BIL

Quick question - can any of you honestly say that you have a brother in law who is as studly as Will?

 I mean, look at him - who wouldn't be lucky enough to have this guy marry your sister so that you can see him at all family get togethers? 

Here's hoping all of you have a brother in law as cool as William...

You may be wondering where in the world this post came from?  I'll give you three guesses:

1.  I really just wanted to give a shout out to my Brother in Law
2.  I enjoy having William as a Brother in Law so much that I thought he deserved his own post
3.  SOMEONE (not naming any names) was a bit pouty because he hadn't been mentioned on this blog....

Ok, ok, I guess it is both 2 and 3, but I'll leave the exact ratio between the two up to each of you to guess on your own...

Love ya', Will!

The Birds and the Bees

So, Avery is REALLY into babies.  Like, REALLY into them and she takes the idea of playing with her baby dolls to a whole new level most days.  For example, the other night, we were eating on the deck, so we were getting dinner on the table and told Avery that she had a few minutes until dinner was ready.  At the time, she was sitting on the bench in the kitchen with 2 baby dolls and explained to me that "she wasn't sure if she was going to have time to eat because her babies were just being so fussy!  So, she had to sit with them to calm them down a bit before she came to dinner."  And, sure enough - she did.  She took them both over to the living room, put the burp cloth on her shoulder and burped both of them until they "stopped crying."  She was then ready to eat. 

So, not only is she into playing with her baby dolls, but she is also very into the whole concept of just being a mom.  For example, she is VERY in touch with the whole concept of nursing and talks about it frequently. My initial reaction is to kind of shy away from the topic, but I don't, as I actually do want to support his and would like for her to know that nursing is the best for the baby (am I really saying these things about my four year-old daughter????).  However, we did have to have the conversation that maybe we should just talk about these things at home, as she informed me the other night that, as they were playing house at daycare, her friend Thomas said he was going to feed the baby and Avery explained to him that he couldn't because he "doesn't have boobs."  Awesome.

Well, as you can imagine, all of this interest in babies has led to the obvious and most nerve-wracking question a parent can be asked...

"Mommy, how do babies get into mommy's bellies?"

Oh god.  I was not at all prepared for this question and was hoping it would be a good couple of years until we were asked it.  And, I most certainly wasn't prepared with a response that is appropriate for a 4 year-old!  So, my answer was...

"Well, when Mommy's and Daddy's fall in love, they get married and then they have babies." 

To the point, yet very vague all at the same time.  And, note the fact that I very purposely included the "they get married" part of the equation.  Well, a few days after this discussion, Avery came up to me and told me:

Avery - "Mommy, I have 12 babies and they are all driving me crazy because they just won't go to sleep!"

Whitney - "12 babies?????  That's a lot of babies!"

Avery - "Well, I know.  But, the pretend Daddy and I got married and we stayed at the wedding for soooo long that I ended up with 12 babies in my belly!"

All I have to say is thank the lord that it doesn't really happen like that.  My parents can attest - given the length of time Josh and I stayed at our own wedding??????  They would be grandparents to at least 20 babies at this point.... 

4 years, 3 months and 10 days

That is exactly how long it had been since I have had a day with NO schedule (well, besides work, of course).  Coincidentally, this also happens to be the exact age of my oldest child.  Don't get me wrong - I love my children.  I really do.  But, damn!  It really felt good to be able to do whatever I wanted to do for an entire day and a half.  And, that is exactly what I did this last weekend with three of my good girlfriends.  Colleen came up from New York and Erin and Jen came from Boston (or close to it) and we all met in Newport for the weekend.  We lived my dream on Saturday - got to the beach at 11 am and didn't leave until around 6 pm.  And, while on the beach?  I sat on my butt and didn't do a thing except for read magazines, talk and drink sangria.  Does life get any better than that?  After the beach, we headed back to the hotel and had some wine while on the balcony overlooking the Newport Harbor. 

And, just because this is 1 of the 5 pictures I took all weekend, I figured I'd include it - this is Erin and Colleen right after the beach.  There is also one of me and Colleen, but it is a horrible one of me and since this is my blog, I will exercise my right to exclude it from this post.  :) 

And, then finally made our way to dinner at around 9 pm.  We had a great dinner at a local restaurant and then went out for more wine afterwards.  Although dark, I thought that this picture turned out well of Jen, Erin and Colleen at the bar before dinner. 

