Oliver showing Miles how it's done

Since Miles LOVED Oliver's car so much the other day, I decided to get Oliver's car he got for his second Christmas (when he was 14 months old) out of the closet. It was an instant hit!

I just loved this picture of Oliver showing Miles about the car

It seems like Miles is growing up so much faster than Oliver did, or maybe with two I just have a sense of how quickly these early days seem to pass. Sigh. These two loved riding around our house. Oliver had to be in front otherwise Miles would just about fall out of the car trying to see him. These two boys are so much fun! :)

Miles is getting ready to crawl!

Here is another video of Miles. This time he is getting up on his little feet to push himself forward. I won't be able to keep him on a blanket for much longer! :)

Oliver Clayton Royal is fifty-one months old!

It is my big guys monthly birthday today, but I wanted to get his hair cut before taking his picture and I never did actually take his monthly pictures so this is going to have to be the one, I took it on the 16th instead of the 17 so it is VERY close. We love you OLIVER!

I did however take some pictures of his little brother. Clayton had the day off so he took Oliver to gymnastics this morning while I stayed home with Miles. Miles and I sat next to Oliver's car while he was having his morning bottle and he couldn't stop looking at it. So since big brother wasn't here to object, I let Miles try it out and can I just say he was a natural??? :)

He loved it and I just loved this last one of him hanging his hand out the window. Looks like something his Grandpas would do! :)

Here he is trying a Rice Rusk (from Santa) for the first time.

He really liked it even though the expression on his face doesn't quite show it.

Above you'll find Miles current mode of locomotion when these videos were taken 1/17/11. He would roll, bend, stretch to get where he wanted and it worked too!

And here is part two of the same video where he actually gets the toy! :)

How cute are these two??

Oliver's green thumb

You thought I was going to post a picture of his literal green thumb, didn't you? Nope. Oliver received this grass pot in his stocking for Christmas. He planted it and left it in a sunny place, he has been watering it nearly every day, and a few days ago it sprouted. It is really taking off now. Go Oliver!

Miles wants something...

It's easy to tell when Miles want something, he doesn't cry or whine or anything like that...he just gets really excited and he moves his hands around like crazy. Watch the video below, you'll see what I mean. It is so cute!

The fort

So what do you do when it's too cold to go out and you have an entire house full of toys, but you have nothing to do?

I say let's build a fort! :)

Miles was so patient and even though he wasn't feeling very well, he watched us build the fort from right here in his exersaucer

Oliver's first time in the pillow, cushion, blanket fort

He looks like he just conquered it!

Miles got to come in the finished fort too

I only imagine we will have many more of these forts in our home in the years to come!

The last time and I miss it already!

When Oliver was a baby, I would spend hours rocking him in his room just to get him to go back to sleep and I loved it (most of the time). With Miles, I really haven't had to spend more than a half-hour nursing him in his room to get him to go back to sleep since we did sleep training. So when Miles woke up because he wasn't feeling well early this morning, I tried to get him to nurse back to sleep but he wasn't interested in that at all. I didn't want to leave him awake just lying there as I usually do since he was sick, so I brought him back to my bed to snuggle with me. He fell asleep next to me for two hours and it was so sweet! I LOVE this picture, I just want to snuggle him. I can say it was the last time because I'm so far behind on blogging and he hasn't fallen asleep in my bed since because even though I co-slept with both of our children when they were infants and nursing in the night, I know they sleep better in their own beds so I no longer bring Miles back to my bed in the mornings.

Both of my children are so happy in the mornings and they love spending time together!

Our first snow storm this winter 1/9/11

So we received our first major snow storm last night and this morning, and guess who wanted to go play in it??? Little Oliver was SO excited, and Miles was sick so I needed to stay inside with him and Daddy was sick so he wanted to stay inside so Oliver had to stay inside on Friday and Saturday and enjoy the snow from inside. But when Sunday came and the snow was still there, he couldn't wait any longer. Have I mentioned how lucky my children are to have Clayton for a Daddy, well here is just another example: Clayton was very sick and he got all bundled up and took the little guy outside of a couple of hours and Oliver LOVED it. Clayton said it reminded him that he does not like the cold. You can find pictures of a very happy little guy in the snow below:

Do you like green beans?

The reason for this post is the two videos at the bottom, but I thought I'd post some pictures Oliver took of his little brother.

Miles really wants to crawl and even enjoys crawling on me! :)

Watch the video above of Miles eating green beans. Do you like green beans? Miles doesn't. I think the sound he makes when he eats any green vegetable is HILARIOUS; I know, I'm mean to keep making him eat it!

