Happy 3rd Birthday Wyatt!

Happy Birthday to our sweet and spunky little Wyatt.  I look back at pictures of him when he was little and just can’t believe that he is already 3 and has grown up so fast.  He is the sweetest little boy but boy does he keep us on our toes.  He’s such a goofy guy and is always making us laugh.  He is also the outgoing one and doesn’t really know a stranger.  He’s my shopping buddy and the other day I was pushing him in the cart when he started yelling “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and I didn’t know why and then he said hey how old do you think that girl is?  He was yelling hey trying to get her attention because he wanted to talk to her. 

 Wyatt is also very inquisitive always asking lots of good questions and about everything he watches or reads.  He is still a super messy eater and really loud.  We are working on table manners and using indoor voices because he likes to shovel the food into his mouth with his hands and scream at the top of his lungs during dinner.  The other day he was eating saltine crackers and I’m not sure any made it into his mouth he made such a huge mess with crackers all over himself and on the floor.  I asked him why he always makes such a mess when he’s eating and he told me in the cutest little innocent voice “because I’m three”

Wyatt can also be very stubborn.  We’ve found that if you’re trying to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do it’s best to try and work with him somehow or it will result in a massive fit.  I know it’s partly his age but it’s so hard to deal with these fits sometimes especially when they can be brought on by anything and out of nowhere.  This kid also loves to be naked and he is very picky about what he wears.  There are many nights after dinner where we’ll just turn around and Wyatt is running around with no pants/underwear on.  I think he would live this way if he could.  He also will only wear what he deems ‘comfy’ pants and these don’t just include any type of lounge pant they have to be one of his 4-5 specific pairs with stripes down the leg.  If any of these aren’t clean it’s usually another battle to get him to wear something else.  Sure hoping this phase doesn’t last long.  

Some of Wyatt’s current obsessions:

-Costumes.  He loves dressing up and can be found in one of his costumes almost every day as you can tell from all the pictures (no they were not all taken on the same day J).

-The letter O.  For some reason he loves the letter O.  It is his favorite in the whole alphabet and he asks all the time if he has an O in his name.  I tell him that he does in his middle name so he says he wants to be called Kenton instead since it has an o.

-Lion King.  Lately this kid is obsessed with the movie Lion King and would watch it every day if he could and he wants us to tell him the Lion King story every night at bedtime.  Luckily it’s a good movie so we don’t mind watching it all the time.

-His brothers. He loves Gavin and wants to do everything Gavin does.  He’s also really sweet with Lincoln and loves giving him hugs and kisses.

This was the first year asking Wyatt the 20 questions and below were his answers:

What is your favorite color? Blue
What is your favorite toy? Costumes
What is your favorite fruit? Pineapple
What is your favorite tv show?  Go Diego Go
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Mac n Cheese
What is your favorite outfit? Spiderman jammies
What is your favorite game?  Super Why game
What is your favorite snack? Yogurt
What is your favorite animal? Polar Bear
What is your favorite song? Elmo Song
What is your favorite book? The big book of Animals
Who is your best friend?  Gavin (this one melted my heart because he started to say a friend from school but then changed it to Gavin)
What is your favorite cereal? Alphabets (probably because Super Why is on the cover :))
What is your favorite drink? Apple Juice
What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play football
What is your favorite holiday? Halloween
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? New Simba toy
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  sausage
What do you want on your birthday dinner? Mac n Cheese
What do you want to be when you grow up? Football player and Super Reader (Super Why reference)

The boy's birthday party

We decided to do a joint birthday party this year and make it pretty informal with just family.  I still wanted to make it special though since the boys had to share their day so I let them each pick out their special cake.  Gavin wanted a Ninjago cake and Wyatt wanted a Lion King cake.  I thought I could just go to Hy-Vee with a picture and they’d be able to create each of these cakes but since these characters weren’t in their licensed book of cake designs it was a no go.  So I did a little searching online and found some customized cake toppers that I could buy with both themes that the boys wanted and then found a bakery nearby and ordered some cakes.  

I was a little panicked when USPS said the cake toppers would be delivered Wed/Thurs and those days came and went with no package.  Then we got to Saturday and I was all excited to get an update that they were in Des Moines and should make it in time only to find that Wyatt’s made it and Gavin’s just sat in the same sorting facility and didn’t make it on the truck for some reason.  Needless to say I’m not very happy with the USPS especially when I paid for 2 day and it took 6.  So we had to improvise with some of Gavin’s legos and some awful writing on my part.  We also noticed when getting Gavin’s cake out of the box that it was starting to lean as well.  Poor kid couldn’t catch a break!  At least both cakes tasted amazing and made up for the lack of decorations. 

