Where my peeps are

So from my brief report, it sounded like things went well today. Ethan only took a 50 minute nap at day care and Blythe had a good swim lesson. Oh, except Daddy dressed Blythe in her cute green pants with embroidered flowers. And a t-shirt. With chicks (baby chickens) on it. That said "where my peeps are"...."Hooters Baton Rouge, LA". Let me recap that. He. dressed. Blythe. in. a. Hooters. shirt. I hope he told everyone at day care I was out of town.

Love you babe for making me smile!

Sharing a room

It's been a week since I blogged! I think that's the longest dead streak I've had. We headed to my parents house last week on Thursday, so of course it was 2 days of preparation to make sure the laundry was done, as much work as possible was done, and everything was packed. Add to that the fact that I am heading to New Jersey today for 3 days, leaving Braden home with the kids. Yep - though it's not a weekend, so no full days with the kids, Braden will be on his own. I think he'll do just fine.

And Braden, if you're reading this and you want to blog about your experience, feel free!

Anyway, since it's 6:30am and I'm already at the airport, I have no pictures to share or video clips. We did have a nice time at my parents house. Unfortunately it rained pretty much the whole time, so we were confined mostly inside, which meant a lot of Wii. Doug and Lynette and Ada came on Friday evening, so the whole family was together. My parents just recently finished adding a bedroom/exercise room and bathroom to their upstairs, so Braden and I got to stay in the new room. They changed the other guest room to a "grandkids" room and moved a day bed with trundle in their. They also got a toddler bed, but Ethan's still too small for that. Anyway, we put Ethan in a pack n play and Blythe in the day bed and let them share a room, which was a first. Blythe talks for a while before she falls asleep (did I say 'talk'? I meant shouts very loudly) so Ethan found that a bit difficult to fall asleep to. So then he cried for a while. Which kept Blythe up and 'talking' some more. The vicious cycle continued until finally they wore each other out and fell asleep. Later Ethan cried at about 10:30pm for a little while. Then about 12:30, Blythe cried which woke Ethan. I had to go in there on that one. And of course as soon as I did, Ethan started crying, so I had to pick him up and rock him back to sleep as I held Blythe's hand until she fell asleep. After that it was fine. The next 2 nights went much better too.

So anyway, no pics to share. Lynette got some great ones of all the kids together. I'm sure she'll probably post them, but if not, I will sometime later.

Well, off to Philadelphia, and then Newark. Later!

Playing at the park

Yesterday morning I took the kids to the big playground in Blacksburg, "Hand-in-Hand" park, and we met the Freel's there (Blythe's best friend Ashley, 2 of her brothers - Luke and Ben, and her mom, Amy). The kids had a great time running around, even though Ethan got a little "drunk" (tired) towards the end and could hardly walk. Here's a cute little series of Luke and Ethan playing "hide and seek".

Luke hiding:

Luke....where are you?

Ah! I see you!

Come on, Ethan. Now it's your turn to hide.

Or maybe we should just hug.

So the hug turned into a "let's not let go hug" and then a "oops, Ethan fell down the stairs" hug. But still so cute!

Blythe and Ashley had fun on the swings too:

I just got Photoshop recently, so I love how I was able to Photoshop in a nostril for Blythe and erase the pool of snot that was actually there (so now it just looks like she's sticking out her tongue instead of trying to catch snot on her tongue).

"Trike-a-thon"

We have a pretty action-packed day today. This morning at 9am we had gymnastics (yes, I signed Blythe up for another set of 5 Saturdays). This time I made sure to leave the house with plenty of time to find a parking space, but parking was not to be found! At least not anywhere close to the gym anyways. So we had to walk quite far and still ended up late. Oh well. I had Ethan in the backpack again, and I definitely think he is gaining weight. Not sure how much longer I'll be able to lug him around in that.

