Fun With the Cousins!

Uncle Dan and his girls, Maddie and Belle came to visit this weekend.  They arrived Friday night and the kids had a blast playing with each other.  We had some pizza and then played with the trucks and trains in the playroom.  Love Bug rolled around on the floor while the kids ran around.  The funniest was when they were playing with the hula hoop.  Maddie can spin the hula hoop around her neck, Belle was good at spinning it around her tummy, and Roo liked to spin his whole body with it until he got dizzy and fell over. 

After that they all got ready for bed. Roo and Belle were cute in the bath together, they shared a bath crab nicely with each other and splashed around for a bit.  Then they got in bed and eventually, after some giggling, all the kiddos fell asleep.

We got up this morning and had a good breakfast that dada made to get us going for our busy day.  After breakfast they played outside on the play set for bit.  

Then we went over to the neighbors yard and picked some tomatoes and squash from their garden.  The best part about that was washing the veggies off and getting wet from the hose.

Then we got the kids ready for the pool and dada and Uncle Dan took Maddie, Belle and Roo to the pool for the day.  They met up with Uncle Nate and Connor.  They came back to the house for a quick lunch and then went back to the pool.  When they all finally came home they were exhausted.

Mommy took Maddie and Love Bug to the store to do some back to school shopping.  We got Maddie a cute outfit with some pretty accessories and a bunch of school supplies.  Maddie definitely has the shopping gene; watch out Grammy!

We all had a really nice dinner that dada made; steak, potatoes and corn...the little kids got hungry before dinner was ready and had pizza and then ate corn with the rest of us.  

We only played for a little bit after dinner tonight because the kids were exhausted.  They were all so tired that they went right to sleep tonight.  

We have had a blast seeing everyone and hope to see them more often!

Clap On...Clap Off...

Endless hours of entertainment can be had by having Roo clap to turn on and off the light in the family room.  He thinks it's hilarious when he claps and the light goes on or off.  The light is on the ceiling fan and is controlled by the little fan remote.  Mommy removes it from the wall, sticks it in her pocket and presses the button to turn it on/off after a good Roo clap.  Good fun, good fun...

A New Stage

Not only has Roo gotten taller in the last 2 weeks, he's also entered a new stage.  It's the 'outwill mommy' stage as I like to call it.  How can mommy win the battle if he's going to ask over and over and over and over (you get the idea) for the same thing.  For example, if he wants red strawberries and we've got the fridge locked....he'll just keep asking.  I'll ask him to either sit down and wait or to please stop or tell him he can have some later, but nope...he just persists.  

And what's unique about red strawberries?  Well, don't you know, they're a lot different than blue strawberries.  Well where can you find blue strawberries?  In the blueberry container of course.  Red is Roo's favorite color.  I seem to be able to avoid a lot of these outlast moments by offering him red items....at least this week!

And Love Bug did something very exciting tonight too.  He said 'dada!'   Yay!  The boys will always have major points in my book for saying 'mama' first though ;)

Day Trip to Solomons Island

The weather was perfect this weekend and we were looking for a nice day trip.  After reading Barb's blog last week (bbmowery.blogspot.com) and seeing the pictures of the yummy crab cakes we decided to head to Solomons Island and see Barb and Robb.  We hadn't seen them since my surprise party last March so we had a lot to catch up on.  We had so much fun yesterday and were so proud of ourselves for actually getting out of the house and going on a day trip.

We got to Barb and Robb's house in the morning and hung out for a bit.  When we first got there Roo was acting really shy and following either of us around by walking behind us with his head dug into us; it was really cute.  He warmed up a bit and chased around Sukey dog and they wrestled a bit.  Sukey is a bit smaller than Baxter and a little more gentle but she still gave Roo a run for his money!

After hanging out a the house for a bit we went to see Robb's work.  Let me tell, he's got it rough.  A short commute to a nice boat, the Bay Hydro II.  Robb showed us around the boat; Roo was really curious to see how everything worked.  New Roo statement:  more boat.  That means he liked it.  And when daddy asked him if he wants a boat, he said 'yeah,' and if he had fun on the boat, he said 'yeah.'  Grandma, Grandpa, Grammy, Papa....you should get Roo a big boat for his birthday ;)

After seeing Robb's boat and looking at the yacht's on the marina we went to the historic portion of Solomons and walked around on the boardwalk and the town for a bit and then had a yummy seafood lunch.  After that we went to the playground and Roo and Barb enjoyed ice cream.

On the way home, Love Bug took a little nap in the car and Roo, of course, did his best to wake him up.  I'm still amazed at what a horrible rider Roo is; I really thought he would be better by now.  But, even on this easy hour long drive he wanted out.  Oh well, as soon as he can be entertained by something like a game boy in the car, it's his!

The weather was perfect and we all had a blast.  It was so good to see Barb and Robb and to catch up with them.  Check out Barb's artwork on her etsy site (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5104031).  Solomons is a pretty easy day trip so I think we'll be heading over there a few times a year!

Love Bug Makes Roo LOL!

We were riding around today enjoying the beautiful weather and Love Bug was making lots of silly baby noises.  Roo thought this was just hilarious and would crack up and then tell Love Bug 'again.'  There's nothing better than your infant keeping your "I'm almost 3 but still a horrible rider" entertained!

