Since the last one....

Friday we went to Hawaiian Falls with the Addington clan.
Not only is it fun,
but it wears my kids out!
Like, falling-asleep-while-eating-your-sundae-that-mommy-bribed-you-with-if-you-would-slide-down-the-green-slide, kind of tired.

They woke when we got home...
but still were too exhausted to do much more than watch 'Up' with me in bed.

Saturday we lost our puppy...
I cried a lot.
Ran around town so Dave could do his thing...

And then we met up with the Dean family for dinner.

With 3 small boys, it was chaos at times...
But they brought Sprinkles cupcakes and I just love chatting with Denise.
So it was totally worth the crazy!

Sunday was Father's Day.
I was on call but Lance was off.
Luckily, call was pretty slow and I decided we could venture out to dinner.
Thankfully I did not have one page the entire time we were gone,
and Coopers was excellent eating!

I felt terrible though, because the sadness that surrounded Toby had me off my game.
No Father's Day blog--  no card--
but we had bought him a new bat bag!
And that was good enough for him.

Monday was spent cleaning (as it was storming here early that morning and swim lessons were cancelled),
And teeteeing in the potty like a big boy.

I am amazed at how easily Beckham is picking up the pottying thing.
I wasn't planning on introducing this until after vacation, for obvious reasons, but he will ask me to take his diaper off to potty so I am just rolling with it.

Every time he asks, "ooh pwoud momma?"  and then runs to Maddox yelling, "I teetee potty Bubba!!  I teetee potty!"  As if it his first time to ever do it!
Maddox is such a sweet brother, he always pats his little head and tells him, "good job Beckham.  I am so proud of you."
And I think he truly is.

Bechkam has only had one teetee accident since he started this transition,
But he has not figured the poopooing part out just yet.

So, I usually make him stay in a diaper until he has had his daily bm, and then we rock the potty the rest of the day.
Lazy parenting?
Maybe.
But it will all come together at some point and that's something I learned from parenting Maddox.

Beckham also ditched his binky last week.
(Another thing that I planned on waiting until after a 10 hour car ride to do.)
He doesn't ask about it or talk about it or care that it is gone...
He did find one last night, however, and you would have thought he found a gold nugget.
He played with it for a bit and showed it to everyone in the house, but eventually he tossed it away before going to bed.

I'll be honest.
It kind of makes me sad.
I like him little.

In the same fashion of doing-things-on-his-own-timing, he learned the color blue this week. (and maybe green?)
Maddox's swim instructor gives them suckers at the end of each lesson and B announced that he wanted a "boo one".
He dug around in the tub and sure enough, pulled out a blue raspberry sucker.
Assuming it was luck, I asked him if he could give me a blue sucker too.
He put his little hand back down in the box and swished it around and grabbed me the same sucker.

We have played the same game with popsicles, blocks and M&Ms and he gets it right every time.
Unfortunately that's the only color he consistently does...
but he will get there.

He also may know his letters.
I use the word "may" because I haven't worked with him...
(cue 22 month old Maddox here.)
but Randi gave him her phone during swimming lessons and I look over and he is playing this game where you drag letters into the correct blank to spell a word.
I was floored.
And purchased the game today and he was IDing a few of them by name!

While I am catching you up on the ways Beckham is trying to transition out of babyhood before I can blink, I should also tell you that he is a talker-Mc-talking these days.
Full sentences and even has humor too.

We were in the car the other day and Maddox kept trying to speak.
Each time he would begin, however, Beckham would simply say, "hush."  and cut him off before he could start.
Maddox was fuming and trying to make us get on to him but Lance and I couldn't stop laughing.
Beckham knew he was funny too, as he would toss us a grin-- but he's truly comedic as he never laughed at his own joke.
Just straight faced-- looking forward, "hush."

Tuesday Lance was off work.
We had swimming lessons, and then another showing on the house.

We raced home, quickly did the fine tuning needed before a showing and then loaded up for another "no thanks."

While out, however, we made a quick trip to Boyd and I got a famous Chilly Penguin snow cone-- so all in all I called it a good day.
...And call was decent that evening too.  

Wednesday we were almost late for swim lessons because of a stalled train...
and Maddox did not put his best effort in while we were there.

Mom headed out afterward, and we spent the day at our community pool.
All of our neighbor-friends were there this time and it made for a good time.

Laughing with Ashley, Shawna and mom...
Made it an even better one!

When we pulled into the garage after, however, I noticed this little gem written on our garage wall.

When I asked him about it, he proudly admitted that he put it there, and just wanted to remind us what kind of birthday party he was wanting.
I should have been mad.
But I was humored instead.
(and proud that he spelled it correctly-- and chose a lower case 'r' over the capital!)

He is so obsessed over Mario these days (a game in which he has never played) and draws him every chance he gets-- even in the steam while taking a shower.

He is going to use his birthday cash to purchase a DS though, so he knows the real game is just around the corner...
and the excitement is killing him!

Thursday Maddox showed so much improvement at swimming lessons.
After, we headed to Roanoke for a day at Hawaiian Falls.

My friend Michelle (who actually was friends with Lance in HS and I mostly only know through social media but call my friend in my head) asked if we wanted to go with them.

I forgot that I had only really met her once or twice, because we are so similar in so many ways-- she feels like an old friend.

Channel 8 (and a bunch of other booths) were set up out there with free stuff and games and such and I hashtagged a few of our pictures trying to make it on the news.
Since I don't watch the news--
let me know if we make it!

I also ran into my hilarious friend Jenny and got to catch up with her for a minute...
and saw on FB afterward, that a few other friends made it out too.

We had cake and then I showered the boys there for their inevitable car-ride-home-crash...
Slid in with just enough time to shower before going on call.

Today we are sun-beat and waterlogged.
We stayed in to clean and rest most of the day.
And by "clean and rest", I mean clean and reclean.

We also had to decide if we wanted to accept another investment offer on our house.
(and how much money we are willing to loose.)
Now that the farm house is rented and we have no where to go...
it makes the decision a bit trickier!

We countered, but have not yet heard their reply.

We went for hair cuts this afternoon--
a late lunch/ early dinner at Lance's store--
and then home and got crafty.
(Lance has a softball game tonight.)

...And now I have to decide what I am going to do about the invitations that I have yet to order or send out for Maddox's birthday party that is exactly 2 weeks from today.
Do I have enough time??
Why do I procrastinate?
Would I have even thought about it at all had I not written this blog tonight?!!

Either way-- I scored a sweet deal on Groupon and we will celebrate Mario style with some free printables I found online!
I love a bargain!

And I double love the placement of Mario's mustache!