A Big Birthday

No, it's not birthday time for the kids again, thankfully. But it was Trevor's 35th birthday today (and also my parents' 40th wedding anniversary for that matter.) Although Trev had to work this morning, and is back at the hospital now, he did get to come home for a bike ride with our brother-in-law Dave and a nice birthday dinner with chocolate cake. It's been another uneventful week, although Jess scared us that he was going to have a bout of the stomach flu with some vomiting yesterday. Thankfully, things seem to have calmed down today.

Jess cuddling with his daddy

This is Elsie's own personal chair that she got today. She was so excited about it that I could hardly put it together, as she wanted to sit on it while I was working on it. Of course Jess loves it too, and don't think that we're naive enough to try to get by with just one. Unfortunately the problem is that only Elsie's came in the mail so far, so there were some battles over the chair today with full-on attempts to push the other one out. We hope the other chair comes soon... Elsie is quite a character, and continues to make me laugh. This week, she came up with a new habit of taking her food and shoving it down her shirt and onesie. This means that when I go to change her diaper, I may find smashed-up pears in the toes of her sleeper or in the diaper itself. I have no idea what spawned this, but I'm hoping it's short-lived.

Also notice the black patent leather shoes. We are practicing for Trevor's brother Aaron's upcoming wedding next weekend, trying to get the babies used to real shoes (they've really only worn Robeez so far.) Elsie is coming around to the idea, but Jess seems to think that these shoes are torture devices and unless he is strongly distracted, he is constantly trying to rip them off. We're hoping that if we desensitize him a little bit each day, he'll be willing to wear them in the wedding next weekend, but I'm not convinced yet...

However, Jess is more than happy to put on Trevor's or my shoes and try to crawl around with them on. This is my little lumberjack getting into daddy's biking gear.

No matter what toys are around, nothing can compete with sticks and dirt.

We spent the day hanging out with Poppie and Nana on the front lawn. Actually, they did yard work and washed the cars while I managed the munchkins. Here I'm trying to distract Jess from his shoes with a can of diet Sprite. I realize that pop is not the best drink for a 15 month old, but it is caffeine and sugar-free (that makes it okay, doesn't it?) Plus, I really, really want him to wear shoes at the wedding, so I figured it was worth it.

This is the birthday group for the day. What cracked me up about this picture is how hard Elsie is trying to drink Dave's beer. Again, I realize that beer is not the best beverage for babies, but man do they love it. You can hardly drink it around them because they just won't leave you alone. I promise it's just sips.

Me and my boy.

Okay, now for some news for anyone who's ever been to our house before. You know our neighbors to the left with all of the Volkswagen buses and "stuff" around? Well, unfortunately the wife moved out, which makes us sad, of course. But, she took the Volkswagen bus with her! Now when we look out the window, we just see some assorted junk , instead of an old rusted van! Sugar and I are planning a covert operation to clean up their driveway by transferring all of their stuff from the side of the house to their backyard. We think that we need to do this at night when it's dark and when their dog is inside, and preferably when he is asleep so we don't get caught. However, he often stays up until 3 AM playing his techno music, so we're running into a snag, but we're going to attempt to figure out the logistics. I'll let you know how it goes.