B'day party pics

We had a fun and easy park party for Parker's b'day. I'm so glad I kept it simple with just preschool friends. They all had a great time. Here's Parker on his new scooter from Gran and Grandaddy. 

 It was very windy, and the candles wouldn't stay lit... Parker didn't seem to notice and it certainly didn't put a damper on the whole "blow out your candles" thing.

 Playing with one of his new toy rockets.

 The kids love Austin. He's just as popular as Parker is.

 Parker and "Tuck". He loves giving kids nicknames.

Baby Aussie

These eyes and his sweet smile. Get me every time. 

 He's obsessed with his cousin's baby doll. It's on the list for what to get him for his birthday. It's sweet to see him love, cuddle, and nurture that doll. It gives me hope that he'll be my helper down the road when we add another (real) baby to the family. Parker... he'll be too busy running circles around a baby to help. :)

 Parker informed me the other day, "Mom, chocolate milk is so healthy for you." I love when they play and imagine together. At this moment, Parker was pouring water out of his water bottle into dixie cups for he and Austin. They play so well together. I am SOOO lucky.

Four year old favorites

I love asking Parker questions every year, to remember his favorites and dreams. So here is a glimpse at Parker at 4 years old:

 1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? The flashlight and monster trucks. 
3. What is your favorite food? Panda cereal and cheerios
4. What is your favorite tv show? Little Einsteins
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Chick-fil-A chicken and fries
6. What is your favorite outfit?  Shark shirts
7. What is your favorite game? Temple Run on daddy's phone 
8. What is your favorite snack? fruit loops but it makes me crazy. 
9. What is your favorite animal? Dinosaurs
10. What is your favorite song? Old McDonald ("had a bowl... with a stir stir here)
11. What is your favorite book? Don't let the pigeon drive the bus
12. Who is your best friend? Sadie and Jacob and Austin
13. What is your favorite cereal? Fruit loops... has it when we stay at hotels
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Scooter... just got one for his birthday
15. What is your favorite drink?  lemonade
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas Eve (he said the same thing last year)
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? I like sleeping with my trucks, planes, flashlight, and white blanket. 
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Pancakes and donuts
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Fruit loops and cake.  
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? An astronaut, and I like firefighters.   

Legoland visit

We had a few open hours on Saturday, so we headed to Legoland at the last minute. It was busy, but fun. We rode this plane ride 3 or 4 times. It was a hit, especially with Austin. 

 Parker is starting to come around to mascots. Early on he was fearful of costumed characters, but I'm proud of him for overcoming his fear.

 "Mom, are you going to take a photo?"

Happy 4th Birthday Parker!

It's my first-born's 4th birthday today. February 24 at 3:30pm, my little blonde one came into the world. From the womb, he was an active guy who loved music. I remember hours of Pete and I swinging the car seat (not swaying with the car seat, SWINGING!) to keep him content. I remember us singing song after song to keep him quiet as a newborn. 

Now, this kid has one pace... FAST! He runs everywhere. I rarely see him walk. And he is constantly making up his own songs and serenading us in the car. It's the best. I will do his birthday interview later today, but just wanted to start out feeling thankful for my guy. Happy birthday, Parker!

 The pinata for his party today. Whoo hoo!

 Parker with Ryan and Chloe.

 Family shot. 5 secs before this he was pouting saying he didn't like taking pictures.

 A "birthday-eve" celebration at Grammy and Papa's last night. LOTS of frosting on that cake, right mom? She kept trying to scrape some icing off of of everyone's piece, assuming that they felt the same way about frosting that she did. haha. So cute.

I've got it pretty good

When I've got this kid hanging on my leg and saying, "I love YOU, Mama!"... I remember that my life is pretty good. 

It's a bird, it's a plane...

This is how we spent a good portion of our time at the great grandparent's house on Monday. The boys played outside and cruised in the Cozy Coupe (a car I got for my 1st birthday!).

Then Pete started showing off and jumping over the boys in the car. 

Parker, of course, wanted to be just like his daddy. Here's his version of car jumping. 

