More sunny day perks :)

For the sake of keeping those of you who actually read our blog interested, (since that last one was kind of long) I decided to save a few things for a separate post. :) The boys have discovered frozen yogurt... and by "frozen yogurt", I mean actual frozen yogurt. I found these empty push pop containers at Dominicks and Ikea and we put vanilla yogurt into them and froze them. The boys LOVE them! (Caleb especially!) :) Looks like we've got a keeper for those hot summer days!

It's pretty much impossible to keep the boys clean for any length of time period, but when yogurt pops are involved... just get the bathtub ready!

"What?"

"Hey! I wasn't done with that!"

"If you don't want yours... I DO!"

"Mmmm..."

We keep telling Micah, "it won't be long before Caleb is bigger than you and then you'd better watch out," but he's taking full advantage of his size advantage right now. (and keeping Caleb plenty entertained in the process) Here, the boys were playing with a piece of rope my dad had out for hanging a swing in the back yard. Caleb was amused at first, but then decided he'd had enough. :)

**NO children were harmed in the making of this film**

I also had to share a few cute pictures of my "future conductors" with Pops... love these guys!

Fun in the sun

We have had some BEAUTIFUL weather here lately! There were a few days where it seemed like we had completely skipped spring and gone straight into summer! It was even warm enough to get our kiddie pool out earlier this month! We've been taking full advantage of the nice days... playing outside, going for walks, and just enjoying God's amazing creation.

At the park ~

In addition to fun in the sun, we (well... the boys) have also had some fun in the MUD!

Fun in their pool :)

Of course, with beautiful spring weather come thunderstorms, and we got a few pictures of some interesting clouds outside our house one night before getting hit with a doozie! :) (these clouds kind of reminded me of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow"... if you've seen it, you should know what I mean)



We've had fun with friends...

Here's Micah and his gymnastics buddy, Shai, at the Kohl Children's Museum ~

If I had any clue about Photoshop, I would have cropped these two pictures to make one where both Micah and Jeremy are looking at the camera. Oh well. :)

...and been able to enjoy the newest member of the family a bit... (ok, a LOT! The massive amount of pictures are for you, Auntie Lisa) :)

Aaron and Eliza ~

Caleb wasn't too sure about Eliza at first...

...but he thinks she's pretty cute :)

Sweet little gassy smile ~

The boys, checking out their newest cousin...and her car seat (to be honest, I'm not sure which they were more interested in) :)

Relaxing after a diaper change ~

All ready to go home (she looks like she's thinking, "maybe if I appear uninterested, she'll stop taking my picture..." Sorry, kid, you'd better get used to it!) :)

Beautiful mommy & baby ~

Caleb was all about his cousin until Daddy showed up with ice cream! :)

Our boys have also discovered how much fun it is to bang the lids to our pots and pans together. **WARNING ~ you might want to turn your volume down before hitting play!**

Micah has also discovered his new favorite place to read! Believe it or not, he got in there all by himself. :)

He even got Nee Nee to read him a story in the tunnel! :)

I love how you can see Micah's feet on one side of the tunnel, and Nee Nee and Caleb on the other :)

It has been a beautiful spring so far, and we are looking forward to many more nice days to come! :)

Welcome, little one!

We welcomed the newest member to the Thomson family early this morning... Eliza Jean was born at 2:43 a.m. (I think), and is 19 1/2 inches long, and 7 lbs. 4 oz. Aaron and I got to meet her this afternoon, and she is precious! Congratulations, Jim and Julie! Eliza is beautiful and we are so blessed to have her in the family! Love you all!!!

**sorry for the blurriness... no flash to be sensitive to baby's eyes.

Eliza Jean Thomson ~

Proud mommy (who makes giving birth look easy! I couldn't believe how GREAT Julie looked so soon after giving birth! I'm officially jealous!) ;)

Soothing her sweet baby girl ~ you're a natural, Julie!

