Catching Up

We have had a busy summer so far. Here are few pictures to show you what we have been up to.

Heart Walk on my birthday

Yep we are dancing aka looking at it.

Dad's ready to go

We made it!

Father's Day and my birthday celebration

Chuck, Brecken, Dave, Evan, Wyatt and Nick 

Evan mowing with Gpa Dave 

Evan finished his first soccer team. He loved it!! He was always in there with the ball and running the entire time. We did have to remind him we don't tackle in soccer. Yeah mom I know, only football. Two seconds later he is falling on someone again.

Warm ups

Staying with Grandpa Dave and Grandma Lois while Nick and Amy were in Minnesota

Grandpa Dave forgetting what is like to get up at 5:15 a.m. with a sick little boy.

Wyatt not feeling good at all. 

Wyatt the happiest baby on the planet in his buggy at school.

Swinging at the park on mom's day off. 

Playing on the deck 

Race car at Blank Children's Hospital came to visit so Evan got to sit in it.

Nick and Amy in Lutsen, MN

Hiking in flip flops - rookie move. 

More summer fun updates and 9 month photos of Wyatt!

Love,

Nick, Amy, Evan and Wyatt



8 months old

Wyatt is 8 months and a mover and a shaker. He climbs stairs, pulls himself up on everything and chases Evan and Lou around all the time. He is still the sweetest little boy and smiles all the time.

8 months with Elephante

Let the attack begin 

Going after scraps at school

Got it!

Cutest little boy going up the stairs

GO UNI - barely could get a picture he was attacking me.  

Talking to his friend Cooper at school.

Wyatt is eating Gerber 3rds, puffs, drinking water from a sippy and we have given him a few different fruits and bread. He is growing so fast and is such a fun little boy.

Love,

Nick, Amy, Evan and Wyatt



Summer Fun Days

I am so excited to have days off now from work to spend with the boys. Our first day we went to the zoo and then to my parents house to "farm". The amount of stuff the boys did was exhausting and they were showing it by the time we went home:)

Me feeding the bird after Evan freaked and didn't want to do it. I asked if he wanted to be a vet when he grew up and he said no. Again Nick's personality hand twin.

Carousel 

Riding with Wyatt at Homemakers 

One of my favorites so far. 

Farmin' is tough work (he is just chillin' on the tractor) 

Feeding the fish...one by one by one each pebble went in the water.  

Loved feeding the swans 

Grandma Lois came with us and they got to ride the train together 

Mowing with Grandpa Dave 

Evan started soccer at the YMCA too. He loves it, go figure. He is right in there with all the kids. Honestly made me so happy to watch him run and play. 

Exhausted at school:)

Also Evan got a bike from Grandma and he is doing great - this is the first day he really tried riding it.

We are already busy and summer has just started. I promise Wyatt 8 month pictures are next!

Love,
Nick, Amy, Evan and Wyatt

Helmets Required

I have a ton of pictures so I will be brief. Wyatt is now crawling like a maniac, pulling himself up stairs and on everything. He also needs a helmet. He has fallen off the bed, gotten a goose egg at school and ran right into the wall. I just wonder how long before it is permanent damage.

Playing in the water at school

Happiest baby of all time in the bath 

Nick ran Dam to Dam a 20k race last weekend and did awesome. This is him briefly stopping to say hi to the boys.  

Wyatt and his shiner above his right eye, but still happiest of all time. 

A few more Florida pictures

Wyatt and Evan looking at airplanes.  

Dad and Evan relaxing on the hammock 

Evan loves the sprinkler and taking off his clothes.

Mom and Evan running through the sprinkler.  

In his undies 

Dad don't shut the water off yet... 

I am going to get you! (me ready to kink it) 

Me having to kink it. 

Get them mom! 

Time for batter batter in his undies 

Evan dancing with Aunt Erin and Cousin Megan at 60th Wedding anniversary

Show down with Evan and Mom over the hose. (me kinking again) 

Aunt Erin reading books to the boys.  

We have had so much fun traveling, but we are ready to be home for awhile. More fun photos to come!

Love,
Nick, Amy, Evan and Wyatt

Raising Boys

I am blessed to have two healthy, beautiful sons in my life. I came upon this blog from a dad, giving advice to moms of boys. I really enjoyed reading it, hope you will too. I added my two cents worth of raising boys now for 3 years.

http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/raising-boys-advice-for-moms/

