Evan's 3 Year Stats

We had Evan's 3 year well check-up last week.  Our big boy is currently 35 lbs, 8 oz (82nd percentile) and 38 inches tall (53rd percentile).  He has consistently fallen in 80th for weight but at least his height is starting to catch up (from his previous 20th percentile)!

Evan was not too happy to be at the doctor - he screamed about getting his height checked, threw tantrums and slapped his father across the face . . . we were so proud :)  The doctor went so far as to tell us we should "play doctor" at home so that the experience isn't as scary for him.  Oh boy!

This past weekend we hit a new milestone.  Considering how lacking Brian and I are in artistic ability, I think it's a foregone conclusion that our children will not be future artists.  The extent of Evan's drawings has been lines and circles for awhile now.  But in the car this past weekend, he drew us an "apple".  I couldn't believe that it actually looked like an apple.  No Picasso here but I was still proud.

We went to Matthew's birthday party this weekend and here is one of the only pictures I was able to get of the two of them sitting on a big chair.

We've had Eric with a fever last week and Evan with one this week.  I'm hoping for no illnesses and an uneventful next week!

Eric at 15 Months

Eric turned 15 months old last week. He's really started talking in the last few weeks.  He went from having almost no words to having over 20.  Ironically, of all of his words, "mama" or "mommy" isn't one of them.  He currently calls both Brian and me "daddy". He is repeating a lot now.  He's learning his animal sounds, loves reading books, enjoys playing with the train set and watching Thomas.  At his check-up, we found out he was 20 lbs, 8 oz, which put him at 14th percentile.  I was never so happy to have him hit double digits of weight percentile because we have to work for every ounce that he weighs :)  As a contrast, Evan was 26 lbs at 15 months. And even more surprising, Eric moved up to 8th percentile for height 2 ft, 5.75 inches.  

We are entering into the tantrum/misbehaving age now.  Since Evan is in a phase of hitting us, Eric has picked up on that and swings at us when he's not happy or not getting his way.  We have started time-outs with him now too as he cannot continue to accept the hitting.  And he has just begun to bite our shoulder when we're holding him.  Oh how I did NOT miss the biting stage and this is just the beginning of that too.

Last week, Eric had to have a minor surgical procedure done.  It was a lot for this little guy to go through and he handled it as best he could.  Here he is acting silly and putting his lovey on his head while we were in the waiting room:

After the surgery, he was sleeping so peacefully that he could barely wake up.  Compared to his brother who comes out of anesthesia like a bucking bronco, Eric was so calm and peaceful.  We took him out half asleep and when he finally woke up, he just smiled at us.

The next few days were rough as he developed a 103 fever, needed some additional (painful) tests done and then we had trouble getting his bandages off.  One of the nights, he fell asleep laying on me in bed and it had been such a long time since he'd done that that I had to just soak it up.

Hopefully no more surgeries for this little guy anytime soon.  He still isn't 100% yet and I'm so ready for him to be back to his normal, happy self . . . and for him to sleep in like his normal self.

Father's Day Weekend 2013

We had a very low-key father's day weekend.  On Saturday, the boys settled in for some Thomas episodes in our bed and snuggled together for a brief moment.  It was really cute - Evan's left arm is wrapped around his brother.  

After a hike at Ridley Creek State Park in the morning, we headed to the Wilmington Blue Rocks game in the evening.  Here we are all seated for a few minutes - after this, we chased the boys around the stadium.  After about 4 innings, Evan was asking to go home and Eric was insisting on climbing the stadium steps over and over and over and over.  We were on the road home by 7:30 but it was a fun to get out for a little while:

On Sunday, after I was ready to pass out from blowing bubbles, we pulled out a bubble maker Eric had gotten as a gift last year.  Here Eric is very intrigued and a little unsure of the bubble maker:

 As long as the bubbles didn't surround him, he was very happy and wanting to pop them:

But if the bubbles started to surround him, he would drop to the ground to try to army crawl under them.  And if they got too close, he started hysterically crying.  It may look like he took a fall here but he didn't - he was just trying to army crawl away from the bubbles. I have to chuckle every time I look at it:

Evan, on the other hand, had no fear of the bubbles:

 He was loving it and kept asking all night if we could take the bubble maker back out:

Loving it:

Brian and Eric: 

Surprisingly our first "flying" picture of Eric.  This one was scary!