Let's Make a Deal...

I can update the blog more frequently with the silly things that happen daily if I'm not required to post a picture on every blog update.  Sound fair?  Good :)

The logic:  Some of the cutest things happen in our normal course of the day.  I don't always get a picture of it.  Plus, I like to think of this blog as a living history.  I want to capture all the silliness that happens but I sometime don't because I don't have a good picture to add.  Just adding updates without pictures will enable me to make this a much better living history of the boys growing up with each other and of course with their dog that they both adore.

Now that we all agree......on with the next blog update!

Baxter's Head Bump

Some of you may have seen my Facebook update about Baxter going to the vet and getting his head bump looked at.  We had taken him to a different vet a year ago and I specifically asked them to look at the bump next to his left eye.  When I picked him up I asked them what it was and they looked at me funny.  I reminded them that I asked about that not only when I made the appointment but also when I dropped him off.  So they went back and spoke with doctor and came back out and told me 'all labs have a bump on the top of their skull.'  Really?  I had no idea...I've only had Baxter since he was a puppy and I never noticed that before, on him or any other lab in fact.  So I pressed them further and they said, oh, that, well that's probably just a fat cell...you can make an appointment to have us look at that.  Well, wasn't that what I had just done?  Needless to say, I was pretty ticked.  But, being a bad pet mommy, I didn't follow up as quickly as I would have if Baxter were a human; something about taking care of a 2 year old and being pregnant seemed to get in the way.  I'm not justifying this, as I'm completely guilt ridden about this, I'm just letting you know why I was such a slacker.  

Anyhow, when we picked him up from the vet, the doctor actually came out and spoke to daddy to let him know all about the bump.  They weren't able to get any cells from it; they tried twice.  They want to remove it because it's so close to his eye and send the sample off to a pathology lab.  Sounds like a good plan to me.  We're hoping it's nothing bad, but it does concern us that they weren't able to get any cells from it.  It rules out simple things like it being a fat cell.  

I'm going to schedule his surgery next week.  

Do you think he'll be able to manage without pawing at the incision site?  If not, he'll get to wear one of those silly cones; we'll be sure to get lots of pictures of that if he has one!

Oh, and one last thing.  Grandma was right, he has gotten fat.  He's never been over 70lbs before and he weighed in at a whopping 76lbs.  Must be from all the food he's getting from both kids.  Time for a diet, sorry B!

Shouldn't Be Laughing...

Roo just woke up.  He never wakes during the night.  So daddy just went up to his room to figure out why he was crying.  We figured it was something he ate tonight; you know, he drank some of the marinara sauce and had some soy ice cream a bit before bed.  So daddy asked him what was wrong.  What did Roo say, "my feet hurt."  Of course!  So daddy rubbed his feet, Roo thanked him and now Roo's going back to sleep.  I watched/listened to the whole thing over the monitor.  I was cracking up when daddy came back downstairs.  We shouldn't laugh, but it seemed funny.  Poor little guy, he must be going through a growth spurt.

Vacation is Good!

We just returned from a week long vacation in OBX.  We had a blast!  The house we stayed at had a private pool, which was great.  Roo was so excited to go swimming and all we heard him say all week was 'Roo all wet!'  Roo was pretty careful around the pool and a bit timid in the pool but after a week of swim lessons from dada and grandma he got a lot more comfortable in the pool.  Silly Roo was so careful around the pool, but proved he was related to mommy when he was pushing his truck around the pool and wasn't looking and fell right in.  We kept a close eye on him anytime he was around the pool, he quickly grabbed his truck and kicked his feet so he was able to float and dada scooped him right out of the pool.  Roo thought falling into the pool was pretty scary.  

Love Bug also loved the pool.  We put him in his little swimmer float thing and he just loved it. He kicked his feet around and just floated all around the pool as happy as could be.  We were thinking he'd do great even without the floaty thing but we decided not to test the theory out. Why mess with happiness!

The weather was spectacular all week.  It didn't get warmer than the mid-80's a single day. Dada went golfing with Grandpa a couple of times and grandma and I watched the boys while they were out.  We had nice family dinners outside on the deck at the house each night and discovered that Roo loves corn on the cob!  

One morning while it was still early we headed out to the 4x4 beaches toward Carova.  We headed just about a mile up, parked the car and played by the water for just a little bit.  As beautiful as it was, the 4x4 beach is really like a highway on sand and definitely not the safest place for little ones.  That was really the only time we went to the beach though, Roo pretty much stayed in the pool all day long!

And, what would be a family vacation without......teething!  That's right, it looks like Love Bug has at least 2 teeth coming in; one on top and one on the bottom; he doesn't have any yet. When we went on our first vacation with Roo he got a double ear infection from teething two of his incisors....that was fun! And when we went to Maine last year, Roo was teething molars.  If only teething made the boys happy instead of grumpy!

Roo couldn't wait to get home and tickle Baxter.  I think it's safe to say, the whole family was exhausted and happy to see their beds tonight....especially Love Bug who slept in our closet all week (it was a big closet).  We had so much fun we're already looking up OBX rentals for next summer!