Funny Boy

Russ is at the best age right now! We love this boy sooo much and get such a kick out of him! I had to write down some of the things that he has been saying and doing lately because they are so fun and darling and I really want to always remember them.

I know I have said it many times before but Russ is obsessed with his Dad. Kevy is just everything to Russy and on the days when Kevin doesn't work Russ will ask him, "Dad no work daday?" and Kevin will say no and Russ will say "play with Russy?" When Kevy is at work he will ask me sometimes 30 times a day, "mom, where's dad?" and I will tell him he is at work and then a minute later he is asking me again.

Russ has started learning some letters and I think he has heard the girls spell his name because he tries to spell it out but for some reason he will just say A S S, it is so funny to hear him spell that over and over.

One day I was turning on a Disney show and the big disney castle came up at the beginning and he said "Its a temple." Now he thinks any pretty buildings are temples.

Russ love love loves to read right now. We go to the library and try and find books that have trucks or things like that on them and he wants to read them over and over again. One day we had just read his current book Build Dogs Build and he was wanting to read it again with Kevin and Kevin didn't want to, so Russ said "Dad please, its really good!" It was so funny.

Russ loves to say prayers and he is always the one to make sure we don't forget to say them when we eat. Even when we are out he folds his arms and says "prayers" so that we will do it before he eats.

He is a bit of pansy lately and always freaks out crying if he gets the slightest bit hurt, and wants me to kiss whatever finger or arm or whatever is hurt. And then if i am holding him and comforting him, he will say "I okay I okay"

Russ got ahold of some scissors and cut really close to his scalp in the front so I had to butch his hair much shorter than I would normally do. When he did it he came and said "I cut my hair, I was scared!" Littlepunk. Now all four of my big kids have cut their hair, hopefully Annie won't, but I'm not holding out too much hope.

Russ is OBSESSED with tools right now and he really loves "fixing" things. we were at this little strip mall and Russy and Annie and I were waiting outside on some grass while everyone else was finishing eating and Russ got his tools and started fixing whatever this big thing is. He also likes to sing "Bob the builder, can we fix it?" while he is doing his fixing.

Here is fireman Russ. He rides this fire engine all around the house. I love all of my sweet babies and I love watching them grow into big people. I love seeing his super fun personality show through and watch him grow into such a fun and sweet boy!

 

The Train Museum

My parents live pretty close to a train museum, and with them moving in a couple of weeks and with Russy loving trains right now we decided that we had to take advantage and go there. We got our lazy bums out of bed on Saturday so we could get down there before lunch. Grandma took good care of us and made an awesome picnic lunch for all of us to have.

In the museum there were these little model trains that you could make go by turning the wheel and it was pretty hard to tear Russy away from them.

There was such a nice picnic area with a bunch of pretty trees and some tables so we could eat there.

There were three big tables of Thomas the train and Russ loved playing with them.

The girls had fun in the gift shop looking at all the things they could buy with the little money that they have earned. They ended up buying jelly beans, of course nothing useful or a souvineer, just jelly beans that they could buy anywhere. Silly kids.

Janie had fun with Russy playing with the trains too.

Annie loves being in the bjorn with Daddy. She is so good and just hangs out the whole time. Although when I was wearing her while I was eating lunch it got a bit difficult because she just kept grabbing all my food.

 

Here is the train we got to ride. It was fun because we got to ride for about 45 minutes. They were actually electric trains that ran in the Bay Area back in the early 1900's. They had all these ads up that were authentic and they were the craziest ads. Most of them were for cigarettes and they said things like, "more doctors recommend these than any others" it was crazy. It was really cool though because they stopped and all the seats flipped around and the back became the front and the front the back and we headed back up the track back to the station.

 

Annie was super tired, but of course she wouldn't nap. And we had to hold her the whole time, so she was just so darn fun to deal with, sense my sarcasm, yeah it was pretty much a nightmare to contain her becuase she is just so busy right now. If we had half a brain we would have left her in the Bjorn because for some reason she will just stay and chill in it.

Russ thought it was the coolest thing ever that we got to actually ride on the trains and not just see them. He sat on Kevys lap and they got to have the window open so he had to stick his arm out and act like he was a big shot.

Nellie and Lizzy had fun riding in the back and feeling like big kids.

The museum was out in this farmland and it looked just like Kansas. It brought back some memories and they were mostly not good. I will just say that I am grateful for the learning experiences of our time in Kansas but I am so glad it is in the past.

We had a really great time riding the train and spending time with each other.

 

Fire Station #9

Kevy has worked at his job as IT supporting public saftey (police and fire) for seven months now and we are just now getting around to taking Russ to the fire station. He is literally obsessed with all things firefighter right now. He loves his fire engine that he got for Christmas soo much. He also wears his fire helmet around the house pretty much all day! Kevy talked to one of the firemen that he knows to see if we could bring the kids in to tour the station. Captain Titus gave us a great tour of the station and he was so great with the kids!!

Russ was incredibly gumpy the day we went, so it took him a while to warm up to the whole thing. He was prretty happy and excited though when we got out to the garage and he saw the firetrucks up close. He thought it was pretty cool to sit up in one. He liked looking at all the tools and all the other things that the fireman showed us. He wanted to touch everything and he got some black junk on his hands so Kevy had to take him to the bathroom to wash his hands and he kept saying "go back out!" He wanted to get back out there with the trucks as soon as possible. When it was time to go and we were leaving, he kept trying to run back to the garage to be with the trucks.

The girls enjoyed the whole trip too, just not quite as much as our crazy Russy boy. Captain Titus let the girls try on his gear, they thought it was pretty cool and I thought they looked pretty cute.

Janie was much more timid. I think she enjoyed herself, but she didnt get as into as her sisters and brother. Captain Titus sure thought Janie was so cute though and he kept asking her to say her name becuase he liked the way she would say it with this big grin on her face.

He didn't want to get down. I think he could have stayed there indefinitely.

The kids were standing by the hoses and Russ kept saying "these are the hoses" like he was explaing to us. I love his little voice!

Ever since we went to the fire station Russy has become even more obsessed. He literally wears his helmet most of the day every day. We got some plastic ones when we went and he is always putting them on the rest of us so we can be firefighters too. He also loves to ride his fireengine around and say "wee oo wee oo" like he is the truck making the noise. He also made up his own little song about the fire station, where he just sings "Fire station" over and over again. It is so fun for us to have this little boy and enoy all the boy things we never had before.