Spring Has Arrived!!

It has been a long time coming, but spring finally came this last weekend in New England. It was awesome- 70’s and sunny on Saturday and 80’s and sunny on Sunday! Although, mind you – and, I’m not exaggerating when I say this – we drove from Little Compton to Providence on Sunday and it was literally a TWENTY degree difference (89 in Providence and 70 in LC - keep in mind, Providence is only 45 minutes from us) between the two locations. It always drives me nuts – considering we are the ones near the water with a beach, you would think that we should have it warmer so that we can take advantage of these two things – vs. the people living in the city who really have nowhere to cool off – why would they need it so hot??? Ah, Mother Nature…

Anyway - Saturday, Avery and I went to her friend, Asher’s second birthday party while Josh stayed at home to finish up the yard. Note to all of you who will ever build a house or be anywhere where you need to plant grass – the hay that you put down? It never freaking disappears. I swear, Josh has spent 4 weekends just raking up hay and it never really seems to go away. But, anyway – the lawn did get mowed and it looks great. The birthday party was very nice. Avery had a great time and was obsessed with the sandbox. She literally played in that the entire time and had a ball. Oh – and, mind you – just to comment on these creative friends that I have. This isn’t just a normal sandbox – Chris actually dug a hole around a tree that they have in the yard and filled it with sand. I thought it was ingenious and looks really cool. Avery does in fact have a sandbox (which we call crabbie because it is a LARGE red plastic crab) that her Grandmy and Grandpy got her for her first bday, but seeing as how we were in the apartment, we never set it up. After seeing her at Asher’s, I’m thinking that it is time…

She also loved being on the boat that they had in the lawn while all of the boys jumped up and down and made it rock. Somehow, I think that we may wait a bit before we get her one of these...

Avery did a great job with the potty at Asher’s as well and was so proud of herself, she decided to announce to everyone there every time she went “poop on potty!!!” or “pee on potty!!!” Earlier that morning at home, I took the risk and put big girl panties on her – only to hear her about 30 minutes later – “mama! Pee on floor!” Ugh. At least it was on the bathroom tile and not the carpet. It’s funny – she will go every time you put her on the potty. However, she hasn’t quite gotten to the point where she knows that she can’t go in her diaper yet. So, I guess I would consider us halfway there. Oh, and yes - you will continue to get updates until she is fully potty trained, so I need your support if not for our benefit, for yours...

Sunday – I was having a big dilemma – do we stay at home and get more stuff done on the house or do we take advantage of the weather and the fact that we are still with just one child and go to the zoo? Well, I chose the later and I’m so glad that I did. Sorry to Sara, my parents and all of my in-laws who will be over in the next couple of weeks – the house still isn’t in order, but surely you will understand. Oh – the other dilemma that day? What do I put Avery in on an 88 degree day in Providence? It’s funny when they are this age, because clearly she won’t be able to fit into anything that she wore last summer, so you literally have to go out and get an entirely new wardrobe. Considering this weather kind of crept up on us, I had yet to do this. So – I scrounged up some hand me downs and she was originally wearing a cute pink and white skirt outfit, but with tennis shoes and socks because I have yet to get her any summer sandals– Josh claimed she looked like a secretary out taking a walk at lunch. And, she didn’t like the outfit anyway. So, she wore her favorite monkey shirt and a jean skirt AND the sneakers with socks – Josh then claimed that she looked like an 80 year old. Whatever. She was still cute.

Anyway – She LOVED the zoo - sneakers and all. She was so thrilled that we let her out of the stroller and she could run around. She saw “Big Elephants and Big Giraffes”

Oh – and, “fishies” – which, mind you, really weren’t part of the zoo – they were just in a pond near it, but she loved them.

She also got to pet a sheep, which she loved. And, as you can imagine, I cringed the entire time and immediately rushed her to the nearest handwashing station. I was convinced she was going to get some weird sheep disease, but don’t worry – she seems to be fine, so I think that we are in the clear.

So, at the end of the day, we told her that she could pick out a toy at the store on the way out. So, one would think she would go for a cuddly stuffed zebra? A stuffed giraffe? Nope! Not our Avery. She wanted a rubber, fluorescent yellow and orange centipede. She loved that thing. And, hey – it was fine by me – the thing was $2.10 vs. the ridiculously overpriced $20 giraffe. Here she is running around with it on the way to the car and, below that – sleeping with it on the way home.

She was exhausted and literally fell asleep within 1 minute of getting into the car.

Winker II – everything is going well! I realized the other day that I only have 9 more weeks of this pregnancy left. Crazy. This weekend, Sara comes, then next weekend is Avery’s bday, then the following weekend is Lexi’s shower in WI. After that, we are really going to start focusing on this child and getting things like onesies, diapers, etc. for him/her. It’s funny – with Avery, we had all of this stuff about 5 months before she was born. This one? Not so much. I’m pretty sure the reality of this won’t set in for any of us until July 2nd when I’m sitting in that hospital. And, then? Our lives are changed forever – in a good way, of course. A hectic, but good way.

Oh, and don’t worry – for those of you who were concerned about my daughter’s lack of a summer wardrobe – I immediately went to Target when we got home after the zoo and bought every short sleeve shirt and pair of shorts that they make for 2 year olds. Oh, and sandals – numerous pair….

Chocolate Ice Cream and Moo-Moo's

Ok, yeah….I’ve made the command decision that being a home owner is a lot of hard work. -especially when you have built the house from ground up. I’m pretty certain that it will be quite a few years before we have the walls painted, pictures hung, and furniture purchased for every room, even though we have done our best to do “house stuff” every weekend for the last 2 months or so. But, even with that said, every once in a while, you need a break! And, that is exactly what I got this last weekend.

It started on Friday night – my friend Christine, or as she is now known to Avery, “Auntie Christine,” came into town from NYC. She's lived in NYC now for a few months, but with all of this house stuff going on, we haven't figured out a good weekend for her to come up for a visit - it was great seeing her and catching up! Since I had officially gone outside of my Little Compton bubble on Friday night by driving up to PVD to pick her up at the train station, I decided to take advantage and have dinner in Providence. And, yes – I even had a glass of wine – it was wonderful – I savored every single sip. Although, we were at one of those trendy restaurants that only fills the glass half way, yet charges you $10 for it. When I saw the glass of wine, I felt like looking at the waitress and pointing to my belly, explaining to her that CLEARLY I was making an exception here and the least she could do was help a girl out by filling it the rest of the way. However, considering she probably already thought I was the worst mother on the planet by having even one sip of wine while pregnant, I let it go.

Saturday was a big day in the Holland household! A) We mowed (or should I say, my father in law mowed) the lawn for the first time ever – until the lawn mower died for some unknown reason (even the handy man, Earl, couldn’t fix it, so you know it was bad). So, really half of our lawn got mowed…details B) We had our carpet for the living room delivered, cut and bound onsite (all within 30 mins, mind you – that was the fastest $250 I have ever spent) AND C) we got our furniture delivered! So, minus paint, artwork and various pieces of furniture, our living room is done!

Oh -and, D) Josh put up the blackout curtains that I got for Avery's room (in hopes that this will help with 6 am wakeup calls), which required him to actually drill holes and install the curtain rod - who said my husband wasn't handy??

And, mind you, we got all of this done while taking Avery to the potty every hour so as to start our first full blown weekend of potty training…well, kind of.

I’ve decided that this potty training thing is really a big pain in the butt (no pun intended) for the parents. I mean, seriously? How are you supposed to be expected to be near a toilet at all times so that your child can go pee? This is really cutting into my walking time, my shopping time, etc! Anyway – considering we were at home all day on Saturday, Avery did go poop and pee in the potty all day and never had a wet diaper. AND – she now insists on dumping the pee from her training potty to the big potty all by herself and then flushing it. Half of the time, she does this without me even knowing it – I’m sure one of these days, I’ll walk in and there will be a puddle where she didn’t quite make it to the big potty, but whatever… Below is a picture of Auntie Christine with Avery - note the lack of diaper on Avery - apparently, Christine was pretty confident in our potty training abilities at this point...

Sunday? Not so much. Christine, Avery and I did a 10K charity walk for MS in Bristol that day and, my main goal was to get Avery to go to sleep in the stroller so that we wouldn’t hear, “Mama – get out? Mama – get out!” for 6 miles – it was definitely not to keep her awake so that I could stop every mile to have her go potty in the porta potties on the route. So, in the diaper she went. The walk went really well. The weather man said that it was supposed to be 45 degrees and rainy all day, so I had pretty much decided that we weren’t going to do it, but as it turns out, it was 60 degrees and sunny, so it turned out really well! The route takes you all through Colt State Park, which is right on the water – it was beautiful. Granted, it was a bit more challenging with this ever growing belly that I have going on, but still nice.

The weekend ended with Avery and I taking Auntie Christine to the train station so that she could go back home to NYC. Avery was sad to see her go and is still asking “Auntie Christine go?”

On the way home, Avery decided that she was craving chocolate ice cream, so like a good mom, I gave in and stopped at the local ice cream stand – I know, I know – the things we do for our kids. I’m glad that I did stop because, as simple as it was, it turned into one of those moments that I will always remember with her. After getting the ice cream Avery immediately noticed the "moo-moo's" that were in a fenced in area right next door to the ice cream stand and there just so happened to be a bench about 10 feet away from these moo-moo's. So, needless to say, we had to go over and eat our icecream on the bench so that we could be up close and personal with these cows. No sooner than we sat down, one of them let out this loud, “moo!!!” The look on her face was priceless! She loved it – she just had this huge, chocolate covered smile on her face the entire time we sat there. I wish that I had a picture of it. I mean the joy of watching your 2 year old get so excited over something as simple as moo moo’s AND getting to eat chocolate ice cream while doing it? What could be better? It really was the perfect way to end a great weekend.

Ah, Labradors...you gotta love them

I think that we would all agree that one of the main reasons we all look forward to weekends is because we get to actually catch up on some much needed sleep. Yeah…that’s what I thought heading into this weekend. But, alas…

It all started at 4:30 AM on Saturday morning – Chili woke me up by meowing consistently (and quite loudly, I might add). As this is somewhat typical of his behavior, I really didn’t think anything of it (other than, “I can’t believe you just woke me up and if you wake Avery up, I’ll kill you…”), so I proceeded to throw a pair of socks at him (note – this was just a scare tactic and it didn’t hurt him…) and attempted to go back to bed. Well, this continued and wouldn’t stop. So, finally I decided that I should go down to check on him. As it turns out, somehow, the mudroom door had been closed over night, which just so happens to be where his litter pan is. AND – Leinie was stuck inside. So, I open the door, let Leinie out, let Chili in and go back to bed, only to be awoken again by Chili’s consistent meowing. So, I go back downstairs to find out that, while stuck in the mudroom, Leinie had eaten all of Chili’s food (mind you, this is a self feeder thing, so it was a SIGNIFICANT amount of food). Ugh. So, needless to say, Leinie wasn’t feeling so hot the next day and, as you can imagine, had a few more trips outside to go to the bathroom than normal. So, you would think that Leinie would learn? But, nope…not Labradors! They will pretty much do anything that they enjoy to do until it kills them - including eating more than one dog's stomach could possibly hold.

Saturday night – 3:30 AM. I hear Leinie pacing and panting downstairs (which, again, is pretty typical of him), but I all of a sudden realize that I had left Chili’s food out. So, I decide that I should probably go downstairs to check things out. And, sure enough….Leinie had eaten ¾ of the cat’s food (which, mind you, was FULL, due to the incident the night before). I will spare you the rest of the details and will just say that the rest of the night until approximately 5:30 am was spent a) taking Leinie outside for a walk twice, b) cleaning up Leinie’s poop in the mudroom, c) cleaning up Leinie’s puke in the living room, and d) trying to find a spot for Chili’s food where he could get at it, but not spill it and where Leinie could not reach it. Ok, I guess that was still a lot of detail, but whatever...And, then…it was time to get up and get Avery ready for church with Grandmy and Grandpy…

Avery decided to wake up at 6:15 on Easter Sunday, so I brought her back to our room and put her in our bed, hoping that she would go back to sleep for a bit. And, she actually did! Unfortunately, I had to wake her up an hour later to get ready to go to church with Grandmy and Grandpy, but she as soon as she heard that she was going to put on her party dress to go to church with them, she was all for waking up to get ready. Apparently, she liked church until everyone stood up to sing. At that point, she decided that it was too many people making too much noise in too small of a place, so she was brought to the “quiet” room in the back where she proceeded to put stickers all over the stain glass window in the room. From the sounds of it, they are still there – leave it to Avery to make her mark wherever she goes. For the rest of the day, all that I heard was “No singing in Church. Avery sad…”

When Grandmy and Grandpy brought her back, she noticed all of the Easter eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden as well as her basket (which, I'm including a picture of because I think that the Easter Bunny put together a great looking basket) .

She loved finding the eggs and especially loved eating the “Lemon-m’s” inside of them. It was a lot of fun watching her actually get excited about the basket and the eggs and hearing her say, “The Easter Bunny is coming!” the entire day before.

After the egg hunt at our house, we changed her into yet another party dress (this one was a bit more casual in case she got it dirty) and went over to our friends’ house to have another hunt with their son, Asher, who is the same age as Avery and to have lunch. Avery was a bit tired, but had a good time playing with Asher and eating more m&m’s….probably too many m&m’s, but whatever..it was a holiday.

THEN…after her nap, we went to Grandmy and Grandpy’s for Easter dinner. Avery had a good time and got another Easter Basket from Grandmy and Grandpy and yet another present from Uncle Ra Ra (Uncle Randal) and Auntie Kristen. She also ended up eating an entire (no, I’m not exaggerating) bowl of hummus pre-dinner, so didn’t really partake too much in the actual Easter dinner part of the evening. And, yes – I thought about the effects of this as she was eating the hummus, but figured hummus was good for her, so I let her go for it…she did have some ham and then a green bean, a bite of pineapple bread pudding, and a sweet potato all of which were followed up with the comment, “Avery no like…” Lovely.

I’m getting larger and larger by the minute and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to chase after Avery (and, to hold her for that matter) as I get further into this pregnancy. But, we’re managing. We are implementing a new “every other night” rule in our house starting tonight where Dadda will put her down every other night (as opposed to Mama every night). I figure, we have to start this now because, I will not be able to do this every night once the baby is born. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Pack Rat

Yes – I can now confirm that is what I am. This weekend, I was asked ever so nicely by Josh if I could please unpack the boxes in our room, so that he could maybe open his closet doors and get to his clothes without having to crawl over said boxes. And, given the fact that I’ve already been relatively selfish by giving him a closet that is approximately, oh I don’t know, ¼ the size of mine AND has the chimney going directly through the middle of it, I figured it was only fair that I clean so that he can actually get to this “closet” of his.


This is where the problem began and I came to the conclusion that I truly can’t get rid of ANYTHING!! Some examples:

1. My “wedding boxES.” - these would be boxes of various things from our wedding like the ribbon that we used for our programs, the tissue paper that I used to wrap people’s gifts, approximately 15 copies of our cd that I still have and, this is the best – every single one of our response cards that we got back. I mean, seriously? Even if I do ever look at those again, where will it get me? It is just a bunch of people saying yes and no and that’s it. But, alas – there they sit, taking up room in the same box on my closet shelf.

