One Lucky Mama!

My birthday and Mother's Day were on the same weekend this year and I had a fantastic weekend celebrating with these two! On Saturday, Ryan was hunting so the kids and I spent the morning at the farmers' market and at the playground. We got a babysitter that night so Ryan and I could go out and enjoy some adult conversation (and beverages). We had a few drinks at the Brickyard and then met Collin & Emily for dinner at the Moon & Raven. I had been dying to eat there and my reuben did not disappoint! It was huge and I ate every. single. bite.

On Sunday, we met Ryan's family for brunch at Barrel 135. Our reservations were at 1pm so I was worried about the kids having a meltdown, but it turned out okay. It was hot, and the service was pretty terrible, but the food was good and the bottomless mimosas made it alllll okay. The best part about the day? Once we got home and put the kids down for a nap, I also got to relax and take a nap.

I am one lucky mama!

Texas Blockhouse Fish Stocking

On the first Sunday in May, we took the kids up to Texas Blockhouse for the annual fish stocking. They do them three times every year. The first is on a Wednesday and usually only a few members go up but the other two are on the weekends and it is like a big party. It is so fun for the little kids to get to "help" stock the fish in the ponds and the creeks.

We followed the fish truck and the club trucks in my car so the boys could be in their car seats. It was nice because Grant fell asleep so whenever we stopped and got out for a few minutes I could just let him snooze in his seat.

Helping Grandpa load the fish into the buckets.

Connor got to ride on the club truck for a few stops. He started crying when I pulled up behind them and he thought he had to go back in my car. He also asked when we got home if he could "ride in the back of Daddy's black truck" the next day. Um, that's a no. Sorry, kid.

It was such a beautiful day and all that fresh air and exercise had Connor fast asleep about 45 seconds after we left. He slept the whole 35 minutes home, and didn't even flinch when I carried him in the house and put him on the couch.

Meanwhile, this little one, having had a good nap in the car, was busy causing trouble while his brother was out cold!

Grant Turns 1!

I blinked, and my baby wasn't a baby anymore!

Grant turned one on April 22, 2015. I don't know if I was in denial or just disorganized/busy at work/a bad mom, but his birthday sort of snuck up on me! Ryan was away a lot in April, and so we really only had a window of about 4 hours on a Sunday in which to have Grant's party, but I think everything came together just fine. 

I decided I wanted to do a cowboy theme. I have grandiose visions in my head of planning ridiculously elaborate parties, fueled by late-night Pinterest searches, but I normally run out of time (or money) and I realize that I don't have a creative bone in my body before I can bring all of my ideas to life so these poor kids are usually stuck with half-assed attempts at homemade birthday parties! 

The boys in their western finest before the guests arrived.

I'm not sure what I was thinking scheduling the party to start at 1pm, which is precisely the time the kids go down for a nap on the weekend, but oh well. By the time everyone was finished eating and was ready for cake, poor Grant could hardly keep his eyes open. 

Still waiting, Mom...

Not quite sure how I feel about this, but I'll give it a try.

Not too bad, I think I like it...

Cowboy hats make everything better...

Um, do i have to eat it ALL?

What a difference 10 minutes and some sugar makes! Grant got a second wind and was all smiles the rest of the day.

We had such a fun day celebrating with our family and close friends. Grant is a very lucky little boy!

Grant's actual birthday fell on a Wednesday this year. They made a big fuss over him at daycare, and I left work a little early so that we could all celebrate together.

I had to wake the birthday boy up in the morning!

Birthday selfie! How on earth has a year passed since we took our first one together?!?!

Ryan got Grant a little cupcake at the grocery store and this time he was well rested and ready to rock! No hesitation this time. I think Connor singing "Happy Birthday" in the background is adorable!

Grant had his one year check-up a few days after his birthday. His stats:

• He weighs 24 lbs. 4 oz. (70%)
• He is 31.5" (91%)

He is a big, healthy boy! He has more than tripled his weight since his birth (there is a very good possibility that all the cake he ate the week before pushed him over that 3x birth weight milestone). He has been crawling for several months but just doesn't seem to want to take off running. He walks holding on to furniture, or cabinets, or my hand but isn't overly motivated to take his own steps. Some days I wish he would just start walking because it will be two less appendages with which to collect dog hair off the floor AND he gets REALLY heaving lugging him around everywhere, but at the same time I know once he starts walking, he'll never look back and the thought of two of them running around is terrifying! 

Grant has always been a great eater and has done a terrific job of transitioning to real people food. He loves chicken, mac 'n cheese, cereal bars, avocados, blueberries, cheese, waffles, etc. Actually, he'll pretty much eat anything you put in front of him, just like his Mama! I have been working on transitioning him to a sippy cup, which I dreaded because I felt like I spent about $500 trying to find one that Connor liked, and then another $500 to buy a lifetime supply of that cup after he found one he liked, but I bought one for Grant to try the other day and he used it like a champ! 

His "talking" is mostly just babbling, but he's quite vocal. We're working on "hi," "ball," "dog," etc. I can't wait until he and Connor can talk to each other! 

Easter (and a few weeks before, and a few weeks after)

Here's what we were up to in the second half of March and first half of April:

Happy St. Patrick's Day from my favorite little leprechaun! I unfortunately did not get a picture of Connor in the morning because Ryan took him to school early but I can assure you he had green on!

Here's Connor, two years earlier, in the same shirt!

The cold weather just seemed to drag on, and on, and on this year. There was one week that it was slightly less cold, so we took advantage of it and got outside for a walk. I'm pretty sure it snowed 6 inches the following day!

The boys had their spring school pictures taken and I laugh every time I look at it. I remember the horrors of school pictures - you have no idea what you are going to look like but you have to spend all this money to get them and the anticipation is excruciating! Thankfully, they are able to get them taken together and I just get the digital image on a CD so I can print as many or as few as I need.

Easter was fun this year. We went to Ryan's dad the day before Easter. He and Ruth organized an egg hunt for the kids and it was Connor's first time participating in one. It took him a while to get the hang of it, and that you don't stop to eat the candy each time you pick up an egg, but it was fun to watch him get so excited each time he found one. 

Grandpa is the only one who looks happy in this picture!

Too much fun and excitement. I didn't mind him falling asleep and taking a little nap while I was holding him, until my arm fell asleep after an hour. Meanwhile, these two were having fun causing trouble:

Caught you!

The Easter Bunny came to our house and Connor had a great time looking for his and Grant's baskets. By far the highlight of the Bunny's gifts (besides the peanut butter eggs, which Connor still talks about two months later and I can't say I blame him) was the basketballs to replace the one the dogs chewed up and deflated. We got a four pack, so we should be good for a while! 

Easter dinner at Gramma's.

Oh that face!

The weekend after Easter Ryan was hunting turkey in Oklahoma and I figured I had given my parents a good three weeks to recover from their adventures in babysitting, so I took the boys down for the weekend. The weather was beautiful and the boys loved being outside. 

Day 1: His job was to go around the yard and pick up sticks. He even has his own work hat, but I'm not sure what the fact that it is advertising Miller Lite says about us as parents/grandparents!

Day 2: Helping Pop-pop plant grass seed. At first I wondered if they were paying my kid for his labor, but then I realized that he made a royal mess so I should just be thankful that he wasn't fired!

Work was quickly abandoned in favor of bubbles and sidewalk chalk!

Next year he'll have two helpers!

We took a trip to Happy Hallow, the playground where I grew up, and also where I worked every summer during high school. A lot has changed, but it brought back good memories. I was disappointed that the "big slide" wasn't there any more, although I suppose it was probably a little too dangerous, especially when sheets of wax paper were used to make it faster!

These two recently discovered the joys of riding in the "race car" cart together. While it is nice to have them both contained and entertained, it means I often have to drive aimlessly around the Wegman's parking lot so I can find a cart return with one of these special carts in it!

We had a very busy spring, and it doesn't look like it is going to slow down any time soon! I can't believe the next post I'll write will be about my baby turning 1 already!!! 

Cruising

In March, the boys got to spend a week with their grandparents while Ryan and I went on vacation! Ryan had signed up for a course which was, conveniently, being held on a cruise ship. I suppose one of the perks of owning your own practice is that you can basically pick a place where you would like to go on vacation, and then find a CE course and write the whole thing off as a business expense! Ryan's brother, Collin, and his wife, Emily, also went, so we were thankful that there was at least one other couple on the ship who were not dependent on motorized scooters.

