Recent happenings

We went to the beach again this week. When I was trying to get the boys showered off before we went home, I had them both stripped down naked. I set Walt in the stroller but didn't strap him in. I turned to help Dean turn on the water and smash! Walter tried to climb out and did a major face plant onto the concrete. Not two minutes later Dean wanted to turn the water off before me, so he ran in his sandals on the wet concrete, slipped and got pretty bad road rash on his bum. I felt horrible. Two screaming, injured, naked babies. Oi. Walt's nose was bleeding. Luckily he just got scraped up. His nose still looks pretty bad and he got road rash above and below his eye. I'm just glad it wasn't worse. They both fell asleep before we even made it out off state park property! I don't have a pic of his face yet, but you can see it in the video I'll link.

He's a crazy climber, though, so I doubt this will be the end of the injuries! I mean, just look at him climbing up Dean's step stool. He gets very frustrated when he climbs up and there's no water in the sink for him to splash in!


I got some new painting supplies for Dean and he has been LOVING them. I got paint, a little paint roller and some dot paints. By 6:30 this morning he was asking to "do crafts"! Today I just let him free paint. Yesterday we did F is for fireworks and Flag for the up coming 4th. He calls the dot paints fireworks now. =) We also made a very hungry caterpillar since he wanted to do more crafts with his new paints. (Dean took the second F picture "Dean want to take a picture for the flag." Every time he wants to take a picture of something he says he wants to take a picture for something.)


I finished building the toddler picnic table today. I nearly finished yesterday. I had 2 screws left and I hit a knot and split my board! I was so furious. I totally cried and everything. (Though I started my period today, a week early, and that may have had something to do with my crying. Once a month I break down over something. Never fail!) I just need to sand and paint it.

Walter's starting to talk a little more. He says mama, dada, uh oh (occasionally), and no, no, no (though it sounds more like na, na, na). He also shakes his head no and yes and can usually get it right. The second one is him trying to climb onto the finished picnic table.

To the Father of my Children

Happy Father's day. You probably won't ever read this, but thanks for being a wonderful daddy and for adding your good looking genes to my good looking genes so we have darling children.

We had a fun day at the lake...

but I think I need to hire a better sunscreen helper! haha.

Just kidding. It's so hard to get the whole sun screen thing down. Walt, Dean and I all walked away from the lake with some sort of burn. I on my back. Dean on his arms. Walt on one foot and a little on both legs. Oops.

Matt says we're not allowed to go back until I learn how to apply sun screen properly and timely. It's so hard with sand and water and no water proof watch!

Lake Ray Roberts is just about 40 min. from us. It's really fun. There's a group of women about my age with kids (ranging from about 10 yrs. to under a year) who go there about once a week. Thursday is the standard day. I hope we get to go a whole lot more this summer (and also hope this is the worst of the sunburns!!).

Oh, and Dean FINALLY went in the water! And he really enjoyed it. He's never really liked pools and refuses to play on splash pads at parks. But with a little tube and good life jacket, he had loads of fun floating "on his own".

Walt loved the beach almost too much! After we got home he had an explosive diaper full of sand! He ate a lot of it the first 20 min. we were there. =) Silly boy.

A Texas Rain

We haven't had much rain at all this past month, and it's been hotter than normal, so we were quite happy when the skies opened last week. We were supposed to go to the pool, but it was nice to have the rain fall on our garden. It was Walt's first time playing in the rain. Dean insisted on the boots saying they were "just right for rain and snow." He is quite right. Walter, on the other hand, went barefoot like always. The kid doesn't even own a pair of shoes or sandals!

Sleeping progress

We have our room back! Last week we moved Walter in with Dean. I was a bit worried since I was still feeding him around 4-5 AM, but I so needed my room back.

It's surprisingly gone much better than I had anticipated. Dean has done really well. He's a much heavier sleeper than I have given him credit for!

