Happy 1st Birthday

Teague is 1!!! Teague can be so serious when it comes to new things, except cake! He loved the frosting...frosting in his mouth, frosting in his hair, frosting all over the table:) Being the third child it is always strange for him to have everyone staring and cheering for him all at the same time. He cautiously smiled at all the attention looking up every now and then to see his family and friends still staring at him. His big brothers were so excited he was having a birthday and screamed "happy birthday Teague" every time he entered the room they were in (Note: this can be shocking to a groggy just woke up from my nap one year old). Overall it was great to celebrate our 3rd 1st birthday.
Teague - 8 teeth, walking for 2 months now, serious and yet very goofy with his brothers, won't be left out of a good wrestling match with dad , actually claps when mom walks in the room, is big on open mouth kisses, and spins on command for a piece of beef jerky (ha ha).
We love him like crazy and are so happy he entered our life one year ago on November 27th.

It's Time

Yes it is finally time to give Taatjes a hair cut. It kills me to remove such beautiful hair but it is becoming quite the maintenance nightmare. So here is one last look at his "doo". I will post his new, much shorter hair soon.

Celebration Lunch

Preschool is off to a great start. Trey was so excited and could not wait to get in the doors to his preschool room. His teacher walked out to greet them and Trey ran over to her and gave her a big hug! And, he was off. He had a great week, I could hardly get him to leave his room when I would come to pick him up. Heaven forbid I cramp his style with all his new friends so I waited off to the side. What a change from last year. Notably he is actually telling me what they did in class unlike last year when he said they did nothing and he sat by the door (which was not true). The one thing he is really excited about is homework. He thinks he is really older and cool to have homework just like our neighbor boy Zack. Will see how long this lasts:) The homework is really just activities to do to encourage learning outside of class and to prepare them for what they will be learning in the next class. There will be a lot of fun projects for us to do together.

So...to show Trey how proud we are of him going to school we have made it a family tradition to go out for a celebration lunch. Trey walked right in the restaurant telling everyone he was there to celebrate his first day of going back to school. After lunch we went for ice cream and he went in the doors, up to the counter, and ordered by himself his own ice cream. Here are some pictures from it.

School Begins

My Parents favorite Story From Our Trip

My parents had the boys in the car for one of their excursions and they had a little conversation that went something like this.
HeeHaw(grandpa): Hey guys we are going to have to clean my car. We can give it a car wash. When we get home you should get your bathing suits on so we can wash the car.
Trey: I am going to leave my shorts on, I don't want to put my swim suit on.
HeeHaw: Oh no you should put your swim suit on.
Trey: I do not want to put my swim suit on.
HeeHaw: Yes so you can get wet.
Trey: I want to wear my shorts, my dad never makes me change into my swim suit to go through the car wash!
Grandma and HeeHaw laughed all the way home.
I guess we should teach Trey the joys of washing your car at home:)

Potty Trained, Oh Yeah!

Taatjes is fully potty trained!!!! He is so awesome, he is only 2 1/2 and he is out of diapers (except at night). This puts me down to 1 diaper which I am thrilled about. He does everything himself and does not want help with any of it, unlike his brother. We did have a few rough patches along the potty training trial. Many wet pants and a few poops outside later and we are all set. Taatjes has been such an easy little man:) Now if I could just get him to clean the toilet and floor!

Trey's World Crashes Down

So lately Trey has been going through a sort of attitude problem. Lets just say he thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread. He has been extremely bossy and feels that many of the family rules do not need to apply to him. One piece of the attitude is that he truly believes that he is stronger than me. Because he is stronger than me he believes he will not be able to get in trouble due to the fact that he can run faster than me to get away, keep me from opening the door to his room, and hide under his covers which I will be unable to open to punish him for his behavior. Well he has been testing me with many little tests which I have been unaware of until yesterday when hindsight put it all into perspective. Yesterday included a number of arm wrestling (literally) battles between Trey and myself. I thought it was all in good fun...Trey telling me he is stronger than me and me telling him lets arm wrestle to determine who is the strongest. Well with each defeat Trey's pride began to buckle. During the day he and I had maybe 10 arm wrestling battles all followed by his defeat and giggles on his part. The last one came in the evening with Dad watching. Now you have to picture us playing Lions and Water Buffalo's to see that a storm was brewing. Trey can only handle not being the strongest Water Buffalo or Lion for so long until he gets pretty angry and begins to shout around the house that he is the strongest person much stronger than Mom. So, another arm wrestle battle was underway. It began with smiles :) :) :) It transitioned to cries of "cheater, cheater, moms cheating". (Uh no, he was the one using 2 hands of course) I let it go back and forth for a time until I finally put his arm down. Resulting in the end of the battle and bursts of tears as he laid his head into me. I knew what was happening and going on in that brain of his. How am I going to get away with not following the rules and doing what ever I want to? The self proclaimed Kingpin had just been knocked out. Dad asked him why he was crying so hard, knowing full well why, but wanted to hear it out loud. Trey, through his tears full of frustration said "I am so mad that Mom is stronger than me." This battle has allowed Trey's attitude to right side itself. He and I had been struggling with him not listening and following directions, and demanding me as well as others to do things for him. Today was a different story. He has listened and obeyed our rules for him. We have had a great day! If I only knew it would have taken an arm wrestling contest to get him to see that he was not going to beat me in this large game of life, I would have gotten it over with on Monday:)
For those of you who know Trey you know that when he thinks he is right about something it is the truth to him. So this left me no room to poke around and let him win! He had to know that his Mom can enforce the rules of our home if need be.

