A Jumble of Days

Ok, grandparents.  Its been a while, and there have been a few things worth sharing that I actually caught on video.  I'm excited for them.  But, this post is a little like my journal writing: sporadic at best.  Thus, these things aren't really in chronological order.  I hope you enjoy them anyway. 

 To start things off, here is another video of Bruce in the bath.  The video quality isn't great because the lighting in the bathroom is difficult to work with.  At any rate, Bruce has a big cup in his lap, and the cap of a bubble bath container thats shaped to look like Captain America. 

 

Sometimes when I talk to people about taking care of Bruce they get this impression that I'm really sweet and good with him.  This is the first of two videos proving them wrong.  I'm kind of a jerk to the kid.  I make him suffer.  He'd been having this problem for several days, and it always cracked me up, but this time I videoed it.  But, in the end, he did get his pants on right.

 

I enlisted Gargoyle's help and we built a, oh, shucks, I don't know what to call it.  Its a toilet paper roll thingy taped to the wall to race things down.  Anyway, despite my inability to name things succinctly its a really simple toy, and Bruce loved it.  He sent his robot car down it...

 

And he sent a bouncy ball down it.

 

The bouncy ball was more fun. 

 

 If you guys haven't noticed, we love wrestling.  We love it!  Here's a blip with some of the things frequently said

 

And here's some wrestling...

 

And some more wrestling...

 

And some more

 

I've got to say, Bruce did us proud.  He's going to be a scrapper.

For the Fourth of July we went to our neighbor's house.  They had a BBQ and party.  All the kids had a blast playing with nerf swords, running around, playing with squirt guns, and running around some more.  Then everybody ended up in the pool, including Gargoyle with his cut fingers (his mom was not happy with that, and especially for the man who goaded Gargoyle into swimming).  Anyway, Bruce needed to get in too.  They had an extra floaty thing, here I go trying to describe something again.  Its like two floaties that go on arms, except they're out of life preserver material, and they're both attached to a life preserver strip that goes around the baby's chest.  It was pretty awesome.  And Bruce had a blast with it.

 

I love that he splashes himself and smiles.

 

And here is the second video that proves I'm kind of a jerk to the poor kid.  I wish it had come through a little better, but the detail isn't great.  In person you could see him shaking pretty hard.  Poor kid.  

 

Ok, so from here on out its basically about me, so its ok if you stop looking now.  

I made a card for a friend who I wanted to make feel special.  This was a few days ago.

 And this is how I spent part of my Independence Day.  Oh, I so wish I could give you guys some! They were amazing!  Jake and I spent the day playing with chocolate.  We made cherry cordials and truffles.  Both were fantastic, but the truffles were absolutely divine.  Oh my goodness! We made these ones for Jake to take home to his family yesterday, but some time we'll get together and make some for you guys, and the rest of the family.  Oh, so good! I can't get over it.

 

And this is just to remind everyone that Cinna is sweet and cute. 

 

Thats it for now grandparents, but hopefully I'll keep them coming. Sending our love!

Gargoyle Plays With Bruce

I love it when Gargoyle and Bruce play together.  This is more with  Darth Vader.

 

This morning Gargoyle agreed to be my swim coach, so at 6:00 I knocked on his door to wake him up.  He's such a good sport.  I had these goggles on the couch, and Gargoyle helped put them on Bruce.  Please ignore the mess in the background.  I haven't finished cleaning out my room.  Oops.

 

He's such a cutie. 

 

Some things I didn't catch on camera.  Today I took the boys and Cinna to the dog park because Cinna is going crazy.  Actually she's just a regular puppy with a ton of energy, and she needs to be run.  Gargoyle and I played catch with the frisbee, occasionally with the added difficulty of holding Bruce at the same time.  Cinna ran until she almost collapsed.  Bruce had a great time.  When my phone rang Gargoyle sat down with Bruce and Cinna, and I'm not sure what he was doing.  But I could tell from a distance that he was being very patient, and gentle, and kind.  It made me happy.  I have two wonderful nephews, and one good (and exhausted) dog.  Till next time!

Library Day Again!

We went to the library yesterday for story time.  They read two books, and they were rather long, but Bruce did pretty well. 

