Edwin is 3

My baby boy turned 3 last month, and it certainly has been a crazy month for multiple reasons but let's look back at a simpler time...

In the last couple of months he has come out of his shell in so many ways. He's always been a little timid around pretty much anyone besides his family, and it will take him a bit to warm up to other familiar people. When we went to the bus stop he would hide behind me if anyone was looking at him. He tried to always hold back his emotions if there was someone unfamiliar near by. This seems like something of the past with his new 3 year old self. He has found a new level of confidence and sass that we didn't see coming. We've seen him telling off his brothers making them cower. Most of his intense "personality" has come out in the last 6 weeks so that probably wouldn't be fair to focus on that for this birthday post since he was quite the angelic child up until the beginning of the year. 

Edwin is a wonderful little sidekick. He's pretty easy going and just tags-along anywhere we need to go. He is my easiest child to take places because he has some awareness of where I am. It's been so fun to have time with him while brothers are in school. We've been able to do swim classes together and gymnastics. Occasionally we get out to the children's museum or zoo or parks, but most of our outings include the grocery store or Dr appointments.

He loves dogs, specifically his dog stuffed animals. I haven't had a kid love stuffies in the same way before. It's cute to see him take care of his doggy and let me know when his dog is sad and see how he comforts his sad dog. He loves real dogs from a distance and always wants to pet them until he gets close. He was also bitten by a dog a month ago and he's been more jumpy around dogs and he gets startled when the chickens follow him which has never been an issue before. Leash your dogs people.. My baby spent 5 hours in the ER and still has a mark on his leg, luckily he's still doing pretty well.

Monster trucks and cars are his favorite toys, he will usually have his hands full of them at any given moment and they are also always scattered across our floors and any surface in our house. That being said, he is very good at playing by himself. I was worried he wouldn't know what to do with himself when his brothers went to school but it turns out that he likes his quiet play time.

He cruises on his tippy bike and will ride it through our gravel rain or shine. Hopefully he will move up to a bigger bike this summer. 

 We started potty training him at the beginning of the year and that has been going great. I haven't done night time or nap training yet because I'm lazy but we're going to run out of diapers soon so that will be a thing.

 The words "I hate..." have come out of his mouth more frequently. My older boys didn't even know this was a phrase (Side story: Once when Charlie was 4 or 5, he fell down at the park and scrapped up his leg pretty bad, I could tell by his cry that it hurt really bad and he screamed...really loud... "This...is not....my favorite!!!!!" Like he didn't even think to say he hated it.) But sadly, that word has entered all of my boys; vocabulary and Edwin uses it way too much...He says he hates me frequently, and he hates our house and if he's mad at a brother he will say he hates them. In contrast, he also says he loves us, it just depends on what mood he's in. 

 Edwin has never been a big risk taker, it wasn't until recently that he would slide down a slide without holding someones hand, or jump off of an elevated surface, or climb out of his bed. But he does all those things with confidence now. Like he finally started climbing out of his crib day one of quarantine. I didn't really need that in my life but I guess I can be grateful that he waited 3 years instead of 18 months. like his brothers....

Anyway, this was his first birthday interview which was fun, now that he's a pretty great talker. 

Name: Edwin Baertlein James

Nicknames: Doggy doo doo

How old are you? 3 (Pronounced fwee)

What is your favorite color? Ummm..light blue

What is your favorite animal? umm...doggy doo doos

What is your favorite book? "umm....Cars 2"

What is your favorite TV show? "umm...Cars 2"

What is your favorite movie? "ummm...I already said my movie"

What is your favorite song? "ummm....Cars 2"

What is your favorite food? "ummmm um um....potty train treats"

What is your favorite drink? "ummm....blueberries and green cups" 

What is your favorite snack? "umm..Z-bars and applesauce"

What is your favorite treat? "ummm...chocolate chips"

What is your favorite outfit? "church clothes"

What is your favorite game? "ummm...uh, uh, Don't eat Pete"

What is your favorite toy? "um....Lightening McQueen!"

Who is your best friend? "Ummm...Mater"

What do you want to be when you grow up? "a cat"
What is your favorite thing to do? "Ice Cream sundaes"

What is your favorite thing to do outside? "Drive the tractor down a bumpy road....It's the bumpy road song"

What is your favorite holiday? "Ice cream and chocolate chips"

Where is your favorite place to go? Store that has pjmask cars....see video
 never mind, I can't get the video to load and it's already taken way too long to post this.