After gymnastics, we headed to the "trike-a-thon" that Blythe was doing through the day care to raise money for St. Jude's Children's hospital. Blythe asked me at least 20 times what it was we were going to. She kept trying to understand what I was saying (trike-a-thon) and finally conceded that she "didn't know how to say that". Really I signed her up for it because I thought it would be a good opportunity for her to ride her new bike we got her for her birthday (in January) that she hasn't ridden yet. We got pledges from a few family members. Most did flat donations, but Doug and I did a flat donation plus an additional $1 per lap. Doug did it thinking she would do at least 10 laps, I did it knowing she likely wouldn't do any. Here she is on her bike:

which was during the only few seconds she was actually on it. SO - I was right, ZERO laps. The good news was that lots of other kids wanted to try out Blythe's "big kid" bike.

Ethan didn't raise money, but he did get to ride his car too. Except he only knows how to go backwards.

So Blythe spent most of the time on the playground or playing with chalk, but it was still fun. The kids also got free pizza and juice. Blythe dug right in to her pizza and ate a huge slice. That's only worth noting because she WILL NOT eat pizza at home. Honest to God, she won't touch it and usually ends up not even eating dinner when ever we have it.

Anyway, we have a birthday party to go to this afternoon, so both kids went down for naps as soon as we got home. I did have to read Blythe a book before nap...her current favorite book...Little Black Sambo. My "aha" moment of the day - Blythe's favorite book is "Little Black Sambo" and her favorite TV show is "The Charlie Show" (2 and a half men). And I gave her donuts for breakfast (knowing she'd have pizza later and cake and ice cream later too). Am I leading her down the wrong path?

The daily coat argument

Two of my regular daily arguments with Blythe are about wearing her coat. The first is before we leave the house for day care:"
"Blythe, let's put your coat on now"
"No, I want to bwing it"
"It's cold outside, you should put it on"
"No, I jus wanna bwing it"
"Please put your coat on" (so I don't look like a terrible mom when you get out of the car with no coat on and it's 30 degrees out)

The second is when I pick her up from day care:
"Ok Blythe, come on, let's put on your coat"
"I don't wanna wear my coat"
"Fine, freeze for all I care"

And that's pretty much the same story day in and day out.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday she learned how to zip her coat up (like the whole shebang...put the coat on, start the zipper, zip it up...the whole thing). So now she wants to wear her coat all the time. Or rather put on her coat all the time. Then take it off. Then put it back on. Only problem is it takes her quite some time to accomplish this task, so I really have to work on my patience skills. But I am very proud of her. Way to go Blythe!

And we were reading a few books before bed last night and reading one with animals in it, so I was making animal noises. When I turned the page to the sheep, Ethan immediately pointed at the sheep and said "Bah, bah". He was so proud of himself! So they aren't really words yet, but it is a form of expressive language. I have noticed him practicing his "words" a lot recently and making some different sounds. Before I know it he'll be talking up a storm.

And in even better news, both kids let me sleep until 7:30 this morning! I feel so refreshed! Totally different than yesterday morning when Blythe came in my room at 4:07 and hopped into bed with me. Then proceeded to sleep on my pillow with me and flail her arms about and snore almost as loud as Braden normally snores. So pretty much, I was unable to sleep after that. At one point I tried pushing her off of my pillow and over to Braden's pillow and she started crying and saying, "I was here first!" Ha! Excuse me? I kind of remember you coming into MY room and laying on MY pillow. So before she went to bed last night, I made it clear to her - don't come in my room tonight.

Out for a drive

Our next door neighbors have 3 kids. Sophie - who's 11, Frank - who's 6, and Ginsey - who's 3 (almost 4). Ginsey is one of Blythe's best friends. So when the weather is nice we are outside playing with them a lot. They especially love it when Braden is home because he'll participate in water balloon fights, soccer games, whatever. Therefore, Braden is one of Frank's best friends. But a lot of times Frank is the only boy. So when I was pregnant with Ethan and we found out it was a boy, Frank was so excited. "Finally someone to play basketball with!" he said (not quite realizing he would be 5 years older than Ethan).