The craft yesterday was finger painting because  the books didn't have a common theme.  Finger painting completely popped Bruce's bubble.  He wasn't really a fan until the very end, and even then we had to wash his hands very quickly. 

He wasn't sure about having an apron.

He wasn't sure about dipping his fingers in.

 

 He wasn't sure about moving his hands in the paint.

He did seem to like rubbing his hands together...

... and looking at the result.

 

But he didn't like having stuff on his hands :) 

 

Overall I think it was a positive experience for him.  He's learning (reluctantly and very slowly) to sit still and listen at story time.  He also had to get out of his comfort zone and get stuff on his hands.  It was so funny to watch him! It cracked me up.  He also got another prize for reading 8 books.  Personally I think I should get a prize for managing to read 8 books to him.  Anyway, this time he picked out a car. (I wanted him to get a top.  Oh, well.)  He had a fun time, and so did I.  

We're off to the park! Until later.

Turtles!

Yesterday we went to the library because they have a summer reading program, and Bruce read 8 whole books! It felt like a pretty huge accomplishment to me.  For this endeavor he got a ticket, and with his ticket he got a popper.  It was very exciting.  I found out that we had missed story time, which we will remedy today.  But we got there in time for the crafts. 

In action:

He kept looking around at the other turtles, and he told me he wanted a star on his.  I didn't know why he was so insistent, but I drew a star on it.  Turns out that he wanted a star button.  My bad.  We got him one after that. 

 

The finished product and his white popper:

 

So, we had a very fun time, and we're going back today.  They have story time and crafts every Wednesday and Thursday, which is pretty great news.   See you soon grandparents!

I am your grandson!

Just a quick post.

Here is Bruce doing his Darth Vader impression

Playing Around

We have had good days since Bruce's last posting about his birthday.  I videoed, rather badly, him swinging because I wanted you guys to be able to hear him when he swings.  I love hearing those noises.  The ones from McD's are from a town about an hour from here.  We had an impromptu trip that lasted a little over an hour yesterday to give a woman her keys.  I was so proud of Bruce! The car isn't the most comfortable thing because it doesn't have air conditioning, so we have to leave the windows open.  It keeps us cool, but its very loud, and I can only imagine that its louder in the back seat.  But he took it like a champ.  He was so cute.  On the way home he was staring at the holes in the fabric that covers the ceiling.  He told me he would fill them with patches.  Then he would point at them and make a noise like, "Shhhhhhtch" and smile.  He also refers to it as his car.  Anyway, I wish you could have seen the look on his face as I was driving home and he was looking and pointing at the ceiling (presumably the holes).  It was a look of wonder, and joy, and discovery.  I wish I could have taken a picture.  Anyway, the kid is super cute.  Here he is.

 

 

 

So, some things I haven't caught on video.  They're just snippets of conversations mostly.  Bruce says everything is a robot.  Cinna is his robot dog.  The new, fancy Transformers toy is his baby robot.  Frequently he will hand me invisible robot babies (apparently they're tiny as he picks them up with thumb and forefinger).  He has begun telling us that we're naughty.  Sometimes he will tell us we are saying bad words.  Those bad words happen to be words like "don't".   He has also started talking a lot! He repeats things after he hears them on cartoons, or when we talk, and even from songs.  By the way, he likes the "Crazy for C" and can quote it.  In fact he told me to stop singing it so he could.  I love the cute little stinker.  You can check out the song here-->  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDnzj88O6aQ

Today We Are Three!

Bruce turned three yesterday, and what a day it was! We tried to fill it with good things.  In the morning we took Cinna to the dog park, and ran around as much as possible.  Afterward, we came home and tried to do some art stuff.

We tried making something like a mosaic (ish)

These are choosing the shapes, and sticking 

them on the pre-glued paperboard 

 

 

He didn't have a huge amount of patience for it, as you can tell from the end of the video, so we finished quickly.  Here are the results:

If nothing else, he likes saying "Cheese!" and posing.

So we took one more.

Then after his mom and dad got home, plus endless hours of pointless and painstaking torture (waiting till 5:00, the horror of it!) it was finally time to go to McDonald's for his party.  

