It's about time...

Easter is such a fantastic time of year!  For those of us in the faith it is time of reflection, renewal, etc. Generally speaking it is a time for new growth, play-dates, beautiful outdoors, etc.  In general, it is one of my favorite times of the year!

This year has already been a interesting, with Jamie getting sick, our lives have had a bit of a shift and I have been so fortunate to have more nephew time.  Here are a few of my favorite pics from the last few weeks. These two are absolutely exciting to be around.  One minute they are fighting like cats and dogs (gnashing of teeth, hair pulling, head butting, etc.) and the next they are super lovey and can't be separated.  You NEVER know what you will get from them.

Easter brought their first memorable egg hunts which were OH SO LOVED.  In fact, we hunted eggs for hours this weekend and Monday morning as I woke Maggie to go to Nanny's in my usual fashion of "Hey baby, are you ready to go to Nanny's?" She responded with a groggy, "Are we hunting more eggs?" At first I said "No" but so as not to crash her hopes I quickly changed it to a "Not that I know of, but if you ask Nanny nicely she may hide them for you."  This girl was quite competitive and really liked finding the truly hidden eggs.  

Here are a some of my favorite pics: (WARNING There are a LOT!)

Taken Easter Sunday after the last of MANY egg hunt's.

 Taken outside our house on one of the first true Springlike days.

 My little model.  Seriously though, doesn't she look like an ad girl?

 Dragging Poppy along to be her holder/keeper of her Easter Egg's at the church egg hunt.  So happy he and Grammy live close enough to catch some of these special occasions with our great big crazy family.

 A little Good Friday Easter Egg Hunt, for practice of course.

 One of my favorite, non-looking, pictures.  Totally her, distracted by the surroundings but somewhat focused on the task at hand.

On our way to Nanny's for a little late night egg dying, Maggie said first you get some water, then you put the dye in it, then you put the egg on a spoon and lower it into the dye.  I politely asked D if he had taught her how we would dye eggs to which I got a resounding NO.  Puzzled at the in depth knowledge of the process, I asked her where she learned how to dye eggs and she answered OSO.  She loves that crazy Disney Jr. Bear!  There have been weeks on end where she begged Nanny all day to watch him.

 Easter Sunday they were both being Terribly Two.  We decided to forego the picnic we had planned and instead focus on sneaking in a nap for both to get them ready for the last egg hunt of the day.

By the way, I hope you enjoy these pics and I hope to start blogging more frequently.  I have been making small life changes and really want to get back to this for many reasons, the two biggest being to keep in touch with family and to chronicle the life of our precious little girl!

Food with Flare

Month five brought several fun things: a visit with the grands, a trip to the Creative Discovery Museum, and Maggie’s first flavor-full foods.


Granddaddy Shannon and Grammy Becky Moats came with the great grands, Jim and Nina Herrington for a day of fun at Famous Dave’s for a family lunch and a little Sweet Frog’s for dessert. The babies love some fro-yo! Our days with them are short but oh so sweet, we love our families so much.

 

Our local children’s play museum is the Creative Discovery Museum. It’s been a long time since any of us had been so we decided to check it out again. On the second Thursday of every month ALL folks are let in for FREE! We decided to pack up the baby and head out. Mom worked for Bubba so he, Jamie, and Parker all went with. They had lots of neat exhibits: water works, play house, dino dig, tinker toys, science and engineering, tinker toys, and bee keeping. We loved the museum but decided to avoid the excessive amounts of children we may just pay to get in the next time. After that we headed to a delicious dinner at The Big Table.  Daniel and I had never been and Anthony's former mentor is the head chef/owner.  It is an amazing home style cooking restaurant.  We thoroughly enjoyed an almost adult dinner with sleeping kiddos.  All in all it was an amazing night of family fun.

Finally this little girl got some pureed foods. I’ve typed it before and said it a hundred times over but I’ll say it again… This girl LOVES her food. She does hummmm sometimes like my cousin Megan did when she was little but moreover she screams at you if you do not move the spoon at her warp speed eating. We have tried over and over to re-assure her that we are not going to take her food from her but I really think she’s hungry. At home at night she doesn’t really get snacks like she does in the daytime and I’m convinced that is why she screams for me to feverishly feed her in the evenings. Anyway, I digress, her first non-cereal food was zucchini from a church friend’s garden. We steamed it and pureed it and quite frankly she gagged on it but to her credit it did smell like fresh cut grass. For the most part, both Maggie and Parker ate/eat homemade baby food. We just puree what we eat and they seem to LOVE it! I feel like we have conquered this baby stage as our little girl accomplishes each new change, habit, and stage of her life. It is both exciting and saddening at the same time, she’s growing so much but too fast!

 

During this month, the babies also were invited to their first birthday party for a buddy at church.  Brody turned three and his mommy had the cutest Thomas themed birthday party.  A certain little girl also decided to take a stand just before the party.
                            