What is your favorite restaurant? "Um um restaurant...like pretzels and circle things and chocolate milk"

Where do you want to go on vacation? "Where the tram is uh and go outside Daddy's work"

What do you love? "Umm....ice cream and chocolate chips"
 What did you do on your birthday? "I put lightening McQueen and Mater on my cake"

What is Mom good at? "poop in the potty and then get a treat"

What is Dad good at?  "uhhh....Skateborading?" ha, well if he is, I've never seen it!

What is Charlie good at? "just playing so much put on the colors"

What is Miles good at? "Painting"

What is Edwin good at? "Ice cream and chocolate chips"

What makes you laugh? When Doggy does like this..." Makes his stuffy be silly

What are you afraid of?  'Umm...skeletons, skeleton robots"

What do you like to do with your family? "Like to swim"

What do you love to learn about? "Church"

Tell me a joke? "I can, like knock knock who's there?" "Who?" "Um...cow...rawr"
What is something you learned this year? "poo poo in the pee pee"
 What makes mommy laugh? "umm..." he starts making obscure noises and flipping all over the couch. 
 What's a nice thing you have done for someone?"Ummm....no one"


For Edwin's birthday, we celebrated a little early since Max was going to be participating in a sleep study at his work during Edwin's actual birthday so after big brother's had their gymnastic class, We went to the Children's museum together as a family. I've never been on a Saturday, and at the end of the day, it was crazy and the toys were a mess but it was nice to have two adults chasing these kids. I mostly stayed with Edwin. 

 We stayed until they kicked us out then grabbed a pizza on the way home. Chowed that down and brought out Edwin's requested birthday cake. He had told me we wanted a car cake and a doggy cake so we incorporated both into one cake. It is the fanciest cake I've ever made and I was really proud of it. The boys all helped at some point. 

One of my favorite phrases he says is 'This is delicious mom!" He mentioned that a couple times while eating his cake.  

He also requested that there is a chocolate chip doggy poo....so that happened, of course that was the piece everyone wanted. Boys are weird

So good!!!

Anyway, we spent the evening opening his gifts. He got a paw patrol car, and a cape, and stickers. 
We are so thrilled Edwin is ours forever.

January revisited

Let/s be honest, January isn't the most fun moth to revisit but there were some memories in my phone that I decided were important to add to our blog...and we can just be grateful that Spring is almost here while I'm writing this. We ended Winter Break with a trip to the library. 

We spent time cleaning up our yard and taking down Christmas lights. We decided to take down our homemade scarecrow, partly because it was looking pretty sad a shabby and also because it didn't scare anything away. But it looked pretty weird in the top of our garbage can. 

But both my big boys helped take down the Christmas lights and it was another moment of gratitude that my boys are growing up and becoming good helpers. 

I started personal notebooks with each of my boys, As of now, It's just a place we write silly notes or pictures to each other but I hope it is a place they feel comfortable telling me important things they need me to know. (in addition to more silly things) 

 All of my boys have been taking a gymnastic class at the Rec Center. Miles and Charlie are in the same class and Edwin took one with me during a weekday morning.

 I was just so excited that 150 pounds of Chicken food fit into this deep compartment in our new van.

One Saturday we woke up and Charlie had built this banner. It is still hanging and probably will be at least until Miles' Birthday in April.

When Edwin wakes up happy....

 Underwear Yoga.

My helper all day long.

 Early dark mornings at the bus stop Charlie was complaining that he was cold and couldn't zip up his coat because it would make his hands cold, so Miles sacrificed his comfort to zip up his big brother's coat.

There is now a Chik-fil-a by us and they sometimes e-mail me coupons to get free things...so Edwin and I get a date out of it.  

Disco parties are a frequent thing here while we try to get some wiggles out this winter. 

 More library trips.

Miles first picture to include "boobies"

 Edwin requested (demanded) to spend an afternoon riding his bike in the pouring rain. I spent a little while outside with him but then became soaked and went inside while Edwin spent another hour playing in the sand/water box on the deck.

 This chicken seems a little drenched too.

 My boys had mysteriously been quiet for awhile, come to find them all piled into Edwin's tiny closet.

Edwin earned a hot wheels car whenever he filled up his potty chart. He's doing pretty well with his potty training.

And some sunny (at least non-rainy) days, when Edwin wakes up early, we walk brothers to school.

Max brought home some test tubes and droppers for the boys to do some science.

Miles is a little trickster and likes playing jokes on people but he cannot keep a straight face and we think it's the funniest thing ever. Here is is TRYING to play a trick on Max...

 It's always fun when it's costco day and I get toilet paper AND diapers in the same trip...and apparently these photos are out of order since I bought the diapers before we started potty training Edwin.

The library had a DOG-Man event which is Charlie's favorite series. There were so many fun activities including a whole wall full of "Invention materials" so the boys were in heaven and Miles even won the newest dogman book so he was pretty excited about that.

