So, anyone who has ever looked at my blog knows I am not the best at maintaining it. I tend to do a lot in short spurts that are few and far between. I am also not great at baby books or scrapbooks etc. Anyway, I am trying to record a few stories from the boys' childhood before I forget. These memories are not in any particular order, just as they come to me.
In December, we had the ultrasound and found out that we are having another little boy. Ry, Ri and I were sure it was going to be a girl. I threw up a lot more and the nausea lasted longer... Anyway, T was the only one in the family to have guessed correctly! He was so excited to have been right! Ri was super excited it was a boy once he knew. He is so excited about all the things he is going to teach the baby etc. We let the boys miss school to come to the ultrasound and they were really good. Ri is old enough to have really gotten into the excitement of having a new baby in the family. T is not so sure what he thinks, although when we have babysat for friends babies he is so great with them, loves to play with them and loves to help feed etc.
On the drive to the doctor's to have the ultrasound we asked Ri if he thought we should have more kids in our family after this. He thought really seriously and then said, I would, except I don't think we should because I don't want Mommy to have to be so sick.
About a year and a half ago we were talking about baby names with Ri. We were in my parent's living room. We said that Ri that he and his wife would get to name their babies after he got married and we were talking about how names work, how all his kids will have the last name Allred etc. With a big smile on his face Ri said, "Me and my wife - we are going to make lots of Allreds!"
A lot of the time over the last year, if you were to show up at our house Ri would have no pants on (just his white underwear and a shirt) and T would be wearing just pants and no shirt. They were playing Mickey Mouse clubhouse. I knew Ri was being Donald Duck and T was being Mickey Mouse, but it took me awhile to figure out the reason they were both half naked, in opposite ways - Donald Duck only wears a shirt (thank goodness the white underwear fit into the costume!) and Mickey only wears pants. Duh....
Over the last year, the boys also really liked to go around with underwear or pull-ups over their heads, pulled down sideways so that their faces poked through one of the leg holes. This, of course, is a way of dressing up as buzz light year (a space ranger or astronaut with a helmut). Have I mentioned my kids are creative and not embarrassed easily?
Potty-training T, which unfortunately took a long time. What finally worked, when he was almost 4 years old, was earning chuck-e-cheese coins for each successful trip, I printed out, laminated and put magnets on the back of images of the coins. Then made a chart to stick them to, he had to have 20 coins for peeing and 10 coins for pooping in the potty before he could go to chuck-e-cheese to use his coins. For the two years before that we had tried various things, making him clean up after himself when he had an accident (that is what finally worked for Ri when he was also, almost 4), buying a geo trax train that he really wanted and telling him he had to go a certain about of time without an accident before he could open up and play with the train.... star charts.... you name it, we tried it.
Someone had told me that the Captain Underpants books were pretty fun, and somehow I thought that maybe reading those with the boys would help T think it was cool to wear underpants. BAD PLAN! The boys did think it was fun to dress up in underpants and a cape and say "Tra la la la!" just like captain underpants (this was actually pretty cute), but it did nothing to help T actually use the potty consistently. And it had the unpleasant side affect of teaching Ri that he shouldn't like school (the boys in the book really hate going to school) and it had the really unfortunate side affect of introducing the idea of wedgies and other potty language as being hilarious! We had to introduce tongue treatments (a dab of vinegar on the tongue for using potty language at inappropriate times such as during dinner, or in public places). Luckily, potty language didn't include anything that is truly a bad word, just things like pee, poop, poopie, wedgie (the boys, I don't think, actually know what a wedgie is, they just know it is bad). The bad part was that we would go to say, the grocery store, and they would just say pee and poop over and over as they giggled uncontrollably. T's primary teacher also informed me T was making use of those words in his sunbeam class. The other problem was the boys in the books talk back to grown-ups all the time and the boys started to get really mouthy. We had to get rid of all the Captain Underpants books.
In Kindergarten, (yes, around the time we had the Captain Underpants books, although I can't say that it was directly related...) Ri came up to me one day and showed me how he could burp on command. I knew, as the mother of boys, things like this would happen, but for some reason I didn't expect it to happen so soon. Luckily, the novelty of it wore off pretty quickly and he hasn't brought this trick out (at least in front of me) for quite awhile.
More creative discipline: Timeout or maybe not being about to watch tv for a day or week used to be our usual forms of discipline, but we noticed awhile ago that timeout was becoming less effective as the boys get older. We have some friends that have their kids do push-ups as punishment which gave us an idea. Different punishments for different types of offenses. Physical offenses get push-ups and sit-ups (ie if you hit your brother you have to do as many push-ups and sit-ups as how many years old you are). Verbal offenses get tongue treatments (ie potty language at inappropriate times or speaking rudely, calling names or saying something like "Mom I hate blue cups I only want red cups get me a red cup NOW!") Most other things result in timeout or loss of tv time. We don't have to do these things a lot, for tongue treatments they usually get a warning before actually having to have vinegar on their tongue, but the general threat has actually been quite effective.
Chores: We have tried various things for chores. We had picture chore charts (I posted about that before) and that worked ok, but for whatever reason was hard to stay consistent at, I think because the jobs were inconsistent about when they needed done (ie switching laundry, mopping). So, currently they have 3 chores: get dressed, brush your teeth and make your bed in the morning. Some mornings they get it done fast, some mornings it takes a long time. If Ri wants a packed lunch, instead of whatever the school is serving for hot lunch, (he pretty much only likes spaghetti, pizza and chicken nugget days) then Ry or I will make his sandwich but he is responsible for putting in a juice box and crackers or whatever else he wants to go with his sandwich.
Funny story with chores: Ri was not a big fan of making his bed, so he decided to just sleep ontop of his covers so he wouldn't have to make his bed in the morning. He did this for a few weeks. We were kind of proud of his creativity, but at the same time, the point is more that he learns responsibility. Finally we convinced him that he wasn't sleeping as well at night because he was cold (it was true) and that was making him cranky, so while he had a clever idea, he really should sleep under his covers and make his bed in the morning!
Ri has moved into his own room. The boys slept in the same room for awhile, but T would keep Ri up and Ri really started wanting his own space. At first we had put him in the guest room, but it wasn't really his room until we moved in his clothes etc. We told him a few weeks ago if he could be responsible with his space and keep it clean etc. that we would do our best to keep T out of his room. He has been an absolute pro at keeping his room clean and his bed made ever since then.
The boys both still love to play with trains. For Ri's 6th birthday we introduced legos into our house and boy do they get everywhere! They also love to draw. For Christmas, Santa brought them each 500 pieces of white paper and more markers and crayons (all washable of course - I've learned that lesson!). They have already gone through almost all of the 1000 sheets of paper. Of course, many of the sheets were also turned into paper airplanes, but, even still, that is a lot of paper! The markers are almost all out of ink.
A lot of the other kids Ri's age are really into Star Wars. We had tried watching some of the movies with Ri before, but they were really too intense for him, but last fall, we tried again and Ri LOVED them! Over a couple months we went through every movie except Episode III (which is rated PG-13, the others are PG) we told Ri he can't watch it until he is older because it is really intense and hard to understand until you are older. He was totally cool with that. He really can be quite mature sometimes. It was funny watching the movies with him because he kept saying "what's that" "what are the doing now" "why are they doing that" he was so into knowing what was going on.
Santa accidentally brought T a Transformer for Christmas that was a little too complicated. It was a Bumblebee (what he wanted) level 5 for older kids. Ry worked on it for a long time Christmas morning and couldn't get it to completely transform. Ry was so frustrated! Then we had his Dad who is an engineer work on it - no luck. Then, our friends the Andersons came over New Years Eve and Eric who is great at that kind of think couldn't get it to work. My brother, Nathan was sure he could get it and we all thought, "Yeah, right" but he did it in less than 10 minutes. Go Uncle Nathan!
