Kid vids

It's time for a little bit of video catch up! These days I'm more likely to put pictures of our adventures just on Instagram rather than here, but videos still work here pretty well so I'll keep putting them here periodically. I think my mom's been better at taking videos than I have lately, but I have a few good ones still.

Lots of giggling.

More giggling.

After we loaded the truck, we decided that Kleenexes made perfectly good toys.

Some early standing from Jacob. He would often stand up and then put his hands up in the air, and it was darling.

This song. Ugh. When Matthew decided he liked it better than "Let's Go Fly a Kite" it was a sad day. I think he's outgrowing it finally.

He eventually figured out how to climb up the bounce house slide.

The only messy babies I find cute are my own, so naturally this is the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Matthew has really liked asking what he was like when he was Jacob's age, so I was really glad that I had these videos easily accessible on the blog to show him. Here's his report.

I wanted to be sure I had a video of how fast Jacob could crawl before he abandoned it for walking. This boy sure could get across the floor fast!

I love when he babbles!

Cute sounds!

Joseph did a quick two week swimming lesson class, and it ended with a jump off the diving board. He did great!

Jacob and Matthew had birthdays! They were thrilled with everything they got.

It took a little while for Jacob to get the point of a birthday cake.

Matthew loved his Superman cake! I have watched this video so many times and it never gets old.

Stuffed animal adventures!

I haven't gotten too many dancing videos lately, so here's a little one.

Drum roll . . . walking!!! He finally stopped going on tiptoes everywhere and figured out how to walk! As of today he still prefers crawling, but only just barely.

Joseph wasn't in the mood to dance for a video, but he still knew how to make a funny video.

Waterslide fun.

Rain!!!!!! It didn't last long but at least we got a little wet!

Just a few more fun facts about the boys:

• Jacob loves to climb! He doesn't put much in his mouth anymore, so that's good, but he still needs constant supervision because he will climb on anything.
• He loves to smack his lips together when we ask him to kiss. Video will be forthcoming!
• He's the only one of my kids who's really taken to a bottle more than a cup. But any time he sees someone else with a cup he gets upset. And if you happen to take a sip and then dump the rest in the sink, it's like he's a man in the Kalahari desert who just watched someone throw water away for how upset he gets.
• He also gets really sad whenever someone closes a door. Even a fridge door.
• When we don't let him get into trouble, he collapses to the ground and cries. I guess we have 3 opinionated kids in the house now!
• He is so sweet!!!! He charms everyone he meets, especially at church.
• So far, 3 has been a good age for Matthew. I felt like for most of when he was 2 it was like 10 hard days for every 1 easy day, but now it's like 10 hard days and then 10 easy days. (I still feel panicked that I'm wrecking my kid when we're in the midst of a set of hard days, but then he comes out of it totally sweet and helpful again and I realize it was just a phase.) He doesn't screech much anymore and only growls when he has a reason to now. He and Joseph still shriek "Get Jacob!!!" way more than they need to.
• Even on his easy days, he is pretty sensitive to textures. Grass is anathema most of the time. But at least he has enough clothes he likes these days that getting dressed isn't the ordeal it used to be.
• He says a lot of funny things. He picked up "But why?" a few days ago and says it whenever it doesn't make sense. He also says "I guess" all the time. He can be a broken record sometimes, especially when he wants to watch something. Whenever I suggest something else, he pleasantly says, "Hmmm, I guess . . . we could watch Lego Batman."
• For a while when we moved here, he would throw fits about everything at breakfast, so we would take him to a bench on the porch to watch the birds and calm down enough to eat. It's still a happy spot even though breakfast is going better now.
• He is deathly afraid of dogs. Every time he hears a dog bark he freezes up and says, "The dog is eating me!" I eventually grew out of that . . .
• I find myself having more and more real conversations with him, and it makes my heart so happy. He's getting to be a real kid!
• Joseph is my reader! Most days I hardly had to do much to entertain him because he was swallowing Magic Tree House books whole.
• He loves playing games, especially with his aunts and uncles. If I ever want to beat him at chess, I better do it now because it won't be long before he demolishes me.
• We found some origami, paper airplane, and pop-up books and he's really liked doing those. He is happy that Grandma lets him use printer paper instead of scrap paper.
• He and I sometimes do piano lessons together. The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak on my part.
• He is pretty patient with his brothers for the most part. We moved Matthew into a different room because he was keeping everyone awake, but it wasn't long before Joseph said he missed having him there. We still kept them separate, but Joseph definitely loves his little brother! And his baby brother!
• He still likes to build stuff, but he said he doesn't necessarily want to be a builder when he grows up which is what he said for all of kindergarten. Maybe a scientist, is what he thought. He loves math a lot, too.
• He's pretty brave! He took to swimming lessons well and has been on some pretty wild water slides. I'm hoping to transfer some of the bravery to walking to school since I have all the same strong feelings about school dropoff and pickup that I did in Connecticut. (It's easier here, but still. Parents shouldn't have to walk their kids to and from school in neighborhoods like this.)

These are some fun boys, and we're glad to have them!