 Mr Happy:

Evan refuses to get in a picture so Brian snuck up behind him.  Better than nothing I guess:

Happy Father's Day!

10th Anniversary Trip Part 5 - Lisbon

The last day of our trip was spent fully exploring Lisbon.  Lisbon is a beautiful city, decorated with a lot of colorful tiles.  The city is unique because it was mostly destroyed in a massive earthquake in the mid 1700's.  So while there are some buildings still standing, the majority of the buildings are "new" when compared to the rest of Europe.  The hotel we stayed at was built in the late 1800's when the train station next door to it was built.  It was a beautiful hotel and this is a picture of the lobby below:

Here it is from the outside:

On Friday morning, we headed over to Belem to visit the sights there, including the Jeronimos Monastery seen here:

Brian was imitating the Cristo Rei statue that faces its brother statue in Brazil.  The bridge in the background is the sister bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge (built by same company) - can't tell from this picture but it's also red in color:

The Monument to the Discoveries, celebrating all of the explorers from Portugal.  The sky on this day was amazing:

We rode the elevator to the top of the Monument of the Discoveries so that we could have an aerial view of Belem and the monastery:

Onto the Tower of Belem:

And then to get some pasteis de nata or, as they are called here, pasteis de belem, as they were invented in Belem hundreds of years ago.  It is a phyllo type dough filled with custard.  It was amazing!

Onto lunch at one of the restaurants that Peter from Albueira had recommended.  He recommended getting fresh shrimp from the coast with sea salt and he did not steer us wrong:

He also recommended this wine:

And the duck rice, which was pretty much like a Portuguese paella and was amazing:

After lunch we jumped onto one of the trolleys to take it up to the St George Castle (Castelo de Sao Jorge):

Prior to getting to the castle, we stopped at an overlook:

Up near the castle, we had amazing views of the whole city:

Brian at one of the doorways:

More of the castle:

Cartwheel among the ruins . . . not so easy in a skirt:

Brian climbing the castle walls:

Brian overlooking the city of Lisbon:

The streets of Lisbon were quite charming:

 

After dinner on our last night, we came to an overlook of the city, including the castle at the top:

Getting ready to ride the funicular back down to our hotel:

All in all, it was a fantastic trip!  One that we would never have been able to do without the help of our amazing families - THANK YOU!!  We are ready to start planning our 15th anniversary trip and hopefully the grandparents will be ready to take the kids again by that time :)

10th Anniversary Trip Part 4 - Sintra

On Thursday, May 30th, we were up bright and early to leave the Algarve and drive 3 hours to Lisbon.  We returned the car to the Lisbon airport, caught a bus to our hotel, checked in and then promptly jumped on a train to Sintra, a town about 30 minutes outside of Lisbon filled with castles.  In total there are three castles in Sintra but we only made it to two.  The first was the Pena Palace, built in the 1800s for the royalty by a German architect.  It's often described as a "Disney Palace" because of it's colorful design.  They day we were there was fairly chilly, cloudy and WINDY.  We were able to appreciate it, though I think we could have appreciated it more if it had been a little warmer :)

 A picture of the two of us by the palace:

 Brian on the palace wall:

Lauren at the palace:

After the Pena Palace, we hiked up through their forest grounds to the High Cross:

 Which provided great views of the palace from above:

And next we hiked down to the 1,000 year old Moorish castle, which gave great views of the Pena Palace from down below:

Here are the Moorish ruins from afar:

And up close:

The sun finally started peeking out towards the very end of the day, which I was thankful for.  All in all, we enjoyed Sintra  and the castles that we got to see.

We returned to Lisbon in the late afternoon to do a little more sightseeing and hit up one of the restaurants that Peter had recommended, which was called Tasca de Esquina.  And the recommended meal is to get the 4-5 course chef's tasting menu . . . which means we had no idea what we were going to be getting to eat with each course.  It forced me to try some things which I might never have tried and everything was really good.  Brian got the 5 course meal while I was full after 4 courses.  We would never have stumbled upon this restaurant without Peter's recommendation (it was a good 1.5 miles from our hotel) and we loved it.