Beautiful Day

Oh how nice it was to have a break from the rain and enjoy a beautiful sunny day. I seriously had a bit of early spring fever. After seeing Clifford we went home to put Boopy down for a nap. Big Boy, Papa and I sat down and enjoyed watching Spider Man 3. After the movie and Boopy's nap the sun was still shining and it was warm enough to go out and enjoy the swings in the backyard. On such a gorgeous afternoon, I couldn't resist grabbing my camera and taking pictures of my favorite subjects! So without further ado, enjoy the massive amount of pictures and yes, I did take more - these are just what I was able to narrow it down to share.

Little Miss Attitude showed her stuff when Big Boy sat on the swing that she usually sits it. Her favorite word, "MINE" was screamed and she tried to push Big Boy out. A happy compromise was found when Big Boy agreed to let her sit on his lap to swing.

Just being cute!

The sky looked so neat. You can kind of make out Big Boy in the picture. He was so happy to be playing outside he was running and yelling.

A bug caught both kids attention and was quite fun to watch. Boopy being the snot that she is, kept wanting to touch and squish the bug. I tried but sad to say, the poor bug didn't make it.

Don't do it Boopy! Oh no - poor bug!

A little brotherly love before sliding down on her belly.

I taught them how to be a train down the slide. Big Boy was the engine and Boopy was the caboose. The ultimate fun for train loving kids.

Clifford

What a fun day we had today. We went to Barnes and Noble to meet Clifford! They often have a kids story time that Papa Vaughn used to take them to during the week but I had never had a chance to attend. Today was a bit more crowded than usual which I'm sure was because of Cllifford's visit.

Big Boy had to get in some reading time before getting to the book store.

Typical Boopy "cheese face"

Checking out books while waiting for Clifford.

I was pleased that Boopy wasn't very scared of Clifford. Granted, she wouldn't go up on her own, but she really liked seeing a big puppy. She kept waving and saying "Hi Puppy!" Big Boy of course had no problem and gave Clifford a big hug.

The kids were so intrigued by the Polaroid photo that the bookstore took for us. Papa showed them how they could watch the photo appear.

Portrait of Boopy - Photo by Big Boy

When we left Barnes & Noble there was a fire truck in the parking lot by our car. Big Boy was quite excited!

I thought we were done with this....

Frustrating, disappointing, worried, "it is what it is", and "it will be okay", are a few things that went through my head last night when Big Boy had a seizure. He had been home all day with me and Boopy because he woke up with a 101.2 fever. As it was, I had picked Boopy up early from daycare on Friday with a fever, although she broke hers fairly quickly and everyone was fine through the weekend. With Boopy, she may have had a fever but you could hardly tell as she was running around crazy, playing. Big Boy, on the other hand has everything affect him worse.

Yesterday he played quite a bit and for the most part was okay, even telling us he was okay when we asked. At the same time though, he'd wear down rather easily and just need to be cuddled for a while, which I rather enjoyed. Early in the evening Big Boy started slowing down a bit more and curled up on the couch with a movie. Papa Vaughn had just gotten home and ran out to get some more Gatorade and a few things for dinner. It was a little after 5 and I heard a gurgling noise from the living room. I had been in the kitchen cooking dinner. I ran to check on Big Boy and caught him at the end of a seizure and he had just thrown up on himself. Poor little guy. Figuring it's been two years from this past September that he's had a seizure, I thought he'd outgrown these things. Apparently, that's not the case. After cleaning him up and cooling him down, he fell fast asleep, his body obviously worn out.

While he's now perfectly fine and I'm confident the seizure is again tied to the fever and a febrile seizure, it's still frustrating to have this experience come back. I really figured since he's been sick with fevers at various points the past two years and not had a seizure that this not so fun concern was one of the past. I have notified his doctors so it's on record and let the daycare know. However, I'm hoping that this was just a tougher fever than I thought and it will be the final and last seizure we see. One can only hope and pray. My poor sweet Big Boy.

