Orlando

In a few days I will be heading off to another event for work. This time with out kids. It will be the longest I’ve ever spent away from either kid since they were born; 10 days. I like it when they tag along, I get to see them for brief moments into between work. But this event is really long hours locked away in a room, and it would be hard to find a nanny for that long. So they are staying home with daddy while I head to CA.

But before I head out on another work trip, I figured I should finally finish editing the photos from my last one!

One of the mornings I didn’t have to start until 9am. So after breakfast the kids and I headed out on a walk around the grounds of the hotel and checked out the butterfly garden, the lake and the ducks.

Our fabulous nanny that was there for a few days until Mark could join us, picked up a floaty ring for the kids to play with. Lincoln got to use it occasionally when Fiona was bored of it, and even got to float down the lazy river in it. He looks pretty comfy.

Fiona had a blast playing in the water. There were 9 pools connected by a lazy river. She was in heaven!

Lincoln had a pretty good time splashing in the toddler pool.

The pool was a new experience for him, but one that will be repeated many times over the summer. He starts swim lessons next month so he will get plenty of pool time.

Lincoln also enjoyed hanging out by the pool.

Although all that pool time was exhausting. I think he fell asleep at the pool every day. He played hard and then crashed hard.

One of the times we were walking around Fiona discovered squirrels. In the area we live in there aren’t many squirrels (wild hare, deers, and toads, but no squirrels). She thought the squirrels were fascinating, and we had to follow them for awhile.

This was probably the funnest work trip I’ve done. I worked a crazy amount of hours but managed to see the kids on my way to and from meetings and I got to work in the hotel room after I put the kids to bed. So I still got to see them. The trip next week will not be like that. But on the trip next week I will have coworkers; I will be surrounded by adults for 10 days having adult conversations and not changing a single diaper.

Family

I figure before I head back out to California next week, I should finish editing photos from my last trip… 4 months ago. I know, I know, I just get distracted by the shiney new photos I take and forget to go back and edit the older ones.

While I was in California my sister was able to drive down and visit for the morning before I flew home. I was so glad to get to see her and my nieces. Most of my trips to CA are a whirlwind of work and I never have the chance to drive up and see her. I bribed her with seeing her nephew and delivering a birthday present to my niece that was too big to ship.

Yes, that is my sister, and no we don’t look all that much alike. Although we do have the same ears. She got my dad’s coloring and I have my mothers. She is blonde, I’m brunette. She has blue eyes, I have brown. She has straight hair, I have curly. But we have similarities like the same ears, same shape mouth, and a love of graham crackers and frosting (don’t knock it until you try it!).

She has two girls, who are growing up far too fast. Luckily there is the phone and video chat to stay in touch so that I can be there virtually while they grow up. And my sister can be there virtually for my kids.

But the girls did get to meet Lincoln in person. Back when he was a chubby, round faced baby.

I can’t believe my oldest niece is 9 already! And she takes after me… meaning she broke her arm and is in a cast.

But she is great with babies, even while rocking a cast.

Ahh sisters. Im sure my sister and I have a photo that looks very similar to this one (except she would have been the older one, and I would have been the one in the cast).

I like how in the photos the girls took turns glaring at me. Im sure they planned it “Its your turn to glare at the camera! Make sure she doesn’t get a photo of us both smiling!”

So glad I got to see my sister and nieces and so glad that they got to meet Lincoln.

A butterfly baby shower

A friend of mine is expecting a little girl next month and I cohosted a shower for her. Amy was going with a butterfly theme in the room with pink and sage green as the colors, so we went with that as the theme of the shower. Since Amy already has a little boy, we wanted a girly shower. All pinks, flowers and butterflies.

I designed the back of the invitation as well. I did a mama butterfly and 2 little baby butterflies; one for each of her kids (her son, and soon to be daughter).

The main hostess is fabulously crafty, dare I say even more crafty then myself, so it was a lot of fun planning and designing the shower. Hannah makes really cute door wreathes (that she sometimes has in her etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/sweetpartdesigns) and she showed me how to make one so that I could help with some of the decorations.

Since it was a small intimate shower we were able to make all of the food ourselves. I was in charge of the fruit and cheese.  I also made little signs for all the food, so everyone knew what everything was. I dusted off my old fruit tray making skills (ah, the things you learn at your job in high school. I bet I can still make a tomato rose if I needed to), and made a very pretty fruit tray. In case you are wondering that is mint mixed in with the watermelon (try it sometime, its tasty and refreshing).

My friends learned that if they want normal cheese then they shouldn’t put me in charge of it. But I think I got a few of the girls hooked on chevre.

For favors we got little plantable paper cut into butterflies and assembled the little containers to plant them in. And Hannah made chocolate butterfly lollipops.

Here are a few photos of the decorations. The vision was Hannah’s, I merely assisted and fluffed pom poms.

The happy mother to be.

The shower was a lot of fun, and we got to celebrate the mama to be. And I will happily cohost any event with Hannah again, it was so much fun working with another crafter/artist.