So anyway, we finally have a few nice days where we can play outside after day care. While Ethan's not quite ready to take on Frank in basketball, they did have a good time riding "the gator" together.

So cute. Ethan loved it and Frank loved being the "big brother" too. Later he asked if he could pull Ethan around in the wagon, which I of course responded with "absolutely!". I was getting tired of pulling Ethan around in a big circle on the driveway OVER, and OVER again.

While Frank and Ethan's weren't driving the gator, Ginsey and Blythe were. Ginsey was actually a pretty good driver and could steer and stay on the sidewalk. Blythe was not such a good driver. Here they are after they put helmets on in preparation for Blythe to drive.

Probably a good thing we talked Santa Claus into not giving Blythe an electronic car for Christmas (read: good thing Mary talked some sense into Braden). Ginsey, being 9 months older, was way more coordinated. So by the time Blythe is almost 4, she might be ready for one and we may even trust her enough to drive Ethan around too.

Ethan's 1 year stats

Braden secretly wishes the "french roll" would come back into style. And now he's got Ethan wishing for it too.


My two 80's dorks (or was it early 90's?)

I took Ethan for his 1 year doctor visit this morning. He is 30 inches long and weighs 21 lbs 15 oz. I can't remember what the head circumference was, but I do know the doctor had to double check it since the nurse wrote it down (or measured it) wrong....like she has done EVERY SINGLE TIME we have taken him since he was born. Apparently, she wants us to think he has a tiny head. Anyway, he was about 50 percentile on height and head circumference and about 30 percentile on weight. The boy eats non-stop and I don't particularly think he's thin, so oh well. It's fat babies like Blythe was that drive those averages up!

He only had to get one shot and had to get his finger pricked so they could draw blood. He didn't even flinch on the finger pricking. Not a peep. Nothing. Screamed bloody murder on the shot though and then kept crying and crying. If he could talk, he'd be saying, "Mom! I can't believe YOU let them do that to me! What kind of mom are you!?". He got over it though.

Braden took Blythe to school while I took Ethan to the doctor. Then Braden headed out for his trip to College Station, TX for women's NCAA's. Alas, I'm alone again. This is the last one though and then they are done with the season! Spring is really great since they are limited to practicing only 8 hours a week.

Anyway, I was sure to dress Blythe in green today and told her she had to wear green otherwise people could pinch her. Hopefully she doesn't go around pinching other kids if they don't have green on. Or me, since I don't have green on.

Chunky Cheeses

There's a Chuck e Cheeses in Roanoke, but had yet to ever go. They've built a lot of new stores fairly recently in our area, so we rarely go to Roanoke unless we have to. Braden needed to go to Roanoke so he could get measured for a tux for his friend Tommy's wedding, so we decided to make it a family affair. Since we were going and it was raining and we had nothing planned pretty much all weekend, we decided we'd hit up Chuck e Cheeses afterwards. Even though Blythe had no idea what Chuck e Cheeses was, it still helped us get her down for a nap ("if you nap, we'll go to Chuck e Cheeses...").



Fortunately Ethan took a great 3 hour nap and Blythe had a decent one too, so yesterday late afternoon we were on our way. First we went to the mall to go by the tux place. We accidentally picked the entrance to the mall with the 2 small rides as soon as you walk in. So instantly Blythe HAD to ride one. It was a small carousel ride, so at least Ethan could ride too (even though his experience at the Salem Winter carnival on a carousel was not too pleasing for him). Ethan didn't exactly look like he was having a blast, but he didn't try to get off so one dollar later (yes, a freaking dollar for a 30 second ride), we were done. But to our surprise, Ethan would NOT let go of the pole on his horse. He did not want to get off. We literally had to pry his hands off of it (and then of course he cried and then wouldn't go back in his stroller). So Blythe rode in the stroller. After finding the tux place and stopping in the store with the puppies (for a brief minute of entertainment for the kids....okay, and me too), we then went to Old Navy. I had the "friends and family 30% off coupon" that Braden might want to use (since I had already hit up the Old Navy near us). You can't go in an Old Navy without visiting the kids section though, so we of course got a few things for them including a cute pink hat that Blythe loved and wouldn't take off, but will likely never wear again now that we bought it.



