dee-wish-us

on tuesday, miles and I decided to make cupcakes. he's really starting to like helping out in the kitchen...although I think the opportunity to stand on his stool is what really draws him in. we have to restrict the use of said stool, though. not long ago he used it to microwave his crackers. I realized it when I could smell some sort of cheesy aroma filling up the house. nice. however, I was ecstatic that we are cheap and buy the generic "sharks" instead of actual "goldfish" as the bag was plastic - not lined with foil. just another great reason to shop at ALDI! but I digress. I have found that at some point during our little baking adventures, it is best to put miles in the highchair. for one - he asks to go in there and for two - it contains the messes to a smaller area. his main job was to put the paper liners in each of the cups. I whipped up the mix while he was busy saying "this one here." after I filled them with batter, I stuck a little bit in an extra liner and set it on his tray. he said "don't like it!" (a familiar phrase in our house) and I told him he could try it if he wanted to. I turned around and started washing dishes. I heard him talking, so I shut the water off and asked, "what did you say?" he was licking off his finger and said, "it's dee-wish-us" ahhhh...a child after my own heart! unfortunately, I think he now prefers the batter to the actual cupcake. oh well, just one more reason for cold stone to make "cake batter ice cream." once all of the cupcakes were cooled and frosted, miles declared that he "don't like frosty the snowman" - referring to the frosting, of course. I think the pictures show another story:

dee-wish-us!
got milk?
what you get when you ask miles to show you what "excited" looks like!

a whole new world

little henry bug is really enjoying all of the "new" (or at least new-to-him) toys that we recently pulled out.
exhibit A: the bumbo seat
exhibit b: chewy toys

we are anticipating some chompers any day now
(miles had two toofers at four months!)

exhibit c: the exersaucer
exhibit d: the jumperoo
exhibit e: the mirror
here are a few more pictures of the little guy. he's growing so fast! we are having a blast with him and look forward to seeing his big smile everyday. he's even started to giggle...I'll work on getting it on camera and posting a video. it is precious.

he's starting to stick his little bum in the air during tummy time

chatting with grandma sissy - he's a talker!

REEEEEACHING for the bee

happy, happy, HAPPY

ready for a nap in the sleep sack

saturday in the park

last saturday we had nothing on our agenda. trust me when I say that THAT is a rarity! we decided to lay low in the morning. kyle whipped up a batch of chocolate chip waffles and we watched a little letter factory (a.k.a. "letter FATory - if you're a wee toddler). testing his mommy and daddy is at the top of miles' "to do list" and this morning was no exception...this is not allowed.

"I swing in henry's swing!"

despite a little mischief making, miles had no trouble keeping us entertained. here is what a roll of clear tape will do to a 23 month old.

gotta love cheap entertainment!

we interrupt this blogcast for a public service announcement:
poor tinker and tessie. the wide spread doggie toys have long given way to the endless array of baby/toddler toys. from the look on these faces...they are none too happy about the new home decor. please dig through the doggie-toy "graveyard" bin soon. thank you.
we now return to your regularly scheduled blogcasting.
mr. henry lounged around sans clothing while we got a few laughs out of watching miles. my wonderful friend kate borrowed us this beautiful moses basket. I'm sad that henry is just about too big for it. it's certainly come in handy!
after we managed to get everyone dressed, miles found a deck of cards and began to play his favorite game - matching (narrowly beating out another fave in our house...52 card pick up...always a crowd-pleaser).
the weather made it nearly impossible to stay inside all day and so we packed up a little picnic and headed on over to one of the parks right by our house.

henry-bug stayed snug and warm in the stroller...brr!

saying prayers
"thank you for our food. amen"

CHEERS!
miles loves to "do cheers" with anything and everything. sandwiches? why not!

good thing daddy came along to chase the little guy around

I'm convinced that springtime in minnesota is God's gift to us all for surviving the harsh winter weather. the flowering trees, green grass, and smell of lilacs is a little slice of heaven :)

a sure sign of a successful outing

the golden thirty

kyle joined the prestigious "30 + club" on friday! being that it was his golden birthday, we had to be sure it was done right. unfortunately, I was unable to arrange a day off for him, so we had to postpone our celebrating until after the work day was over. nana and papa graciously offered to babysit the boys so that we could go out to dinner and even squeeze in a drink or two in a real live grown-up bar...haven't done that in months!! all of our siblings (minus marc and jen) joined us at fiesta cafe for a yummy dinner.
I would like to personally thank the staff there for doing a smashing job of embarrassing kyle. the entire staff (or at least it seemed like the whole staff) came out singing feliz cumpleanos, slapped a big ol' sombrero on kyle's head, and smeared some whipped cream on his nose. it was glorious!
the birthday boy was spoiled with a whole variety of gift cards from everyone and miles & henry got daddy a shirt and a bag of 30 hershey kisses. I was unsure of how to properly mark this grand occasion in terms of some sort of fabulous gift. fear not. here is what I came up with:
and here is the look kyle gave me as he was trying to figure it out.
in case you are a little stumped too..."compute it! big mac + apple"...it's the iMac, silly! kyle's been salivating over this thing for months, scratch that, years. so I thought that he deserved an extra special gift in honor of his 30th birthday. I'm sure there will be a blog post dedicated to our new cyber machine as soon as it arrives. you know me though...ever the bargain hunter...we will be purchasing aforementioned iMac as soon as apple begins their back-to-school promotion. I'm all for a free iPod!

the remainder of the evening found us all bar-hopping *gasp* you read that right! we quickly discovered that we are a bit rusty, but had a good time despite our yawning at 9pm. I have to admit that one of us (might have been me) said "it's getting late. by the time we pick up the boys and get them to bed it will be after 11pm." wow, we're old. here are the rest of the pictures from our night out on the town. a special thank you to nana and papa for watching the boys. they obviously had a great time!

mmmm...brownies.

tuckered out