Hello cheeks....

Fun with Jacks and Nealy

I love my baby sister sooooo much.......

Oooh, check out her belly button. I think I'll dig around in it for a second.....


Okay, I'm done here. Gotta bounce.....


Fail.

Off to school

Jacks pretty much goes to school year round, but the start of a fall school year is always a big deal. Especially when Jacks has a brand new back pack and a new Drake Middle School tee shirt in Roaring Tigers' colors. He's so proud.

Jumperoo

Umbrella Stroller

Little one is getting bigger, and she took her first stroll in the cheap-o umbrella stroller, which is much lighter and easy to manage than the huge travel system stroller that her car seat locks into. Also, I hate that big, bulky stroller. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Even more, I hate the car seat that locks into it. Hate it. But, what am I gonna do, get a new one? That's costly and wasteful, and I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint here, people. I can deal.

Gosh, I guess that's a whole other blog post.

So, let's focus on the issue at hand. Have you ever seen a cuter, more content baby in an umbrella stroller? Good grief she's precious.......

Think Pink

We went to a pink out party today. Everyone wore pink, we ate pink food, we played pink games. As one party goer said, "If it ain't pink, it ain't here."
Nealy will have a pink out one day. This was ADORABLE.
Joe even wore pink. He isn't ashamed to wear pink. I overheard him tell someone, "I don't have a pink kink in my think."

one more thing.....Little Sweetie is getting TWO teeth! You can see them trying to cut through on her bottom gums. Our friend Katie F noticed them today, and I had not yet seen them. I think they are brand new as of this morning. Aye me, mah bebe is growing up so fast!!!

Work is back in session

Well, I haven't blogged in a while. That is mostly because my blissful maternity leave is over, and I have returned to work. The beginning of the school year has started with a bang, and I've barely come up for air.
I didn't really think it would be this hard.
I told my cousin Mary a few weeks back that I planned on treating work like one long errand that I have to run everyday, and that when I got home life would go on as usual. It's not like that. Not even a little bit. How am I so ignorant about going back to work after maternity leave? I've done it once before!
So, I have pictures of the kids, but not right now. I can't find the camera. Or the cord. Or the wherewithal to find the camera or the cord. Instead I'm heading into the kitchen to try to figure out how to make tomato sauce with a mess of cherry tomatoes. That sounds like a reasonable plan for someone who's sleep deprived and delirious. Go make sauce......
I could whine and complain about work and missing my babies, or I could contemplate all the things I could do from home in order to be a stay at home mom. But let's face facts....my job offers all major holidays and the entire summer off, I get off at 3:40 every afternoon (much better than a work day that ends at 6 or later), and I can bring my kids to the school on the weekends to play while I work. There really is no better job to have when you have kids. And I really do love my students! They might make me crazy at times, but so do most people.
Don't get me wrong - there are times when I wish I could be home all the time. There are weeks when it would be so much more convenient to have 3 days off. But, parenting isn't always about convenience now is it? And work isn't supposed to be easy. I mean, they do call it WORK.
Hm - now I'm rambling a little. Imagine that!
For those of you who are disappointed to see no pictures on this post, here's a good one for you...Notice how Nealy is gazing up at Jacks with total adoration as he appears to be about to elbow her in the face.

Ryan came to stay a while

Our friends Jenny and Bill are in the process of moving. If you are aware of what's going on the in life of a teacher right now, you're probably thinking they are about crazy as hell. Moving? The first week back to work? And Bill, who is in grad school, has finals this week? And they have an infant? Surely, they are crazy. No, they're just in really young and in great shape. Unlike us. We'd collapse like a fat man in a marathon.

So, Thursday afternoon, sweetest Ryan came to visit us for the evening. She and Nealy had a great time. First they sat in their Bumbo seats and looked at each other....
Then, Ryan reached out and tried to grab at Nealy a few times. That was pretty exciting.


Uh oh, here comes Big One.....Ryan looks a little worried.....


And it's okay!!! He just sat around a looked at them......Again, very exciting.


Then, they took a bath. I'll admit that these pictures are staged. We bathed the girls separately. If we had bathed them together, we would have taken a million and one pictures, but since Nealy isn't sitting up just yet, we went ahead and did their baths in the baby tub. Jenny told me to bathe Ryan in her Bumbo seat, but I'm pretty lazy and I didn't feel like drying it off when I was done. I was too busy drying and dressing babies! Oh, and posing for these pictures....


