beach so I can compete in a triathlon on Saturday. It will be a nice little 4 hour trip in the car with boys. We are bringing my mom along to help out with the boys while I am doing what I need to on Friday and Saturday. Our kids just don't do very well in the car for long periods of time. They usually don't sleep much and that makes them extra cranky.

We broke down a bought a portable, dual screen DVD player for the car. We gave it a test run last weekend when we went to Atlanta to visit friends for the holiday weekend, and it worked wonders. I commented to Randi that I was no longer needed in the car to entertain the boys in my silly ways. We bought it just for long or extended trips and have taken it out for general rides around town. We did not want them asking for Mickey Mouse every time we loaded up. Hopefully, we will stick to our guns and not turn this into an everyday thing.

We should have a lot of fun. The weather actually looks pretty good, compared to recent days. We are working on getting the BIRTHDAY PARTY pictures sorted and edited to get them posted, and we will probably have a slue more after this beach weekend.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Another Big Scare

We were at a park yesterday with the boys playing on the swing sets and playgrounds that they had. For the most part, there were no real issues of the day. Parks was a little upset that the playground equipment was damp from the previous night's rain, and Wyatt could sit in a swing for a 4 hours completely entertained. Both were enjoying the slide on one of the forts as we helped them up the ladder and down the slide.

We moved the party over to another fort that the boys had not been on yet that morning. This one did not have a slide, only monkey bars, a sliding pole, and knotted rope that provided fast exits to the mulch below. I helped Wyatt navigate up the wooden ladder and got him on the platform. Randi and I were both standing there talking as I started to help Parks up the ladder as well. Both of us lost track of Wyatt for about 20 seconds, then Randi saw what was about to happen. She yelled out to me and then to Wyatt, but it was too late.

Wyatt had walked to the other side of the fort and stepped right off the edge of the platform. Randi went running over to him, but by that time, he had hit the ground. It was about a 6 foot drop, and he landed square on his upper back. I still had Parks halfway up the ladder when it happened. I put him down and Wyatt did not make a sound for a few seconds. Then, he finally started to cry. We could not see anywhere that he was bleeding or anything else externally that might be immediately evident. He cried for a really long time. We kept checking him for bruising or bleeding, but it is hard for a 2 year old to tell you where exactly it hurts.

We monitored him the rest of the day and talked to our pediatrician about warning signs that we needed to be looking for, but from what we could tell he appears to have bounced back (no pun intended). Randi went and woke him up in the middle of the night once to make sure everything was okay. The only thing we can see are a couple of scratches running down his back. We debated hard about taking him to a Children's Hospital facility and may go ahead and get a CT Scan done for this and other non-related symptoms of his Duane's Syndrome that we are on the lookout for. Please pray for his healing. We keep thinking back to Natasha Richardson and what tragically happened to her.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Hidden Poop

I was told by my wife to rename this post, "The Missing Poop."

So, Parks was running around the other night refusing to wear clothes (yes, we are at that stage). Randi can smell that he has a poopy diaper, but he does not want her to change him. He is running away from her all over the house. We ask him if he has a poopy diaper, and, like most of his answers, he screams "no, Wyatt!!"

At this point, he is in our bedroom and comes out of there with his hand in the back of his diaper. We immediately cried for him to get his hand out of there. We ask him what he was doing, and he has no answer. We checked his pants and they felt a little lighter. We asked him again, specifically, "Parks, did you take poo-poo out of your diaper?"-----"Uh-huh." Next, we ask, "where did you put it?" No answer.

We start looking in our bedroom for any small, round, brown balls. We look all over and can't find anything. We ask Parks again, "did you take the poo-poo out of your diaper?" This time we are back to the old game of "no, Wyatt!!" We look all over for the missing poop but have yet to find anything. Who knows if he actually took anything out or if we'll find it in the middle of the night under our toes when one of us get up to get some water or use the bathroom?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Fun With Friends

We took the boys to a birthday party on Saturday evening. It was for a friend of ours and his daughter who share a birthday. We had a fun time cooking out, playing in the back yard, in & out of the bounce house, and hanging out with friends. Since Parks and Wyatt's 2nd birthday was on Friday, they decided to include the boys in the celebration. I believe Parks had a total of four bounce house head-butts. He was repaid later on in the evening with an accidental wiffle ball bat to the arm by another kid. Wyatt ate everything in site, including pickles, cupcakes, hot dogs, baked beans, etc.. The boys were wiped out after all the hard playing and slept until after 8 a.m. the next morning. This party was a prelude to their birthday bash this coming weekend.

