Funny pics and a first!

Since my last post was all text, this will be almost all photos.

Maddie and Noah at the dog agility show on Saturday. Our neighbor's two dogs were competing and I think the kids were genuinely interested in all the cool tricks they saw.



Maddie in her Hello Kitty rhinestone sunglasses and colored hair extensions/pins from Aunt Melissa. I'm thinking a young, angry Janis Joplin, no??

We all have recovered from the stomach virus and so far Mason hasn't shown any signs of catching it. Keep your fingers crossed. He has enough going on right now. We found out yesterday that he has an ear infection in his left ear. No wonder he was sleeping so poorly and fitfully. We had a couple of really horrible nights, so it's good to know what is going on and get him started on the antibiotic. He is pretty pathetic looking these days, but still manages a smile for us. The pediatrician thought he's had a good run being in daycare for almost two months and having an older sibling without contracting some illness before now. We agree.

Mason is my "little Frank." I think he looks more like Frank every day. He cracks us all up and we love him so much. It's a lot more work with two kids, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

This shirt stretched just a tad during the day. Love his expression.

Mason watching the Laurie Berkner Band DVD. He's spellbound.

A wee bit o' plumber's crack...hee hee.
Can you believe I got all these awesomely funny shots within minutes??!!

My lovely brother, David, aka Uncle David begged me not to post this photo on the blog. Ah, but then he never reads it, so he will never know, right??

The leaning tower of ....Mason.

A first!!! Tonight Mason ate all his rice cereal. And then, he ate another bowl. He was like a little bird with his mouth open. We were so excited, even Maddie clapped for him!

Sick

No photos to post tonight. The stomach virus that has passed through everyone else's house has finally paid a visit to ours. Saturday afternoon Maddie was very sick; then last night, it passed to me.

She's on the mend and I'm dragging along. But now Frank has it. Big fun. Also, we think Mason might have an ear infection...These two revelations occurred while Frank was taking Maddie to the doctor to see if she had broken her wrist or just sprained it. After an X-ray, they determined it was not broken. Thank goodness.

Today was supposed to be a catch up day, but looking at the mounds and mounds of laundry (sick and otherwise), it was definitely not. Daycare was closed and we were off from work, but it was a very busy, tiresome day.

We did manage to take some hilarious pics while Uncle David was here for a visit. I'll have to post those later this week. Let's hope for a restful night.

Cabin Fever

So since my last post at Christmas (yes, I'm that far behind), it has been unseasonably cold. Which means we have been inside...a lot. Too much.

I'm all for family time, but somewhere around the first week of January, I realized I had spent four or five complete days in a row at home...with the kids...not even leaving the house to go to the mailbox.
Clearly, the cold has affected my brain. Most of the family time was spent chillin' and enjoying Christmas presents. We've seen Grandmama and Grandaddy two weekends in a row, and that's always nice. The extra sets of hands and good food we shared were extra nice.




But things haven't been all rosy. We have all been healthy so far, thank goodness. But temper tantrums have reached a new height. We have been reading and talking a lot about changing our discipline tactics with Maddie. It's exhausting. We would so much rather play with her and be silly and happy instead of having a 30-minute debate about why she wants pink underwear instead of blue. Here is the face we see so much of these days.

Still, we had a great night tonight and when she is happy, it's the best feeling ever. She's growing up so fast!


Mason, on the other hand, was making major progress and sleeping a consistent five hours at a time for a few days. Now we are back to the every three hour schedule. So we stay very, very tired. He's doing really well at daycare, except for this week he seems to be pushing the bottle away. He's also "eyeballing" our food. And grabbing our food plates!! So we thought it was time to start him on rice cereal. He's not very interested, but we'll keep trying!

Mason saying, "pick me up, please!!"

Power to the people. And the giraffes. And the elephants.

Tonight was encouraging. The kids were both in bed by 8:20. Bottles were washed by 8:40. Frank is sitting here munching chips, drinking beer and reading a book. Now if I can just finish this post....


Chasing Daddy in the backyard. Frank took this shot while running backwards from her!

Trying out the tricycle. Two minutes in she decided it was "too hard." We'll try again when the weather warms up.

Corn (soy) dogs are quite the hit at our house.

Maddie cracked me up with her headband shifting all over the place. I had to get a photo of "Axl Rose" trashing another hotel room.

Tummy time

Clifford strikes again. One night Maddie insisted on sharing her Clifford stickers with everyone. Including Mason. The cats were hiding...