Both boys had such a fun night and loved getting to see all of their cousins.  Opening presents with both of them was a little crazy with both of them flying through each gift and then all the cousins trying to help as well :).  Wyatt got some fun new costumes, a Super Why game and a stuffed Lion King doll and Gavin got more legos, a container to sort and store his legos and a science kit to name a few.  All in all it was a success and nice to be able to host things like this in our house without making everyone travel.  We were so thankful Derek and Jenny and kids were able to make it back for this special day especially since they had to head back early Sunday morning to beat the awful weather coming in northern Iowa.

And Gavin with his cake topper that of course got delivered on Monday :).

Lincoln - 5 Months

Wow, this past month has flown by and Lincoln has had several firsts.  He can now roll over from his back to his stomach. He surprised us the day after he turned 4 months by rolling over several times.  He’s still working on doing front to back which is funny because most babies go this way first.  I’ve seen him do it once but that’s about it. 

He loves sucking on his fingers and chewing on toys.  He likes being carried around facing out so he can watch what’s going on around him and is very wiggly.  He is already ready to get in on the action.  If the boys are running around downstairs playing and we’re holding him he’s flapping his arms and kicking his legs trying to move just like them.  He’s also been experimenting with his voice and making new sounds. 

We didn’t progress much in the sleep department.  I think the biggest issue here is that he just doesn’t know how to put himself back to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night.  He’s too reliant on us to rock him back to sleep and this can be painful when he wakes up every 45-60 minutes.  We’ve tried letting him cry it out a few times up to 10 minutes but that was really rough and it seemed to just make things worse rather than help him get to sleep so we decided to hold off on this until he gets a little older and swaddle free. 

  

Lincoln also got his first cold which didn’t help the sleeping situation much either.  Luckily it didn’t last long but now he has another one.  Needless to say we are all ready for this long winter to be over.  We’ve also been on medicine for thrush.  I don’t think this really bothered him much but glad to say it’s finally seemed to clear up.  Overall he’s a pretty happy little guy and very smiley.  We’re hoping we can get rid of this cold and start the sleep training again in a few weeks with better success.

Happy 5th Birthday Gavin!

Happy Birthday Gavin!

I just can’t believe that I now have a 5 year old and that he will be starting kindergarten this fall! He is such a sweetheart and has really grown up this past year. He’s always telling me how beautiful I look and giving me hugs. He has such a sensitive side. Although he has his moments where he has meltdowns or doesn’t want to behave for the most part he is a really good kid and so sweet with Wyatt. Wyatt of course wants to do anything and everything that Gavin is doing so he does a great job trying to include Wyatt or helping to make him feel better if he can’t do something that Gavin is.  He still loves to build and always creates amazing masterpieces with his magnatiles or legos and has become quite the artist as well.

 He had quite the special day today to celebrate his birthday. Ryan took the day off to spend with him and they had special time playing with his legos this morning and then they visited the Wildlife expo in the mall and spent a few hours at the Incredible Pizza Place. The original plan was to go to the science center but apparently it’s not open on Mondays during the winter but he had a lot of fun at the other places. Although he loved his special time I think he missed Wyatt because he asked Ryan to pick up Wyatt a little early from school so he could spend some time playing with him too.

 We ate his requested meal of choice tonight for dinner – Peanut butter and jelly and then we sang happy birthday and celebrated with a cupcake and opened presents. I think it’s been a little hard on Wyatt having to wait for his birthday and seeing Gavin get to do all this fun stuff and open presents so he was sweet to let Wyatt open one of his presents.  He then gave Wyatt a huge thank you huge after opening the present that he helped pick out and even let Wyatt wear one of his new jammy shirts because he wanted to be just like his brother. So sweet that he helped Wyatt feel so special on his day :).

And here are Gavin's answers to the 20 questions we ask every year:

What is your favorite color? Green

What is your favorite toy?  Pirate sword (happened to be the toy he was playing with at the moment)

What is your favorite fruit?  Bananas

What is your favorite tv show? Sonic the Hedgehog
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich
What is your favorite outfit? Ninjago shirt
What is your favorite game? Mario
What is your favorite snack? Cheez-It's
What is your favorite animal? Cheetah
What is your favorite song?  "Animal" by Neon Trees
What is your favorite book?  Ninjago vs. Pirate book
Who is your best friend?  Charlie from school
What is your favorite cereal? Fruit Loops
What is your favorite drink? Orange Juice
What is your favorite thing to do outside? Go to the pool and run through sprinkler
What is your favorite holiday? Easter
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Superman blanket
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Fruit Loops
What do you want for your birthday dinner? PB & J
What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Ninja