Month: April 2010

Today was gorgeous. I filled the water table during Alex’s nap so it wouldn’t be quite so cold. He headed straight for it when we walked out the backdoor:

I was talking to my mom on the phone during part of our time outside and not paying as close attention to Alex as I should. This is what happened (remember the new favorite frog I mentioned a few days ago?):

He is now drying out in the kitchen and Alex gets upset every time he sees him and can’t have him.

First Abram and Amber came to our house. Abram loved Alex’s new roller coaster. Then we went to Abram’s house. The boys were too cute riding in the cars. According to Abram the red one is a firetruck and the blue one is a police car.

Alex was intrigued by the sandbox and played in it for a few minutes. Then he started eating the sand so out he came.

We ended the day with kisses and giggles with Madison:

I saw Alex do two new things today.
1.) He figured out how to ride his lion. I have no idea how he got on, but there he was when I turned around. (And he did it three more times during the day).

2.) He attached himself to a new stuffed animal. He saw it sitting on a shelf, grabbed it, and hasn’t put it down all day. I tried to put it on the counter (in view) while he ate lunch and a fit ensued so frog is eating too:

Maren brought Elise and Mariel for a visit today. Elise loved all the “new” toys and kept showing Alex how to play with them. Alex was pretty laid back about the entire thing.

Alex was grumpy this morning and wouldn’t put down his sippy cup of milk. Thank goodness he at least got interested in a game of peek-a-boo:

This afternoon Alex discovered the hole in the side of the pie safe:

Wade and I spent all day at an adoption workshop (An hour was great. The other six hours were not so great). Alex spent the day with a babysitter. We got home just in time to feed him dinner (he loves ham) and give him his bath before bedtime:

Alex wasn’t shy about letting me know he wanted his milk:

And he was quite content when he got it:

Amber and Abram organized a trip to the Betty Brinn’s Children Museum and Alex and I were excited to tag along. What wonderful place! It’s full of pretend play areas (house, garden, grocery, florist, auto shop, post office, bank, news room), learning centers, toys, and much more. Alex is a little too young to appreciate the pretend play, but he still found pots to bang and bottles in the mechanic shop:

Then Abram drove Alex in the ambulance and we ended the morning with the golfball tracks:

After a really long afternoon nap, Alex managed to get ahold of my apple. He seemed to enjoy it so much I let him keep it.

It is much easier to keep track of what Alex does in a day than what I do. First he packed his bag for Mother’s Day Out:

After MDO, he had a snack of water and dried apricots:

Then we played outside on the roller coaster:

Alex didn’t sleep very well last night and it caught up with him around 5 so off he went to bed really early.

I turned 31 today, but most of my celebrating was done yesterday. I got lots of wonderful presents and birthday wishes.
We started the morning with breakfast muffins – courtesy of Judy. Pretty shortly after that Alex and I had to take Granny and Pop to the airport. Saying goodbye is hard:

Judy and Jerry left a wonderful present for Alex – a water table. We spent a large part of the afternoon getting all wet:

Wade ran home to finish packing before leaving for Philadelphia. Alex and I celebrated the rest of my birthday with an early bedtime for him and a movie with a big piece of chocolate cake for me.

Wade and I planned our day in Nashville all around food. We had breakfast at Waffle House and lunch at Mellow Mushroom. I didn’t feel at all silly carrying onto the plane my leftover chocolate cake and my leftover calzone – guess what’s for dinner tomorrow night! We arrived in Milwaukee just in time for dinner. Alex seemed a little unsure of us and happy to stay in Pop’s arms:

Bathtime is always happy time, but getting dressed is not:

Today was Grandma’s funeral. We celebrated her life with stories and pictures before saying good-bye:

After a potluck dinner at the church, Melissa, Chris, Wade, and I loaded up the cars for a drive to Nashville. My sneaky husband even planned an early birthday cake (yummy chocolate cake from Cheesecake Factory) for me (he is flying out on my birthday):

Most of today was spent traveling. Wade and I woke up much too early for a vacation day to drive to Raleigh. We flew to Charlotte and then to Nashville. Chris (my brother-in-law) picked us up at the airport and drove us to Paducah. We arrived just in time to see Mom and Melissa before the funeral visitation.

Then the entire family came back to Mom’s house for a late dinner and some family time.

Instead of five days in the Outerbanks, we now had one. We started the day with a tour of the tallest brick light house – Cape Hatteras Lighthouse,

had lunch at a local place called Buxton Munch (great crab wraps),

took a nice long nap,
did some dress clothes shopping at the one department store – Belk,
took a short hike through the Nags Head Woods Preserve (in flip flops),

walked the beach and dunes,

had dinner at Ortega’z (I can never pass up Mexican),
and then hunted a few geocaches (treasure hunting for adults using GPS).
The only thing we would have included if we had another day would have been hang gliding school.

Wade and I arrived in Raleigh, NC and rented a car for our drive to the Outerbanks. We checked into our bed and breakfast, the Cameron House Inn (An awesome Craftsman-style house):

We went for a walk around Manteo and followed a recommendation for a seafood dinner. Then I got the news that my grandmother had passed away. We knew she wasn’t doing well when we left Milwaukee, but it was sad to hear. Grandma was 93 years old.

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook the bride and groom (Rob and Sarah) saw that we were in town a few days early and invited us to watch the sunset at Jockey Ridge State Park. The dunes are amazing!

It was great to see some old friends and let Rob and Sarah know we had tried really hard, but were going to have to miss the wedding. We spent the rest of the evening making plans to get to Paducah on Saturday.

Granny and Pop arrived today for a long visit while Wade and I travel to a wedding in North Carolina. Alex snuggled up while Granny read to him before bedtime:

Alex sure loves his bath and to think he used to hate it.

If I had known the car seat would have been so entertaining I would have brought it in the house much earlier. (I know it’s dirty. We brought it in for a cleaning.)

Alex was a rock star for this car ride. He got two good naps and I had a peaceful drive.

Alex loved the new toys Gram had in her garage. (We love the hand-me-downs from Leigh Ann’s twins!)

No trip to Paducah is complete without Gram feeding Alex chocolate chip cookies:

Alex and I are on the road today. He wasn’t too happy about being in his car seat for 8 hours and only took two 30 minute naps. He looks so sweet when he is napping, doesn’t he?

We are making a somewhat unplanned trip to Paducah to see my Grandmother. She has been moved from assisted living to a nursing home. No one is exactly sure what happened, but it appears she had a stroke. She’s not eating or talking. I knew she would be unresponsive but I was still surprised at the change from my last visit in February.

Alex played with Elise today. Elise is a year older and found it hard to share with a one year old. She did really well showing him how to move the blocks and didn’t mind when he wanted to play in her kitchen:

Mariel was a happy baby while we were there and happy to look at the camera (unlike the other two):

And my biggest laugh of the day:

I tried to explain how an onion is different from an apple, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Alex definitely likes things a certain way. His favorite sleeping position is on his stomach with a fuzzy blanket under his head, a small blanket in his hand, and another covering him up.

Now that I use the nicer camera, I use Photoshop a lot more to edit my photos. Wade’s still always look better, but I am learning. My favorite part is I can remove drool, stains, blemishes and in this photo even Madison’s head. Can you tell where it was?

Here’s the before: