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

Garage Band

So yes, she has taken a few steps but not many more than what you saw. She still prefers to drop and crawl, and why not? She's speedy that way. I guess she thinks she proved she could, so why show off? Cutie pie.

She's very verbal now, much more that Miles was at this point (if my failing memory serves me right). Lots of jabbering to all her babies and books. In the car the other day she had a Diego book and was just telling him what was what. And laughing at him too, in this deep "huh huh huh" laugh. Very funny. I called Wayne so he could hear but haven't gotten it recorded yet.

And Miles has moved on from guitar hero to garage band 101. Wayne set his drums up in the garage so they could both have fun playing. Miles enjoys it! He wants to go out there several times a day, which is huge because I can't go out with him and he's going through a "fear" stage right now. He doesn't want to be out of my sight inside the house. But maybe he thinks the loud banging scares away any monsters. {note to all grandmas: see the blue things in his ears? earplugs! and he asks for them every time.} I took some video I will try to put up later.

Sorry this isn't very exciting. Need to get over my writers block!

check her out...

Hope this makes up for blog neglect...

sorry about the sideways filming, it's hard to capture by yourself! couldn't back up far enough for horizontal.

Happy Birthday, Audrey!

We all were finally well enough to have Audrey's birthday party this weekend. We held it in Nashville at YaYa & B's, which made it a much easier trip for the Memphis family to make. Unfortunately BeeBe & PopPop came down with whatever we had the week before, so they couldn't make it over, and the cousins were headed out for spring break on Saturday. But we had lots of fun partying with Mimi & PawPaw, Aunt Megan & Uncle Kyle, YaYa & B.




In true second child form, I took a fraction of the number of pictures that I took at Miles's 1st party, and we forgot to do the group picture of everyone that we've been doing at all Miles's parties. Oh well. She still had a big time! She ate up the brunch - sausage breakfast casserole, fruit salad and biscuits - then wanted to be out of the high chair. So we sang to her and blew out her candle with her in my lap. She grabbed right for the cake and we figured it would be best to put her back in her chair with a bib, but she wasn't very happy with that. So she would scream at us, then grab a fist of icing and smear it on her face then scream at us some more. It was also pushing right up to her naptime, so we called the cake eating, opened presents quickly then sent her crashing to bed.

She had lots of fun with presents, although Miles ripped through them all before we could blink. Look how creative she got with her accessories!! She got lots of pretty dresses, a couple of Princess books, baby dolls and a zoo membership (fun for all!). I took her to the toy store to "pick out" her present and after looking at several areas we ended up in the baby doll area. She started squealing. and cooing. and crawling around to all the cradles & carriages. So it was sealed and she got a baby doll. But I think Miles wants to play with it more than she does!!

I didn't take it every week, but I think I got a good progression of the year. This was a lot of fun, especially these last few times when she was really playful. Happy birthday, Audrey!

Guitar Hero

Miles is a huge music fan and I can't wait for him to start taking lessons of some sort. But he's not waiting for me! He's been grabbing this toy and carrying it around everywhere like it's a guitar, while totally jamming on it. I think Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters is the only guitarist he's seen perform, but Miles has adapted to lots of other musicians as well. Today we rocked to Smash Mouth, Joan Jett, Tom Petty, Phil Collins and an extensive 80s one-hit-wonder playlist. I would attempt to play air guitar along side him and he'd say "no mommy, I'm playing guitar. You play drums." Sigh. That's daddy job. I guess Audrey & I will have to sing. Or explain what a bass guitar is. Oh, keyboard!! We are all over it. Look out Jonas Brothers (or rather, Partridge Family).

And about those 1st birthday party pictures I promised, that will have to be next week. Miles shared his germs with Audrey & me so we postponed the party. We all had the same progression of 2 days with 100 fever and sinus stuff that has lasted an additional 3-4 days. But we're all on the mend now (Wayne was spared), so the rescheduled event should be on for the weekend.

whoo hoo, I'm one!!!

Audrey had a big day today. She woke up and just *knew* it was her birthday, all smiles and giggles. She loved being serenaded with various happy birthday songs (traditional, Beatles, Stevie Wonder, The Replacements). And this evening she dug into her first cupcake... with sprinkles! More to come from her party with the family this weekend.

Sick boy

Of course today's big news is Audrey's 1st birthday, but we'll have more on that later. Poor Miles has been hit with some awful virus that gave him a fever for over 2 days and made him have an allergic reaction with a hive-like rash. Those things are better, so hopefully he's on the mend. As expected, I am now running the fever and have the cough, but thankfully no hives! Just have got to keep Audrey well so we can have her birthday party this weekend.

T-minus 7....

If you can believe it, we are one week away from Audrey's 1st birthday. This year has just flown by. I am so glad that I've kept up with this blog (however infrequently) or the poor thing would have no baby album at all. I'm way behind on her scrapbook pages, hopefully I can catch up and do a "baby's 1st year" thing in Shutterfly. As you can see on the right, her last page was for 6 months and I did it last week!