 

I wasn't especially quick on the draw, and missed part of the Happy Birthday Song, sorry guys. 

 

Then it was time to open presents. The first is from a friend from church.  His mom babysat Bruce while I was at school, so they pulled the perfect gift from their stash.

 

He got some more Rescue Bots.  His daddy got him a really awesome Rescue Bot command center.  He's quite smitten, and plays with it all the time.

 

And here he is, barely picking at the icing of the cake (its his favorite part, if you remember from the video I posted way back when).

And here he is playing with his new toys.  He already loves them.

 

The best part about him only eating the icing, and a very little amount of it at that? He was begging us from the moment his dad brought it in the house to have some.  He even went so far as to sneak it off the counter and carry it in, suitcase style, to his dad.  He got a spank for that stunt.  When we got in the car to go to McD's? All he could talk about.  We had to go over the order of things all the way their.  First we play in the play-place, then we eat chicken nuggets, then we eat cake.  But when we actually get there, all he wanted to do was play.  First in the play place, and then with his toys.  

Its been a great three years with the stinker, and I love him from the bottom of my heart.  I wouldn't trade these last three years with him for anything.  Orneryness and all.  

Back in Action

Hey, Grandparents!

If you've been wondering if I would start this up again since I (finally) finished school (whew!) for the semester, the answer is yes.  I will.  Right now.

The babysitter Bruce was going to while I was in school apparently spent a good amount of time reading to the boys.  I think thats awesome, because now he'll actually sit through a few books if they have good pictures and aren't too long. 

However, she didn't do any art with the boys, and that saddens me.  I can understand because she had two 2 year old boys, and an infant, but it still makes me sad.  Bruce isn't as interested in art as he was before, but today I think we made progress.

Yesterday we did some paint with water pages. He thought it was lame. (It was a little lame, the paint on the paper just wasn't very good.) So it didn't hold his attention for longer than five minutes.  But we have some pics anyway.

I'm trying to get him on a schedule, so right after art we had a bath even though it wasn't messy enough to warrant one.

He can wash his own face, thank you very much.

Then there were a few books and nap time.  

__________________________________________________________________________________

Grandparents, if you choose to continue reading this you are sworn to secrecy! I mean it! 

The first rule for the rest of this post is: We don't talk about this post!

The second rule of this post is: We don't talk about this post!

Today we had a much more exciting art time.  I found something on pinterest that I thought was amazing, and that Bruce would enjoy.  You take circular things of different diameters, dip them in paint, then stamp paper.  Its super easy, and the results look really good. 

First secret: I used Calla's paint that her mom got her for decorating our room.  We haven't used it yet, and somehow in the move half of my art supplies went missing! So I used Calla's. 

These are what we used

Bruce had a blast, and it held his attention for quite some time. 

Here he is in action

And here are the results!

 Bruce did this one all by himself

Bruce helped with this one a little

So, secret number two.

As you can see from the earlier pictures, Bruce is doing this on the couch.  I've been out of the game for too long.  I should have realized this huge error in judgment, but alas, it is too late. 

When, as was inevitable, Bruce got his hands painty, he wiped them on the couch.  

Oops.  

Good thing we have awesome pre-treatment for clothes.  It worked like a charm on the couch, with one exception.  There was a spot of paint that had dripped and was completely dried.  Its in a semi inconspicuous area, so maybe no one will notice? Please? I hope.

Second error in judgment: I forgot that the plumbing problems mean no baths.  Ugh.  So I hauled Bruce into the bathroom, plopped him on the counter top, and attacked him with a wet rag.  He wasn't especially thrilled about that.  Oh, well.  Things got clean, one way or another.

Ok, so on to other things.  Mom and Will, this is mostly for you guys.  This is from when they gave me the award for most improved freshman.  The man I'm standing with is my Chem professor, Dr. Wingenter.  He knows a lot about alcohol, and he enjoys it. But, thats beside the point.

And, yes, there was an award.

Thank you guys, so much, for all your love, support, encouragement, patience when I had melt-downs, and prayers.  I couldn't have done it without you.  Thanks.

Thats it for today grandparents. Hope you're having a wonderful day! See you again soon.