Captain Potty Blocker

My name is Baby Sis, and I am potty training out of spite.  

Every time Mommy tells my brother to go potty, I race in ahead of him and body-block the toilet, insisting I must go first.

Brain Freeze

 Toddlerhood is full of tough life lessons.

Baby Sis just learned a very important one:

Ice cream is...

...worth it!

:)

Doughnut Day

Last weekend was Biggest Brother's 15th birthday. In honor of his day and his interests, we decided to pack everybody up, purchase an absurd amount of doughnuts, and have breakfast at the skatepark. I know it probably sounds more like torture than a treat to make a teenager get up at 6:30 in the morning on a weekend, but he and J actually prefer skating at ridiculous hours when they can have the whole park to themselves.  Go figure.

Chat Conversation End

This is what it looks like when our family shows up at the skatepark.  Which is also why we go early; we kind of monopolize the real estate when we're there.

Bubs was the first to hit the ramps.

Unfortunately, he did actually hit the ramps and got a mean case of road rash.  But he's a tough guy.  And really, when you're three, there are very few things

that Skittles don't fix.

He took a breather up on the ledge with Big Sis and watched

Biggest Brother,

Younger Brother,

and Daddy skate the pool.

Everybody skates, actually - or is learning.

Except for me.  I definitely don't skate.

But Big Sis will be giving the boys a run for their money in no time.

Little Sis and Princess A are getting their bearings too.  Ha!  Sorry, I couldn't resist just one bad pun. 

I love Little Sis' board.  It's so cool!  It's a penny board with a see-through deck and four different colored wheels that light up when they spin.

She's working on staying vertical,

but she has her own style too.  ;)

Princess A just got a new board. 

She picked out all of the pieces and parts.  It has pink grip tape - and trust me, that's important!

Even Baby Sis likes to come along.  Daddy gets her on a board from time to time, which she loves, but it gives me a heart attack!  She was actually standing and rolling hands-free for a couple of feet yesterday.  I can't watch! 

Mostly, she just slides down the ramps.  Which is great fun, 

but causes a wardrobe malfunction or two.

A few more times around and it was time to walk over to the actual park.  There's a playground just across the parking lot that the littles like to go to before we leave.

I love this gang!

We often have to divide and conquer to accommodate naps and transportation and such, so it's really nice when we can all do something together.

The hit of the whole morning was this carpenter bee, who was apparently quite enticed by J's colorful tattoos.  It stayed on his arm for a solid 20 minutes, following us everywhere we went.

Aww, look how cute!

Happy 15th, Biggest Brother!

Monday

As I was making a pot of coffee this morning and the big kids were eating breakfast, Baby Sis, who had already eaten, was nicely having a one-person tea party in the corner of the kitchen. 

I thought.

I assumed her cup was empty until she stood up and water spilled out onto the floor.

Not thinking too much of it, I sopped up the water and went back to making coffee.  When she passed by me two more times, gingerly sipping from her cup with a slurping sound that was a little too convincing to be air, I got suspicious.

"Guys, who keeps giving her water?"

 - silence -

That's when I followed the slurping noises around the corner to find Baby Sis, who is clearly too short to reach the faucet, ladling water out of the toilet.

"No, no, yucky!  We do not drink out of the toilet!"

 - a chorus of screams, giggles, and barfing noises from the big kids -

(I don't know what everyone is screaming about - it looks perfectly good to me.)

I have never been so thankful for the small blessing of my 3yo remembering to flush the toilet upon his departure moments earlier!

Good gosh.

Happy Monday!!!