November 2010

This year thanks to Neil's cousin Jenn and facebook, I woke up one morning to the Christmas tree being up, 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.  Neil had let me sleep in and he put up the tree while watching the kids.  Clearly I should sleep in more often.  Then as a family we decorated it and Macy got to put the star on top.  Next year we are going to have to figure out some compromise because Tyler was trying to climb my legs to help with the star. 

To get into the Christmas spirit we went to the Raleigh Christmas Parade.  Tyler had fun, but all Macy cared about was going out to lunch with Adam & Katie. 

For Thanksgiving this year Patti & Stig (aka YaYa & Grampie) came down to our house.  We had a traditional Thanksgiving with all the fixings.  I was quite successful at not setting off the fire alarm while browning the Turkey, instead I set the marshmallows that topped the mashed sweet potatoes on fire.  It was awesome. Thankfully, I had spare marshmellows and we saved the dish. 

On Friday morning after Thanksgiving, we had our first Christmas celebration with Yaya and Grampie.  The kids could not have been more excited about their presents.  Grampie couldn't wait until Friday though, so their big present was recieved on Thursday.  It was a Ford F150 truck that Tyler wasted no time getting into and learning to drive.  We also went to see the Lights of the Neuse and Lake Myra Light Show, so it was a perfect week to really get into the holiday spirit.  By the time we got home Macy chaimed she was hungry, but the instant we set her at the table with food, she fell asleep. 





November Pictures

October 2010

October was a busy fall month.  We went pumpkin picking at Hillridge Farms, did the Durant Halloween Trail with friends, went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival which we made an overnight trip and did the zoo the following day.  To end the festivities on Halloween, Macy's friends came over and we all went trick or treating together.  Tyler was interested only if the house was giving away lolly pops.  All the kids lasted much longer than we expected and it was definitely a fun night. 

Macy wanted to be Ariel for Halloween and we had friends that were having a big party, so we did a family theme and I made everyone's costumes.  Macy was Ariel, Tyler was Sebastian, Neil was King Triton and I was Ursula. 

October Pictures

September 2010

A very Happy Birthday to Macy.  I can't believe she is 4.  I am so proud of the little girl she is becoming.  She moved up to the next level classroom in school several weeks early, so she is now a Super Squirrel.  Guess that means we have to stop yelling at the squirrels that attack our bird feeder.  For her birthday she decided that instead of asking for presents for herself that she would ask people to donate toys to the children's hospital.  I was very nervous of how well this would go when she saw actual toys at her party, but she did great and told Tyler more times than I could count to stay away from the presents they are for "the children".  She had her party at an indoor playground called the rainbow room and I made her a rainbow cake to go along with it.  She had so much fun helping with all the colors and making sure each layer was perfect.  We continued our tradition of cake for breakfast and she had a chocolate cake with pink icing and 2 different color pink sprinkles with a hello kitty candle.  She also started a new ballet class. This one will go the entire year and will end in a recital.  So far, all is going very well and she is very excited about class each week. 

Congratulations to Auntie Sarah!  Her and Mike got married on what had to be the most beautifully perfect fall day.  Macy was so excited to get to see a wedding in person and thought that Auntie Sarah looked like Princess Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty).  She had a blast dancing at the reception.  Tyler was so overwhelmed with excitement that he fell asleep after the first dance and woke up a few minutes after the last dance.  He spent the wedding being passed around and didn't even seem to notice.  The rest of our trip it was cold and dreary weather, so we spent lots of time indoors playing with Yaya, Grampie, Evan and Cody.  It was a great trip!  Before we left Macy was already asking when we could come back.

September Pictures

August 2010

My favorite part of this month was dog sitting for a friend.  Tyler kept us extremely amuzed.  He was trying to say Dog sit.  Unfortunately the way he was saying Dog sounded more like Duck, but his Ds sound like Fs and he was adding an H in sit.  So for three days he walked around the house screaming Fuck Shit all day long.  The poor dog was probably so excited to get away from our verbally abusive child. 

August Pictures

Silly kids

Macy and Tyler are hamming it up in half these pictures.  Tyler loves to pose and like Pavlov's dog he says cheese the second he hears a beep that sounds anything close to the sound of the camera being turned on.  Macy has moved up to the squirrel class room and while it was a rough start, she now loves school so much that she has asked to live there. 

Click here for pictures.

