Road Tripp

We had a fun little road trip to Lexington this weekend to visit my college roomie / matron of honor & her family, and see the circus (A.K.A. loudest, um, I mean greatest show on earth). We had fun watching the boys play together, hanging out in our PJs, eating, eating, going to the circus, eating, hot tubbing, and generally catching up (haven't seen Rosemarie and Joseph since Joshua's birthday last year, and haven't seen Mack since their wedding in 2/02)

the road trip: on the way there, Joshua was miserable and whining with the exception of the 45 minutes for which he slept. When we got there, he was completely soaked. We thought he had spilled juice on himself until after we got home and found him the same way after the return trip, during which he had no juice. Note to selves: pull over and chage him after he wakes up, will make for a much quieter & more pleasant 2nd half of the drive for everyone. Poor little guy!

the boys: Joshua & Joseph had a great time playing together. Joseph was a complete gentleman about sharing all his toys, and Joshua was more than excited to have a whole bunch of new 'popo' (police), 'bobby' (trucks), 'brrrr' (cars), 'mowa' (toy vaccuum) and a 'weeee' (slide) to play with.

good cop, bad cop. go here to see another picture of them
gosh we're cute!
snarl...
I can just hear Craig saying "don't even think about it, you're not getting one"
enjoying our morning coffee & matchbox car in the backyard
the circus: it was loud and crowded, Joshua's eyes were huge and unblinking for the first hour or so. He started screaming as soon as we walked into the arena part and he could see how huge it was and how high up we were. We walked down to the floor to get closer to the elephants and he seemed to like that a little better, but he still looked scared with his huge eyes trying to see everything. Joseph seemed much more calm about the whole thing! By the time we went back up to our seats, he was fine (the clown noses helped) but still didn't crack a smile or blink. He loved all the lights and animals. Craig and I found it amusing & entertaining. It was WAY too loud, I was so thankful that Rosemarie's mom had come down and watched Zoe while we went.

this hilarious picture is what happened when Craig put Joshua on his shoulders. Joshua just held on for dear life, staring at the elephant 20 feet away. Craig couldn't see how funny they looked (or anything else), so I took a few pics before moving Joshua's hands for him.

morning person?!

Well, after knowing myself for 30 years (gasp!) I have figured out that I might just be a morning person! Joshua's happy in the morning, Zoe's sleepy in the morning, Craig's around for a little while in the morning, I get to drink coffee and relax a little in the morning, and I still have the whole day ahead of me so it doesn't bother me that I haven't accomplished anything yet.

Or maybe it's just today... I waited up for Craig last night, and we stayed up til 1am (party animals that we are!) and got up at 7:45 with Zoe (who went back to sleep after eating), drank coffee, ate breakfast, read my Bible, got Joshua up and went for a walk as a family since Craig didn't have to leave until 10am. Then, I stayed outside and played with Joshua while Craig took Zoe inside. I love to play outside with him but seldom get to. Now, Craig's gone to work, Zoe's still sleeping, and Joshua's sitting behing me on the couch rubbing & scratching & patting my back. Who wouldn't love a morning like this :)

Here are some pictures of him playing - see his new bike (our neighbors were throwing that and a sand/water table out!). We have a love/hate relationship, the bike and I. I love it because Joshua loves it, but hate is because he turns into a screaming, whining, tantrum throwing monster when we have to get out of the car/stroller and go into the house without riding it.

He's also wearing his new pajamas. He was having a 'moment' last night before bed and I offered up the new monster PJs to change the subject (we had been inside for 10 minutes and he was still quite upset because he wanted to go out and ride his bike) They're 3T, that's why they look gianormous. They say "little monster" and have monsters all over them. Joshua likes to point to the monsters and say "mommy." I try not to take it personally :)


waving at a truck driving by

he was pointing to the spot on the lawn where he wanted me to make the badminton birdie land

l.a.z.y.

It's not that I have nothing to do, it's just that I'm too tired to do it after everyone's in bed. Since instead I'm doing a whole bunch of nothing, I then get bored when Craig's not sitting on the couch doing nothing with me. So really, that's what I meant last night when I said I was bored.

Tonight, I wasn't bored. I packed J & Z up and drove our happy selves a mile down the road to Andrea's house, where there was much merriment to be had. Misery loves company?? What's more fun than staying home with your own whiney toddler and crying baby? Carting them off so you can hang out with 2 good friends, both pregnant, and 3 other whiney toddlers. We let the kids whine at, um, I mean play with each other while we ate spaghetti dinners followed by homemade carrot cake. Zoe took a good little nap while there, all the kiddos got to blow off some steam, and the ladies got some adult conversation.