The first few days I got up and fed Walt around 4-5AM so he wouldn't wake up Dean. Then I decided to just go for it and finish off sleep training. A couple of nights he cried and cried until he fell back asleep around 6AM for 40 min. nap. Surprisingly, Dean never came into our room when that happened.

I've basically stopped making Dean have quiet time if Walt's napping during Dean's old nap time (since I don't really have a place to put him). While it's not been ideal, it's worked out ok. They go to bed at the same time at night, and that's been nice. There have been a few days where Dean napped and went to bed later than Walt (and once where it was reversed), but he was really good and didn't make noises to wake Walt up. Dean's actually been much better at bed time and has only tried to come out of his room once in the past two weeks after putting him down. I think it makes him feel better knowing that someone else is sharing his fate.

Now they're waking up between 6 and 7, and while I really don't want to get up before 7, I'll take it because of all the other pluses.

A different boy

Every time we cut Dean's hair, I think he looks like a totally different boy. These were both taken last week. The first one cracks me up!

Arlington Highland Games/ Scottish Festival

Last weekend we had the opportunity to go to the Highland games/Scottish festival here. Other than the fact that it was 103*, it was quite fun. Whoever schedules the games really needs to move it to March or October!!! It would be better suited for us whities. Seriously, not 10 minutes after getting out of our nicely air conditioned vehicle and slathering our bodies with 70 spf sun screen, we had a woman offer us some sun screen for the boys since they were already so flushed!!

We tried to keep them pumped full of liquid, and we applied a second coat of sun screen about half way through the day. After this horribly mottled face picture, I took walt to the bathroom and wet a paper towel to blot him down. The pic. of Dean with the blue ice was at the very end of the day. He fished around in the lunch bag and pulled it out to put on his belly!

We enjoyed the children's tent (where Dean made a necklace), the music tents, a long awaited traditional scottish meat pie, a fried mars bar (Matt had that while I went to the car to get more water and had the audacity not to save any!), Irn-bru, a delicious burger and slinky fries, and it was fun watching the actual games. We were unfortunately at the harp tent when a hammer was thrown over the fence and landed in someone's windshield!! Now that's not something you see every day. I actually heard her on the phone crying in the bathroom when I was changing Walt. Poor girl.

We were all quite worn out by the end! It was a good day.

The continuing saga of the potty train

After my last post on the subject, the potty train went downhill fast. Not only did Dean stop going on the potty, but he also stopped telling me if he had a poopy or wet diaper. It was a problem. Not only that, but he continues to FIGHT every diaper change. Since being on antibiotics (and super fast mobility), Walter has started to crawl away and fight diaper changes as well. I was getting fed up with fighting two little boys, so I decided one of them had to be potty trained NOW!

So, as we were waiting for Walt's antibiotics yesterday, I let the boys peruse the toy isle at target to see if there was anything relatively cheap that really spoke to Dean. Treats have no potty value to Dean any more, so I thought I'd go for a sticker chart that would lead to a slightly larger prize after a week of no diapers.

He found a garbage truck. He was very sad we weren't buying it right then and there. So I told him that if he started wearing undies and going on the potty that he could have it after 1 week. As we checked out, he told the cashier the plan, so I was happy he was listening and understood. =)

Today was day 1. He really has an aversion to underwear. I'm not sure if it's because he felt unsuccessful the other times he tried wearing them or what. So when I told him that diapers weren't an option this morning, he chose to go naked. And naked he went (from the waist down) the entire day. I let him decorate his potty chart with larger stickers that wouldn't fit in the boxes. Then I let him pick a small sticker out ever time after he went to the bathroom.

He was very responsible! He ran to the bathroom without prompting from me, and he only had 2 accidents! One was right before he got to the toilet, the other was right by my computer after Matt left for YM and I was putting Walter down for bed. He really did soooo well, especially since he's been so resistant the past few months. He legitimately went pee 9 times on the potty and poo once, all on his own. So, in a 12 hour span (with no nap) I'd say he did quite well.

Here's to hoping tomorrow goes as well. I'll probably let him go naked again tomorrow, and try and get undies on him on Friday.