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good.bad.ugly.

Monday, September 30, 2013

The good.
The bad.
And the ugly.

All because I wouldn't let her wear her fancy leopard shoes out to play in the yard.

Happy First Birthday, My Boy!

Sunday, September 29, 2013



Hi, guy! You are one! A walking, chatting, quacking one-year-old dreamboat.

People often ask, "When did he get so big?" I'll tell you. It happened when I blinked. I blinked, and you went from being a tiny baby that cried like a little duck to a big boy clumsily walking around and spreading happiness everywhere you go.

You are our sweet little guy and were the missing piece to our puzzle. The piece we didn't even know was missing. You have brought more peace, laughter, and happiness to our family than we thought was possible. You are a pure joy to be around and I'm positive the world became a tiny bit brighter when you were born.

I can't wait to see what this next year brings for you. More words. More messes. More experiences. More dancing. More scrapes. More kisses. More joy.

Love you so much, my guy. 

swimming in leaves and leopard print

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Don't those two just go so beautifully together? S and I pulled out the leopard print shoes today, that, I should add, she was absolutely giddy about. As much as we have tried to steer her away from being "too girly" this girl is such a diva. She loves (and I do mean loves) getting new things...yikes yikes yikes. Her birthday was one huge "OOOOH!" and "AHHH!!" one right after the other. So, let's just say these shoes have pretty much stayed on her feet except for when she's sleeping the last few days. She used to go into my closet every day, pull out my leopard print shoes and carry them around with her when she was not shuffling along in them. Sigh. But, walking around today with our matchy matchy shoes was pretty much perfect. I've only been dreaming since the day we found out we were having a baby girl to have a little mini-me to share my style with. And match each other. Naturally.
Almost every Saturday that we have our girl time together in CW, we stop and say hello to Mr. Jefferson. She is always weary and wants nothing to do with him. Today, however, she plopped up right next to him and asked him for a high-five. She waited and waited, not understanding why the heck he would be so rude and not high-five her back. I tell ya. Someone ought to teach him some manners.  She ended up looking for his hand and then smacked it and called it good. Oh, and we didn't leave till she give him a good ol' pinch on the nose.
The leaves have begun falling, and I think S may have just discovered her future career: leaf swimming. What started as stomping around in the leaves turned to kicking the leaves, then pushing them into piles, then full out swimming in them. Before she was completely sprawled out, she looked over at me as if to see if it was okay. I told her, "Go ahead, baby! Just swim in them!" She played in the leaves for a solid thirty minutes. CW was crowded, and she seemed 100% oblivious by all the strangers pointing and smiling at her. I never ever want to look back and regret not letting her create a great memory just because I didn't want her to get her clothes dirty. (Mind you, this does mean that I spend many naps and nights scrubbing away happy-memory stains from clothes. Ugh...white shirts. WHY do even make that option available for toddlers?)
Looking forward to many many more dives into the leaves this fall...
...and more dates with my girl.

A walk around campus.

Monday, September 23, 2013

I took the kids back to the William and Mary campus today to run around. I love the old brick buildings and my kids love roaming free and getting dirty. It's a win win.

S and her Pato. These two have really grown closer this past month. When S wakes up from her naps, the first thing she asks for is her Pato. They normally wake up from their afternoon naps around the same time, and she loves walking into his room and yelling, "Hi, Gago!" They finally play together, and today they shared a snack from the same bowl. I looked over and found S feeding Pato crackers one by one. He follows her around and she is his biggest cheerleader. When he walks around the house, she always gets super excited and yells,"Go! Go! Go!"
Took me forever to get this shot. I LOVE the walking stage. C likes to joke that Pato walks around like a little drunk man.
Classic "hands-in-his-mouth" shot.
As I look at this last picture I feel really lucky that I have two happy babies. Isn't that what it's all about?

Another story from the day: I asked S to please take her dirty shirt back to her room as we did our normal tidying up before picking C up from work. She went back to her room and came out soon later. A few minutes passed, and I went to her room to take a toy back. I looked around the room to see where she had put her shirt. I had assumed she would have just thrown it on the ground. But, I couldn't find the shirt anywhere. I even looked in our bedroom to see if she had put it there. No luck. I went back to her room again, and found a tiny bit of the sleeve peeking out of her dresser drawer. She had put it away all by herself in the right place. I was very impressed, and now I'm looking forward to putting that girl to work!

missing remote

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Last night, I spent a solid thirty minutes looking for the Apple TV remote. It is thin and small and the darn thing finds its way into the most random places. I decided I would give up and just hope it would reappear the following morning. 

Around 5 AM I went to nurse J. As I finished and was about to get up to put him back in bed I felt it. Along the side of his body underneath his striped pajamas I felt the long rectangular outline of the remote. I almost laughed out loud and quickly unzipped J's pajamas and removed the remote. 

Add "the inside of my children's clothes" to the growing list of places things go missing. 

garden exploration

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

This morning, I took the kids to go explore the gardens in Colonial Williamsburg and to visit the sheep. S is at the age now where the double monster stroller isn't always necessary, and she was happy to walk alongside mama and little brother. When she's feeling extra adventurous, she'll run up ahead of us...but never too far. Like I've mentioned before, this girl is kinda attached to me most of the time. J always love going out places (as long as it's not too hot) and I can't wait for the day till he's running alongside his sister. When I took this picture I had to stop him from shoving the little pebbles in his mouth. He is my messy little guy who finds any way possible to get dirty.
Oh, how she loved those sheep. We had the following conversation about them while were were there:

Me: Hey, S. What do sheep say?
S: Sheeeep!
Me: No. They say, "baaa." So, what do sheep say?
S: (silent for a few seconds) Sheeeep!

We're working on it.

