hysterical mayor

Last night at dinner I spent more time laughing then I did eating. With our dinner, I had a bowl of edamame on the table. We popped the beans out of the shell and gave some beans to The Mayor. He would try it and then spit it out. But when he noticed how I was eating them, popping them out of the pod, he thought he would give it another try. I am sure to him this looked like a free pass to play with his food...and it was. We gave him an edamame pod and he must have been doing a kung-fu death grip on it because a bean would shoot out. Literally, shoot out. A couple almost made it into the family room. And he would follow the bean as it flew and in a low voice say "oh no". For every 3 or 4 that would go flying, one would pop out slowly enough where he could grab it. And then he would eat it and say "I got bean"! He had me laughing so hard I gave him at least 15 pods...just to hear the sad "oh no" or the excited "I got bean". D and I were in stitches...Love Bug just looked at her brother as if she was thinking "am I really related to you"? Why yes sweet pea, you are...and hopefully in a couple of years, you both will be making us laugh.

squeezing the life out of the edamame pod

i got bean!

oh no

seriously we're related?

happy baby

love those 3

The past 2 days have been low-key. Not much to report; we have been playing a lot in the playroom and running a few errands. The next couple of days will be busy getting ready for family to arrive and for me to leave for a girls weekend away. I am going to miss those 3 while I am away, but I know the kids, especially The Mayor, will love having just daddy around.

so tired

I am so exhausted and my new baby has nothing to do with it. Nope, it is my big baby who is wearing me out. We are not sure what has been going on with The Mayor the past couple of nights, but he keeps waking up crying. Last night was the worst. He would sleep for about 10 minutes and then wake up crying, he did this for hours. Normally he will cry it out and fall back asleep, but not last night. Finally, he fell asleep for good at 3AM. And my alarm clock went off at 4:45AM to go to the gym. Thank goodness I have a workout buddy otherwise that alarm would have been turned off and I would have gone back to bed.

For as tired as I was today, it was a really good day. The Mayor was especially sweet, maybe it was because he was tired, but I wasn't going to question it. I just soaked up all of the extra cuddle time he was willing to dish out.

After D got home from work, we went out for Mexican. Then we went and cheered D on at his softball game. I am so happy he has gotten back into playing softball. And The Mayor had a blast being there with his daddy, following him around, wearing his glove, throwing around a baseball. It was so precious. I hate that I didn't have my camera. The Mayor sat in his stroller and cheered on his daddy during the entire game and Love Bug let the breeze put her to sleep. It was a great day.

happy father's day

Today started out rocky...and early. At 1AM we heard The Mayor crying; we think he had a nightmare. And he didn't go back to sleep until 4AM...which meant I didn't go to sleep until 6AM. I couldn't fall asleep knowing he was still up, and by the time he fell asleep, I was wired. Needless to say, we didn't go to church.

My family came over after they went to church and we grilled out at our house. After a wonderful lunch with the family, Love Bug and The Mayor went down for naps. And so did we. After naps, D took The Mayor to the pool while I waited for Love Bug to wake up and eat. After I nursed her, we joined them at the pool. The Mayor and D went down the water slide for over 2 hours. They were both worn out. After 2 hours of going up and down the slide, D taught The Mayor how to jump into the pool. D would stand in the pool and put The Mayor on the side. It started off with The Mayor holding on to D's fingers and he would scoot his tush into the water. Then The Mayor would bend his knees and act like he was going to jump, all while still holding his daddy's hands, and then kind of fall into D's arms. By the time we were getting ready to pack up, The Mayor was going up the ladder to get out of the pool by himself and then full on jumping into D's arms without holding onto D's hands. Such a big boy.

You would think almost 3 hours in the pool would have worn him out where bedtime wouldn't be a battle, but no luck. At 9:18PM we are still going into his room every few minutes to tell him to go to sleep. Hopefully this portion of our day will get better and quickly.

But regardless, today was a great father's day. We love you D!

thumbsuckers

We are a household of thumbsuckers. And I love it. I don't care if it means my kid will need braces...I mean seriously, what kid doesn't need braces these days? Thumbsuckers are 1) adorably cute and 2) they can self-pacify themselves. And that is a beautiful thing.

Love Bug found her thumb today. I knew she was going to be a thumbsucker; she sucked her thumb in the womb (we saw it on an ultrasound) and she always sucks on the side of her fist. So it was just a matter of time before she figured out she had to poke her thumb out of her fist for it to be successful. The Mayor did the same thing, he sucked the side of his fist and finally figured out to stick his thumb out. The Mayor found his thumb at 4 months, Love Bug found hers at 3 months. And the really sweet part of this is the sleeper Love Bug was wearing this morning when she found her thumb is the exact same sleeper The Mayor was wearing the day he found his thumb. I am going to have that sleeper framed in a shadow box! (Not really, but I will be keeping that sleeper...you can count on that).

Posting this picture for two reasons: the first is 20 years ago today my mother passed away, so I wanted to post a picture of me and my mommy. The second reason is look at me in this picture and then look at The Mayor in the pictures below...scary how much we look alike.

and so it begins

Love Bug is officially no longer a newborn in my eyes...she is a baby. And she has been upgraded to this title because she rolled over today for the first time! At 3 months old (14 weeks) she rolled over twice from her tummy to her back. Of course both times she was alone and in her crib. I heard a frantic cry during what was supposed to be her nap time and when I went in there, I saw her sweet little face. She is a tummy sleeper so she is not used to looking at the ceiling. She was completely freaked out. The funny part is this is exactly how her brother rolled over for the first time. During the night when he was sleeping and at the same age. Freaked him out too.

I can't believe we are starting on the fun milestones that a parent gets to look forward to during that precious first year of your baby's life. Time is going by too quickly.

Looking forward to celebrating Father's Day with D this weekend. He is the world's best dad...my kids are so blessed to have him.

if only

If only I was as good at predicting what was going to happen in my life as I am at predicting what kind of mood my kids are going to be in. I totally called it...2 days of doing "nothing" in a row would cause The Mayor to break. And boy did he ever...

The day started out great. He and I had a great morning, we ate breakfast and then had about an hour of cuddle time watching Sesame Street before Love Bug woke up. He played quietly in his playroom while I got her up and fed. Then all 3 of us hung out in the playroom. Love Bug sat in the Bumbo seat for the first time and loved sitting up and watching her brother play with his toys. And he loved showing her his toys and trying to entertain her. She went down for a nap about the time he sat down to eat lunch. He napped after that and then she woke up. Not a whole lot of down time for me today since when one was awake the other was asleep and vice versa but at least everyone was happy. Until nap time for The Mayor was over. You want to ensure your child has a temper tantrum? Schedule the heating and air guy to come in the afternoon between 2 and 5. And then make sure he is running late...and then make sure someone calls you on the phone...and then make sure your baby starts to cry. This is a recipe for the toddler temper tantrum. The Mayor screamed...and I mean screamed for at least 20 minutes. I ended up putting Love Bug in her crib and praying she would fall asleep just so I could have both hands free to try and calm him down. He screamed when I tried to calm him down and he screamed when I left him alone in the room. The heating and air guy said "your son is mad". Really Captain Obvious? What gave it away?

Tomorrow we have lots planned so this little boy will hopefully have a much better day.

such a big girl!

the morning calm before the afternoon storm

a night in the life

And for as boring as our day just was, our night was so fun. As I type this at 3:36 AM, we were awakened to the muffled cries of The Mayor. D went in and noticed The Mayor had peed through this diaper. All over his bed. Thank goodness he has a water proof mattress pad on to protect his mattress, and an even bigger thank goodness on the fact that the water proof mattress pad works. Because there was A LOT of pee. Wasn't really interested in performing our own at home test on that...but apparently The Mayor was.