July 2010

July was hot, but we made the most of it.  We started the month out with a 4th of July party, our grass has still not recovered from the slip & slide.  Then we went to the National Aquarium in DC, where the kids had more fun playing with a bubble art exhibit then actually viewing anything inside the aquarium.  We ended the month with a trip to Busch Gardens & Water Country with the Taylor family.  That was definitely the best trip we've had in a while.  Macy was so excited to go on rides with Alexis and have a sleep over.  We learned just how much of a dare devil Tyler has inside of him. He enjoyed every slide and declared "Tywer wike side, wike side" after going down an inner tube slide.  We did push the kids a little too far by taking them on an adult rafting ride, which Macy was enjoying until she turned around and saw Tyler & Alexis soaked and very displeased.  Then she got her turn to get soaked and well that was it for water rides for Macy.  The next day she made it very clear she did not want to go on that ride again, but had no problem playing in the kiddie water areas.  It was a 108, but the water was perfect and we had such a blast that on the drive home we looked up details about the water park in NC.    View our July pictures here.

Macy: Macy is on a major marriage kick right now.  I think it stemmed from her wanting to wear my engagement ring and me saying she'd have one of her own when she gets married.  Most of the time she wants to marry Kaden, but one day she was feeling a bit impatient and said since he didn't propose yet she was going to marry Aiyden from preschool because Ms Mary said it was ok.  Lucky for us she wants to have her wedding at Chuck E Cheese and then have a picnic in the backyard afterwards.  So Neil and I will be going on an awesome vacation with her wedding fund :-)  

Tyler: According to Macy is going to marry Claire, but he seems to have a crush on Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty).  He knows her name and recognizers her out of Macy's toys.  Given free reign to her toys he always goes for Princess Aurora.  

Happy 4th of July!

We had our second annual 4th of July party.  I think we built it up a little too much to Macy because she was convinced it was her birthday party.  We setup the slip & slide, other pools and bouncy house for the kids.  All of them seemed to have a good time.  They figured out that it was more fun to steps on the hose to shoot the water 10 feet as opposed to actually going down the slide.  By the time fireworks came around they faded fast and ended up curling up to sleep on the sidewalk during the show.  When the fireworks were done and we woke Macy up, she said "I want more fireworks".  We had our friend Adam cook the main meat, pulled pork.  It was so good that in the morning Macy asked for it for breakfast.  I think that's got to be the best compliment ever.

June

To view June pictures click here

June came and went unbelievably fast.

Macy, Tyler and I spent a week up in Ohio taking care of Grandma. There were many trips to Chuck e Cheese and thankfully we got to see my high school BFF and her kids, Kayla and Kyle. Macy still asks when Kayla can sleep over our house. During one of the playdates Kayla started to walk Macy like a dog, which Macy still likes to pretend even though I won't let her put a leash on. Grandma was a good sport and let Macy paint her toes (toes, not toe nails). We learned that Tyler has a love of the piano, he couldn't walk past it without attempting to play it no matter how hard he had to stretch to reach the keys. All 3 of us survived the drive back home too, which I was pretty proud of myself, but I give a lot of credit to single mothers. Traveling alone with multiple children is not easy at all. Course it didn't help that I showed up at the wrong hotel, which unfortunately was booked and they proceeded to tell me and my overtired children there was no room. The guy must have realized he was pushing me over the edge because he quickly grabbed me a chair and sat me in front of their computer to pull up my reservation then he gave me directions to the right hotel. That was fun :-) Oh, did I mention Tyler had blown out his diaper while I was talking to the clerk and it was running down the side of me. Yes, that was loads of fun.

Macy started taking a "tappin shoes class" which is half ballet and half tap. It's really hard to tell whether she likes it because she can dance or because she gets to make noise. I don't care as long as she is happy and willingly goes into the class. I know I'm biased but she is super cute in her tappin shoes. Funny enough out of all her colorful leotards, she only wants to wear the black ones.

May

To view May pictures click here

I know, we're late again. I've added it to my 101 goals to update the blog twice a month so after this massive posts things will be more frequent.

Hmmm, May was so long ago, but here goes:

Tyler climbed out of pack and play at 16 months. Thankfully it wasn't out pack & play it was the Bates' and he hasn't done it since or climbed out of his crib. The funny thing was when I tried to get him, he was banging on the door and leaning up against it, so I couldn't even open it to let him out. In his mass hysteria he did manage to grab himself a few tissues off Avery's night stand.

