Reptile Show

Didn't get good pics of the reptiles (I'm SOOO not disappointed about that!) but everyone seemed to enjoy the show. We saw turtles, an alligator, and snakes snakes snakes.

The last two shots are of Keats petting some gigantic snake. Maybe it was a boa? I dunno but it took seven or eight kids to hold the thing up. Euw.

Not A Baby Anymore!

Keats lost, or should I say he pulled out, his left top-front tooth last night at dinner. Dinnertime seems a popular time for teeth to jump out! Around two o'clock yesterday, Keats showed me that his tooth was just barely hanging on. He tried to pull it, I tried to twist & wiggle it out, and Mike gave it a few yanks...but the stubborn thing held on. It fell out whilst Keaton was munching on a chicken Mickey Mouse head and peas. ;o)

He got another five bucks from the Tooth Fairy. I should tell you the reason the Tooth Fairy leaves such a big chunk of dough for teeth: the Tooth Fairy knows that if he leaves a buck, Keats will buy a cheapo toy...but if he leaves FIVE bucks each time, Keaton's mama can talk him into saving up cash from every four teeth so he can buy something of much higher quality. Higher quality toys means no immediately-broken-parts-followed-by-big-meltdown-due-to-being-heartbroken-over-broken-cheapo-toy. :o) Keaton's mama has him talked into saving up $20 to buy a Star Wars lightsaber (or whatever they are really called) because she won't buy him a weapon...so he's gonna have to pull teeth (& weeds) if he wants that sort of thing.

So, he lost the tooth just as we were leaving to see the reptiles last night. We literally got into the car four minutes after the tooth was out. I looked back at him in his carseat and he smiled at me...showing me all those cute gaps in his teeth...and I actually got tears in my eyes. He looks SOOOOOO cute! Amazingly cute. But not like a baby. At all. He looks like a really cute little kid I'd see playing at the playground while I'm hovering over my too-small-to-be-left-unattended boys.

Don't worry, I'm still going to hover...I'll just have to do it to Sully before he starts losing his baby teeth. :o)

Library Fun

On Wednesday mornings in the summer, you can get free tickets to a show at the local library. They start handing out tickets at 10 so you need to get there by about 9:40 to get in line. Today is "Reptile Man" and it is a really popular show so we got there nice & early, planning to get tickets to the 11 am show. It was SOOOO cold! The boys were both whining so much that we just waited for the ticket lady and requested seven tickets for the seven pm show. This way we wouldn't have to wait outside for an hour and a half while the boys whined. I am pretty sure that this would have made me a grumpy mama!

So, we invited Erin, Mason, and Uncle Vince, though I'm not sure they'll go. Check back tomorrow for pics of gross, slimy things. ;o)

(gross slimy things being the reptiles...not the invited family members! Tee hee.)

We went to play in the library for a while after we got our tickets. There is a neato Discovery Room that alternates displays. This time it is all about getting creative. There were intruments, costumes, crayons, building blocks, moon sand, and different colored lenses to teach what happens when you mix colors. Fun stuff. The boys were entertained for a good hour and it only cost a buck for the parking meter!

The phone booths are just out in the regular part of the library and they are always what Keaton looks forward to most. There are two "old fashioned" phone booths in the same room, and you can talk to each other phone-to-phone. Keats had fun talking with some other boys and asking their names. When Sullivan took his turn he kept yelling (yes..yelling in the library) "My name is Jack! My name is Jack!" Lol.

A Few Things

I have had good intentions to actually blog some stuff, rather than just post pictures, but something always seems to come up. Or, more correctly, someONE comes by and distracts me. ;o) My distractions are in bed so I'm going to type while I have a minute.

Of course, just as I wrote that, Keats came down to ask me the burning, urgent question: Mom, which coloring page do you want? Batman or Robin?

*sigh*

We're having a really tough time getting Sullivan to sleep at night. He seems to be scared of everything and just cries & cries & cries until one of us goes in there. Mike has ended up sleeping on the floor next to Sully quite a few times lately. A month or so ago we had a pretty intense storm, even having tornado warnings flash on the tv screen. Sully was just going down for a nap when the storm hit and he and Keats removed the "black out" material from Sullivan's window and were watching the storm. Since that time, Sully will see his curtains move, just from the A/C or heater (the vent is in the ceiling just above his window) and he will start screaming, "It's winnie, it's winnie!" (winnie = windy). He won't calm down until I go in and explain what is going on. I've had to tuck the curtains into the window ledge to keep them from wiggling at all. What a pain! Then there is the issue of the monkey on his wall. He will stare at it with such a scared look on his face...never said anything about being scared by the monkey, but both Mike and I separately got the idea maybe the monkey needed to go. So, today I painted over the monkey. I always thought the monkey looked too much like George W. Bush, not joking at all...it really did resemble him, so I wasn't sad to see it go. Except that now I will need to replace it with something. Probably a big tree. A big, unscary, happy tree. ;o) I shall keep Bob Ross' voice in my head as I paint. Tee hee.

Otherwise with Sully, I think he is just a great, big thinker! I'm sure that is why he sleeps so little. If he isn't getting overimaginative with items in his room decor, he's in there counting or singing. He seems to have a difficult time stopping his brain long enough to fall asleep. He has somewhat of a photographic memory...except that I think his leans towards the verbal side of things. Like if you sing him a song, he can remember the tune and will sing it with you the second time, only he gets the last word of every sentence. Then by the third or fouth time he pretty much has it down. He can talk with his shows. He spends a HUGE portion of his life reading Highlight's Hidden Pictures Playground magazine. This is a kid 'zine that has items hidden within pictures and you try to find all the hidden stuff. Keats loved it but didn't start until close to age five. I never thought Sully would understand the concept so I never tried them with him. He got a hold of one of Keaton's old copies and was immediately hooked. I have a subscription for Keats and so we get two new magazines about every four weeks, so we have quite a few lying around the house. Sully goes nowhere without one now! In his carseat he will be reading one. That is very, very cute and I always mean to catch a picture of it but never seem to do that. So, at night, he will sing, count, or sit in there looking at a magazine saying, "Where's the ball? Where is it? Oh! There it is!" over and over and over. It is actually pretty entertaining but I wish he'd get more sleep! I want to buy him some new copies (you can buy a whole set at a time at the Highlights website) for his birthday but I also want him to sleep. Decisions, decisions.

Keaton just finished his three week stint at School of Rock. He absolutely loved it. He still says he wants to be a rockstar when he grows up...but he also wants to be a surgeon, a superhero, and a policeman. ;o) He always says he wants to be a superhero so he can save people. He's such a sweetie. In SoR, he was able to listen to lots of live bands in class and made some instruments. He also did a lot of sports and other activities. He will go back to the same summer camp for a week in August but it will then be all about being a doctor. I think it is called "Little Doctors in Africa". I wish I could put him in for the whole month but it is a lot of money considering I'm not working while he's there. Plus, the camp is across town and is just a lot of driving every day. This next Thursday he starts Safety Town classes which go for ten mornings. This is a program run through the school district that teaches road safety, bike safety, that sort of thing. It is only 2-1/2 hours a day though rather than an all day gig. Hopefully he'll learn lots of things though...he's so bossy with Sully that anytime Keaton learns something about safety he loves to share his knowledge with the baby brother. Fine by me!

Keaton is also getting really ready to read. He watches a show called "Super Why" that is on PBS in the morning and I think it has helped him turn a corner as far as reading readiness. I've worked with him and letters/sounds for a while but it seems like just the last two weeks he has done some amazing things with reading and spelling. Aside from the fact that he can get on the computer, open the Google page, type in "Batman Coloring Pictures", choose a page, add paper to the printer, and print his own coloring pages, he is just suddenly able to recognize lots of words and spontaneously spells things just out of his head. It is a fun transition to witness.

