The weather has been quite pleasant here lately (well, I guess that isn't such a surprise, sorry) and the boys have been wearing a fair amount of shorts and t-shirts. Scrapes and scabs aplenty! This is actually less "costly" for Finn than wearing pants, since he tends to rip holes in the knees with regularity, which costs us money and time for patches or new pants. That or he can look like a little hobo who wears rags for clothes. It happens.
Finn is now 4 1/2 years old, as of the 13th. We're now getting him a little involved in organized activities, which has its pluses and minuses. The minuses are that things cost money and we have to drive him there! But so far he's done a version of soccer with strong parent participation, and tonight was his first swimming lesson in a long time. (We'd done some water-babies type stuff in the past, but it had been a LONG time.) He did great! The only problem from his perspective was that it was only 30 minutes.
He's very proud of his new swimsuit that says "Totally Jawsome" with a shark's mouth.
Graham and Finn are really getting along pretty well these days, and while they do play pretty rough, they make each other laugh a lot. Graham can apparently laugh even while getting manhandled as I tell Finn to leave his brother alone. At some point the laughter turns to tears, of course! In this orange (the official color of Fortney Boys, LLC) photo, I think they are both being mice. Graham is "Super Mouse" while Finn is "Flash Mouse."
Obviously here they are "Batman" and "Tiny Batman." The warm weather has brought out the backyard hammock as well. While last year they were good about not playing on it, this year, not so much. If you turn the volume up to 11 you can hear them giggling. I took the movie from our bedroom window.
Why is this here? We have a lot of snails and slugs in our yard. This one is only about 2 inches. The much rarer banana slugs (never seen in our yard, yet) are more like 6-8 inches.
Summer, or what passes for summer, is in full swing! Highs of 67! Lows of 52! What?! Anyway, at least it is sunny in the afternoons when the fog burns off. A few days ago when Katie was in New Orleans the Fortney boys went with some friends to a fun neighborhood pool in Sunnyvale, on the warm side of the Santa Cruz mountains. Both boys enjoyed the 1-foot-deep kiddy pool and the main pool (with parental assistance--thanks Rachel!). Here is Graham getting warm and dry after a fun afternoon. In other news, they inhaled paella on trips out of the pool. The boys were supposed to fall asleep in the car, since we left at 7:40, just before their bedtime. Graham held on for 25 minutes, and Finn made it all the way home, plus another 45 minutes. He was rattling around his room til 9:15, probably the latest he's even stayed up. He was on a swimming high.
As for more local water, I put a little too much bubble liquid in a few nights back, but of course that just made bath time even more fun. Finn was unable to attend school yesterday due to a fever (which had already broken), so the two of us went to see Cars 2. It was Finn's 2nd movie, after Toy Story 3 from last summer. He did pretty well, and only moved seats or rows a few times. In other boy news, Graham has been stringing 2-word phrases together, like "Up high," "my turn," "bye cows," and "mean daddy." The last one was from when I changed his diaper without his permission! I'll remember that one forever.
Oh, and here is Graham dancing with Elmo at Toys 'R Us. :)
The weather has been hot this summer, so we've broken out the little plastic pool...only once so far. Hmm. Well, more to come. Both boys have a great time. This picture shows what a, um, large boy Graham is, but there is really is some kind of trick of the eye going on, because he's MUCH smaller than Finn. (But Graham is certainly bulky. We went to Hakone Gardens today and he was bigger than a little girl who was almost two.) Also, today, I took Finn to his first round of swimming lessons through Los Gatos Recreation. It is the entry level class, Cuttlefish. Out of the 7 kids, he was the oldest there, but certainly took direction the best. We worked on kicking and using ones arms. He was really interested in the lifeguards, mostly. And the lane lines. And running on the side of the pool. We'll have to get Graham in someday soon too. Right now Graham is becoming an expert scuba diver from the friendly confines of the bathtub, which you can see here:
And, just for fun, 3 more from our GREAT trip to the midwest. It was probably our best family trip ever. The last pic really shows you that Finn is the bigger brother.
Yesterday it was painfully hot here. Today it is too. 100 or something, with no air conditioning. Katie was out of commission with overheating/sleepiness/terrible cold. Finn and I decided to head for the beach, so we left for Santa Cruz after his nap. The road was packed, because it was a popular destination. We came to standstill about 7 miles from the beach, and I guessed we had another hour ahead of us. Finn was already yelling "ou-side! ou-side!" so I had to think quickly to avoid a disaster. We made a quick exit out to the redwooded hills of Felton, just off of Hwy 17. I hadn't yet figured out what we were going to do, but there is a state park there. Maybe we could hike? As luck would have it, we noticed a little stream where others were playing, and we made our way down. Activities included: --walking in the water --playing in the wet sand with our new beach toys --throwing rocks --sitting on logs --more throwing of rocks It was a good time, and we nearly had the river to ourselves. Some dogs and owners came by to catch and throw sticks. I don't think that Finn knew that dogs could swim, so that was cool. I didn't take many pictures, because I was in the water most of the time. At first he really liked just watching water ripples. Some other hi/low-lights: --Getting hit in arm with a rock. This 12-year-old who showed up was a BAD rock skipper. Ouch! --After 2 hours down in the river, it was time to go home. I carried Finn and 3 bags up 40 feet of river bank, up to the bridge, to walk back to the car. I put Finn down to let him walk on the bridge. He peered between the bars to look down at the river. He then took off his Twins hat and sent it down into the water below. That boy! Sigh.... After thinking for a bit, I put down all of the bags, grabbed him again, and we made our way back down to fish out the hat. Ah, toddlers. The whole way down he repeated "hat" and "naughty."
Here he is on his new Rody. This is about 5 minutes after he got it. Note the strange monkey shrieks. He's taken to calling it his "gonkey."
Finn really seems to enjoy putting things where they belong (when we ask him to do so). And he likes to help clean around the house, when he sees us doing it. In preparation for Katie's mom coming to town last week swept and swiffered the floors. Gotta make ourselves look like reasonable parents. Finn loved the swiffer and Katie noticed that one can rather easily take out the middle portion of the handle to make it Finn-sized. Action photo! Now he uses it every day. Note that there is no swiffer towel on it. He totally flipped out into hysterics when we put the swiffer towel on. Screams, shrieks, the whole deal. It is unclear why. I'm sure we'll never know. Just wait buddy, in anther year you'll also be on dishes, trash duty, bathrooms, you name it... Katie tells me that guys take up too much space by sitting with their legs far apart. It's true. I try to not do this on my vanpool to work every day. But it is just Finn in the back seat, so he is free to, ah, spread out.
Saturday was the 3rd birthday, observed, of Caitlin, and Jessica and Daren had another pool party. Finn was the life of the pool, as expected. Of the two hours we were there, I bet he was in the pool for 1:45. I was only in the pool for 1:44:55. How can that be? Shouldn't an adult be with Finn for every second, since he can't swim? Yeah, you'd think so. But a certain someone likes the pool so much that he climbed into the deep end by himself when I'd turned around to talk to Katie near the snack table!! He was actually fine. He was smiling at me, holding himself up with the pool ledge (doing a little pullup, of sorts), waiting for me to get back in. As near as we can figure, he must have got on all fours and moved his legs over the side while holding on. That kid! Here he is, Baywatch style, before getting in for the first time. Look out ladies!
The warm weather has brought out the backyard hammock as well. While last year they were good about not playing on it, this year, not so much. If you turn the volume up to 11 you can hear them giggling. I took the movie from our bedroom window.
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