we made it to the beach! Miles & I drove with Erin & Eileen and met Tiffany & Ellie. We're at Perdido for the long weekend.

a surprise visit to Memphis

Memorial Day weekend BeeBe & PopPop came to Knoxville to visit and attend a wedding. Since the kiddos were out of school the next week (and there were other plans a-brewin', more to come) Miles, Audrey & I hitched a ride back to Memphis with them to stay for a while. We got to visit with both great grandmothers, and played all week with all the grandparents. We went to the Botanical Gardens and fed the koi with PopPop & Beebe; then later in the week went to the Pink Palace Museum with PawPaw Don. I thought the Pink Palace seemed a lot smaller than it used to be!
















One fun reason we headed to town was to celebrate my brother's 30th birthday. Kyle didn't know we were there, so I really surprised him when I showed up at mom's for his birthday dinner. I told him that we were going back home on Friday, since Wayne's birthday was that Sunday. Tricksters that we are, we were actually staying, and Wayne was coming all the way to Memphis to celebrate at Kyle's surprise fiesta on Saturday!

We had a great time visiting with everyone and will have to come for a long visit again soon.
Oh, this is Miles "sharing" Baskin Robbins ice cream pie with me. He almost stabbed my hand trying to keep it all for himself!



I added photos to our Shutterfly site if you want to see more.

FWD:

just practicing mobile blogging... this is Miles wearing PopPop's reading glasses when we were in Memphis last week.

First Day!

I know I owe you a big post about our fun week in Memphis, but I had to put this up first. Today was their first day of summer school! Yes, I said "their" first, Audrey had her very first day of school today. She did great! She toddled right out onto the playground and started climbing the slide backward. They said she napped great on her mat and ate pretty well (she's pretty picky anyway). When I got there at 3, she didn't even notice me, she was so busy playing peek-a-boo with Ms. Candi.

Miles moved up to the 4-year-old room and several of his buddies from the school year were there. They got to work painting a big box red to be a barn and had a great time. I forgot to take a picture before school when they were all neat & clean, so here they are after school, rumpled, disheveled and stained.

Crazy Sunday

I wish it were a lazy Sunday, but ours ended up being quite crazy. It started off nice, a peaceful lunch a Qdoba and then a good rest time. But then I decided to make smoothies - DUM-DUM Da DUM. I forgot that the spoon was still in the glass pitcher and turned it on and it exploded. Quite literally. Glass, yogurt, spinach (my sneaky starter) were everywhere. Audrey was in the playroom and started screaming. Miles was at the table, barefoot, and tried to hop down to see what happened. I think we hurt his feelings when we yelled "no!" and "sit down!" but there wasn't much time to be polite. Then I noticed blood on my wrist. There was a little slice almost an inch long at the wrist below the thumb. Wayne looked at it and we both said "stitches." Sigh. What a fun way to spend an afternoon. So we quickly called a couple of walk-in places and found one that does stitches (Doctor's Care in Farragut, in case you need them). Wayne dropped me off and took the kids to McDonald's playland. The receptionist didn't feel the urgency, but the nurse taking my vitals stuck my in the curtained area immediately. Thankfully it was more of a horizontal wound, not deep, so even though it was big it didn't bleed much at all. I needed three stitches and they gave me a tetanus shot. I was in and out in under an hour. I think we'll get a stainless steel blender next.

If only that were all. Later that evening after the kids were in bed, Wayne and I were distracted from the Survivor finale by the dogs barking in the yard. Not the usual bark for walkers, this was a frenzied yapping and growling and was much too close to the house. Turns out there was a raccoon under our front shrubs and Apollo and Chelsea were teaming up to corner and chase it. Well, Apollo wanted to chase, but Chelsea wanted to eat it. {She does have a history} Um, no, let's not do that. Of course we didn't want to get too close either! Wayne snagged Apollo's collar and I got him inside, then somehow he grabbed Chelsea and held her. Then these little green eyes start coming at me, running along the foundation of the house. I finally realized it was a raccoon and slammed the storm door closed. It kept running around the porch and down the other side of the house, toward the corner where YaYa & Miles saw a snake last week {did I forget to mention that?}. Argh!! In all the chasing and running behind the shrubs, the dogs knocked our downspout off the house. Crazy animals. Wayne just joked that Chelsea was doing what she saw Tramp doing in the movie. {We watched Lady and the Trampthat day and there was a sneaky rat at their house.}

In less dramatic news, Miles is doing great with swim lessons. This is the last week of this session and he'll graduate to the Eel class next month.

Foreigner

Audrey has begun to talk to me like a tourist. As in, she's a bad American tourist trying to communicate in a foreign land: she keeps repeating what she says louder and louder, while getting more fussy and whiny. "k'ka paiow buh."... "K'ka PAiow BUH.".... "KUH-KA PAAAAIIIIIOOOOOOWWWWW BUH!" And I have no idea what that means! We are learning each others language some more. She says "cup" very clearly (cup! cup! cup!) and has said keys (keeee) and apple (ap-pa). She's starting to shake her head no and (moving on to motor skills) is climbing everywhere! We have a cushion off the sofa now (cleaning up a dog accident) and she can hike herself on that and get up on the back cushions to look out the window. Very agile! So now she's trying to climb on everything, chairs, fireplaces, whatever. Definitely a time where hardwood floors are a detriment. Oh and she has finally take off walking. Still a bit wobbly, but getting faster every day. Check her out... (and at the end you'll see what I'm talking about with the tourist-speak)

downward dog

Miles & Audrey learned some new moves this week. Audrey's been doing this lately, so I've been working on her forward rolls. But then I realized it is a yoga pose, so I looked up the sun salutation and Miles and I have been doing that this week - "our exercises," he calls them. I guess I've said it so much that now when I say "downward dog" Audrey flops over into position!

funny faces

Miles had his 2nd trip to the dentist last week and did great! They even did some x-rays and used the little poker in his mouth. Very brave. Audrey was ready to get on the table too, and of course the hygienist said she should already be going. Seems a little early to me, but maybe we'll schedule her with Miles next time.

Clean teeth, handsome smile!

and now for the jokester to come out....

He's making faces because Audrey has started making some funny faces, although I'm sure she learned them from him. We call it the "Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?" face, or as Miles says, "What are you talk-ing about, Willis?" Very proper, that kid. Also reminds me of this kid from YouTube.

This is more "Don't even think about touching my cracker."

Other excitement... not a whole lot happening except for the usual. Miles finished his April swim lessons and starts May session tomorrow. He did great! The first day he was a little uncertain and wouldn't go under, but by the end they had them paddling up and back down the pool with just a noodle under their arms. I've been swimming laps in the adjoining lane so I try to do what he's doing if I catch him looking at me - go under, swim on my back, etc. We even raced back down the pool last week and do you know what? He beat me!!

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.