Meet Our New Baby!

goat, that is. The boys received their birthday present from Auntie Hope and Uncle Mike today. It's a joint gift, thank goodness! And yes, we knew about it. They didn't just spring a baby goat on us;-) Anywho, isn't he cute? We haven't completely settled on a name yet. Cole's suggestion was Black. Pat's is Buck. I haven't come up with a good one yet. There's always Alfie or Spunky or Benny....

So what do the boys think? Well, Tate likes his big ears.
Cole isn't so sure. The goat is very loud and Cole isn't too fond of his crying, but he did pretty good with him.

Juno thinks he tastes great. She climbed into his calf hut and took him, by the neck, for a little adventure this afternoon. Needless to say one of them will be locked up until the little guy is big enough to hold his own.

Feel free to leave your name suggestions in the comments. Pat has named every pet we own so I think it's my turn.

Milestones

Tate has finally passed a few milestones this past week. Last week Thursday, he found his motivation and rolled over, twice! He still isn't crazy about it, but he's learning being on his tummy isn't so bad. He's had PT (physical therapy) twice so far and will start with a new therapist next week. I'm excited about the change, mostly because the new therapist is the same one Cole had as an infant. I think it will be fun for her to see how much Cole has grown and changed. Tate also cut his first tooth! It could explain why he actually slept through the night last night. I love the little bottom teeth. They are so cute. So all in all, Tate is doing well.
Cole is also enjoying his summer. We've finished up our ECFE classes and he has done remarkably well with separation. Potty training is, well, it is what it is I guess. It's not going terribly well. He was going in the potty a few times a day and now we are back to zero. I guess we'll try the running outside naked thing next.

On Monday Cole starts his SPED class. There will be 5 little boys in his class, 3 of whom he is familiar with. I'm excited for him. I think he'll really enjoy it once he gets over the separation thing. Oh, and just so we are clear, this isn't what you would normally think of as a SPED class. I know when I was in school, SPED was for the kids with mental of physical disabilities, as well as the troubled kids. Now it's more of a preventative thing. I honestly don't expect him to be in SPED through his school years. All the little boys in his class are just a little behind in certain things, like speech, or in Cole's case, social and fine motor skills. I know that we are about 10 years behind the curve out here, but my biggest peeves are hearing things like "Your kid is going to naughty school?". The worst is coming from family though. Those are the comments like, "You don't need special school. You aren't stupid." Honestly, the kid is going to feel stupid from hearing comments like that, not from going to school. Enough of my soap box...

Sweet Olivia

Olivia went to be with Jesus at 11:15 this morning. Please pray for her family as they now travel a new path of grief.

Please Pray

for Olivia. It breaks my heart to think her family may have to say good bye. Please pray for a miracle, but also for peace and understanding for her family and friends. It brings tears to my eyes to even think of losing one of my boys. I can't imagine what Olivia's family is going through. So please get on your knees for this little girl. You can visit her blog by clicking the button to the left.

Fun Photos

Can you believe my baby is 10 months old already? I think I say that every month, but man, it goes fast. No major developments with Tate. He is eating table foods like it's going out of style and doesn't require any teeth to do it!
Next up, we got some goslings this past week. Cole has no fear of them yet, neither does Tate.

Cole came in the house the other night claiming he had sand in his boot. He sure did, and I'm pretty sure I know how it got there. Where was the other boot? But across the yard by the fence. Where else?

That's one tough skid loader. I just thought this was a neat picture.

Play time with brother

As requested...Cock your head to the right and enjoy!

A Day In The Life

of an almost 3 year old on a dairy farm.
First, it's up and outside
to help Daddy clean barns.

Then it's off to feed the cows their breakfast.

I fit in a little time on the sand pile while Mommy feeds calves.

Then it's time for breakfast. I am hungry!

Next up is play time! I love to swing!

Of course, I have some phone calls to make too.

I also get to help Mommy bake. My favorite part is cleanup!

It's off to wash my face and hands,

which makes me really thirsty.

Then it's down for a nap.

After nap, it's back to chores. This time I help Mommy feed calves. First we add the milk replacer,

then we stir it all up.

Then I go play in the tires

and my favorite sand pile.

I even squeeze in time for the baby kitties, but Mommy says not to actually squeeze the kitties.

Then I wash up the pails

and dump out the water.

When we are all done with chores, it's time for my piano lesson. (I'm self taught.)

Finally it's time for jammies.

I get a story.

I brush my teeth.

I turn on my tractor light.

Good night!

Potty - Take II

We had another potty success this morning. Cole was dry! To top it off, he then peed in the potty! Whoo hoo! He is not interested at all in the pull-ups I bought, but that's ok. They are spendy and he probably isn't ready for them yet.

We've had a lot of late nights and early mornings this week. I'm exhausted. The kids haven't been getting to bed until 9 and we've been getting up at a 6:45. It's going to be an exhausting summer.

Stay tuned. I've got a good post brewing and am hoping to finish it up this weekend. Well, I need to go sit a little boy on the potty again...

Happy Mother's Day

My gift from my boys...
Pat made it with his new plasma cutter. The blue smudges are the boys's handprints.

Unfortunately, it really isn't that warm out, but it cracked me up. I went out to throw away diapers and came back to find Cole in the yard, pantless, but with socks and blue crocs. Guess he's got his priorities straight!

Happy Mother's Day!

Road Warriors

Now that I am finished with finals, I can finally sit at the computer and update you all.

Last weekend we headed to my sister's new house in metropolis. We had beautiful weather so we spent much of the time in their nice, flat, backyard. The kids had a blast and it was a nice get away for me. It's nice that they are closer, but it's still a long drive. For once, mapquest underestimated the travel time. Granted, I had to stop twice but they were both quick stops. We took a different route home, through Grammy and Papa's house, and it took about the same amount of time and was actually shorter, mileage wise.

Helping with the sandbox.

That's one tough "Cheese" face.

For more pictures from our weekend, check out my sister's post, here.

I finished up my finals yesterday. What a relief! This was probably the toughest semester I have had so far and it feels good to be done with it. I just hope I passed. Hopefully the summer will be a little less busy (hey, I can still dream!)

My FIL went in yesterday for knee surgery and thus far, the farm is still running. The surgery went pretty well. It took longer than typical, but they knew that before they started. We are planning on heading in tonight to see him.

We've had a couple of casualties in our fish tank. We lost a fish the other day and our snail yesterday. Coley thinks it's a blast to flush fish down the toilet. He wanted to go get more and put them in the potty.

I think that about covers it. Hopefully I will be able to update a little more often now that school is done for the summer (yup, still dreaming).

Success???

We had a potty success tonight. Do you see it?

I guess that counts. Cole was sitting on the potty when he peed!