Lincoln at 8 months

Another month has gone by and Lincoln you are inching your way toward the 1 year mark. Today you are 8 months old. You are still that happy baby that you have been thus far. In fact you might be even happier now, people constantly remark on happy you are. You think everything is hilarious. Last night you sat on my lap on the deck sharing your animal crackers with tibi and giggling like crazy. You find tibi in general pretty funny. You like to pet her, and by pet I mean smack her on her head. Luckily tibi likes you (my guess would be that it has something to do with the animal crackers…). You think your sister is down right hilarious. And you giggle your little head off when we make your stuffed animals talk.

Your giggle is infectious, and we can’t help but smile and try to find ways to keep you laughing. You interact more with us and your environment. You play with toys, you reach for things, you engage. You don’t however move. You have zero interest in crawling. You will lay flat on your belly from a sitting position to reach whatever it is you want. And if you still can’t reach it you try to use other toys to nudge it closer. But mostly your happy to play with what ever is in reach.

You do like to stand though and are getting pretty good at it! I think the lack of crawling is that your arm muscles aren’t strong enough to support you for too long. Your not a small baby, its a lot of weight to lift! Your legs on the other hand, are strong and can easily hold you up so that you can bang on things from a different position.

Your daddy discovered that you love to  listen to him play music.

You try to play along, or eat the guitar… sometimes both. But you love to make noise. I can give you a wooden spoon and a pot while I cook dinner and you will happily beat on the pot (your sister never did that, she would just chew on the spoon). One of your favorite toys is the tambourine. And I have a feeling when we set your daddy’s drum set up in the playroom we aren’t going to be able to keep you away.

You also discovered books this month. Oh, you knew what they were before, but you did not try to steal them and play with them by yourself.

Now storytime with you and your sister involves many books, and sometimes you both sit side by side and “read”. Touch and feel books are your favorite, but really any book will do. Luckily you don’t chew on the books, which you could do now that you have 2 teeth! The first one appeared without us even realizing that you were teething and the second starting poking through a day after we realized you had the first one. So far teething hasn’t been too hard on you. But almost everything goes in your mouth and you chew on everything.

Speaking of chewing… your food repertoire has expanded quite a bit this month. You love to feed your self so we have introduced a bunch of finger foods. Yesterday for lunch you had the same thing as your sister; a cheese sandwich, hummus, peas and applesauce. We still do pureed foods for some meals, but then its a fight over which one of us gets to use the spoon; you or me. You are a messy eater and normally need to be changed after each meal, one of these days Im going to remember to take your clothes off for meal time it might be cleaner. Your daddy says meal time is an art experiment. But most of the food does go in to your mouth.

Another thing happened this month that made me kind of sad, your hair grew so much that it no longer sticks straight up. Your no longer my fluffy haired baby. And your hair has lightened as it has come in, which is the opposite of your sister (hers is getting darker). Oh the things I could have done with your sisters hair if she had as much as you at this age!

You have also become much more chatty this month. Lots of “hiya’s” and “yayayayaya”, the last one is normally said over and over really loudly. No idea what “yaya” is, but you are very excited about it. We occasionally hear a “dada”, Im still waiting for the all important “mama”, but so far the closest you get is “Mmmmmm”. At the moment you are chilling on the floor with a book growling at it. Whatever you are trying to say, its very important.

Happy 8 months kiddo!

Fiona

Fiona, your not quite three but sometime its seems your going on 13. You are full of spunk and independence. Sometimes thats a good thing, like when it took basically a week and a half to potty train you. It took a week of accidents and then one day it clicked and you’ve been going on the potty since. Yes you still have accidents, but not very often. And you don’t want help little miss “I do it myself”.

Your growing so fast, it seems like just yesterday I was sad that I could no longer shop in the toddler section for your tops, and now those same tops are getting too short. You are going to be one tall young lady. And your probably going to be like your mama and do all your growing early.

You still love your dolls, pink is still the favorite. Your a good little mama to them. You like to nurse your dolls, which I know may make some people uncomfortable when you pull your shirt up at a restaurant. But it makes your mama proud.  Its what you see, so for you its the norm. You also occasionally give your dolls bottles (just like Lincoln occasionally gets them), and you always make sure you burp them after they have eaten. You are such a little nurturer.

Speaking of nurturing… your favorite show at the moment is Doc Mcstuffins. You LOVE to pretend to be a doctor. You go around giving your animals; and brother; check ups. I hear you in your room singing the song about “Taking the ouchies away”, and everytime someone needs to go to the doctor you want to go too.

You often have your dad and I laughing at the things you say (but its equal to the amount of time we spend wanting bang our heads against the wall). Like today you asked your daddy to perform a concert with you, he said he would after he finished lunch. You put your hand on his belly and told him that he was all full. Your daddy had no response to that, so off he went to the other room to sing with you.

And its cute now, but when you guys get older Im sure Lincoln would appreciate if you stopped referring to his bits as a “peanut”. And your mama would like to stop having the conversation about the differences between men and women in grocery stores. Just saying its a little uncomfortable when Im picking up fruit and your pointing at different people saying “thats a man? He has a penis?” “Umm,  yes dear”. Luckily most people try to hide their smirks as they walk away. But I look forward to this stage being over. Also the “why” stage, that is one annoying stage. And you take full advantage “why mama? why?”

