Safe Kids

Since a lot of you have kids I wanted to share this blog post about keeping kids safe from the "bad guys".

The Diaper Diaries - Keeping the Kiddos Safe

In the post she mentions another website, The Power of Parents, which has a handbook with age appropriate advice for talking to your kid about safety.

Another important website to bookmark is Family Watchdog. Everyone should check their address and register for updates about who might be moving in down the street.

Not a fun post, but something we all need to know.

Drop the {hot glue} gun and step away from the treats

Gratuitous Audrey & Miles picture.

Here we have naptime, Miles style. In mommy & daddy's bed, with brown bears and his dogs. I actually started out in there too, but didn't last very long. If he weren't asleep, there is no way Chelsea (on the right) would be on that bed. He thinks it's all a big game to chase her around the house and make her jump up from wherever she is. He has lots of fun nick names for her. Some he picked up from us - Chelsea-wellsea, Miss "C" - but he's added several of his own pop culture references too. He calls her The Big Bad Wolf, Swiper the Fox & Bad Dog Chelsea. She has earned her "bad dog" name lately, eating raw "G" cookies off the counter, climbing onto the breakfast nook bench to clean an abandoned plate, even knocking the table over in her quest for crumbs. Sneaky dog.

Take note of Miles's artful arrangement of the Little People Nativity on our headboard. And the USA map behind my nightstand? That was removed from his wall because he "doesn't like California." Not sure where that one came from!

I actually finished my crafty project from last week! Well, almost, I need to come up with a jazzy Dec 25th marker, but I have a month to do that. It's a cookie sheet with magnets to mark the days until Christmas. I had never done any paper scrapping before, so I had lots of fun with the paper & stickers, using the hot glue gun and my new fave, Mod Podge!! Miles saw me working on this and is all set for playing with the pieces once we decorate.

the Turkey

Here's Miles's Turkey... a countdown to Thanksgiving. We're writing something he's thankful for on each feather until Thanksgiving Day. So far we have some gems like chapstick, owls, ice cream and Christmas that he's thankful for. With a few leading questions, we've also got several family members, friends and pets. At least this year he's planning on celebrating Thanksgiving. Last year he blew straight from Halloween to Christmas!

We started planning what to get for daddy for Christmas. Sorry to spoil anything, Wayne, but the list so far is windows, a cave, a bear and a tuba. He said he would teach daddy how to play.

Speaking of holiday fun, YaYa told us about TCM's family classics series running in December. Not too many that Miles will get into, but maybe the Herbie marathon on Dec. 28 will be fun. If not there's always the classic kids Christmas shows on ABC Family. I'm sure Miles will watch a few of those this year.

Audrey is inching closer to crawling. She'll do a little army crawl and draw herself toward something if it is REALLY exciting. But not much has qualified there. She's also about to cut her two front teeth, so that has made for some cranky bedtimes recently. Hope they cut through soon!

I'm off to enjoy some quiet time since both kids are asleep and Wayne's down the street at the first neighborhood (?) poker game. What shall I do? Clean (no), cook (probably not), TV (eh) read (hmmm) or attempt to be crafty. (Ding ding winner!!) We'll see how my attempt at this turns out....

8 months old

Lest it passes by unmarked, here are some of the exciting things that 8 month old Audrey is doing:

.: Sitting nice and tall. She can get up on her hands and knees and has scooted forward a little, but is not crawling. She still scoots backward and rolls to get around. Loves to stand holding onto her activity table or your fingers. She is brave and will let go with one hand to reach for something.

.: She can wave and clap her hands together. She can swat a ball back and forth with you for a while.

.: She's very vocal, even demanding (the fiery redhead coming through). She says lots of different sounds including yayayayaya, mamamamama, and da! And she responds (turns to you) when you say her name.

.: Although we had a few interrupted nights recently, she's generally sleeping from 6pm to 8am then takes 2 naps that are about an hour long.

.: Eating a LOT! She's likes yogurt, Cheerios, pieces of Raven's pumpkin bread, Puffs and toast. She's also gnawed on a raw carrot, shaving little pieces off with her 2 teeth. I have made most of her baby food, which includes applesauce (from our neighbor's apple tree), pears, bananas, blueberries, avocado, peas, sweet potatoes and butternut squash. It really was much easier than I thought, and my freezer is full of baggies of colorful ice cubes.

.: She loves her doggies and her brother the most! Unless it's feeding time, then she only has eyes for me.

Trick or Treat!

