Every New Beginning Comes from Some Other Beginning's End

Wow – it’s 2012.  I think I’ve been avoiding this post for a bit, not because we didn’t have a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s (which we did!), but because I really feel like we’re closing one of the most crucial, pivotal, significant, thrilling, anxious and magnificent chapters (at least so far) we’ve written in our lives.  2011 brought a second splendid little baby into our lives who completed our family.  It was most likely the last year I’ll ever be pregnant.  We put 0-3 month baby clothes away for the last time. We setup a crib, saw our first smile, cut our first tooth and heard our first laugh for the last time. I guess we always thought (hoped and prayed) that we would have another child after Sean so, although I was teary at times, putting his “baby” things away and transitioning him into new stages was exciting for us and we couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next.  This time around though, it’s like you want to freeze time.  Sean is almost two-and-a-half.  He’s talking up a storm, already has (many of) his own thoughts, ideas and opinions.  He already tries to get away with calling me “Mom” (not to fear, I told him he was waaayyy too young not to call me Mommy).  He is growing up so fast and you realize how precious each day is and how quickly it passes.  Now I don’t want to get all dreary here, I mean the post title does talk about New Beginnings, right? So, although 2011 held a lot of magic, I think 2012 will hold equally as much, just in different ways.  We’ll get to see our first sitting alone (soon.very very soon….), our first crawl, a first airplane ride and maybe even a first step or a first word.  Sean will probably go to his first preschool class, ride on the boat alone with his daddy and catch his first crab.  So although I’m sad to see 2011 go, I’m excited for all of the new beginnings 2012 has in store for us.  “Here’s to the bright New Year, and a fond farewell to the old; here’s to the things that are yet to come, and the memories that we hold.”

Ok, so let’s see some pictures!!  Christmas kicked off in Charlotte with Emmi!

Then we made cookies (and yes, my chocolate chip cookies were made from store-bought cookie dough this year… but I promise the crinkles were homemade!) and set them out for Santa along with a letter asking for a few special things.

Afterwards we drove up to Richmond for the week with Grandaddy, Grandma, Aunt ‘Chelle, Uncle Marshall and Aunt Megan. We were fortunate to see a lot of John’s family, too, who made trips to Richmond to see all of us!

Finally, Pop Pop and GG were in Charlotte waiting for us with a stocked wine fridge and Polly picked up from daycare.  Score! We had a great time playing with new toys, celebrating  the new year and hanging out in our almost-finished backyard project!

Our love to family and friends we couldn’t be with over the holiday season. Let 2012 begin!

Christmas is Almost Here!

Big Trip to the City

This weekend we went with our friends Jen, Darren and baby Grant on a trip uptown for lunch and to watch the Singing Holiday Bears. We always refer to him as Baby Grant but since he’s almost exactly a year younger than Sean I guess we should start calling him Toddler Grant ;) But it’s fun to see the difference a year can make!  Sorry that the pictures are a little cloudy, I’m finding more and more that we have little finger prints all over the lens (and the windows, the wine fridge, the oven, the fridge, the dishwasher…).

What? Us? Rip off these ornaments? Whatever gave you that idea??

Sean loved riding the escalators.  He’s actually really good at getting on and off: 

Dylan is exhausted from all the excitement! Wonder if we’ll ever get a family picture when he’s awake?!

Dylan is 6 Months

…and some change! Time is just flying by but Dylan is in no rush.  He seems to have a really easygoing personality, which I think contributes to the fact that he rarely rolls over, tries to sit up or do anything more than just hang out and smile:

This is how he greets us each and every morning.  You’re sure to get off on the right foot if you see this every day!

Oh – and I was able to get a good picture of his eyes today. It looks like they’re slowly turning brown but are a really neat mix of dark blue, gray and brown right now.  Again, this seems to be a trend with Dylan – no rush, it’ll happen when it happens :)

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Success! After a very traumatic trip last year to see Santa, I’m happy to say that our 2011 visit was so much better!  We met Julia and Lucas for our 3rd annual trip to see Santa today and, I can’t believe I’m writing this, not one tear from any of the 4 kids (who are all under two and-a-half). What a wonderful way to get us all in the Christmas spirit :)

Be Thankful

Pop Pop, GG, Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Mats came to visit us for our first official Thanksgiving in Charlotte! We had a wonderful couple of days and celebrated all of the many blessings in our life for which we are thankful. Here’s our Thanksgiving in pictures!

We fried our first turkey and it was amazing :)

Spent a lot of time preparing food and the Thanksgiving table

Played a few games of cornhole (Dylan was a great cheerleader!), went on a few walks and played on the swing set

Celebrated Pop Pop’s Birthday!

Watched football and relaxed (our Hokies and Ravens didn’t disappoint!)

Of course we missed our family who we couldn’t be with but they were in our thoughts as always.  We all have so much to be thankful for!

Dylan is 5 Months Old!

Some special things about Dylan this month:

• Both of his bottom teeth came in last week!
• Now that his teeth are in he’s back to smiling and laughing all the time
• He still does the “sneeze ‘n sigh” – he’s done this since the hospital and it’s still so cute
• He always has his pointer finger pointing… we call it his Thinking Finger
• His head sweats a lot, especially when he has a bottle
• He still likes an abnormally warm bottle (we usually have to pop it in the microwave 1/2 way through a feeding… ah the things you do with the second child – I would never have put Sean’s bottle anywhere close to a microwave!)
• Along with his bottles, he’s also eating rice cereal, sweet potatoes and bananas (bananas are his favorite!)… next up are carrots and peaches
• He is starting to be fun for his older brother… Dylan has starting laughing at Sean which makes Sean ‘act a fool’! haha
• But the best thing is when you take his clothes off for bath time. He does this low belly laugh when you take each arm out of his shirt like you found the best tickle spot ever.  It is SO cute but SO HARD to get on video!

