Spring Breaking

March 15, 20131 Comment

This past week was spring break for Bay (why preschoolers need a break, I’ll never know) and it happen to coincide with one of the busiest weeks I’ve ever had with the water company. To say that I am exhausted is an understatment. The good news is that with a little sleep training, the big guy has been sleeping amazingly. So while mentally falling apart, at least I’m getting more consecutive hours of sleep than I’ve seen in almost six months.

I recap our week in pictures:

Train Park fun – could someone tell me where those legs came from??!

Not totally sure about the sand

90 degree heat never looked so cute

Perfection.

Fun with the sprinklers in the backyard. Please disregard the dead plants – I’ve decided if it’s going to be 94 degrees today, it’s probably not going to freeze again – so I’m trimming this weekend. Fingers crossed. Focus on how lovely the grass looks! Oh and the cute kids!

This is what happens when you’re too small to fight off your sister…

It’s really too bad that we don’t have enough Little People to make AN ENTIRE CITY WITH TWO SCHOOL BUSES AND SAFARI CARS

Auggie patiently listening to his singer songwriter sister

Meet Matthew

March 8, 20131 Comment

I got a text from PW last weekend that said Matthew is here and he looks AWESOME. Before I could text back Who the hell is Matthew?? I realized he was talking about the damn deer he hunted in November. And by here he meant on our living room wall. And in our freezer. Yea…..

Meet Matthew

Matthew is named after our friend and the guide of the hunt. It’s an homage to the great tracker that he is. Baylor is in love. She greets him when we walk in, pets him randomly throughout the day, says goodbye when we leave and is chowing down on the venison pepperoni sticks. She is, in a word, a traitor.

The Happiest of Hours

February 22, 20131 Comment

We live in a one of those weird neighborhoods where we know (and like) almost everyone on our street. Not only that, but there are a ton of kids and they have a blast playing together. Another benefit is when you get a text from a neighbor at 8am that says “Does 345 work for wine/bikes?”. The answer is yes. Yes it does.

And this is what 4 moms and 9 kids having happy hour looks like:

Riding down the street

Controlled chaos

Bay giving J a ride

The girls and the babies

Happy mommas

Berkley keeping watch

Auggie and H baby wrestling

We stayed out until Peter pulled up – it was like your mom calling you home for dinner since he arrived with Julio G’s Mexican food!

Orngen Juice

February 21, 20131 Comment

That’d be “orange juice” in Baylor speak.

Between the sudden freezing temperatures and theiving neighbors (I asked a woman to stop picking our oranges one day and her response was “Oh, I didn’t think you were using them” and then walked off with an arm full. Who does that?!) we picked all of our oranges off our two trees. I hate doing it because it’s so much more fun to pick what you want and let the rest ripen on the tree. Arg.

Anyway, I got a new juicer that was easier for Baylor to use and we set out to juice about 75 oranges this morning. She gave up after about 20 but Auggie and I made it through the rest of the bags. Three pretty bottles of juice were our prize!

Tangelos

Chef Wand and her Sous Chef Augustus

Loving the new juicer

If being cute makes you a good cook, Auggie won the James Beard Award

The final (delicious) product

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2013Leave a comment

Or as Baylor says “Balentimes” Day.

When you’re 3 1/2, nothing says love and Balentimes like barnyard animals. I sent her to school today with 22 handmade valentines – almost all of them containing pig, horse and cow stickers. I didn’t realize what she was doing until she was a few in and then I thought they were cute! Only she could get away with putting pigs on valentines.

This is the one she made for me 🙂

Auggie – 4 Months

February 13, 20131 Comment

The wild man has continued his growth spurt – 3 lbs and 3 inches these last two months! He’s now 19 lbs 26 inches – 75th and 95th respectively. I knew my shoulders hurt for a reason… He is now grabbing, holding and examining anything he can get his hands on and of course, get into his mouth. He’s getting close to sitting up without help and is desperately trying to get his swimming arms and legs coordinated enough to crawl and keep up with his cousin, Mason. Who he currently out weighs despite Mason being 6 months older.

You can really start to see the difference from his two month pictures. Those legs are stretching out!

Photography is serious,Mom

This is how he spends most of his time not in the jumper

Always angling for a better view.

Ta da!

Those wrist rolls don’t even compare to his thigh rolls – hard to decide which I love more…

Snow Day

February 8, 20131 Comment

When Peter and I lived in DC, we had no idea what we were doing when it came to freezing weather and snow. Having both grown up in AZ, we had never cleaned gutters (our desert homes didn’t even have gutters), removed hoses from the bibs before a freeze and we had no idea when you were supposed to put out salt (we actually thought you just threw it on top of the snow. That is not the case). Thankfully our landlords caught on and would let us know what to do. We also had a very nice neighbor that actually cleaned our gutters for us one fall. There was a language barrier so when we pantomimed asking to borrow his ladder, he just brought it over and got to work. We were never sure if he was being nice or if he thought we were too stupid to do the job ourselves. Our money was on the latter.

The last winter we were there, a HUGE storm was predicted – not unlike the one that is supposed to hit the Northeast today. We went to Target to stock up on supplies: salt, shovels, etc. except our cart also contained a lot of wine and a new sled. The storm hit over night and we woke up to a foot of snow. It was beautiful! We made coffee and snuggled back into bed to watch the news…only to have the power go out exactly 1 minute later. After waiting for a bit, we decided to go sledding. When we returned, still no power. We made breakfast on the grill off the deck and threw a bottle of champagne into the snow (see? our supplies were super important). We then bundled up, grabbed a dog to warm us up and read books. By 6pm there was still no power. And no heat. And no fireplace. We were woken up at 5am the next day to everything in our house coming back to life when the power came back on – we were bundled up like homeless people with both dogs under the covers.

So let this be a lesson to all you east coasters getting ready for the blizzard. Salt is all well and good, but make sure your sleds and wine supplies are stock piled too.

5pm Saturday

8am Sunday

There were steps under there somewhere

We were told icicles were bad news…I enjoyed every drop of them!

Abominable snow Travis!

We learned the hard way that the SUV should be the last one in. Trying to get the Audi over the ice berm created by the snow plow was challenging.

We couldn’t figure out where all the kids were…turns out they were waiting for the big dummies to shelp up and down the hill a few times and tamp down the snow.

What’s Wrong with This Picture?

February 5, 20131 Comment

If you guessed that the 3 1/2 year old is asleep when the 4 month old should be the one asleep, you would be correct!!

Grumpy Cat

February 1, 20131 Comment

Few things make me giggle like Tard The Grumpy Cat. He is an unfortunate looking little kitty who looks like his face is perpetually frowning and his sadistic owners take pictures and caption them with simple sayings that crack me up. This is my favorite from this last week:

He’s just so ugly, he’s cute

Jumping Bean

January 31, 20131 Comment

Auggie got a new jumper for Christmas and Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to deliver it a few weeks early and I swear the kid hasn’t left it since! He loves to bounce and spin and grab the toys. So much so that he’s worn through not one but TWO pairs of jammies. He’s literally jumping out of them!

Loving on his favorite Lamb