I will admit that, while it was great not being forced to stick to a schedule?  I seemed to forget the reason that I have had a schedule for the last 4 years, 3 months and 10 days and that reason is 2 energetic toddlers who don't really understand the concept of, "Mommy got really really drunk last night and feels like crap, so please just occupy yourselves while she sleeps."  So, needless to say, I paid for my good time on Sunday when I got home (and, I'll admit  - I was still hurting just a bit even on Monday), but it was all very worth it.  That day will go down in my book as one of the best this summer.  Thanks, girls!

Avery (aka, Crystal) Holland

Do you notice anything odd about the picture below?  No  - I'm not referring to the fact that Alex is now over the age of 2 and still using a sippy cup that is essentially a bottle.  Oh, and the fact that it is pink.

I'm actually referring to the fact that Avery clearly has no clothes on and the other two do.You may be wondering why this is?  Well, Avery has decided that she needs to learn how to climb the pole on the swing set, because, of course, Caitlin can climb one at daycare and heaven forbid let one of our friends out-play her!  So, being the smart girl that she is, she realized very quickly that her skin will cause more friction than her clothes, allowing her to climb up the pole that much easier.  So, now, every time she tries to climb the pole?  She strips down.  Call me crazy, but you can't tell me you wouldn't be a bit concerned if your daughter were stripping down and climbing poles at the age of 4.  Oh - and, yes, the discussion has already been held - she will NOT be taking off her clothes anywhere but home to do this!  And, no - we will NOT be sharing this particular past time of hers with her teachers at her new school.  I'm thinking this would not go over well at a Catholic grammar school. 

What it's all about

I've mentioned numerous times how LC is the place to be (in my opinion) during the summer.  Winter?  That's a different story. But, we have a few months before that happens, so we won't focus on that right now.  What we will focus on is what an incredible summer this has been.  The weather has been gorgeous and the kids are at great ages to be at the beach, which is a good thing given that we are there every weekend (and that is not an exaggeration) from July through at least the end of August.  However, one thing that we hardly ever do - in fact, I'm not sure we have actually ever done it - is to have dinner on the beach.  But, this last weekend, Josh had the idea of getting a pizza and heading down there for dinner, so we did.  We packed up some beer and wine and grabbed a pizza and salad and headed down. 

It was awesome.  I have to say that it was one of the most peaceful, beautiful nights and I've decided that dinner time may be the best time at the beach.  There was basically no one there, the weather was perfect, the sun was starting to set, etc.  I mean, how can you go wrong with a view like this...

Not sure if you can see it all that well, but those are people on that rock - there are 3 diving boards that you can go off of.  Back in the day, I would go off of these.  Josh still does.  And, I'm sure, soon, our kids will want to.  Granted, I'll probably not feel comfortable with that for another 16 years, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

And, here is the view of the entire beach.  Let me tell you - that guy totally scored.  He was sitting there all by himself reading and we had left over pizza, so being the nice midwestern girl I am, I figured I would offer it to him vs. throwing it out.  And, being the new england man that he was, he looked at me as though there had to be something wrong with it - surely it was poisoned and I was trying to kill him.  People just don't do nice things like that around here.  But, he got over it and ate it and enjoyed it...

The rest of the night, the kids played in the water and I sat in my chair taking pictures and drinking my wine.  Afterwards, we went to get ice cream at the local ice cream shop.  Now, THAT's what summer's all about...

Aunt Lexi Came to Visit!

I think that I've posted on this before, but RI has a random holiday known as Victory Day. It used to be called Victory over Japan Day, as it supposedly marks the day when Japan surrendered and effectively ended WW II (impressed with my history knowledge, huh? Wikipedia is a very nice thing, my friends). Anyway - for whatever reason, RI is the only state that celebrates it and I am completely ok with this. That said, Victory Day was this last Monday, so Lexi and the 2 girls flew out from Houston on Thursday afternoon and spent the long weekend at our house. We had a great time! The kids all got along really well and have started to get to that point where they enjoy playing with one another. Friday, we went to a small zoo near (and, by near, I mean 40 minutes) our house.

 After we saw all of the animals, we rode on the merry go round...

 And, then took a ride on the train.  The cart that we rode in was about the size of a roller skate, so I wasn't able to get a great angle for any good pictures.

Clearly, all of the kids, including Miss Charlotte loved it...

