we're here

So that virus hung around a lot longer than expected, but I'm finally back on track. I'm still amazed that the kids stayed well the entire time, but I guess my cracked cuticles are testament to how much hand washing I did. So what did we do over the last week and a half? Hmmmm....
The kiddos are bundles of energy from sunup to sundown. Audrey has given up her morning nap, and Miles has pretty much given up his nap altogether. That means we get to go and do things in the morning now, but mommy's "me" time is seriously limited. I can get him to do "quiet time" in his room for an hour which means he flips through 80 books off his shelves, comes out to potty 3 times, and asks "how much longer?" every 4 minutes. C'est la vie.
The last couple of weeks at his school they've been learning about the circus. The even put on a little circus and Miles was a cute little clown. He was pretty funny, doing pratfalls somersaults and rolling around on the mat. And next week Miles will turn 4 years old..... four... IV... quatre... I'm a bit amazed at that fact. He's such a big kid now!
Wayne and I are excited about a little getaway we have planned for next week. Since the grandparents will be in town for Miles's 4th birthday, Mimi & PawPaw have offered to stay a couple of extra nights so we can have a much needed vacay. We found a beautiful place to stay in Asheville, and already have a list of must do & eat in the works.
Hopefully the little princess won't be too much of a pistol for her grandparents. She's still pretty attached to me although much of it is just for my benefit I know. Today I took them to childcare at the gym (for Zumba!!)and she had tears rolling down her cheeks. But as soon as I was out the door she was fine. She's also showing a feisty side, fueled (I hope) by her inability to communicate verbally. She'll get frustrated and flail about, hit, throw things and even pinch. And of course she has learned the power of a forceful "no!". Our favorite move is when she preemptively starts screaming and running from her brother. She already knows how to play the blame game and I try to catch myself from automatically asking Miles what he did to her. Ahh, the terrible twos, here you come again! But look at that cute face, it's hard to get mad at a sweetheart like that.

Back from Nashville

We're finally back home after a long visit in Nashville. We had to be there two weekends in a row so we thought it would be easier to stay a few nights between than to go back and forth over and over. I ended up catching a lovely virus which hit while we were there, so I helped a lot that YaYa & B (& Aunt Elizabeth and the cousins) were around to entertain my kiddos. Thank you all so much for having us visit.
It happened that my brother & his wife were in Nashville the first weekend, so we got to visit with them a lot and even went swimming at their hotel pool. Here we are at one of our two breakfasts at Puckett's that weekend. Saturday was cousin Evan's 7th (!) birthday, so the big kids went to the indoor climbing wall. Miles made it up about 10' and tried a couple more times. Wayne thinks he liked it, until he looked down.

We spent the rest of the week playing, jumping, eating , running, napping & having all sorts of fun. Oh and shoe shopping (see previous post). Wayne came back for the next weekend when we had tickets to see Green Day. What an incredible show! If you're a fan and they come near you, I encourage you to go. As Wayne said, it's got good Return on Investment. Saturday we headed home after a quick lunch with some Alpha Chi friends and their babies. We also stopped in along the way to visit Wayne's grandpa and several of his cousins who were in town from Virginia. It was a fun filled week of visits, but we are glad to be home again!

I literally chased her for 5 minutes trying to take this! Audrey went on her 1st shoe shopping trip today and she Loved it. Picked out just what she wanted, these cute little Italian sneaks. She had her eye on some pink ones, but we'll save those for later.

Wee wee wee.....

Some silly sibling fun from the evening. Listen to where Miles sends the little piggies. It changes every time and I love this round of errands!

Her Paparazzi Shot

Oh yeah, the oversized dark glasses, the oversized bag (with her little pet inside) she's a star, baby!

It's summertime!

