Silly cousins
I love this video of Linus and Emily, um, spitting water at each other. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have encouraged it, but they were so cute, giggling together! Heck, they were sharing pretty well, so how can I complain?
Category: family
Virginia recap: Friday
So Friday. We slept in until about 8, and Kristina made the tiny pumpkin pies for the cupcakes. Our plan was to head into the city to go to the zoo, but we were in no rush.
After a torturous journey on the Metro, we made it to the zoo! And we were smart to borrow strollers from my friend Anne so the kids wouldn’t get too worn out. My friend Chris met us there (he lives and works in DC) and hung out for the afternoon.
We saw elephants and foxes and zebras, oh my!
But Linus’s favorite was all the giant boulders. He liked to try to pick them up.
After the zoo, we headed over to the Mall (the one without the shops) to ride on the carousel. Yay! Linus was thrilled, especially after the previous weekend‘s heartbreak. After a whirl on that (I was riding, so no pics), we headed over to the Natural History Museum so they could see more rocks. (Too dark in there to get decent pics.)
Then we headed back to meet up with our friend Anne, and had dinner with her and her son, Whitman. We went to a Chinese restaurant where Emily and Linus declined to eat dinner, and they had minor melt downs. They were tired. Back at my sister’s, the adults stayed up way too late finishing the cupcakes and drinking wine. Ahh, good times. 🙂
On Saturday, I had plans to meet up with some other moms of multiples for brunch. Even though I was somewhat hungover, we all had a great time. There was good food and lots of cute kids.
After that, I was dying to go to Trader Joe’s, so we took a quick trip through, even though I didn’t get to really buy anything. So sad.
We headed over to Kiki’s house later that day, and due to my “wine headache” (ahem) I kind of forgot some important things (i.e., my suitcase) at my sister’s house. Fortunately, Kiki holds her wine better than I do, and she drove me back to my sister’s house, half an hour away, to get it. The rest of the evening involved attempting (and failing) to get Linus to fall asleep.
I’d noticed a rash on his neck that morning, but it didn’t seem to be bothering him much. But later on, I noticed it was on his arms and torso as well. He was extremely uncomfortable later, and he just couldn’t sleep. (Turns out it was poison ivy.) He finally fell asleep with me, but that meant I got very little quality sleep. Ah well, who needs it?
Virginia recap: Wednesday and Thursday
Wednesday was the first day of our trip to Virginia. It started off by bringing Miles and Oliver to Granny & Grandpa’s house. My friend Stephanie was kind enough to drive us to the airport. Linus showed his gratitude by screaming the entire way. He calmed down once we got through security (how DARE they make him take his shoes off and put his magnadoodle in the bin!) and we got some pizza to eat.
The flight itself was generally uneventful, thank goodness. But we had to exit the plane via a very steep set of steps, and because I was also carrying a toddler, I was too preoccupied trying not to plummet to the ground to remember to pick up our gate-checked bags. Whoops. So we had a bit of a wait at baggage claim.
Then we went to pick up Emily from daycare. Linus and Emily haven’t really seen each other for a long time (has it been over a year? I can’t remember!) and in any case, they’re only now really old enough to play together. It was really cute to see them play.
Emily has a very, very, very pink room. And she is somewhat dramatic. Ahem.
My sister and brother-in-law left early the next morning. Kristina came over to stay with us and help with the kids, thank god. We spent Thursday morning at Cox Farms. There were tons of slides and we went on a hayride and ate our weight in kettle corn. Fun!
Linus got a bit turned around on this one.
(Then I put my camera down and retrieved my crying child. He wasn’t hurt, and was soon going down slides again by himself.)
On the hayride with Kiki:
Picking out pumpkins:
Later that day, after naptime and a meal, we went to TOY STORY ON ICE! Gaaah! It was pretty exciting. For Linus, I mean. Not me. No, not me. Nooo. I’m a grown woman, after all. Geesh.
Coming up next…Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday! Yes indeedy!
10/21/10
Linus and Emily, looking oh-so-serious at the pumpkin patch. I swear they had a good time…
Our weekend
We had a really fun, busy weekend. I love weekends like that, but I have to admit, by the time bedtime rolled around last night, I was d.o.n.e.
So let’s see…it started bright ‘n’ early Saturday with breakfast at IHOP with my friend Anne and her little boy Whitman, and Anne’s sister Becky and her daughter Lexie. Becky’s husband joined us too. It wasn’t a huge success…I didn’t bring snacks and breakfast took a while to get to the table. The result:
Times three.
