Lego Geniuses at Work

**Woo Hoo!! I just realized this is my 400th blog post!**

My boys LOVE playing with blocks of all kinds. We have the original Legos, we have Lego Duplos, we have Mega Bloks, we have foam blocks, and we have an odd assortment of random blocks as well. I have so much fun seeing them create and play for hours. I don’t even mind picking them up since Spencer loves to help throw them in the box.

Flying Bulldozer

Hover Craft Fan Boat

Spencer was so proud of his choo-choo-choo! He’s been working hard on hooking them together.

He actually searched the pile for this particular block to build a tower. Great sorting!

A house with a patterned foundation and “room for air” at the top.

Ice Storm, 2015

We’ve had a pretty disappointed 4-year-old on our hands! He was so excited for snow and building a snowman and having a snowball fight. Too bad we just got ice! Alex was a great helper before the ice started on Monday. He and I bundled up while Spencer napped so we could clean up the backyard and salt the driveway for Daddy. It actually started snowing a little while we were out, then the ice started just as we went in.

I’m curious to see if Tim will make it to work tomorrow. School’s been cancelled again. I know the main roads will be salted, but getting up the hill in our neighborhood will be a challenge!

*If you want to read about last winter’s snow, click here. If you want to go even further back, click here for our 2013 snow storm.*

He was so proud of his poop collecting abilities!

Salting the driveway.

Spencer was so worried he’d be left in the house, he wouldn’t let the tag off his boots.

Our attempt at sledding. I guess it’s time to buy some real sleds! We have a great driveway for it.

Walking the street with Daddy.

Fun With Boxes

It all started last week with a box from UPS. Our property manager sent us a new dishwasher rack (the old one had rusted out for a second time). While I was happily loading the dishwasher, the boys started crawling in and playing with the box. The next day at work, Tim found some HUGE boxes and brought them home for a fort. They ended up making a submarine the first night, then modifying it into a rocket the second night. Now, I think, it’s a house. Whatever it is, is has created tons of fun for the boys! They have been coloring and stickering the inside and out … it is quite the masterpiece! They’d even been really good with the crayons until Spencer drew on the tile in front of the fireplace and the pantry door while we were cooking dinner tonight! Oops!

Alex peeking out of the submarine at Spencer.

Spencer applying stickers and Alex planning some artwork.

4 days later, the inside of the house is very “prettyful”.

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The crazies started playing with diaper boxes, too!

Spencer was saying, “stuck, stuck” and Alex was just laughing.

Valentine’s Day 2015

While Tim and I don’t do any more than exchange cards and cook a nice meal, we did try to make Valentine’s Day special for the boys. Unfortunately, Alex was sick again with a high fever, so he missed his party at school. At least he never seems to realize he’s not going to school on these sick days. Valentine’s morning started with a bit of excitement … Alex had been complaining of leg pain the night before and woke up in so much pain he refused to walk and started yelling for me from his bedroom that he couldn’t walk. After a frustrating few hours, he started hobbling around and eventually was back to normal by evening. We think he’s going to have the same extreme growing pains Tim had as a boy. Poor thing … not a fun way to celebrate Valentine’s Day!

Alex’s Valentine’s … ring pops and gel clings.

Flowers and cards for Miss Barrie and Miss Sharon.

Alex had so much fun creating a card for Daddy.

You can’t tell from his face, but Spencer had a ton of fun with Daddy’s card as well!

Thank you to everyone who sent us cards!

Valentine’s breakfast! Cinnamon roll reshaped into a heart, baked egg heart, and bacon!

TNMT Heartbreaker and Spud Muffin … my two sweet Valentines!

Water Painting

Alex and Spencer tried their hands at water painting this afternoon. I was amazed they stuck to it for as long as they did!

I was so impressed with Alex’s 1st painting. He really worked hard on it!

