August 31st

Thanks so much, friends and family, for joining us for the month of August. It's been fun sharing our adventures every day. I know I'll be happy to look back at this later to help remember what life was like with our 4 year old and 1 year old. Here's a couple of pictures that sum it up pretty well : ). See you in September (just not every day!).

Flu Shots

We had a productive day today. We got pictures hung, flu shots for everyone (minus Conan, but I assume we're the ones that are going to be in contact with the most germy kids this winter), and finished the night with Chris making our dinner into a restaurant meal.

The boys drawing on our new chalkboard (and the ground, wall beside it, themselves). I promptly hung it in a very high spot, sorry boys. 

Chris with his letter blocks. These may be his longest lasting toy. He's been loving them since he was 18 months. 

This was Bryce yesterday. I've seen lots of pictures of babies falling asleep in their high chair, and I've never understood how that could happen. In the 4 years of being a mom, my kids have never been calm enough to do this. I had to laugh when I walked out of the kitchen and saw this. My favorite was that Chris told me he was going to wake Bryce up because he "still had food left on his high chair that he needed to eat".

 Chris put this blanket on and said he was coming back from the pool. As soon as Bryce saw Chris he needed to do the same thing. 

 Sweet boys.

Bryce!

 I was measuring this morning, and as soon as I was done the boys took over. 

We had to wait in the doctor's office for half an hour after shots because of Bryce's egg allergy. Lollipops and Sesame Street made it all better. 

 Chris had been playing restaurant during the day and I told him we could play for dinner tonight. He was really excited about it and planned our whole menu: bread and butter, salmon, broccoli, and mud pie. My favorite was when Chris asked me what my drink order was. I told him water, and he 'made" it for me by melting ice. 

Elmo

These pictures are from a few months ago, but they are some of my favorites. We were going through our hall closet and found Chris' Elmo costume from Halloween 2 years ago. He wanted to put it on, and amazingly enough, it still fit. Bryce could barely stand it, he was so excited. I don't think Bryce even knew who Elmo was at the time, but man did he like that costume. He just kept running up to Chris and giving him hugs. It was really sweet. Mom even had to get the Abby wings out and play along. (Excuse the state of our apartment in these pictures, like I said, we had some serious closet purging going on!). Enjoy the pics of these two little cuties!

Happy birthday Grandma Kimmy!

At 7 this morning Chris wanted to call Grandma Kimmy and sing her happy birthday. I almost let him until I did the math and realized that would be 4 am her time. Not the best birthday present, right? When I finally let him, he belted it out. Bryce even got some "Happy, happy" in.

It was gorgeous outside today, so we got some playground time, and then ate outside at our favorite sushi restaurant. Have I mentioned how much the boys love sushi? They were both super hungry, but man were they happy to be there. Poor Bryce was almost too excited to eat. I had to feed him a few bites before he could get it together enough to feed himself.

Here they are in the playground bubble.

Bryce can climb up the slide all by himself now. That was definitely new to me, but he acted like it was no big deal. 

Friends playing under the equipment. They were making a dragon hut. 

Devouring their food.

Dad and Chris. They couldn't wait for me to get the camera out!

Bryce at the end of our meal. It's hard to tell, but he made me give him the spoon. Even his eyelashes had soup on them. 

Monday, Monday

I woke and saw everyone's going back to school pictures on Facebook. I thought, I am so lucky I have another 2 weeks before Chris starts, I am really going to enjoy these next couple weeks as much as I can. Ha! Today was not the day. 

The boys had a bit of a rough start today. Bryce didn't sleep well, which meant poor Chris didn't sleep well either. If Little Guy doesn't get his 12-13 hours of beauty rest he is a tough cookie to deal with. I put both boys down for naps at 10 am. It was totally necessary. They both woke up feeling a little better, but we still had a rough go of it for the rest of the day. It started pouring down rain as they woke up, so we were stuck inside the majority of the day. Let's just say the Crum boys needed some fresh air. We were lucky that it got sunny by 4, and we booked it outside. Everything is always better outside! Here are some pics of them playing with their friends. Love these little guys! (Also love that they were fast asleep by 7 tonight!) Ready for a fresh start in the morning!

Aunt Chevy!!

We had so much fun with Chevy this weekend. Here are a few pictures from yesterday and today. Come see us again soon please!!

5K!

Chevy and I finished our 5K today! It was lots of fun (once we were done with the running part : ). When I walked in after the race the first thing Chris asked me was "Did you win?". I told him I wasn't the first person to cross the finish line, so he looked disappointed and said, "Oh, so you lost." He is definitely a Crum, if you're not first you're last, right guys? 

We got brunch with Chevy and Tom after the race. Chris ate his weight in a salmon omelet, and Bryce ate French fries and ketchup. I'm very much hoping Bryce grows out of his picky phase. After we got home we all took some serious naps. The bottom picture is Chris with his name he drew all by himself on the iPad. It's amazing how much more interested in writing he is when I let him do it on the iPad instead of paper. His writing has really improved since he beginning of the summer.We're super proud of him. 