Also, the event was held in the same room that Max and I had our wedding reception and i think it was the first time I had been in that room since our wedding day so that brought back all sorts of fuzzy memories!

 And that is our January!

Into the New Year and Decade

Happy New Year! ( A couple months ago!) I love New Years, On New Years Eve, Max had to work in the morning but came home just after lunch. I put the boys to work chopping up the Christmas tree and putting it in the yard debris bin. I honestly can't remember what we did when Max got home but when it was dinner time, we all worked together to make fondue. The last couple of years have been fun because each person has a job to help prepare. Charlie cut the apples, Miles cut the bread, Edwin may have set the table, I don't remember, and Max assisted the boys in their jobs. I'be also been getting better at my cheese fondue skills and it was a tasty dinner enjoyed by all....and let's be real, there are only a few dinners at our house that are enjoyed by all....)

we reviewed our favorite parts of the year and I can't remember what everyone said, because this was a long time ago. I know my personal favorite was Costa Rica and our beach trips and Lasik, Sometimes we go through our blog and review some of the things we did. I'm pretty sure my boys love our Fishermans' bend camping trip with cousins.

We then played our new game for awhile

Check out his eyebrow skills. 

we let the kids watch a movie for awhile while Max and I cleaned up the kitchen together and prepared the chocolate covered Strawberries. Then a dance party happened...including a disco ball!

And I had a video of the dance party and for some reason it isn't working and I don't see a need to prolong this post anymore so, I'm not going to worry about it.
Some good hard dancing led to chocolate covered strawberries

We showed our kids the ball drop in New York City shortly after 9pm, a perk of living on the west coast! The main thing my boys got from the ball drop is that some people kiss for a long time...haha. so I guess we don't do much PDA in front of our kids.

We then put our kids to bed by 10pm and Max and I finally got our home new years date. We love our New Years home date where we review our last year, definitely not original but we love it and feel grateful for the learning and growing experiences we have each year. Last year when we reviewed our year, we felt like we were at a road block, Max was not happy with his job in construction, our house flipping didn't go as well as hoped and we felt like there was so much unknown in our future and Max was looking for a new start with his career. This year, Max has been in a new job that he loves with new long term career goals that he is excited about. His employers and coworkers respect him and his skills, he is so much happier. Our boys have been growing and turning into little independent people. We're learning more about parenting and still strive to be better. Overall, we feel like we are in a better place than we were a year ago and that is all you can hope for, constant progress! Anyway, here are some accomplishments from 2019

• Max's beard won an award...(This is seriously the first thing he mentioned for his 2019 accomplishments)
• Career path chosen,
• one-on-one dates with kids
• Rafting and camping trips
• No debt
• Sold last flipped house
• Garage organization
• Woodworking projects
• Costa Rica Trip!!!
• Rebecca trip to Utah
• Max job at OHSU
• Selling eggs
• Charlie reading novels
• Consistent date nights
• Lasik for Rebecca
• Max got braces

I know there was more but that's what got on our list.

For some of our 2020 goals we wrote...Since it's been months, I'll check of the ones we've already accomplished.

• Max's sleep study✅
• Trip to Nashville
• Thorough budget
• Buy newer car ✅ (and still NO debt!✅)
• Apply to PA school
• Have boys run Egg business
• Boys do gymnastics ✅
• Boys do swimming
• Potty Train Edwin✅
• Quarterly temple dates
• Monthly Date nights ✅ So far so good
• All of 25th rented out
• Have a cute and tidy master bedroom
• Organization boxes for Kids' school stuff✅
• Kids run Chicken/egg business, learn financial skills

He have more on our personal lists as well but that's all I feel like sharing on the blog. 

We stayed up pretty late eating our strawberries and chatting and making plans.

They next morning kids came into our room too early and I found a million pictures on my phone like this...

Max had the day off so we decided to start on our list of goals. Beginning with car shopping. The car I had been using was an older car that Max got for super cheap at an auction 2 years ago. It had been such a good car that we made it last 2 years as opposed to the one year we had hoped. While using this old cheap car, we had been saving up and now that our boys are getting bigger and it's a struggle to have them all sit in the one row, we decided to finally look at mini vans. we actually had been looking for awhile before New Years but since Max had the day off he went and shopped around, and but the end of the day we were driving home in our new van, paid in full!

So much space!

Anyway, I know I missed a lot of details but we are very goal oriented people and it is so encouraging to see progress and growth in each year even if we can't see it in the day-to-day. Hooray for 2020 and a brand new decade full of new opportunities and growth!