Several times it looked like she might have to potty but she kept telling me she didn't, so I let it go assuming she'd tell me when she had to go. So we're at the checkout when she gets out of the stroller to play with all the balls and other crap they put by the checkout in hopes the children will con their parents into buying them. And I notice the stoller is wet. WTF? I ask her if she peed and she says yes. So I take her to the bathroom while Braden is checking out. Fortunately she was wearing a dress and she didn't get it on that, but did get her underpants and leggings wet. Old Navy doesn't sell underpants, but I had to get something since we were headed to Chuck e Cheeses next. So I bought shorts (and of course had to get 2 other things since it was "3 for $15"). Finally we were done there and off to Chuck e Cheeses.



The place was kind of tucked away so several U turns later, we were there. I knew it might be crowded since we got there at 6pm on a rainy Saturday, but we were shocked to see a line out the door! We sure as hell weren't waiting in line in the rain to get in. But I saw most of them had gifts, so I thought maybe they were in line for a birthday party. I got out to check. Another lady I asked wasn't sure so we both went to the front and the guy said if you weren't with a party you didn't have to wait. Sweet. So we parked and went in.



After entering into the gates of eternal hell funnest place on Earth, we realized the mistake we had made. Crowded was not even the word. Plus this Chuck e Cheese was not laid out like both of us had remembered. We had remembered games and rides that were more spread out and a separate room for the Chuck e Cheese band, which also served as the party room/eating area. This Chuck e Cheese had it all in one not so big room. Everything crammed together with tables strewn throughout the games and rides making it even more difficult to get to anything. We searched for an empty table until we finally found one and put our stuff down. I went to put in our order for pizza, drinks and tokens and only then realized that people were actually in that long line in the rain waiting for a table. And we had just skipped everyone and plopped ourselves right down. Well, whatever. No one told us to move so, sorry suckas! We ended up getting 50 tokens (cause I had a coupon) and I soon realized how long it would take us to use 50 tokens considering you had to wait for EVERYTHING. And Blythe was content playing in the "tokenless" play gym and Ethan was happy playing on the toddler play gym and going down the slide like this:



But we had the tokens, so we had to use them. Ethan went on several rides and even played a few games. Blythe played a lot of games with Daddy and went on a couple of rides too. Getting anywhere in there was ridiculously difficult since half of the people (including the kids) were obese (yes, past the stage of "overweight"). Maybe we're just spoiled since we live in a college town where most of the people are pretty fit. Really it was sad and incredibly frustrating trying to maneuver in there!



Anyway, we finally finished up our tokens and saved the pony ride to last, which Ethan loved (Blythe did too).



We counted our tickets (all 62 of them) so Blythe could buy a comb and a tattoo. It was 8pm by the time we got in the car. Braden says we are never going back. I'd like to believe him. I'm sure we'll find ourselves at Chuck e Cheeses again, but maybe just not that one.

Will sing for food

I have to make a correction from yesterday's post. Braden pointed out that Ethan can get into a standing position from seated without pulling up on something and apparently has done it "like 100 times". I just hadn't seen it. But Ethan showed me yesterday, so I did verify with my own 2 eyes.

I had a special request yesterday for a video of Blythe singing "wheels on the bus". That and I could also enter it in the "duckduckmoose.com wheels on the bus contest" to win fame and fortune for Blythe on the "wheels on the bus iphone app" (and $250). Usually it's pretty hard to get Blythe to sing on camera, but I bribed her with a Cheeto (yes, just one). Probably still needs some work before it could win a contest, but here's "take 1". Love how the people go "ope and down".


