Rainy Days and Mondays

 Mike and the boys had a great time playing in the rain yesterday. They went on a trek through the neighborhood, and then they had fun playing with the drain going under the stairs (sending one of their bath letters through with the flood of water). 

Science Museum Saturday

 It was nice to be at the museum on a rainy afternoon -- not too crowded!  (We even got the first seats on the train!)

Of course, the high point of this trip for the boys may have been splashing in the puddles.  It's the simple pleasures!

The alpacas had been to the groomer, too, apparently -- they had short haircuts just like Stanley.  :)

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Our neighbor Lakshmi dropped by today, and she asked James what he was doing.  He replied that he was playing "zondies" (what he calls Plants vs. Zombies), and she thought that he said he was doing laundry!  Now that would be a much more useful hobby -- but I think we'll have to wait a couple years for that.  :)

Quick Visit

It was great to see our friend Jason today for lunch -- he was in town for a conference and we were able to fit in a visit before he headed back home. 

Daniel's Fault

James now likes to make a "bowling face" for pictures, just like Cousin Daniel.  :)

Cupcakes with Grandma

The boys enjoyed making their birthday cupcakes with Grandma last Sunday!  (When their teacher asked Matthew about making them, he told her they didn't get any shells in when they were cracking the eggs.)  Mattie's favorite part was licking the batter.  :)

Finally

For those relatives who were giving us a hard time last weekend (you know who you are), we finally got Stanley to the groomer.  :)  These aren't the greatest pictures, but he still looks pretty cute with his short hair!

More Preschool

Here are some picture from my twice-in-a-row Parent of the Day stints.

The boys got to wear their birthday crowns at preschool, and we brought a special snack (vanilla cupcakes with no icing, because Matthew informed us that "preschool is too neat for icing!", and strawberries -- thanks, Grandma!)

Birthday Celebration

 We continued with our tradition and had a family & friends pizza party for the boys' birthday.  (And we were so happy that Grandma, Sue, Auntie Nora, Uncle Adrian, and Daniel could come from out of town!) 

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate for outdoor activities. So, it was a little more low-key, but we had a great time anyhow. 

Whole Foods only had graduation cakes left, so Mattie's cake says both "Congratulations" and "Happy Birthday."  :)

Happy 4th Birthday!

Mattie and Jamesie are four today!  :)

Belated Happy Mother's Day

 We hope yours was as wonderful as ours!  We were so happy to have Grandma Linda, Honorary Grandma Sue, and Auntie Nora here visiting us!

Happy Birthday, BCS!

Happy birthday to not-so-Baby Cousin Seth! 

(James said, "One day he will be six!  Then he will be a big boy.  He will be able to talk!"  Hate to break it to you, Jamesie, but Seth is already talking!)

Going, Going...

 Well, dear readers, you have missed out on one chance to join our neighborhood -- J & Y's house sold in a day.  (A day!  Unbelievable!  And awesome for them.)

We had lunch with them this weekend.  C is learning to play the piano, and when she started singing "If You're Happy and You Know It", Matthew and James obediently circled around the piano and started clapping their hands, before she even got to that part.

The boys were also excited that the girls had some Duplo blocks in different colors.  ("Mommy!  This one is light blue!")  It's the the little things.  :)

Now, we'll just have to figure out an excuse to get out to Seattle to visit. :)

No Accidents

James went through his entire day wearing underwear, with no accidents!  Yay, James!

Unfortunately, the ear doctor wasn't able to remove the wax -- we have to do ear drops again to try to loosen it up.  (I'm hoping the doc prescribed some different drops, since the last kind seemed to really bother James.)

On Their Own

The boys had a dentist appointment yesterday, and for the first time, they went back on their own, without parents.  This came as a surprise to me!  (A tiny preview of them going off to college!) It didn't bother the boys at all; they trotted right back and were very good with everything (even James, who has not been particularly cooperative on previous visits).  Yay, boys! 

They want us to start putting flouride on James's teeth since they have some weak spots (from being a preemie), but otherwise everything looked good. 

Today James was participating in a research study about kids with hearing loss, so he and I spent most of the day at the hospital (9:30-3, ugh!).  He was great!   He was really cooperative through all the testing, except he got a little tired of it right at the very end.  (And after that long, who can blame him?)

The first part was at audiology, and unfortunately, he still has some wax blocking up his left ear, so he's not hearing well at all out of that ear (fortunately the right ear is at his regular levels).  (Amazingly, they got us scheduled in to see the ear doctor tomorrow to take a look at that and hopefully help clear it out.  It was either that or the "next available" in mid-July!)

We didn't get any results from the testing today, but there were a number of the tests that James did really well on, including identifying letters (obviously -- he raced through that one!), and separating out sounds (so, "say 'team' without the 'm'").  I think it was one of the separating sounds tests that the experimenter commented that James was doing the best of any kid they'd tested in his age group.  (Go, James!)  There were others that he didn't seem to do quite so well on (the ones where they showed a picture and gave a little description: "Jimmy's mommy is going to the store. Jimmy wants to go, too.  What would he say to her?" were still hard for him - he did a lot of "I don't know" for those, even when he would know the response if it were a real situation.)  It was interesting to see informally from the tests this pattern of where the hearing loss seems to be creating some gaps in his knowledge or skills.  Of course, I don't know what's normal for his age group on these things, but there were a couple items here and there that I was a little surprised that he didn't get.  (A big issue for kids with hearing loss is that they don't overhear conversations as much as kids with normal hearing, so they miss out on that source of vocabulary, knowledge, etc. to some extent.) But, overall, I think he did a great job!

[The photo is from the other day when they wanted to find worms.  Mattie is holding up "his" worm.  If I'd gotten around to doing a blog post about that, I was going to title it, "I Pity the Worm" (say it in your best Mr. T voice).  Any bug that has the misfortune of crossing James's path has a rather sharply reduced chance of survival -- he's not exactly gentle with them!]