We got an early start to Wyomissing on Saturday, March 8th. After visiting for a bit and giving some instructions, which basically consisted of "as long as you keep them alive, you're doing a good job, we're not too picky," we headed to the Philly airport. I couldn't tell if I felt more nervous/sad or excited about leaving the kids but the ride to the airport seemed endless and I knew that once we finally got there and got checked in I'd feel much more relaxed.

When we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we went to the hotel where Collin and Emily were already waiting for us. We had some drinks and apps (I actually ate a few oysters!) at the hotel bar before heading out for dinner. I love, love, LOVE Ft. Lauderdale. We had a great time that night and I was happy to hear that my parents (and kids) survived the first night. The next morning, Ryan's sister Allison drove down from Jupiter, FL, to have brunch with us. As a bonus, she dropped us off at the cruise terminal afterwards!

Our cruise was with Holland America. We had a day and a half at sea before our first stop in Turks & Caicos. It was okay there, but I don't think that Grand Turk is really anything more than a cruise port. The beach was beautiful and the snorkeling was great, but there wasn't a whole lot in terms of a town. We actually ended up at the Margaritaville, which worked out well because they had a nice pool area, and free wifi, so I got to briefly facetime with the boys. Our next stop was Puerto Rico. We had been there on each of our previous cruises so to be honest, we weren't overly excited and debated even getting off the boat, but I'm so glad we did because I think it was one of my favorite days on the trip! We ate lunch at a very local, non touristy restaurant and then just walked around some of the streets of Old San Juan, admiring the architecture. When we got thirsty from all that walking, we stopped at the coolest hotel, El Convento, and had the best pina coladas I've ever had in their courtyard while we waited out a rainstorm. We had an amazing dinner at a ceviche restaurant and somehow ended up at Senor Frogs, where "ladies drink free, for $5." That was not the highlight of my trip, for sure, as the "free" drinks consisted of 3 choices from a separate bar. It was eerily reminiscent of when our moms took us to Cancun after we graduated high school, except we were the oldest people in there by a minimum of 10 years.

Dinner on the ship

We left Puerto Rico at 11pm and arrived in St. Thomas the next morning. We had been to St. Thomas on our honeymoon and loved it so we were excited to go back. The first time we were there we spent the day at Maegan's Bay. We were going to go back there this year but the cab drivers swindled us into going to Coki Beach. I'm pretty sure that the "owners" of the beach pay the cab drivers to funnel people there. It was nice, but not as pretty as Maegan's Bay. It started to get really crowded after a few hours so we headed back into town to get some lunch and do some shopping (diamonds!)!

We had a day at sea and then a final stop at the cruiseline's private island, Half Moon Cay, in the Bahamas. It was pretty much just a beach so we weren't off the ship too long. By that point, I think we were all ready to wrap up vacation - I know I missed the boys and had gotten more than my money's worth out of the free beverage package! I was so happy to get this message from Connor towards the end of the trip:

 Overall it was a fun time, but I don't think I'd cruise on Holland America again. We prefer Celebrity or Royal Caribbean. Holland America's food/menu choices weren't nearly as good as Celebrity's, and the clientele were entirely too close to death a little older than we'd prefer to hang out with. But, a vacation is a vacation, and it is always nice to get away, enjoy some food, drinks, and sunshine. We were so excited to get back to the boys though.

I'm not sure the boys were ready to come home! They have more fun at Nana and Pop-pop's than our house! They were certainly busy while we were away.  One day they went to see the Clifford the Big Red Dog exhibit at the Reading Public Museum. Connor reads those books at school so he was really excited to go.

My dad took Connor to the fire station to see the trucks one of the days and he looks like he loved it! 

They also (bravely) took both kids to "the restaurant" multiple times, grocery shopping, and to the mall to throw pennies in the fountain. I think they did more than "keep them alive," and we were so thankful that they were able and willing to take such good care of the boys. But, they did look tired and happy to see us (my dad was practically loading the laundry baskets in our car before we could even get out) so they could get back to their normal, quiet routines. I'm pretty sure they slept for four days straight after we left!