8 months old

Love Bug is 8 months old today. And at 8 months, sweet girl has one little tooth, can crawl, can sit-up, can roll all over the place, can pull up onto her knees (this happened last night for the first time), can feed herself simple foods, loves all foods given to her, can hold her own sippy cup, smiles, laughs, "talks" (she loves the "da" sound, which D now swears she is saying "dada") and now has a serious interest in playing with any toy her brother has. Life. is. good.

eating on her own

Love Bug can feed herself. And as exciting as this is, it is also kind of sad. It is just one more thing she can do on her own and doesn't need my help. She is growing up too quickly. But as sad as it makes me, it is also super cute to watch her eat.

She is really doing well at picking up the yogurt melt or puff in front of her and then finding her mouth. As soon as the food hits her tongue, she makes a little grimace like she doesn't like the taste, but then she chomps away and goes back for more.

2 days away from her 8 month birthday...wonder what other milestones are around the corner?

11 years ago...

...this family was created. Yesterday, D and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. And I know what you are thinking, and you are right, we were BABIES when we got married!

To be honest, this anniversary kind of crept up on me. Our anniversary is two weeks after The Mayor's birthday and I was so consumed with his birthday that I really didn't think about our anniversary until a couple of days before. We were just planning on celebrating with an early dinner with the kiddos, but luckily a last minute call to Mamie and PopPop found them available and willing to come to the house and watch them so D and I could go out to dinner alone. It was wonderful and much needed. We tried out a new restaurant and it made our list of favorites...it was amazing.

Today was pretty low-key. With the exception of going to the jewelry store to pick up D's wedding ring (we had it resized since he has lost so much weight) we didn't leave the house. I thought daylight savings time was going to bite us with super early wake up calls this morning, but PopPop and Mamie must have worn them out because both of them slept in. It was great getting to reap the benefits of gaining an hours worth of sleep.

teaching his sister how to drive

she loves her car

The Mayor had a blast being pulled around in the laundry basket...

...and then he said "daddy's turn"...at least he is finally grasping the concept of sharing

wonder

Today, D and I took the kids out for lunch. And afterwards, we took The Mayor to Publix to pick out a cookie. Not one of the free cookies, but one from the bakery case. As I sat in the car with Love Bug and watched one excited Mayor run into the store with his daddy running beside him, I wondered...is The Mayor as excited about life as I am to watch him live life through his eyes. Picking out his own cookie...so simple yet brought him so much excitement. I loved watching him run with his mop-top hair bouncing up and down. And seeing him run back to the car while yelling "momma momma" because he wanted to show me the bag holding his enormous cookie. Something so small, something he will not even remember when he is older, but it almost brought me to tears. I love the simplicity of him and his sister. The smallest things in life are what make them the happiest. If only we continued to live that way as we got older. I learn so much from my little peanuts...

that's what i'm talkin' about

This morning I woke up to an extra special surprise...D was taking a sick day from work. Gotta love a break in the week when all 4 of us are home together. Despite the horribly cold and rainy day, it was a good one.

D, The Mayor and I hung out in our PJs until Love Bug woke up at 10:30 (love that baby girl). After she finished breakfast, I quickly showered and then she and I went grocery shopping together. It was so nice getting to hang out with her, even if the time was spent running errands. I had a great view while shopping with her sweet face smiling at me while she sat in the grocery cart. We got home just in time for her to eat lunch and then she and The Mayor went down for naps.

They both slept extra long and after dinner, The Mayor and I ran out to grab a few items so I could make playdough for his class tomorrow. Of course I would volunteer the month the color they are learning is brown. Do you know how hard it is to make brown using red, yellow and green food coloring? The first batch I made turned out a disgusting tan color. So The Mayor and I made a special trip to Michael's to buy actual brown food coloring. Much better. I had to remind myself that it was playdough when I was kneading the dough because it looked like chocolate cookie dough. Now D is putting The Mayor down for bed and then D and I will watch some of our favorite Wednesday shows. Tomorrow is a school day for The Mayor so Love Bug and I get even more one on one time together.

my little Picasso

it came and went

And that is all I can really say about today. Nothing terribly bad happened, but it was just one of those days where bedtime just couldn't get here fast enough. Today was more about me just being in a foul mood, which is a nice change of pace considering it is usually one of the kids. My fuse was short today and my patience was thin...but I am now showered with one kid asleep and the other one about to be.

playdough fun

to infinity and beyond

We had such a great Halloween. The Mayor was beyond excited when he got into his Halloween costume. So excited that he started running out of gas after just 5 houses of trick-or-treating. The kid goes hard but fizzles out fast. Love Bug could have cared less about Halloween, and could have cared even less than that to be put into her costume. Baby girl was not happy at all about tonight's festivities. Not enough napping today coupled with a tooth about to cut through made for one unhappy ladybug. But she was still super cute.

Bennett joined in on the trick-or-treating and it made the night perfect. Bennett chose to ride the entire time in the wagon, Love Bug chose to be held by D and The Mayor chose to pull the wagon until he got to each house. Then he would go to the door and say "Trick or trick or treat" (you read that right, he asked for the trick twice), said thank you for the candy, went back to pulling the wagon until we got to the next house. This cycle continued for about 20 houses and then he only had enough energy to just get to the house and say "trick or trick or treat". About 6 houses before we got home, he asked to be carried.

As soon as we got home and we dumped out his loot, he started singing a different tune. Suddenly he got a little bit of energy and wanted to chow down. About 1 bag of Skittles, a Tootsie Roll pop, 2 packs of Smarties, a bag of gummy treats, a Take 5 and a dum-dum later we told him the rest would have to wait until tomorrow. I believe he would have eaten himself into a sugar coma if we had let him.

Love Bug made it almost the entire trip. Sweet girl tried to be a trouper but just couldn't hold out. As soon as we hit our street the tears started flowing, so D took her home and put her down while The Mayor and I hit the rest of the houses.

It is 8:30, an hour past his bedtime and he is still in his costume. We are sitting in the dark because we have almost run out of candy to pass out and are watching a Thomas episode. Just winding down before we hit the hay. What a great Halloween.

my little lady bug

Bennett the monkey, the unhappy ladybug and Buzz Lightyear

Buzz working for his candy

my gorgeous girl