Tomorrow night, I'm either going to Candice's (with 3 kids between the two of us) for dinner or out with Candice and Kristin (with 5 kids among the 3 of us). It may not be relaxing, but it sure isn't boring!

And now for your daily ration of photos...

Pa is Joshua's new favorite person, because he took him outside to play in the "doot" (dirt). Today, he stood at the door saying "doot. Pa. doot."
Zoe's baby blues...
my handsome guys
Grandpa's little princess in a onesie from Rosemarie
and some more blue eyes

b.o.r.e.d.

Not that Joshua's not a bucket of laughs (and Zoe's getting to be pretty entertaining too), but I sure do get bored when Craig's not around! What am I going to do with myself when he's gone for many more days?! Um, blog a lot??

As an aside, we have this strange infestation problem... when we turn the front porch light on at night, bugs somehow get in our house. I have the light on now b/c it freaks me out having it off, but I think I'm going to have to turn it off since I just got dive bombed by one of these icky black flying beetle things that get in. I think Craig caught 11 of them the other night. Ewwww.

Anyway, here are some more pictures

Red Lobster... of course we visited the lobster tank and said hello to dinner. Not our dinner, someone else's dinner. We all had yummy fried shrimp. Joshua had fries. That reminds me of a funny story... the other day when I went to pick Joshua up from mother's day out, his teacher said, "he must eat a lot of rice at home, he must really like it!" Knowing that Joshua thinks eating rice is a fate worse than death, I said (as intelligently as possible) "Huh?" She said "yeah, he's been saying 'rice' all day." pause..... lightbulb.... "ooooh," said I "that's 'fries'" then went on about how he really doesn't have fries that often so she wouldn't think I was the horrible mother of a spoiled kid. So, of course, when we got in the car, I asked Joshua what he wanted for lunch, he said "wies" and off to chick-fil-a we went! But really, he doesn't have them that often.

We told Joshua he could go to Lowe's and ride the mowers. Every time we drive by where Lowe's is, he asks for "mowa"... my favorite is when he says "wee deet" (weed eat)

"hi mommy, let me out of this crib so I can start causing trouble"
practicing his 'wink' for the ladies. Ma taught him this, & to say 'wink' - it's too cute

Kickin it olde school

No, she's not having a wardrobe malfunction, Zoe's just modeling some of mommy & daddy's duds from 1978...

is it Kim? is it Zoe? Is it Kim? Is it Zoe? This one was made for me by my Grandma She was almost too big for this already... I think this little white smocked dress with pink flowers was a gift to my mom
so as to avoid confusion, I put a big flower on her head so no one mistook her for a boy (this was Craig's outfit, but it had little flowers on it so I thought "why not?")

she wanted to show off her headband check out that hair (like I had to tell you... how could you miss it?!)

blog it up!!!

After a week off, we're all ready to blog it up tonight! Well, I won't do it all at once because then what would we blog about the rest of the week?! Craig's parents left today after a super fun visit. Joshua's been asking about Ma & Pa all day. I don't have my pictures on here yet, but here are a few from Ma & Pa's camera...

Here's a super sweet picture of little miss Zoe.
This is one of the toys that Joshua wanted to play with at the jump zone. Notice that it's not INFLATED! Grrrr. He had fun, I was disappointed that he didn't want to jump.
Here's one of the flower headbands I made for Zoe. The flower looks as big as her head! She didn't mind having it on and she sure did look cute! Hopefully no one asks if she's a boy or a girl when she's wearing one of these!!!
Ma, Pa & Zoe We're not sure what Joshua's doing here, but it sure is funny.

visiting...

Sorry I didn't mention this sooner, but we're visiting with Craig's parents until Sunday which has left us severely lacking in the blog department...

What have we been doing since Saturday, you ask... playing, walking, shopping, returning, visiting Craig at work, dating (well, Craig and I have been dating :) and a bunch of other fun stuff. We went to the jump zone today so that Joshua could jump on all the inflatable things & go down the slides, etc. He said "jump" in the car the whole way there. Once we got inside, he wanted NOTHING to do with anything inflated! He played with a little train table and another little toy they had there. There was one other kid in the whole place and although he was happy going on the inflatables, he also seemed to gravitate toward whatever Joshua had chosen to play with. Joshua just wanted to play alone (and not have the trains grabbed rudely) so after a few "get your kid away from my kid" looks, his mom escorted him away (after giving the trains back to Joshua)