Miles & Audrey had a great Halloween! Miles decided to be a leopard {RAWR!}, vetoing the Handyman and Diego ideas he had. Audrey, who had no voice in her costume, was a cutie-patootie cow. We invited some friends from up and down the street to gather at our house so the kids could trick or treat together. Boy did they have fun!



We set out around 5:30 and with Daylight Savings still in effect it was a bright sunny evening. We tried to do a group shot in the wagons, but with 7 kids that wasn't going to work. Here in the top wagon are Audrey and the 2 lions, Hayes and Fenn. The boys both turn one in December. In the other wagons we had Suzanne, Cade, Miles and Morgan, all around 3 years old. After some pictures, the trail of wagons, strollers and camera wielding parents made the way to find houses ready for us.




The big kids had no trouble with the concept, running across lawns & ringing the doorbell. I think they always said trick or treat and the even remembered their thank yous. Miles would come back to me and say, "Look at all my CANDY!!" Audrey even collected a few pieces, which she nicely shared with mommy and daddy.




I brought Audrey home for bed while Wayne took Miles a little bit further down the street. When he came home he got 3 piece of candy (his age): some Nerd-Warts thing, M&Ms and a Hershey miniature. He ate his m&ms just like I do, sorted by color and quantity! The candy stash is dwindling, mostly due to parental pilfering, but he has enjoyed his one treat a day since. Hope his teeth make it. Now we're gearing up for Thanksgiving, though he has asked about a few Christmas decorations already. Patience!

Fall Frenzy

We had a dress rehearsal for Halloween today, with Miles's playgroup friends trying on all of our costumes. They had so much fun wearing them, ROAR!-ing, running around in circles, then swapping costumes and doing it again. I think they changed outfits 4 times! They even practiced trick or treating and saying thank you. Miles had the "thank you! Can I have another?" down pat. This will definitely be a playgroup activity again, even when Halloween is over. I'll have to check out the day after sales for some new (& bigger) costumes. Still not sure what Miles will be. Only one of these 3 is in the running for Friday night. I'm pulling for it, especially if it is still cold outside.

This weekend we had a lot of fall fun. Saturday we went to campus to tailgate with Wayne's partner and his family. They drove to town in their motorcoach and had another motorcoach family adjoining the tailgate. The university has all of the motorcoaches (how many times will I type that? but it is not an RV) park on the Ag Campus right next to the Gardens. How beautiful! It was a perfect spot, we got to stroll the babies through the gardens and the boys had a lawn to toss the football. And you can't beat having your own kitchen, bath and all the amenities right there. Miles loved hanging with the "big boys" and Sims, the younger son, was very obliging to his new shadow. In the photo above, Sims & Avery are teaching Miles the "tater" - baked (knuckles), mashed (high 5) and fries (fingers wiggled together). Very fun. Of course he wouldn't try any of the delicious goodies including some fabulous lamb chops. He did find the chocolate covered Oreos and managed to sneak a few.
On Sunday night we went to our last neighborhood yard party of the season. This was such a fun idea, we've really enjoyed getting to know our neighbors this summer. The last party was moved to a back yard and included pumpkin carving, a bonfire with s'mores, and all the usual treats. Miles made a new friend at this party, a boy just his age who moved in a few houses up the block. They also have a son just about Audrey's age, so I think that makes 10 new babies in the last year in less than 1/2 a mile radius from our house. Lots of fun to come from that crew!
I'll be sure to post Halloween photos as soon as I can. Happy Halloween to all!

Not to be left out

Miles is getting into Halloween this year. He's got three costume ideas and thankfully they are all things I can pull together at the house, so he can decide that day which he wants to be. He's excited about trick or treating and has told me that he will remember to say thank you when they give him candy. And, oohhhhhhh the candy. The boy has inherited my sweet tooth, for sure. The other night I had eaten a little piece of chocolate before I went in to read bedtime stories. As he sat in my lap he turned and demanded, "What do you have? Chocolate?" HA! And we got "boo'd" by some neighbors and that included candy corn. OH BOY. I think he thinks that counts as eating his vegetables.

He has also picked up on the scary aspect of the holiday. Lately he's asked us to remove things from his room - wall art, stuffed animals, books. He doesn't say it, but he thinks they're watching him. The curiosity overtakes him and he'll want to see the things again, only to beg us to take them away. Or if he know where they are, he won't walk by them because they'll see him. Ah, the imagination of a 3 year old.

His favorite thing at school is a chant that goes "jump, and jump and JUMP AND JUMP AND JUMP!" to which they bounce around the room like maniacs. It is obviously an attempt to burn energy by Ms. Elana and Ms. Michelle. I've adopted the ploy at home too. It's added to the "see how fast/how many times you can run around the house" game. This is to burn off the sugar that he's getting from all the candy (kidding, of course).

