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