On to the documentation! She's still working on walking and will stand unsupported for a few seconds. But the moment she realizes she standing, she drops to the floor and crawls to her goal. Our drinking from a cup progress is slow. She'll drink a little then slap it out of my hand. Today I tried a cup without a lid - me holding it, of course - and she drank all of it. She may be one of those mythical kids I had heard existed who goes straight to the cup. Kind of like a potty trained 9 month old. She has really started babbling too. She can say "banana" which means "feed me!" She says "hi da-da" very clearly, and says a variation of "doggie". (Notice there's no "mama" listed there! Though she has said it, she just doesn't) She also growls at her dogs, and also at her bib that has a dog on it. And today she signed "eat" back to me.

Speaking of eating, I'm trying to keep her from getting to where Miles is, not wanting anything but PB&J. So Audrey has been enjoying the dinners that Wayne & I eat, usually the next day since she eats so early. She and Miles both liked sweet & sour chicken, Miles complained about "the red stuff" (sauce). And last night she devoured chicken soup with mini meatballs. Miles, however, would only eat the meatballs and then gagged on the one itty bitty piece of orzo pasta that stuck to the meatball. He truly does not like pasta!

I'm really going to be testing his desire to eat this summer. We've signed up for a Community Suppported Agriculture (CSA) share. Basically we've "hired" a farmer to grow veggies for us all summer long, even into fall. They had a meet & greet in town yesterday and they showed us all the varieties they will be growing. I tried to get Miles excited by telling him about the daughter who raises chickens for eggs, and the son who helps out too. And that they eat the veggies too! Before I went to the meeting Miles told me to tell them that he didn't want broccoli. Stinker.

.: quick notes :.

Okay, just a few random things swirling around my head....

.: I registered for a 5K! As long as I complete it that's one 2009 goal complete. I've been running on the treadmill at the Y and can run most of a 5K, though that is on flat "terrain". A couple of friends are registering too, so we'll probably end up walking together. The finish line is the 50 yard line at Neyland if that entices anyone else to join us....

.: Happy Valentines Day to all. We celebrated with family lunch at Moe's and an afternoon at the plaground with a family on our street. Wayne gave me a very creative valentine... as you can see in the picture, he made me Edward and Bella candy heart boxes. Surprisingly this was not an easily obtainable item. He got home and rushed to the dining room, only to pop out and ask, "where are the scissors? tape?" Needless to say, I was intrigued. I guess my scrapping/craftiness is rubbing off on him.

.: Miles got crafty with his school valentines. I saw these in a magazine and after his birthday cake, I thought he'd be all for it. He was. Even after he picked up some Mickey Mouse valentines at Target, I asked which he'd rather give and he said "iPods." Smart kid.




.: And the banquette in the kitchen is getting plenty of use. Audrey uses it as her jungle gym and Miles uses it as his crash pad. And we've busted Chelsea hopping up there to scavenge for scraps a few times too. At least it is a popular addition to the kitchen!!

Anyway... happy heart day to all!

7 years

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. Look at how young and well rested we looked, years before these two whirlwinds of energy came along. Ha ha. Seriously. Our wedding day was such a beautiful, warm, sunny February day, about 5 days after a big snow in Memphis. We're having the exact same weather this year. After a couple of snow days last week, our weekend and today have been absolutely perfect days to be outside.

Miles & Wayne played some t-ball in the front yard while I worked on clearing out some stuff from the garage. I'm not sure that we'll ever get the 2nd car back in there, what with all the bikes, trikes, wagons etc., but the boys want to set the drums up so they can rock and roll in the garage. After Audrey got up from her nap, we hit the playground along with half the city.




After disparaging his eating habits last week, Miles surprised us all by eating and almost enjoying a couple of dinners last week. I made poppyseed chicken one night, of which he even fed a couple of bites to himself. Another night was baked chicken with BBQ sauce. He wouldn't touch the broccoli, but we can get peas OR carrots down every night - never both together, though!

And Audrey has finally taken a few sips from a cup! This is huge because I am ready to start weaning this girl, but she needs to be willing to drink from something. She won't take more than a few sips now, but I've only tried water. So hopefully around her birthday we can be done. It already feels like more of a ritual than actual feeding, so maybe it won't be so tough.

Audrey sampled her first ice cream last weekend, a Chick fil a cone shared with Wayne. She was pretty into it! So far she's showing signs of being a better eater than her brother. Miles currently subsists on PB&J, hot dogs and nuggets. Audrey has eaten mac& cheese, my homemade chicken noodle soup (strained, of course), chicken, cheese, pasta, broccoli, carrots, even pesto sauce! And banana muffins which I made this week and Miles refuses to eat. I think tonight she'll try our superbowl chili, although I'll probably rinse off a little of the seasoning. Miles.... we'll make him tast a bite, but I can already envision the faux-gagging that will ensue. Drama.



Of course he loves ice cream!!



So anyway, not much else going on, just the day to day fun of being 3 and almost 1. Speaking of, after some leading suggestions from yours truly Miles picked butterflies for her birthday party. I can't believe it's just a month away, this year has flown.









