Playing in the Water

So the summer activities in Tucson are a little limited--really, you just want to be in the water. We have been lucky enough to have a few different friends invite us over to swim in their pools, and there is a community pool just up the street that we haven't been to yet, and . . . we've turned our backyard into a pond. And our big, blue ball bucket has become a little pool to soak in. This is probably the boys' favorite past time. We probably do it a couple times a week, and the boys get super muddy and soaked. If we wait until the late afternoon to do it, our backyard becomes shaded and that helps bring the temperature down a bit. We've even had some friends be brave enough to try it with us. We even had a family of mostly girls join us--and they were so into it! It was pure entertainment for me watching these kids. One of the girls kept saying "I want to roll in the mud. I'm like a pig. I want to roll in the mud like a pig." My boys had so much fun that while this family was out of town, Brayden and Caleb kept prepping the backyard for the next time they came over. I still miss grass, but I'm glad the boys have found a way to be outside and have fun with the blazing heat.

Four Months Old

Here's Devin sleeping in his crib. His stats at four months old are 26 inches long and 16.1 pounds. That puts him at 85% for length and 75% for weight and his head is at the 22 percentile. He's sweet and smiley and cries very little. His whole face and body light up when you walk into the room and he does not like loud noises at all. Like when he's tired and I yell at the boys. That always makes him cry. Go me. Devin has discovered his hands, his toes, and loves to pull his legs up. He is starting to bite on things, including me. Ouch. Even with out teeth, ouch. He likes tummy time some of the time and when he gets too tired for it he cries instead of putting his head down to rest. He's super cute and we love him!

Behold, the Devinator

Devin with his cute third cousin Cameron. Although we ignore the "third" part. They are just cute cousins. Poor Camo wasn't very happy in the picture though.

The boys and I really like watching Phineas and Ferb on the Disney channel, and every episode Dr. Heinz Dufinschmirtz creates something "evil" and names it . . . inator (e.g., the shrinkinator, the ball-gowninator). Consequently, we have started calling Devin the Devinator, or when he's being particularly difficult we call him Devinsmirtz or Devin Dufinschmirtz, etc. Anyway, just a little explanation of the title.

So little Devin is not so little anymore (except for his head, which is 22 percentile while his body is around the 70 percentile). And he's discovering new things every day, like his thumb. He's starting to prefer his thumb to pacifiers and he's becoming very social. Today during church he was tired and sad, but he was so excited to see me smiling at him that he kept alternating between frowning with his eyes tearing up to smiling with his entire face and body. It was really funny. He tries to giggle, and he's starting to talk more and more. He likes to trick me at bedtime and even though he can't open his eyes all the way because he is so sleepy he will coo and ahh almost nonstop right before I put him in bed. I swear he's already thinking, if I'm cute enough she won't put me in bed. Nice try buddy. You're still going to bed. But I have to admit he does stall me for a couple minutes so I can enjoy his cuteness.

Father and son camp out

Father, son and twinners. We didn't plan it that way. I guess Mike and I both recognize good camping clothes.

Caleb at the campsite. It came complete with a lake. Yes, we did find a lake in AZ.

Brayden hiding under the ottoman b/c he was sad he couldn't go on the campout.
A couple weeks ago Mike and Caleb went on the ward Father/son camp out. Brayden was supposed to go, but he ended up getting sick. We figured a short night and being around lots of people probably wasn't a good thing to do when sick, so Braydo stayed home with me. I tried to make it fun for him--we ordered a pizza, sausage, his favorite kind, and rented a Diego movie from Redbox and had a slumber party in my room. He even got to watch his Diego movie again the next morning and we played sprinkler soccer in the backyard. The verdict on our great weekend--he still wished he could have gone camping with his dad. All my efforts for nothing! :) Whether he'll admit it or not, I think we had a great bonding experience. And I think Caleb was DELIGHTED to get one on one time from someone. Nothing makes Caleb happier than someone completely focused on him and talking to him. All in all, not what we planned, but I think a good memory. Hence, why I'm documenting it.

chocolate bowls

So I'm a sucker for dessert. Especially if it is chocolate. I found these fun little things on Bakerella and we decided to try them. You're supposed to make the pudding from scratch and supposedly it is "wicked good," but I went easy and just did jello instant pudding mix, which was definitely not wicked good. But the fun part was that to make the chocolate bowls that house the pudding, you melt the chocolate chips and than once it has cooled you blow up water ballons (no easy feat) and than dip the water balloons in the chocolate to create the bowls.

Here's the picture from Bakeralla of the balloons. I didn't get any pictures us doing that. But it was really fun to dip them. Of course we had many popped balloons at first. We think it was because the chocolate was too hot. But in the end Mike got several to turn out and we had fun putting on sprinkles. It was a good Sunday activity.

funny sleeping pictures

This is all the boys sleeping at funny angles at our sister-in-law's house Mother's Day weekend. Too bad this is the only picture I took that weekend. It was a really great weekend.


Caleb loves falling asleep to reading books at night. So one night he decided to park it in front of the bookshelf. This is how I found him the next morning.

"Mom, can I fight that kid?"

So this quote came from Caleb at the park yesterday. Obviously my answer was no. But the two things I found interesting about this question were: 1. Caleb wants to fight. I've always known he was scrappy, and this personality trait is still there. In fact, in play wrestling, Caleb took down a six-year-old last week. Our neighbor was red faced from exertion trying to get away when I made Caleb let go. 2. Caleb asked before attacking the other child. I think this is good news. He's showing restraint. I still worry that he will be the one coming home from school with black eyes and bloody noses and probably half the time it will be because someone wasn't fair to Brayden, but I see it as a positive sign that he asked first and that he obeyed. Incidentally, the other kid took a swing first and Caleb retaliated and than, I guess, wanted to take it further. At least he doesn't start the fights.