Backyard Antics

We’ve been trying to take advantage of our backyard whenever we have the chance. Alex and Spencer love playing together outside and luckily the end of January and beginning of February have been mostly dry. Here’s a fun video of the boys being boys. First you’ll see Alex trying out his balance bike outside for the first time, then Alex attempting to “tow” the Power Wheel with his digger, then Spencer driving the Power Wheel (since the video, he can actually drive across the yard without stopping), and a dump truck rescue mission. We can’t wait for spring and summer!

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Tiger World

We finally made it to Tiger World last weekend! It’s been on our list since we moved here and I heard that it was actually a fun place to go. Tiger World is a small nonprofit animal park that rescues and rehabs exotic animals. While the have many tigers, they also have lions, bears, baboons, peacocks, wolves, and a few other animals. They’re expanding and will open a reptile house, so we’ll definitely have to go back again with Brie and Kelsey. The animals have fairly large enclosures and all appear happy, so that’s good. Sometimes these rescue places can be pretty sketchy. We had a blast – and we didn’t even need our stroller! Spencer was so excited to just walk around like Alex.

I love that Kovu sleeps in the same position as this tiger. We also saw many lions sleeping like this.

Gingerbread House

Do you remember the Doozers? They were the little green guys that loved to build in Fraggle Rock. I think the Fraggles liked to eat the Doozers’ creations. Well, there is a new animated show based on those Doozers, starring 4 kid Doozers who love to invent things. This has inspired Alex to create and invent and overall wow us with some of his ideas … but that’s another blog post. His favorite Doozers show is where they build a gingerbread house. It kept cracking, falling down, and getting eaten. So Alex decided he wanted to build one. We didn’t have the chance to make one over Christmas with all the sickness, so we figured, why not? We just made it with Valentine’s candy.

After placing a few hearts on the roof, Alex was content with just eating the decorations.

Alex loved spreading frosting on our graham crackers (we cheated a little) and sprinkling the “flowers” in front of the house.

It was nice to spend some special time with Alex while Spencer was napping.

This pictures just keeps cracking me up.

Alex (and Kovu) were so excited to start eating the house the next day. And yes, we let Spencer eat some with us!

Spencer is 18 Months Old!

Well, he’s almost 19 months now … but I was putting off this post until we went to his well-check last week. I was afraid Spencer would not be excited about being back at the doctor’s office after our sick visit and flu checks the week before, but he was fine. He talked and smiled with Dr. Webb and barely even made a sound when he got his shots.

Here are Spencer’s 18 month stats. It’s amazing how close to Alex he is in size!

Height: 33.5 inches … 80 %ile (grew 1 inch since Oct) Alex was 33.5 inches, too!

Weight: 27 lbs, 6 oz … 85 %ile (gained 2 lbs since Oct) Alex was 26 lbs, 6 oz

Head: 49.5 cm … 94 %ile (grew about 1 cm since OCt) Alex was 50 cm

Spencer has become quite the chatterbox! He surprises us everyday with a new word and has even started putting words together. Today, he kept hiding a fork under his truck, then saying, “Oh no! Where doh?” Pretty good for an almost 19 month old, right? He also LOVES to sing. You can actually tell he’s singing Old MacDonald or Twinkle Twinkle from the tune. He loves for you to count and tries to say one, two, three, go! all day long. This is really cute, until you try to count to twenty while he’s sitting in time-out (usually for hitting Alex). He just sits there and grins because he loves to hear us count!

Spencer is also an evil genius. He is so inquisitive about everything and uses his Daddy’s engineering mind to figure everything out. He knows how to open all our kitchen cabinets and drawers (even though they have child-locks), he can turn doorknobs, but isn’t quite tall enough to open the door yet, he’s figured out the touchscreens and can start and stop the tv at will. I definitely run, run, run to keep up with him, but he keeps me laughing while I’m running. Alex has even gotten to the point where he finds Spencer’s antics funny, has stopped getting mad when Spencer hits him, and loves to just shake his head at me when Spencer is being crazy. They are so much fun together!

And now, my favorite part of this blog post … comparing Alex and Spencer! (While browsing old pictures, I couldn’t decide on just 1)

Alex, 18 months old	Spencer, 18 months old
Alex, 18 months	Spencer, 18 months