Spring!

Look at my handsome boy! His school has been celebrating the Week of the Young Child so he had camping day on Tuesday and here he is dressed for his fancy tea party. Today he took his bike to school for the Trike-a-Thon fundraiser for St. Jude. ...oh yeah, anyone want to make a pledge? I guess I'll have to get better at this fundraiser stuff when he goes off to grade school.
Audrey has had a fun week of lunch dates with daddy. Somehow I scheduled a couple of check-ups for me all this week so she got to hang out at Wayne's office. She enjoyed shuffling the paper recycling box - and didn't bonk her head too much on that table.
She still hasn't taken off walking, but she's practicing a few steps here and there. She has been working on her vocals - singing and babbling all the time. She knows "doggie" calls her stuffed duck "Kak-kak" (quack quack without the "qu-" sound). UPDATE: Forgot to add that she also says "Uh-oh" after tossing her milk on the floor. It sounds a little more like "ah-oooooh" but she knows what she's saying. We'll see if she can manage "happy birthday" when we call my dad later today. Happy Birthday PopPop!

PS. Oh and I'm glad my tale of Miles's "incident" was familiar to some of you other moms too! Good to know we're in it together. My sister -in-law recommended a couple of behavior books that I'm trying to get: Making the Terrible Twos Terrific and Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood. I'll let you know if I learn anything good!

Ice Cream!

This is really my cone. We went to Ben & Jerry's annual free scoop day and all got some goodies. Miles had Mango Mango (again), I had the Berry Berry (pictured below) and I got Audrey a cup with Strawberry Kiwi. She was not pleased that she didn't have a cone like everyone else and let us - and most of the other patrons - know it. I held mine over for her to lick and she snatched it away. Forget trying to get it back. The little raspberry splotch between her eyes is from my attempt to retrieve the cone. Somehow I got it away and ate the big ball of sorbet on top.She really did finish it.

So did he. And he finished her cup of Strawberry Kiwi. And took licks of Wayne's cone of Half Baked. He was a bit wired when we got home!

Sleeping Beauty

Look at the little sweet pea asleep. Check out her toes... it's as if she were sitting up and just crashed over to sleep. She was out, I took several flash pictures and she didn't flinch.
back with more later...

++ Happy Easter ++

Here are our little bunny rabbits being sweet on Easter. This is after we went to mass and Audrey is ex.haus.ted. She delayed her morning nap to go with us, but the crowd and extra loud band (that Miles loves) got the better of her. every time they started singing she started screaming. So she and I spent a lot of time in and out of the sanctuary doors, while Miles & Wayne sat right up from on the aisle, watching the action. Our new bishop said the mass, so that was a treat.

We had planned on eating at Amerigo after the service, but Audrey had hit the wall so we went home to let her nap. Wayne made us some yummy omelets and Miles threw a massive tantrum. Happy Easter! No really, as you may see on my Twitter feed to the right he told me he wanted to send me to jail because I was a bad mother. Because I only gave him 3 apricots when he really wanted 4, no wait 6, no wait 2, no wait... you get the idea. So there was some screaming, hitting and slamming of doors - all by him, I promise - and the he was suddenly fine, apologizing and eating 3 slices of raisin bread. I don't know if there is an official age, but the Terrible Twos must lead to the Thunderous Threes. What will four bring?

Here he is long before any of the drama began. Hope everyone is having a blessed day.

Monkey see...

monkey do!

Pre-Easter

We participated in our neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Miles was on the top end of his age group and dominated those little babies!! Ha, just kidding, he was a very polite hunter and even gathered a few for Audrey. She was all set to hunt, but when the time came to get out of the stroller and go, she politely refused, preferring to eat her Cheerios from the tray and observe. Maybe next year. This is also why she is not pictured with the crazy bunny. Miles dragged me over to get this picture with the bunny, hence the huge smile on his face.

Afterward we joined some neighborhood buddies for lunch. Miles then got to play with Cade (the boy next to him) for the afternoon. A huge, fun day, but mommy and daddy paid for it at bedtime - quite a nasty meltdown.

Some days Miles refuses to nap and does just fine but that was not one of those days. I hope today is, because he's refusing to nap and we have his first swim lesson of the season tonight. I don't want to drag him kicking and screaming to the pool! We're taking at the Y this time, not back at Mr. Ed's. Mr. Ed was successful in getting Miles under water, but Miles is still tormented by him. Just today we were driving through a neighborhood and he asked warily, "is this the way to Mr. Ed's?" But we've been talking about what they'll do in his "Pike" class and he seems ready. I won't be in the water with him, that may help.

Here's a token picture of Audrey since she wouldn't play along at the egg-hunt. She has a mouth full of banana, if you can't tell. Girlfriend loves her bananas. in fact, all food is called "balalalala" (Audrey-speak for banana). She wakes up telling us balalala. She knows a few signs, so we're communicating pretty well now. She knows "milk" and "all done." There are 2 versions of all done: 1) the sign (hold both hands out like saying stop and wave them around) and 2) the dump-everything-from-the-tray-on-the-floor. Who says it's hard to understand what babies want?

Garage band