A fun dinner out!

We've found dinner outings are by far one of the bigger challenges with having two kids - trying to get them fed and then feeding ourselves..all the while ensuring they stay entertained throughout the entire outing as well!! Luckily around here most nice places that we go to have very few patrons, so we never really have to worry about bothering too many people. On this particular outing though, the boys were quite pleasant with not too much yelling..we were actually even able to sit them in highchairs next to one another without any screaming ensuing....like from Cooper yelling because Evan won't quit trying to grab his hands (he was actually enjoying holding his brother's hand this time in the picture below) or from Evan yelling "Mom, look ...Cooper is touching that" or "Mom, Cooper isn't eating his food"..or something of the sort. Mister E is becoming quite the tattle-tale lately...watching his younger brother's every move! As you can tell from the pictures below, everyone was in a good mood this evening, so we knew it might be an easy one...afterall, who doesn't love a night out for pizza !!(by the way, brick-oven style is the only way to go here - it's actually quite good....forget Pizza Hut delivery pizza...it's terrible...nothing like what we can get back in the states!!)
By the way, thanks cousin Alicia for the Troy shirt...Evan really loved getting it in the mail along with the Madagascar card!

Some fun time at the play gym

We had some fun the other day that we went to KL to do some grocery shopping - we stopped by for an hour of fun before lunch at a playgym. The boys had a great time sliding on the slides and playing in the balls. I even got in the tunnels and chased E around for a bit...he thought that was the best! So much so that I got a "this is really fun" from him...it was too cute!! And Cooper loved the slides and balls as well. I bet he can hardly wait until he can start doing all the things his big brother does. He also enjoyed walking on the mats...I think he realized if he fell it wasn't going to hurt as much as falling on the tiled floors we have at home, so he was a little more inclined to try walking on his own (with some finger holding, of course)

I promise he actually had more fun than it looks like he is having here...I just waited too long to try and get a picture of it!

This picture turned out horrible because it was inside the tunnel, but it was more representative of the fun that Coop actually had while he played, so I had to include it!

So this is what it is like to have sick kids...

Since Evan was born, he has only ever been sick enough to take to the Dr once...and even then the Dr. (some inconsiderate idiot at the emergency room on Christmas day nevertheless!!) said we were overreacting, that he merely had a virus and we should just let it pass. So, I always had the child that was never sick - I never knew what it was like when some mothers talked about their children always being sick and having to deal with cranky kids. That is until recently! Ever since Evan started school it seems as though he has had this constant runny nose and cough....and then early this month it was the worst...I had both of the boys sick and not just runny noses, but fevers, diarrhea, vomiting, and these horrible coughs....the works~!! I had never seen so much poop or puke in my life!! I think Marte did more laundry in those two weeks than she usually does in a month! My poor babies, I felt so horrible that there was nothing I could do to make them feel better right away. And to make matters worse, they gave me the stomach bug they had....luckily it only lasted 24 hours for me, but I felt the most miserable I've ever felt! It just made me empathize with them even more about how they were feeling. Although, if you had seen them, you never would have thought they were sick because they never skipped a beat. They would throw up and then just act like nothing had happened. I ended up taking both of them to the Dr and they were diagnosed with wheezy bronchitis and some yucky stomach virus. Two breathing treatments, about 8 medications, an asthma inhaler and a week later....they were back to feeling great again....and I was feeling tons better since I didn't have to see anymore throw up!

I guess I really know what it is like to have sick kids now....IT'S NO FUN AT ALL!!!

My poor little baby on his 9 month birthday...one of the first days of being sick, not his usual happy self.And my little E trying hard to be like his little brother and smile for pictures!Rub-a-dub-dub, two little monsters in a tub!And just a couple of days later back to his normal, smiley self!A regular, daily game we play around our house now ...push Cooper back to where the highchair belongs! At least now, E turns him around before he puts the highchair against the wall so that Cooper is looking out into the kitchen and not just at the wall - like the first few times!!And to make matters even worse, just as Cooper was right in the middle of all his sickness, some damn mosquito attacked my poor little guy's face in the middle of the night and they swelled up and turned into little blisters! It was so painful to look at him that first day, it looked like they hurt so bad. Good thing is it didn't seem to affect him much though. The scars are still there today and only now starting to fade. Guess he, like Evan, has also inherited an allergy to mosquitoes from their mother!

Our First Big Brother / Little Brother Bath

Well, we had our first go at bathing the boys together while we were in our home-away-from-home (the Ascott in KL...where we lived prior to delivering Cooper) in KL this weekend. We went up to get my hair done and just enjoy a weekend in the city. We didn't have our duck bath that we still bath Cooper in (which takes up alot of the bathtub), so we thought we'd try it out. I think Coop is still a little too small to hold his own with his big brother all over the place in the tub...and there wasn't a slip mat in the tub so it didn't make it any easier for Cooper to stay head above water. Good thing is Coop loves the water and doesn't mind it being in his face one bit, so the more splashing by him or his brother...the better!! Maybe another couple of months and we can start making brother baths a nightly thing!! I'm not sure if that is going to make bathtime any shorter though, I can see them wanting to stay and play together in the tub all night!

Happy Valentine's Day

Sorry, but you won't be receiving any Valentine's Day cards from us this year. I actually bought the cardstock to make some more of our homemade picture cards, but I never got around to actually getting them made....partly because I never went and had any pictures developed to place on them (but I did take the pictures at the beginning of Feb, so I was at least thinking about it!!!). So, here was my attempt at getting a good V-day picture of both the boys....as you can tell, it wasn't going to happen! Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day. I'm sure I will - my husband just told me last night that he was taking me out on the town Saturday night....maybe we can make it past midnight this time!!!

ABCs and playing the helpful Big Brother role

Take One: fyi...the reference to "I'm not in trouble again" was due to the fact that he had just been in timeout, on the steps, just minutes earlier for thowing puzzle pieces at Marte and Cooper (this wasn't the helpful Big Brother part I referenced in the title!!)

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Take Two: Still couldn't make it though the entire song without finding something else to say....but he at least completed it for me this time!

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See we do teach our boys some valuable things too!!

And shortly after his "performance", he thought he needed to help feed Cooper....although, Coop wasn't as excited to eat from his big brother as his big brother was to feed him! I'm all for it - the more hands to help with Coop, the better....now he just needs to help him start walking too!!

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DJ EJT

Not sure if anyone has heard this song, it's "In the Ayer" by some ghetto singer named Flo Rida and they play it on the radio all the time here. It has a pretty catchy beat, so we started singing it all the time and shortly after, E picked up on it and now it's his new jam. He sings an abbreviated version of it, but we think it's pretty cute. I'll have to catch him on camera singing some more kid-friendly songs, he does know several of these too...so don't worry, we aren't just corrupting him with horrible rap music!

In case you don't know the song and can't tell what he is saying...the lyrics are:

"Oh hot damn (we say "man" instead), this is my jam,
Keep me partying till the a.m.,
Ya'll don't understand,
Make me throw my hands in the ayer, ay-ayer, ayer, ay-ayer"

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