Dexy's 1st Adventure with Cereal

It seems like Dexter ALWAYS wants to eat. We've gotten to the point where during the day I often nurse him every hour or hour and a half and at night he wakes up every 2 or 3 hours (if I'm lucky) to eat. And he's getting so that he cries more than he ever use to. He is still such a pleasant boy, but unless I keep up this exhausting feeding pattern, he just cries and cries. I think that he is just so big that he is getting more hungry. He's not quite even 5 months yet, but yesterday I broke down and let him start learning how to eat baby cereal. I wanted to wait until he was 6 months, but I don't think we'll make it. Ollie hated rice cereal, so we only had left over boxes of the baby oatmeal. He seemed to like it, so maybe it was good that we just skipped the rice. It didn't, however seem to curb his endless hunger. He ate just as much through the night as he usually does. But maybe we'll try it again today right before bed and hope that it helps!

Letter Master

Another thing that Oliver loves is letters. When we were at the Bowles' house for our usual Sunday night dinner, Oliver found the Scrabble game on their stairs. He started picking letters out of it and naming them. Grandma Bowles heard him and was impressed, so she took the game to the table and sat him up on a stool to "work" with the letters. Her mom, Great Grandma Christensen was there, too. He sat there and showed off for both grandmas for 30 minutes; naming the letters, saying sounds and "sorting" away! Even after the grandmas left, I sat there with him for another 15 minutes or so. He'll let you play with him on starfall.com for hours if you're up for it. He can recognize and name all but 5 or 6 letters and knows several of their sounds as well. And I'm not saying this because I've spent hours forcing him to learn them - it's him, not me. He just really loves letters!

Ollie, my Outside Boy

Oliver could easily spend hours outside, so on Saturday we all went to the park as a family. We had a great time playing, having fun, and being outside (Ollie liked the outside part the best). We to him specially to a really fun park kind of by where Brian's parents live. He dumped wood chips on the slides, ran across the wobbly bridge and got to play in all the cute little nooks and crannies that make the park look like it has a little town. He loved the swings and the letter blocks the most. He could have stayed longer, but the rest of us were getting hot. I wish it was closer so that we could walk there everyday!

Crazy Dancing

Oliver has so much balance and core strength it's amazing! The only thing that I can think to call this video is "crazy dancing." He's so awesome!

Up Periscope!

Dex is learing how to do tricks with Daddy. He's on his way to being as trick-talented as Ollie. Here he is holding himself straight while he goes up and down.

Daddy the Jungle Gym

Daddy's are great for boys! They need someone who can throw them around, wrestle them, and let them use them as jungle gym. Brian is great at playing with our boys! He loves them, they love him and they love each other! So cheesy, but so true and just so darn cute!

The 'W' Rap

Here's more proof of Oliver's unusual passion for letters. He likes the letter 'w' so much that I made up a 'W' rap. This is kind of a long video, but it's really cute!

Boys Will Be Boys!

You know that you have a true, blue, through and through boy when you find him eating his lunch out of the back of a dump truck! I sat him up to eat and put his truck on the table out of reach. Or at least I thought it was out of reach. I went into the kitchen to get something and when I came back out I found Ollie enjoying his lunch, construction worker style. What a boy! Dex is also becoming more of a boy everyday. I've decided that he looks better with his short hair if it's spikey. He just looks so grown up now!

Play Time

Dexy is getting so that now he likes to have a little play time in his day, which is great for me because it means that I can usually get a crockpot dinner together before nap time and real food is slowly making it's way back into our place of residence. The other day, while I put together what turned out to be delicious slow cooker tuscan pasta, Oliver and Dexter played happily. Dex is starting to really love the jump-a-roo (still only about once a day, but that's enough time for me) and Ollie, of course can entertain himself with about anything. Here's my cute little Dex making an impish face while he plays in the jumper and Ollie making a game out of a collapsable laundry basket and of course, a couple handfuls of letters! It's been so nice to get my boys both a little bit bigger - crockpot black bean soup for dinner tonight!