I worked on getting the bed stripped down, linens put in the wash and remade the bed while D cleaned up The Mayor.

A little back story...well over a year ago, my parents purchased Thomas the Train PJs for The Mayor. It is a tshirt and shorts PJ set. The Mayor still fits in them and requests, quite often, to wear them. Last night we put him in this PJ set and although he was dressed for bed, he wasn't ready to go to bed. For over an hour I had to keep going back into his room and putting him back into bed. He got into everything last night. He took apart a wipe case, got into one of his drawers, was busted standing behind his blinds looking outside. One time when I went in there, I saw a scrunched up diaper in his diaper pail. I thought he pulled it off the shelf and threw it in there. I never thought it would have been the diaper he had been wearing because his Thomas PJ bottoms were still on. When he has taken off his diaper in the past, his pants are always still off. But not this time. That little stinker took his diaper off, but because he loves those PJs so much, he put the shorts back on. He was without a diaper from before 9PM until he woke up crying from being soaked about 10 minutes ago. So, yes, there was a lot of pee.

The Mayor's bed has been remade and he is now asleep. Wearing an inside out zipped up sleeper that he can not get out of. The Thomas the Train PJs will now be archived into the hall of fame only to be admired from afar.

a day in the life

Today was a low-key, boring day. Nothing really happened. Here is the breakdown of my day: I went to the gym at 5AM (I know, I'm psycho...but thankfully a friend of mine goes to the gym at the same time...she keeps me so accountable, otherwise I would be sleeping in everyday with only the intention of going to the gym)...but I digress. I was home a little after 6AM, made some hot tea and ate breakfast while I waited for "The Today Show" to start. I watched for about an hour before I hopped in the shower. Both kids slept in this morning, The Mayor to almost 9:00 and Love Bug slept until 10AM. I got The Mayor fed and playing in the playroom before it was time to get Love Bug up and fed. Meega and Bennett met us over here and then we ran errands. Nothing too exciting, just a trip to Michael's and Publix. Home for lunch and then The Mayor took a 2 1/2 hour nap while Love Bug napped for 4 hours. D came home shortly after The Mayor woke up and we started dinner. After dinner was a little more play time, bath time and now the kids are in bed.

Tomorrow promises to be just as boring...we will be hanging out at the house since we have pest control coming for our quarterly spray and the heating and air guy coming for our annual checkup. Anticipating the worst since usually two boring days in a row leads to The Mayor getting bored himself. And a bored Mayor equals an unhappy Mayor. Gotta think of some fun things for Friday...

nap time

bath time

when she is tired and ready for bed, she will let you know

laughing

It has always amazed me how people always think their children are so funny...until I had kids of my own. And now I get it. My kids are funny. The Mayor has been cracking me up since he could hold his head up and look at me. And now Love Bug is doing the same thing. The way they just look at you, or squish up their face, or giggle when they pass gas and about a million other little things...it always makes me laugh. And she can't even say a word yet. The Mayor on the other hand can say a whole lot of words, most of which you can't understand yet, but he still manages to crack me up.

Today was errand running day. And when we hit our favorite, Target, I decided I was going to spoil The Mayor with a little surprise for sleeping so well in his big boy bed. I bought him the movie Toy Story and a Mr. Potato Head. He held on to that Mr. Potato Head throughout the entire shopping trip and as soon as we got home, I popped in that movie and Mr. Potato Head was in the first scene. The Mayor looked at the TV and then back at his Mr. Potato Head box and just grinned. A few seconds later, we opened that box and Mr. Potato Head had an arm sticking out of his head. A few minutes after that, The Mayor ditched dressing up Mr. Potato Head to attempt to dress himself up in the little pieces. The kid makes me laugh. I can't wait until Love Bug can interact with The Mayor...it is going to be a 2 person comedy show in this house.

wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses...

...and hat...

...and she is wondering "am I really related to him?"

