Our New Basement Loft Play Area

In preparation for a long, cold winter with three active little boys...

BEFORE:

MATERIALS:

CONSTRUCTION:

AFTER:

First Day of Preschool 2013

And a first day of school gift - capes for the super hero obsessed boys in this house.  I whipped them up this morning during room time so they are nothing fancy, but they do swish and twirl very nicely and they close magnetically so they can be hung directly on the fridge.

Elliot's New Haricut

Prepping for Preschool

Everyone always says to simplify mornings by picking out an outfit the night before.  I decided to expand on that a bit and pick out outfits for a week at a time.  Now the boys can grab their own clothes from the closet each morning.  It is also nice to keep several outfits ready for Spencer so I don't have to run upstairs every time he covers himself in spit up.

I used these cheap shoe hangers from Target and cut off the bottom few cubbies that would have hung too low.

Three Boys During Learning Time

Griddle "Painting" with Crayons ... Very Neat

The Playground at Peter's School

Since Peter will be starting preschool next week, Doug took the big boys to the school playground so Peter could get reacclimated.

Spencer at One Month

Stats:
Just over 12 pounds (above the 95th percentile) and wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes.

Eating:
Clearly his rapid weight gain means he is eating, but he is somewhat blasé about the whole thing.  Even if he has been asleep for 5 or 6 hours, he is in no hurry to eat when he wakes up.  I often feel that I am coercing him into nursing, and it is only through my waking him and pushing the issue that we are able to squeeze 7 feedings into every 24 hour period.

Sleeping:
This kid likes to sleep - about 19 to 20 hours out of 24.  He sleeps three long stretches at night: 9:30pm to 2ish am, 2:30am to 5am (when I wake him to eat), and 5:30am to 8am (when I again wake him to eat).  During the morning and afternoon he is mostly just awake to eat (and he even sleeps through a lot of that time) and perhaps play on the floor for a couple minutes.  Come evening, though, he gets his panties in a twist and spends a couple hours (from 7 to 9:30) fussing, fussing, fussing.  

Elliot's New Art Gallery

Many moons ago Peter made Elliot a picture with dinosaur stickers and we crudely hung it in Elliot's room with some blue painters' tape.  Since then, every time I walked into that room I would cringe and think that there must be a better way to hang art work.  A way that would be safe (no poster tack for Elliot to eat, no push pins for him to play with), and cheap and easy to change the art work.

Over the weekend we hung some clips (http://www.target.com/p/soft-touch-clips-6-pk/-/A-11740819) that I hope will meet our needs.

Here the boys are making a few of the masterpieces: