Okay, okay, I’ve made up my mind. (Pretty sure this time.) The stroller of my dreams, the City Select, isn’t getting good reviews in neighborhoods and rough terrain. Major bummer. As we near baby two’s arrival, and JT still loves his stroller, I’m pretty sure that we’re going to need to carry two. So I switched gears and looked at some other strollers that were at the top of my list and I’ve finally narrowed it down to the best possible option: Baby Jogger’s Summit XC, plus a jump seat.

It has all the features I want, and it’s rated as a jogger but maneuverable enough for shopping, and it will fit in the trunk of the car. That means it would replace both the Chicco and the jogger stroller, which would be great. My friend Jen has it in blue, with the jump seat, and she’s been using it for six months with two kids and absolutely loves it. I tried one out at the store the other day but the real test was trying it out with Jen when I saw her today… we talked over all of the options and seating arrangements and folds. 🙂

So here it is… on my updated wish list!

We spent last weekend visiting JT’s Great Grandma Hall, who lives in Seaside, Oregon. We walked to the beach from her house, flew a kite, played in the sand, ate clams, walked to the park, and lots more. JT also slept in his own full-size bed the whole weekend and did great. We got to ride down in the Keenes’ motorhome, which was super fun!

There are too many pictures great to post – if you’d like to see the rest, click here.

So very behind on Flip Clips! Let’s see…

I’m slowly teaching JT little chores around the house, as you might have read, like starting the dishwasher and watering the plants. His other chore is feeding the dog. He does a really good job, except when he drops a kibble and then bends over to pick it up with the full scoop in his hands. 🙂 He also does a great job of blocking her from getting the food before it’s in the bowl. He can get into the pantry and get into her tub of treats as well… he tells her “sit” but she ignores him and just takes the treat, so we’re working on that. It is good to firmly establish that Slider is the bottom of the household food chain by letting JT control her food!

JT strums Jim’s guitar a lot but the other day he actually used the pick. It sounded pretty decent, actually!

I got so many positive comments on the last reading video… but haven’t been able to get another great one since, although JT reads aloud all of the time. But the other day I was upstairs putting something away and he went downstairs. I asked him what he was up to, and he said “Book, chair” so I knew he was down there reading. When I heard him reading aloud, I peeked to check on him, and he had found a new audience for his reading. Slider is an excellent listener.

I think I didn’t post this on the blog. Or did I? I know it went on Facebook. Anyway, one of JT’s newest pastimes is to ski inside. The weather has been junky for spring and he hasn’t gotten to ski outside much. One day he was so very sad to leave the ski gear in the garage, and I remembered that we have a leash for Slider that’s a ski handle. So I told JT that we had a ski rope inside, and he could use that. I clipped it to the corner of the coffee table, and the rest is history. (Watch him drop his outside hand!)

We decided to have an impromptu birthday party for Jim’s 31st at our house on Memorial Day. We invited our families and the Skagens (and the Shucks… but they’re still contagious with norovirus so they declined). Even though JT was running a fever (see below), he put up a good front and we all had a great time!

JT wanted his buddy Cole to sit by him at dinner (“Cole sit, Cole sit…”).

After dinner we walked to our neighborhood park and enjoying a break from the rain. Aly was a daredevil and climbed to the top of the fireman pole! Cole and JT were more conservative and stayed near to the ground.

Cole, are you coming?

Then we walked home for dessert – a Costco chocolate layer cake and ice cream. Jim got help blowing out his candles and opening presents.

On Jim’s real birthday, he worked, but he got lucky and took half the night off. It was a beautiful evening and, by the time he got home, JT was in bed and I had built a campfire and was waiting for him with s’mores fixings – a great way to end the day. 🙂

While we were waiting for the truck’s Line-X spray liner to be finished, we had lunch and playtime at the Super Mall.

Through the tunnel

Mr. Cool Guy

Lounging in the boat

JT loves playing in the sink (what kid doesn’t?). The other day I got a few pictures of him playing as I was making dinner.

For this one, I said, “JT, smile at Mom!” and this is what I got. 🙂

Then something else hit poor JT, who has had a really rough month… more teeth. I started thinking something was up when this is how I found my boys one night after I cleaned the kitchen:

Jim, who works nights, is perpetually tired, but JT never lays around like this, especially when Jim is home to play. So I picked him up to take him upstairs (he was telling me “Sleep, Mom” a whole hour early) and he felt awfully warm… low and behold, his temperature was 100 even. That was the highest it’s been in his short lifetime, and pretty high for a guy who normally runs in the mid-96s.

He spent the whole next day between 100 and 101, but it came down with Tylenol and he wasn’t showing any other symptoms. So we threw Jim a birthday party anyway! (Next posting…)

That night, he woke up every hour to cry. At 5:30 AM, Jim left for Bible Study and plunked JT into bed with me so I wouldn’t have to keep getting up. This is the first time he’s ever slept with me in bed! JT’s fever must have broken at some point, because he fell asleep about 7 AM and slept until 9:30 (when we woke him up so he could eat). After breakfast, he was back to 96.5 degrees normal and seemed much better. Needless to say, Jim and I needed naps!

JT spent the rest of the week on teething tablets and Tylenol… complaining of “ouch” and pointing to his jawline and teeth. We also woke up super sweaty from every nap. It’s over now, but I’m guessing his two-year molars are on their way in. Come quickly and be done, little teeth!

We love to go to Long Lake and ski, and we’re trying to go once a week from now until the end of the warm ski season. JT loves going in the boat!

Jim recently showed him the hot water shower and how he can spray things with it… here they are testing it out.

JT also likes to pretend to ski with the rope from inside the boat. He thinks he is so funny!

(Look at all of those teeth!)

He also enjoys driving Grandpa’s truck while we’re there. This can take a long time, as he takes the time to figure out every button, knob, and toggle.

I am so behind on blogging… like Jim’s birthday and some great boat pictures and a couple of Flip Clips… but for now I’ll just throw up a couple from today.

We went to a few neighborhood garage sales and got some great deals! I got JT a sandbox turtle for $2, a basketball hoop for $3, and new-with-the-tags-still-on snow boots for next winter for $3 – not to mention some summer clothes for $1 each.

We got sand on the way home and Jim set up the sandbox while I was making lunch. JT loves it! He spent time before and after lunch and before and after dinner playing in it. My favorite part is that I can see it from the kitchen window, so I can work in the kitchen and watch him play. My second favorite part was when he was playing before dinner and I said, “JT, two minutes until we wash up for dinner,” and he said, “Yes, Mom.” We have been working on that for so long… it was so great to hear it in action! 🙂

Here we are at week 24 already! My belly measures the same around now as it did with JT at week 28, but weigh almost 10 pounds fewer than with JT at this time. I’m bigger but weigh less. How does that work? 🙂

I’ve decided that I hate strollers. After reading some new reviews on my favorite stroller, I’m not sure anymore. People who got it and are using it with two kids in neighborhoods and on sidewalks aren’t thrilled… which is, of course, one of the primary purposes of our stroller. So now I’m waffling and there is NO good answer for an inline stroller that folds easily and comfortably holds two children. Ugh.

If you ask JT, “Where’s mom’s baby?” he will point to my tummy. He has been a little uncomfortable snuggling lately and blames my expanding middle, as he points to it and pokes it and frowns. I explain that Haley is snuggling with him too, and he is not sure what to think of that.

Meanwhile, little miss baby two is bumping around on a several-times-per-day basis and has now made it difficult for me to put shoes and socks on. But that’s okay, I still love her.

While we loved our Explorer, the poor thing just wasn’t built to haul around our heavy boat and trailer. If the awful towing gas mileage is any indication of how hard the engine is working, we knew we needed to make a change.

Jim has been looking at used trucks for awhile, and he finally found one with the right miles, the right features, and the right price down the road at Bowen Scarff Ford. (That’s where we bought our first Explorer, and we really like it there.)

After testing it out for nearly a whole day, we decided to make the deal. Good-bye, Explorer, hello F350 lariat crew cab long bed super duty 4×4 turbo diesel! And yes, it fits in the driveway. We can now tow the equivalent of twice our boat and trailer without nearing the limit… and fit a whole lot of stuff in the back.

I think the most excited person in this whole transaction was JT. In fact, we had an embarrassing little episode…

We test drove the truck on Tuesday, but by the time we were ready to do paperwork the financing bank was closed for the day. So we talked about taking it home anyway but finally decided to leave it and go back on Wednesday to seal the deal. JT was so very happy to be riding around in “Dad’s truck” that, when he saw us move his car seat back to the Explorer to go home, he started yelling, “MYYYYY TRUCK TRUCK!” in the middle of the dealership. It was pretty pathetic. The woman handling the financing felt so badly that JT was sad that she wanted us to take the truck home for an “overnight test drive.”

No, thank you, we said… thinking this was a little ridiculous. When we went back on Wednesday to pick up the truck, JT was so relieved. 🙂 Here he is enjoying his new ride, forward-facing two months earlier than we’d planned.

With the boys on the mend, they got some quality time together today. Here’s a little look…

And here’s what Jim taught JT to do (won’t JT’s preschool teacher love this?). But tilt your head, because it’s a lot of work to rotate this video and I am out of time!