February Follies

Just some "daily life" pics that make me smile. :)

Ahhh, Hunter. My happy little eater. The kid. Eats. All. Day. Long! With gusto. We were cracking up the other day at this mac n' cheese experience. He LOVES cheese of any kind. Can you tell? It was EVERYWHERE! (Those are blueberries mixed in. He enjoyed them, too. And I discovered that they come out like they go in when I changed his diaper later! Ha! Scared me at first.)

Do you see what I am dealing with here? I really didn't even know where to begin with the clean up on this recent evening. Once he is finished eating, his new thing is "finger painting" with the leftovers, smearing them all over his tray and flinging them off the sides. Do you see the floor? I don't want a dog until the boys are a little older, but I would love to borrow one at mealtimes!!

Random playtime pics. With one thrown in from when Holden had his ear infection/pink eye. I think his little pout is so sad but also cute.

This baby has always loved window watching.

My lovable almost-four-year-old. The snow you see him playing in with Daddy has now all but melted...just in time to make room for the 5-8 inches predicted tomorrow! Ugh! He loves wrestling and having tickle fights with Daddy, and has a new-found love of making chocolate chip cookie dough with Mommy. He requests it at least once a week. Not the cookies, just the dough. He could care less if we actually bake it! A boy after my own heart. And who am I to deny him?! I do usually make the cookies after we've had some spoonfuls of the yummy stuff. But one recent evening, I just saved the rest in the fridge for us to enjoy the next day. (Subsequently, trying on swimsuits in a three-way mirror at Kohl's tonight was NOT very fun!)

I realize that I have taken and posted a LOT of bathtub pics recently! It is honestly one of the boys' favorite hangouts in the winter. Who doesn't like a nice, hot bath with lots of bubbles on a cold day? I just think they are so cute in the tub together. They make me laugh.

Teaming up against Mommy in a splash war. Clearly, I lost.

Holden's latest phase is playing "farm." His current occupation of choice when he grows up is a farmer. (Closely followed by a policeman, firefighter, construction worker, or Spiderman. Lol) As you can see, he is very deprived of any type of farm vehicles to play with. Poor kid. He is learning to write his name! It is a laborous process and he writes HUGE, wobbly letters, but it is legible! "N" is really tricky for him. And he likes to add about 5 extra lines on his E. I am working on his grip...he holds the pencil/pen/marker like a fork and has a hard time forming the letters as a result. Any suggestions? Nonetheless, I am proud of his results! (And kicking myself for not giving him a three letter name like Bob.) :)

My funny baby. He has just learned how to point. When he is excited, he grunts like a caveman, bounces, and points furtively to whatever it is he wants you to see. (In these pics it was my balloon bouqet that I brought home from the 100th day of school. See the pic of him crawling with the entire bouqet. If you enlarge the top left pic you will see that Daddy had been rubbing Hunter's head with a balloon. Static!) He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. If he finds a "treasure," like the tag off of a new shirt, for example, he will wad it into a ball, stuff it in his mouth to chew on, and then grin and clamp his mouth shut with jaws of steel when he sees you coming to extract it. Stinker! Today Jay found one of his (Hunter's) socks in the crib after naptime, wadded in a ball and completely soaked. We will no longer be putting him to bed in socks for fear he'll choke on one. Crazy baby!!! He will also stick a toy or object in his mouth like a dog so he has both hands to crawl. See pics below...in this case, a (clean) baby wipe.

Matching jammies!

Spring has to be around the corner somewhere, right? We are starting to have just the slightest cabin fever! So looking forward to our Florida trip in 3 weeks! Until then...when I'm not at school, you can find me a) cleaning up the kitchen, b) sitting in sweats on the couch eating a bowl of cookie dough while the boys nap and swearing it's the last time I will do so, c) in the bathroom reenacting the "melting" scene from The Wizard of Oz.

Holden, Hunter, and Hearts

Last week, I was excited to continue the tradition that my mom started with me as a little girl and that I have enjoyed with Holden. This was Hunter's first year to join in. I decided to put the trail out on Feb. 13th during their nap time since I knew I would be rushed getting ready for school on the 14th and wanted to be able to relax and let them take their time. I told Holden if he took a good nap the trail would be up when he woke up and he got a big grin and told me he would go right to sleep. :) It's fun that he is starting to remember and look forward to things like this. He did poke his head up out of bed several times when I walked by his room to ask just how long he needed to sleep.

Anyone who knows Holden knows that he is less than perky when he first wakes from nap. :) It was a nice change to see him pop right out of bed with a big smile.

I didn't make the trial very far since Hunter can't walk yet. :) I put the boys' treats on the Elmo chair just like I did for Holden last year.

Holden was such a good big brother helping Hunter find his gifts. He knew right away which ones were his and which ones were his little brother's. :) Loved Hunter's reaction to the Gerber Graduates boxes! They are what he eats daily, and he loves his mealtimes. I am all about practical! He saw the pictures of food and was grinning and squealing! Too funny! Holden especially loved his "How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You?" book. He has a lot of books in this series and really enjoys them. They are frequent bedtime reading requests. He hopped right up on the couch and asked me to read it to him.

