Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend. Rather than tell you about it, I'll just post some pics....

Everett celebrating finding an "Easter egg"...or the dog's ball

All dressed for church

No egg was safe

My Easter bunny

Amelia getting some sweet Everett kisses

A Sight for Sore Eyes

In case you were questioning why I bolted the television to my entertainment center the other day, allow me to offer up the results of Everett's latest efforts...dragging something off the counter we had no idea he could remotely reach...onto his own face...

He's perfectly fine aside from a nice bump under his eye that will make for very lovely Easter photos tomorrow. Here's to hoping the Easter Bunny brings him an ice pack. 

Teacher

Now that Ev is walking, eating all kinds of foods, and watching cartoons....he feels like he is ready to start teaching Amelia things like how to drive a shopping cart...

If it isn't bolted down....

Do you know what this is a picture of.....?

it is a picture of a large bolt...drilled THROUGH my wooden entertainment center...because that's what you have to do when you have an ogre for a son who loves to grab your TV  While it was painful to semi-destroy our furniture, it seemed like a much better option than letting him pull the television down onto his coconut. You can add this to the list of roughly 700 safety measures we have needed to put in place for Everett that Amelia never dreamed of requiring. 

Eggs

We dyed Easter eggs tonight and as usual, it was a little mess, a lot of fun, and a great memory...

New Haircut

Everett got his hair cut today and as you can see, he loved every second of it...

He did eventually settle down and decide he likes his new look...

Ouch

When you attempt to do yoga for only the fourth time in your life and you let your four year-old do it with you, you will quickly see the impact of the extra thirty years of mileage on your flexibility...and pride.

Learning Lessons

At ballet today, we were given the opportunity to make a donation that would help less fortunate children in our community. While it's obviously always good to take advantage of these opportunities, I think it's particularly important to do so when you can use it to teach your own children about helping others.  As an added bonus, those who were able to give at a certain level were rewarded with getting their hand prints and name on the wall of the studio for a year and are invited to a tea party with Belle, Cinderella, Tiana, and Snow White. A lesson, a hand print, and a tea party??? I really had no option but to give....and subsequently, I have no option but to ask you to go to your local YMCA, church, or any other place that needs help and do the same...who knows, maybe you too can be lucky enough to get a set of hand prints that make it appear as though you only have four fingers on your left hand....

Style

As you get older and either don't look the way you used to or don't care as much as you used to, it actually becomes more fun to get clothes for your kids than for yourself.

That said, Amelia is now the proud owner of a her first ever nightgown...

And Everett will now be sporting these two beauties...

1 Gallon Hat

Some cowboys like to wear their 10 gallon hats, Ev prefers the 1 gallon variety...

Warming Up

After roughly 14 months of disliking me and basically treating me like his mom's boyfriend instead of treating me like his dad, Everett has finally started to warm up to me. I know this because we had a little breakthrough at school this week. Thanks to Amelia throwing up everything she ate...and I'm pretty sure several things she didn't eat, I had to take Everett to school while Meggan stayed home. I've taken him to school several times in the past and he has shown minimal emotion when I left him or when I picked him up in the afternoon. However, for whatever reason, this week, he cried and held his arms out for me when I tried to leave and he came running at me with all smiles when I picked him up. I'm pretty sure he is just using me to try to make his mom jealous since she's been giving Amelia so much attention this week...and I'm totally fine with it.

Art

One of the small joys of being a parent is picking up the "art" your kids make at school each day. Usually it goes something like this ...

1) Pull art from cubby
2) Pretend art is the greatest thing you've ever seen
3) Make sure child isn't watching
4) Dump art in trash as quickly as possible.

However, every once in a while they actually make something you think is cute as could be....like this leprechaun made using Everett's hand print...

If Ballet Gets Old

If that whole ballet and tap thing gets old for Amelia, it appears as though someone at school has taught her how to do the Macarena...

 

More Ballet

Okay, this is the last video from ballet class this weekend. Technically, this is the tap portion of her class. I particularly like her James Brown shimmy around the 36-second mark...it is definitely better than when she wipes out at the end of the video

More Ballet

Here is another video from Amelia's ballet class. As you can see, the action is riveting...and at one point, even Ev started holding his arm out like a ballerina.

 

Ballet

Today was open house for Amelia's ballet class. So, we were finally able to get a good look at what goes on in there. Here is a small sample...

Welcome Home

Amelia comes home tomorrow. I don't think I can tell you how happy I am to get her back. I tell her all the time how special she is to me and how important she is to my life, but she won't understand what that really means until she has kids of her own one day. Until then, she'll just have to take my word for it.

A Day Away

What does a day away at Grandma and Grandpa's look like?

It starts with a little outdoor activity....

It throws in a little bit of being silly (and apparently some Cheetos)...

And it ends a little time out for some rest...

....not a bad day at all.

