Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

There are a ton of children on our street and so last weekend we had our second annual street Easter Egg Hunt. Last year we had three babies born on our end of the street alone and then two more expected this year! Kids everywhere! We hunted eggs across the street from our house because Ms. Barbara has a nice flat yard. Here are a few pics from the hunt. James needed little instruction. We explained eggs = candy and he was off!!

The first photo is of our friend Anne and her dad Lewis. Anne is a few months younger than James but her mommy is pregnant again and due just a few days before me. Anne is great fun and comes over for playdates with James. Usually when dad Lewis comes over for a playdate, I mean male bonding time, with Jim, i.e. Lewis wants to watch sports on our big TV...

Learning to climb

So last weekend Aunt Kelly ("Aunt Keke") and I got to have our girly baby shower for the two little girls on their way. We had a great time at the shower and got some wonderful things. I can't wait to wash everything and put them away for Mary Martin to wear. Anyway, lest you think that it was completely a girls weekend, James got to play at this fun playground at a Joe's crab shack with Gee and Aunt Dianne, after we meet them for lunch. Still don't know why Joe's crab shack had a playground but we enjoyed it! Jim taught James how to climb down on the stairs. And yes I know the video is turned sideways - I forgot to turn it for the video.

Indoctrination by the Force

The Star Wars lessons (shall I call it indoctrination?) have started early. Lately James likes watching the animated Star Wars series on TV with his dad. He also has a coloring book with all the Star Wars characters. He doesn't really color in it so much as point to all the characters and ask his dad to identify them by saying "That?"





In other news the potty training continues... James sits on the potty at school and sometimes goes. He will sit on the potty at home about once a day, but doesn't go. Baby steps... Our bigger accomplishment is that James has successfully slept in his big bed boy for almost a week. Last Friday night we tried it for the first time. I admit for the first time, Jim made a pallet next to James' bed and went to bed when James did to help ease the transition. I woke Jim later to join me in bed and James did not stir or wake all night. Now he goes to sleep all by himself, well except for his 9 stuffed animals in the bed with him, and sleeps soundly all night. He even napped in his bed this weekend too. After only a couple of protest filled nights, we now appear to have a new routine that ends in James soundly going to sleep.

I am well aware this is a process and our first bit of success might not continue. But, for now, we are grateful and a little sad at all the big boy progress our little boy has made this week.

Finally - HAPPY BIRTHDAY to James' beautiful cousin Anna Lauren tomorrow!! Hope y'all have a great day and weekend!

James is Two

James officially turned two today and it was a full day! He loves donuts so we started the morning with a stop at the Krispy Kreme. We also bought donuts ("noduts" as James calls them) to celebrate his birthday instead of cupcakes. The day care ladies said the kids loved them.

Daddy came home early from work and we opened a few more presents and sang Happy Birthday to James again. He loved this, especially being able to blow out his candles. So we had to sing to him four times. The last time he figured out that we were not going to sing to him anymore and so pretended not to be able to blow out the candles to prolong the fun. Smart boy...

And yes he wanted a plain cupcake - no icing, no ice cream. What kid do you know who doesn't like icing or ice cream? By his third birthday I bet he wants only icing.

Finally, as if he knew today was a milestone, James sat on the potty for us today for the first time. Nothing happened but he did want to sit on potty and said he needed to potty. Definitely a step. A new adventure begins.

Thanks to everyone for making this such a fun day for James and for us!

James' Second Birthday

Yes, this is my third post tonight... I am catching up. And yes, I will have a new post tomorrow for James' birthday probably.

James turns two tomorrow and so we had his party this weekend. We invited a few kids from the neighborhood and with Spencer and all four grandparents, we had a full house! The kids had a great time. We celebrated with James' favorite book, Go Dog Go, and let the kids make their own cupcakes. They actually didn't make too big a mess. I only have a couple of pictures from the party because I managed to delete all of Mike's photos :( Still don't know what I did.

Anyway, with all the family in town, James had as much fun playing with them and getting ready for the party, as he did at the actual party. He especially loved his tunnel from Meme and Poppie and making cupcakes with Gee.

Our little Frankengirl

So Darby is eight this year and had to have a little "work" done. Over the past couple of years she has developed some fatty tumors that aren't cancer, just little growths. So long as they don't get too big or grow in a place that can affect a joint or her movement, the vet said she can just leave them. This past year, however, they have grown and it was getting about time to remove the three that she had. We were just waiting for a good time...

Well, during the snow weekend, Darby developed an abscess tooth. When we got her to the vet, she had a big knot under one eye from the infected tooth. The vet confirmed with X-rays that her entire tooth had to be removed, under anesthesia. While we were handling the tooth we decided we might as well remove her three little fatty tumors.

Turns out Darby had FIVE tumors, including one under a muscle on one shoulder that was hard to get to. So in an afternoon Darby had a tooth extraction and five tumors surgically removed. The four small tumors each left about one inch of stitches, but the one under the muscle was a cut THREE INCHES LONG. Needless to say, Darby had a rough day and had to spend an extra night. When we finally picked her up, my first thought was that she looked like Frankenstein!!

Anyway, I am glad to report that Darby is much better. She has dutifully taken all her medicine and we are weaning her off her pain pills. Her face is only slightly swollen now and most of her stitches are healing up nicely. Plus the tumors were all benign.

The only fun part of all this? One of Darby's tumors was on her tummy. So let's just call this a "tummy tuck" for our old girl and be done with it!

Snow Day!!

You would never guess this from our current weather of about 75 degrees, but two weekends ago we had about four inches of snow. James napped through the best part of the snow but we did manage to get out and play in it just a bit. While he napped, I watched it snow for about three hours and it was so beautiful. James thought it was great fun as you can see.