Avery's 4th birthday was a strawberry picking party which Macy and Tyler quickly caught on to how to pick the best looking berries and put just enough into the bucket that we wouldn't notice the high quantity they consumed on the spot. Tyler also got extremely possessive of his bucket and screamed anytime you came close to it. That boy likes his strawberries and wasn't about to share. Macy couldn't have cared less about the bucket as long as you didn't take her away from the bushes. She knew regardless of the bucket if bushes were near by, she had berries near by.

Got to be NC - Tyler did first petting animal zoo. He had no fear even after a camel had his entire hand in it's mouth. He got his revenge though by pulling a chunk of hair out of a goat that he was trying to kiss.

We went with the whole Bates family to a Durham Bulls game. The kids loved it. Macy was actually quite interested in the game and of course all the high sugar foods made it ok too. The main reason we picked that game was Dora. Tyler and Macy both posed with Dora without any hesitation. Macy understood when her turn was done, but I'm pretty sure the people who took pictures after us have Tyler in their photos as well. He wasn't so willing to leave Dora.

So we're a little behind on the blog

I hope you're comfortable, because we've been busy :-) If you just want to see the pictures, scroll to the end of each section.

The yard (What I've been doing since I haven't been updating the blog)
For mother's day, Neil watched the kids while I built my herb garden. I wanted to do all organic, so I built a raised bed with a little retaining wall. It has rosemary, pineapple sage, mexican spearmint, oregano, sage, parsley, thyme, cilantro, lavender and garlic chives. While doing that, we also decided to change the walkway between the gate and the back yard from mulch to grass. Neil got some more blueberry bushes, so we now have 3, but have not gotten to eat many berries due to 1 rather hungry robin. We are turning the side lower section of the yard into 1 big pumpkin patch, so look for pictures of that come the fall. We also have some tomatoes growing on the deck and strawberries and cucumbers growing in some topsy turvey's which are hung from the deck. I've also been putting together the front yard. It's not quite the english garden style I wanted, but all the plants are extremely drought tolerant, which is more important. After the sunflowers bloom, I'll be putting some evergreen type bushes to back fill and provide color for the winter. For all those pictures click here.

Tyler
He's had quite the active past few months. At his 15 month check up he was labelled with failing to thrive and was put through an extreme amount of tests. All tests came back negative, which leads me to believe that my gut was correct. Every time he cuts a tooth, he refuses to eat. Since his 1st birthday he's gotten 9 more teeth. Add to that several ear infections and stomach bugs and really I wasn't shocked he lost weight. He seems to be eating better since his molars came in, so hopefully at his appointment in a couple weeks we'll have good news. He is talking up a storm these days and has an attitude that is 5 times his size. He loves to help and gets VERY VERY angry when you don't let him or when you try to help him. One perfect example is at the garden store he insists on pushing the wagon himself. If I step towards the wagon without the intent to add a plant, he growls and physically pushes me away (he's very strong). At Macy's preschool if you don't give him a cracker, he makes sure everyone in the building is fully aware of his disappointment. Course you'd be crazy not to give him a cracker, because he starts requesting the cracker as soon as you turn onto the street her school is on. He adores Macy and loves to follow her around. When she's not home, he dresses up in her clothes and wears her shoes. He actually refers to himself as pickle, so that looks like it's the nickname that's going to stick. He thinks every animal barks like a dog and while we thought he just thought every animal was a dog, he did say kitty cat today, so he does know they do have different names, but they still all bark. And we clearly take too many pictures because as soon as he hears the camera beep, he says "CHEESE". He likes to try to use a fork to eat these days. If he's not in the mood to eat then he uses the fork for entertainment. See the video on our video blog for that joy. He is quite the entertainer these days and couldn't be further from shy. He loves to completely ham it up everywhere we go from the nursery to the shoe store, he's not happy if he doesn't make everyone notice him clowning around. He is even training Macy's teachers to say hi to him immediately upon entering the room. He has also gotten his first pair of shoes and his first wagon ride. He loves the wagon! We are teaching him to not throw food on the floor. Instead he asks for your hand and puts all the food he doesn't want in your hand and then pushes your hand away. I'm not sure why exactly, but he does not want the food in front of him when he is done. He loves to share his food and does not understand when you don't share back. Auntie Kellie learned this when he said to her "Tyler drink share" while he was pointing at her coffee cup.

