Standing

Peter is getting closer and closer to walking. He loves walking between Ben and me and initiates it every night at scripture time. He has taken no more than six steps, but I think he will walk soon. In this picture, he isn't walking. He's just standing. He loves to stand and can stand up straight from the floor (he doesn't need to pull himself up on something). He can hold things while standing, clap, rub his tummy. He is quite an expert stander and is so fun to watch. He's so happy and energetic. We love you, little Peter-Man!

Brush Your Teeth!

Peter loves brushing his teeth! Every time he hears the phrase or sees someone doing it, he puts his finger in his mouth and mimics the action. He is excited for teeth brushing time each night! And he's so cute doing it!

Four Years Ago Today

Time Out

We started giving Eddie time outs at two years old. Peter started giving himself time outs at 14 months old. A spot against the wall in our hall is the designated time out location. Whenever Eddie is having a timeout, Peter rushes over to join him. He likes trying to talk to Eddie and playing with Eddie during time out. When this doesn't fly, Peter just puts his back against the wall and sits. When I went to take a picture, Peter left the spot. I said, "Peter, go to time out." He went back immediately. Wow! Everything is easier the second time around.

Fourth of July

The fourth of July happened on July 4th this year. We were so happy to have William's family here. We had a nice summery dinner at home, sloppy joes, corn on the cob, and watermelon. We went to the park to see the fireworks. We played at the playground first. Then we walked over to find a spot to view the show. There was a concert going with pretty decent music. Eddie and Peter loved dancing. My boys are the dance-y-est kids I have ever seen. The "fireworkers", as Eddie called them, didn't start until 10 p.m., and Eddie and Peter were so tired. You can see it in all the pictures. There were a lot of biting ants, too. They chased Will's family away before the fireworks began. All day Eddie had been asking about the fireworks. When they began, they scared him and Peter to death. I held Peter. Ben held Eddie on his lap with Ben's hands over Eddie's ears. Talking Peter through each firework eventually calmed him down. Peter and I sat by Ben and Eddie, and I talked Eddie through each firework. I was distracting him by talking about each one. Soon Eddie was saying what each firework looked like. He started out serious then began to say silly things, like "grandma" and "Wal-mart". While walking back to the car, Eddie said, "I have a kind of fun song, Mom." He proceeded to make up a song with the lyrics being, "Thank you for the fireworkers." The best part is Eddie and Peter fell asleep in the car on the way home and stayed alseep while we carried them to their beds.

Surprise Endings

We all love surprise endings. Peter finds this one particularly exciting.

Eddie at Three Years Old

Favorite Foods-This one is actually hard. He is going through a phase where he won't eat anything, even the food I make because he requested it. He loves treats-cookies, donuts, and M&Ms. He almost always eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He usually eats noodles. He likes cheddar cheese. He likes buttered toast with no crust.
Favorite Toys-He loves to build train tracks. They always have to be a "circle" (closed track). He just recently is getting really good at building them by himself. Airplanes
Favorite Things to do-He loves to play in the sink, especially with a lot of soap. He loves to jump on our bed. He loves to paint. He loves to play games. He likes to watch tv and "moomees". He loves to pretend that he is a character from a tv show, a cat, a robot, or an airplane. He loves to be told stories. He especially loves stories that have "an Eddie in them". He loves to just hear us tell things that happened to him during that day. He loves to hear stories that happened to me or Ben or other family members "when we were little". He is always telling us "things that happened to him when he was little" that are actually stories we have told him from our pasts. He also loves stories with animals and his favorite characters from tv. He is also enjoying the classic stories, like Goldilocks. He wants to hear every story repeated twice, at least.
Favorite Games-He loves to pretend he is a "bad robot" coming to get us. We have to say, "Look at that robot that's coming!". We have to scream when he gets to us and run away. He likes Uno Attack, Memory, I Spy on the computer, the cake game on the computer, the car racing game on the tv. He likes to build puzzles. He even sometimes likes to work on adult puzzles with me.
Favorite songs-With scriptures every night he asks to sing "Popcorn Popping". When I put him to bed, he always wants me to sing "Miss Molly Had a Dolly-the one with the silly letters" (he tells me a letter and I substitute that letter for many of the first letters of the words in the song). He likes me to sing "There was and old lady who swallowed a fly". The last song he always wants me to sing is "ABCs", the version from Super Why.
Favorite books-I Spy books. He chooses probably seven books from the library each week, and he never "chooses" to take any of them back. His favorite books are always changing, but he has loved "3 Magic Balls" for a long time now. "Sounds on the Go"
What he doesn't like-He doesn't like the dark. He doesn't like Peter to "astroy" (destroy) his train tracks and other things he builds. He doesn't like to get his hair washed in the bathtub; he's worried about getting water on his face.
Favorite TV shows and characters-Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Super Agent Oso, Super Why, Curious George
Favorite places to go-the park, Lake Ella, the library, out to eat
Favorite animals-He still loves cats so much. He has ever since he turned one. He sleeps with his "kitty katty".