Watch the video above to see Miles playing with his car, he loves to see it light up

random pictures from 1/6

Clayton has always wanted to see Miles sleeping, but doesn't want to disturb him by going in there, so today I took a picture. My little tummy sleeper is so cute!

Look how happy he is!

Big brother feeling better and snuggling on the blanket with Miles

Big brother is not happy about having to take turns with Miles toys. Hopefully this will be a good learning opportunity for Oliver, he really doesn't like sharing his toys.

playing on the floor

Two boys lying on the floor...

one happy

(by the way the quilt on the right was Clayton's quilt when he was a baby),

one sick. Poor baby!

This has NEVER happened before!

Oliver still wasn't feeling very well, and Clayton was feeling even worse, but Oliver wanted to go outside to play so because Clayton is a great Daddy, he sucked it up and took him out. And if you have seen Clayton with Oliver, he definitely plays with him so they both got really tired outside. They came inside as it was getting dark and went into our bedroom to snuggle and warm up a little. This is what I found when I came to check on them. Oliver has NEVER fallen asleep outside of his bed or car seat before, so this was truly amazing for me to see. They both must have been really tired.

He is holding his Daddy's finger, SO SWEET!

We have a sitter!

Look at my cute baby, can you believe he is sitting up now? Although he much prefers being on his tummy because he really wants to crawl and he uses all sorts of motion to get himself where he wants to go. Now if I would just let him off that blanket! ;)

And I had to post this picture of him using his sippy cup, he LOVES water just like his big brother did.

and here is Oliver feeling a little better with a little appetite. Love that smile little guy!

Way to go Dallas Zoo!

About a year and a half ago, I won tickets to the Dallas Zoo from one of my favorite Mom's group, Metroplex Baby & Kids. I had been to the Dallas Zoo on three separate occasions and had not been impressed in the least so we kept putting it off. Well, the tickets expired 12/31/10 and that day just so happened to be BEAUTIFUL, so we decided we would go. Oliver had started coughing and sneezing a little the day before and woke up saying he had a funny taste in his mouth, but otherwise acted fine so we decided to go anyway. Oliver's wellness went downhill in our 25 minute car ride to the zoo. He lost all his energy and he didn't even want to stand, he begged to ride in Miles' stroller (this NEVER happens). Since I brought the Baby Bjorn infant carrier, we decided we would go in and just see how long he would last.

This is the last smile I saw from Oliver all day. The rest of the day he laid back in the stroller and didn't even want any french fries, grapes, gold fish, or fruit strips (which I can ALWAYS get him to eat).

Miles spent most of our trip just like this, so it felt like this trip to the zoo was really just for Clayton and myself. And I have to say, we both LOVED it!

Oliver's favorite animals at the zoo are zebras, so we decided to head over to the Wilds of Africa side of the zoo, to try and spot some zebras.

along the way we saw some cute penguins

And then I was totally caught off guard and impressed by the brand new Giants of the Savannah exhibit. It was SOOO cool! The last time we went to the Dallas Zoo, Jenny the lone elephant was kept in such a tight little spot with only a ball to play with and chain around her foot and it was sooo sad; it was a similar experience with the giraffe. Well I just have to take my hat off to the Dallas zoo for this new exhibit, it is 11 acres of pure wilderness for the animals. They keep one or two elephants up front and let the other five elephants roam.

We watched this elephant walk all the way down to the stream and we really thought (hoped) it was going to take a drink, but it just found a stick and walked away.

Next we stopped for lunch at the Serengeti Grill and this was our scenery. The lion's were sunning on this huge rock right outside one of the glass walls of the restaurant. How cool is that?

There were multiple giraffes and you could get really close

Some people even paid to feed the giraffes.

After we left the Giants of the Savannah exhibit, we were able to see a crocodile actually walk up to the water and get in, that was a really cool experience (although it was somewhat ruined for me by fumbling with my camera trying to get a picture)!

The chimpanzees were playing with a baby and it was SOO cute! Only this guy up front didn't want all the people to watch and he kept throwing dirt and it actually hit Clayton in the eye. I guess those protection instincts run strong through all God's creatures. Thankfully Clayton was okay.

And finally we took the monorail, and Oliver was able to see his favorite animal. There was even a baby who was just about Miles' age. He was pretty cute!

We had only seen a small portion of the zoo at this point and Oliver was DONE, so we left. We had to stop at the store really quick on the way home and Oliver didn't want to come in, but wanted to get out of his seat belt while Clayton fed Miles a bottle. When I came back, Oliver was lying on the floor in the back seat crying. Poor little guy, he really didn't feel good! When we arrived home, he took an hour and a half nap which could have been longer if I would have let it. Hopefully next time we go to the zoo he'll be feeling much better!