Macy
So sometime afterThanksgiving we missed a few birthdays and Macy is now 16. I'm amazed at how early the sassy attitude can come out. We took the kids to an organic farm that had animals and plants, she just wanted to go sit in the car. We took her to the beach and she just moped on the blanket, then got up and started walking the other direction. We tried to take her to a butterfly festival, but she didn't want to go to that either. Apparently we are really lame parents and she's going to have quite long teenage years ahead of her. She is still quite the ham at home though and is actually starting to show more of her personality at school as well. She has given Tyler some more nick names. The ones that stick around the most are Buddoman, Tyliman and pickle. She's a great helper when it comes Tyler. One day I asked her to get him for me because it was time to go. She came into the kitchen dragging Tyler by the pant leg and he was rolling on the floor laughing. If he's cranky and yelling, she'll say "Temper Temper Buddoman." You'll see from some of the pictures she went through a phase of dressing herself. In layers. She even layers her socks because you need t-shirt socks first then sweater socks, but not a third layer "because that would be hot." Macy still has a love of forts. Although she is really putting my fort making to a test because now she requests specific sizes and rooms. We made one in the family room which had a sunroom spa, a library and a music room. She was not happy when she went to bed and we took it down because it took up the entire family room. So I made her a large one in the playroom, which is pretty much the entire playroom, but she's not too happy with that one because it's just 1 room. Man is her house going to be huge and fancy one day.

February
Our friend Josh took Tyler's first birthday pictures. He totally hammed it up and we got some great shots. He wasn't too interested in the cake though, so we shoved an oreo into the back of the cake and that he was all about digging out. Macy went through her Punky Brewster phase with dressing herself. She also made her own Valentine's day cards. She used coffee filters and cut like hearts and dyed them pink, blue and purple. I was shocked to find out at the class party that she was the only one to do that. Everyone else bought store cards. Good to know for next year because her making the cards took a good 2 weeks of pestering.
For all those pictures click here.

March
Macy and I started planting all our seeds (sunflowers, pumpkins, tomatoes, cantelope, flowers, etc) We got a little carried away and ending up throwing some things out because we simply ran out of room. Macy loves to water them and she loves to water herself, daddy, Tyler and me as well. Occassionally Tyler is allowed to hold the hose. We had the neighborhood easter hunt, which the kids totally loved. They did a good job of breaking it out this year so all the kids were able to get eggs. They had the ponies again and to our amazement Tyler was extremely excited. Macy and Tyler both sat next to the bunny and it was a pretty good day. Macy had a blast coloring eggs and still asks frequently if we can do it again. I have a feeling we may be coloring eggs for the 4th of July.
For all those pictures click here.

April
On Easter we did a couple eggs hunts. The first was inside and Neil put clues in the eggs. Macy had a blast going through finding the clues. The end was their baskets from the bunny. Then after brunch, we did another egg hunt outside. Tyler was much more into that hunt and at one point even stole Macy's basket. Macy was actually more excited about the money this year, but the candy eggs were still her favorite. Yaya and Grampie came down for a visit the following weekend. It really couldn't have been a more beautiful weekend. We started out with a trip to the zoo. The next day Tyler had a double ear infection, so Macy took Yaya and Grampie to Marbles where they built a real butterfly house and got to view a wonderful play staring Macy. We also went to the NC State gardens where they were having a bird house competition. Some were really fancy, some were not. Next year Macy will definitely be putting in an entry because I think the bird house she built a few months ago would have blown her age group away. Then her and Yaya painted binoculars. Tyler got his first haircut while I was in New Orleans. Neil did a really good job, but I am still upset he did it without me. There was an organic farm tour one weekend where you could go onto the farms and see how they operate, get tours, etc. We picked two farms to go to. One had a little bit of everything, cows, pigs, chickens and vegetables galore. Macy wasn't too interested. Then we went to a dairy farm. That one she didn't care about until we went into the milking room. Then she was all about it and was so excited that the lady let the kids hold the milking machine. She made us go through that tour twice.
For all those pictures click here.

January 2010

The Kids

Tyler is sort of walking on his own and now has 8 teeth. He has definite sounds for things he is trying to say, but still no solid words other than mama and dada. The boy in him is definitely starting to show with his preference of toys. He definitely favors his cars, especially his giant red car that he got for his birthday. He also loves to dance. It doesn't matter what type of music or where it is coming from, the second he hears it, he can't help himself, he must dance.

Macy had a couple of her princess friends over for a princess tea party. They had a blast dressing up, then they made crowns and magic wands before we hyped them up on sugar. Macy is very much into Fancy Nancy and the Disney Princesses right now. She has even started to dress Tyler up. He doesn't seem to mind, but he's not really too thrilled either. He loves her so much that when she dresses him up he gets excited that she actually wants to play with him instead of just his toys. Macy is learning to share and is very good about making sure Tyler shares all his toys with her.

