February in Florida

We're in Florida! Jeff's mom, brother, aunt, uncles and cousins were getting together in CA, so we decided to head south to spend some time with my parents. We were going to fly (the kids, Tyson and me) on a buddy pass from my aunt, but the flights kept filling up, so I finally got so frustrated with the flights that we just hopped in the car and drove. One would think it would be nearly impossible to drive 8 hours with two kids by yourself, but they made it easy. I actually enjoyed the "break" of sitting by myself for 8 hours and listening to the radio. We left at noon, Ellen slept for 2 hours, we stopped after 4 hours for lunch (the hardest part of the whole trip), the kids fell asleep around 7, and we arrived at 8. Lucas watched Tom and Jerry for 8 hours. I was so surprised... we'll have to do this more often.

I planned on coming to FL to escape the winter weather in Raleigh, but it's the coldest Feb that FL has seen in 28 years... nice. We headed to the beach today. It was chilly, but we were bundled up and it was so refreshing to be outside in the fresh air.

Binky Heaven

I washed all TWELVE of Ellen's pacifiers (binky) and set them out to dry in a tupperware container. She found them and reacted as if it were a bowl of jellybeans... so happy to have so many binkies in one place!

Circa 1998

There was a game on Valentine's Day game on Facebook where you posted a picture of you and your significant other and said how long you've been together. I posted this picture of Jeff and me from Fall 1998. We had just started dating that summer and were on a trip with his fraternity when this picutre was taken.

Valentine's Day!

A litlte bit of love in the morning...

Valentine's for LB's class... Spiderman cards with suckers

Me with my Heart Breaker

... and with our tiny heart breaker... not too happy : )

Dress Up Fun

Such a big helper...

Ellen is so smart! I think I'm surprised because she still seems like a baby to me with her small size (still wearing size 12 months at 16 months old) and lack of hair. I am pretty sure that she understands everything we say and can communicate what she wants to us either through sign language, words or other actions. She seems like she is going to be a clean and organized person.

* If she gets a tiny piece of dirt on her foot or hands she looks at us with a sour look on her face and says, "owwwwwwww" until we help her remove the dirt. She does the same thing if she gets food on her hands.

* When we go upstairs she insists that the gate at the top of the stairs is closed, and she also insists on doing it herself.

* She always takes her diaper to the trash after we're through changing her.

Cupcakes with Lincoln

Lincoln came over and we made Valentine cupcakes... always a lot of fun!

Partners in Crime

I am not sure what Tyson gives Ellen in return, but she helps him out a lot. If you can't tell, she's climbed into the chair to get to his cookies and then has thrown a few for him on the floor.

Ellen with Friends

Ba and Ellen (Wendy's mom)

Wendy, Caroline, Ba, Ellen

Ellen and John (Christopher's Dad)

Mommy Time

I've noticed lately how much more attention Ellen gets than Lucas - because she's a baby and demands it. Don't get me wrong, Lucas gets plenty, but Ellen gets more. Lucas has started asking me to hold him in the mornings because he knows this is when Ellen also likes to be held. I'm trying to comply. Ellen also gets a lot more attention in public... because babies are so darn cute. The smart strangers turn and talk to Lucas after going on about Ellen for 5 minutes, but I wonder if he notices that they all give her attention first.

Puzzle Master

Lucas still loves puzzles. We got him USA and World floor puzzles for Christmas - both have been keeping him busy for weeks. He knows where Grandma lives, where SaSa and Grandpa live, where Ty and Wesley live, where Jeff used to live (Texas) and where Jeff just flew to on a big airplane (CA).

When it snowed we needed something more challenging to pass the time (while we attempted to work), so we got him this 100pc puzzle with lots of little details and small pieces. It took him and I an hour to put it together (so much for working), and he loved every minute of it. He gets this from Jeff - I hate puzzles.

Little Bits

Ellen, nearly 16 months old. Tyson, 6 years old.

Working

This is a picture from when it snowed and preschool was closed for FOUR days. Karen was still able to come and watch Ellen, so we occupied Lucas by having him "work" beside me for an hour each morning... PBS Kids games... he loves it and is really good at them.

Snow, Round 2

Is snowed AGAIN in Raleigh yesterday. It was really nice though... perfect snowball and snowman snow, no snow on the streets, and able to drive around. Lucas and Jeff built Lucas's very first snowman!

Lucas's first snowman!

Who needs a top hat?

The trees were so pretty...

Ellen had to wear LB's shoes over her PJs.

Lovin' it...

Mommy's Helper

Just like Lucas, Ellen likes to help out in the kitchen. This week she made her first dish - corn bread muffins...

Tea

The kid agrees with his daddy that my coffee is gross, but they both like my tea. Lucas likes chamomile, cooled by ice, with honey.

Nerds

Lucas and Ellen play together a lot now... and they are so silly. At dinner one night Jeff and I were sitting right across from them, but were having a conversation (for once) and didn't notice their little game. We heard them giggling, so we looked over to find this...

Loop Hole

Ellen has found a loop hole in our new sleeping style. She doesn't want to nurse, but she wants to be on top of me or nestled in the crook of my arm while she sleeps. For me, this is better than nursing, but not ideal because I still can't stretch out or get totally comfortable.... but on the other hand there isn't much that is sweeter than cuddling with her all night. I told you she was smart : )

Ellen and Caroline

Caroline was born on Ellen's 7 month birthday, so she is now 8 months old and old enough to interact with Ellen. Wendy and I have told them that they are going to be great friends, just like their big brothers - Charles and Lucas : )

Serious Work

Lucas is so serious when he is working on something. Here he is playing pbskids.org games.., his favorite games are the Curious George ones...

