Summertime's Coming!

With the weather being SO beautiful, we've been able to have some summertime fun! We took the boys a Baron's baseball game on Friday night and had a blast. Stephen had a work social at the game, so we went and got dinner and Elijah got to bounce in one of the inflatables. Both of the boys got a glove at the game (which worked out perfect since we forgot to bring Elijah's with us!) Despite the SUPER hot weather and lack of a breeze, we had a great time.

Grammy took Elijah for a little "Grammy Date" last night, so we decided to take Luke to experience his first time in a swimming pool. He was not having anything to do with it - super sad whenever his toes hit the water, which was a pretty comfortable temperature. But once he got in the water completely, with his feet of the floor, he was perfectly content. He was just all smiles and splashing up a storm! We could have stayed there all afternoon, but dinnertime came all too quickly. But now we know that he loves the pool, which was kind of a prerequisite for being in this family, since mommy plans on being down there every day this summer!

Potty Training Time

It is potty training time, once again. I tried this last year around this time, but Elijah wasn't quite ready. He didn't have the bladder control at all, although it was a great starting point. Since then, he's tinkled in the potty on command really well and has gone at least once a day. But we had a pretty boring week, so I decided to start hard core on Monday. His incentive for tinkling is stickers for his calendar. We have a calendar that we do every Monday - I make a new one on posterboard each month and on every Monday, we color pictures of our plans for the week (library book for library, cross for church, etc) on paper, cut them out together, and he glues them on the specific day. [This started off back when he was about 20 months old b/c I wanted to make sure, since he's not in Mother's Day Out, that I'm teaching him most things that he would be learning there, and I thought "Days of the Week" might be one of them.] So anyways, we used to give him coins as an incentive for going on the potty - which since he LOVED them so much, he can now tell you what men are on the quarter, penny, and dime - but that didn't work so well once we used coins as bribery for other things (aka good behavior in public). So this week he has started putting little stickers on the calendar in 'today's date,' every time he tinkles on the potty. On Monday, he spent all day naked and only tinkled on the floor once. I reminded him every hour to go and he did great. On Tuesday, he spent the morning naked (w/ one accident during lunch in his high chair), and then he wore underwear in the afternoon. On Wednesday, he spent the day in his underwear, and I let him lead me a little more on when he goes to the potty. I eventually made him go a little after 10 since he hadn't gone since he woke up. We made a trip to Publix without a diaper on (I thought that would either turn out to be a brave or stupid decision). At publix, we were in the frozen section when he told me he needed to tinkle on the potty, so we made a mad dash to the rest rooms. It was quite difficult getting him up on the potty (praise the Lord for sanitizing wipes in the bathroom) with Luke in my arms, but he did a great job. He tinkled just a touch in his underwear later that day and then, when I was cleaning up after bedtime, I found that he tinkled in Stephen's chair during his movie... oh well. But my goal, from now on, is to wear underwear at home and then pull ups, I guess, in public outings (with the exception of small trips here and there). I really hope this goes well!

Life with two boys is getting more and more interesting. Luke's pulling up and walking/pushing everything. I didn't pay much attention to it when I was helping Elijah brush his teeth and Luke was walking around the potty, until he grabbed Elijah's little potty and turned it over, spilling a potty full of pee all over the hardwoods. I quickly put both of the boys out of the bathroom, told Elijah to watch his brother for a second =), and closed the door to clean up the mess. When I was done, no more than 1 min later, Elijah was all the way up the stairs, and Luke had made it past the landing on our stairs (almost 1/2way up). Then Elijah said "Hey down there!" with a big smile on his face...It was really cute. Lesson learned - I should shut the gate to the stairs and not close the door when I'm cleaning. =)
Luke has finally started to like books in the past couple days. Generally, he's too distracted to sit and read for a wihle, but something has just clicked in the last couple days. He gets really giddy when I take out "Brown Bear." and it's so cute... Other things that make him start to smile, laugh, and kick his legs in excitement are...opening the front door to the house (we generally wait for daddy to come home when that happens), bananas, Elijah giggling at him, holding him in your arms and dancing with him..He's a sweet, happy boy. He has gotten not one, not two, but three teeth now, and the fourth is about to break through the surface. We'll just say teething hasn't been the best experience in the world...He hasn't been all that fussy though, so that's definitely something to be thankful for. He's had trouble napping the past 2 days and woke up in the middle of the night last night, screaming bloody murder for a good hour. I had quite the meltdown on Tuesday... I keep trying to wake up early, setting the alarm at, now 5:45, just to get some things done around the house and find some time to shower. But Luke keeps waking up earlier and earlier! So I was crying to Stephen on Tuesday, and what does he do? He comes home a little early with roses and chocolates (and an orchid), and a beautifully written little card. Then today, he went into work later than usual (which is probably normal time for most people) just so I could get a shower before my day started, which is so sweet. (A shower might not sound like a lot to most people, but for moms with little ones, you know how big a deal that can be!) So I just wanted to let everyone know how great of a husband he is!

