Memorial Day

Memorial Day was beautiful! I was hoping to take the kids to a parade but it just didn't happen.
We did get to spend some time in the backyard though.

Fia and her "I'm cute" move. She does this all the time.

We made some BBQ chicken on the grill and ate outside.

No BBQ is complete without a popcicle.

I took a dip with the kids after dinner. I kinda had to because Fia kept dunking herself in the water. On purpose. She thought it was hilarious.

She LOVED sliding down the slide into the water too. Don't worry everyone, she was fine.

Memorial Weekend at Nana and Papaw's

All kinds of fun were had at Nana and Papaw's house this past weekend.

Aunt Phyllis was reading books.

There was golf.

Not sure what Grandpa Harold was up to.

Papaw was teaching how to blow raspberries.

And of course there is always fun when Daddy is around.

Where have I been?

I feel like my blog has been lacking in updates lately. And it's not for the lack of subject matter because we have plenty going on around here. I think it's mostly because our laptop died. So I'm forced to use the desktop computer which is far away from a little 16-month-old troublemaker. I can't leave her alone for more than 5 minutes so that severly limits blogging time. My free time has also been consumed lately with preparations for Madeline's big 3rd birthday bash coming up this weekend. I have tons of fun planned for the kids and I can't wait!! You will certainly see posts about this. I've been working too hard not to share all the fun.

Other big happenings around here have been potty training Madeline and getting a new minivan. I think we are on Week 5 or 6 with Madeline and she is doing fantastic! We followed the 3-day potty training guide and it worked wonders for us. It was a long and frustrating 3 days, but she got it by the end of the 3rd day. Going #2 took a bit longer but she is getting the hang of that too. Staying dry at night has been hit-or-miss. She finally woke me up in the middle of the night this last week to tell me she had to go, so that is progress. But on nights when she is dead tired, this hasn't been happening. So we'll see how she continues to progress.

As for the new minivan, this was NOT planned at all. However, with Andy's car being 13 years old, we knew this day was coming. We were just hoping to be able to wait it out another year. But he ended up taking it in last week and it needed $1000 to fix its various issues. We decided this was our breaking point and we were done putting money into his old car. Since one of the problems was a safety issue, something needed to happen ASAP or we would be living with one car for awhile. Neither of us wanted that so off we went shopping for a minivan. Fortunately we had been kinda window shopping earlier in the year so it helped us decided on a minivan rather than an SUV. We knew we couldn't afford new so we went looking for a used Toyota Sienna or Honda Odysessy. As luck would have it, Toyota was turning over its fleet of courtesy vehicles. So we found a "used" 2011 Sienna with only 2000 miles on it for the same price as the 2008's we were looking at. It's their base model, but it still has a lot of extras like power sliding doors, XM radio and a back-up camera. And the space!! How great it would have been to have this on the many road trips back and forth from Columbus with 2 kids, 2 dogs and days worth of luggage. It will serve us well on our road trip this summer to the beach.

Just Because

Top Chef Tour!

The Top Chef Tour came to town this past weekend and I was beyond excited. I love this show but when I found out Richard Blais would be here, I knew I had to go. I am a huge fan of his! It could have only been better if Michael Voltaggio was here. Oh, and both of them together?!? I don't know what I'd do.

Madeline was my buddy and came along for the show. We got there early but not early enough to get seats. Bummer. So we staked out a spot as close as we could and waited......and waited.....and waited.

The show finally started and it was great. It was a 15-minute cook-off between Richard and another Top Chef alum, Eli Kirchtien. If you don't watch the show, here is Richard showing off one of his secret ingredients.

Eli is a great chef too. He's just not Richard. Sorry man.

They talked and answered questions while they cooked. It was definitely worth standing in the rain while holding Madeline for over an hour. It was torture though watching everyone in the tent get to try their food.

Madeline was a trooper so we grabbed a bite to eat from a tent nearby. We did just get finished watching a cooking show after all. We were hungry.

Fia is 15 months!

She is definitely in between being a baby and a toddler now. She still loves to snuggle when she gets tired and of course I love that. But when she is full of energy, she is ready to move. She just recently started cruising but she doesn't go too far yet. She took a few steps with me holding her hands the other day so we keep working on that. She also discovered she can climb so walking has taken a sidestep to climbing on everything she possibly can. Her current obsession is our fireplace. I have to pull her out of there about 50 times a day.


