Road Trip

A girl's only road trip that is because no men or children would want to go on this trip! My aunt Cher and I headed to Fort Wayne, IN Wednesday night, stayed in a hotel and got up bright and early (not too early) Thursday morning to hit the Vera Bradley Outlet Sale at the Coliseum. Erin and I had been 2 years ago and had a good experience, but Erin opted out of going this year and appointed me her personal shopper at the sale instead. Upon arriving at the Coliseum at 8:15 am we could see the line wrapped around the building, and down a few rows of parking. We hopped into line and waited outside in the parking lot for 1 hour and 15 min (thank goodness for good weather)before we got into the building and directly into the sale. By the time we were in the line outside was probably double what it was when we had arrived. Controlled chaos is what I would call the inside environment, either that or CRAZY! Of course the anything in new patterns was snatched up by those who got in first, but the selection was still pretty good for most items (barring the ever-popular large duffel and the hipster). My aunt and I had our own lists as well as each other's lists memorized so we went with the divide and conquer method of shopping and met up again when we were done. We got tons of great stuff and for half of what it normally is! After sitting down to sort we were still looking for a few items - hipsters for myself, Erin and my cousin Rachel and a large duffel bag for my aunt. So we went "dumpster - diving" in a way and started sorting through the bins of stuff people had thrown aside during their sorting process; amazingly we found 4 hipsters in cute colors/patterns and at the very end in checkout my aunt found a large duffel in the pattern she wanted that someone else had tossed aside. We of course spent too much money but ended up with some great finds and deals! It was a crazy experience, but totally worth it and my aunt and I got to spend some quality time together through it all which was really nice!

Just one shot of the crazy lines outside (we were next to the building at this point and the line on the right of the picture ran the length of the entire Collesium parking lot)!

A shopping job well done!

All my great Vera Bradley finds!

Field Trip to the Gardens

Joshua's preschool class had a field trip this Monday to Frederik Meijer Gardens so Matthew and I joined him. We had a great time looking at the butterflies, playing in the children's garden and walking around outside to see the sculptures. Joshua's favorites were the HUGE horse, the shovel and all of the glass sculptures by Chihuly (they are truly amazing). I'm sure we'll be back to the gardens again soon as we all enjoy our trips there!

The always hopeful, but never successful Joshua trying to get a butterfly to land on him.

Joshua, Matthew and Jocelyn looking at the butterflies.

Joshua in front of one of Chihuly's works.

Posing with the shovel.

Joshua imitating the sculpture.

Joshua and Matthew by the horse.

Posing with Mr. and Mrs. Meijer.

Matthew in the children's garden.

Joshua in the children's garden.

Spring has sprung at the gardens.

Boys' Birthday Bash 2010

Since Matthew and Joshua's birthdays are only 12 days apart we figured we would have one party for both. It's a tad more difficult to come up with a theme for a dual birthday party for a one year old and a five year old, but thanks to much internet surfing we found the perfect theme, monkeys with a modern twist. The family all came over Saturday night to celebrate the boys and we had a great and chaotic time (8 kids ranging in age from 9 months - 8 years can make for some noise and chaos). The kids had a blast playing together and dinner was gobbled up in no time so it was on to the presents and cake portion of the party. Joshua genuinely loved each and every gift he received and was very good about saying thank you (something we are working on) and giving hugs to gift givers. Matthew enjoyed the paper ripping extravaganza and playing with his new toys. Thanks to our families who spoiled the boys yet again! Enjoy the party-in-review video!

1 Year Stats

Matthew had his 1 year well-child visit at the pediatrician's yesterday and here are his stats:
Weight - 22 lbs. 10 oz. (48%)
Height - 30 in. (59%)
Head circumference - 46.2 cm. (45%)

Just for my own comparison and records Joshua's stats at 1 year were:
Weight - 21 lbs. 14 oz. (30%)
Height - 28.5 in. (25%)
Head circumference - 46.4 cm.

The trend continues of Matthew out-growing his brother in height and weight! No wonder I need bigger T-shirts for Matthew - even Dr. Erika looked at him and said, "he's all torso isn't he?!" Interesting the differences between children in all areas of development and growth.

