Our Growing Family: Elmo's In The House

I've learned that if I need to occupy my kids, Elmo videos on You Tube is the place to go. The catch is, I can then never get them away to do anything else. I think they could sit up at the bar and watch Elmo You Tube stuff on the computer for hours upon hours. It's an absolute pain to get them to move on to anything else. So it's so great and so bad all at the same time. Nonetheless, we've spent way too much time watching "I'm Elmo and I know it" 15+ times in a row, "Elmo's Riding" 25+ times in a row, and "Elmo's Got the Moves" over and over. I'm going to try and figure how to upload short video clips on here of them getting into the Elmo stuff--and of them actually singing "Elmo's Riding". With how often they've been watching those songs, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when Camryn started singing "Elllllmmmo's Riiiiiidiiiiing" so sweet the other day and has been every day since. It's a good thing Elmo is such an adorable little monster.

Speaking of adorable, I finally joined the recent decade and got on Instagram. So fun. Here's a sweet Coley instagram-ed picture...

And then here you can see where Cam bonked big time in the bath tub last week. She's got a great bruise/"owwwiieee"front and center on her nose. That's what happens when they monkey around in the tub and ignore my pleading for them to SIT!!!! Of course it didn't even seem to phase her, she was standing up doing the same thing the next night. No tumbles in about 4 days so far, though. Cole loves to splash in the tub and Camryn rarely sits down in tub. Bath times are so fun around here, they're not exhausting at all....???!!

With her bangs in her eyes now, Camryn is sporting the Bam-Bam look lately too. Her hair goes into pigtails super cute, she just immediately pulls them out. Just like she immediately pulls out any cute clip I put in her hair too. For some reason she keeps her Bam-Bam ponytail in a little longer than the others. A few times, she's actually kept it up and in all day. (Today, it lasted 2 hours, though--which is typical.) Getting a hair cut for both of them is on our agenda. I won't have any cut off the back of Camryn's, just a much needed bang trim and a general shape-up, since she won't ever keep it up or back.

Nana is making a birthday card to send into Sprout for their birthdays this year! She's got creativity I could only dream of having, so we're thrilled she's doing such a great card to send in. We're hoping to get on TV that day during the "Today's Birthdays" segments they do throughout the day. If not, they post all the cards sent in on their online gallery, so either way we'll be represented. She's doing an Elmo-themed card so she wanted some pictures of them in their Elmo shirts to go on it too. As usual, whenever I'd pull up and point the camera at them, they'd turn away, stop whatever cute thing they were doing, start crying (??), anything but pose cute for a picture!!! It took almost two hours that morning, but I ended up getting 2 pretty cute pictures of each of them...

WE LOVE ELMO!!

This past Saturday we finally took advantage of Kid's Night Out at our YMCA. (I keep calling it "Parents Night Out"--but that's more what it should be called, right?!). The first Saturday of every month kids 1 (and walking) through 11 get to go to the Y from 5:00-10:00. They get to play like crazy, eat pizza, make oreo desserts, watch movies, etc. and WE adults get to do whatever we want with no kids for a while. A win-win for all! I'm kicking myself it took me this long to realize they do this. We are definitely going to take advantage of this every month, it turned out to be a great experience for the kids and Matt and I had a nice evening too.

We decided to eat at The Keg. The last time we ate there, I had pneumonia (just didn't know it yet!) and didn't really have an appetite or feel like enjoying the experience. Kind of hard to enjoy anything when it hurts to breathe. Our second attempt was awesome and yummy. Good food (it was their "Lobster Summer" event going on. Yes, please!), good wine, good conversation. I was even more excited to go over to Barnes and Noble right after and have coffee/magazine-reading time. It doesn't take much to excite me. Back in the day that used to be one of our favorite things to do--Barnes and Noble coffee/reading times. It all started when Matt was in MBA school and I was fresh out my first, lengthy hospital stay. There was a Barnes and Noble right behind the apartments we lived in. Every evening we'd walk over there and settle in for the night. He would chug coffee and do his school work, I would read books, magazines, anything I could get my hands on---and being on ridiculously high amounts of prednisone, I would relish in the blasting air conditioning there! Our love for Barnes and Noble continued...up until the Camryn and Cole era began. I love the atmosphere of a great book store and we love spending that time together there, so it was all fun and nostalgic to get to start that tradition back up again last Saturday night. The teachers/sitters at the Y said the kids did great for it being their first time. I think they had even more fun because they got to be on the side with the bigger/older kids where they play. When we walked in, Camryn was sitting, smiling at a table coloring with some girls who were a little older and Cole was sitting with a couple other boys eating out of a bag of Bugles and watching a movie. Neither really wanted to leave! We hope to take advantage of Kids Night Out at the Y every month--but I really don't need a lobster dinner every time, though. ;)

We picked them up a little after 9:00. That is the latest these two have ever been up! We couldn't believe they were still going strong. Here's Camryn all happy, fresh off her night out at the Y in the car going home. Lucky for us, they got their jammies on okay and went right to bed when we got home. We were hoping they would sleep in the next morning. Cole did, but Cam was up and at 'em at 7:30, of course. As the day went on though, we were all paying for their late night. That, combo'd with our "Terrible Two's" definitely upon us made for a cranky day.

We managed to be happy enough to go outside to the park for a little bit. Mario was in Heaven. Matt brought his "chuck-it" and Mario got a big open field to run at top speed chasing after his ball.

Later that day Maggie and Fisher came for a quick overnight visit. They're going home to Kansas this Friday, we'll miss seeing them as often as we got to this summer.

Maggie and I played some more on Instagram and I just had to post one of my most favorite pictures again. Mario layed on my tummy through pretty much my entire pregnancy. Such a sweet big brother. :)