After breakfast, we all headed to Toys R Us because there was a Thomas event going on, and Whitman is a HUGE Thomas fan. (He’s on the left here)
Then we headed home for a while, to rest up before the birthday party of a friends’ twins. That party was at City Park’s Storyland, and the boys had a blast. Woo hoo!
And THEN, to cap off a crazy awesome day, we headed to Baton Rouge to see Grandee and Larry! As fun as pancakes, Thomas and cake is, NOTHING beats Grandee and Larry’s house! (Or Granny & Grandpa’s for that matter…)
There was chalk to draw with, and boats to watch on the pond and balls to roll around on…the boys slept *good* that night. 🙂
The next morning, we hung around the house for a while. Larry read the boys a story…
and then we went to yet another party, where they climbed and jumped and ate a ton of cake.
After the party, we headed home, exhausted. And the boys woke up this morning, asking, “we go to a happy birthday party today?”
Melt!
Get your name in lights!
Or something sorta like that.
My brother, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, makes short films. In fact, in a month or so, he will know if one of his films will be up for an Oscar. An Oscar! God knows my sister-in-law deserves to go to the Oscars. Yes indeed.
So right now he’s trying to raise some funds for his next film, which I will be co-starring in. As a 6 year old. He’s using old Super-8 footage from a 1981 family vacation as the basis of his next film, a satire of some sort. Something like that.
If you pledge a buck towards his goal of $1000, you get your name in the credits!
If you pledge $25, you get a DVD of his current film (ya know, the one that might win an Oscar next year?!?) and if you pledge $125, you get a trip to Disneyland. Okay, not really. But you do get named “benefactor”. Doesn’t that sound fancy?
Get more info and pledge your buck (or two or twenty-five) here:
and for more information about my big bruvver, his website is Hand Crafted Films (oh, nice site! Wonder who designed it? Gosh, someone v talented, I think!)
If you won’t do it for him, do it for my adorable niece, Ellie:
I am fancy. And other weekend stuff too.
I already posted one picture from Friday’s dinner, but now I’m going to post more details about it, so I can go back and remind myself about the time I was fancy.
So the dinner was for my friend Alicia’s birthday. A milestone birthday that actually took place last year, but her husband was very sick and she was very pregnant, so the timing wasn’t great to celebrate it then. So she invited about a dozen of her closest girlfriends to dine at the restaurant where her husband (now fully recovered) is the executive chef.
I mean, the man has his name on the plates. That is fancy!
When we got into the private room, it was decorated beautifully (as you saw in Friday’s picture) and fancy cocktails were served, along with fancy champagne and fancy wine (the kind that doesn’t come from a box.)
Of course the food was amazing…the menu:
The dessert:
The second dessert:
Ahh, it was fancy.
The rest of the weekend wasn’t quite as fancy, but it was pretty fun. I took the boys to Target to pick up some medicine, but to bribe them, I first got them popcorn at the Target cafe (definitely not fancy.)
Then we went to my cousin’s house for dinner (somewhat fancy) and the boys played with matchbox cars.
On Sunday, I packed the boys up to go to the Northshore to hang out with Ren and her girls. First, we went to a splashpad (place with lots of fountains for kids to run around in) at the Mandeville trailhead (for locals who are wondering) but the boys were having none of it. Sigh. They just stood around and watched the other kids.
After that, we fed them lunch, Ren put them down for a nap (bless her) and then we went to her mom’s house for swimming, which thank goodness the boys participated in. I wish I had pictures of them in the pool, but since I was in the pool, making sure they weren’t drowning, that wasn’t possible. I do, however, have a picture of Linus with the “baby whale” he floated with.
They also ate a lot of chips.
And then we came home and that was the end of our tiring but fun weekend.
Mama needs a nap.
Click!
Weekend recap
What a fun weekend!
On Saturday, I took the boys to see Toy Story 3. We went with my friend Mary Catherine and her daughter Millie (who is the boys’ age) and my friend Stephanie and her son Liam (who is almost six.)
I’d taken the boys to a movie before (Ren and I took the kids to see Princess and the Frog back in January or so) and they did well at that (though they only lasted an hour before they got bored – but they weren’t bad. I knew Toy Story would hold their interest more.) so I was pretty optimistic. And they did great! They stayed in their seats for the most part. About 2/3 of the way through the movie, Linus and Oliver wanted to sit on my lap, and Miles went for a walk with Steph and then he sat on her lap. Millie wanted to talk to the boys and hold their hands and stroke their hair, but they weren’t so sure about that. Hee hee!
The key to my success was popcorn. They loved it. Ate a ton of it. (I know it’s a choking hazard, but they did fine with it.) And some Twizzlers. Hey, whatever works, right?