Well, this post is getting very long, I think I will put up some pics next. The boys are really great kids. T is not even 5 yet and reading really well. I am continually impressed with the level of school work Ri brings home. He does math story problems and can read pretty much anything he wants to. Ri is also really excelling at his swimming lessons right now and really enjoying them. They will often play for hours together very cooperatively and imaginatively. Sometimes, they definitely fight, but we generally get it worked out.
The small town we live in has a lot of fun traditions. One of them is an Easter Egg hunt held on the Saturday before Easter. They have different areas for different ages to hunt for eggs, face painting (T loved it, Ri has never liked the idea of having his face painted!), a high school student dressed as the bunny, someone making balloon hats and other games and prizes. It was cold and rainy (T got to use his new boots!) but still a ton of fun!
We had tons of fun at the zoo with cousins Josh and Levi. Of course, no trip is complete without an adventure. On this outing we got to the zoo and I realized that I had forgotten to bring shoes for T. I carried T into the gift shop and purchased some nifty monkey boots for him to wear. I had been hoping for a cheap pair of flip flops, but he actually had outgrown his rain boots and in the Pacific Northwest rainboots come in handy so it wasn't a total waste.
In March 2010 Riley came home from school with a coupon for free kids admission (with paid adult admission) to the Jordan World Circus. The show was going to be in the afternoon so I decided to brave taking the boys to the circus by myself. It was a small time circus, but they did have elephants, trapeze artists, trained bears, a tiger and a guy who rode his motorcyle inside a metal sphere. During intermission they brought out ponies to ride, an inflatable slide and the bears so that you could have your picture taken with them. I let the boys choose one activity and they chose the slide. It was absolute choas in the ring and it was actually terrifying trying to keep track of both boys (neither of them have a sense that they need to pay any attention to where they are in relation to me, or even that they should stay together to make it easier for me to keep track of them in public places - they tend to run away from me, usually in opposite directions). A woman standing right next to me lost track of her little boy and started screaming hysterically. I think it took a full 10 minutes before he was found and she was hysterical the whole time. As a mother myself I was near tears just listening to her, wishing I could help, but needing to keep track of my two kids. While she was screaming I was trying to hold onto Ri while I tried convince T to come down the slide. He was having a grand time just jumping around at the top without sliding down. I finally sent Ri up to drag T down with him. When they got down I held tightly onto their middles (all the while with the hysterical mother screaming in the background) while they got their shoes back on and I got them navigated through the crowds back to our seats. It was stressful to say the least, but in the end, we all made it home safe and sound and the boys had a great time.
We went to the Portland Children's Museum with some friends the Rawlings and the Newmans.
Ri's first Kindergarten field trip! I went on it and we went to see Giggle Giggle Quack at the Portland Children's theater. We rode a bus down and had a great time!
Ri's 6th birthday was a lot of fun. He opened up his legos on his actual birthday and then his party was a couple days later on Saturday. From left to right in the pic are Lucas A., Aiden, Dallin D., Ri, Logan, Taylor R. and Dorin. We played traditional party games, Bingo, pin the tale on the donkey and had balloon races. We ate pizza and cake and ice cream and as a party favor we gave away a book with some candy tied to it with a ribbon. Both sets of Grandparents also came. 
The boys were so excited when it started to snow! In 2010 and so far in 2011 we haven't gotten near as much snow as we did at the end of 2009. The reason the boys don't have shoes on in the pic of the snowman is they had already gone inside and Ry carried them back out so we could take a picture.
T slept in Christmas morning which was unusual for any day, let alone Christmas, but we had been out at the cousins house until kind of late. So finally we let Ri go down and look in his stocking and then waited for T to wake up to do everything else. They are wearing the Scooby Doo pjs they got from Grandma Loa and Grandpa Jon for Christmas. It was a fun day! Ri is holding a whack a mole game from Santa (what he asked for) and T got a fireman set with a firetruck (what he asked for - he wanted a yellow fire truck of all things!) The big box they are unwrapping is a tool bench from Grandma Loa and Grandpa Jon. Ri got an Imaginext castle from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Tim and T got an Imaginext space station with space shuttle from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Tim