The Trip Out East

It took us 2 days and only 12 hours of those days were spent driving. We decided that we only wanted to be driving when the kids would be sleeping and give them plenty of time to eat, run around, and get all their "energy out" (this word became Trey's demand on our way home when he had decided that he was done driving at 8am we had just started). So we made a few stops on our way out to Mass. 1) The Lile's and their beautiful girl Maeva. Teague and Meava are the same age but she really loved Trey and Taatjes. Thanks to them for entertaining us and the boys. The boys think its super cool that we have friends who live in Ohio:) 2) Erie, Penn Toys R Us - where all the boys spent to much time running around, climbing into every vehicle there, and riding any ride on toy that was of the shelves. Thanks to Toys R Us for unknowingly letting us run around your store and not buy anything! 3) Aunt Darcy's house in New York with Victoria and GG Belgiano. Darcy called up the Belgiano clan and had everyone over for the day. It was sooo great to see Justin's cousins and their kids. Trey especially loved "his cousin Hallah" whom he ran around with for the day. Both first borns and knew how to handle each other quite well:) And; Thanks to Darcy for having us to your house to crash and entertaining all of us for the day. 4) Mass - we made it! My parents have the pictures from the week; so no pics yet of that part.

1st pic - Maeva and Teague

2nd pic - Victoria, Hallah, and Trey

3rd and 4th - Hallah, Trey, and Taatjes

Sleepy Boy

This is the boy who asks for his nap times:) If we were not in his room he would have put himself to bed, but, the couch is a good alternative.

Learning to Walk

And he's off....he thinks he is hot stuff.

Lunch

Lunch time is one of my favorite times of the day. It is a a time when we all sit around the table and talk about funny things that we did or want to do some day. Today the topic of conversation was about being a daddy some day. (This topic comes up frequently)
Here is a recap of some of that conversation.
Trey: "Mom how many days until I become a daddy?"
Me: "Well it is more like 20 to 30 years until you will be a daddy."
Trey: "I think it will be more like 2 to 3 days until I am going to be a daddy."
Me: "Oh really, well who is going to be your baby in 2 to 3 days?"
Trey: "I will have 2 babies, your Teague and my own Teague! Teague needs another daddy and I will make the best daddy!"
Me: "What about his daddy you shouldn't take him from his daddy. That will make him sad."
Trey: "Well he can still have Taatjes, that's good enough for him."
Taatjes: "No, I am a dragon."
Pause (for giggles)
Taatjes: "No I will be a daddy and be the best daddy because I will take my babies for rides in my wagon!!!"
I simply love lunch time it is always full of great questions and answers.

Honestly Can I Just Go To The Bathroom!

Normally when I have to use the bathroom I put Teague in his crib to play. This particular time I saw how happy Teague was playing with his toy and the boys were content eating a snack while playing trains, so I left him there. Big mistake:( I am off to the powder room (lets make it sound nice and clean) for a quick trip. In the course of 1 minute I hear Trey yelling to me; "MOM Taatjes is feeding a chip to Teague"! This is not a soft chip of sorts it is a hard, sharp, pointy tortilla chip. So I began to use my really scary yelling mommy voice; "TAATJES stop, do not feed that chip to Teague or I will take your kitty away from you (kitty-his most treasured possession). Which is followed by Trey; "Ah MOM he did and Teague is chocking" whack, whack, whack, screams and crying. Quick as I can, if you have been there you no what I mean when I say quick as I can, I run to the 3 of them. Poor Teague is streaming with tears and fear in his eyes. Trey repeating, "I had to , I had to whack him on the back he was chocking." I scooped Teague up, took Taatjes' kitty and tried to let Trey (who is also crying) know that he did the right thing and everything is ok. I am throwing in the towel in regards to using the bathroom. I'm just going to hold it until Justin gets home:)

