30 March 2014

Some photos left from when we spent February and March being sick!

Nut Brown and Bobo

 

Bobo taking his antibiotic all by himself

 



Rose Pink, who never got all that sick, constructed a Fairy Cafe restaurant in the kitchen, with a sign, a menu on the wall, and drawings of all the fairies that worked in the cafe.  She and Nut Brown took and filled orders for lunch while Mr. Brown and I were not feeling well.

27 March 2014

The day after Grandma and Grandpa left, we loaded up the bikes and drove over to a church parking lot nearby to ride.  Rose Pink and Nut Brown both have new bikes (Nut Brown's is a hand-me-down) and Rose Pink is bumping up to hand brakes and gears, so we tried out our new equipment in a traffic-free zone first.

Rose Pink rode her bike for a little while and didn't have any trouble with braking.  Then she decided she'd rather take photos, so she took the rest of these.

Bobo was very pleased to have his chariot come back out.  He rode very patiently around the parking lot and did not want to get out when it was time to leave.

Nut Brown is riding 'Skull', Rose Pink's old bike.  It's just a little too big for him, so he has trouble starting.  But otherwise he's very pleased with it. 

Here's what I look like on a bike.  The snow finally melted enough that I started riding in again this past week, happy happy.  An advantage to such a cold winter is that it seems warm enough to ride when temps hit 25 degrees.  Previous years I thought it was too cold.

Photos of the most stressful part of the whole exercise - convincing three bikes to go on the bike rack.  At least I know they all fit now.  There are some great bike trails in some of the Metro Parks around here, and I daydream about getting our whole family out to ride them.  Someday when it's actually warm again.

26 March 2014

Last week Grandma and Grandpa came to visit during Grandpa's spring break.  They took us to see the samurai exhibit at the DIA (fabulous) and we also went to the zoo.  The kids loved seeing them and Mr. Brown and I were glad for the chance to have a little time together while the kids were busy with them.

Actually, it might have been two weeks ago they came, not last week.  March has gone by really quickly.  Mr. Brown has been really depressed this winter so we've been taking it one day at a time, and the days just keep passing.

Rose Pink's indoor soccer games started.  Her coach organized it as a chance for their team to get some playing in before the regular outdoor season begins.  Grandma and Grandpa got a chance to go to her first game, and we went out for ice cream afterwards, yum.

Indoor soccer is more like hockey.  It was a lot of fun to watch. 

Here are my boys being cute at the indoor arena.

15 March 2014

Last Sunday, I took my Sunday School kids on a trip to a 'museum' in the gym - some pictures I taped up on the walls for their review and discussion.  The little girl in the class with Down Syndrome was wandering around in that big open space by herself and then sat down on the floor at the other end of the gym from us.  Nut Brown said to me, what about Amy? and I said, she'll join us when she's ready.  Nut Brown wasn't satisfied with that, and after a few minutes he walked down to the other end of the gym and talked to Amy, invited her to come join us and brought her back over to be part of the group.  I am humbled by his example of love and consideration.

12 March 2014

I guess because Bobo has been so slow to talk, it's been really interesting to listen to him pick up more sounds one by one.  At first he was really good at 'b' words: baby and ball and bear and so on.  He learned to say his brother's name and then his parents' (although he still uses Mama and Papa interchangeably sometimes).  He picked up 'k' and said 'cat' instead of 'meow'.  He loves a book about an apple farmer we have, so he learned to say 'An' (Annie) and 'ap-em' (apple) and 'chuck' (truck).  Then he learned to say 'oo', as in 'moo' and 'ow', as in 'owl', and there's only been more and more sounds since then.  Yesterday he finally came out with a long 'oh' sound and came out with a name for his sister - now he can call her 'go-ko'. 

There are a lots of sounds that he still doesn't say - like 's'.  But he's learned to try to say anything, and we always encourage any effort on his part even if it doesn't really sound like anything.  He has enough sounds now that it's starting to be really rewarding, and he'll even try out some two-syllable words as well, like 'apron' (when he wants to help cook) and 'open' (this piece of candy).  He is great at repeating but we're still working on encouraging him to use his words that he's learning when he wants something.  Since he's learning so slowly, it's easy to see his progress step-by-step, and it's been so fun.

10 March 2014

Sick again last week - it has been a long winter.  It was a stomach bug, fortunately short-lived, that caused nausea and vomiting.  The boys had it last week, Mr. Brown and I got it Tuesday night, and then Rose Pink came down with it on Thursday night.  Once again, she had the easiest time of it.  When she was sick, I was grateful that our house is a no-nap house: when she threw up in the middle of the night in her room, I heard her and got up to help so she didn't haven't to try and come get me.  We're all better now.

Bobo's current favorite thing to listen to is the most exciting version ever of the Wheels On The Bus.  It's a song by Selena Gomez called 'Round and Round' and he asks for it all the time by bringing you the (cordless) mouse and saying, 'Wown?'  We listened to it so much this weekend that Mr. Brown and I had it going round and round in our heads all night.