I believe I've fallen appropriately behind enough to get another post out on this thing. Several weeks ago we took a trip to visit the family in Houston, which left us suitably wiped out for a while. At least, that's my excuse this time.
We decided to kick things off a little early by having something giant and entertaining delivered to the house. We originally thought we could get away with not putting it together the same day it arrived. Max quickly dissuaded us from this delusion the moment he saw the giant box in the dining room.
Sadly, the fun was cut short when both of the boys decided they wanted to be on the slide at the same time. Max was trying to go down, Owen was trying to go up. This ended when Owen fell off the side of the slide and literally landed flat on his back. Luckily he sustained no lasting injuries and has hopefully learned a valuable lesson.
Okay, probably not.
Once the weekend came along, we strapped the DVD players into the car and trucked ourselves down to see the family.
Once the long day was through, we carted Max off to bed (in his new Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag), put Owen down in the giant pack-n-play (which he surprisingly slept in) and settled in for the night. In the morning, the fun resumed.
Things started getting interesting once the crawfish boil started. One of the cousins showed up with a giant bag of Mardi Gras beads. This led to a predictable outcome.
He and his brother took an immediate shine to a nearby tricycle, by which I mean Max tried it out and Owen immediately demanded access to it because his brother was doing something.
After staring at some crawfish (and trying one, in Max's case) and playing around in a very cold sprinkler for a bit, the kids decided it was time to retreat back into the house. Much of the rest of the day was spent dividing our attention between the two kiddos, who seemed to always want to be doing something on the opposite floor as the other. As the day rolled to a close, we outfitted the boys in their pajamas. This did not mean it was bed time. It just meant they would be doing amusing things in different clothes. Owen continues to enjoy messing with strollers for whatever reason.
We closed out the weekend with a trip to church and a quick photo shoot with all the grandkids. This event went approximately as you'd expect. The boys were so worn out from the weekend (and from being sick, in Owen's case) that they were both somewhat dazed. I did manage to snap a quick shot of Owen with Papa.
After lunch, we loaded the boys up and enjoyed a nice, quiet car trip home. Aside from the screaming. And the kicking. Good times.
Down here at the end of the narrative is usually where we do a little updating on random behaviors the boys are bringing to the table. Owen has been more...interesting...on that lately. For one thing, he will not tolerate his shoes while in a seated position with his legs dangling. If you put him in a stroller, a high chair, or a car seat, he will almost immediately endeavor to remove both his shoes and his socks, then say "Uh oh!" once he has succeeded.
He has also taken to dumping things out of buckets wherever he happens to find them. This isn't a new behavior, but he's been much more energetic about it lately. This, of course, makes it completely pointless to try and clean up any messes while he's still in the room. It is unacceptable for boxes to contain numerous small items, whether they be toys, balls, blocks, or puzzle pieces. All of them will be dumped on sight.
It's not all bad behavior, though. He's starting to get a lot more words these days. He does spend a good bit of time baffling us with nonsense babbling, but he's picked up some of the staples. This includes the standard greetings ("Hi!"/"Bye!"), a number of animal noises, "Oh no!", "Please" (which sounds like "PSSSSSS!", "Thank you", "puppy", "Elmo", "Mickey Mouse" (his favorite), "BEEEEEEEEES!", and of course "blueberries". Where he's really impressed us is with his innate musical ability. He's picked up the tempo and tone of a couple of songs ("Twinkle Twinkle" and "Wheels on the Bus" to name a few) and can even sing somewhat intelligibly for a few bars.
As for Max, he's been impressing us with his creativity and his ability to memorize the names of dinosaurs. Back when Papa and Nan came to visit, Papa was surprised to hear Max explain to him that one of his stretchy dinosaurs was a dimetrodon. He's also turning into a decent helper around the house, only partially because we keep giving him quarters for doing household chores.
That'll do it for our update from a few weeks ago. If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can click here. See you next time!