Ikea

A friend and I had been planning to make an Ikea trip and today was the big day! Since we're in NY, and nothing is simple here, it takes a lot of walking and 2 ferries to get there. It was actually pretty lovely. The weather was nice, the ferries were on time, and the kiddos were really happy to be on a boat. They thought the whole trip was about them, little did they know the moms were having just as much fun picking out silicon cupcake cups and things of the sort.

Here's Bryce up and 'at em this morning! He slept surprisingly decent considering the night we had just had. He was awake at 5:45, ready to fight some fires!

On the ferry! Window seats for everyone!

Putting on a show in front of a red shag rug, obviously.

Trying out a bed. Chris was so tired at this point I had to force him off of the bed because I was pretty sure he was about to fall asleep.

We made the double ferry trek home with our purchases. Safe, sound, exhausted, and ready to bust out the little Ikea hex key and build a chair! 

short post

I was just about to start writing when Conan called for me. I'll get to what happened in a minute, but needless to say, I'm not up for writing much now. I'll give you a few bullet points from our day though...
* Saw a new organization idea last night on pinterest and decided I needed to implement immediately. http://lovelycraftyhome.com/2011/01/19/new-year-new-organization/
* Bryce was up for a good 3 hours straight last night because I refused to pick him up out of his crib and hold him. Is he really 16 months old and not sleeping through the night?? Unfortunately, yes.
* Walked with Chris and Bryce to Union Square in the morning to get said organizational tool.
* Met up with Chris' friends and Moms from school at the playground. The kids played for hours (2, 3? , I don't know for sure, but it was a long time.
* Decided to treat the kids to McDonalds for lunch. (this is where our problem of the night stems from, I'm afraid). All of them were so happy. And quiet. And well mannered. It's amazing what the chicken nugget can accomplish with 4 year olds.
* Took the kids back home for naps. We had a big afternoon, and there was no way I was going to power through no nap with Chris after all of the walking and playground time.
* Filed like a mad woman while the boys were napping (it's an exciting life I lead, I know).
* The boys woke up! Time for our adventure... Harlem! Chevy and I are doing a 5K this weekend and the number pick up was there. Chris was very excited to get to take a train he had never taken before
* We go on the train and things were fine for about 5 minutes until Bryce started getting really fussy. I tried everything, but quickly realized there was no way he was going to last another 100 blocks on the train without an intervention.
* Got off at Times Square and searched frantically for a news stand with a snack before the next train left. Found one. Trail mix, candy and fruit snacks. Bryce can't eat nuts, definitely no candy. Fruit snacks it is.
* Get back on the train. Bryce loves the fruit snacks. He's so happy and is wolfing them down. There's no stopping this kid. I think twice about them, but we're aways from dinner, so I don't worry much.
* Get off in Harlem. Slightly nervous at first, but the area we stopped was hopping. There was a huge choir singing outside the building where we were picking the numbers at.
* Sigh of relief. Done.
* Get back on the train. A man pulls out his electric guitar, and then proceeds to plug it into his amp and start singing. About 2 feet away from Bryce's head. Bryce cries. And cries. Man keeps singing totally crazy, inappropriate songs the entire time and then asks us for money.
*Finally make it back home. Conan got off work early and is home! Eat dinner. Bryce won't touch his food. Hmm.
* Outside play time. Kickball!
* Baths and bedtime.
* Conan calls for me. Bryce has puked all over him. Can I hold him so he can jump in the shower? Sure. Grab Bryce. Get puked all over as well. Clean for a good hour.
* Never, ever feed Bryce McDonalds and fruit snacks in the same day. Probably never feed him either ever again.
* Blog entirely too many details about our crazy day.
* The end! I'm going to go sleep through the night (bwahahaha!)

Phone pictures

Here are a few pictures from yesterday and today that were on my phone. Guess what we did today? The playground? How did you know? I think that's the problem with posting everyday. My sweet readers are starting to realize that our days are pretty much the same thing over and over.

What's that? You need a bathroom story to make things more exciting? Ok, don't twist my arm...
Today Chris came running in the kitchen to tell me that he and Bryce had just made a collage. "Great" I  was so excited the boys were playing nicely together, and making art, wow! I come in to investigate and Chris said, "Bryce held the green and blue pick-up sticks in the toilet, and I peed on them". Wow. Not what I was expecting! Needless to say, our pick-up sticks game is a couple sticks short now. Seriously, how do they come up with these things? And, collage? That's taking some serious liberty with that term if you ask me.

Ok, here are a few cute pictures of them to make up for their grossness.

Playing in the house with Bryce's little friend at the playground today.

Bryce feeding Noah. I love how Bryce was doing the "say ahh" face like I do with him.

Chris climbing up the crazy playground equipment all by. Go Chris!

Chris and his friends found a hide out under the fire truck.

This was yesterday, Bryce plopped himself down with all the bid kids playing Beyblades. It was adorable, he just sat and watched and didn't disturb them at all.

Chris getting pushed on the swings.