Because of the seizure and wanting to make sure he didn't overdue, I stayed home another day with Big Boy and therefore Boopy. Since his fever had broken, Big Boy was back to his normal silly self so we had a fun day just hanging out and playing together. When I sent the kids upstairs to put them down for a nap they both thought sleeping together in the blow up bed in our room would be fun. (We had the bed in our room for Darren to sleep in Tuesday night so we could keep a closer eye on him in case he had any more seizures.) They were just too cute not to snap a picture of!

Zoo Trip

This past Sunday, we took advantage of our wonderful family gift from Uncle Five, Aunt Kathie & Jakub and spent a couple hours at the zoo. I wasn't a good mama and didn't bring my camera along this time so I don't have pictures to share. I will share however, about the kids favorite animals. The biggest draw to going to the zoo was the chance to see MONKEYS! Currently, and perhaps due to the receiving of stuffed sock monkeys, monkeys have become the kids favorite animals. They can't get enough. They even love listening to my soundtrack from the Curious George movie, specifically asking for the "oh-ah-ah" song (that being the sound a monkey makes). Anyhow, we were in luck that the monkeys were hanging out ride at the front of the fence climbing and swinging all about. The kids had a ball!

Another favorite of the day for Boopy was, oddly, the antelope. She loved them! Not sure why, but antelope has become a popular word in her fast growing vocabulary. Both kids really enjoyed the reptile room, especially the snakes. Hopefully they won't stay too attached to these creatures as I don't think I could ever handle having a pet snake in our house. Big Boy especially liked the parrots, as they reminded him of pirates.

Overall, a fun visit and a nice relaxing family day. Thanks again, Five, Kathie and Jakub!

A tale of A Plumber & A Train Conductor (oh, and his assistant)

My son wants to be a plumber. Or perhaps a train conductor. Either way, he's quite cleaver. First off, having Big Boy fully potty trained now is an absolutely wonderful thing! One downside is getting him to figure out that he really doesn't need that much toilet paper. While it is fun to unroll it, he doesn't need much. Unfortunately he did use too much the other day downstairs and clogged the toilet. This gave Big Boy the chance to watch Papa Vaughn plunger the toilet to get it working again. The next day after using the bathroom upstairs in the morning, he was taking a while and so I peeked in to check on him and find this:

Big Boy was apparently trying to be like Papa and was teaching Boopy how to handle a plunger. We had another discussion on toilet paper use, but I'm rather proud that he takes responsibility and tries to fix problems himself. Just another sign of what a truly big boy he has become!

Later that night we let the kids play in our room a bit after their bath and before bedtime. Big Boy found a box I had emptied of diapers for Boopy and found a creative use for it. He put himself in the box and claimed it was a "choo-choo". Not long after Boopy insisted that she hitch a ride!

We also had a pull-up box that I had stuffed animals to give away in, so to keep the peace in a brewing battle over the one "choo-choo" I gave Boopy her own train to play with. They had more fun running around out room playing train conductors!

Here are a few more random fun pictures of the night. Enjoy!

Sleeping Update

Well, so far after a couple of weeks of fighting, begging and pleading with Boopy to sleep like a big girl in her bed, we've finally had a break through. The past three nights have been so wonderful! Believe it or not Boopy is finally responding to simple reasoning. Granted there's a bargain at the end of the deal, but it's working. We've stressed to her that if she wants to be a big girl and get a big kid bed like brother has, then she needs to show us that she can be a big girl and sleep in the bed she has all night long. Surprisingly this reasoning has really worked and Boopy has not been trying to get out of bed the minute we tuck her in. In fact she has been staying in her bed and sleeping quite well. Thankfully bed time is back to being a happy affair rather than something we've been dreading. Wish us luck that this continues!

Our Big 4 Year Old!
We took Big Boy's 4 year old pictures this weekend. Thought you'd enjoy a preview!