2. My box full of approximately 15 VHS tapes….half of which are exercise videos like abs of steel, Tae Bo, etc. Now, first of all – I don’t even think know where our VCR is or if we still have one. Second of all, I’m pretty certain I don’t see myself EVER doing Tae Bo again. But, just in case I ever want to find our VCR, plug it in AND get motivated to exercise in my living room with 2 kids running around, I will have these to use (because, yes – I kept them).

3. Pens. I literally found probably 50-75 pens that were all in a “junk drawer” in the apartment. So, now where are they? In a zip lock bag (at least I attempted to organize them) in a drawer in our kitchen. But, come on! They all still work! What am I going to do? Throw them away?
These are just a few examples of things that I can’t seem to get rid of. AND, we still have probably about 50 boxes in my in-laws' basement that include things from my parent’s house like HS Year books, old letters from HS, etc. that I haven’t gone through. I’m in trouble.

Anyway…on the Avery front…she’s doing great! We are slowly working on potty training, which is a rather comical process with her. It started about a month ago when she wanted to take off her clothes and sit on the potty and, at that point, she needed to poop. So, she did! It was a very exciting moment in the Holland household (which was obvious, as every member of the family received a phone call from her in which she exclaimed, “poop in the potty! Poop in the potty!” Since then, she has gone pee and poop quite a few times. However, she doesn’t quite understand the concept of telling me before she has to go in her diaper. If you ask her if she needs to go, she will. But, if you don’t – the diaper it is. She also doesn’t quite understand the concept that there is more pee in there than just the initial trickle. As soon as she pees just a little bit, she pops up – “Mama! Pee in the potty! Pee in the potty!” So, I get all excited, give her a high five and then wipe her. Only to do it all over again in approx. 10 seconds when she announces she has to go again. We do this probably about 7 times before we are all done. Oh – one other comical thing? She insists on having a book to read every time she sits down on the potty. If she sits without a book, she will immediately pop up, “Need a book!” Gee…I wonder who she gets that from. I’ll give you a hint…I don’t read.




I’m feeling great with Winker II. My belly is growing rapidly, as you can see. You would think I’m like 8 months along or something. But, nope – 27 weeks. 12 to go! At some point, I really need to focus on getting ready for this child. Not to mention, getting little Miss Avery ready for this child! This will be interesting…

And, just for kicks, here is a funny picture of Avery in her John Deere Shirt, her friend Asher's John Deere hate and Asher's rain boots (totally random, I know), but I figured you would like to see her face (as ridiculous as it is in this picture) vs. just the top of her head (which, note has MUCH more hair on it these days!)...

Taking the leap...

Well, I've done it - I've finally made the leap and have become a "blogger." I think that's what it is called? Or, is that the term for people who just read other people's blogs all of the time? Regardless...



This is something that I've wanted to do for some time, but have always been a bit nervous thinking I will never have anything really all that interesting to talk about. However, considering we have a 23 month old, a baby on the way, a 13 year old dog who is blind and deaf, a crazy-ass cat who is one pee away from being kicked out of the house AND we just got finished building a new house, SURELY I can find something of interest to talk about. Not to mention, I think that it is a great way to keep everyone who doesn't live near me (which, would be nearly 95% of my family and friends) up to date on what is going on with us. AND...most importantly, I will be able to post pictures and updates of Miss Avery as well as her little brother or sister. Lord knows, they are both growing and changing every day and there are always plenty of stories to share.



Now, as much I would like to say that these posts will be 100% about my children, I will admit, there will most likely also be some posts about me and maybe even some random advice and/or findings, thoughts, etc. that I happen to come across. Because, for those of you who know me, you know that I LOVE sharing advice and I also happen to love talking about me. That's not to mean I don't love hearing about you as well, but I really do love sharing stories about me. So, definitely expect some posts all about "MiMi" (yes, that is the name my parents have given me - see above for the reason) along the way.



Now, I will admit that this blogging thing will probably take me a while to master and my friends who already have a blog should expect a significant number of emails from me asking them how to post pictures and put them where I want them, how to change the background colors, etc. That being said, please bear with me while I figure this thing out and know that the first few posts may be a bit aesthetically boring....starting with this one.