Lily's 4th Birthday

Lily picks out her own clothes, I guess she wanted to wear something extra special for her birthday. Unlike her brother who does not enjoy wearing clothes

We decided to have a picnic lunch at the beach so on the way, we stopped at the convenience store for her first ever pack of gum. My mom didn't allow us to chew gum until we were 4, so I just used that as the timeline for my kids too. It was really funny because I think I stressed the 'don't swallow it' a little too much because she was even afraid to swallow her saliva. I had to re-describe it to her telling her it was ok to swallow the sweet taste, but not to swallow the actual gum. She will chew it for a minute, maybe two then spit it out and get another piece. She went through this whole pack in a day & a half.
Grandad got her the whole collection of toys from Toy Story so I let her write her name on the feet like Andy did in the movie.
These toys were the hit of the day for sure. She has slept with Andy and Jesse every night. For some reason, Bullseye has become the designated bathtub toy and poor Buzz Lightyear... she won't sleep with him because she says he makes too much noise for bed.



Luckily there are enough of them that it is ok for Eric to play too. They have now gotten to the age of fighting over toys.
I'm thoroughly disappointed in the toy that Ross & I got for her. We bought her a sewing machine. She has been talking about getting a sewing machine for months and months and Singer makes a child version with a safety cage over the needle so that is what we got her. It turned out terrible. This sewing machine is complete garbage. It won't even work enough for Lily to sew one seam! She was so happy and we got her her own little pink sewing kit with all the tools and everything. She measured and cut out her own fabric and the damn machine would break. I'd get out the screwdriver, spend 20 minutes fixing it. She would sew again, and it would break again before finishing the line. It is pathetic. I am an experienced sewing, standing over her, watching everything ... she did everything right but the stupid piece of garbage machine just doesn't work. So, of course, now she has completely lost interest in sewing.
I truly wasn't trying to push my love of sewing on her, she wanted to do it. But the thing that makes me so angry, is that any kid who has any interest in sewing and gets this machine, will no longer have an interest in sewing. It is sad really. Singer should be ashamed to put their name on this hunk of junk.
sorry, back to the good stuff...
For dinner, Lily chose to go to Chick-Fil-A. The Round-up gang got to go too. We didn't do cake on her birthday because she was having a party a few days later. We just had ice cream with Dinner.
Next post.... the PARTY!

Fun with Balloons

Last night was the Etsy Craft party and I brought home a couple of balloons. Entertainment for the whole morning. This video may make you a little dizzy watching crazy Lily but Eric at the end is really worth it.

Our child won't eat

I distinctly remember sitting alone at the kitchen table in Corpus Christi Texas with a plate of cold spaghetti and a cup of warm milk while the rest of the family was off watching my favorite show Magnum P.I. in the living room.
Now, I am doing the same torture to my child.
Lily won't eat. Won't eat breakfast. Won't eat lunch. Won't eat dinner.
It is now a common occurrence around here for Ross, Eric and I to be playing in the yard or in the back rooms while Lily sits at the dinner table with a plate of cold food.
I really don't know what else to do other than giving her a diet that consists completely of cheez-its and apple juice.

Eric Walking video

First Steps

Although he has been trying for a few days now, We are claiming today the day Eric has taken his first steps. I was in the kitchen, and Eric & Lily were just around the corner in the pool room. Lily starts saying "look Mommy... Eric is trying to walk!" and I peeked around the corner and there he was standing with the cutest grin on his face. It was like he was saying 'Look at me! I can do this!'
I watched him take 6 steps.
Lily and I spent the rest of the day counting his steps. Most times he would do between 3 and 5 before sitting down or just lunging into something.
We tried and tried to get a video, but it is pretty hard to do because we don't have a video camera, just the point-n-shoot camera with a video option, so this is the best we got...

I thought this one was cute too, even though he isn't walking, it does show how balanced he is in pushing things.

