PIcnic at Our Park

Finally...spring is here!  After our freak early summer in March, it's been decidedly chilly here.  To celebrate, the younger boys and I had a picnic at the park behind the house.  Yannick's first ever picnic - at least his first where he was expected to sit down and eat food.  I was very curious to see if he was going to be obedient and sit on the picnic blanket or take off for the playground.  I was pleasantly surprised that he stayed put, after just a brief struggle!

Yannick and Wyatt mid-eating

Wyatt so wants to be a sunglasses wearer, but they never seem to work for him.  He has several pair and none have made him happy...for unknown reasons to me.  Yannick however LOVES sunglasses.  Unfortunately for any adult present, what he loves about them is having them on for 5 seconds, taking them off, giving them to you, then whining until you put them back on his face, which he is thoughtfully leaning forward to help you out.  This does not get old for him, but it does for me.  JUST KEEP THEM ON OR OFF.  Alas, I spend a good portion of time humoring him.

Short note - that is not a picnic blanket we are sitting on.  Instead it is an old fabric shower curtain which I thought might keep us dryer if the ground was wet, and help repel the inevitable spills.

Long Ride

Today Wyatt rode his bike to Walgreens and back, while I pushed Yannick in the stroller.  It's a good ways if you're not conditioned for it.  About 6 or so blocks one way.  1/2way home, Wyatt got a bit tired of riding and decided he needed a little break, so we stopped while Wyatt rested in the grass and Yannick watched him.  Yannick watching him prompted Wyatt to want to play with him, so instead of riding the 2 blocks back home, he decided he wanted to ride in the double stroller to play.  Lucky me, I got to balance his bike on the handle of the stroller while pushing the two of them while they were playing.

Wyatt resting and chatting with Yannick

Bath Buddies

Back in the day it was Zachary making Wyatt laugh hysterically in the bath.  Now, Zachary has no interest in baths, and only showers (though we still have to bathe him). Wyatt is now the one to make Yannick laugh hysterically.  I guess that is paying it forward.

My two silly boys, enjoying getting clean.

Long Car Ride to GA

We were dreading dreading dreading this car trip to GA for Christmas.  After Yannick's STELLAR performance in the car in August (he was SO bad that I left Poppi alone to drive ZW back to CHI by himself and took a plane home with Yannick!), we were afraid.  However, Yannick is much older now - at this age, 4 months makes a HUGE difference.  One thing, he can interact with this brothers. Another, with his placement behind the driver (so Z & W can be next to each other to share games & videos) he can see mom or dad in the passenger seat.  Perhaps most importantly, he can EAT.  If he got fussy, no problem, feed him some banana with my finger, or give him some baby puffs!  Easy peasy!  And the big boys?  Easy as usual.  This year brought the arrival of a new distraction: the Gameboy that Zachary got for Sinterklaas.  He has no idea that it is the gameboy I had when I traveled for work 7 years ago or so.  He is SO thrilled with it.  He also does not yet know that there are many games for it. We just gave him one cartridge that has 5 games.  This kept the two boys quite entertained!

The only real glitch of the trip was when I was driving in the late late hours.  We thought we "might" be able to drive straight through and get to ATL in the wee hours and not have to stop for the night. While I was driving, I had 4 asleep boys in the car, and I was listening to my book on mp3.  When the phone rang (POPPI!!), for some reason I answered it.  And loudly (since I had the book playing in my ear, I forgot how quiet the car was).  It woke up Art, and woke up the baby.  Once Yannick was awake, it was all over.  The big boys were awakened and everyone was crying. So we got a hotel a bit out of Nashville.  So close, yet so far.  It was plenty late though - around 11pm.  No problems the next day though.

I feel like I should have some parental guilt that my 3yr old knows how to play video games!

Yannick getting lunch off my finger - where did I pack that baby spoon??

Two boys finally asleep and so cozy!

Yannick's First "Independent" Bath

Little Nick is getting to be a good sitter.  Today I finally decided to get rid of the baby bath that we had been putting into the tub with Wyatt, and let Yannick sit in the tub unsupported.  He thought it was so very great to be in the bath with this big brother and play with toys and of course SPLASH!

Wyatt is trying to get Yannick to look up at the camera.  No way was he taking his eyes off those toys!

Wyatt is a good big brother!

While I am trying to unloading the groceries and fix lunch, Wyatt decides to help out by giving "baby Nicky" (as Wyatt calls him) a bottle I had left over from the morning.  It was a huge help!  Wyatt got bored pretty quickly (by my standards), but every little bit helps!  Thanks big brother Wyatt!

Yannick time

Just a few pictures of our little peanut and his goings-on for the last few days

Yannick and DaU hanging out on the floor 

Wyatt helping Nick with his tummy time; he is trying to show him Ironman 

Wyatt has been a very involved big brother, so much more than I ever expected!  I have been really touched and pleased with his level of interaction and attention to Yannick

Little peanut taking a nap