Tuesday we trekked to Ithaca to go to the Sciencenter. Grandpa Stu came along for the trip.

This is Theo explaining what he had made in the kitchen for us to enjoy for lunch.

Testing out different materials and examining them under the microscope.

Building earthquake-resistant buildings.

Summer fun

Organic strawberry picking at Reeves Farm in Baldwinsville Monday. We were the only people in the field when we arrived at about 8:30, and had it all to ourselves. The boys were fantastic pickers, which was good because picking strawberries on the ground with a baby in a front carrier is hard!

Later that afternoon we went swimming for the first time in one of the city pools. We went to Burnet Park, where the boys had swimming lessons last summer. The pool was COLD but the boys were able to use their puddlejumpers in the water so they were thrilled to swim around by themselves.

Six weeks of Baby Reed

Little Baby Reed is now seven weeks old. He is smiling at us and enjoys watching and listening to his brothers. Monday night he slept from 11pm to 4am, which I think was a record for him. Last night he slept from 9:30-3:30, a grand 6 hours in a row! I am pretty sure that the big boys did not sleep six hours in a row until they were at least a year old, maybe 18 months old.

Jeff is still sleeping in the attic most nights so that he can get a full night's sleep but for the last few nights I've had Reed in his own room, in the Rock and Play bassinet sleeper. It's been great because he is kind of grunty and makes a lot of noise in bed, so now I can hear him when he is truly awake but not just when he's grunting or sighing or getting ready to go to sleep or just waking up. When he was in my room, I would wake up as soon as he started moving around, even if he was only just waking up and not ready to eat yet, so I missed out on a lot of sleep while he was waking up and going to sleep. Now I only wake up when he's ready to nurse, and then I just put him back down when he's done eating, and he settles in while I'm going to sleep undisturbed in my own bed.

For their birthdays, we got the boys durable kids' cameras. I had bought them from a garage sale at least two years ago and was saving them until they could use them. Of course when I went to put batteries in them, one didn't work. The other only worked for about an hour. So we bought brand new ones for the boys. They're neat little cameras, from the perspective that you can drop them and bang them around quite a bit and they still function, but to take good pictures, you have to be totally still and the subjects have to be relatively still.

These are some of the best shots from what I think is Theo's camera, mostly from a walk we took near our house at Elmwood Park, behind what will be the boys' school next year.

Because Theo's camera broke on the trip (the old one) the boys shared the one working camera, so we have some pictures of Theo as well.

Our friend Leah visited and had a portrait taken.

A look down our block.

More pictures of the last night with Mindy and family.

Later that same evening we walked down the dead end of our street and found a fire truck. A little boy came out of the house in front of the fire truck and said it was his daddy's fire truck, and started climbing on it, so Theo and Beckett started climbing on it too. The dad eventually came out and said something about working for a repair shop for fire trucks and there not being enough room at the shop to keep this one, so he drove it home for the night, which doesn't make much sense to me, but whatever--the boys thought it was fun.

The same boy, Alex, also had a kid size Gator he drives down his dead end road like a boss. He let T&B climb around in it and ride in the back but once when my boys were in the front and Alex was holding on to the side, Beck pressed the gas pedal (I think by accident) and dragged Alex along and ran over his foot. Oops.

This is one of the features of the camera--you can "photoshop" in silly things like a treasure chest.

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Bye bye Mindy (and family)

Mindy, the big boys' long-time childcare provider (and second mom, really), moved with her family last week.  Mindy spent two or three days every week with the boys from the time they were six months until they were three years old. We've also spent lots of time with their family, including dinners and picnics and walks and lots and lots of front- and backyard goofing off. Their kids have been like older siblings to Theo and Beckett, and we are going to miss them so, so much. Mindy has been such a mentor to me as a mom and has talked me through so many difficult challenges with the boys. We had one last chance to say goodbye on Tuesday night before they left on Wednesday morning.