8 Months

Teague is on the move! Not only is he standing in his crib every morning when he awakes, he is all over the house. He has been doing his army crawl for about a month but has quickly moved to a hands and knees crawl. He loves to hold any ones hands to walk himself around, Trey absolutely loves walking him around. Teague has also found the furniture to be of great use to get himself around, or do a little dance when the music is on. My new challenge is to get Teague to play somewhere away from me while I cook. If he is with me he insists on using my legs to hold himself up. This puts me at a literal stand still. Or Teague will be happy playing with his toys and then Trey walks him to where I am and now Teague wants me to pick him up. Between Trey and Teague's new walking abilities I can't seem to get a minute away from him:) I just keep telling myself to enjoy it while I can before he is off chasing his brothers.

Check out our latest photo shoot w/ Lisa :)

http://www.elitephotodesign.com/belgianoboys/
Granted the boys are adorable subjects, but the photographer is a genius!

Soccer

The boys have been playing soccer every Tuesday. A friend came up with the idea to get all our kids together to play soccer for fun. It was a great test run for us to see how Trey would do with other kids and whether or not he would participate before we sign him up for a league. The first time we went to play he did not run out there like he had stated he would. He told me all about how many goals he would score and how fast he would be. Then we went and he stood next to me and watched the entire time. He claimed he needed to see how fast the other kids were before he could play. O.K. The next time we showed up he played for the last half. He was extremely frustrated that some of the kids were faster than him. A number of them are older but that was unacceptable to him. So we practiced at home running, dribbling, and scoring (passing is not something he is fond of). When we went again he played the whole time and loved it. He really enjoys soccer and tells everyone that he scores lots of goals and is the fastest (not really). The only thing that disappoints him now is that nobody wins in the end and he doesn't get a trophy like Chick Hicks from Lighting McQueen:) Again it is so fun to see him get out there and really enjoy himself and the other kids playing soccer. Taatjes gets in on the action every now and then.

Look Who I Found Waking Up His Brother

Yummy Pretzels

Taatjes did great at the dentist yesterday. They said that for his age he handled everything very well. His teeth get to stay in, yeah. Both teeth are dead from falling out but will stay put hopefully until he gets his permanent teeth. The nerves that are supposed to be attached to his teeth are obviously not anymore which is good and bad. Good- he can't feel any pain in those teeth. Bad- they have left open cavities which have been filling up with an infection. So he had to have 2 holes drilled into his teeth to allow all that stuff to drain out. One more trip back to the dentist in August to have them filled with antibiotic and capped. All in all he is just really happy to finally get to eat some Pretzels:) Oh and while exiting the car today he feel strait on his face thankfully (as odd as that sounds) only his forehead hit the ground. Oh yes, for you Moms and Dads out there, the dentist told me that if I had not come in within the hour of the accident he would not have been able to keep his teeth. Another proud moment in my life...overcoming my own vanity to rush to the dentist with stained smelly clothes from the day before with a sick baby, no deodorant had been applied yet for the day, and clay under my finger nails (which looked as if I hadn't washed my hands in days). I admit that I was thinking I should go back in the house to put on deodorant once I had the kids all strapped in their car seats:)

"IT WON'T HURT MY TEETH"

Poor Taatjes, he is so tired of hearing us say he will not get to eat things because he might hurt his teeth. Taatjes- "can I have a pretzel? It won't hurt my teeth!" - is what comes raging out of Taatjes' mouth as his attempt to bypass the response from Dad and myself that he has heard all to often in the last couple days. Today he has gotten so desperate to have a piece of candy or a cracker that he will say; "can I just hold that cracker I'm not going to eat it". (Yeah right a 2 year old just holding a yummy, delicious, cheesy cracker.) Tomorrow is his big day. We have already laid out the bribe of an ice cream sundae to follow his brave act of visiting the dentist one more time. Went to bed smiling lets see if it sticks around when it is time to leave.

"Daddy I Was So Brave."