(I have pictures to illustrate this, but I’m waiting to get them from Mary Catherine. So I’ll just post them later.)
After the movie, we went to the park for a while, then I brought them home for a nap. They napped until pretty late, so we took them to our friend’s pizza place and we ate dinner and they ran around and stayed up WAAAAY past their bedtime. Got home, bathed them, and put them in bed.
Yesterday (Father’s Day) I got them up and let them wake up Daddy. They love doing that. We gave Daddy his present (a personalized key chain) and played for a while before going to Great-grandpa Sam’s 90th birthday party.
Happy Birthday Grandpa Sam!
The boys really enjoyed the little chocolate cupcakes:
Especially Miles:
(It reminded me of his first birthday cake experience.)
All in all, it was a good day. Happy Father’s Day to
George and
my dad and
to my stepdad Larry, too!
Holy cow! 1500th post!
Dang. I just happened to notice that I have posted 1499 posts on this blog. Not bad, eh? The first post was on April 1, 2002, so I’ve been keeping this blog for over 8 years now! (Actually, if I’m going to be 100% honest, I don’t think that was my very first post. But kind of. I kept a blog before that, while I was training for the London Marathon, but it wasn’t in a real blog, so those posts never transferred over. I should find them and post them. But that’s off the subject. This is my 1500th official blog post.
Woo!
Back when I wrote that post, I was 27 years old. Single. Smoked a pack a day. Overweight.
Now I’m married with three kids. Haven’t smoked in over 6 years. Still overweight, but mostly because of the married-with-three-kids thing I mentioned earlier.
Since we’re on a nostalgia kick here, let’s look at some old pictures…
Seven years ago. Look, it’s my boyfriend, George!
And my NEW car!
Five years ago, it’s my most favorite picture of me ever!
Four years ago, we had “prom” at the pub:
Three years ago, I got knocked up, times three:
Two years ago, I had (almost) six month olds!
One year ago…holy crap, look how tiny they were!
Well, that was a fun trip down memory lane!
Here’s to 1500 more posts!
More pictures
I’ve been having a lot of fun taking pictures of the boys lately. Here, lemme share…
Oliver’s my little bookworm:
Linus also has a green thumb, apparently:
Miles blows bubbles!
and pouts:
All four of my boys:
Now this isn’t a picture I took, but it’s one of my favorite pictures ever. Ever, ever, ever. This is from my niece Emily’s birthday party. She turned three on Sunday.
Oh, the drama!
Sunny weekend
We had a nice weekend ’round these parts. It was a bit hot and humid, but we stayed busy and the boys stayed healthy. Can’t ask for much more than that!
Friday night, I went to a party for our local triplet mom’s group. That was fun. Mmmm, party food. I really tried to restrain myself, and I did okay. Until the petit fours were brought out. Eeeevil! But worth it.
On Saturday, we hit the aquarium with Granny and Grandpa. Took the ferry over..
Then looked at some fishies…
And played and played and played. No pictures of that part, I was too busy chasing Miles, who kept running from tank to tank, saying “I like-a dat fish! I like-a dat fish!”
After the aquarium, we had pizza for dinner and played outside some more.
They even played with our friend’s dog. (Side note…the boys are generally terrified of dogs, just as I was when I was little. Can I tell you how much it annoys me when people tell my two year olds “oh, doggy’s not going to hurt you! It’s okay!” I mean, geez. The kids are screaming in terror…I’m trying to keep my kids out of the same room as your dog, so can you try to keep your dog out of the room with my kids? Grrr.) They’re fine if they can approach the dog first.
On Sunday, we had a birthday party to go to. The boys played in their first bouncy castle/space walk/moon walk, whatever you call it. I was so proud of them! They’re normally a bit scared of these kinds of things.
And there was cake! So cute!
Afterwards, the boys needed a bath, bad.
They sat in the tub! This is huge. They haven’t sat down in the tub for about a year. I hope it continues, it sure makes bath time easier.
So that was our weekend. Fun!
Mother’s Day Recap
Had a nice day yesterday. It helped that the weather was beautiful and not too hot. I wouldn’t classify it as relaxing, exactly, but at least I got to spend the day with my family.
We met my mom and Larry at a plantation for lunch. The grounds were beautiful, the food was yummy, and they watched the boys while George and I toured the big house.
Pictures!
(The reason Miles was so hyper yesterday…)
On the looooong drive home (so long the boys watched Shrek 2 twice), the boys napped and played and giggled and said funny things. The rest of the night was okay, the boys were just so exhausted that they were kind of cranky. But they went to sleep without a problem so Mommy could enjoy a glass of wine and some chocolate that Daddy got her.
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