Happy Little Pictures

Maddie has just become a rolling over machine. I tried to get a picture of the process, but if you lay her on her tummy her instant reaction is to roll over. My camera is just not fast enough! Before: After:

Here she is being her happy little self.

Just look at those blue eyes.

Here's Caleb talking to Mickey Mouse on the TV. It's his favorite show.

And here's Maddie eating her dress.

Here's Caleb with his markers. He can't get enough.

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Maybe these pictures have made up for it. I'll leave you on a happy little note:

So You May Be Wondering Where We've Been...

The short answer is, HERE! The long answer involves everyone being very sick except for Josh. Thankfully Maddie is feeling much better. We had a few very hard days (and harder nights). She was only sleeping if I was holding her... even Josh wouldn't do... and she stopped eating for about two days. We thought for a while we were going to end up in the hospital to get her IV fluids. Her pediatrician and her daddy are still not a hundred percent sure what she had. It looked at first like chicken pox, but now we're thinking hand, foot, and mouth. Either way, she had an atypical presentation of symptoms. Now she's back to her happy, sunny self. Her little spots are still there, but they're fading. Caleb and I were also sick, but luckily not as bad. As of today, I'm the only one still feeling under the weather, but it's nothing like it was.

Here are my two little sickies. This made me smile. We were all sitting in our pj's on the bed reading, and Caleb decided to "read" the book to Maddie. He's got it memorized well enough that he did a pretty good job until he got mad at her for messing up the little counting beads at the top. :-) Here's Madeline feeling better. She's already wrestled one sock off, and she's going for the other one. Rest assured she managed to pull it off shortly after the photo was taken. She chewed on it in triumph.
I'm not sure how it started, but any time you have a camera around Caleb he says "cheese" and puts his hands in front of his face. I'll have to figure out what on earth he's doing...

On a different note... Here is the bright spot in my week. My new washer and dryer came in. I'm in love. :-)

Momma... Play at Park! Play at Park!!! Please!!!!!

One of our goals this summer was to get Caleb a swing set of some sort. He loves playing at the park, so we thought it was time. Unfortunately, the one we picked out came in six or seven boxes with an instruction manual 103 pages long. The instructions say it takes "two moderately skilled people 20-24 hours" to assemble. Excuse me while I laugh heartily. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Okay, I'm better now. Thankfully, Popup came to the rescue with two of his workers. It still took these exceptionally skilled workers a day and a half to get this thing together. But we think it was well worth it. Caleb loves it. He calls it his park. He's brave enough to get up in the crow's nest and look through the little telescope and everything. We're going to order the toddler swing that goes with it so Maddie can use it too.
We also got the matching playhouse. How sweet is that? Josh put it together all by himself. (I've gotta give him credit, or he'll get me.)

Now all we have to do is even out the rest of the ground, put in some railroad ties, and dump in a lot of wood chips to keep anyone from falling too hard. I'll give you some better pictures when everything is done. For now you're stuck with these lame ones because I'm taking them from the back deck. I'm too lazy to walk all the way down there just for pictures. :-)

Art is Awesome

What could be more fun than a new box of markers?

A new box of washable markers!

We Took a Little Trip...

to Little Rock this weekend. Josh had a continuing education lecture he needed to go to, so we made it a family event. We used it as a test run to see how the kids would do on a road trip. They did very well! Here we are... all happy and smiley getting ready to go.
And here we are on the way home. What a difference! We wore them out. :-)

We spent some time at the Museum of Discovery. It was pretty awesome. They have an area set up for little ones, so there was plenty for Caleb to do.

Maddie was along for the ride. Cruising in the stroller.

We had a nice time. :-)

More Easter Pictures

It was very rainy on Easter, so instead of an egg hunt the church had pinatas. They didn't have a bat, so they handed Caleb a sharp, splintery, pointy broken handle of some sort.
He hit the poor fish with wild abandon.

Alas, it did not break.

Finally, the adults ripped it open and candy-grabbing mania commenced.

Happy Easter!

Isn't He Sweet?

Of course, they're all sweet when they're asleep. :-) Notice that he's moved all of his pillows to the foot of the bed. He's also gone to sleep with an army of books and six different blankets. I thought this was cute during nap time... snapped a few pictures... smiled... but it wasn't so cute that night when he fell out of bed. The six inch fall didn't hurt or anything, but he cried and had a hard time going back to sleep. New rule: you must sleep the right direction in your bed. Lesson learned. :-)

Playing at the Park

Two great things coincided yesterday: the weather was beautiful and Josh got off work early! It was so nice to have pretty weather that we took the kids to the park. Caleb is finally brave enough to go down the tall slide by himself. That's kinda my fault. He was going down sitting on our laps. The first time, I let him slide with me like normal. Then the next time, I put him in front of me and went down behind him. The third time I just pushed him. Poor kid. He went down so fast that he flew off the end and landed on the ground. There was a split second where he looked like he might cry, but Josh and I cheered so much that he decided it was okay. After that defining moment he was fearless. :-) I wonder if this will come up later in therapy?

Sitting Up Is Hard Work

Madeline is trying so hard to sit up by herself. She does great until she reaches for something or gets excited and starts to wiggle. For now we just have to make sure that she's surrounded by padding when she falls. You can't hear it, but in this picture Caleb is chanting "Good job Maddie, good job Maddie, good job Maddie." Aww.

Caleb won't sit still for a picture right now. I have to catch him off guard to get any shots. That means they're usually blurred or have too much flash. This one turned out kinda cute, though.

:-) He's such a sweet boy.