"Daddy I was so brave..." is all a proud little 2 year old wants to say after the most traumatic day in his life thus far. As some of you have heard Taatjes knocked out 2 of his teeth:( Yes they can put them back in and you can't see in the picture that they are being held in place by a wire glued to the other teeth around them.
Things to share from this experience.
1) Mouths bleed a lot.
2) Not helpful to have Trey repeatedly tell Taatjes that we will not go back home until the dentist fixes his teeth. This will always be followed by loud screams of no, no, no, I don't want to see the dentist, I don't want to see the dentist the whole time we walk him back to the dentist.
3) Having your baby sick at the same time just doesn't work. I had to hold Taatjes' legs to the table with one hand while propping Teague up with my other arm on my hip to stop him from screaming as well. The whole event put Teague into shock. He cried the entire time as well.
4) Having your child scream I want my mom, where is my mom while he is being held down to a table having painful work done to him will make anyone tear up now matter how much you tell your self to hold it together for your kids.
5) What a challenge it is to have a 2 year old "take it easy and play lightly" which were part of my instructions for caring for him. Right after we got home Taatjes threw the Frisbee they gave him, ran to pick it up, and stepped on it which sent him flying backwards hitting his head into the ground. Not a good start.
6) Taatjes loves taking his medicine for this injury. He thinks he is so grown up just like "mommy and daddy take medicine".
7) If your child thinks he was brave even though he screamed and kicked the whole time, just go with it and hope he will remember that thought the next time.
8) Being told he can eat ice cream and yogurt for the next couple days will put an instant smile on any 2 year old face:)

Taatjes has to go back to the dentist on Monday and have some of his damaged nerves removed. The dentist told me that this visit will be worse than what he already did for Taatjes' teeth. They will also see if his teeth took to being placed back in. I'll post the update. Until then its all; "slow down Taatjes, no you can't ride your bike, and Trey do not touch him", etc.

Tiger Stadium

No, the giant tiger did not scare them in the least. But, if you are a very tiny bug crossing their path they may run from your sight. Actually, just Trey. Taatjes is still in the no fear zone. He caught a garter snake while he was out for a hike with dad a couple weeks ago and brought it home to show me. One of Taatjes' favorite things to do is put his hands through spider webs. We walk along the docks by the lake and every web he comes across, between the docks, he screams (with delight) "spider web" and thrusts his hands into it. I have tried to teach him that this is the spiders home and he needs it to live and eat....but I think he is hearing my Charlie Brown mommy voice (WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH) during this lesson in life and continues to cover his hands in web. I love the 2 year old adventurous spirit!

O' the boys:)

Having A Blast Tubing

This is Trey on his very first tube ride! He thought he was the coolest! Our neighbors have been taking us boating nearly everyday and this last time we got to go tubing. Trey was so pumped up. They taught him all the signals for faster, slower, and stop. He did great, his smile got bigger the faster we went. He was comfortable enough to wave at the ladies (Mrs. Janet and Mrs. Deb our neighbors) on their decks when he passed by them. Dad and I were filled with pride to see how well Trey handled himself on the tube. He had great self-control and followed all the rules. We are amazed to watch a moment like this and see how much he has grown and our confidence in him can began to grow too.
Here are all 3 boys on the big tube. Dad had them both between his arms and did receive a few bumps to the jaw when the tube went over the wakes:) Taatjes was yelling "faster" the whole time! This tube is not going as fast as it looks in the picture. Just fast enough for the boys to feel like they are crazy strong boys for holding on the entire ride. Dad had to pry apart Taatjes hands from the handles when they stopped he had such a tight grip on them. Again, what a blast...yes I did get a ride all by myself:)

trey's video

Enjoy the new video functions.....

Swimming

These boys are wild. Its all belly flops and cannon balls into our little pool.

6 Months Old and 7 Teeth

Yes, he has 4 up top and 3 on the bottom with one on the way. Yes, it is June and he is wearing a hat with a sweatshirt. (60 degrees with no sun)

Teaching Little Brother

Taatjes couldn't be happier in moments like this. Having his big brother giving him a ride on his bike was both a surprise and a pleasure. Taatjes has his own tricycle and is reminded daily that the tricycle is his bike and Trey has a big bike now. But, "when you turn 4 you can have a big bike like mine". So to go outside and have Trey offer him a ride on the big bike was great! They both had a blast pushing and getting pushed all around the drive way. A rare sight that I had to record so I can prove to them during the rougher times of the teenage years how much they loved each other:)

A little 4 letter word

Our home has a little four letter word floating around. When it is said it is followed by squeals of joy and laughter. No matter what the punishment for saying it our boys cannot seem to keep it inside their little mouths. One of their favorite places to use this word is in the car when they have a captive audience. Spelling this word repeatedly will bring instant craziness to any 2 year old boys countenance. They feed off each other and I fear it will never go away. So what is this four letter word that comes with wild eyes of excitement whenever it is uttered...POOP! Yes, they are even saying it right now as they dance around me at the computer, aaaahhhh. Taatjes does not know how to spell any word except p-o-o-p. Trey was so proud of himself when he taught his brother how to spell this fun little word. "Mommy aren't I being a responsible big brother and teaching Taatjes how to spell." Yes and No. I know this is only the beginning of such battles to teach them that this is not a kind word when directed at someone or shouted for the fun of it. I fear what kind of words will be coming out of Teagues mouth when he starts to talk:( This is what stay at home parents are referring to when they say they have no adult conversation.