Proud auntie and daddy (I still can't believe my baby brother has a baby!!) :)

It's going to be fun watching Eliza grow up... I wonder how long it will be before she's making goofy faces for the camera like her daddy! :)

I can definitely see Jim in Eliza... but maybe that's just because he's making the same face she is :)

It IS possible for Jim to smile for the camera... he just can't know you're snapping a picture! ;) Julie ~ you're such a good sport!

We didn't visit with the new parents for too long... they had already had a lot of visitors, and we could tell they needed some down time. But we're looking forward to many more, and longer, visits with the Thomson family! And, I'm sure, there will be more pictures to post soon. :)

Walking!!

Caleb is now 10 months, one week, and one day old, and while his preferred mode of personal transportation is still crawling, he is starting to take more and more steps from one place to another. He's been cruising along the furniture for a while now, to get where he wants to go, but just in the last few days has been letting go and trying it on his own more.

I managed to get a brief video of a few steps this morning... sorry about the spit up at the end. :)

It won't be long before both of my boys will be running circles around me, while I stand there with a dazed look on my face wondering where the time went! Can't wait! :)

Jesus Loves Me

If this doesn't melt your heart and crack you up, I don't know what will! :) LOVE my sweet little man!

Micah singing "Jesus Loves Me" at dinner ~

What do you think of when...

...you see a 2 year old running around with a big, fluffy bottom?


We started using cloth diapers back in October, and we LOVE them! No more realizing we're out of diapers as we're getting the kids ready for bed, no more contributing to landfills with stinky diapers, very few...if any... blowouts, and (believe it or not) we're saving money by not buying disposables every few weeks. The thing that took me the longest to get used to was the kids' big, fluffy bums. Cloth diapers are considerably poofier than disposables, so the boys definitely have "bubble butts"... which can make getting pants on and off a bit challenging. But, it's worth it to not have to run to Walmart at the last minute to buy diapers when we've run out. :)


So... what do you think of when you see a 2 year old running around with a big, fluffy bottom? Aaron thinks of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" (which I didn't realize was a song by Trace Adkins until recently! I don't listen to a lot of country music). It's actually a fairly offensive song about a woman's behind, so I won't post the lyrics, but the title is definitely appropriate to describe my kids' bums in their diapers. But, they don't seem to mind their big bottoms...extra padding for when they fall down, I guess... and we're doing a little bit to help the environment. Plus the diapers are SUPER cute! :)

**Note ~ these pictures are some of the first ones I took of the boys in their cloth diapers, and while their bums are VERY fluffy, I still need to get some better pictures to really give you the full experience of the "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" :) Stay tuned. :)

Cankles

It's no secret that I've had big babies. Micah was 8 lbs., 14 oz. (born 11 days early), and Caleb was a whopping 10 lbs., 10 oz.! Both have tapered off in their growth now though, and fall right smack in the middle of the spectrum for both height and weight. But, they have cankles. Micah's legs are slimming down now that he never stands still for more than a few seconds at a time, but Caleb's feet just kind of go right into his calves, making it VERY difficult to keep socks on him. So I put my sewing machine to good use, thanks to a DIY tutorial I found on Pinterest, (link here) and made Caleb some slippers to wear that not only stay on his feet (as long as he doesn't yank them off) but help keep his socks on as well!

I made a few pairs, as they are super easy, and even tried adjusting the pattern to make some for Micah. (those didn't work out as I'd hoped... I think I need to make the toe piece wider to be able to get his foot in it) But Caleb has gotten some good use out of them, and since I already had the material for 2 of the 3 pairs I've made, this was a super inexpensive project.

Modeling his Elmo slippers (and looking exhausted!) ~



The "collection" ~

My first pair ~ Elmo


Second pair came from one of Aaron's old t-shirts ~


Third pair (my attempt to adjust the pattern for Micah's feet) was some leftover material from another project ~

Aaron has even asked me to make him some... we'll see if I can make that happen though, since my first attempt at altering the pattern was a flop. :)