Break

People keep asking me if it is nice to get a break from having 2 kids in the house. So far on the 3 nights we've had our "break" from Amelia, we've worked late, wrestled a dishwasher, and gone to bed early. While it is nice not needing to choke out Amelia at bedtime, it really isn't all that different since Everett ties us down far more than she does. It isn't as if I can have him take a cab home from school and make himself dinner while Meg and I go out on the town. Also, as sick as I get of Doc McStuffins and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, having the TV to myself isn't nearly as much fun as dancing around the living room with Amelia. So, to me, this trip to the farm is much more about letting Amelia see and do new things (catching a fish, driving a boat, planting vegetables, etc.) than it is about us getting a break. Now, next year when both kids are old enough to go visit Grandma and Grandpa... lookout, because THAT will be a break.

On the Farm

Despite us missing her very badly, Amelia is having a great time with her grandparents. Today, she got to go fishing for the first time in her life. Driving the boat - good; Being out on the water - good; Fishing - good; Actually catching a fish and seeing it wiggle - very bad. So, the catching part of fishing is not for her, but the rest seemed to go pretty well.


 In other news, she also got to put in a little work on the "farm"...

Miss Amelia

Amelia went to visit her grandparents for the week today. While it seems like it would be nice to have a break from chasing two kids all the time, it is actually way too quiet around the house. Also, we both miss Amelia so badly we (borderline sadly) watched some old videos of the blog tonight. I can't believe how fast time flies...

Mr. Fix It Follow Up

In my quest to fix our dishwasher, the final score is in.....

Me- 0
Dishwasher -1
Appliance Store -  roughly $1,000,000

Memory Lane

While shopping at an antique store today, Meggan came across this postcard from 1908. The hotel on the front is where she and I spent our first night of marriage after having the ceremony in the courtyard of a nearby museum.  While I have no idea who sent the postcard or why they were in Saint Augustine in 1908, I think it is pretty cool to consider it may have been a different couple embarking on their marriage some 96 years before us...it also made me think I should send more postcards so 96 years from now, someone can wonder what I was doing.

Ev TV

You know how when you find your 1 year-old zoned out to the television, you think to yourself " I really hate him watching TV, but he looks so cute and grown up doing it. I'll let him enjoy it for a minute." ? ....

 

..... and then he turns around to reveal he was actually not zoned out, he was just concentrating on disgustingly chewing on his own shoe and you think "What is wrong with that tiny ogre? Why can't he just watch TV like a normal kid?"...

....Yeah, I can relate.

Mr. Fix It

It looks like I'll be spending tonight the same way I spent last night...trying to fix our dishwasher.  Now, I'm not the kind of guy who has to have my wife show me how to use tools, but I'm also not the kind of guy who can fix anything that ever worked at some point.  Until we moved into our house 5 years ago, I'd always had maintenance men to fix things. So, each time we come across something like a broken dishwasher, it is my first time dealing with it. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. Here's to hoping I win this time because I'm not ashamed to admit I'm too spoiled to wash all our dishes by hand. So, if I can't get it working, I'll either have to run an elephant's trunk through our kitchen window like the Flintstones did or put Sophie in the sink each night and let her lick everything clean. Let's just say, Sophie isn't rooting for me to fix the dishwasher.

Jill of All Trades

Thanks to a recent trip to Discovery Place with Ms. Tonya, Amelia now knows what she wants to be when she grows up...

 ...a vet by day....

... A firefighter by night...

 ...and a racecar driver on the weekends...

Is There No Line??

While shopping the other day I came across a product that made me wonder if there was absolutely no threshold of disgust parents wouldn't cross. Look, I watched two live births, cut one umbilical cord (the other was wrapped around Ev's neck), sat through multiple exorcist-like stomach bugs, have wiped runny noses...with my bare hands... and I've cleaned more rear ends than I can count. All this, and I haven't even mentioned anything that's gone into, or out of, Sophie or the fact that Everett literally blew out a stinky diaper onto my bedroom floor the other day.  So, I've seen and done a thing or two in my time as a dad. That said, I will not, I repeat WILL NOT, take a tube and suck the snot out of my baby's nose...seriously people...it's parenting, not Fear Factor...

Toy Story

Everett is now the proud owner of his own Woody hat to help him keep up with his sister's Toy Story fashion...


Woody (ignore the fact that his hat looks more like a sombrero than a cowboy hat)

Jessie (ignore the fact that she looks like she just went zombie and ate someone, that is just leftover red candycane around her lips)

Freshly Cut

Everett was a very good boy while getting his hair cut today. It was only his second time, so he isn't an expert yet. When the stylist asked what he wanted, he just said "make it look less toupee-ish"...

And Now We Know

While I wasn't pleased with everything Amelia said yesterday, she proved to be wise beyond her years tonight...


Amelia (incorrectly assuming Meggan had just shown up from work to tuck her in to bed): Are you sooo tired, mom?

Meggan: Yeah, baby, mommy is tired.

Amelia: Do you wish you didn't have to work so late?

Meggan: Ummm, yeah.

Amelia: Do you wish every day was a weekend all day so you could be home all the time?

Meggan: Yeah, that would be nice.

Amelia: Well, that's not how life works.