Oh how I dream of having a real yard someday, but I'm so thankful for our little patio and year round good weather:)

The boys also enjoyed their quality time with Gran and Grandaddy. 

Wee Sing soloist

Parker had a solo at Wee Sing. Usually the kids sing ABCs or Twinkle Twinkle, but I was so proud that he stuck with his original plan...

"Puff the Magic Dragon"... even though I'm not sure what exactly he is saying when he introduces his song choice. 

Also, Kids Sing is going great. We have 36 kids and we're doing Broadway music. It is such a blast. Our first song is "You can't stop the beat" from Hairspray and the kids are all about it. I really look forward to teaching this group. I'm still working out costume stuff. I've found so many cute skirts but boy are they making things short these days. Not okay. We'll see what I come up with. 

Keep your hands on the wheel

Oh boy, I hope this isn't a glimpse of what he'll look like driving a car someday. The things he'll do to keep Mickey near.

Allegro

Parker is pretty smart. Sometimes he is scary smart. He remembers words and phrases the first time he hears them and then uses them correctly the next time the opportunity arises. For example, I was thanking him for sharing something with Austin, and Parker's reply is, "Awww shucks... it was nothing. "

In addition to being very smart, he is also VERY active. If he gets overstimulated or really passionate about something, you can see him start to escalate in his hyperactivity. When this happens, there's literally nothing you can do to pull him out of it, but hug him and hold him if you can. But he's usually moving very fast and is very loud. Not an easy situation.

One day when he was not in one of the above-mentioned moods, he was talking to my mom about those episodes. He explained, "My brain is like a spinner. And it spins around and gets faster and faster and starts shooting out ideas." He told her that God told him that. Also he added, "Your brain helps you to make choices. Good choices or bad choices. Everyone has a brain and God wants you to use your brain." I can hear some of my talking mixed into his explanation, but it's amazing how he articulated what he is feeling internally.

On Sunday, Parker was at church and learning some new music. The music teacher is AWESOME and teaches correct music vocabulary. She explained that allegro means to sing fast and andante means to sing slow. It's hard to tell how much Parker is taking in during class, because it appears he is always turned around and hopping out of his chair.

Anyway, yesterday while we were driving home, Parker was chatting away in the backseat. "Mom, you know how my brain spins pretty fast sometimes... like it spins allegro? Well, you should try to spin it andante instead to calm down." Haha. Guess he was paying attention after all. Then we had a good conversation about techniques to help our brain slow down to andante.

Morning with Daddy

Last weekend Pete took the boys down to the Midway (air craft carrier) to walk around. They didn't go on the ship, but just walked around the harbor. They are so into ships and planes. Such fun for them. And it was great to have some quiet in the house to get some work done. 

I am a week away from finishing up with applications for Michigan. It has been a little rough keeping up with the all the household and mommy duties, while also working about 20 hours a week on apps, but the gig is too good to give up. I feel so fortunate to work from home with flexibility like I do. But I will be VERY glad to have some more free time when this season is over.

Jumpers

We made a last minute trip to the trampoline park last Saturday night. The big kid area was PACKED. I could not believe how crazy it was. They are making bank on that place. But the toddler area was just right:) Fun with Carter and Abby. 

 Austin and Abby. Tuckered out!

Go Pitt!

First off, Parker had a bad ear infection last week. His head hurt him tremendously... so much so that he  couldn't bear the light in the car. He had the blanket over his head the whole way here. Poor guy. I'm thankful for antibiotics. 

 We went up to Fullerton last weekend to watch my cousin play softball for her college team. So cute hearing my boys say, "Go Pitt" even though they were wearing Michigan gear. Unfortunately, Jenna had an injury the week before so she didn't play, but they did win, so that's awesome. Fun to see some of the Lieber fam up there!

Baby mine

Austin loves babies. In the preschool classroom, he goes straight to the baby dolls. He loves to hug, cuddle, stroke, and love on these babies. I hope when the real thing comes down the road that he'll be just as loving. This is a doll he stole from his cousins house. Whoops...

