The week started with Grandma and Nancy holding down the fort during the first part of the day, before Rosie starts her shift at 3:30pm. The timing was perfect because Nancy was already coming from the University of Iowa to stay with Sherry so the kids had two awesome caregivers Monday through Wednesday.
FaceTime with Aunt Ouize, Uncle Todd and Abe
Steven and Sammy are working on a play doh project together.
On Tuesday the kids brought all sorts of fun Thanksgiving crafts home from school!
Rosie, wrangling Bobo
On Wednesday, Nancy stayed home with Sammy and Amaya while Grandma Sunshine took Steven to PT with Meredith.
A slide for 3!
Building a blue bus
Cuddles with Rosie
Sammy, the firefighting ballerina
Happy Thanksgiving from my sweet little turkeys!
Aunt Ouize, Uncle Todd and Abe arrived around 11pm on Wednesday night and were ready to play when SSA woke up on Thanksgiving morning.
Aunt Ouize brought crafts that kept the kids occupied for hours. Especially Amaya! She just sat there and glued and glued and glued.
My children watching a performance from Cats. I will admit I teared up a little. Oh! And this year they’re finally old enough to appreciate the parade. Steven, in particular, loved the balloons.
Doesn’t everyone pee with a bike helmet on?
Pilgrim Sammy!
Lunchtime with Aunt Ouize
Selfies!!
Even after naps, the craft table was the place to be.
Steven, modeling his bedazzled pilgrim hat.
Amaya loves the men in her life. She’s cuddled up to Uncle Todd and Abe all weekend.
On Friday morning Steven was oddly lethargic. He actually fell back to sleep in my arms shortly after I got him up.
Little face.
I think his morning milk perked him up because he was fine for the rest of the day.
I had the day off from work so we had a lazy PJ day at home. Amaya was clingy and fussy most of the day but we did have a few fun shenanigans.
Amaya is peeing on the potty like a champ. She hasn’t had an accident in days and it holding it really well. Pooping on the potty is more of a challenge which, I suppose, can be expected. I made the mistake of giving her my iPad to keep her on the potty to keep trying. That was a 2 hour experiment that I won’t repeat. She kept asking to sit on the potty for the sole reason of using my iPad. I had to shut that down pretty quickly.
On the potty trying to poop. I asked her to make her “trying to poop face”, lol.
Steven, Sammy and Amaya love helping me make eggs.
In the afternoon, I went to the movies while Sherry and then Rosie held down the fort.
Steven’s magnatile creation.
Pushing Big Monkey in the stroller.
Bike rides!
And here’s sweet Baby Taco! Over a week old already! She just needs to maintain her temp and pass her car seat test. If all goes well, she’ll be home on Tuesday!
Saturday morning we have Playroom Pancakes for breakfast which always makes for a nice, lazy start to the day. This morning, Steven decided to actually cook his pancakes in his kitchen and Sammy and Amaya came over to help.
When you’re two, packing paper makes for all sorts of adventures.
With the holiday, we’ve had a few days at home so it was time to get out. We decided to check out Tiny Town, the location we picked for SSA’s 3rd birthday party in January.
So much fun! There’s a chalk wall, a salon, a pet hospital, a grocery store and a construction room. The center area has all sorts of fun toys to play with including a ball pit and a trampoline.
Amaya knew that letting go of the grocery cart would mean it was up for grabs so she held on to it while she rode on the car.
Definitely a good pick and somewhere we’ll visit again, even outside of their birthday party.
Aunt Ouize, Uncle Todd and Abe were back to the Land of Cheltenham during lunch and got to help out with hair cuts. After the original hysterics, the boys are doing great!
Sammy, cuddling with Grandma before his haircut.
Sammy’s turn!
When Steven and Sammy were done with their haircuts we started cleaning up but Amaya wasn’t having it. She wanted her haircut, too! Daddy gives the best pretend haircuts.
I love how Amaya is looking at Jason here.
For dinner we had the opportunity to go out for dinner with Todd’s brother and his family. Amaya wanted salad with chicken and the boys wanted cheeseburgers. In the end, Steven picked apart his bun and ate none of his meat but it turns out he loves malt vinegar. Sammy had 2 bites of his burger and grazed everyone else’s food. Amaya skipped the chicken in favor of salad with ranch, ketchup and honey mustard for dressing and then ate 1/2 of my ahi tuna wrap. Total toddlers at mealtime. (Maybe with the exception of the ahi tuna.)
Amaya did great with the potty at the restaurant but she’s giving us a run for our money. She went five times while we were there.
This morning Rosie joined us again to continue training on our daytime routine. Rosie has been a great fit for our family. The kids love her and she manages to walk the line between very caring and firm. She even got Amaya to poop on the potty for the 2nd time. It takes a lot of patience which Rosie has in spades. Thankfully.
Building on Steven 🙂
Sam-urai is back with a pony on top of his head, watching Grandma Sunshine drive away.
All morning the kids took turns combing my hair.
When Amaya wears this shirt, Jason calls her “flashdance”. So cute.
A mommy pile-on
Amaya, doing Sammy’s hair
Playing piano with music man, Daddy
During lunch, Nana and Ames arrived! Nana is helping hold down the fort this week and Ames is in town for business and staying the night with Team Cline.
The kids helping Nana unload groceries.
The kids clamoring for cheese sticks.
It was cold, but a sunny, crisp kind of cold so we went out for a short walk. Steven was afraid of the lawnmowers and of course a guy was out on his ride-on so Steven wanted to be carried the entire time. The kid is getting heavy! And of course Amaya only wanted to hold the hand I was carrying him with. Life with toddlers.
Sammy, Nana and Ames holding hands on the walk.
When we got back, Steven was slow to relinquish Nana’s gloves.
And then the 6 of us went out for dinner. We had bad, slow service but a good time out together. The bonus was that Amaya only used the potty 2 times, not 5!
That’s it for this week! Have a good one!