Audrey's First Haircut

I just had to. Check out the mullet she was wearing. Just smiling with her new 'do.

A nice sleek bob for the baby. And no, I didn't put a hot roller up there. It just does that!

xoxo

She takes after mom

Miss I-Can-Do-It-Myself

Yep, only 7 months in and she's already taking control. This week she decided that she could feed herself. I still beg to differ, but she's pretty opinionated on this, so we take turns putting the spoon in her mouth. This mess is courtesy of butternut squash and green beans & rice. She's also working on her pincer grasp with Cheerios and Puffs, and is pretty good at getting them to her mouth. Of course she has also discovered the fun of throwing them to the dogs, so a lot are ending up of the floor. Miles helped teach her that trick.

She's working on mobility too. She can roll herself just about anywhere and is very good at scooting herself backwards. She hasn't gone forward, nor has she propped herself on hands and knees yet, so crawling isn't imminent. She likes to stand, but can't hold on by herself for more than a couple of seconds. I wonder if she'll be one of those who skips crawling altogether?

On Saturday, YaYa & B came over for a visit and rambunctiousness ensued. Miles had a Jumpity Jump party to attend in the morning, and spent the afternoon tackling and riding his Big Wheel. On Sunday we went to Davey's 5th (!) birthday party at his Lou & Poppy's house. We were so excited that Chrissy and her new bebe Mary James came out to play. Audrey was so excited to have someone smaller than she is to play with. She actually started grabbing at MJ, cooing and smiling. They even held hands at one point. Very sweet.

Okay, I stepped away for a long while and now I'm back and have serious writers block. It's probably because Miles woke up at 5 and would not go back to sleep. He's really good, he'll just turn on his light and read books, but he throws them on the floor {BAM!} as he finishes each one, so it wakes us up. And the boy needs to sleep past 5a.m.!!! Need to figure out what is waking him up. I'm going to sneak in and turn off his night light, and maybe take him to the potty one last time. But right now I'm going to listen to this debate. Good night!

Swim with the fishies

I finally have the proof (ha ha) that Miles was successful in his swim lessons. Here he is in the last class being dunked for the three thousandth time. This is what caused an hour of screaming in the first class. But now he's a champion underwater-goer. We're keeping up his "skill" by pouring water over his head for hair washes now. So maybe next spring when we do more lessons he'll still be able, if not willing, to go under just fine. There are a few more photos, I tried to link HERE just to the ones of us, but ours are on pages 5 & 6 if you get the whole set. This one is a cute one of me & Miles.

We had a fun week, got to enjoy some of this beautiful weather. We've been sleeping with the windows open (not the kids') and it's been pretty cold some mornings. Makes me appreciate Apollo sleeping at my feet! It was my month to host our neighborhood Bunco game last night, so Wayne took the kiddos for an after dinner run to Ben & Jerry while I got the party started. As is typical, we didn't play, but ate, drank wine and socialized the whole evening. We have a few new neighbors on our street and it was fun getting to know them. Tonight was another one of our Front Yard parties, this one a few houses down. Wayne took Miles, but I stayed home with a cranky Audrey trying to get her to sleep.

7 things

Since I was tagged by Erin, here are 7 weird or random facts about me...

1. I, too, am a big klutz. But my klutziness seems to go in cycles. For a while it was spilling drinks. For a while it was Lucille Ball/Carol Burnett style pratfalls (maybe it's the red hair?). But right now it seems to be getting things on myself... my drinks, my food, the kids' drinks, the kids' food, all manner of baby yuckiness, dog slobber, dog hair. Bleh. Just add it to the laundry pile!

2. Word misuse bugs me. Specifically: there/their/they're; its/it's; lose/loose; you're/your

3. It pains me to pay retail for anything.

4. I dislike white condiments: ranch dressing, mayonnaise, sour cream, cottage cheese. Double bleh. But I will eat them sparingly when made into something else.

5. I fancy myself a champion Scrabble & Backgammon player. I would never admit that Wayne (usually) beats me.

6. I shouldn't ever buy Tagalongs because I will eat the box in one sitting. Every time. But I was the top seller in my troop in junior high (sigh, yes junior high girl scouts) for 3 years running. We went to Disney World.

7. After our first visit to Disney World (before the GS trip), my cousin Tiffany and I pinky swore to each other that one day we would work in the Haunted Mansion together. Sadly, that dream was never fulfilled. (if you go to the HM link, I had the "Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House" record and loved it.)

wasn't that fun? Now I'm tagging Tiffany, Jennifer, Paula, Jessica, Lenda, Brandi (to make her blog again), & Heather.