Birthday Boy

After dinner last night we had Matthew open the gifts we had for him. He didn't have much of a clue as to what was going on, but once he figured out that tearing paper was involved he was in! We are pretty sure he liked his gifts due to the grins and giggles we received as he discovered each item under the wrapping.

Hmmmm, this looks interesting. Are they really going to let me touch it?!

Opening his new caterpillar dump truck phone.



Trying out the Bounce and Spin Zebra.

I think Matthew was excited by this new toy! When I was at a friend's house from MOPS I spotted this zebra and told her when she was ready to sell it; thankfully she was ready to sell it about a month ago and it was the perfect gift for Matthew's 1st birthday!

Tearing paper takes concentration.

Making a pizza!

Gotta wear the oven mitt to keep those hands safe.

Taking his new Radio Flyer 3 in 1 walker wagon for a spin and letting his panda from Uncle Steve and Aunt Cher have the first ride.

Trying out the new wheels outside!

Spending some time at the gardens

Tuesday we met my aunt Cher at the Gardens so we could see the butterflies and explore the children's garden together. Joshua loved the butterflies as usual while Matthew could have cared less about the butterflies yet enjoyed any plant that was within his little reach (no worries, no plants were harmed just tugged on with love a bit). Since my aunt hadn't seen the children's garden Joshua gleefully led her through the grand tour and had her join in playing with him at his favorite spots. No visit would be complete without a stop by the giant horse; amazingly this visit Joshua didn't declare the horses gender for all to hear which is what he normally does when visiting this sculpture :) We even got to have lunch with my aunt and she spoiled the boys with gifts for their birthdays - gift cards to Target (always a favorite as it means picking out and buying a special toy) and stuffed panda bears all the way from the San Diego Zoo in California (apparently they are celebrating a new addition to the panda family there). It was another memorable day at the gardens complete with amazing weather!Someone turned into a caterpillar.

Trying to coax a butterfly on to his finger with no luck.

Plants are apparently way more interesting than butterflies, at least to a one year old who isn't strapped in a stroller and has a taste of freedom.

Posing with "mad mom" who Joshua thought looked more sad than mad.

Matthew loved climbing on the eggs in the tree fort.

Posing for a picture without much success.

Playing in the sand. Not sure Matthew was groovin' on the feel of the sand on his bare toes.

Peeking in the little tree house.

Lunch and special birthday gifts.

Matthew and his new panda.

ONE!

As hard as it is to believe, a whole year has passed by and our baby is turning 1! Amazing how much growth and development occurs in the first year of life! What a joy and a blessing to have this little bubble of energy in our lives! Matthew is going to be our more challenging child to parent so it seems and will be sure to keep us on our toes without a doubt.
At one year old Matthew . . .

~is crawling at mach speed! He currently doesn't have much interest in walking on his own, but who would when you can crawl so darn fast!

~has 2 bottom teeth that are visible.

~is sleeping 11 1/2 - 12 1/2 hours a night.

~is taking one nap in the afternoon and working through giving up his morning nap.

~is climbing anything and everything he can - for the last few weeks he has been showing off his monkey-like climbing skills by climbing the ladder on the play set in our backyard. Thus his nickname of "monkey" has been well used lately.

~still has his pacifier at nap and night time along with his beloved blankie.

~gives wet, slobbery kisses upon request.

~is waving "hi" and "bye" to anyone who will pay attention to him.

~is a social little guy who loves to watch other kids and be a part of the action. When at restaurants you can forget him eating as he is much more interested in watching the people around him.

~eats all table food and enjoys feeding himself, no matter how messy it is - surprisingly the clean-freak in me is allowing the mess-making.

~seems to like to be glued to mommy's hip, lap or leg and whenever he is pried off puts an impressive dramatic show involving a few tears.

~smiles and laughs whenever he is disciplined - for example when we tell him no as he throws food off his tray he just smiles as if that will make us change our minds and allow him to be naughty.

~LOVES to be outside! Now if he could figure out how to walk he would enjoy it so much more and we wouldn't have to buy new pants!