No More Naps

Trey is so excited that he does not have to nap anymore. He is signed up for school in the afternoons next year and we are seeing how he does without his afternoon naps. Here is a good picture of what has happened a few times now. Dad discovered him yesterday when he came home from work:) He was running around banging into everything and everyone. I sent him into his room to calm down and wait for Dad to come home and deal with him (I was done). Well at least he calmed down.

The Swingset is Full

It has been great to be able to play outside again. My arms are getting a good workout from pushing all 3 on the swings at one time.

Tip

Yes, peanut butter does work to remove gum from your child's hair! Trey decided to roll his gum through his hair and it got stuck right on the front of his hair. I did not have time to take a picture because he kept rolling it to try to get it out and he said it was hurting his head. So... I got out the peanut butter, slapped it on his head and eventually worked it out of his hair. He thought it was awesome that he got to have peanut butter in his hair! Let's just hope he doesn't remember this clever trick for himself. I was picturing my future; walking into the kitchen to find Taatjes covered in peanut butter, as Trey giggled while I gooped the peanut butter through his hair.

"Kids Say The Darndest Things"

I just had to share some of the little funny things that Trey comes up with.
Trey: "Mommy you should give Taatjes and me a treat today." Me: "Why is that?"
Trey: "Because today Taatjes and I love each other and we should really get a treat for doing that."
Trey: "Why are you and Daddy married." Dad: "Because mommy and daddy love each other." Trey: "I want to get married some day." Dad: "Who are you going to get married to?"
Trey: "Mommy" Dad: "You can't marry mommy, I am married to her."
Trey: "Ok, I want to grow up and get married to Taatjes!!!"

"A sign of the times." Trey has a little notepad that he carries around and calls it his blog. When he does something like ride his bike or come home from school he says; "I am going to go write that in my blog." He is always listening and paying attention to everything going on in our home. Taatjes also has his magna doodle that he refers to as his blog and then scribbles all over it.
One more...If I am not outgoing enough Trey will ensure that I step it up. When we are outside playing in the drive way we have to say "Hi" to every neighbor who comes outside and any person who happens to walk by our house. This frequently gets me into long conversations while he heads off to ride his bike and play. We often get into it out front because I won't let him walk around door to door and see how our neighbors are doing for that day:)

Preschool Castle

I love Trey's preschool! They learned about recycling last week; of which I am constantly being informed to recycle all our trash. ("Mom make sure you put that milk bottle in the recycling bin not the trash can." It's great.) All the kids brought in 3 boxes from home to make a castle at school. They taped all their boxes into a giant castle that they could play in. It was awesome. When I went in Trey's room to pick him up all the kids where so proud of the castle they made. They kept it up for the week and played non-stop in it. It took up the entire back half of the class room. Trey is all about building castles at home now. Every Costco Huggies box I have has been turned into parts of his castle. Taatjes is digging it too. Again, I just love his school. This week they are learning about insects and all day yesterday we had to hunt for bugs. Trey learned that an ant can carry 100 times his weight. He asked me if I would pretend to be an ant and carry our car instead of drive it:)

5 months

Teague is such an awesome baby! We all just love him to peices. He doesn't do much but he does love to laugh at his brothers crazy little voices that they come up with to entertain him. He roles around all over the house to get closer to where they are playing. He loves to eat his baby food when his brothers are eating. Most of it ends up drooling out while he smiles and laughs at them. And of course, his brothers are crazy about him and have to know why he does every little thing he does. If Teague starts to get upset you will find Trey and Taatjes running to his side to comfort him and tell him, "its ok your mommy is coming". Life is good for Teague and I think he will soon be trying to crawl and keep up with his big brothers. He has no problem matching the intensity of their shouting already. It is such fun having yet another personality enter in to our lives.

Good...Good...Done:(

New Bike

Trey is so proud of his new bike. He earned it all himself by doing everything on his list. It took him 2 weeks to fill in every smiley face on this chart but he completed it. He loved dusting, I was the one who had a hard time watching him move vases and books around to get all the dust behind them. The sharing toys was a hard column to fill, it took the entire 2 weeks and a little reminding that he did not have so many smiley faces filled in to get it done. But...here he is all smiles after we brought the bike home that he picked out. He told the cashier that he did lots of hard work to earn his bike:)