• Think caveman. Adult women have thousands of emotional states, as do girls like my daughter. Boys, on the other hand, tend to feel one of three: mad, sad, happy. Don’t project your complex emotional life on your son. His issue of the moment might not be that complicated. He wants to eat, poop, or run. On a really bad day he wants his toy back after some other kid took it from him. He doesn’t want to stare out the window and have lengthy discussions about the meaning of life, as my eight-year-old daughter often did.
• Watch his body not his mouth. Again, like adult men, the clues to how your son is doing will show up first in his body language. Jumping up and down (Evan will do this so much when he is excited) with six-inch vertical leaps is the natural state of being and is good. Slumped shoulders are bad. Yelling is good. Quiet needs attention.(PRONTO - mostly because he is doing something naughty)
• When in doubt, hug. Boys will often have a much harder time than girls verbalizing their problems. My 5-year-old son will sometimes burst out into tears after seemingly trivial events. I know there is something deeper going on, but I am not going to get it out of him, at least not at that moment (whereas my daughter would not only tell me what went wrong but in no uncertain terms why it was my fault, which was generally true enough). So the solution is physical not verbal. I spend a lot of time just hugging my boys. I usually have no idea why. But as a default cure-all, it seems to work wonders. A minute later they are all patched up and ready to rumble again. This even works pretty well with my 14-year-old, who is a 6-foot-tall linebacker at Boston College High School. When Evan was a baby I used to tell him when we were rocking (for hours) that I hoped he would always let me hug him, but I did promise I would never do it in front of his friends or try to embarass him while doing so, but promise to always hug me. I hope he heard me:)
• Yes, it really is all about poop. Girls potty train 6 to 9 months before boys, but once boys make it onto the throne, there is no stopping them. Moving their bowels is pretty much the highlight of their day (true confession: it still is for me, too), and they are going to want to talk about it. Bathroom time is a participatory sport. My five-year-old likes to head to the bathroom just as the family is sitting down to dinner, sometimesduring dinner. It’s the first time he has been still long enough to realize he has to go. And he wants me to come with him, not just to assist in the wipe but to have a leisurely conversation about the status of his poop. As much as I found this inconvenient at first, now I just go with it. Quality time is quality time. Yep at dinner time and is very proud.
• Batman lives forever. Boys, even at a young age, realize the importance of super powers. They want to be good and believe in the existence of ultimate good in the world. Boys sort out their identities in relation to the mythical characters they hear about. My son is obsessed with Batman. He wears a full costume, even through the airport and down Madison Avenue. What amazes me even more than his dedication to the superhero is how the guard at LaGuardia or the guy hanging off the back of a garbage truck sees him and shouts, “Batman!” My boy nods his head just slightly, acknowledging his public before moving onto the important work at hand, like going to kindergarten.
• Pointless physical activity is perfect. My brother and I once convinced his two sons and my older boy, when they were all around the age of 10, that they really needed to build a structure out of rocks. The rocks were on one side of a beach, but the perfect spot where the structure had to be built, according to our sage advice, was on the other side of the beach. Each stone weighed between ten and thirty pounds. The boys started moving the boulders one by one, working together to lift the heaviest ones. My brother and I set up our beach chairs midway from the rock pile to building site. We read the paper most of the morning while the boys tired themselves out moving rocks and then assembling a tremendous cathedral. By lunch they were tired and happy, and my brother and I had enjoyed a peaceful morning. I am going to have to try this out:)
• Winning does matter, but less than you think. Boys — perhaps even more than girls — put themselves under extreme pressure to perform in school, in sports, and in social situations. They talk about it less, so the sting of failure can run even more deeply than with girls. With boys it’s important to emphasize the lessons to be gained from failure, instead of trying to win at all costs, and to emphasize the development of the whole boy. Too often in our culture, boys are pushed to become one-dimensional robots. Goodness isn’t about winning at youth soccer or having the most friends or being the smartest kid in class; it’s also about being kind. That’s something as a mom that you can particularly help your son understand. We have really stressed being nice, and including everyone - I just hope it sticks.
• Clothes matter. I know there are way more options for dressing little girls than little boys, so the tendency might be to just throw jeans and a t-shirt on your son and forget about it. But you better make sure they are the right jeans and the right t-shirt. The only consistent battle I have had with my sons is over what they wear. It matters way more to them than I ever would have imagined. They want to look cool; they want to be comfortable (pants that are tight but not too tight, warm and yet breathable). I do draw the line with clothes that have already been worn two days in a row, but I don’t discount the importance of fashion to my kindergartener. I have a hard time with this one, I love how Wyatt and Evan look in jeans, but they don't like them. Too tight mommy! I tell Nick, just let me be a girl for a minute while dressing them and then you can have them back for ball.
• Crowds, not so much. I have noticed that my daughter lights up when she enters a crowd, whether family or strangers. Mass humanity is something that gives her energy. With my boys, and, frankly, for me too, it’s the opposite. They get shy and tend to hide behind my legs. I try to protect them from these situations and not push them beyond their limitations. This is where Evan is different, he loves crowds, unless there is a mascot around.
• Bedtime is sacred. Because boys are so active, it’s hard to get them to sit still. The best time of day is the ten minutes before they go to sleep. Crawl into bed with them, read books, and hold them while they fall off to sleep. If you don’t believe in God, you will once you have lain next to your overactive son while his body goes limp next to you, and he ever so faintly begins to snore. I cried reading this because it is SO true. I love when Evan and Wyatt fall asleep with me and I don't ever want to let go because I know some day, way too soon, they won't let me do it.