Aunt Linda came to visit

Tuesday Aunt Linda came down to visit for a couple of days. We really enjoyed the visit and hated to see her go. She showed up on Tuesday around lunch time and took me & the kids out to eat at our favorite restaurant Shenanigans.
Aunt Linda read books to Lily during quiet time. I peeked in to check on them and Aunt Linda was napping (and snoring) and Lily was laying down on the other side of the couch going "haw.... shhhhh... haw.... shhhhh" pretending to nap with her. Then, after nap time we totally forgot that Lily was supposed to be at Soccer practice and went to the park downtown.
Since Eric was so good on the playground, Aunt Linda treated us to fancy chocolates at Kilwin's. They gave Lily a taste of their ice cream and asked if Eric wanted some too. I'm not sure if he had ever tasted ice cream before, but we said "Why not?" and he LOVED it. Got angry that we didn't have more for him.
Ross had rugby practice so we let Aunt Linda in our our special dinner that we do when Ross isn't home.... SCALLOPS! Ross is super allergic, and Lily and I love them, so that is what we do when he isn't home for dinner.
Tuesday we had a packed day. We took a picnic lunch to the beach and played in the sprinkler park. After the afternoon nap we went to Ikea. Aunt Linda bought me new curtain rods and a towel rack for the patio.
After Ikea we went back to the beach where we met Ross for dinner. We went to a new restaurant Vedu's that we had been wanting to try. It was a good choice because we had a great view of the water and the food was fantastic. Even the kids enjoyed it because Lily got a free Spongebob icecream treat after and Eric got to crawl around all over the broadwalk.
She left this morning and Lily said that she wanted to go with her :(

Eric, getting ready to walk

Eric has completely mastered crawling. He is so fast that you can put him down in one room, run out into another room and seconds later you'll see his little head poking out around the corner. He just takes off so fast that he has calluses on his knees and tops of his feet.
He has also mastered the standing holding things skill. He will cruise from one piece of furniture to another and just within the last week or so is attempting to stand without help.
I've seen him standing, holding the couch then let go for a few seconds, but today I saw him stand without help! He had a little help because he used the step to get up, but stood there with a big grin and when we all cheered for him, he did it again.
He is really good at pushing his push toys around and Lily, ever so jealous, is constantly taking them away. We finally found a solution, one rides, one pushes. The following video only has a couple of steps of Eric pushing, but he actually pushes her all over. It is really sweet.

Easter

I just realized that I forgot to post the pictures from Easter... oops. So, here we go...
Aunt Charlotte sent me a newspaper from Huntsville when they did a Breast Cancer awareness issue and dyed the entire paper pink. I thought it was so cool so I saved it. I didn't know what I was going to do with it at first, but when Easter was coming around I decided that instead of dying eggs, we'd make paper mache eggs with this pink paper!

They came out really nice and Lily loved the project.
Easter Sunday...
I guess the Easter bunny thought that three teeth is enough to get a big chocolate bunny. Eric chewed on the box... Ross & I ate the chocolate.
The Easter Bunny left plastic eggs full of candy & chocolate all over the house and the yard. After we found all of them Lily and I went to Church.
It is kinda sad, but this was Lily's first time at church. My mom would be horrified. Well, she did go to church once before when we had her baptized but she didn't stay the whole time. She behaved so well. She sat on my lap most of the service, but was quiet and although she was bored, she kept still. They invited all the kids to the front for a children's lesson and I figured that she wouldn't want to go being that she is so shy and we were towards the back in a pretty big church, but another mom asked her if she wanted to go and surprisingly, she said yes and jumped up and followed the other little girl. It was funny because after it was over, I guess she wasn't listening when they said to go back to your seats because she just sat there after all the other kids had gone. I had to stand up and wave her back over to me. The sermon was of course about Easter, but they related everything about butterflies and gave all the kids butterfly lollipops.

After the service, as we were leaving the church, they gave everyone a box with a real butterfly inside. Everyone gathered around and released them at the same time. It was fabulous.

After church, we went picked up the boys and went to the beach.
right after tickle time.

Mothers Day

Mothers Day is always a little bitter sweet for me. I love that I get a holiday, but it always makes me a little sad that my mom isn't around anymore. I usually take the day off from being a mom and do something by myself. This year I only half did that. We spent the first half of the day at the beach. Eric is getting to the age where the beach is fun. It is still a little work to keep him from eating all the sand, but it is worth it.
Butterfly world does a mother's day special and lets moms in for free. I took advantage of this on Saturday. I had been wanting to take Lily there for awhile now but it is very expensive so I'd been putting it off. I am so glad that we got to go. Lily is at such a great age for this. She was just full of wonder. Eric stayed home with Ross so we had a nice little "girls day".
Lily fed the birds. She was so funny because she wasn't afraid at all. She kept putting her face closer and closer to the birds. So close that I had to go wash her face because the birds were flinging the fruit soup up on her cheeks.
Last weekend we went to a picnic with the Hollywood Craft Mafia and made pet rocks. Eric just licked them all for us.
Last week Lily brought me her pillow to stitch up because it had a hole in it. I took it as a teachable moment and taught Lily how to whipstitch.



Eric and Lily play together so well. He can't walk yet, but gets around pretty well with a combo of crawling and scooting along the furniture and walls. He likes to open and close things. Lily likes to hide inside things. The other day they played this game for ages.

Lily & Eric at the same age

Eric woke up at 6 then went back to sleep. I had managed to get 6 hours of continuous sleep so I just stayed up and wrote that last blog post. Then, I started looking through my blog's old posts of Lily at the same age that Eric is now. It is easy because their birthdays are only about a week apart. Friday night was the Marlin's home opener so I put Eric in Lily's old Marlins jersey. Lily got to go to the opener when she was a baby, but unfortunately, Ross is out of town, and I'm not organized enough to take two kids to a baseball game solo, so we didn't go. (First one I've missed in 5 years!)

I didn't get Eric smiling, maybe he was sad that he didn't get to go to the game :(
but I love being able to compare these pictures. Eric has much more hair than Lily did and although he is a little chunkier, has a thinner face. I'm also glad that it was the girl child that got the Carney ears so that they can be covered by hair. Lucky Eric got Mitchell ears!

Lily's Monster comes to Life

I've wanted to do this project for ages, and finally made time to do it last week. Lily always draws monsters, I'm not sure why, I've tried to get her to draw other things, but for some reason, it is always a monster. Ever since she started doing "art", I've picked a few here and there and put them in a box to save. I usually put the date on them and sometimes a description. I came up with the idea to turn her work into a stuffed animal (or more than one, so I can sell them.... you know me... always out to make a buck) so I chose this one:
As you can see, it is on the paper from the Race for the Cure. At the race, they give these papers to the runners to pin to their backs. Some say "In Memory of" and some say "In Celebration of" and you write the name of the person for whom you are running. It is very powerful as you are running to read these, but back to my story. There was some confusion last year pre-race and we ended up coming home with several of these, so they went into the stack of paper that Lily is allowed to draw on. It doesn't really have any significance to the monster story, just thought I'd explain.
Lately, Lily has come up with this new thing that she has to sleep with my pillow and since I can't sleep without MY pillow, I go in her room every night and take it back. Well, the night I finished the monster, I took my pillow and replaced it with the monster. Here is Lily in the morning when she found it.
She was so excited. She loves the monster, but I think I was just as excited about it as she was. I told her that he needed a name and she named him "Monster". Very original right?
She carries him around and told me that he is her 'helper' and when I asked her to explain what she meant, she said that he is her helper just like she is my helper.
Monster details: He is blue, because the plans were drawn in blue. The face and hair are made from scraps of the fabric used to make Lily's curtains. It is stuffed with fiberfill and PVC pellets (like a beanie baby). One arm is longer than the other and he only has one ear.
It was a lot of work actually, so I don't think I'm going to go into the child-designed-monster business. It was kinda funny that just this week my friend Jaz posted a blog about her daughter's artwork as well, and one of her friend's posted this site in the comments section where they take kids art and make it into jewelry!

Recycling

The city changed their recycling program last month and now has a program with Recycle Bank where we get points for the amount that we recycle. They replaced the little plastic box with a huge can with a lid. Our recycle bin is now the same size as the big trashcan!
I've always recycled, but Ross never really got into it. I was always pulling things out of the trash and moving it to the recycle bin. I guess this program was the kick in the pants that Ross needed because now it is the other way around. I'm pulling things out of the recycle bin and moving it to the trash.
We are now recycling more than we are throwing away!
I haven't really found anything really great that we can redeem our points for, but it is kinda cool to track. As you can see from our widget, we haven't quite saved a whole tree yet but we sure have saved quite a bit of oil!

First Sleep Over

Lily had her first sleepover at our house a few weeks back. Well, I don't know if it really counts being that it was her cousin, but we are counting it anyway. Sandy dropped Allison off on her way down to the keys on a Saturday and then they stopped back in on Sunday and Aunt Charlotte took us all out to dinner.

Lily is so in love with Allison. Ever since, she has been saying "I miss Allison" and putting on her sad face.

Lily & Eric share a bedroom and although there is a bunk bed in there, we had the girls sleep in the pool room on the futon instead because we weren't sure if Eric's mid-night wake up would bother Allison or not.

We spent Saturday shopping and then made our own Pizzas and the girls stayed up about two hours past Lily's regular bedtime. They giggled and giggled on that futon forever and then fell asleep holding hands. It was so sweet.

The next day we went and had lunch on the beach. Allison didn't have her suit so Lily didn't wear hers either. It is great beach weather but I think it is still too cold to swim (although both Ross & Lily usually do)

Lily, although very shy with strangers, is so proud in her own house. She took Allison around and showed her everything. Kinda funny hearing a 3.5 year old explaining things to a 9 year old. I love this pic because it looks like Zelda is playing the game too.

Totally unrelated to the sleep over. I told Lily to go get her shoes on because we were going to the store. She took a while to do this (totally normal.... she is easily distractable) and when she came back this is what she looked like.

I asked her if she had been playing with my makeup and she told me that she couldn't go out with no eyebrows!

dance dance dance

I bought Lily some new shoes for Easter and when we came home, she told Ross that I bought her 'Dancing' shoes. So we got dressed up to dance. Eric likes to dance too.

Trying to stand

This morning I woke up and went into the kids' room and Lily was up building a fort out of blankets on the floor and Eric was STANDING up in his bed.

They are so independent.

Playdates, pictures, carnivals & parades

We went to a playdate at Chuck E Cheese and this game cracks me up. The game has a camera on the kids so if you stand behind them, the screen is above. I guess Lily thought the game was too loud.

Then I caught all three of them in the game together! They even had the seatbelt strapped across all of them! Lily wasn't smiling for the camera, they don't know that it is there, she was enjoying the game.

Eric doesn't have any friends his own age, so I thought maybe he'd like to talk to Lily's baby. He stares and stares at this baby. Probably because it walks & talks. But it is funny.

Just some cute pictures I took in the yard one afternoon when we were playing ball.

There are two churches in Hollywood that throw carnivals every year and we love to go to both. The one, is across the street from our house but for some reason, I don't have any pictures from that one even though we went 3 times! They are Catholic churches so there is beer there and the food is awesome so we pretty much ate there all weekend.

Lily really enjoys the rides, we can tell that she is going to be a roller coaster freak like Ross & I because she wasn't scared of anything. She isn't tall enough for the big rides yet, but I'd bet she would ride them if they let her.

She is so cute because she knows all about how things work. She stands in line and hands her tickets to the ticket man then waits to have her seatbelt checked. It is cute because she is so shy and if you watch closely you can see how hard it is for her, but she does it anyway.

Eric just waking up. Thought it was a funny face.

Aunt Marie sent us a bunch of Girl Scout Cookies that my dad bought from my cousin's kids.

We celebrated St. Patrick's day on Sunday because there was a parade. We started the day with green eggs. We didn't have any ham though.

I left Eric in the middle of the floor in their room while I ran to go get something and came back to find he had crawled all the way over to the book stash and was checking out some books. I think this is a good sign.

Lily's attire for the parade. I made her this "dress" last year for the parade when I woke up the morning of and realized that she didn't have a single article of green to wear! I'm too busy and too lazy to make her anything this year so we just threw some shorts on under and called it a shirt. As you can see, she has acquired many more green things in the past year.

This next picture touches my heart so much. I was so painfully shy as a child and I see myself in Lily. This woman, dressed as a princess was reading stories to the kids and Lily was so excited to go hear her. She ran right over at the very beginning before the woman had even sat down. BUT, she froze. Stood there wringing her hands while all the other kids crowded around. Then, Lily walked around behind the lady and sat down with her back to her. When Lily first sat down there weren't any other kids around the back, only her. It broke my heart because I know how hard it is to be shy like that.
Later that night Lily and I were discussing the day's events and talking all about the parade and the games and everything and she told me that her two favorite parts of the day were listening to the princess tell stories and getting her face painted. I couldn't believe that what I thought was the worst part for her was really her best.

Eric liked the princess's story too.

Ross missed out on all the fun at the parade because he was working. He does it every year. There is a little Irish pub that a friend of his owns that is on the parade route and they put up a temporary bar outside and Ross tends it. Last year he made some extra spending money, this year he made what I make in a month!

As we were leaving, one of the floats, an old fire engine, was parked on the side street and I asked the man if Lily could check it out. He said sure so she climbed up....

As I'm watching her, these two women come over and walk up to the side of the truck and pour themselves a beer! What?!

Those ingenious firefighters had built a tab right into the side of the truck! I was looking right at this and never even spotted it.

There were face painters at the parade but by the time I found the booth they weren't taking any more people and Lily was really sad about it so I told her that we'd paint faces when we got home.

To me, this was one of the best parts of the day. We sat out on the back porch and painted each other's faces. I painted Lily a Shamrock, and she painted me a smiley face. Then she look my phone, lined everything up and took this picture.

We had so much fun that we wanted to keep going..... so we did.

Some Video catch ups

I've been taking a bunch of videos to catch Eric and his new talent for crawling. The following one is about a week ago back when he was doing more of a scoot. I think his technique looks like the guys in military boot camp.

He does a proper crawl now and can go from crawling to sitting with ease. He can get up the step in our pool table room, but we haven't allowed him to attempt going DOWN the step just yet. I remember all the knots on Lily's head from that stage!

This next video is really dark, I'm not sure why, but my camera takes awful video in artificial lighting. Eric jamming out to Lady Gaga.

And lastly, again, a really dark video, but the sound is great. Ross sets Eric on the futon and throws a burp towel on him and he thinks it is so funny.

2 Teeth and today's stats

Today is Eric's 7 month birthday, and on this day, he...

• weighs 20 lbs.
• is 28" long
• has a head in the 95th percentile
• has 2 teeth
• can roll front to back, and back to front
• when put into the sitting position, he can sit all by himself for over half an hour
• can do a scoot-crawl hybrid maneuver to get around the room
• can go from sitting to scooting unassisted
• cannot go from laying to sitting
• knows his name
• eats pureed food from a spoon
• takes 2 naps
• goes right to sleep every night at bedtime
• does NOT sleep through the night
• can spot his dummy (pacifier) anywhere and goes right for it
• can get his dummy into his mouth the right way all by himself
• cries when people talk to him

Lily is 3 years and 7 months old. On this day she...

• weighs 36lbs.
• is 40" tall
• can write her own name
• can recite her parent's names (first and last)
• can recite her address
• can count to 29 (she then starts to go to 20-10, 20-11, 20-12)
• makes her own bed
• takes out the recycling
• brushes her own teeth
• can crack an egg
• knows how to use scissors & a glue stick

Ross is 34 years old and recently he ran a half marathon in just under 2 hours.

I am also 34 years old and I can run 4 miles. It takes me almost an hour, but I can do it non-stop. Yay me!