Zoe is doing great too, laid back and happy, pretty easy to please, and cuter every day! After a trip to hobby lobby and hancock fabrics, I made some cute flower headbands for her similar to the one she modeled. She's asleep now, but I'll take some pictures tomorrow! I have pictures of everything else too, I know the suspense is killing you but I'll have to post them later

our little model

Here's the website that Zoe modeled headbands for. I love the big huge flower! We didn't get to keep that one though. The pink and white ones were cute too, we did get to keep those.

http://mysweetpeaandcompany.com/category_7/Stretch-Lace-Headbands.htm

http://mysweetpeaandcompany.com/category_9/Flower-Headbands.htm

flower head

Quick, go to Jamie's website to see her newest cute photos of Zoe! http://www.photographybyjamielynn.blogspot.com/

I hate spit... (and 5 other quirks)

Well, I've been tagged by Emily, so here goes. Our quirks are definitely different! Check hers out, they're funny.

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking to them.
5. Leave a comment for each tagged blogger that they've been tagged.

Here are the first 6 I thought of. I may revise later is Craig helps me think up some better ones.

1. I hate water spots. I squeege the shower and am constantly wiping sink fixtures off
2. Spit grosses me out (this makes kissing difficult :) This includes drool. Joshua likes to kiss Zoe on the head and he gets her hair all spitty so I have to baby wipe her off right away or I get grossed out smelling his spit on her hair all day. I also baby wipe him off is he smells too spitty (think teething). After 3 years of marriage, Craig has perfected the art of non-spitty kissing.
3. I hate being late but I usually am anyway
4. I reset my odometer all the time so I can see how far it would be to run from one place to another
5. I have 20 gazillion unfinished projects and 20 gazillion more that I want to start - OCD and ADD are not a productive combo :)
6. I love Harry Potter and Wheel of Fortune

I guess I'll link to Laura & Rosemarie since I'm otherwise friendless in the blog world :)

Here's an update: you can go to Rosemarie's quirks here and see 6 more than apply to me as well... must be all that time we spent as roomies!

good follow up...

Today, we (Zoe & I) dropped Joshua off at school. He saw the slides on the way in and said "wheeee" all the way to his classroom because he wanted to go play. From there, I took Zoe to her follow up appointment; all her cultures are still negative and the doctor said she looked fine. Next, I took her home for a nap followed by a little hair-bow modeling photo session. I can't wait to see the pictures and you can be sure I'll let you know how to check them out!! We got to keep 2 of the bows she modeled. She also modeled a headband with a gianormous flower on it - the flower was as big as her head!!! I thought it was going to look ridiculous and make her really mad when I put it on, but she didn't seem to mind and it was pretty cute. Here are a few photos from my stash - it appears I've been holding out for a few days, I forgot I had taken these...

Cute even when she's not smiling!
Here's a little half smile... What's so funny, Zoe?! Other than your hairdo...

Zoe always has smiles for Daddy!
Joshua helping me make pancakes Zoe perfecting the art of tummy time
When I moved Zoe to her chair, I turned around and this is what I saw! My big baby boy :) He tried to curl up and started saying "nap"

home sweet home

Long story short, Zoe's follow up landed us in the hospital for a few days. Seeing no other cause for her fever led the doctor to order a spinal tap and IV antibiotics in case she had meningitis, pneumonia, blood infection, or something else serious. Her fever is gone and all tests were negative so we were able to come home from the hospital this afternoon. We're so thankful to God for healing her from whatever caused the fever, and for being with us through the past few days. Between all the tests and antibiotics, Zoe's been stuck with about 30 needles since Wednesday. She's been so sweet and happy through the whole thing, here are a few pictures...

woah, look at those chins & cheeks!!!

Anyway, back on Wednesday, Joshua had his first day of 'school' and I've got some cute pictures from that too...

I love this picture of Joshua trying to keep his backpack from falling off
Candice took this picture for us. I only cried a little :) When I picked him up, I asked how he did during naptime. His teacher said that he didn't sleep, he just laid there awake & motionless the whole time and didn't make a sound. What a sweet little boy! I wonder what he was thinking about!! (this morning Craig said he snuck in to see what Joshua was doing and saw him in his crib moving his blanket back and forth from one end to the other and then putting it on his head; tonight after we put him to bed, Craig heard him in there practicing his words "cheese.... two..... coo-kie")
Joshua wanted to help me clean when we got home
Checking out the big Maryland crab we got in a goodie box for Joshua & Zoe. He thought it was funny


Zoe's cute little giggles...