*The Mayor is trying his hardest to get Love Bug to look at him. He wanted to show off his new glasses and hat...you can tell she wasn't interested

life is good

I just wish in addition to it being good that it was easy. We are officially in the terrible twos. And it is exhausting. There is a reason we have kids while we are young and while they are given to us as sweet, teeny, tiny newborns. We need to be young because as exhausted as I am every night from chasing around a 2 1/2 year old and dealing with temper tantrums, if I was just 10 years older, I am pretty sure I would just drop dead from it all. And the fact they are brought into this world as sweet newborns is so you can enjoy your blissful naive state of thinking your sweet baby boy will never grow up and disobey you, or swat at you, or scream at you. Naive state is long gone, reality has sunk in. But I love that boy more than life itself.

Love Bug is just getting so big. She is now grasping at things, holding onto toys and I think she is on the verge of being a thumb sucker. Just like her brother did at this age, she is sucking on the side of her fist. She just needs to figure out how to stick the thumb out and we are on our way. That girl makes me smile...all of the time. I love that baby girl.

Yes in deed, life is good. The good and the bad...still good.

the great loves of my life:

God is watching out over us

We took The Mayor to an outdoor interactive water fountain to play this evening. He had such a wonderful time. He ran around that fountain at least 100 times bouncing in and out and around the 43 sprayers of water. There is a large stone wall surrounding the perimeter of the fountain that is probably 18 - 24 inches high on the front side and about 3 feet tall on the back side; The Mayor climbed up on this wall and then scooted his little tush off to begin running through the fountain again. I asked him not to climb up and down the wall and a few minutes later, he was back at the wall. I was walking over to him to help him get down when he lost his balance and fell off the back of the wall. The way he fell, he should have landed on his head, but God was watching over him and he landed right on his tush. The few tears that came from his eyes where just from fear. Me, however, had to fight back a waterfall of tears that wanted to escape me from watching my child fall 3 feet onto cement. My heart didn't slow down from the rapid pace it was beating for about 10 minutes as the image of him falling kept replaying in my mind. I kept saying "thank you Jesus" over and over because He is the only reason we were not taking The Mayor to the ER with an open wound to his head.

Hoping for a much less adventurous day tomorrow.

Note: we will not be returning to this interactive fountain either. While playing, I saw a child leave the fountain to tell his mother he had to go to the bathroom. Instead of taking her son to the bathroom (or even letting him pee on a tree) she ushered him back to the fountain and told him to pee in it. Not sure what is going on with parents today. I snatched The Mayor up and bribed him to get the heck out of dodge with some ice cream.

3 months

Three months ago my sweet Love Bug came into this world and my life has been forever changed. I can't believe God has blessed me and trusts me to watch over my two precious babies. It is hard to believe it has already been 3 months, and in other ways I can't believe it has only been 3 months. I just can't imagine our family without her; she has made our family complete. I barely remember what life was like before she was born.

Today was a normal day in our household. We woke up, ate breakfast, played a bit in the playroom, loaded up and went to Meega and Bennett's house and to their pool. This was Love Bug's first trip to the pool, and thank goodness Meega was there to lend a hand. Love Bug didn't quite love the water (it was a little chilly) and The Mayor wanted to play in the big pool which meant he wanted to hang on me. Luckily Love Bug was interested in napping and slept on Meega for a bit while The Mayor and I hit the big pool. Less than an hour later, all 3 kids were either sleeping or wanting to be sleeping. I call that a successful trip! Naps and grocery shopping rounded out our day. We are getting ready for dinner and then this momma has a mom's night out! Looking forward to it!

sleeping beauty...I was in such a rush to leave the house that I left her matching hat at home. This navy one just doesn't round out her outfit as well...but she's still a cutie

worn out and ready for lunch

swing of things

Have you ever been a guest in someone's home and you felt like you were a little bit in the way, disrupting their daily routine, not sure of what they do? That is how I felt all day today in my own body in my own house. I felt like a visitor. I struggled today for the first time since Love Bug has been born with juggling between 2 kids. I was only gone for 4 days on my trip to Orlando but those 4 days must have done me in. I just couldn't get the hang of anything today. I didn't get out of my PJs today either. We stayed inside this house all day long. My only saving grace was Love Bug was so exhausted from her long weekend and being in the car for so long yesterday that she literally slept almost the entire day.