Here’s one of the outtakes from his 5 month “photo shoot” – you have to laugh when you hear yourself telling a 5 month old “Focus.  Dylan, focus.  Hey! boooga boooga booga. Hi! Dylan! Dylan, focus Dylan. Can you smile? Smile Dylan. F-O-C-U-S Dylan!”…… and on and on… :)

Random Videos

Halloween 2011

Maybe I should title this post ‘Best Laid Plans’ because once again life got in the way of my oh-so-perfect Halloween plans.  But I think our family rolled with the punches and had a pretty good time anyway.  So here’s how our Halloween Weekend 2011 Extravaganza went:

Friday: John and I went to our neighbor’s annual party, John as a gangster and me as a ghost.  Since Grandma Leigh came to visit we even got a free babysitter! As I’ve been writing a lot at work lately… No exceptions noted. (Ah, how my inner dork always finds a way to shine through and never lets me down).

Saturday: The perfect day planned.  We were going to get up, have a great breakfast, get dressed in our costumes and head to our community clubhouse for a Halloween bash full of cupcake decorating, costume contests and confetti.  Ok so I added the confetti part but let’s just say it was going to be glorious.  First part of the morning – just as planned.  A nice scrambled egg and toast breakfast for Sean and a bottle for Dylan.  I’m even feeling extra lucky and go to Jazzercise.  When I came back ONE HOUR later, chaos had set in.  Sean was on the sofa with boogies coming out of his nose, he was crying, sneezing, coughing, you name it. He just wanted to watch TV and be miserable.  It went downhill from there, we had to give him cold medicine and the poor kid fell asleep on the sofa (and if you know Sean this never happens). So my plans for the party went out the window quick. Now our only chance to get them in their costumes was actual Halloween night.  Not good odds with a baby and a toddler.

Sunday: Sean seems to be doing much better.  I, on the other hand, start to get a runny nose and sore throat.  Score.

Monday: Halloween.  I wake up like one of those zombies from the Thriller movie. I decide going to work isn’t an option and I scare Emmi when she shows up in the morning with my pathetic look and talks of everyone getting sick. I progressively get worse and see that Dylan’s starting to get a runny nose.  I head to CVS to get nose mist, a nose suction thingy and tylenol for him.  I can feel the excitement that it’s Halloween radiating everywhere except for our sick house. Evening arrives and John comes home to find us scrambling to get Sean and Dylan in their costumes while I try putting some makeup on so I don’t scare the kids.  We end up getting just a few pictures before we have to take Dylan out of his costume – can you believe he barely fit into the 3-6 month velcro lobster? haha. But I have to say, sick and all, Sean and I got to go out trick-or-treating for his first official year and he loved it.  He knocked on all the doors, said ‘Trick-or-Treat’ and ‘Thank You’ at each house.  He loved watching all the kids running around in their costumes and begged me to go home and get the wagon so we could keep going! He got lots of candy which I think John and I should have polished off by Saturday.  John and Dylan stayed home to hand out candy – they almost ran out which means a record number of kids for our street!  So all in all, not as planned but turned out ok.  In other words, exceptions noted however control environment appeared to operate effectively throughout the course of the day.

 

{Getting ready to head out // Leaving one of our neighbor’s houses after getting some candy looking so grown up}

{Showing Daddy all of his candy and relaxing to some Chuggington after a long night of trick-or-treating}

Tuesday: I’m surprised John could even stay in the house long enough to get ready with how sick I was.  Dylan had boogies from ear to ear so we had to do a lot of suctioning.  Sean - the one who started it all! - was feeling good and had only a small stuffy nose leftover from the cold.  John was running around with his shirt over his nose and trying his best not to touch any of us :)

Wednesday: I finally head to work and Dylan seems to be getting better too.  Whoa what a week!!

And that brings us to today.  Aaaahh Thursday. The day before Friday. TGIF. Fingers crossed for a healthy and uneventful weekend ahead!  And just as I write this John comes in and says ‘I think the cold is hitting me…’ RUN FOR THE HILLS!!

Gramma-Wee Visit

Grandma Leigh (or “Gramma-Wee” as Sean likes to say) came for a visit last weekend. It was a great visit and Sean was happy to have his Grandma here to spoil him!

Grandma took Sean to the mall where they got their pictures taken in a photo booth.  The first picture is hilarious. SO SEAN! You can see him figuring it out in the first 3 pictures and by the 4th he finally gave a smile!

Happy Halloween?

Don’t worry – this was taken a few weeks ago when we were getting the decorations out.  More happy Halloween photos from today to come!! :)

I’m a Little Teapot

Dylan’s 4 Month Checkup

Dylan had his 4 month doctor appointment yesterday.  He’s doing great and is right on track for his age.  He hit the charts at 24 inches (25th percentile) and weighed in at 15 lbs 11 oz (50th percentile).  So basically, short and stout.  Just like his mom ;)