Shoes

Ellen is staying true to her gender's stereotype and loving the shoes. She's drawn to any size, color or style. She'll try to put them on herself, and is often successful with the bigger ones, or will take them to their owner.

Smart Girl

In a follow up to yesterday's post, Miss Ellen has not nursed at night for the past two nights. Hip, hip, hooray! A few nights ago I was awake in bed with an aching back because of the weird position that I was in. So the next night after Ellen nursed before bed I told her that the milk was going night-night. We told the milk good night and waved to my chest. That night when she woke up she asked to nurse, but when I reminded her that the milk had gone night-night she took her binky and her bunny and cuddled in my arms as I rocked her to sleep. She still woke up 4-5 times, but each time allowed me to either rock her, pat her back, or cuddle with her instead of nursing. Last night was the same, except that she woke up and played around in her room for about an hour. This was kind of annoying, but I drifted in and out of sleep as she did this... I could have forced her into my arms and rocked her, but I wanted to see what she would do. She finally came to me with her binky and bunny and threw herself on top of me, so I picked her up to rock her. She then tugged at the back of my shirt and I realized that she wanted to lie down in the bed instead of being rocked.. so we did and she went right to sleep. What a smart little girl. I thought I was "stuck" nursing her for 3yrs at night, but I just told her that I didn't want to anymore and she accepted it with no complaints.

Stuffing it in...

In an effort to get Ellen to eat more solids, and not as much mommy's milk at night, we're getting creative with how we get her to eat. She's not a horrible eater. She'll sit in the high chair for every meal, but prefers to feed herself, which means that she misses her mouth a lot, feeds Tyson who is begging beside her, or gets bored and plays with the food instead. We've figured out that she'll do anything that her hero, Lucas, is doing. This is gross, but I made a box of macaroni and cheese the other day and they ate the whole box between the two of them! I had some stuff on the table, so I just sat on the floor and took turns giving them bites. Ellen was almost diving at me with a wide open mouth in an effort to get just as much as Lucas was getting... and of course Lucas was doing the same. It reminded me of when I was a kid on a road trip with my family. My parents would get us one coke to share, so we'd all gulp down as much as possible when it was our turn... not really enjoying it, but making sure that we didn't get jipped. Anyway, whatever it takes to get the little bird to eat...

First Snow of the Season

On Saturday it snowed... and snowed and snowed and snowed. Well, it seemed like a lot to this Georgia girl. I'd say all in all it was about 4 inches. It was a peaceful winter wonderland when we peeked out of our windows on Saturday morning. Jeff and I thought it looked better from inside the warm house, but Lucas had other ideas. So we bundled up in our not-so-warm snow clothes and went out for the first time that day... it was so pretty.


See what I mean? Bags on the shoes... not too cool.

The first time we went out it was still snowing heavy, wet flakes and it was COLD.

Lucas loved it until his hands and feet got cold (about 45 min), but Ellen didn't seem to think it was that big of a deal at all...

Everything was WHITE!

Even Tyson was enjoying playing with the neighbor's dog...

Then Finn, Will and Ele came outside for a while. Lucas liked having his buddy to play with him...

The second time we went out was with our friends Marie, Olivier and Tikki. By this time the flakes had turned into something a little less solid and it seemed to be getting colder. Lucas lasted about 30 min this time around.

The THIRD time we enjoyed the snow that day was later in the afternoon when Kelly and Lincoln paid us a visit. By that time some of our neighbors had gathered in the street and it was a lot more festive. We didn't have a sled, but Mr. Craig had bought a plastic pail... which didn't really work that well, but good enough for these two kiddos...

This time I bundled Ellen up and didn't let her touch the snow. She didn't mind.

Cute little stinkers.

Mr. Craig's ride...

It didn't slide unless we pulled it, but like I said, good enough for the boys.

Mr. Craig kept trying though...

Hug break with Ms. Kelly!

Ahhhhh. This is how the first snow day ended. Bliss.

The second morning of snow was BEAUTIFUL. The skies were blue, the air was crisp and the snow had frozen a little so that we could enjoy sledding on it. We waited until Ellen was sleeping and then went out for about 2 hours. It was SO MUCH FUN!

Here is Jeff sledding on our neighbors disk sled.

And here is Will trying to get Emma to be his snow dog... didn't really work out for him.

I think this is Jeff and Lucas... Tyson loved chasing them down the hill.

See? He was in heaven.

Our neighbor, Gretchen, was so nice to push and pull Lucas on the sleds...

Later that afternoon we met Lincoln and fam at the park to check out the hills there. It was starting to melt, but was good enough for these two guys...

The Lady Bird made it out for this one... still not a huge fan, but so cute : )

They were acting so silly!

It got to the point where they'd make it half way down the hill and then dive of and fall-slide the rest of the way down the hill. Lucas' face was bleeding and he didn't even notice.

By the third day, we were all over the snow. The schools were closed, however, so we had Lincoln over for an afternoon play date. These two are such great friends... I love them together!

This was SO funny. They wanted to watch t.v., so I said they could watch the Chinese Education tape that SaSa got us. Teaches kids some basic Chinese words. After a few of the words were spoken they were tickled. Then after each word, like the Chinese word for "apple", they'd repeat the word and then die laughing together. So freakin cute.

Today, Wednesday marked day 5 of the snow and the schools are still closed. Tomorrow they are delayed 2 hours, which means we'll keep Lucas home again. We're having fun spending more time together, are getting cabin fever. We hear it's supposed to snow again this wknd... so maybe more fun soon.