And apparently Daddy gets a Cheeto for singing too!

And I just can't leave Ethan out. I've blogged about how much he loves his sister and everything she does makes him laugh. So here's a cute example.

Ethan 1 year update

There was too much to blog about Ethan's birthday weekend that I didn't blog about his 1 year status update. So let's see:

• He sleeps about 11 hours at night and takes 1 nap a day now (except on Saturday he usually takes 2 because he's so tired from the whole week)
• He still isn't saying too many words, though he's getting good at the "d" sounds, so he says "door" and "Dora" and "dah" for doggie, and "Duh" for duck. He also uses his favorite word, "No" quite often, especially directed at Blythe when she tries to snatch a toy from him.
• He's very good at walking, but can't quite get into the standing position from sitting without pulling up on something. Now that it's getting warmer out, we've also had the doors open and he's been practicing getting over the threshold without falling down.
• I think his favorite toy right now are decorative reeds we have in the dining room that he is "not allowed" to get. He loves getting them anyway and walking around with them like he has a sword.
• As you can tell from previous posts, he loves dancing and especially loves dancing with Daddy.
• Speaking of Daddy, Ethan loves him. More than Blythe did at this age. He gets separation anxiety more with Daddy than with Mommy.
• He loves reading books and he especially likes turning the pages.
• He now has 7 teeth. After about 2 months of drooling like a fool and me thinking number 7 was on it's way, it has finally come through.
• He doesn't like the daylight savings time change so much. Now his room is dark when he wakes up so he cries in the mornings.

So anyway, that's a pretty good recap. He is now on his 4th day in the Toddler room at daycare and LOVES it. He just walks right in and he could care less that we leave him there. He has been napping better in that room than he did in the nursery, but must be much more active because he is TIRED (and cranky) in the evenings. He also has his never-ending runny nose, but what else is new?

I don't have his stats (height, weight, etc) because he doesn't go to the doctor until next Tuesday. When I called like a month ago, they said that was their earliest opening. Whatever.

Ethan's 1st birthday

This might be a long blog post as I have a whole weekend of festivities to blog about! About 6 minutes after I finally finished cleaning the whole house, my mother-in-law, my mom, and my sister arrived. I forced my mom and sister to attend a Zumba class with me and although they almost passed out and were quite sore the next day, they reluctantly agreed that it was "lots of fun". Later that day, we attended the long-awaited puppet show at the day care. For those of you lucky unfortunate souls who missed it, here is a video clip.

Later that evening, after a trip to Michael's to buy (what turned out to be the wrong) cake decorating icing colors kit, we got started on creating the Elmo cake masterpiece. Blythe helped by cracking the eggs and licking the bowl.

Yes, that's right - she can crack eggs. Girl's got some skills. She cracks them one handed and has never gotten a shell in the bowl. I have absolutely no idea where she learned this talent.

After we got the cake baked, I finally discovered that the food coloring we bought was the wrong one. Apparently, even though it said Sesame Street on it and had a picture of Elmo, it was actually for Abby Cadaby. It was getting late anyway, so we decided to run to the store in the morning and finish it then. 3 hours of decorating on Saturday morning and we finally had an Elmo cake. Here's a pic of my mom painstakingly creating individual stars to show texture on the cake:

So after 4 hours of cake making, $13 on a cake pan, $5 on the wrong food coloring, $4 on the right food coloring, $4 on icing, and $2 on cake mix, here is the finished product:

Okay, so that's the reason that buying a cake might actually be a good idea (even though our masterpiece is indeed a masterpiece).

Doug and Lynette arrived with baby Ada (their first overnight trip away from home) and after a day of enjoying the ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL weather (that I actually spent picking up all of Fall and Winter's worth of dog poop from the yard - you know you're jealous), we were ready to begin Ethan's 1st birthday party! We had just a few people over and grilled out burgers and hot dogs and then reluctantly had to cut the cake. Ashley's brothers Ben and Matt had called dibs on the eyeballs, so we cut out the nose for Ethan. At first he wasn't quite sure what to do with the large piece of cake in front of him, but then he dug right in.

