The girls are picking blueberries; I don’t really like blueberries. I did find this stick and IT IS AWESOME!

 

A little bit of hammock time with YaYa, Magnolia and Aunt Keira

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With a house full of toys, it is no wonder the kids want to play in the pantry while I clean out and organize it. Go figure.

The water table is KING. Heidi and Wyatt would play in it all day long till their fingers were pruny and their clothes soaked.

The baby pool makes for quick and easy fun. Sometimes we put it in the backyard and sometimes on the back porch. Either way, when we don’t feel like leaving the house, even to go up to the neighborhood pool, it is wonderful.

Cousin Christopher’s 1st birthday party was a blast! Wyatt and Christopher played well together. Heidi enjoyed getting to know the cat and was even willing to share her chips, which the cat quite enjoyed. Wyatt gazed lovingly at his cousin, Hunter. Absolutely precious. Heidi “drove” the boat in the driveway after having to get a custom bandaid to cover a bug bite she would not leave alone. After 2 hours of fun, Wyatt could not hang and fell fast asleep in Christopher’s Mom, Shannon’s arms, the second baby she put to sleep in that 30 mins. Gifted woman.

And of course, we had a great Memorial Day weekend, evidenced by the grin on my little Heidi’s face. That grin may have something to do with blueberries; they are her favorite. 😉

Ahh, April.  What a month!  We had four sets of visitors, Michael had the neck surgery he has so badly needed, we celebrated Easter and Michael’s mother had surgery.  What a month!  Did I already say that?  Here are some snapshots of our life this month, mostly inside despite the beautiful weather, because Michael’s recovery has kept us housebound. He is doing well and is better everyday but it is not a quick recovery.  Poor thing has not been allowed to lift anything over 10 lbs., raise his arms above shoulder height, take the hard collar off for more than a few minutes each day to wash his hair and shave, or drive.  As for the kids, Heidi’s vocabulary and motor skills are evidence my baby girl is no baby anymore.  She tries to say everything you do and remembers it all, can slide down the stairs and climb anything now and is becoming more and more independent.  Wyatt has mastered both army and traditional crawling styles and can pull up on anything and is starting to cruise down the couch while holding on.  He also is in the process of rejecting baby food or being fed; he too wants to do it himself.  The trouble is, he likes to savor what food makes it to his mouth, making for very lengthy mealtimes.  These new skills of his make him no less a clingy baby and as such, he happily spends a lot of time on my right hip because I can’t bear to hear the cries of anger and deep hurt when he is put down.  Enabler?  Whatever.  Right arm muscularly bigger than left?  You bet!  I can do curls with a very squirmy 22 lb weight all day long.  I can actually do curls both arms at one time, 26 lbs on one side and 22 lbs on the other.  My little Heidi looking at me with puppy dog eyes and saying “Carry you?” is hard to resist even if I am already loaded down.  No wonder all of my pants are falling off of me, too much exercise!  Good thing I don’t supplement with real exercise!  Pfft.  In an effort to remedy the pants situation, I’ve taken to eating energy and meal replacement bars when I have a minute and, you know what?  They are pretty good.  I’ve knocked them for so many years and now I know better.  Enough of this jibber jabber, here are the pics…

Messiest Eater Ever Award in combination with Best Eater Ever Award.  Seriously, I could hose him, the chair and the floor down three times a day, after every meal.

 

At least he earns his keep by helping fold the clothes.

Until break time, that is.

Post raspberry blowing.  That’s a skill I could live without.

Aunt Keira and her friend, Becky, came to visit for the Cooper River Bridge Run.  Aunt Keira brought Easter goodies and again, poor Wyatt had to wear a girl accessory.  Remember the tutu picture?  Poor kid.  Honestly, I never do it to him; it is always someone else.  I guess if he wasn’t so stinking cute they wouldn’t feel so inclined to dress him up.  It’s a good thing he is a big strong boy; Heidi won’t be able to force him to play dress up.

Heidi got some fruit cutting lessons from Aunt Keira.

Enjoying some outside play.  By the end of the afternoon, they were both soaked, as two kids playing in the water table make bigger splashes.  I had to refill it with water twice!

Wyatt loves chasing Heidi through the tunnel.

Aunt Kim and Cousin Samantha came for a visit over Samantha’s spring break.  Heidi was worn out after a morning at the beach.  Sweet girls.

Come on, Daddy, let’s play the Playstation!

He’s big time now!  Look how serious!

Mmmmm, wagon wheel.

Poor Michael.  About five days post surgery, Heidi decided she was no longer scared of his hard collar and found that the pain-medicine-induced-deep-sleep was too good an opportunity to pass up.  She put EVERY bow she has in his hair.  There were way better pictures, but he would only let me share this one.  😉  She said “Pitty, Daddy.”  (Pretty)

Sadly we missed church on Easter due to Mike having had surgery 4 days prior but the Easter Bunny did make a stop at our house.

My little fisherman caught his first marlin at 7 months old.  Has to be a world record.

Here she comes, Miss America!

Heidi demonstrates the proper use of a pillow pet.

A book that satisfies the senses of taste, sight and touch?  Now that is getting your money’s worth!