Audrey hates peaches

A little funny stuff from the weekend... Audrey really didn't like dinner last night!

A few days late

I think I'm finally rested enough to tackle a blog about last weekend. Our big exciting fun was that Tiffany, Lee & Ellie came to visit us for the weekend. Tiffany is my cousin and Lee is Wayne's friend from college. They were both in our wedding and Wayne made sure they met. The rest (as Tiffany says) is history. Friday night we took the kids with us to La Paz/Chez Guevara, which has become very family friendly in the wake of the state smoking ban. Then after the kids were in bed another of Wayne's college friends, Hunter, stopped by. We had a lot of fun catching up and made good use of the chalkboard surface on the new kitchen table.

Saturday was game day and I'm sooooo glad we had lots of friends over to distract each other from that terrible "game" being played at Neyland. Tiffany got to meet Erin & her family in person after getting to know each other over blogs. And all of our kids - ages 7 months, 1, 2 & 3 - got to play. Lots of fun, you can check out more pictures here and read more on Erin's & Tiffany's blogs.

Sunday we all wound down with a delicious brunch at Amerigo (another kid-friendly place) before bidding farewell to our guests. We had so much fun seeing the Brights and hope it won't be too long until we all get to visit again. Audrey can't wait until she can truly play with Ellie, although Miles may not be too happy when that day finally arrives - overrun by 2 younger girls!!

We realized Sunday afternoon that Audrey was cutting tooth #2, the other bottom-center tooth. We had a couple of nights with her waking a bit, but last night she slept from 6:30pm to 7:30am, only waking at 5:30 to eat. I can handle that sleep pattern!

Cutie patooties

I'll take a break from Facebook cleaning for our guests to post a little fun. Audrey had her 6 month checkup today and was quite the charmer. She's grown a bit, but isn't as high on the percentiles as she was... she's 15lbs 2oz. and 25.5". She's about to cut her 2nd tooth, it's rightthere under the gum. And she's become such a chatterbox! I think we can count as her first word: "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma!" which is usually screamed when she's waiting to be fed. She also piped in with a really cute "Hi! Hi!" when trying to get your attention. I swear I heard "My!" yesterday, which of course means she knows her brother's name already. Such a smart girl. Hee-Hee. She's not working on crawling yet, but the girl can roll anywhere. She flip-flops all around, grabbing for toys, dogs, pacifiers, my hair, whatever. I just went to get her from her nap and she was turned, head where feet had been, on her belly playing with a stuffed giraffe in the corner. Silly girl.


Miles had his last swim lesson yesterday. He still can't swim (I know, what was the point?) but he is much more comfortable in water and will willingly get his head wet now, so that's a plus. I'm not sure if the guy is doing anymore classes after this, so we may head up to the Y next summer for lessons. I think next year he'll be ready for the classes without mom there, yay! He was so excited after swimming when we got home and the prizes I won from Goodyblog were here. The backpack had a dump truck on it and the lunchbox has dinosaurs. Of course I'm enjoying the other goodies that were included. These are some of my favorites. He was so excited to take them to school today, even though the backpack is totally unnecessary.

Anyway, we have a big weekend planned, so check back Monday!!

Where to begin?

Wayne took his laptop and the place had WiFi, but I just couldn't bring myself to blog during the week. I'm starting to regret that, as now there is SO much I want to write and remember that I could be here all week. {sigh}. Oh well. Let see if I can get the best highlights.The trip started with Miles melting down while we were packing because he wanted to play with the Thomas stuff that was already packed. Great. Got him distracted through that one and he was fine. SO excited. All week long when I'd say "we need to go..." he would cut off my "to the grocery" with "to the BEACH!!!" So once we got on the road he was fine. Even said "This is FUN!" all the way to Newport. But then he switched to "Are we still going to the beach?" and "Are we at the beach yet?" for the next 7 hours. We listened to a bunch of Curious George stories on CD and then broke out the big surprise... we got a DVD player and a new movie for him. WOW. Of course the power cord didn't fit in our car outlet, so tears were inevitable. Many thanks to Kyle who called his friend in Columbia, SC, and found us a convenient Best Buy, then we were set.

Our friends Rob & Yen joined us this again this year and we were happy to learn that Yen is expecting. So they got lots of exposure to handling kids, hopefully it didn't scare them too much! We were blessed with gorgeous weather, all Hanna seemed to do was wash millions of shells onto the shore. We spent lots of time on the beach this year, building sandcastles for Godzilla and splashing in the surf.

