Day at the Park

Saturday since it was so nice out we decided to go to the park for a little bit to get out of the house. It was a little cooler then we expected, but the kids had fun. I, of course, forgot my camera so you're going to have to settle for pictures from my phone.

Book Worming

I finally was able to get by the library to pick up our library card.  Our library is very small and I really hope that we will get by there more often, but a part of me has a feeling that Aiden won't be so interested in it just yet. I'll try. I'll also try to check the website for anything going on there as something to do. Either way Rebecca came with me on the 23rd since she had to stay home from daycare because of her eye. Which turned out to be just what I thought it was- nose drainage. Thanks daycare for making me waste a vacation day. Though I did get a lot done around the house.

Back to the library. The big reason I signed up for a card is because we can get discount tickets for other attractions. There is a smaller aquarium near us that I want to go to on a day when it is junky outside.

After picking up my card I  headed downstairs to the children's area. I wanted to check out the place and Rebecca had a little fun running around since we were the only ones there. However it was "fun" trying to keep her from doing her favorite thing...pulling all the books off the shelves and throwing them on the floor.

 reading makes me very thirsty.

 running through the stacks.

 what should i read now?

All About Rebecca

In think about what I wanted to write today the thought came to my mind about Rebecca last night in the bathtub wih her playing with her toys. She definitely has her favorite bath toys (the squirt fish) so I figured that I would do a post about her. Later in the week I will do one about Aiden.

NAME- Rebecca Brynn
AGE- 13.5 mos
WT- 18lbs 13oz
EYES- Brown
HAIR- Brown
FAVORITE MEAL- Raviolis or scrambled eggs
FAVORITE SNACK- yogurt or yogurt bites
FAVORITE TOY- the phone that came with the toy my sister gave her for her birthday
FAVORITE COLOR- Purple. It may seem early for this, but she seems to gravitate towards anything purple.
FAVORITE CHARACTER- Mickey or Minnie Mouse
No. OF WORDS- not so many. I thought she would be a talker since she is a girl, but she is also a second child so everything is "dee". You just have to know the context of when she is using it to know what she means. She definitely understands what you say to her though. Her new word is "uh oh" so there are a lot of things being dropped lately.
FAVORITE ACTIVITY- Going out side on the swings.

She is definitely starting to come into her own person. She gets mad when you tell her that she can't do something. Her big thing right now is that she likes to hand things to you. When she does something she smiles and claps her hands in praise of herself. I think the funniest thing that she does right now is when she walks through the gate in the kitchen she will turn around and close it. Its usually closed to keep her in the family room so she knows that it is suppose to be closed. She is very much a Daddy's girl. If Aiden does something that she does not like she will ball up her fist, raise it in the air and yell at him. Then she will look to see if we are around and she comes complaining to us. If we tell her "no" then she will arch her back, and let out a complain. Sometimes she will even throw herself on the grown on her belly and kick out her legs in a mini tantrum.

The Next Stage of Growing up

So I guess we've hit the point where there are some aspects and things that kids do that make you wonder if they are a toddler or are they a teenager. That being said we've hit the next stage of Aiden's drive towards independence,

"I want to pick out my own clothes."

This can be pretty trying since he takes a while to decide what he wants and he also doesn't watch the weather like we adults do. For example, this morning he wanted to wear jeans. No way am I sending him to school in jeans when its suppose to be 80*+ today. We settled on a Fruit Loops shirt and tan shorts. Usually we pick out the clothes the night before to make it easier, but last night was Seth's night since I was at the gym.

I love that he wants to be more involved in his daily life. I still have a little bit of a say in what he wears, but I try to leave that mostly up to him. I still get to call all the shots with Rebecca, but those days are numbered as well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Top o' the morning to ya!!

This post is a day late not because I was slacking and didn't get my butt in gear, but because I wanted to include the photos from the Boston St. Patricks Day 5K that Seth and I participated in and the race was the day after St.Patty's day- which we didn't get any pictures. I worked my butt off to be able to run as much of the race as possible and I started to feel a little nervous when I heard people talking about the hills in the course. I, of course, had not trained for hills. I just wanted to be able to finish an entire race before I tackled hills.

The race started off on a hill. It didn;t seem like that much of a hill until you turned the corner and saw that it kept going. I made it up that hill and was able to make it all the way to the turn around point which was about 1.5miles in, at which point you then had to run back up the hill you just came down. GOOD LORD!!! That is ultimately what killed me. However, once I made it up the hill. ( I was able to run about half the way up) I was able to continue my way to the finish line.  In the end I ran 75% of the race and had a finish time of 35.40 My actual running time was 35:08. This is the time the was recorded on my number chip. So in the end I beat my goal time of 36 minutes. Probably woul dhave been closer to 30 minutes had there not been any hills.

After the race was the St. Patricks Day Parade. I have always wanted to take the kids to it, but sometimes it just seemed like a huge pain and the timing was never right. I really wanted to take them in this year since we were already going to be in Boston, but I'm glad that we skipped it this year because I was tired and we needed to shower and change. Next year we will come in for the parade and not do the race. Or we might find a more local race and parade to go to.

Saturdays Top 5 Laughs

In trying to stay on top of things this weekend here we are a day early for a change.

5.) Last Friday Seth told me to meet him at Friendly's for dinner after I picked the kids up. Ironically after we got in the car Aiden tells me that he wants to go out for dinner, before I told him that we were already going to go out to eat. I asked him where he wanted to go for dinner and he tells me that he wants to go to IHOP to get some breakfast. Then he says "No I want to go to Robin Tuesdays." ( Ruby Tuesday's) I have no idea where he got that from because it been a while since we've been there, but it was so out of the blue for him to say that.

4.) Last night when Seth was getting Aiden ready for bed they were in the bathroom brushing their teeth. Aiden was just standing there and not brushing. Seth asked him what was wrong and he got all upset saying that he couldn;t brush his teeth because he was naked and didn;t have his jammies on. He was just in underwear on his stool.

3.) The other day we were in the car and the Selena Gomez song came on the radio. Aiden proceeds to tell me the change the station. " You don't like that song Aiden?" "No I don't." I change the station and on it is Kelly Clarkson's latest song. "Thats the song I like Mommy."

2.) Rebecca has started using what I call her "curious face" more often. She will raise her eyebrows, pucker up her lips and turn her head to the side a little as if to say "what are you doing over there? I need to know."

1.) Rebecca has always been attached to her blankie. She got attached to it around 2mos old so if you even think of taking her blankie away from her she gives you the dirtiest look and screams at you.

Rainbow Cupcakes

Since St. Patricks Day is coming up I had been looking for something cute to bring to in for Aidens class. I found this idea on Pinterest. How cute!!



Rainbow cupcakes with gold frosting (I added the gold frosting for touch) . Seth thinks I was over doing myself. But....everyone is going to love them and I love putting a smile on people's face. Plus, Aiden had such a blast helping me make them. He poured the batter in the bowl. Helped pour in the water and mixed it up a bit. He chose the colors and since we made mini cupcakes we only did 3 colors.  Yes there was a little more work involved with putting the batter in the pans because you have to make sure that you don't put too much of each color, but I think they came out looking pretty good.  What do you think?

Mixing the batter

Putting the papers in the pan.

I also made these chocolate covered oreos for work. They are suppose to be on a stick so that the whole cookie is covered, but the person from pinterest failed to mention that unless you use double stuff oreos the stick splits the cookie apart. Aiden helped me put the green sprinkles. As you can see he did the ones that are heavy on the green.



Wordless Wedesday

Riding together.

...and we're off!!!

Rebecca is now a walker!!! We've made the "step" over to being a real toddler now. *sniff* Where did my baby go?! While I do love the squishy baby phase, I am really excited that we are now in this next phase of childhood. I don't have to think about putting her down somewhere and worrying about what is on the floor. Of course it now means that there is so much more that she can get into. And you sometimes forget that when you do put them down, they turn and walk off on you. Ahh the joys of kids. Every stage is fun....except age 3..... Just kidding.

Swimming Lessons

Since spring and summer are coming up we thought that it woul dbe good idea to start Aiden on swimming lessons. I had thought about doing it last year, but woth Rebecca being so young at the time it seemed like it would be a lot of work and its not like I would have been able to take him to the public pool by myself so we decided to wait a year. Plus, this year we are YMCA members where they have the lessons. Rebecca will be fine just sitting there watching her brother swim and Aiden is older now and gets more involved in activities. The class that we signed up for is Saturday mornings. Either Seth or I have to go in with him( we'll rotate each week) and its for a half an hour. We decided to do this class because Aiden has only ever been in a big pool with one of us so we thought it would be better for him to get used to being in such a large body of water. The spring II session that he will take in May we will sign him up for the class that he goes in with just the teacher. To both of us we felt that it is very inportant that both kids learn how to swim. There are so many accidents that happen around bodies of water and not knowing how to swim an be very detrimental for someone. It also teached Aiden pool and water safety, which we tell him every time we are near a body of water. But either way swimming is something that I think everyone should learn.

Just like riding a bike.

Here are some shots of his first swim lesson.

 Getting ready for the class to start.

 Rebecca having a snack while she watches.

 Going under.

Top 5 Laughs

5.) This week I finally got my new camera. The box was in my car and Aiden asked what it was. I told him, "Mommy that is a really big camera!!"

4.) Yesterday whe Aiden got up in the morning her told us what he wasntd to do. #1- we got to swimming. #2 we get hair cuts. #3 we got get my new ipad.( ther is a new android tablet coming out the end of the month just for kids and we foolishly told him about it.)

3.) I decided that we need to get a bag for Rebecca's school bedding instead of using chea plastic bags. I told Aiden that we needed a bag for her " Yeah we have to get her a pink princess back pack. That sounds right." Wow the market sure has them cornered.

2.) Rebecca's new thing now when we are out to eat is while she is eatting she likes to turn around with a mouth full of food and she starts "talking" to everyone and everything. Like she is announciung to the world that she is eatting at that moment. And she's pretty loud about it.

1.) At Walmart this morning, as soon as we walked in the door Aiden tells me that we need to :go this way" Why? "because I need to go look at the treadmills this way."

I know that there were more this week, but I was really lax and didn't write them down. I'll try to be better about it for next week,

Friday's Favorite Things

 I know its March now, but yesterday we had a little snow fall and I love how just a dusting makes everything look so pretty.