~LOVES water whether it's splashing in the bathtub, the sink or the kiddie pool.

~isn't shy when it comes to sharing his feelings.

~says, mumma (for mommy) and da dee (for daddy) but has no other words yet. He points a lot and gets his requests and points across with facial expressions and lots of noise.

We pray daily for our precious little gift! We love and cherish this little man and can't wait to see what God has in store for him!

Another little tractor lover . . .

He was less than thrilled to relinquish his spot on daddy's lap so his big brother could "help" with the remainder of the lawn mowing.

Poor kid . . .

For the last several days Matthew has been out of sorts. I've basically chalked it up to teething and thought nothing more of it. On Tuesday he was beyond crabby and all the same symptoms were present (runny nose, nasty cough, holding his ears, not eating well) but then I heard him wheezing. By the time I called the pediatrician's office they were closed for the day so I called them the next morning when they opened. After a quick once-over the pediatrician said Matthew not only had an ear infection, but allergies and he was experiencing symptoms of asthma. He had to have a nebulizer treatment in the peds office and there was a noticeable difference in the sounds in his chest - he did really well with it too, not a single tear. Since asthma is pretty common in kids nowadays they have portable nebulizers you can keep at home to use when asthma flares up (would have saved my parents countless trips to the ER with me many years ago), so we received one along with a prescription for the meds for the nebulizer and the antibiotic for the ear infection. I gave Matthew another nebulizer treatment before bed last night as he was wheezing once again, this time he was a bit more annoyed with the mask than earlier in the day and we had a few tears, but he did well. Poor kiddo has not escaped my crappy genes. At least I am well-versed in dealing with asthma and allergies! Matthew has a 85% chance of outgrowing the asthma, but then again he has a mother who is part of the 15% who never outgrow it so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

New Ride

Well, it's new to us anyway. Our 2006 Ford Expedition Eddie Bauer Edition found it's way to our garage last night! This was Cory's boss' company car and she gave us a great deal on it! Cory picked up her new Expedition from the dealership today which allowed us to now have her old Expedition. So far we are loving it!! Everyone has commented on how HUGE it is (and some find it funny that I'm the one driving such a big car the majority of the time), but it handles like a dream! Joshua enjoyed playing in it last night and found a few "treasures" that were left behind (a couple crayons, a highlighter and 12 cents) hidden under the seats. After a couple hours of cleaning everything, loading it all back up with our stuff and installing car seats we now have our family car that can easily tow our new trailer. Besides the big excitement of car being "new" the boys are enjoying new seating - Joshua FINALLY gets to ride in a booster seat and we turned Matthew forward facing (shhhhh, it's really not legal until next Tuesday when he will meet the 1 year old criteria)!

Joshua discoverd the moonroof and thought it was pretty cool!

Someone's enjoying being forward facing!


Lovin' the booster seat!

An Outing to the Museum

Saturday we met Shawn, Erin, Owen and Aiden at the public museum so the boys could explore the Big, Big Bug exhibit. The dinosaur exhibit last year was really good and Joshua and Owen couldn't get enough of it! This year however, we were a bit disappointed by the bug exhibit. There were 5 big animatronic bugs and a few other hands on activities, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as the dinosaurs; could be because children don't encounter dinosaurs everyday, where bugs are pretty much seen every day. The boys did have fun and we spent an hour in that exhibit alone before touring the rest of the museum. Even Matthew had fun with some of the bug activities. As always the highlight of our visit was the carousal, which even Aiden and Matthew got to experience for their first time!

Matthew staring at the GIANT animatronic grasshopper.

Aunt Erin and Joshua posing with the fighting beetles!

Goofballs!

Matthew playing with blocks.

Climbing the "spiderweb".

Joshua checking out another animatronic bug.

Someone thought he was big stuff playing like the big kids were.

Scientists hard at work in the Amway lab.

Hmm, looks a bit big for you Matthew.

Shawn's "Look, no hands!" trick is not so impressive on a stationary bike.

Aiden, Owen and Joshua getting ready to ride the carousal.

Matthew first carousal ride!

Our little bugs!

Joshua and Owen bugs!