Month Four...We're back!

Month four was chaos with all the events that just come with Summer.  We had an out of town wedding, VBS, our Anniversary, and it ended with a bang at our Fourth of July celebrations. 

Amanda's cousin Eric was having a backyard wedding just outside of Atlanta.  This meant an outdoor wedding in 100 degree heat and a night road trip with two babies which brought anxiety to all involved. Anthony couldn't attend because he was running the restaurant, so we had Parker, Jamie, Maggie, Amanda, Daniel, Nanny, and Papaw all in the car for the day trip.  Despite record breaking heat, that definitely prevented naps, we had no meltdowns during the wedding.  The ones that did occur happened during the reception where the noise level masked the outbursts of hungry cries.  With two over heated babies we headed home, the trip back was horrible!  We stripped both down to their diapers and headed out. Maggie cried and made Parker start crying. We stopped several times to nurse, change, rock, etc. my little whiner.  Parker finally gave up and settled in for the long ride home thanks to a horrible wreck.

Everyone was so excited to see our growing little ones.  Maggie was a little more friendly and went to almost anyone.  Here Kara had her for the entire ceremony.  Blaine, Sydney, and Kyle had fun entertaining her to keep the little ones happy.

The next week began VBS.  Daniel, for the past few years, has done a teen VBS to coincide with our normal kids VBS.  This was also our first time to get to know our new pastor a little better.  We snuck in to sing at the opening of VBS most night but we really were there to see daddy.  We missed him for our night-time routine this week.  The end of VBS always ends with a water slide picnic celebration.  Parker and Maggie took part in the fun for their first VBS!

At Maggie's four month appointment, by her height and weight the doctor was astonished that she was still surviving on MILK alone.  As the nights got more restless, we decided to start cereal at night.  At first it was not so pleasant but within minutes she got to loving it and cried for more when her bowl was empty.  As I write, she is now eight months old and that crying at an empty bowl has not gone away.  Our little girl LOVES her food!

Toward the end of the fourth month, Mommy and Daddy celebrated their anniversary by an overnight trip to Birmingham Alabama.  I know that it is not what you think of when you think of romantic cities but we had a fun family weekend planned.  Zoo, Mall, and a Hotel with a POOL!  We had so much fun even in another record breaking hot day!  We also got to see some old friends, the Pugh's.  They were youth leaders for Amanda growing up, and the previous owner's of our home.

 

The trip was so fun and the travel went well.  Maggie had her first trip to the zoo, first"swim" in a pool, and our LEGO store.   

 At the zoo, we saw lots of fun animals and Maggie loved watching them through their enclosures.  The Birmingham Zoo was fantastic!  The majority of the exhibits had both indoor and outdoor viewing areas which was nice since it was SOOO HOT!   We made sure to wear our sunscreen and keep hydrated, in fact Maggie had her first bottle of juice.  At 100+ she needed more than what milk I could generate.  Her favorite animals were the monkeys because they were quite active. 

At the mall we visited some kids stores that we don't have:  Buy, Buy Baby, Crazy 8's, GAP Baby, etc.  We bought a few Christmas presents, and a few clothes.  All in all just a fun time leisurely shopping.

We ate at local places:  Roly Poly (a chain but we didn't know that at the time) for lunch, an Italian pizza/pasta shop for dinner, and the following day a creole place for lunch.  That was a story in itself. Maggie hadn't been herself all day, she slept in, she didn't really want to nurse, she took a long nap, etc.  We were heading back home and stopped for lunch.  She had been napping so we took her in, got a large booth, and laid her down in the bench.  She woke just as we began to order.  I cuddled her into me chest in a seated position.  She was fidgeting as we ordered. I had just quieted her when all the sudden projectile puke.  Down my dress, on the floor, pooled in my lap, and a tad on our waitress:  I felt horrible for my baby, the waitress and let's be frank for everyone who had to witness that.  I had lost my appetite and it was my kid, I can't imagine everyone else's appetite.  I quickly cleaned her off, wiped up the floor thankful it was concrete, and passed Maggie to D.  He snuggled her while I ran to the car.  The one time I ONLY packed enough clothes for the day.  So I ended up in my PJ's:  athletic shorts and a nursing tank, a far cry from the red sundress I entered in.  Nonetheless we finished lunch and headed home.  Along the way we discovered a poopy girl, no shoulder, no exits, and a cranky girl for 45miles!  Really, I know Alabama doesn't really have booming metropolis written all over it but 45miles!  Finally we exited along with the rest of the weary travellers, took care of baby, pottied ourselves, and were back on the road. 

Later that week, was the Fourth of July!  We had a cookout but no fireworks due to wildfire conditions, and oddly wicked rain.  But aren't these little firecrackers too cute?