Today we got to meet Tracy's new puppy, Winston. I had to lock our dogs away, as they might have tried to eat him, but the kids though he was great. Miles ran laps with him in the house and Audrey just stared. Thankfully I didn't hear a "can we get a puppy?" Yet. I tried to explain that he would grow up and be big like Apollo, so maybe Miles was deterred. He really was a sweet thing, but another dog might just put me in the loony bin.

Audrey's waking up from her nap, but Miles is still sacked out... under the dining room table. We made a little fort with some sheets and he brought all his friends, pillows, blankets and sleeping bag. I hope he doesn't expect to sleep there tonight....

Yes we did...

...get a snow day! We woke up Tuesday to a blanket of snow. Maybe more accurately, a "blankie", as you could see plenty of the lawn poking through. But it was enough to get Miles pretty pumped up. After Audrey went back down for her morning nap, we bundled up and headed out to play. The cold snow made the dogs frisky, they were racing around after each other and wrasslin'. Miles chased after them and stomped around until I started to get cold and enticed him inside with another snow day movie. We started Monsters, Inc. but switched to Nemo.

When Audrey woke we turned on the inauguration coverage. Regardless of your political beliefs, it was an important day for Americans and I wanted to have us all watch. It will be one of those "where were you when..." moments and now Miles & Audrey can say they were having a picnic in the living room on a snow day when the first African American was sworn in as president. Although Miles may remember it more for the motorcade, the instruments (Look! Trumpets!), and the Obama girls.

The Snowy Day

It has been snowing all day in Knoxville, something that hasn't happened in a very long time. Of course, it isn't accumulating, but it has been beautiful and soothing to look at all day. I proclaimed Snow Day = Movie Day, so Miles has been enjoying a viewing of Kung Fu Panda, and Audrey has been napping fairly well (although I think I hear her). He did take a break from the movie to have lunch, have snuggle-story time in bed and attempt a nap. Visualize me, Miles, lots of stuffed animals and our 90 lb. lab Apollo in a twin bed. It was actually working for a little while, I'd just dozed off when I heard the little whispers: "mommy? .......... mommy? ...........mommy? ..........mommy?" Argh. So much for a restorative nap.

He's been such a great big brother lately. As you could see in the last post, Audrey graduated to the big bathtub and they've been having lots of fun together, splashing and spraying. He still wants to douse her every time. Then we take her out, flip the fabric curtain up over the bar and seal the shower area with the clear plastic curtain and Miles has his slip & slide fun. This kid who screamed through hair washings 6 months ago is practically dunking himself, as much as he can in 4 inches of water.

And in typical 3.5 year old fashion, he is climbing, jumping, stomping, yelling, all things loud and rambunctious. And it is rubbing off on Audrey. The most obvious one is that she has learned to ROAR like a lion. Check out the quick video:

And she's full steam ahead, making up for taking a while to pick up crawling. This week she's been pulling up to standing, climbing onto low steps, even doing a little cruising (taking steps while holding onto something). So watch out world, here she comes. Or probably more appropriate: watch out Miles, here she comes!

2 birthdays and some 10 month old fun

Yes, Audrey has reached the 10 month (!) mark and is as sweet as ever. She's developed a lot more vocal stylings, including the raspberries and the "ma-num-ma-num" with her tongue flipping in & out (remember Miles at this stage?) She also likes singing. As we sing to her, she coos along with us, and if we stop she'll sing a little to get us going again. Very sweet! I can't remember if I shared this already, but she has conquered the crawling. She has been pulling up onto her knees, and today at playgroup she pulled on me and got up to her feet. Then she shuffle-stepped across the room as I held her hands. Inspired by all the big kids, I guess.

We're starting to plan her 1st birthday party. I asked Miles to help me pick colors and theme, so this should be interesting. When I first asked what we should do for her party, his answer was "CAKE!!" Of course.

Speaking of birthdays, we had two in the family this week. Actually 3 in the last two weeks. YaYa had her birthday on New Year's Eve and we sang to her over Skype. My birthday was on the 8th - same as Elvis Presley's. Audrey did some shopping with me and picked out some fun treats at Sephora. Later we actually got a babysitter and went to eat Thai at Lemongrass. Yum!

Then this weekend we went to Nashville to celebrate Kate's 4th birthday. We were brave and let all the cousins sleep in the same room together. Evan was gracious enough to let Miles have his bed, Kate had the other twin, and Evan camped out on the floor. They all did really well, except for the 5:45 wake up calls. They were a very excited crew. Audrey had some firsts there too; she ate pancakes and macaroni and cheese. The mac & cheese went down by the fistful, which is a nice change of pace from Miles who won't be near the stuff.

Now we're back and freezing. Hope you all are staying warm and toasty inside too. I think I'll go make some hot cocoa.

Reason #187 moms need wine

They always have fun together, but I can't convince Miles that he can use words with Audrey. He just wants to speak her language. Loudly. Often. Witness: