WHAT???

Avery - "Mommy, sometimes that new girl, Summer, cries in pre-school because she misses her Mommy."

Whitney - "Oh, really? That's sad."

Avery - "Yeah, I know. I don't miss you, Mommy!"

WHAT???

Whitney - "Well, you should really make sure you help Summer and invite her to play with you and Maggie during the day so that she isn't sad anymore."

Avery - "Well, I can't because I don't like playing with little girls who wear pony tails and have sisters."

WHAT???

Social (and apparently technically challenged) Butterfly

Ok – wow. I’m pretty certain that I haven’t been as social as I have been this month since I was in college. How did I function having so many social activities going on back then? Ok, clearly I know the answer to this and clearly it has to do with a certain 16 month old and a certain 3 year old who seem to need a mom – even when that mom is exhausted. It all started the weekend of our anniversary (which, was great by the way – I never really did provide an update on that) and ever since, we have had something going on every single weekend. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every weekend and I loved spending time with everyone who came into town. But, wow. I’m exhausted!

Last weekend, Avery had hockey at the YMCA, which she seemed to enjoy and I had my first experience getting into the pool with Alex (ironically enough, I couldn't find my one piece until the 5th session. :))

After the Y, we rushed home to get ready for a visit from Colleen and her boyfriend, Chris and another friend of ours, Erin. Colleen and Chris were running the half marathon in Newport, so they took advantage of being in the area and came to the house for lunch on their way to Newport on Saturday. We did manage to catch up in between dealing with a chatty toddler and a 16 month old who wanted to be into everything and anything while we were trying to eat and it was a really nice visit. After that, we were off to Caroline and Jake’s house for dinner and then off to the pumpkin festival in Newport. As always, we had a great time. Avery and Max loved looking at all of the pumpkins and Alex enjoyed his snooze in the stroller the entire time. NOTE - no idea why all of these pictures are sideways (they are not on my hard drive) and for some unknown reason, blogger doesn't give you the option to rotate them, so just flip your screen around to look at the next couple.

This last weekend, Auntie Sara came for a visit. On Saturday, we participated in the MS Jet Pull, which was pretty cool. We literally pulled a 727 jet down the runway at TF Green. This is the second year that I’ve done this and it really is a rush.

Alex had a bit of a rough weekend to begin with – he woke up crying on Friday night and I went in to find a pile of puke in his crib (which later ended up in my washing machine, as Josh didn’t do as good of a job as he had thought getting rid of it the night before) and then found out that he had a 103 temp. He didn’t have a temp the next day, but was miserable. I’ve never seen him like that. He finally seemed to get better Saturday night and then was fine yesterday, thank god! I was pretty certain Sara was about to turn around and go home after his display on Saturday! But, she stuck around and we had a very nice rest of the weekend playing with the kids. And, later that weekend Alex more than made up for his horrible mood on Saturday when he started walking all over the house on Saturday night and Sunday! It was very exciting. He had taken his first steps about 4 weeks ago, but hadn’t really walked too too much since then. This weekend, however – he was cruising! It is really exciting. Here he is at Caroline and Jake’s last weekend. So, picture this, but a bit more steady and frequent (and, right side up)!

As a follow up to my last post...

And, just so you all don't think that I'm completely naive in thinking that little boys are the only mischievous ones out there, this is what happened when Avery was unsupervised in the back seat with her crab stamp that she won at a fall festival.....

A New Rule

Disclaimer – yes, I’m generalizing in this post. Yes – I realize that not all boys are like Alex and not all girls are like Avery. Just run with it….

Ok – I’ve made a command decision – there should be a new rule that needs to be followed by whoever is in charge of the whole having-a-baby process (which I guess is the father??).

So, to all of you fathers out there – PLEASE make sure that if you are going to have a girl and a boy that the boy needs to come first. Why you ask? Yes, it is cute to have a big brother to watch over the baby sister and to make sure that no mean boys take advantage of her, etc. But, that is not the reason. The reason is that boys are mischievous, they are a handful, and they get into EVERYTHING. That said, it is unfair for a couple to have a girl first because it is a big trick. It is a trick to make them think that they will never have to baby proof the house or that they won’t have to keep their eye on the baby AT ALL TIMES. Because, if they don’t? THIS is what that baby boy will do:

1. He will get into every cabinet in the house and pull out everything in it – leaving things like risotto, cheerios and life cereal strewn across the floor.

2. He will get a hold of the portable phone and then proceed to crawl around on the hardwood floors while holding said phone in his hand and banging it on the ground as hard as he can while crawling.

3. He will get into the dog dishes and splash water all over himself and the mudroom right before you are about the walk out of the house.

4. He will take the phone, which has now gotten the c$%p beat out of it and decide to stir the dog’s water with it.

5. He will get a hold of the chalk that his big sister has in her easel and will either a)throw all of it on the ground or b) eat it. And when his mother tells him not to do it, he will look at her with a mischievous, “I don’t give a s$%^t what you say” look and do it again – just to piss her off.

6. And, the one to top it all off – He will CRAWL UP THE ENTIRE FLIGHT OF HARD WOOD STAIRS ALL BY HIMSELF WITHOUT HIS MOTHER LOOKING and will then thank the lord (not really even realizing it) that his father was there to catch him right before he fell down the stairs that he just crawled up.