Wyatt and Parks blowing out the candles on their birthday cupcakes.
Parks in overdrive.
Wyatt, "where is your bottom lip?"
The only time he left the bounce house was to eat something.

Friday, May 15, 2009

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY


PARKS AND WYATT ARE TWO YEARS OLD TODAY!!


Thursday, May 14, 2009

FINALLY!!

For all three of you that read this blog, thank you very much for your patience. We finally have our new design up and running and we are so happy with the way it turned out. Darcy over at Graphically Designing did a fantastic job. Todd and I still have some work to do on the sidebar, so new things will be popping up here and there.


Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Turkey Moustache


Monday, May 11, 2009

Leap Frogs

We recently took the boys to one of these converted warehouses that are wall-to-wall-to-ceiling inflatable giants. I don't remember the occasion, a weekend or rainy day, etc., but it was packed full of kids. For the first 15 minutes the boys stood around in awe at the vinyl monoliths and hoards of people. They first resigned themselves to playing it safe and confining themselves to the toy area with kitchens, workbenches, push toys, and the like. It was not until daddy got his shoes off and had to get into the inflatable with them that they perked up.

With their affinity for slides, we knew that they would like these if we could only get them to the top. These things were 20 feet in the air and we knew that they were not going to be able to climb the little inflatable rungs up by themselves. So, daddy had to carry one up at a time under his arm and navigate the slick stairs in only his socks. Good exercise carrying 30 pounds of furious thunder under one arm on unstable surfaces. Just as we thought, they took to it like fish to water after their first descent.

Wyatt, of course, wanted to go down on his belly. Parks wanted to go to higher and higher slides. Wyatt thought it would be fun to go down not on the slide area but on the ladder rungs, tumbling down like a tumble weed or coin being flipped. Parks would run at ramming speed into the corner pillars of the bounce house and then look like a blond projectile into the center of the ring. Here are some pictures we took of the day when we were not fearing for their lives or concussions.




Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day

To the mother of our two wonderful boys, I could not have asked for anything more.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Kentucky Derby Days

On Saturday afternoon, we took the boys to Storybook Farms where they provide a type of therapy to children with life-threatening illnesses, disabilities, and suffering from grief. They opened the farm up to the public during the Kentucky Derby to raise awareness to their cause and to have a little fun. They had train rides, music, a bounce house, games, and a demonstration by the Auburn Raptor Center. They brought out eagles, owls, hawks and buzzards for people to see and take pictures with these animals. We figured that we could get the boys out of the house again to round out a weekend of festivals.

Parks has found a new play place...the car. If we get him out of the car seat, we can't get him out of the car.

Mommy found out about the new alphabet Cheezits that have large letters on each cracker. Wyatt was in heaven!
The one problem with bounce houses.....
.....if you put them in, you had better be ready to go in and get them out.
They had fun with these plush "horseys."
As you can see, we stayed around this area for quite a while.
It took a little while for the boys to figure out how to ride their new toys.
Wyatt was mesmerized by the little details the candy-cane striping, the horse's mane, etc.
I think it is about time for someone's first haircut.
What finally ended the day for us at Storybook Farms was Round 10 of the ongoing saga over who can drive the wagon. They are not really getting the concept of "taking turns" yet.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Slides and Giggles

We made a trip to a spring festival at one of the local elementary schools this afternoon. At almost 2 years old, Parks & Wyatt are still a little too young for cake walks, pies in the face, and football tosses. So after pulling the boys around in the wagon for 15 minutes, we headed over to the school's playground. They had an interesting type of slide that we had never seen....and we are quickly becoming slide connoisseurs.

It was long and not at a very steep pitch, but that was not the most interesting part. The full length of the slide was comprised of rolling bars, much like a conveyor system. We are the worst about forgetting our new Canon XSi, so we had to rely, once more, on my cell phone. I snapped a couple photos of the boys the first few go rounds, but soon after, I switched it to the video camera and got some great moments of them going down.

Both of them just HAD to go down the slide backwards.
We could NOT get Wyatt off the slide. We had to pull him off kicking and screaming
to take them home for bedtime.