Birthday Pics

Some quick pictures from the birthday celebration. I expected that she would immediately start tearing open presents and moving from one to the next but she still very much wanted to open one and then play with it. She quickly became overwhelmed and when her friend showed up for a playdate (two hours after present opening started) she told her to open the rest of her presents. Being a quick ripper she managed to finish off the presents in under two minutes. Phew.

Daddy's little Tinker

Emmett wanting some picture time too..

We definitely overcompensated on the gifts since her party is a no-gift party and given her reaction today, I'm glad there are no gifts tomorrow and I realize I didn't need to go overboard! (sidenote: some gifts featured are from others too!)

Catching up on the tour

Enjoying the Tour de France on a Saturday morning.

No words needed

Funny Holiday Stories

On our recent trip to Boston there were a few very funny moments that I just had to capture:
Falling in Love:  At the wedding we went potty in this nice big beautiful bathroom and as I was washing my hands Alexandra was twirling around holding her dress out and looking at the ceiling.  "Mama" she says "I'm falling in love!"

Porn:  Since there was quite a bit of driving around we had a variety of car games we played, one of which is the "what does XYZ start with" where we would take turns thinking of an object asking the other one what it starts with.  Out of nowhere she asks "What does Porn start with".  When I asked her what she thought that meant she said "It's a really big shoe". Phew. Moving on.  What does tree start with?

Magic:  Alexandra had a flower blossom which she decided was her magic wand and all evening she had been spreading magic around.  When it was time for bed I went to get her from the cousins' room and she asked me "Mom, why doesn't this leapfrog toy work?".  "I don't know, I guess it needs some magic" I responded.  As I start leaving the room she swishes her wand over the toy and looks at me somewhat deflated and says " No Mom, magic doesn't seem to help".

Safety First:  Recently Alexandra has been pretending to read and she'll read us all sorts of stuff.  As we get on the first airplane ride she asks to see the safety information card.  This is her interpretation:
(looking at the pictures of seat cushions being flotation devices) If you go swimming always float on your stomach. 
(reading text):  You have to wear long pants on the plane and no running in the airport away from mommy or your mommy won't let you come on the airplane again.

Confession

Dear Alexandra,

I'm sorry but I need to confess that I lied to you.  I lied about your flashy running shoes.  We purchased these ridiculously expensive running shoes together because I was tired of you running around in shoes that weren't good for your feet.  I let you pick them out but once we got home you refused to wear them.
After another month of arguing over which shoes you could wear to the playground I mentioned the flashy running shoes again explaining that they flashed when you ran. 
This made the shoes very exciting for you and after wearing good sensible shoes you were hooked on these shoes.  I assumed it was that you finally realized how comfortable good shoes could be. Months later I had forgotten about this little white lie after all most items in our lives have crazy nicknames - the mermaid shoes, PGE park, snootville.  You remembered though and last night you were running around the house with your shoes asking me if I could see them flash.  "Of course I can!" I said but that wasn't proof enough anymore.  You took off your shoes and put your hand in them trying to get them to flash.
I have visions of you running around school telling all your friends about your flashy running shoes and your friends looking at you like you were nuts.  So I'm sorry. The shoes don't flash and hopefully you're young enough not to remember...

Camera Download

As I was pulling pictures off my camera I found this great pic taken mid-June. Emmett really is one happy baby.

Photoshoots are exhausting...

Happy Independence Day!

Emmett in his patriotic "All American Hunk" outfit (yes, I realize it would be more appropriate if it said "Mostly American Hunk"...)

Boston

I think this blog post could have been titled "What was I thinking?" but in reality the majority of this trip was pretty stress free given that I was travelling alone with two kids. 
The first flight was fine although a little hard since all of us were up earlier than normal and therefore tired.  I had a hard time getting excited over activities to do with Alexandra so the DVD player was very welcome.  In Philadelphia we had over an hour to get to our next plane so plenty of time to get diapers changed, go potty and get some food.  Of course by the time we got to the food both kids were asleep so I sat in a rocking chair with Emmett in the Baby Bjorn (thank you Christie!) and Alexandra in the carseat stroller (so worth the money!). 

Emmett chilling in my arms during the flight

The second flight was much shorter and we barely had time for a few activities and it was time to land. Then came the hauling of luggage to the car rental, installing two car seats and driving to the hotel (15 miles away). Since I was eager to get to the hotel as I was hot and sticky, I didn't want to go to a restaurant for dinner so gave in and stopped at fast food.  After 6 years without I ended the stretch and got bad food. Not that I would have been able to find good food on the way... Then I got lost in the middle of nowhere, Emmett got hungry and started screaming and Alexandra was, understandably, tired of travelling.  I started feeling stressed and decided the best to do would be pull over and feed the baby.  Once Emmett was fed and I took a little time exploring the map we quickly made our way to the hotel where Oma and Opa could help out.  Phew!

Alexandra in her carseat stroller

I was amazed at how many wonderful people there are out there.  I had a lady who offered to get me a drink so I wouldn't need to leave my chair.  The personnel at US Air took my luggage to the X Ray machine for me (this sounds minor but is pretty huge when you have two carry ons, a bag, two car seats and two kids and even going through security people helped however they could.

Both kids were of course awesome travellers once again and I consider myself lucky to have good travellers.