Edison's Third Birthday Presents

Eddie made out quite well in the presents department this year. Too well, actually; a couple of days after presents were all done he kept asking for another present. His first birthday package came a week early. It was from the Grandma and Grandpa with the silly car (my mom drives a yellow Beetle). It included rain boots. Eddie loves wearing them while splashing in puddles outside and while walking around the house handing out presents like Santa Claus.
If you could mentally put these two pictures together, you would see how cute he looks in his new rain boots.

He also got three airplanes and a helicopter from my parents. Upon unwrapping them, Eddie exclaimed, "I am going to love this!".

Eddie looks so cute flying them around while making flying sounds. He likes to play "flying to Grandma's". He is so obsessed with talking about flying to grandma's, even before he got these planes.

Peter loves flying them, too. I was surprised to see that Eddie is most willing to share his helicopter with Peter. Eddie originally said, "A helicopter! That's going to be my favorite!". For the first day or two, he often told Peter, "These are my present!" and didn't want to share any of them.


That first day Eddie often walked around the house holding all four of these flying devices at the same time. While doing so he said, "I am so lucky!".

Peter loved playing with the package.

We gave Eddie a box of puzzles. He loves it! It helps that the puzzles are of a rocket, an airplane, a firetruck, and a digger.

He insisted on doing all of the puzzles before we moved on with opening presents. The next morning Eddie came into our bedroom with this box of puzzles. We did all four puzzles before breakfast and again after. It was a hit! What I didn't realize, though, is that we were also giving him a lunchbox (the puzzle box), which he was way excited about.

His cousins gave him a zebra squirt gun that he's pretty excited about. He likes to use it in the pool.


We also gave Eddie a trike that we were pretty excited about. I was surprised how well he could pedal right away. He's adorable on it, but he gets tired easily. It's not always the most fun for me to be lugging it home in the heat if I have the stroller and everything. Hopefully it will get more use when it cools down a little.

Peter's pretty cute on it, too.


Eddie received a birthday package from his "Grandma and Grandpa with the castle" (Ben's parents have a toy castle that Eddie loves to play with). Before the package was even opened, Eddie said, "It's going to be a train!". He was right!

He also got this truck. He was so excited about the truck that he honestly didn't notice that it was filled with candy!


Eyeing up the candy.
Not sure he likes the circus peanuts.

We all love the new book he got! It is so sweet!

Edison had a great third birthday!

Eddie's Third Birthday Cake

Both Eddie and Peter helped make Eddie's cake this year. Eddie selected strawberry cake with chocolate frosting, though I made him go with vanilla frosting for dying purposes.


We made a train cake. Cousins, Kyle and Jeremy, were visiting and helped us decorate the train. Eddie chose to decorate the caboose, but only after he put the lights on the engine. Eddie ate more candy than he put on the cake. He didn't think the little Oreos needed to be the wheels, as he thought M&Ms, his favorite candy, worked just as well. Kyle was very meticulous about his decorating, even including wheels on the unfrosted side of the cake. Jeremy's philosophy seemed to be "the more the merrier", and he really piled the candy on.

The finished product! Looks great! Notice Eddie put three candles on each train car.

We had Eddie's favorite icecream, mint chocolate chip. I thought it adorable that Ben purchased Edy's brand!


We let each child select which train car his piece of cake came from. I thought Eddie might pick the caboose since he decorated it. He picked the engine, though. I assume because it was green, Eddie's favorite color. In fact, Michelle tried to get a picture of green-shirted Eddie when he was eating a green piece of licorice while a green slice of cake and green icecream were on his plate. Cake is still a finger food, apparently. Shortly after Peter's picture was taken, he choked on his cake. It tasted so good, he couldn't wait to get it all in his mouth.

Happy third birthday, my sweet, little Eddie! I love you and am so happy I'm your mama!

Sliding

Eddie and Peter love playing at the park. They especially love the slides. Peter loves climbing up the slides and wants to go down by himself, which makes me nervous. This particular day at the park, Peter spent sleeping.

Eddie's Wink

Look, everyone! Eddie can wink! Can't you tell?

Sunglasses Buddies

Peter and Pacifiers

Peter has recently been playing with his pacifiers; he hasn't used a pacifier since he was three months old. He likes to put them in his mouth and crawl around with them. Usually his top lip is curled over the top of the pacifier. He also likes to blow on the pacifier, like a bubble wand (he loves blowing bubbles and can blow them himself).

Popsicles

Eddie actually likes popsicles this summer; he wouldn't eat them last summer. Peter likes them, too, though he doesn't always differentiate between the popsicle and the stick.