Smart Boys

Belly time with dad on Sunday.
Gabriel still loves reading books a lot! I kept a pile of cardboard books in the living room and he read through each one by himself the other day. For most of them he'd "read" them out loud to himself, either from the words he memorized or he'd describe the pictures.

Father's Day

On Saturday we bought season passes for Great America. Gabriel loves the area for kids, including a roller coaster just his size. We'll go play in all the water fountains when it gets hot. Paul and I are hoping to get a babysitter and go on a date there sometime. On Sunday, we went to Manresa State Beach (past Santa Cruz) for Father's Day. It was our first time there but it was great to get away for a few hours. Gabriel had fun climbing the tall bushes in our campsite and jumping in the ocean. Thankfully my parents, brother, and aunt were there to chase after him. This was Ephraim's first camping trip. He wasn't a fan of the sun and wind but we all had a good time.
We got home late on Sunday, so our schedule is a little off now. Here are pictures of my two little boys sleeping in this morning.
Gabriel loves building things. I helped him prop up this "slide" that he was using to roll the ball. He added all the other toys.

When He's Ready

My beautiful hazel-eyed boy is turning 3 in a couple of weeks! He speaks very well and comes up with his own ideas. He is growing up so fast. I thought it was time to get him into big boy underwear and potty-trained. We have tried before (at 2 years and 2 1/2) and he's been successful as we "practice" in big boy underwear some afternoons. I thought we'd go for good this week, "throw away the diapers" so to speak. We started on Monday, reviewed the details, set up rewards, got him excited, praised him and gave him lots of hugs. ... By Thursday afternoon it was clear that he does NOT want to go in the potty like a big boy. He knows it's coming, he perfectly capable of telling me, and he knows how to hold it. He refuses to go where he's suppose to since he purposely went on the carpet (more than once) with a big smile on his face. ... Maybe by his 4th birthday. ... Here is a "camera smile" while he plays with his trains and his dad's Construx.
On the other hand, Gabriel is outgrowing his challenging twos. I can notice a significant difference in him!! He can handle his frustrations much better, less melting down into tears or tantrums, more original thoughts, and LOTS more imagination and playing. Even if he sees something once on tv or a movie, he repeats it or asks about it or replays it with his toys. "The Electric Company" is his favorite tv show right now and the two "Toy Story" movies are at the top of his movie requests. He is such an awesome little boy (stress on the boy-ness because of the pretend guns...where'd he learn that?!) and growing so fast.

Ephraim turned 3 months this week!! I let it slip because we were busy potty training. Here he is in mom and dad's bed, sleeping in. He goes to bed around 8pm, tosses around midnight when I can usually convince him to go back to sleep, and wakes around 4am for a bottle. Sometimes he goes to sleep at 10pm instead, then when he wakes at 5am for the feeding I take him to bed with me afterward so we can sleep in together. I still get up at 7am to check on Gabriel so sometimes Ephraim gets to keep sleeping.

Side Roll

Ephraim can easily roll to his side now.
Ephraim 6/14/10 (13 weeks) ... and ...
Gabriel 9/21/07 (10 weeks)
And cute Gabriel helped me take the pictures.
I've been enjoying making bread lately. I tried to make crackers the other day. They didn't taste like crackers, but they were yummy bite-sized bread snacks. I made some strips with coarse salt and this batch with olive oil and rosemary.

Laughter

Ephraim laughed for the first time today! I thought I heard him laugh earlier this week, but I wasn't sure. This time, as I was giving him a bath, he laughed! A good couple of chuckles. It is so sweet to hear!

Belly Time

I've been trying to get Ephraim on his belly as much as possible. He really liked it the other day. It helped that Gabriel was entertaining him. (His hair is spikey in this picture because I made it stand up after I gave him a bath that day so I could trim his hair afterward.)

Gabriel said, "Take a picture of me too!" So I did:

Holiday Weekend

Gabriel is getting better about having a brother. Gabriel asked to hold Ephraim and for me to take a picture of it. I couldn't resist.
We've been doing "letter of the day." Gabriel chooses a letter, we practice its sound, mom writes it on the chalkboard and Gabriel tries to write the letter also. Then we list all the words we know that start with that letter. I'm trying to do other activities throughout the day that have to do with that letter too.
On Monday (Memorial Day holiday), we went to my parent's house who generously watched both kids for us while we went out on a much-needed date. (I'm just sad that both kids were so sick. Gabriel has a cough and both kids have a running nose.) We went out to Chinese food...
...and then went bowling!! We had so much fun!