Peanut Butter and Zoo time!

This last weekend was a pretty fun-filled one.  I took Friday off so I could take the boys to the zoo with Shelley, Sean, Madeline, Cheyla and my friend Byrekka.  It was Quinn's first visit to the zoo!  The boys did fine, but there were school buses full of children for field trips!  So it was insane inside!  It took everything I had not to start knocking children over so I could get mine through the crowd.   Quinn wanted to walk around for a while holding my coffee cup (empty) for some reason, and if any of us took it away from him he'd scream "COFFEE?!" so we let him hold it.  He had to have the monkey harness after a while because he didn't feel like holding hands... and then when that wasn't any fun anymore, back in the stroller he went- he screamed a little and then realized his situation wasn't going to change and just resigned himself to sitting still.

 

Ronin and Sean measuring their wings

Quinny holding his "coffee" and holding my hand

The kiddo's posing

Quinn sporting his monkey-harness and saying hello to the fake penguins, while holding his coffee

Monkeys

Shelley, Byrekka and Me

This was his favorite part of the zoo-  lunch time.

Ronin and the bronze lion cub

Sean and Ronin

Me and the boys -- Quinn doesn't look too happy here

 

After we got home the boys were hungry so I made them both peanut butter & jelly sandwhiches, which is kind of a new thing for Quinn - he just recently started getting peanut butter and he LOVES it- this sandwich made his day I think.

Posing with his brother

Really enjoying it now

You'd think it was full of cheese from all these cheesy grins ;)

Happy boy

The boys sharing a chair

 

On Saturday we took the boys to a fishing derby in Woodland at Lake Merwin.  It was a great day to be out there, no fish where caught but the boys got to paint a fish and smear it on a tshirt, get raffle prizes, and Ronin caught a salamander with his bare hands- in which I had to convince him it would not make a good pet so he should let it go. 

 

Quinny getting ready to paint his fish

Quinns fish-shirt

Ronin and his salamander

Quinny is pretty fearless and wanted to go IN the water

Both Quinn and Ronin's fish shirts :)

 

wearing his shirt

Wearing his fish shirt too

 

Sean spent the night Saturday night and we also had to celebrate Brookes birthday so we had dinner on the river at the Puffin Cafe and then took a boat ride to the boat house to sing happy birthday and eat cake.  

 

For a while now when Ronin whines "mommy... mommy... mommy..." I tell him "there is no Mommy, only Zool." (Ghostbusters quote).  So he and Sean were scheming and I heard Sean say "go ask your mommy..." and Ronin replied "Her name's not Mommy, it's Zool."      ha ha!

At Puffin Cafe

In the cabin for the boat ride

Later that night they made a fort under the breakfast bar and watched Pinnochio before going to sleep.

 

Quinny wearing daddy's hat

 

A couple of weekends ago I did a "tree monitoring" event for my work where we go out to a tree planting site and write down how many trees are dead and why-- but the whole property was under water, and eventually it all seeped into our boots and we were soaked.  It was actually a lot of fun!  here's me and my coworker Tamera before we were soaked:

 

Yucky water!

 

The boys are doing well, Quinn's eyes look sooo much better and he cut two bottom canine teeth this weekend.  Ronin has a backpack for school now and we are slowly filling it with things he'll need to start kindergarten.   Tomorrow is our 6th wedding anniversary - we are taking Thursday off to go see a movie, go bow/arrow shooting and get some lunch all without kids, should be a good day :)

 

Lots of love,

C

Baby Vampires and Fairy Dust

Nothing too crazy going on in the Jones household lately.

 

Ronin drew a "Vampire Baby" at school, which is now on our fridge next to the brain-eating zombie.

Vampire Baby by Ronin

 

Quinn has been asking to use the potty... but he just practices getting up and down and likes to stick his feet through the hole...  I don't think there's much hope of starting real potty training yet.

 

Practicing on the potty

 

Loooks like the video link is working again so here's his potty video:

 

Quinn wanted to wear Ronin's spiderman costume one day so I put it on him and he was pretty happy with it on, although I had to put it on and take it about 2 more times that night.

 

 

Muscles!

 

Ronin FINALLY lost that first tooth!  It took nearly 2 weeks!  and then he swallowed it...  So he decided to draw a picture of what the tooth looked like and leave the note for the tooth fairy.  She was very kind and gave him a gold dollar coin with a couple of tiny letters sprinkled in fairy-dust, which he informed me was glitter- NOT fairy dust, because it doesn't make him fly.

 

His tooth picture

Missing first tooth!

 

Quinn is still very onry, and thinks it's funny to steal things from you and then run away giggling.  He does it with laundry, food, remotes, phones...  and here he is with my water bottle:

 

 

 

Ronin is doing really good in pre-school, he even got an "all star" award from his spanish teacher the other day.  He's making lots of friends and is still counting down the days until Kindergarten starts :)

 

Ronin in his pre-school classroom.

 

Our garden is doing well, we even had a strawberry ripen enough to eat!

 

Ronin eating the first strawberry - he said it was the best ever strawberry.  haha

 

We went as a family to see Jack the Giant Slayer at the $3 theater, Quinny did well for the first hour, and then didn't want to sit still much after that, but from what I could tell it was a really fun movie that we'll probably want to buy.  Quinn loved eating movie theater popcorn and just staring at the screen...  So later that weekend we popped a movie in and he did the same thing, but with cereal... 

 

Zoning out to a cartoon

Quinn is obsessed with Axl, and follows him everywhere trying to "snuggle"

After many tears, Daddy finally gave in and let Quinn hold his phone.  He pretends to talk on them.

 

Nothing much going... Quinn had his 18 month check up and his final 2 shots (until he's 4).  He's in the 75th percentile for weight, 90th percentile for height, and 50th percentile for head size.  My little tank!  

 

We are going to the Zoo tomorrow - Quinn's first time ever!  Ronin really wanted to see the new baby elephant.  We are going with Sean and his mom, Cheyla and one of my friends.  It should be a nice day to be there!

 

We miss Nana and hope she has a good trip in the South! 

 

More pictures/updates later, lots of love,

C