we had a great sunday! after the gym, we played out on the deck and had lunch. after nap, malloy and i made pizzelles! this time we made strawberry and almond. yum! when rex woke up, we went to the playground and met up with some of malloy's classmates, niko and ben. she knew that ben was going to be there, but was happily surprised to see niko, too! ben brought his dog to the park - he's a big golden retriever!! rex was so excited to pet the dog!! he wasn't scared at all. he was patting his head and poking his ear. he was loving the playground today! while he was climbing, he was saying "good job! good job!" over and over again. he's so damn cute!
tonight is night 2 of going to bed without yelling, screaming, crying, procrastinating, etc. HOORAY! the only thing we've done differently is give her a "special treat" if she goes to bed like a good girl. she gets a fruit slice. it's super special to her apparently!!

coloring! (surprise!!) rex colors at least 3 times a day. he can fill a whole coloring book in 10 minutes! when he colors, he means business!

jump roping!

ben showed malloy his technique

and then coached her

we had a fun day today!!! it started with uncle paddy coming over at 7:30am to visit! the kids had a great time showing him their toys and their favorite movie at the moment, hop. we went to the gym, and then went for a picnic with our friends, the warners!! malloy was so excited to spend some time with titus! it's been way too long! the kids had a blast playing together! rex was so cute at the end - he gave adalyn a hug and then went in for a kiss. little love bug! the kids went right down for nap this afternoon, no problems at all! this afternoon, we went for a family walk and ended up at the park! the kids LOVE to run around and go down slides. malloy loves to play restaurant at this park. she takes our order and makes us our food out of wood chips. rex was copying everything that she was doing and coming over to take our orders, too. we had so much fun that we lost track of time and had to go home to have fajitas, chips and guacamole to celebrate cinco de mayo, tonight -yum! malloy told me that she liked her dinner - i love to hear that!!
for bedtime, we tried something new. the kids watched a little bit of tv after dinner and then we got pajamas on. we brushed teeth and then i let malloy choose between playing classroom or reading some books. she chose books, so we read 4 books in bed. i think this helped her to wind down. we talked about what a fun day we had today and how much fun we'll have tomorrow. i also emphasized how HAPPY mommy and daddy were when she went to sleep for nap without yelling. so far, i haven't heard a peep and it's been an hour. hopefully i didn't just jinx anything!!!

the kids slept until 7 this morning!!! and they went down for nap without an issue - it was great!!  i ran them around outside for a few hours before lunch. that seemed to help. they played outside a lot before dinner, we played 'classroom' in malloy's bed for a while and she still yelled and cried in her bed until i went in to yell at her. why does she need to be yelled at before she goes to sleep! i tried very hard to ignore it, but i feel bad for rex and she's so stubborn that she won't stop!

silly girl! she had these on while she was changing elmo's diaper

picking flowers

we got out the bug stroller today. malloy took her baby for a walk, played with her in the grass, and gave her a bath.

ham

baby hung out with we colored with chalk

"me and baby all gone are twins"

first tootsie pops!

malloy is going through an anti-sleep phase at the moment! she takes forever to go to sleep for nap and same at bedtime. she waits until it's dark outside to go to sleep. today i put up a dark velcro shade to go right on the window so that it was completely dark in the room and she can't just pull back the curtain. she noticed right away that it was dark, called me in and said 'i can't see anything. i need a light so i can play." that's the whole point!!!! she managed to rip a little corner back and get some light in. they still ended up going to bed after 9pm. i'm at a total loss! i have no idea how to get them to go to sleep.

malloy had a school spirit day today. all the kids wore red and had a little parade and school cheer. it was cute!

we took uncle ryan out to dinner at red lobster to celebrate his last day of college and his birthday. the kids love it there and malloy was in her glory eating shrimp, crab, and lobster! rex played with his squinkies throughout the entire dinner. he was happy just playing very quietly while eating his dinner.

last night the kids had a blast playing on the deck without their clothes on!

we had a very busy morning! we started out the morning playing a sharing game. the kids were sitting in a hula hoop playing with squinkies and i can't take hearing "MINE!" screamed over and over again! so i sat down and bribed them with a treat if they played a game with me. they took turns giving each other one of their own squinkies. we did a lot of high fiving and clapping every time rex gave malloy a squinkie. i'm hoping that more of this kind of play will help rex (and malloy!) out a bit with sharing.
after playing for a while, we got all packed up and went to the zoo with friends! it was a fun trip and a beautiful day!
when we got back, rex was trying very hard to poop. i asked if he wanted to go on the potty and he was excited to try! he peed and pooped on the potty! such a big boy! he's really excited to go on the potty just like malloy!!

playing a sharing game!

getting a treat for playing the game

lounging

watching the sea lion

one of their favorite parts of the zoo!

all tuckered out on the way home from the zoo. malloy told me that she was the mommy and rex was the daddy of the care bear :)

potty time!

i know it's gross but i documented malloy's first poop, too!

the kids FINALLY waited until the light came on this morning to come out of their room! well, malloy did. rex is still trapped in his crib for the time being! malloy got a stone in her happy jar for staying in her room. rex demanded a stone for his happy jar (he doesn't have one). i quickly got a jar and gave him a stone. voila! they both now have happy jars! it was a pretty low key day - rainy and lazy. after school, we stayed home and played, napped, and played some more!