Water table fun on PJ Day.  Think he looks dirty here?

Get a load of how dirty he got!

Heidi hosted a tutorial session for Uncle Paulie.

Such a good teacher!

I guess it’s a man thing.

Gotta love a table tent!

YaYa hit a shoe sale and sent pretties in the mail!  Wyatt got his first penny loafers!  Too cute!

So many shoes, so little time!  If the price is right, buy one in every color!

Modern Day Fonzarelli.  “Whoa…Aaay”

I’m off!  Maybe next time I’ll be moving on two feet!

I love killing a few birds with one stone, multitasking.  It is my favorite!  Wyatt was quickly cutting upper teeth, which were not present at the time of his Christening.  I wanted him to look just as he did that day so we scrambled to get pictures taken of him in his gown before the upper teeth really showed in his smile.  As a bonus, he was 6 months old, so it took care of 6 month pictures and we were able to get some of Heidi.  This said, Heidi was a cranky and unwilling participant so there are very few images of her.  This is the first time I have taken the kids to a JC Penney’s portrait studio.  It was quick; we walked right in, and we had the option to purchase CD of your images, giving you the rights to them and, in turn, the ability to edit them as you would like….cropping, etc.  (You can create some fun, artsy images with the crop tool…can make so much more of a plain old posed portrait studio picture!)  We have taken them to Portrait Innovations but you don’t get such a CD.  My absolute FAVE place to go for pics?  Banner Radin…love her!  Plan to have a sitting with her for Heidi and Wyatt’s 2 and 1 year portraits, respectively, this summer.  Can’t wait! 

Well, I returned home this afternoon to find Wyatt down for a nap and Heidi enjoying solo time with our nanny, Catherine.  Such a nice treat for Heidi to have all of Catherine’s attention.  Wyatt woke up a short time later.  Upon going to collect him from his room I found the crib had something on it.  See the cream color on the edge of the crib…upper left?

As I step closer I realize there is nothing on the crib.  Quite the opposite.  There is something off of the crib.  Finish!  Non toxic stain and varnish to be exact.

Beautiful! 

I am baffled.  Has my perfect little 7 month old baby boy, Wyatt, who has just learned to pull himself up to kneeling actually learned to pull completely up, putting him at the perfect height to do such a thing?  Or did Heidi somehow climb in the crib via the stool next to it and do the damage herself?  (See prior record below.)  Nah…she couldn’t have.  Never unsupervised.  Only eats HER crib.  I laid Wyatt down and looked in his little smiling mouth to find little brown flecks of stain.  It would appear that Wyatt can indeed pull up completely and found chewing on the crib very entertaining.  I say entertaining because this was done by teeth he finished cutting long ago, like two months ago.  This is not teething relief.  This is fun.

Heidi Crib Demolition Project began:  age 14 months (current age: 21 months)

Wyatt Crib Demolition Project began:  age 7 months (current age:  7 months)

Estimated project completion date:  TBD (Project ongoing in Heidi’s crib; she has almost completed all four sides.  I expect the same for Wyatt’s crib.)

For those of you who didn’t see last year’s post…

September 15, 2010

The crib is no longer intact.

Heidi wakes up happy.  Usually I let her play for 10 minutes or so before I go get her out of her crib.  Apparently today I waited too long. 

As long as the bottle doesn’t block his view of the world around him, he will hold it, with great success. 

She might have woken up from her nap a tad too early.

Bathing suit:  check 

Swim cap:  check

Beach and pool weather:  not quite checked

Helping Daddy with work.

First boat trip of the season shared with the Lentsch family.

Wyatt’s first boat trip ever.  Yes, they wore life jackets.  These couple of pics were taken back at the dock.

Sufficiently worn out from boat trip.

Heidi closing in on the last cupcake.

She must have walked a mile just to trail the balloon behind her.

Sitting pretty.  🙂

“Score!  Swiped the bottle from Heidi’s baby doll!  Now, how do you get the milk out?”

Her future is so bright she has to wear shades.

Hanging outside.  Mommy minding kids.  Daddy washing boat.  Kiddos playing.  Perfect Saturday.

“Look Ma, one hand!”

“Hi!”

How do you tell if a princess is real or not?  Tiara upside down is a sure sign of realness!  Such a fashion trail blazer, this little girl!

“Hi Mommy!”

Smiley x 2.

He can low crawl through, over or around any obstacle.  HOOAH!

“Now freeze!”  All joking aside, he is VERY good at army crawling, but is very serious about practicing regular-style crawling.

All this learning and doing wears him out.  I’m not sure why Mikey is so tired.  Tee hee, just kidding!

Post bath, pre PJ. 

“Colou, colou, colou.”  Aww, Daddy drew a heart!

 

Heidi’s first haircut.  3-8-11  Bless Ms. Andrea!  We are such the happy little family…on the cheesy side.  Why?  We all went, all four of us, digital camera and flip video camera in hand.  Michael loves long hair and flinched with the first cut.  I thought he might cry in all seriousness.  We got back in the car after and he turned to me and said, “I thought it was just going to be a trim.”  Her bob sure is cute!