When we walked away from the sheep she yelled, "BYE!!! Bye!!! Bye bye sheeep! Eee you layer!" ("See you later" in S-speak)
She walked up to this tree and said, "Woooah!" Then she hugged it. Have I mentioned that I am la-la-loving two?!
Sometimes I feel like I try my best to show my two the world, but more often than not, I find they're showing it to me.

Getting her hands dirty...

While Pato naps, S and I try to head outside to play or work in the yard. She's getting pretty good at weeding, and yesterday I took my camera out to document it. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty, which reminds me of her Granny Great. Our Granny is 93 years old, and is the hardest worker I know. She works in her yard daily, and in the summer, everyone in her neighborhood gets some of her delicious corn. If my kids have one-third of her work ethic, they will do alright I think.
She found a dead vine and tugged and tugged. And out it came!
Pretty pleased with herself. This outdoors girl doesn't have much of an outdoors mama, but she's making me rethink that :)

Sunday, September 15, 2013


For the last few days, we've been lucky enough to have family in town with us to help celebrate S and J's birthdays. We kept it pretty low-key, but I'll save all that for another post. This morning, we took my brother and sister-in-law to the William and Mary campus. Fall is beginning to make its glorious appearance around here, and walking around the campus in long sleeves and pants was pretty much perfect. There's something about fall that really rejuvenates me and truly wakes up my soul. I feel like the cool wind breathes life back into me after a draining summer. 
S carried this little watering can with her all over campus. It was a birthday present from one of our friends, and I'm pretty sure she'd sleep with it if we let her. Isn't it funny to see the types of things little kids get attached to? It seems that our two always carry a little something into the car. Right now I'm pretty sure we have a hat, a stuffed duck, a rubber duckie and an animal book sitting in our back seat.

Our gorgeous little nephew. His eyes are the most beautiful thing ever and he will charm the pants off of anyone with his smile.
S is not always super interested in other children, but she absolutely loved her cousin. She loved chasing/following him everywhere and it warmed my heart to see her play with him. Having an aunt, uncles, a cousin and grandparents here with us this weekend has been so amazing for our little ones. They have loved getting attention from them and my two are so lucky to have so much love surrounding them and so many willing to mug on them.

So, big ol' thanks to those who flew, drove from far away and down the street to join us :) Love you all! And selfishly, thank you for entertaining my children so I could actually peel S away from me for more than two minutes.

be a builder-upper

Saturday, September 7, 2013

The blog has been a lot quieter than usual. I normally try to do my blogging while the babies sleep, but lately we've been keeping so busy that other things just kinda sit on the back burner, ya know? If it's not too hot outdoors, I feel like I'm suffocating my kids by keeping them inside. The other day we picked C up after work and about a minute after he stepped in he sniffed the air and said, "Hmm...it smells like the outside in here." What he probably meant was, "Hmm...you guys stink." But, if we stink of the outdoors then I feel like I'm doing something right. 

So anyway, our days are full of getting together with friends, playing at the park, going to the the beach (when, pray tell, did we become beach people??) seeing ships and chickens before naps (gotta love living down the road from so many cool places) and having S help me pull weeds. Oh, those weeds never stop. S helps me pull them out and points to them and says, "yuck!" Not sure we were cut out to be the gardening types.

In other news, C and I watched a great documentary last night called Miss Representation. In a nutshell, it's a documentary that looks at how the mainstream media has been portraying women. Now, I should mention that I really don't like when people try to blame everything from political issues to the common cold on the media. Please do not confuse me with one of those people. Okay, so. Yes. The documentary made some really powerful points and shared some really unfortunate statistics. C and I agreed that it is a little heavy handed, but if you have Netflix, you ought to check it out. Especially if you have a daughter. Or a son. Or any relative at all that is a man or a woman.

But, the message that really hit me hard was this: women need to stop putting other women down. They need to start supporting each other, building each other up and rejoicing in their successes. A long time ago, someone I looked up to told me that it is a terrible thing to consciously withhold a compliment. If someone creates something beautiful, tell them. If someone is having just an awesome hair day, tell her! I've found myself withholding before, and for what? Was I jealous that MY hair looked awful and probably had drool and/or leftover peas in it? Maybe! Boy, did this message hit me hard, and boy do I want to do better. I have to be better for myself, but most of all, I want to set a good example for my kids. I want S to be confident and to be whatever she wants. And if she decides to run for president someday, I will support her 100%, and definitely NOT tell CNN about the times she pooped in the tub.

So, as a too frequent putter-downer, I want to make those times less and build up more.

Anyone else now in the mood for Spice Girls and Stevie Knicks?

a happy goodbye to my one year old

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Baby Girl,

When I said goodnight to you earlier and kissed your forehead, one very important thing slipped my mind. I didn't stop to think that this would be the last time I'd see you as a one-year old. When you wake us up chatting away loudly in the morning, you will be two. 

Growing up, I used to pretend that it wasn't really my birthday until it was 12:10 pm (the time I was actually born.) So, the entire morning I would spend looking at the clock in anticipation. As I got older and didn't live at home, my mom would call me at that time because she knew it was special to me. You were born at 1:43 am. I don't get that entire morning of anticipation with you. Tomorrow we will wake up, and you will all of a sudden be two. 

I feel like I could write for hours about how much I love you and how much you have changed our lives for the better. I hope there are glimpses of that in every post I write. 

So, instead, I will keep it brief. 

Today at church someone mentioned how this world can be a very dark place. S, thank you for showing me that this world is absolutely not that. I look into your eyes, and I see how you see the world. I see how you marvel at every butterfly that flies by. You get excited when you see brightly colored flowers. I look in your eyes and see nothing but beauty. I look into your eyes and I see that this world is in fact, very bright.

Happy happy birthday, baby.

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