it's done!

I am finally finished with L's first-year baby book!! I am pretty dang proud of myself, even though I'm an entire year late! My goal is that the rest of his childhood albums will be digitally scrapped, so that's a little bit easier. Now I can finally move onto a new project and feel no guilt whatsoever! :)

Front page

A few random favorites. I have a LOT more favorites, but couldn't post pictures of all of them! 

Last page. Might be one of my "more favorites."
I'm done!! Yay!

memory sake

Things that I loved about today (which was actually a few days ago):
- Driving along a stretch of the river slowly trying to soak in these early signs of spring on the trees
- Eating lunch outside at a park on a swinging bench with my favorite little boy
- L taking a bite of his sandwich and then running off to go down the slide again and again
- L was playing with a new friend, and right in the middle of it he ran up to me and gave me a hug and a kiss. I love how he's not old enough to be embarrassed by that.
- When far away on the other side of the playground, I heard his little voice out of all the other kids calling out to me. I looked for him, and when our eyes met he smiled real big and proceeded to climb the steps to the slide. He just wanted to know that I was watching
- Watching L fearlessly climb to the top of the big-kid playground to go down the biggest slide over and over again
- While sitting and eating grapes together, L would continually scoot closer until our legs were touching side by side and keep eating. He did this every time he came back to sit down after playing.
- L running as fast as he could down the ramp and into my arms for a big hug
- Listening to him say 'swing,' 'slide,' and 'fast' over and over again
- When it was time to go, watching him turn around and wave to the playground saying "bye play"

a little bit of the birthday

Practicing with L before the song

He loved it! It took him a long time trying, but he finally got both candles.

Fuzzy, but super cheesy grin. 

Hooray for the birthday boy! 

L turns two!

round two

Saturday morning L got lucky enough for a second Easter egg hunt with some neighborhood friends! This time around we didn't have to help him as much, and he kept saying "more eggs!" over and over again. So stinkin' cute! And we even had to take some out of his basket to make it fair for the other kiddos - so he definitely caught on to the idea and will make a killing at the egg hunts next year! :)

Some-what of an awkward looking picture that doesn't quite show the baby bump. I promise, I really am six months pregnant - that's just a bigger shirt so you can't tell. 

Walking home with the loot.
Happy Easter!!

Here's L counting his eggs. He can count to ten on his own, but under the pressure of the camera we only got up to six. He still wins my heart! 

round one

Friday night we had a little get together with some family and friends. Oh how I love this boy!

We ended the night with L's first Easter egg hunt! He was quite distracted with eating the candy, and we had to coax him for a long time to keep looking for more eggs. Other kids actually had to take eggs out of their bucket and "hide" them for L to find because he was taking so long and had missed 'em all! 

These two were the youngest ones there, and it was so funny watching them learn the ropes. You can tell they enjoyed the results!
SO FUN!

reading time

Just a few pictures to show off my two handsome men in the house. L LOVES it when we read to him and he practices his words and letters. Melts my heart to watch him learn so fast! 

weekend get-a-way

Just getting back and settled after an awesome trip out to Jersey to visit family. It was a wonderful breath of fresh air, and my brother and his family were fabulous hosts. Our house is a little too quiet and boring for L now, so I'll have to wait until he's asleep to post more pictures. But here's a teaser from the Jersey Shore.

you've got to ask yourself one question ...

well, do ya, punk?

side note: I've never even seen the movie that this quote comes from. Ry and I just thought it would be funny.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

amusing

So it's been a while. And for all of you who are on the edge of your seat wondering what we've been up to this past month (I know the anticipation has been awful, hasn't it?), I promise we are alive and well. Our lives have been pretty standard, ordinary, predictable, and thus un-eventful as of late.

For example: I took a few pictures yesterday and wanted to upload them to our computer. In the process I realized that the only photographic documentation I have of our lives from February 18th (the day of the pictures from the last post) till March 14th is this sole picture:

An entire month, and this is all I've got.

Why would I take this picture you ask? Because this was a monumental day in our home. L ate a cookie. Not kidding. This kid will not eat cake, cookies, chocolate, brownies, even ice cream! And if you remember my fettish with ice cream, you'll understand how heart breaking this is! The only sweets he will eat are skittles and M&Ms. I'm not really complaining (okay, maybe I am) because I have the worst sweet tooth ever, and I'm happy that my child is at least not following my footsteps in that direction (at least not yet). I know there are many of you out there who wish your child would stop wanting those sweets, and who are probably yelling at your computer right now trying to help me understand what a blessing it is that L doesn't do so. 

