Wonderful Wonderscope!

Last Thursday the kids and I were invited to tag along with our friend Tiffany, her kids (Noah and Lily), her friend Quinci and her kids (Dylan and Saylor) on their day trip to Wonderscope. I We met at Chik-Fil-A for lunch. The moms got to chit chat (and feed babies) while the big kids (aaah! "big" kids?!) played in the play area. When we first sat down Quinci said to me "we're pretty brave bringing 3 toddlers/preschoolers and 3 infants..." I added to that: "brave or insane!" :) After lunch we headed to the Children's Museum called Wonderscope. This is where we had gone the day of Sydney's 2nd birthday (and the day baby Lily was born!)

Our first room was the market/farm room. Sydney was quite the busy little farm girl! (Traci, you'd be proud!) She rounded up all 5 or 6 of the baby calf bottles and was still requesting more. She moved on from the bottles to the roosters....she gathered all of the roosters and tried taking Noah's. (It's as if she's a collector!) She gathered some strawberries from the garden (I think she had all of those too) and when it was time to switch rooms she threw a fit. Oh yes, it was a wonderful moment--I was "that" parent with "that" child. :) As I tried the "okay Syd see you later"--walking out the door technique, she proceeded to just walk right back in to the little barn and continue playing. Mind you, I had Gavin strapped to my front in his little carrier, asleep, while trying to remove a kicking, screaming toddler from the farm room. (insert SIGH here) At that point I was so frustrated I just wanted to leave (and in my frustration told her we were going to :/ oops...). Instead, she ended up taking a time out of a few minutes in the front of the building. We had a little chat and after that she did much better whenever we switched rooms.

with her buddy Noah!

collecting food from the "barn"

From the farm room we went to the art room (well to time out then the art room) where she got her face painted with green hearts that matched her shirt. From there we briskly walked past the water table room :) to the Legos room! We also hit the ball room before leaving.

Busy but still has time to "smile" for Mommy!

It was a fun day, exhausting but fun! It really was a true test for me, since it was my first day trip with the two kids by myself. Oh there were moments when I was about to lose my cool (I think I may have even mentioned needing a stiff drink or two--right Tiffany?) but we survived! It can only get easier....right?

Happy 4th of July!

Sunday, the 4th of July we just spent at home! It was a wonderful, lazy day that we spent together as family. We grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, and jalapeno poppers. I made a fruit salad and an Oreo cheesecake for dessert. After supper we headed outside to enjoy the evening but very shortly after getting out there, it started to rain! And it continued to rain all evening long, so we weren't able to go to the fireworks show. Instead though, we enjoyed family movie night! I realized as we were getting ready, that it was our first family movie night! We watched "Ice Age." It was so wonderful...I loved looking down at Gavin who was asleep on me, and over at Joe and Sydney snuggling on the chair. It was a great family moment!

Gavin's first 4th!

Enjoying movie night!

Gavin is just thrilled...can't you tell :)
Blowing bubbles!
Our family of four
Good one of Gavin...
good one of Sydney...
just sweet. :)
Sydney and her boo-boo

4th of July celebration with friends

Our friends, the Dunns, invited us over to their house Saturday, July 3rd for some yummy food and fun! Here are some pictures from our evening. It was a great night!!






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Making play-doh!

Thanks to the amazing cookbook ("My First Cookbook" by Paula Deen) Grandma Kathy had given Sydney a couple of Christmases ago, we were able to make play clay this summer! Of course Sydney wanted PINK play-doh, but all we have is whole wheat flour so it is more of a dusty rose than pink. Here it is cooling off!

My little helper!

She wanted me to make her a dinosaur like the picture in the cookbook demonstrated. So here she is giving her dino a kiss. :)I love making memories like these with her! She loves to cook with me and help...what a blessing this little girl is! :)

Happy 3 Months Gavin Joseph!

It doesn't seem possible...but it is....Gavin is now three months old! These three months have flown by. He is such a sweet little guy; it seems as if he has always been a part of our lives!

Some things he can do:

• smiles a lot!
• talks a lot! and he's a loud talker too!
• has slept through the night a couple of times
• rolled on to his side
• he has found his hands; he chews on them a lot!
  

Dear Gavin,
We are so happy you are a part of our life...you make us so proud and so happy each and every day! You melt our hearts with your sweet smile and adorable "voice." We all are looking forward to watching you grow and change! We love you little man!!
Love,
Mommy, Daddy, and Sydney

Venturing in to the world of cloth diapering....

Yes you read that right: cloth diapering. I know I know, yuck! When I had Sydney there is no way I would have thought about doing this and in fact I was quite grossed out. Maybe those first couple of years with her softened me to the idea though. There's something about cleaning up multiple messes of "waste" :), midnight sick sessions, boogers, being pooped on, peed on (those last two--thanks to Gavin!) etc. that makes you feel like you can tackle just about anything you previously considered "gross", "nasty", or "disgusting." So when my cousin Traci e-mailed me about these diapers she and her husband were thinking of trying with their new baby it reminded me of when I had first looked at the same diapers earlier in my pregnancy with Gavin. And that got the ball rolling. Every time I would buy a box of Pampers (each week!) I would cringe because I thought to myself how I very well could buy all of the diapers he would ever need in his diapering career in one fell swoop--initially for quite a cost, but over the course of just the next few months they would pay for themselves. I figured that in Gavin's not yet 3 months of life (I rounded up to 3 months just for kicks and grins) we had already spent roughly $250 on diapers....that is $50 shy of what it would take for us to buy all of the cloth diapers we would need to use until he is ready for potty training! I decided to give it a try and ordered a 3 pack of diapers just to try them out and get a feel for them. So far so good! I have been spending many naptimes researching different kinds and figuring out which ones I think I'd like to try. I'm pretty excited about it but Joe has pretty much told me he thinks I'm silly (in not so many words) but will still change these diapers--he just won't wash them!

I find I am trying some things that I didn't try when Sydney was a baby. For one reason or another I just feel like the stigma attached to a lot of things that I was afraid of has lifted. Was she my guinea pig baby? Because it seems more and more like Gavin is! :) Or is it because she was my first and I was scared to try anything new and seemingly more difficult? The new thing now is the cloth diapers and we shall see how it pans out. I'll keep you posted--rest assured though that if it doesn't work out you'll all be able to hear my husband yelling "I told you so!" :)

pssst...I think she's potty trained!

I whisper this only to hopefully not jinx us! We are into 4th week(? I think...) and so far (insert crossed fingers here) she has had all but one accident since the second week. She has made it a few day trips of 30-45 minutes in big girl underwear (with a towel in her seat and with me asking her quite frequently if she needed to potty!)-we just pack up the potty and she goes in the back of the van (thank you 3rd row folding seat!) so I was feeling pretty confident.Yesterday was the true test. We had an hour and a half long drive so we put a pull-up on her just to be safe and she stayed dry all day! So I don't really know when to officially declare her potty trained, but I think we're doing pretty good so far!