Happy Valentine's Day

This was the first year Parker received Valentine's cards from his classmates. Oh, how he treasures those sweet little cards. He kept saying, "Look how many friends I have!" and "They love me!" He has looked at those cards a hundred times and he is also proud because he can recognize most of his classmates' names. We were low-budget and I had him cut out hearts for each classmate and put a puffy dog sticker on each one. His cutting skills are top notch, so thought it was a great way to utilize that talent. I wasn't just trying to be thrifty:) 

 Oh the love these boys have for one another. Today in the car, "Austin, do you want to be my best friend forever and ever, just the two of us?" Be still my heart.

I appreciate this day not because of the commercialism. I don't expect a thing on this holiday. But I am so touched to see how the kindness of others affects my child. He felt loved on this day. He felt valued by his friends. And that's what it is all about. Happy V'day!

And a special happy valentine's day to my love. You got home a 2:30am this morning from work, but thought to text me at midnight to wish me love on this day. You're awesome and we love you!

-ing

Austin is cracking me up with his use of verbs lately. He is really big on adding -ing to his verbs. "I jumping," "I poopin'," "I eating," "It's workin'," "I driving," "I running." It's so funny!

He also loves to say, "I try it." He wants to participate in everything we do. What a little boy he's becoming.

Get what you get

"Mama, I want to have a baby sister in our family when I'm five." "Well, that's sounds like a pretty good time to add another baby in our family. Maybe we can do that. But we don't get to choose if it's a boy or a girl. God just gives us what He wants to give us." "Oh, like 'you get what you get and you don't throw a fit?'"

(A preschool expression usually applying to not arguing when you get a pink scarf instead of a green one, or something like that).

Another application of that expression... Parker's been watching some cartoons that have some villains that cause him to act out with extra angst and anger lately. I told him I don't want him watching those shows anymore. Well, he goes to watch Netflix and the most recent show pops up and it happens to be one of the no-no shows. I tell him to change it, and he replies, "It just came on mom, and you get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

Workout buddy

Capturing sweet moments on video goes like this:

1. Oh, he's so cute. I need to record this.

2. Go get camera.

3. Austin follows me to get camera, thus stopping what he was doing that was so cute.

4. "Okay Austin, do that thing again... dance again... sing again... do that thing with your eyes again..."

5. Force him into whatever position he was previously in and start mimicking what I want him to do. 

6. Record and get what you can.

So he often joins me in my morning workouts. Sometimes it's cute, sometimes he's just in the way, but I like to see him watching me and participating because I know I'm setting a healthy example for him.

Anyway, this morning he was super cute and doing everything I was doing beside me. Except, he was eating a sandwich while doing the moves. 

He makes my heart swell

Check out his sweet Valentine's crown.

And ya think this kid likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse?

Disney fans

We went up to Disneyland after preschool on Tuesday. It was awesome. Dare I say our best day yet. The weather was perfect, the crowds were minimal, and we stayed at CA Adventure so it was just overall more laid back. And our favorite Pixar Parade is at 5:15pm, so we got to see that. Awesome. Austin is also 32 inches now, which means there are several new rides he can go on, and when I'm the only adult with two boys, that means we ALL get to go on some new rides. Towing Mater was so much fun for Austin. At first he was unsure about the twists and turns, but he ended up cackling the whole time. Parker was so proud of Austin for meeting this height requirement.

Here's Parker at a Dance party:

The carrousel is a favorite. 

 Waiting for the parade. Usually I tell the boys Disneyland doesn't sell food... you have to bring in your own snacks. Thankfully they have never questioned why everyone else is eating cotton candy and ice cream... but since we had our food stipend from the flood... miracle of miracles... Disneyland had food today! A mickey shaped pretzel and ice cream, please!

 Thanks Mickey... you're always a hit.

 Austin is usually all about the mascots, but he got a little reserved around Chip.

But Parker stepped right up. 

 

 Towing Mater for the first time as a fam.

 Love these Disney days!