The Big Storm

We got a snow storm the last weekend, which actually stuck around. It left probably about 8 inches on the ground and pretty much shut the city down. Macy woke up and came running into our room screaming "Daddy, Daddy, come look it snowed!" Neil got her a cup of snow to play with while eating breakfast. She made a mini snow man and some castles. Then we took both kids out to play in it. For not having the proper attire or equipment, I think we did pretty good. Both kids stayed completely dry and had a blast. We made sleds out of Tyler's Rubber Ducky tub and Macy's laundry basket.

Click here to view the pictures from January

Happy Birthday Tyler!

The past year has been so much fun I don't know where it went. Tyler is now 17lbs 13oz and is 28.5 inches tall. He's taking a few steps here and there, but still definitely prefers to crawl. He has 6 teeth (4 on top, 2 on bottom). He loves to babble all day long and he actually makes a lot of sounds that sound like words, but aren't quite. We had a joint birthday party for him and Claire since they are just 1 week apart. I made them a giant cupcake cake to share. We did the party at Gymboree so the older kids would have stuff to do as well and it seemed that everyone had a great time, especially Tyler. I've learned just how different 2 kids can be. He is nothing at all like Macy when it comes to strangers or strange situations. He has no fear and will go to anyone. The good thing about that is that he is always happy. I don't think we could have asked for a happier boy.

At my mother's request, I attempted to take a picture of him in the same shirt for the past 12 months. It was relatively easy at first, but as you can see from the last pictures he was having nothing of it. I still tried, so you can't say I don't listen to my mother.

December

Click here to view the pictures from Christmas and the rest of December.


Macy the actress
Macy thought December would be a good time to make her first trip to the ER. We learned what a great actress she is and she's lucky to have survived the trip. She took a new toy to bed with her which had little plastic rose pieces. When she was done with her quiet time she started to cry and say her hiccups hurt. I told her sometimes they do and she stopped crying. A few minutes later, she started to cry again. This time I noticed she was not hiccupping, so I asked her what was wrong. She said, I ate my pink flower necklace. I hadn't looked at the toy too closely before I gave it to her so I didn't know if it had a pink flower necklace or not. Luckily Neil was home, so I made her tell Daddy what was wrong and she told him the same thing. Then he started to play with her a little bit and a couple minutes later she started to cry again and said I ate my pink flower necklace. So, we called the doc, who of course told us to go to the ER. The whole way to the ER she was crying that it hurt. When I took her out of the car, she was still crying saying it hurts mommy. In the ER they have tvs in each room and they were playing 101 Dalmations. The doc came in and asked her what was wrong. She said "nothing". He then asked her if she ate something, to which she replied "nope, I didn't eat nothing" Well following standard protocol they did x-rays, poked around her belly, made her drink and eat, asked her a few more times if anything hurt, to which she always replied "nope, I feel good". 4 hours, 3 veiwings of 101 dalmations and $100 later they let us go home. The whole way home she was quietly watching Dora. I pulled into the garage and she started to cry. I took her out of her car seat and she said "Momma it still hurts". After some counting in my head, I replied "Go tell your father, I'm done" The next morning, she told me again "Mommy, I'm sad, I ate my pink flower necklace." If you'd like to see the video I took of her dancing (clearly in a lot of pain from those hiccups) in her hospital gown check out the video blog site.


Christmas
Christmas was a lot of fun this year because Macy totally understood what was happening. Although maybe she understood a little too much. Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Saundra came to visit. We all went over to the Bates' house for dinner on Christmas Eve, where Avery and Macy put on Frosty costumes and did a little show. Not too much a routine, more of a lovely chorus here and there with a lot of running through the streets of town reinactment. There are videos on the video blog. When we got home she was super excited to put out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Then she quickly went to bed to make sure Santa would stop here. When she woke up she came in exclaiming Santa came and brought her a doll house and train even though from upstairs she couldn't see anything. She quickly woke everyone up and got everyone down stairs. When she opened the doll house and we asked her what she though, she said "I like it, but I asked for a train set too". When she opened the train set, she said "It's just a train". I felt quite brow beaten by the time the day was done. Tyler wasn't too into opening presents. He just wanted to play with what he had. Macy was more than happy to step in and help him. She was also so kind as to show him how to play with all his presents and to make sure they all worked properly before he got to see them. She's such a great big sister, always looking out for Tyler.