Orchard

 A couple weekends ago Ben and Tonia came up and hung out with us in the orchard to grab a few pictures and enjoy some delicious pancakes.  Surprisingly, the pictures turned out alright despite the fact the sun was directly overhead and our kids hated us.  We all had a good time though so it was worth it.

In other big news, Jeff just got an internship with a fracing company! We are pretty stoked, it's near enough Ben and Tonia we might forgo the offered housing and crash at their place all summer :) The month of April seems to have been Jeff's time to shine. He got "Outstanding First Year Senator" award for student government (out of like 60 candidates), got an internship, got the only 100 in one of his classes, etc.   I'll tell ya, he's a keeper.

Tristan is two.  Can you believe he is two?  I keep joking that he is a terrible Tew now but the melt downs haven't been as bad as I thought.  He is growing up so quickly.  We had the best company a couple weeks ago and when they left we let him sleep on the air mattress.  He did so well that we just bought him a toddler bed.  Jeff was going to make him a loft bed but we ruled that out and will just go with the little bed for right now and upgrade later.   So far we are on week two out of the crib and only had one night where he tried to sneak out.  A few months ago he discovered he could climb out of his crib.  That was cute one night when we put him back in bed about eight times.  The ninth time I used my "angry mom" voice and that was the last time he has climbed out of his crib since.  The other night he popped out of his room, all cute and smiling, while it was everything I could do to not laugh I gave him a dirty look and said in a grouchy voice, "GET BACK IN BED!"  He turned and ran back to his room.  A few minutes later I could hear him playin in the dark, so I grabbed him and let him have some fried banana with me.  Aside from that, the little guy has stayed in there when I told him to.  I am going to attribute it to the fact that when I say "No" he knows I mean business.  At least 90% of the time.  Like, instead of saying repeatedly, "Don't do that" when he does something he shouldn't, I don't bother with words.  Instead, I grab him, put him in time out and say, "Don't do that."  I believe the immediate consequence to unwanted behavior makes it VERY clear that whatever it was he was doing was not cool, so he has a clear understanding of what is OK and what is not OK.  I believe in physically disciplining a child and not "talking" at them.  When you talk to much to a small child I am sure all they hear is "Wah wah wah wah wah (insert child's name) wah wah wah" and they don't care.  When you physically intervene IMMEDIATELY, the FIRST time they do something wrong, they have no choice but to pay attention.  It's more work, but I think it helps.

Most of the time he is pretty good .... but we are still far from perfect.  Faaar from perfect.