He totally hit the jackpot on presents from others, which is why Braden and I only got him one thing (though it was a super-duper awesome teeter totter). He also got this giant dump truck (where the $&*%^# we're going to put it...and the teeter totter...and all the other junk great gifts is another story).

On Sunday we spent the morning trying to get Blythe to finally acknowledge her new cousin Ada. At first she was hesitant:

But we finally got her to come around. We then enjoyed a walk to the playground to enjoy the weather a bit more and got a few pics there as well.

In other/related news, Braden and I are the proud new godparents of Ada Lynn Mittendorf. We are so happy and excited about this new role!

Thanks to everyone who was a part of our great weekend! We had a blast (even though my house looks like I never cleaned it in the first place).

Blythe's vocabulary

The last couple of blogs have been about Ethan, so I thought I'd share a bit about Blythe. She does great with her vocabulary, but there are a few things she still can't say quite right. One example, the word "cute" comes out as "quoot". It's so funny when we go clothes shopping. She walks around going from rack to rack picking something out and she'll say, "Mom, this is quoot", "I like this...it's quoot". Another example - the word "girl" comes out as "gwail". When describing our dogs, she'll tell people that "Juni is a gwail and Bogie is a boy".

She also has a southern accent, which I really don't know where she picked up. Ethan is a "little may-an" (little man). One of her favorite things to eat is "ass cream" (ice cream).

Anyway, just a few funny tidbits. Her class at school made sock puppets last week and today at 3:30 they have a puppet show. Should be interesting (actually, probably not really). I may be able to break out the camera. We'll see.

Speaking of Dancing...

Ethan Dances

Okay, I've had enough of the cold weather. It's March now, which means it's supposed to be warmer (or at least not in the single digits at night!). Good news though (especially for those of you heading up here this weekend for Ethan's birthday) - supposed to be 70 on Saturday and 72 on Sunday!!!! Because it's Wednesday though and still freaking cold, you guys might be able to catch a glimpse of our "friendly" snowman before he melts.

Yep - my little man is going to be 1 on Saturday and officially a "toddler". What happened to my baby? This morning as I was preparing breakfast, he followed Blythe into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard a few "exchanges" ("No Ethan!" "Dah!"), but other than that they seemed to be fine. After a minute or so I went to check. Blythe had just flushed the toilet and Ethan was sticking his hand in the toilet. So gross.

He also likes to dance these days. He either sways back and forth to the music or will stand in one place and do torso twists. Of course, everytime I break out the camera, he stops. But I did catch him one time.

Snow Day

Braden is home. Yay! Just in time for our big snowfall of the season. Typically this area gets quite a bit of snow during the winter (and Spring..yuck), but the last few years have been light on snow. So yesterday it snowed several inches during the day. Blythe got all her gear on:

and she and Braden went outside to build a snowman (which she later named "Friendly"... I think she meant to name it "Frosty" but she forgot his name). While they were building the snowman, I layered up Ethan in about 8 layers of clothes since he has no real winter gear. I put him in snow boots that were 3 sizes too big and some pink mittens, since I left his blue ones at day care. At least I was smart enough to buy blue snow boots for Blythe back then. So since Ethan couldn't walk so well in all that, I had to carry him around, which meant I was unable to get any pictures or video of the snowball fight with the neighbors, the "biggest snowball ever", or the sledding action (in which Ethan participated and did several rolls through the snow).

After that, it continued to snow and snow and snow and snow some more. So we woke up to this:

And no day care. Crap. At least Braden was home now to help watch the kids and shovel the driveway.

Fortunately, it has stopped snowing. And although it only made it up to about 22 degrees today, the sun was out which helped melt it off of the streets and it's now clear enough to even see the moon.