I am looking forward to going to bed and this day being behind me. Tomorrow is a new day and surely I will back in the swing of things.

home sweet home

Love Bug and I left Orlando this morning at 8:30 AM and arrived in our driveway at 4:04 PM. It is good to be home. Sweet Love Bug did so well considering she is not the biggest fan of her car seat. She made it 4 hours from Orlando to Tifton where we met up with Aunt Nat, Trey and Luke for a very quick lunch. Love Bug could not have been happier to be free from her car seat and to get some food into her. She cried the second I opened the door to the car and placed her in her car seat to begin the second leg of our trip. If she could talk, she would have been screaming "not again!". She cried for the next 20 minutes before finally settling in and taking a nap.

We had the best time in Orlando seeing our dear friends. As wonderful as it was spending time with them, it made me so sad that they don't live here anymore. I just hate it when friends have to move away, but they are coming to Atlanta in 3 weeks for a long visit and I can not wait! The Mayor will be thrilled to have house guests!

While we were away, Love Bug's nursery furniture FINALLY arrived. After 6 months of the furniture nightmare, it is here...and it is beautiful. Worthy of being in our Love Bug's room. She now has the room she deserves to have. I have a few decorative touches to make the room complete, so pictures will be posted later. My babies' rooms are almost done!

catherine and love bug

christina and love bug

caroline and love bug

boys weekend/girls weekend

The Mayor and D are back home in Atlanta and Love Bug and I are in Orlando. I am here visiting one of my closest friends and her family. Since The Mayor is still working on getting comfortable in his big boy bed, I just didn't think it would be fun for him, or myself, to try and get him to sleep in a bed at someone else's house. So D, racking up those "husband of the year" points, took off work and is having a boys weekend with his favorite little buddy. And his favorite little sweet pea is here with me. Love Bug is being loved on by Tara and her 3 beautiful daughters. This is our first full day here, Love Bug is still sleeping and we are getting ready to eat some homemade pancakes made lovingly by Tara. Looking forward to a weekend with my sweet Love Bug but I am missing my Mayor terribly. But I know he is having a blast with his daddy and his daddy is having a blast with him. I'm taking tons of pictures, but of course I forgot the cord to download them...so pictures will be posted when I return Monday night.

tired energy

We had such a great day today. D took a much needed day off work and he earned "husband of the year" points by going to the gym today with me and going to my Zumba class. He was the only man in the room and he worked it hard! And he did this after he worked out on his own early this morning. See?! Racking up those points! Meega watched sweet Love Bug for us and The Mayor played in the playroom at the gym.

As soon as The Mayor woke up from his nap (he finally took a 2 hour nap in his big boy bed), D took The Mayor to the pool. As soon as Love Bug woke up from her nap and I fed her, we met them down there. For 2 hours straight The Mayor and D went down the water slide at the pool. During the 10 minute lifeguard break, they hung out at the baby pool. You would think 2 hours at the pool would tire that boy out. And he looked exhausted. He ate his dinner with eyes half way shut, but after a bath and his night time routine, he is still awake at 9:20 PM. Somehow that tired little boy has found his second wind. I don't know how he does it.

It was a great day regardless. And I am kicking myself for forgetting to bring the camera to the pool. The Mayor went down the slide by himself - every single time. D would go down first and then catch The Mayor while he squealed and giggled on the way down. We promised him we would go back tomorrow...I will definitely remember the camera. And instead of watching her big brother, Love Bug will be donning her swimsuit and going into the pool for the first time ever. Memories!