All that being said, he will also wake up every morning with a huge smile on his face and immediately reach out to hug his sister when he gets out of the crib and then give his mom just as big of a hug when he is done….

Surprise!

Well, this past weekend was the long awaited 30th B-day surprise weekend for Lexi in Houston. I have to give all of the credit to William, as he is the one who came up with the idea of me flying to Houston to surprise Lexi on her 30th. Then again, who am I kidding? I flew out there by myself with a 15 month old on my lap (except for when he decided to crawl on the lap of the girl next to me on the first flight – that was pretty funny) - because of this, I’m going to take a little bit of credit as well.

Alex was definitely a trooper on the flight out there. He had been really sick all week and had just started to get better that Friday, but he hung in there and in hindsight, it may have worked to my advantage as he slept nearly the entire way there.

We didn’t get in until 11 pm that night, so we decided to surprise Lexi at breakfast the next morning. Lexi and Will are staying at a hotel until their new house is done, so the plan was for Mom and Dad to meet them down at the breakfast at 8 am that morning. Well, they did – except Dad was holding Alex in his arms when he walked in. I didn’t see it because I was behind the corner, but my mom got this photo and as you can see, the look on Lexi’s face was priceless. I think that her first question was “Who the hell is that??”

She had a hard time figuring out how Alex would get to Houston when he hadn’t been there just 12 hours earlier. At that point, I walked around the corner and surprised her. We both started crying – it was pretty cool.

Saturday - we went to see Will and Lexi's new house, which was beautiful! After that, Lexi was hosting a baby shower, so I went to Jess's house and hung out with her, Owen, Amy and Olivia for the day. It was great seeing everyone and although our topics of coversation now cover things like what our kids eat, whether or not they pick their noses and what we do about it and nap schedules (vs. how much we drank the night before (although, had this get together been on Sunday, I could have chimed in on that (see below)...), who we kissed the night before and what the gnomes ate for dinner the night before (yes - this is an inside joke and yes - we were not "sober" at the time), it still felt like we had just seen each other yesterday...

It's scary to think that someday these sweet, innocent looking kids may be talking about the same things we did back in the day. Lord help us...

The rest of the weekend was spent getting manicures and pedicures, having a VERY nice dinner (and way too much of VERY nice wine and champagne) to celebrate her birthday

Going to Discovery Green (aka, mini little playground/waterpark/concert venue for kids) for a picnic





Going on walks

Stealing toys from our cousin

Playing in our cousin's crib



Going the zoo (the picture of which is not cooperating, but picture alex pointing at an elephant...)

and most importantly hugging our cousin...

It really was a great weekend.

I’m pretty certain Alex’s teachers were cursing my name on Tuesday morning, as we didn’t get in until 1 AM earlier that morning, but whatever. It was worth it. And, if it makes them feel any better, I thought that I was about to die when the alarm went off at 5:30 for me to take Deacon out. In the dark. In the cold. In the rain. With Coyotes howling in the background. Ahhhhh how I missed the country life (insert sarcasm)….

Girls' Weekend

Christine came to town again this weekend for a visit! Unfortunately, Alex was sick for most of it, so he didn’t get to join in a lot of the festivities. However, it did give us an opportunity to have some girl time with Avery, which I think that she needs and enjoys. Saturday was a jam packed day, starting with Avery’s Might Mights practice at the YMCA. I’m pretty certain that Christine is now fully prepared when she comes here, but for those of you who haven’t been to visit and especially those of you who don’t have kids – beware. You will be up at 7 am (if you are lucky – sometimes anywhere between 530 and 630) and you will be going all day long. But, don’t worry – I do provide wine and food to help you get through it.

ANYWAY – Avery enjoyed t-ball and did very well at it, but had a hard time focusing because she knew that we were going to a fall festival afterwards.



The festival was great – lots of stuff for the kids to do, great weather, etc.









On the way back, Miss Avery fell asleep, so we decided to stop off at a coffee shop to enjoy a cup of coffee and to let her sleep for a bit longer in the car. One of the many luxuries of living in the country – where else could you just leave your kid and dog in the car while you have coffee? Don’t worry – we were all of 10 feet away from them and all windows were down. They were fine.

Saturday night, Christine and I decided to motivate and make a fire in our fire pit (which we have had since we were married in 2004 and just now used for the first time, but that’s another story…). I have to say – I was rather impressed by Christine’s fire starting abilities. We weren’t planning on having a fire, so we had limited paper to get it started, but that proved to be no obstacle for Christine! She got right in there and blew on that puppy until it started and we ended up with a rather nice fire as a result. In fact, Christine was so excited by her success that she just continued to blow on the fire even after it was raging. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t necessary, but I wasn’t going to spoil her fun (and, it was kind of funny watching her sit there and blow on the fire for so long).





Sunday, we took Avery with us on a long walk with Deacon on the beach. She actually did a good job of keeping up, which was impressive.



That afternoon, we did take Alex with us and went to a restaurant for lunch, which was of course, Avery’s highlight of her day.

Overall, it was a great weekend.

And, just for kicks (and, because poor Alex didn’t get too much attention in this post), we’ll end with a cute naked picture of him…