You also love helping. Holding the door open, grabbing a diaper for Lincoln, giving Lincoln his pacifier, or picking up things that I’ve dropped. You are eager to help, because it makes you a big girl.

Since you are such a big girl, I treated you last week to your very first pedicure. We were sitting around the house, and you very nicely asked if we could go get our nails painted, even said please several times. So after we cleared it with daddy, thats what we did. We headed to the nail salon, and you picked out the colors for both of us. I tried to pick out a purple, but you told me I needed red because it was a “grown up color”. You got shy when it was our turn and made mommy go first. You watched the women very carefully and eagerly hoped up on my lap when it was your turn. You held really still and when it was done you were so excited that you would show off your pink toes (with flowers!) to anyone that would look.

Sigh… your growing up too fast, and your only 2! What am I going to do in 10 years? Your so smart, and I swear you learn something new every day. Right now your favorite thing to do is play “letters” and “I spy” when we drive. The letters game is where you sit in the back seat and basically read all the letters off all the signs that we pass. Or you will pick a letter and we both look at signs until we find it, which by the way is always the letter H.

Your obsessed with birthdays right now, so I guess its a good thing that yours is coming up soon. Mama needs to get started on the invites and the design for your party soon.

Cleo and Buddy

When I was in CA I stayed with a good friend of mine, oddly enough in my old house (which she bought and has since made completely unrecognizable).

She has two pups that rule her household. Cleo who is a relatively young pup (a couple years old), and Buddy who is a old man at 8 years old. They are settling in to their new house, and enjoying their new giant backyard.

Back when our dogs were all pups they used to be best buds. Well Pico and Buddy were best buds, Tibi used to spend her time napping when ever Buddy came over. He always exhausted her. Pico and Buddy would spend hours chasing and wrestling with each other. Which was hilarious to watch because 1) Buddy would always win 2) Buddy is little, like a 1/3 of Pico’s leg little. We used to take the dogs on birthday hikes every year, and Buddy would come over for my dogs birthday parties (what??? don’t act surprised that I used to throw my dogs birthday parties, I mean hello do you read this blog?).

Jill used to run a lot more then she does now, and Buddy trained for several marathons and half marathons with her. So I think he has earned some snuggle time on a blanket.

I bet Cleo keeps Buddy pretty tired with all her puppy playing.

Thanks for letting Lincoln and I stay with you. I enjoyed seeing you guys and I’m pretty sure the dogs enjoyed licking up baby spit up (why is that so tasty to dogs? Yuck!).

The last of the bluebonnets

Here are the last of the bluebonnet photos, sadly the flowers are gone as well. Growing in their place are bright orange flowers (seriously the wild flowers here are fabulous).

A few friends had met us at the wild flower center (I have a separate post with more photos from that adventure).

Alley also wandered around the bluebonnets.

I love that cute toddle of the not so confident walker. The unsure steps, the hands out for balance. Adorable!

Fiona’s bff was there as well. She happily sat on a rock, and even smiled at me! A rare occurrence when taking photos of my own children.

Remember the lion from Halloween? Well he joined us for our romp in the field of bluebonnets. Those cheeks are seriously squeezable!

He wasn’t all that happy about being there though. He would rather have checked out the light pole on the sidewalk then run around a field of flowers.

This was the closet thing to a smile that he was willing to give me that day. Even his barely there grin is still pretty cute.

We did get him to run around a little bit (mostly by placing him in the field and watching him run to the light pole)

His grumpy boo boo face. And at this point he was done with the whole flower thing and insisted on a snack. Gotta love photographing kids

Heaps in bluebonnets

More bluebonnet photos! This time here are a whole bunch of photos of my kids in the flowers.

For one of our playdates last month we went the Wildflower Center. We wandered through the butterfly garden and then meandered down one of the many paths that surround the center. We found a patch of bluebonnets along one of the paths and plopped Lincoln down on the path to take some photos.

He thought they looked tasty (dont worry, none actually made it into his mouth).

A few days later we headed out to a different field of bluebonnets. We pass this field on the way to school. Its a field in between a disc golf store and a school. Just a giant field full of flowers. I believe it acts as a dog park to the neighborhood. We headed out with a couple friends and their kids.

Fiona wanted to be a photographer, just like her mommy. So she brought her camera along to take pictures.

My sweet little girl. She insisted on wearing her “princess dress”, I wanted her to wear something normal. But she wanted the poufy princess dress. And Ive learned its not worth a fight over a dress, so off we went it her fancy dress.

I got both kids to sit together, but I guess its asking too much for them both to look at the camera…

Fiona pointing out the flowers to her brother.

Fiona loved running through the flowers chasing the butterflies.

Sometimes this little girl makes me stop what I’m doing and smile, she is her own person with such a strong personality. Other times that strong personality makes me want to bang my head against a wall.