Luke and Elijah

Things are getting quite crazy in our household with Luke growing up so fast! He is almost 10 months old now and has been crawling around for a while and cruising along anything that will hold his body weight up. I think this is one of the harder stages of the first year - where you have to be sure everything they try to pull up on won't topple back on top of them. But Luke is now into pushing everything and walking behind them - the kitchen chairs, his table toy, boxes, Elijah's bicycle (which makes for a pretty cute scene when Elijah's on it, trying to pedal) Luke is talking a lot more now. He can say "Dada" and I think he says "nana" for banana (which he gets so excited to eat)- but the boy REFUSES to say "Mama!" I think he's a true Burns boy and is just giving me a hard time by not saying it. =) He got his first tooth at 9 months and we are in the process of cutting tooth number two. He's having a bit of trouble with it. He's the world's happiest baby all the time, so for him to be fussy, you know something's wrong. But in no time at all I'm sure he'll be back to his sweet happy self. We've noticed that he has a bit of a shy personality. If he meets someone and is in my arms, he will put his head against my shoulder or chest in a super sweet, but shy sort of way. I guess God might be trying to balance out my boys with a super social Elijah and a shy laid back Luke... time will tell!

Elijah has been so sweet lately. Just a happy little boy - although we've been having issues dropping him off at childcare when I teach aerobics. He pitches the biggest fit and nearly left me in tears on Friday! But I spoke with some of the workers and they've assured me that this is another phase that most kids go through about this age. And the hardest thing is leaving him, knowing he's crying and sad, but knowing that's what you've got to do. Hopefully this phase, too, will soon pass! Okay on with some more stories that make you smile...

Elijah's daddy recently taught him the biggest word he knows - supercalifragilisticespeallidocious (spelling?!) He's so cute to hear him say it!
He is currently obsessed with Buzz Lightyear. When we went up to Huntsville, his Nanny ran to the stores and got him a Buzz Lightyear toy so that both he and cousin Taylor would have one. All we heard that week (and are still hearing) was "To Infinity And Beyond!" I mean, all the time! But it's pretty cute.
Elijah likes to pretend to be other people now... we were eating lunch and he said "I'm the Daddy - I'm the fastest man in the world!!!! I'm the Luke - Dada... Dada...Dada..." I asked him to pretend to be the Mommy, but he didn't have an impersonation...
So as a former music teacher, I'm kind of proud to say that my 2 year old can sign a solfege scale (do re mi fa sol la ti do). Well, one day at Publix, Elijah was singing (rather loudly) "Do Re Mi!" over and over until one of the sweet men who was stocking the shelves sang it back to him. They went back and forth singing Do Re Mi for a while, and then, even when we were several aisles over, kept singing. It was pretty funny. But now whenever we go to Publix, Elijah will singing "Do Re Mi" to each and every shelf stocker in hopes that they sing back (and they often do). It's pretty cute.
Elijah looked at one of his weeble toys who had blonde hair and said "Mommy, he has corn on top of his head". This made me laugh so much that I called Stephen and let Elijah tell him that. Stephen said "he has corn on top of his head?" And Elijah said "That's so silly!" in a manner that made it sound like it was Stephen's idea.
Whenever Elijah waters the flowers and plants, I've noticed that he sings "Sprinkle Sprinkle little flower..." and then some other words to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, very softly.

The pictures are from Luke's 9 (and a half) pictures. He's getting so big and grown up! The picture of Stephen and the Elijah is after one of Stephen's softball games. Their Grammy was sweet enough to watch Luke so Elijah and I could cheer their Daddy on during a softball game, which is too late for Luke and pushing it for Elijah. But we went and had a blast. I spent more time trying to keep little man off the field than actually watching, but it was fun nonetheless! The one with the "Cahaba Cup" trophy is after Stephen got finished playing (and winning) the "Mudtown Classic" Basketball tournament. And the cute little girl is Bella Grace Monroe, our future daughter-in-law. Elijah and Luke's Aunt Beth and Bella Grace came to visit for a playdate on Monday and we had so much fun!