And the living is easy. We've been having a very relaxing summer, doing all sorts of fun things. Miles has been in daily swim lessons for the last 3 weeks and has 1 more week to go. He can swim the length of the pool with only a noodle supporting him and jumps in with much enthusiasm (and splashing). He's getting better about putting his head under. He'll do it, but it's very quick. In class they tossed rings on the bottom for the kids to retrieve and Miles used his toes to grab it. Even bribing with a cupcake didn't entice him to reach down and grab it. But he wasn't wearing goggles on those tries, so maybe next time he'll try harder.
Audrey is dying to get in the water herself. She sits in her stroller, watching & waving to "Miy!". We've been going to the baby pool after lessons and she loves splashing around. She will walk all around the 1' deep area and last time was trying to put her face in the water. Brave girl. She's really opening up, showing us some of who she'll be. She talks A.LOT. I started making a list of the words she says: da-deeee!, bite, cup, nigh-nigh, ohm (home), hive (five for high five), snhoo (shoe, not sure how to phonetically write her sound, it's sort of a snort), huh-bo (hair bow). Oh yes, hair bow. She is quite a fashionista, very into her accessories. She loves her bows, hats, sunglasses and has started her bag collection. And forget about trying to talk on the phone around her, she must have it.
Miles is still a goofball...
This is not Audrey screaming. This is Audrey letting us know that she's ready for another bite of dinner.
We had a fun July 4th, with our friends Jen & Davey, Elise & Daniel and Janna & Rob visiting. Miles got to hold his first sparkler and stayed up waaaaaaay past bedtime. Of course he was still wide awake at 6:30am, no rest for the weary.
Anyway we just had our Saturday family lunch at Chick Fil A and they had about 20 big trucks in their parking lot for the kids to climb in. Miles walked around checking them out, and we got in the Icebears' touring bus and a recycling truck before it was time to go eat.

Audrey is enjoying our pool time this summer. She's very brave, holding the edge at first but then letting go to follow Miles. She's gone under (by accident) a few time but powers on.

Happy Father's Day!

We had a fun Father's Day weekend, just relaxing together. We splashed around in the kiddie pool out side and Miles soaked Wayne with the sprayer. Audrey splashed with her hands, then decided to go all it and stepped over the wall. She didn't like it when she first plopped down, but loved it soon after.

We got Wayne tickets to 3 concerts for Father's Day. Mommy gets to go too, so, yay! We're going to see Green Day in Nashville, the the Wallflowers at the Bijou and the Black Crowes at the Tennessee Theatre. For the 2 here we got the front row of the balcony for both shows. It probably means we're getting really old, but we had those seats for a jazz series when I was pregnant with Miles and really enjoyed the shows without being down in the "madness" (you'd be surprise the madness Dave Brubeck can inspire).
They are blowing whistles in the photo above. These were the "prize" for completing the summer reading program at the library. Uh, thanks Knox County Library, they're loud!!! I though they might give a quiet toy. Be warned if you are working toward your prize though there's also a pretty good coupon book.
Here we are off to the pool again. Miles is in daily swim lessons for the next 3 weeks and is improving greatly. After lessons we've been heading outside to the big kiddie pool and Audrey loves walking around and splashing. It's only a foot deep, so she can stand and play. She did fall under a couple of times, but shook it off and kept going. We may have two water babies swimming around soon.

beachin' it

Last weekend Miles & I went to the beach at Perdido Key, FL (as you could tell by my mobile uploads). We rode down with Erin & Eileen, and Tiffany & Ellie flew through thunderstorms and delays from Dallas to meet us. Once we all finally got there, the kids ~an mommies~ were ready to play.
We were in a high rise condo that also had two pools & a gym (which we never saw). We hit the pool the first afternoon, then Friday headed down to the beach for the day. We had two beach tents which were great to keep us shaded while building sand castles.
The kids were fantastic and got along great. They had the same taste in movies; I think we watched Lady & the Tramp 80 times. And they really liked shrieking together. A lot. We mommies worked on our abilities to tune out all sorts of crazy noise. It's a skill worth cultivating, I tell ya. Screaming:
More screaming:
Being good because he knows there are cupcakes waiting upstairs:
Ditto, but barely:
Fun stuff. Thanks again Tiffany, we had a blast!! {more pictures have been added to the Shutterfly site}

having smoothie on flip-flop day.

the unsuccessful beach photo shoot

I'm all done.

sand & waves are the best

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!!