MiMi is back!!!

As a child, my parents nicknamed me MiMi because, well, everything in my mind should have been about ME all of the time. Since the kids have been born, MiMi has (sadly) been taking a break. However, this weekend? She was back in full force. Yep – this weekend (well, at least 1.5 days of it) was all about me. My friend Colleen graduated from Wharton Business School (ok – so, I guess a part of the weekend was about her as well, but whatever – this is my blog, so we’ll focus on me. :) ), so a few girls and I went to Philly to have a girl’s weekend to help celebrate. It was fabulous. I was able to walk around, eat a nice lunch (a.k.a crepes and a ‘few’ glasses of wine), walk around some more, eat a nice dinner (and drink a ‘few’ more glasses of wine) and then go to a bar until 2 am (gasp!). And, guess what? I did all of this while not once thinking about diapers or bottles or naps. It was wonderful. Don’t get me wrong – I missed the kids and I was happy to see them on Sunday, but I definitely enjoyed my time away. It was refreshing. Unfortunately, I did forget my camera, so I don’t have any pictures of the weekend (not that anyone is interested in seeing pictures of me anyways, but…).

The kids are doing well. Alex has developed some funny games – he is very into clapping and will clap whenever music is on or when he is happy about something, he likes to do raspberries and is getting really good at waving bye-bye. He also loves to stand (no real movement yet), but isn’t too too steady on his feet and tends to topple over if unattended. He has about 1000 teeth (ok, 8, but whatever). They all seemed to come in at the same time. It is pretty crazy. The one thing that he doesn’t seem to find very funny is wearing his sister’s clothes, but hey – when it is time to take a walk and I can’t find his clothes, these work…

However, apparently Opa has no problem with it…



Avery is also doing well – still playing with her bday gifts. No – we still haven’t given her ours. I’m thinking at this point, we may keep them and save them for a bribe of some sort (like, maybe if she stays in her bed for 5 nights in a row??????? Wouldn’t that be nice?). It is either that, or give them to her randomly for no reason (as she has definitely forgotten about her bday at this point), which I find wrong out of sheer principle (yes, I’m a hard-ass like that).

Here she is practicing her H’s (her very LONG H’s).



And here she is in this hilarious outfit that my mom put her in after her bath last weekend.


Notice the shirt, which is supposed to clearly have a another shirt underneath it and the pants, which are clearly 2 sizes too small. She wanted to wear this to her bday party, but I managed to convince her that it really wasn’t a good look on her.

On a sadder note, we made the decision to send Jack back to TX. We gave it a month and he was still growling at the kids (Avery as well as Alex). We looked into getting some aggression training, but I just felt like I would never feel 100% comfortable with him around the kids and quite frankly, I don’ think that Avery would have either, which would just continue to make it worse. It was an extremely difficult decision for me to make. A month is a long time to have a dog – he had become our pet and it was hard to let him go. But, I’m hopeful that he will find a great new home – one with no kids and with ppl who are willing and able to give him 100% of their attention. The good news is, the women who we are working with in Houston are incredible. They were extremely supportive and accommodating. I’m in the process of looking at another dog who is great with kids, doesn’t bark and in general sound s very similar to Leinie (except in a 2 year old’s body), so we’ll see. Hopefully I’ll have a dog update shortly.

Birthweek Festivities

It’s funny – growing up, my father always used to say that our birthdays seemed to last for a week and I always kind of knew it was true, but didn’t care because, who would really mind having a full week devoted to you vs. just a day….until you are the parent of that person having the birthday week. I’m exhausted and she is only 3 years old – we have a good 15 years (if not more) left of this birthweek thing!

The weekend started off with my parents’ arrival on Thursday night. That was a great way to start the weekend – it was just the three of us, sitting outside on an unseasonably warm night in Providence enjoying Pizza and a lovely box of white wine (because we’re fancy like that).

Friday, they watched both kids while Josh and I were at work. From the sounds of it, everyone had a great day. Although, Alex cooperated so much with his morning nap that he slept right through lunch and as a result, didn’t take his afternoon nap on time (aka, at the same time as Avery). That said – one of them was awake ALL day – sorry Mom and Dad!

Saturday was the big gymnastics party! Picture 13 3-year-olds, a bunch of soft spongy stuff to crawl on, tunnels to climb through, balance beams to walk on and a huge tumble track to jump on. It was a blast. The kids had a great time and personally, I think that I deserve a big thank you note from all, as I’m sure they all slept quite nicely that night (with the exception of our own little bday girl, but that is a whole different topic for a whole different post).

Sunday was the family party at our house.

I was actually relatively organized this time and made the majority of the meal last weekend and froze it. But, we still managed to stay pretty busy for most of the day preparing. Primarily because of this lovely girl…

Yep – somehow I’ve gotten myself into this tradition where I make a cake every year. If you recall, last year was Barney. This year? Dora. Dora with about 50000 different colors (which, by the way – someone needs to tell that girl and a pink shirt doesn’t really go with red shorts and yellow socks, but whatever – who am I to judge?). The funny thing is that Avery could care less at this age. But, now the adults actually look forward (or so they say) to seeing what I’ve created that year, so I’m doing it. Don’t get me wrong – it’s fun, but just very time consuming. And, unless we all want stale cake, it isn’t really something you can do too far ahead of time.

Monday was her actual birthday (no, I wasn’t kidding that the bday celebrations lasted a while), so I took the day off and we all went to the zoo. We had a great time.

Although, it became quite obvious that my child’s attention span is that of a gnat as, after about 30 seconds of looking at an animal, we heard, “I want to go look at something else.”

But, I don’t think we can expect much more of a 3 year old. I will say this – we got through the entire zoo and at least we never heard, “ I want to go home.”

Overall, it was a great weekend. Avery still hasn’t opened any of our presents, as she was a bit overwhelmed with the quantity received. Here she is with one of her favorite gifts - flip flops!!!

She has been walking around the house in these ever since she got them. Somehow I'm not sure the cash register and the tball set that we got her will quite match up to these shoes, but we'll see...