Saturday was a big day!  For, it was the day of the LC Family Chicken BBQ!  I know - you can hardly contain your excitement.  Basically, it is a festival type thing where they grill a bunch of chickens and have a bunch of things for kids to do and some booths that they sell things.  We have never really done it before, so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity, as it would keep the kids busy for an entire morning.  Before the BBQ, we went to the playground, which was right next door.

After the playground, we assumed the BBQ started at 11 am, but it didn't start until noon, which worked out well, as we were the first ones to get on the bouncy house and to eat!  The kids loved the bouncy house...

Then ,we got lunch and ourselves a little picnic...

After lunch, the kids went back to the bouncy house and then moved onto a game where you throw a bean bag in a hole and win a prize.  The guy basically let the kids get as close as they wanted to, so everyone got a prize. 

Although, Alex couldn't decide what he wanted.  The duck hat?  Or, the water bottle with the curly straw.  He went with the hat...

Sunday, in true "Hollands have company, so mother nature is going to piss you off and give you bad weather" fashion, it poured.  Like, all day.  Poured.  All in all, it wasn't bad.  It was nice having a chilled out day inside and it gave us a chance to just play with the kids and not have to worry about going anywhere.  Although, the New England in me started to set in and I was feeling the need to get out of the house and do something, so given that it was still 80 degrees outside, I took the kids out to play in the rain.  And, of course, the rain wasn't wet enough, so we needed to play with the sprinkler, the pool and water toy as well...

Later that day, it cleared up enough for us all to go for a walk in the neighborhood.  As you can imagine with 2 2-year-olds, a 4 year-old and a 6-month old, you don't go too far very fast. 

But, they did manage to find a puddle and all loved jumping and running through that.

Monday, we headed to the beach.  Unfortunately, this was the hottest day that they were there and that, combined with no breeze and low tide, led to a rather unfortunate stench, but we managed. 

The little kids weren't huge fans of the waves, so we took them to the stream, which they all loved.  However, given the low tide, the stench here was unbearable, so the trip the stream was cut a bit short, much to their dismay...

The rest of the weekend was spent doing lots of outdoor eating and drinking- something that Lexi hasn't been able to do in Houston because it has been so flippin' hot there for the last couple of months.  It worked out nicely, as the kids were able to make a mess and then get down and play even if we were still eating. 

And, once again, Miss Charlotte loved being part of the action as well.  I swear - she may be the happiest, most content baby on the planet. The child is perfectly content 95% of the day and all you have to do is look her direction and she gives you this big smile...

It was a great weekend all around!  Alex has been asking where "Abel" is every day since they left.  He just won't buy the fact that she is at home.  We're already looking forward to Thanksgiving when all of them will be together again! 

Classic

So, the other day, Alex is playing and I'm in the kitchen cooking when all of a sudden, I hear him crying and screaming.  Like, the kind of cry when he is really hurt, so I run from the kitchen to the hallway to find this...

Classic Al.  You gotta love him.

My, my, my...aren't we fancy?

Why you ask? We went to a polo match last weekend! I have to say - this was one of the best nights that we have had in a while. Basically, you get a bunch of people together (none of whom know a thing about polo), everyone brings food and booze, chairs, tables, blankets and oh yes - kids. And, you set up camp and watch polo! Luckily, the insane heat that we had all week broke right before the match, so it was actually a very comfortable night for sitting outside. The kids had a blast watching the horses and generally just running around...

 I have to make mention of the fact that the next picture was taken approximately 1 minute before both girls bombarded the woman with dark hair sitting in that chair.  It was actually pretty cute - both of them sat next to her for a good 20 mins and chatted away.  We did go over there quite a few times to make sure they weren't bugging her, but she seemed to love it and said that they were asking all sorts of questions about the match.  I felt like we owed this woman a beer or something for basically babysitting the kids, but she refused.  Silly Lady.

 Here is the group stomping the divots (sp??) during half time (is that what they call it in Polo?).  This was even more entertaining when doing it with 3 2 year-olds and trying to explain the difference between horse poop and divots.  They caught on quickly and LOVED pointing out the poop all over the field.  Every time we saw some, Alex would yell, "Oh!!! Poop!" 

 And, then of course, we all had to race back to the edge of the field when the stomping was done...

The highlight of the game was at the end when the entire audience lined up around the field and all of the polo players rode by on their horses giving everyone a high five.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that, as I was too preoccupied with making sure my youngest didn't run out in the middle of this high five line and get trampled.   Overall, it was a great night and something that we will probably make an annual tradition.