After we looked at his gifts, Holden wanted to follow the trail again "in case he missed any important clues." Ha! Can you tell he is big into Scooby Doo right now? (Note the tissue in hand. Both boys were battling bad colds/ear infections and Holden had pink eye last week! Yuck. We are so ready for spring!)

My slobber doodle eating some hearts

This just makes me smile!

Holden asked if they could please take baths before dinner since one of his gifts was new bathtub crayons. The tub is one of the boys' favorite hangouts this winter. (Isn't his arm tattoo studly?)

Holden's "I have an ornery idea" face

Can you see what his ornery idea is?

Yep, coloring on his brother. Hunter was so busy splashing he didn't even notice!

We celebrated our real Valentine's Day by very romantically taking Holden to gymnastics (where he did exchange valentines with the other kids) and then picking up a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's to cook at home. It was yummy! I didn't get one single picture of Jay and me, but let's face it, the boys are far cuter anyway! We did have a date night this weekend courtesy of my parents. A nice, leisurely dinner that included wine and dessert, no spills, and no one demanding things or throwing food on the floor, followed by the movie, "Just Go With It," which we both enjoyed. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy V-Day from our two little lovebugs!

(I found these shirts at Target and they made me laugh.)

Jay took Holden to pick out a Valentine's Day card for me on Thursday. Per my request, he always steers Holden in the vicinity of whatever holiday we are celebrating and then lets him choose. It is so cute to see what he picks. Weeeeellll...let's just say Jay clearly did not proof-read the card this year! Holden waved the sparkly little devil in front of him and Jay thought it looked fine. After checking out, he opened it. I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing so hard when he showed it to me. Innocent little Holden was so proud of his "sparkly" card. That's one that will definately be saved for future blackmail purpose. ;)

My baby is 10 mos. old!

Hunter is now 10 mos. old. He is rapidly turning into a full-fledged toddler, which makes me smile and also makes me sad at how quickly he's growing. He is crawling so fast it is more like flying, bear-walking, pulling himself up, walking along the couch and other objects, and often earning new bumps, bruises, fat lips, scrapes, etc. when he decides to let go and act like he is a superhero. This week, for example, he: crawled onto the little stage at the Discovery Museum and then fell face-first off the edge onto the (luckily) carpeted floor, resulting in a bloody, fat lip, tried to crawl with Holden's metal truck across the kitchen and landed on the hard floor on his forehead, managed to open the cabinet to the entertainment system and caused an avalanche of DVD's to land on top of him after falling backwards, shook the baby gate hard enough he managed to dislodge it and fell backwards with it on top of him, and attempted to climb the stairs, made it up the first step as I ran across the room, turned, grinned, and fell onto his head, sustaining a rug burn and screaming indignantly as though I had caused it. All of these incidents happened with me in the same room as him. He is lightning quick, extremely ornery, and has NO FEAR. I am really screwed when he starts walking. I bet he will learn to run simultaneously. Maybe I'll burn off some of the calories I've put on during Snowmaggedon by chasing him?!

Here are some pics of him at play. He loves his music table and his baby gloworm. Everything goes into his mouth at some point. He has 5 teeth-two on bottom, three on top-and getting a sixth on top.

See the ornery smile? He is heading for his newest fascination: the cat food and water dishes. I have "hidden" them all the way behind the table, so in order to reach them he has to crawl around it and maneuver around the chairs that I try to scoot out to block him. Nothing stops him. There's a reason my dad calls him, "Tank." If I say, "Hunter James Paul, where are you going??" He will laugh and pick up the speed. He quite often manages to get a fistful of cat food or knock the dishes over before I get to him. He will try to shove it in his mouth as fast as he can and then clamps his mouth shut with his cheeks full like a chipmunk. Can cat food really be THAT good?! Jay and I laugh and say it's probably extra protein for him.

Hunter and his favorite person, his big brother. I thought they looked cute in their stripes even though Holden's smile is very forced! (He was mad because Hunter had just chewed on his pants. Ha!)

10 mo. beanbag pictures. I could eat him up! Love that grin.

I love his expression here. He was watching Holden.

The char pics are getting really hard! He just wants to climb, or lunge face-forward off of the chair. We managed to get through these with no head injuries! Ha!

My handsome little man

There's the nose scrunch! If you could hear him, he blows air out of his nose when he does this, like he's hyperventilating. It is hilarious.

Some tub time pictures, one of his favorite times of the day. It is another time Mommy has to be on her game since he now likes to try to climb over the edge of the tub about every 10 seconds. Good grief!

Love me a wet, clean, lotioned baby with his fingers in his mouth and long, wet eyelashes.

And I had to include one of my handsome almost-4-year-old. He is getting so big as well! Maybe not in size, but just older looking and acting. He is a great big brother and my sweet, sensitive, and cautious boy. (Thank goodness one of them is cautious!) He is really into "Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2" right now. After watching the other night, I found the scene pictured below. He told me he was "setting traps" in case any bad guys came near my room.