I had lots to write but am going to have to hit the hay. I seriously messed up my back on Saturday morning and the meds (steroids & pain pills) are making me too sleepy. Hopefully this post gives you a little insight into The Way the Moore Boys Work. ;o)

4th of July

We went to Sharrie Lee's home for the 4th of July. Her house is gigantic and has a great view of the Valley. We were able to see the fireworks pretty well from the house, and the kids (including the grown-up kids) set off quite a few of their own.

I just think this is funny since you can see that Sullivan brought his baby AND a magnifying glass to the party. Tee hee.

I actually didn't take this shot. My camera was identical to another couples' camera and so this was taken by the wrong camera owner. ;o) But is a cute shot of all the kids grubbin'.

Sage & Tami. Awwww.

Sully Smiles. Awwww.

Sully was as excited about the moon as anything else...

This is the little balcony out front that the kids love to mess around on.

Mardi Gras beads = Always in style ;o)

Luckily, Jamey is super cute even when only part of his face is in the frame. Which is all I could get. He's a busy boy!

The Hostess with the Mostess, Sharrie Lee.

Lil' Alex. Awwww....

I do believe this is a puppy Santa hat but Sully insisted that I put it on him. Look at him with his Hawaiian outfit (thanks Aunt Lisa!) and Santa hat: How much more like Jimmy Buffet can you get?

Sully & Kenna chose a good, quiet spot to watch the fireworks: Standing on stools in the front window. Um. Yeah. Sorry about the fingerprints, Sharrie!

Kenna had lots of fun with Sully by her side.

Sully oooohhhed & ahhhhhed over most of the fireworks but didn't like the ones that boom & pop.

Here is Mike lighting Keaton's first sparkler!

Watery Stuff

Yesterday, I took Sullivan to check out a new park in Keizer. It actually isn't a new-new park but an old park that was closed down for a couple of years while they rebuilt it. It is called River Road Park and is just a few blocks from where I grew up. The remodeled park has a "splash fountain" and since it was over 90 degrees, we went to see what it was like.

Busy, busy, busy is what it was like! Sully wanted nothing to do with getting in the middle of a gazillion screaming kids! He stood on the sidelines and just watched for a while...then we headed to play at the new playground for a while.

Notice the hands-on-hips pose. LOL.

He likes the toddler-swings to go as high as you can make them go. Thrill seeker!

Also a daredevil! He'll climb anything.

Today, Mike has the day off so we took Sully to play at Turner City Park. It was about 20-30 minutes from here. We were able to splash in the water and throw lots of rocks for a while. We braved taking him out to lunch afterword, at a real sit-down place, and he did great!

Splash!

Here is Mike perfecting his skipping stones technique.

Sullivan was excited about each & every rock he found.

Here, he's asking me if he can cross the river. Um. No.

"Mom! Look! I keep them??"

And this is why tonight will be three-nights-in-a-row-bathing....

He told me, "Mom! The biggest rock EVER!" He must learn that stuff from Keats...

Contemplation...

A fun pile of gravel in the parking lot.

JUMP!!

Day in L.O.

Sully & I dropped Keats off at School of Rock today and headed straight to Lake Oswego to an indoor play area called "Play Boutique". We got there a little early so I took him to Millenium Park (or is it Plaza? too long not being a local!) to let him check out the views.

He tried his best to stay out of the water in the fountain...but did wiggle a couple of fingers in the cool depths for a second...before Mean Old Mom stopped him. ;o)

That is Oswego Lake behind him, and we used to live on the green hill behind him. I sure miss all the greenery!

He was happy for a least a little while today. I got proof!

Cutie.

Adorable pic...and, if you are wondering, those are armless, faceless statues behind him. Hmm.

Inside the play park.

Baby Mya, two months old. Look at all her adorable hair!

Big Brother Max. He'll be two in August and he's almost as tall as Sully!

Max is a perfect combination of his mom & dad as far as looks go. Very cute kid!