Too Many Loves

If your brother is an 18-month old boy, then his loves can be a little much sometimes. Ollie thinks that "loves" means sitting on Dexy, biting him, or pinching him. But at least he's getting better at doing those things more gently. Maybe eventually we will rule them out of his affection reportoire completely. But for now, he paitently puts up with it. Although too many loves sure can wear a poor kid out!

Dexter's 1st Haircut

Yesterday we had the big, entire Bowles family picture (that's when we took our new family pic that now is our blog header), so we cute Ollie's hair yesterday. It was looking kind of crazy with some curly patches and some not so curly patches. I wanted to keep letting it grow, but it turned out looking really cute. We left Dex's long, because his hair is kind of his trade mark. However, tonight when we got home from Marie's house, it was all tangled from him rubbing his head in his carseat and Brian decided that it was time to cut his, too. It was so long. The longest we had was a 1 inch attachment for the clippers and that took off so much hair. As soon as Brian finished I really, really wished that we had just clipped the long parts around his ears, off his neck and out of his eyes with a pair of scissors instead of using the buzzer. It seems so short now and he has lost so much of his Dexy essence! His massive hair was his thing and now it's gone. I must admit that I am incredibly sad! It will be nice however to get it out of his eyes and make it easier to wash. I guess that he also looks more like and boy now. And he looks quite a bit like Robby now, too. He actually handled the buzzer very well considering the fact that he's only 4 months old. I will miss my little boy's adorable mop, but now my boys are both clean cut and missionary appropriate. In my sadness Brian pointed out to me that it's never to early to get them ready for missions and I guess that includes the haircut!

Gettin' in on the Party Fun

Today was Kael Peterson's 1st birthday. We went down to Lehi to celebrate with him and his family (my sister Marie). I, like the spaz that I sometimes am, forgot to take any pictures of the birthday boy. He was so cute as he dug into the green frosting on his very own one-year old cake. But I guess that I'll have to leave it to Marie to post those pictures on her blog. I did get pics of my boys getting in on the fun. Dexter dug the left over wrapping paper. He crinkled it, sucked on it, and tried to rip it. Oliver helped himself to one of Kael's brand new, birthday toys as soon as K went off to take a rest. He then, of course, had to go into the computer room and climb up on the computer chair all by himself to take care of his business. I guess he couldn't even let it rest on the Sabbath. We had a fun time and were so glad to get to celebrate Kael's b-day with him!

Upset the Fruit Basket!

All I have to say is at least he got into the bowl of fruit on the table where it was easy to clean up!

All Laughs

Dexy has been laughing for a little while now, but it's hard to catch on video. It's also kind of rare because although he's really happy and smiley all the time, he's not very free with the laughter. You have to earn it. And tonight all the pieces came together. He's our cute Dexy playing and laughing with his Daddy!

Today's Randomness

Brooklyn comes to play on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 AM. And it seems like on those days, everyone gets up extra early to greet her. We got an early start today and Brooklyn wasn't too happy about it at first, but she actually had a pretty good day. Dexy has developed the crazy, little, red spots that are just starting to fade on Ollie. I think it's just the reaction to some virus although Dex didn't get a high fever like Ollie had a couple of days ago. They don't seem to bug him, they just look sad to his Mommy. But despite all of my decent complaining, today I'm not going to whine. All in all everyone had a good day and we all ended up happy. Especially Brian, from the looks of the last picture! He,he!

1st Roll-Over Vica Versa

Dex has now learned how to roll the other way, from his back to his tummy. Not sure why because he doesn't way love being on his tummy, but he does like to roll. He is now 4 months old and is acting more and more like a big boy everyday - rolling this way and that, discovering his toes, grabbing things, and testing out all the cool new sounds that he can make.

Ollie - Danger Boy Extraordinare!

Oliver loves, loves, loves to climb! He will climb into, on top of, or out of anything he can find even if it puts his safety at risk. Laundry basket - not so bad, up on the table - not so good, out of a playpen - oh, boy!!!