We dipped Audrey's toes in but she wasn't really into it. So she & I mostly hung out on the porch with only a few trips to the sand. I took a shade tent that was easy to set up for a day on the beach. You know that's how the Casper family rolls at the beach: no evidence of sun whatsoever!But seriously, it was relaxing to sit there and just listen to waves crashing. We all napped everyday, which was required since Miles woke up every day at 5am. Yes. On vacation. Thanks, kiddo! I don't know if it was the strange room, bed or what, but he would not go back to sleep. We made him "sleep" in our bed until 6:30 when Wayne got up with him. We feel so bad for Robb & Yen because I know Miles's stomping around woke them up. Sorry!! But Audrey was a fantastic sleeper. She's converted to a belly sleeper now, rolling over almost as soon as we set her in bed. She also gave up her night feeding during the week, so I got some solid nights of sleep for the first time in months.

Oh and Miles slept in big boy underpants! So we're finally fully potty trained!! YAY!!! So far no accidents... but I've got a pad on his bed just in case.
Completely random thing... Miles doesn't like the smell of shellfish cooking. We did a shrimp boil at home one night and hit the All-You-Can-Eat seafood buffet once, and both times he held his hands over his face saying it tickled his nose and was stinky.

By Saturday we were all ready to be back home. Miles watched a little of his video and then fell asleep with 2 hours to go. He woke up when we turned on our street and exclaimed "We're home!!!!" Yes, and it was good to be there.

Just wanted to say...

Hi, we're home!

We had a GREAT vacation...

More about it when mommy gets some rest.

Happy Half Birthday and a BIG first!!

I should heed the optimistic, glass-half-full spirit of the blog title and not let the bad things of yesterday weigh too much. In fact, today Karma said "snap out of it!!" and threw some nice stuff our way.

The biggest great thing... Audrey cut her first tooth! We saw it tonight when getting her jammies on. It's her bottom left central incisor (I just downloaded a tooth chart). Sure, she's miserable righ now trying to go to sleep, but now I know why she was attacking the frozen banana I gave her last night! Yay Audrey! We gave her a little tylenol to hopefully help her (and us!) get some sleep.

Have you ever clicked on the "goodyblog" button down on the sidebar of the blog? It's a blog by the Parents magazine editors about all things kid. They run a variety of give-away contests and I won! I won the Back-to-School gear, too bad none of us are officially in school. But it will still be a lot of fun stuff to play with. And Miles will get the backpack he's been asking for all year! Hopefully we don't get the one with hearts and flowers all over it.

"They" now have Hanna going a bit north of us, which still means rain for the start of our vacation, but hopefully not a full on evacuation. But on the bad side, it would be hitting closer to OBX where dad & Brenda are sailing right now and where some friends' parents live. Not so good. Maybe Hanna will just stay at sea!! Oh but then there's Ike, bearing down a similar path... DUM DUM DA DUUUUM.

And what a difference a week makes. Today at the pool Miles was telling me to go "way over there" when he was going to jump in and swim to me. Such confidence. But he was all about it, smiling and laughing the whole time. We're working on him being able to kick and paddle with his arms, but he's still not calming down enough to float. Hates the back float! But has NO problem getting his head under at all. Yay Miles!!

the trifecta

They say bad news comes in threes. Here are mine for today....

.: Let's just all mutually acknowledge the travesty that occurred in Pasadena Monday night and move on.

.: We just spent our second afternoon within a week at the pediatrician's office, this time for Audrey. Not for her 6 month check-up, that will be in a couple of weeks. No, this was for this rashy stuff that's been spreading across her belly and it seems to be eczema. Yuck. Basically no specific thing causes it, but lots of stuff can exacerbate it. There's hope she will outgrow it, but for now we have to keep her lotioned up and not itching. If anybody out there has dealt with it, I'd love some more insight!

.: And our vacation starting this weekend is being threatened by that mean ol' Miss Hannigan... I mean Hurricane Hanna. There are lots of varying opinions as to what strength, path, duration etc Hanna will take (yes, I've been researching it A LOT) but most options have us dealing with lots of rain to start our vacation. If we get to start it at all... some predictions have Hanna arriving in the Grand Strand right about the time we're due to check in. Oh joy.

On a good note (don't we always end on a positive?) Miles has greatly improved in the pool. On Saturday he started off screaming quite a bit, then Mr. Ed used him as the demonstrator. Being the center of attention and garnering applause gave him the confidence to jump in feet first... quite literally. We head back tomorrow and he's excited, so we'll see how it goes.