But on this particular day, which was March 1st, L actually ate an entire snickerdoodle cookie. And I could not be more proud. Hence the picture. 

Since that day he has still refused sweets in any form - including additional snickerdoodles. Is this amusing to anyone else? Probably not. But at least it was reason enough to pull out the camera, and for that I am grateful.  

some fun

We explored the recreation outlet out here in C-bus and really had a fun time! Completely wore the kids out (and us too!). I think L liked the trampoline the most, because I had to get on the tramp every time to get him off! and mind you, there's a rule about only one jumper at a time, so there's half a dozen moms with their kids waiting in line watching me wrestle with him and awkwardly step out of the netted-in trampoline onto those tiny little slides they use to help the kids in and out. A little embarrassing, but worth it.

lots of lovin'

It's so fun to have family near, because you have a silly excuse to go all out for a holiday that you might not have otherwise. Tara and I thought of a Red/Pink dinner menu, complete with lots of food coloring and it was so fun! I still laugh at how weird pink rice looks with red chicken! She had a table all decorated pretty-like, and part of my half of the night was doing the cupcakes. I tried a few new techniques in decorating and I had so much fun! Thanks guys - it was a great time! 

Enjoy the love!

I am SO grateful for Ry and L. They make love a real, tangible thing for me every day and I learn a lot from them about who it is that I'm trying to be. I have the best valentines in the world. 

questions

I asked myself a lot of questions this morning ... it went something like this:

"I haven't seen L in a while. Where is he?"
{hearing L throw a few things down the stairs ... this is common, and therefore didn't deserve a second thought ... hearing L come down the stairs}

"Why is it so quiet in the living room?"
{a few minutes later}

"I'm glad he's playing by himself for a little bit, but what is L laughing about so much?"
{a few more minutes}

"I wish he could just talk more instead of yelling 'Mmaaa' over and over again. Does he really need me right now?"
{continued giggling and yelling for Mmaaa, so I eventually go see what he is up to}

What a cutie!! I almost had an urge to play in it with him, and then just smiled and went to work cleaning it up. I was breathing in baby powder for quite some time - but it was worth it. Cleans up easy, and it created a very cute, happy little boy.

Maybe this is a step in the right direction: playing with white, powdery stuff. Baby power today, snow tomorrow! We will see!!

friends

It is really nice to live walking distance to friends! I know L is grateful for it too ... it seems he is getting bored of me lately during the long days of staying inside.

I LOVE this picture of these two boys. They are a riot together!
Thank goodness for friends!! 

say it ain't so

This was our experience with the crazy snow storm that hit this past weekend. By far the best storm we've had all year, all things considered: amount of snow, level of snow-clearing in the roads, and the beautiful blue sky the next day. It didn't even feel like we were in Ohio anymore! 

I wanted cute family snow pictures, so R took a break from studying and we got all bundled up. L threw tantrum after tantrum while trying to put snow pants, coat, hat, gloves, and boots on; but we kept saying, "we're going outside and you're going to like it!"  

This is THE only normal looking picture I have to L the entire time. 

This is him not wanting to touch any snow - even with his boots.

He LOVES watching Daddy shovel, so I thought it would make him happy ... didn't really work.

Still didn't work.

Life is miserable!

We tried all sorts of things - especially playing in the snow ourselves - to try to warm him up to the idea. At one point R laid down and started making a snow angel ... 

... and this was L's reaction.

At one point we very firmly planted him on the snow sitting down and proceeded to lightly throw snow on his pants (once again, telling him, "you're going to have fun and you're going to like it!"), and he was just crying the entire time. Talking with a friend a few hours later, she commented on how she saw us playing with L in the snow and how cute we all looked throwing snow on him! I told him how miserable he was and that he was screaming bloody murder through it all, and she was so surprised! Just looking through the window she said it looked like we were having fun! It's amazing how the snow can muffle his screams ... 

In the end it was an exhausting excursion for R and I. Way too much work for what we got out of it. The last, futile attempt to entice L was for R to do a running dive into the snow in our back patio. Do you see the clearance he made? No tracks around him at all! Nevertheless, L continued to scream. 

I took him inside and off came all his clothes. Then he watched Daddy shovel a path to our garbage can, and laughed while watching him. Ooooohhhh it made me mad. 

L may have won this battle, but we will win the war. This kid is going to enjoy snow whether he wants to or not! It just may take a few more tries ...