She has started to babble a lot, but she doesn't consistently use words. In rare instances, I've caught her saying bye-bye, dog and wow. Her favorite song is Itsy Bitsy Spider and sometimes she will try to sing it too. It is absolutely adorable! This means, of course, that we sing it constantly.

Her emotions are starting to come through and she gets her feelings hurt when she gets in trouble. This particular development has really made me feel her transition from baby to toddler.

As for her stats, she is 23 pounds 6 ounces and 30.25 inches long. Both right around average and smaller than Madeline at this age.

Despite her progress, her doctor, Andy and I were concerned how slowly she was developing. I decided to contact Help Me Grow, a state-funded program that helps infants and toddlers achieve their milestones. I figured it couldn't hurt and since it was free, we had nothing to lose. She had an evaluation and did qualify for services for speech and gross motor delays. I'm now in the process of figuring out where we go from here so we'll see how this program can help her move along.

Easter!

Happy 5th Anniversary to my Prince!

Cincinnati Zoo

On nice days back in Columbus, the kids and I would love to go see the animals at the zoo. We had a season pass so it was easy to make quick trips. Our favorites were the elephants, tigers, lions and polar bears. I also loved going for the workout. The Columbus Zoo is really spread out so it made for a good walk while seeing all the neat exhibits. I love being efficient.


So when we moved to Cincinnati, we had to get a pass to the Zoo here too. Fortunately we received it as a gift for the whole family for Fia's birthday back in January. Last week we finally had a beautiful day that we weren't busy, so off we went.


Madeline was our navigator. She is obsessed with Dora lately and everything to do with maps. So when we had to consult our map to see where to go, she was all over it.



Poor Fia missed a lot being stuck in the stroller. Many of the animals can't be seen from such a low vantage point, so that was disappointing. I pulled her out a few times though so she could see. I suppose she's more of a people-watcher anyway.



Madeline saw a picture of the new baby giraffe in the newspaper a few weeks ago (because you know, she reads the paper everyday) and hasn't stop talking about it since. So when we passed by the giraffes, she was super excited. I also think she was especially excited because the Columbus Zoo doesn't have one, so she'd never seen one in person before. Unfortunately, the line to see the new little guy was super long so we had to skip him this time around. But we did get to see one of the bigger guys.

The polar bears are always fun to watch. These guys were taking a swim. This habitat doesn't even come close to the brand new one at the Columbus Zoo, but I'll try not to compare. Madeline won't notice.

I will say that I like the Lion exhibit better here though. They have decking that pretty much makes the Lions sit right out in front so you can't miss them.

As we were walking along, we saw a face painting booth and Madeline got super excited. Normally I wouldn't give in to this, but I've been feeling like we need extra fun in our lives so I gave in. She LOVED it!!

Check out this cool path! Hard to get the stroller through, but definitely fun.

As we were leaving, we saw a peacock showing it's feathers. I couldn't get a good picture because this area was really crowded, but it was neat to see. Madeline didn't know what to make of it.

We had a great time and we can't wait to go back and see more. I had Madeline walk the whole time so we only made it through about 40% of the park. She did great but was a little slow. Next time I'll bring the double stroller so we can move a bit faster and I can get my workout.

Rainy Day

This has been a cold, wet, boring week. Blah! One day in particular was especially yucky outside so we kept things interesting and fun inside.

Fia discovered she can climb into Madeline's chair. She loved getting in it, moving around and then falling out (on purpose).




While Fia was having fun, Madeline and I were coloring.

A friend and fellow Mommy blogger wrote recently about how Moms are usually the picture-takers and therefore aren't in most pictures with their kids. This is true for me too. She called on Mommies to get in there! So here are mine. I either took the picture myself or used the timer. I love them!

Later that day, it was still yucky outside. So I decided to turn snack time into an egg hunt. Or is that the other way around? Hmm, anyway the kids LOVED this. Fia found one egg but didn't really know what all the fuss was about. Until she saw what was inside. Her eyes lit up when she realized they were filled with goldfish and raisins.

Once Madeline started going crazy opening her eggs on the floor, I realized we probably should have done that at the table. But oh well, I keep things fairly clean around here. And germs are kinda good for them, right?