First Taste of Summer Fun

The beginning of this week started out quite hot. I tried to resist turning the A/C on and just opening the windows, but I couldn't - the upstairs especially was just too hot! On Monday, just as Brennan was fighting me to go down for a nap, our neighbor came by to ask to borrow our sprinkler. Brennan heard us talking and that was it for naptime - he was ready to play in the water.
The water was definitely chilly though and Brennan and Sydney took breaks to warm up on towels from time to time.
On Tuesday, Brennan wanted more sprinkler, so we headed back out for more water fun. It wasn't really warm enough to fill the bigger pool with water (it would have been so cold), so we stuck with the baby pool. He and Sydney had fun slowly emptying the pool one cup at a time - and occasionally jumping into it when they needed to cool off.

Baxter's Back

Baxter was back with us last week during spring break, when his family went to Florida. I enjoyed having him with us. He has definitely calmed down a lot since last year and Brennan was so much more capable of helping this year! Brennan LOVED having Baxter at the house. He told me repeatedly that he loved Baxter. One night at bedtime, he thanked Jesus that Baxter was at his house. And, when we gave Baxter back to his family on Sunday, Brennan sulked the whole walk home, saying, "where's my Baxter?" It was a little heart breaking, but he hasn't asked for his own dog yet. Although I feel like I wouldn't mind having a dog, I am not rushing into that decision! Lets have this baby first :)

Here are some photos from the week:

Brennan played a lot of tug of war with Baxter, using the dog's pillow.
Brennan was pretty insistent on holding the leash the entire time for all of Baxter's walks. He did a great job and Baxter walked pretty well for him. I'd have to occasionally help untangle the dog's legs from the leash, but otherwise, Brennan was able to maintain control.
You can see in this photo, Brennan learned to tug at the leash when he wanted to move Baxter from a spot that the dog fixated on. On nice days, we walked the whole loop of our neighborhood, which is about a mile. At the halfway point (the entrance of our neighborhood), there is a Baha'i Faith Center building, which a nice empty parking lot. Brennan ran Baxter back and forth in the parking lot, giving them both plenty of exercise.
Brennan and Baxter took a little break to catch his breath before we headed home.

All in all, it was fun to have a dog at the house and to see Brennan's excitement about him. Baxter just lives a few doors down, so we can visit him anytime we'd like!

Easter

I have been really behind with blogging this month. April has just been a busy month for us. We had a weekend trip to NY to see a Broadway show, a visit from Aunt Debby and her boyfriend, Joe, and hosted Easter at our house! That was just the weekend stuff. We also had a lot of appointments in April, have been dealing with allergies, the weather has been rainy and I've been having some camera issues, so my picture taking has been minimal. But, enough for excuses!

We had a nice Easter weekend. It started with Good Friday dinner at a friend from church's house. On Saturday, I prepped food for Easter and cleaned the house. Maimouna and Kylian came for dinner that evening and spent the night. We all went to church on Sunday morning and had an Easter Egg hunt with a few of the neighbors' kids in the afternoon. Friends, Rob and Nikki, also joined us for dinner and we had such a nice time.

Here is Brennan and Kylian smiling after filling their Easter baskets full of eggs! (Check out Brennan's boy capris... I couldn't resist those pants!) It was HOT during the egg hunt. The sun was out in full force and temperatures were around 85. The kids were actually asking to go inside.
This was the whole crew who participated in the egg hunt.

We managed to get at least semi-decent family photo. On day, maybe Brennan will actually look at the camera long enough to have his face in a shot with us :)

I woke up feeling pretty exhausted this morning! I was on my feet a lot this weekend and although I really enjoyed it, I'm looking forward to spending a relaxing day at home today!

Potty Training Updates

I was just looking back at my blog posts to figure out when we started potty training - it was February 10th, nearly two months ago. Brennan is doing great in underwear. Our only accidents are occasionally at nap time. After struggling to make a bowl movement on the potty, Brennan finally got over it and is now quite regular and fearless - including in public! I carry a portable potty ring with us when we are out for use in public restrooms and that has been very helpful. We actually have never had an accident in public (knock on wood), so I am grateful for that. In the last week, I worked on moving Brennan from the little potty to the big potty with a potty ring. He made the transition pretty easily and has been doing good on the big potty. I am considering teaching him how to pee standing up, but he doesn't seem that interested at this point. He's still wearing diapers at night and they are very wet in the morning, so I don't think he's ready to tackle nighttime dryness just yet. We are going to NY this weekend and I can't get over how few diapers we'll need to pack. It'll be our first trip out of town with a potty trained child!