Go On, You'll Like It

"Go jump in that water, Mom. Go on! You'll like it!"

"Go hop in that boat Dad. Go on, you'll like it!"

We caught the debut of a new side of Silas (that we're not sure we like) while visiting Grand Haven a couple of weeks ago. We don't know where or how he came up with it, but we could not stop laughing about it. I'm picturing him (cringingly) as the future smart-aleck teenage boy, taunting his friends to do stunts that they know they shouldn't. Oh, Silas.

Sometimes you just need to get out of town, even if you LOVE your neighborhood and city. We spontaneously ran up to Grand Haven one night recently for tacos and beach time, and it was good for all of us. It's not easy taking the kids out any where these days, but we find that we all feel refreshed afterwards when we make the effort. Grand Haven is such a great place to spend a summer evening. We need to make the drive up there more often.

Birthday Week

The first week of April is always one much-looked-forward-to in our household. Olive celebrates her birthday on April 1 and Silas is right behind her on April 3. (We also had the coincidence of Easter falling on April 5 this year, which made the week all the more festive and sugar crazed!) 

We've always been able to mash up both birthdays into one big family celebration, but this year Olive really wanted to have her own day that didn't have to be shared with her brother. So, trying to be understanding parents, we decided to try doing two separate birthdays this year.

Never again, you guys. *Wink.* But seriously, it was a lot of work. I think the kids enjoyed it though, and that was the most important thing. We agreed when Olive was just a newborn that we weren't going to do parties for out kids, but that we'd try to keep birthday celebrations casual and focused more on family time. Of course, we needed some help getting rid of two birthday cakes in one week, so we had friends over both nights to lend a helping hand with that job, and that was really special.

Gosh, time really does fly. I was looking back to the last two years of birthdays with these two and they have changed so much!

Birthday Week

It's the end of another busy week. Matt's mom flew in last Thursday to spend a week with us. We enjoyed her visit so much and have all been rather glum since she left (miss you, Sharon!)

While Grandma was in town, we celebrated Olive and Silas' birthdays. Their birthdays are only 3 days apart, so they got to share a birthday cake again this year (chocolate - with coffee-icing, per Olive's persistent requests.) 

^ Olive had been begging for a doctor's kit for months. When she opened it up she said "OH. MY. GOODNESS." ^

^ Silas is extremely hard to shop for. When my mother in law was asking what he would like I suggested something with lights and noise. She obliged with a lion flashlight that roars whenever you flash the light. It was a huge hit with Silas! ^

How are they 5 and 2 already? The coming year is going to hold some pretty big things for these guys - like kindergarten for Olive in August. And potty training for Silas in...well, whenever Mom works up the courage to start...

Last year's birthday party HERE.

Silas Hearts Siri

Silas sneaks off with my phone as often as he can manage. This is all my fault, because I fell into the habit of letting him play with my phone to keep him quiet when we were out, and now he's obsessed.

His favorite thing about my phone is definitely Siri. He holds that home button down until the microphone pops up, and knows to speak into it to get her to respond. When she talks back to him he lights up like he won a prize. I'm pretty sure he's in love with her. Their "conversations" are hilarious.

Silas: (Incoherent babbling..)

Siri: "I'm sorry, but I don't know what "beh meh" means."

Silas: (Incoherent babbling...)

Siri: "There are 7 places matching "pizza" in your area, 3 of which are within 5 miles..."

Silas: (Incoherent babbling...)

Siri: "I give up."

Wiggly Party

Confession: I feel like poo these days. P-O-O. Except maybe spelled another, not so child-friendly way? Lots of contractions, day and night. Lousy pinched sciatic nerve. No sleep. Almost-fully-cooked baby who likes to get in really horrible, awkward positions in my uterus that make my filled-to-capacity belly look like it's housing an anvil. (You can actually see that she's sitting sideways from the outside - bizarre...and ouch.)

Confession two: I am finding myself turning to my laptop to babysit my kids more and more. Bad? Definitely. Survival necessity? Yes. 

Confession three: All my son will watch is The Wiggles. Yes, these guys...

Silas' love for the Wiggles knows no bounds. He leads me over to my sadly sticky-fingerprint covered Mac notebook every day, waits patiently for me to enter the password he hasn't broken yet, (any day now, I swear...) points to the iTunes button and then points to his favorite Wiggles movie, and then settles back with a serious, focused expression to get his needed Wiggles fix.

Classic Silas-Watching-Wiggles-Face - mouth slighly agape, eyes focused, body tense. Kind of reminds me of this guy, watching his team perform on The Voice...

...except Adam Levine doesn't drool (thank goodness.) Poor Silas can not watch the Wiggles without his mouth hanging open, and he can not stop the stream of drool that drips from his mouth whenever it is not closed. Sigh.

^^ THIS look. Reserved exclusively for Olive, who tries to get a reaction out of her focused brother by dancing and singing over-dramatically along with Sam, Anthony, Murray and Jeff. ^^

While he loves all Wiggles songs, he has his favorites and his "so-so's." Like, for some reason he's not crazy for the "La Bamba" sequence and will usually distract himself with boogers or a book until that one song is over.

And every once in a while, he gets so into it and so excited that he gets up and rocks out with Olive, breaking into some fancy dance moves. I can't get enough of watching my babies dance.

And, just for kicks - my personal favorite Wiggle's song...

Bits and Pieces

1. A dish scrubbie from The Seasoned Home (love that place.)

2. We've had nothing but clouds, rain, thunderstorms and then this morning...snow.

3. Hot tea (also from The Seasoned Home) makes everything better.

When I was clearing all the photos from my phone I realized

I have a TON of pictures of me and Silas together. He loves seeing himself on the phone.

I love getting him to laugh with that self-facing camera!

I love this chunker sooooooooooo much. He fills our days with lots of laughs and snuggles!