Can you stand it? Are you getting a cramp from the cuteness? I know it can be difficult to take when you see pictures of just Ryan or just Nealy, but put them together and you might have a cute seizure.


And what's this.....Big is coming over to attack us all!!!


Oh, it was okay! He was just hugging everyone. He might be crazy and a hellion and out of control most of the time. And he might hit and kick and bite and spit and punch and poke and yell. But he's really a very sweet boy. Now everyone say, "Awwwwwww........"

And fun was had by all. We can't wait to make Jenny and Bill keep both our kids sometime so we can go out drinking or carousing. Or something irresponsible. You hear that, Jenny and Bill? Both kids. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha (that was an evil laugh).

Nealy started school!

Little sweetie started school this week. I would have taken pictures of her at school, but the second we walked in the door to the day care her lip poked out and she proceeded to scream bloody murder for about two hours. Or so I'm told..... I had to leave and go to work, and I pay the day care a big ole pile of money to deal with my screaming baby. So, hate it for them! (just kidding day care lovelies - kind of....). I didn't have the heart to snap a bunch of pictures of her in her new classroom while she was throwing a high holy fit of a lifetime. Luckily, my sweetest cousin Lee, who runs the day care, went and got a hold of that baby and made her smile. (thanks Lee!!)

Joe did manage to get a picture of her in her first day of school outfit (as pictured above). She kept her shoes on all day! Can you get over it? Isn't she the cutest? Don't you want to compliment me for dressing her so super cute-you can hardly stand it-I'm mother of the year for having such a savvy sense of infant style?

Thursday, things went about the same. Happy baby at home, pleased as punch in the car, walked in day care started screaming like someone was robbing her. Joe picked her up that day, and he said that the screaming and crying stopped immediately upon exiting the day care building. Hmmmm.......

Friday, we had very high hopes. Nealy woke up happy, happy, happy. She was all rainbows and unicorns and puffy clouds and kittens. Look at how adorable.....
Yes, those little socks look like Mary Jane shoes. She has an entire set thanks to my sweet friend Beth. Yes, that is her monogram embroidered on her onesie she is wearing. What you can't see are the super perfect- so cute you might start making strange, involuntary, throaty noises from the cute overload hysteria-ruffles on the bottom of her precious pink britches.

And yes, I have turned into my mother - I use the word britches about twenty times a day.
Wait....what was my point......is this why we get momnesia? Because our babies are so cute we can't function on a normal level?

Oh, right, she didn't have a perfect day at school on Friday. But it was a little better. I guess we'll start all over again on Monday. I mean, I've got to work! If I didn't work I couldn't pay for day care. Hey, wait a minute.........

Did you get that? See what I did there?

Honestly, all joking aside, I'm not stay at home mom material. I need someone else to help me out or else I might lose my mind, plus I like my job. Make that love my job! I just had a rough year due to the pregnancy and the puking and the hugeness and the waddling and the emotional rollercoaster, so it's hard to remember how much I love it right now. I'm sure I'll remember again come Monday. So, until Nealy gets used to school, we'll have to deal with the morning screaming ritual.

Nealy is 4 months old!!

And for a quick review....

Sling Baby

When I was pregnant with Nealy, I swore I was going to make her a sling baby. I wanted to get a great sling that I could wear all the time, and I could just hold that baby while I did anything and everything I wanted. Well, that didn't quite work out according to plan. There are tons of different types of slings out there! I didn't know what I wanted, and I wasn't about to drop $50 or more on something that didn't work out for me.

One of my facebook friends invited me to a baby wearing meeting in Birmingham. I'm not going to lie - I did a big ole eye roll on that one. I was thinking, "I'm supposed to drive 2 hours to figure out how to hold my baby? I ain't got the time!" Well, I started thinking that I should have figured out a way to get over there. I could have tried different types of slings to see what worked best for me and Nealy, and practiced mamas would be there to show me how to use them.

So, time passed.....I managed to borrow a couple of slings from friends, but they just hung on the hook by the door getting lonlier and lonlier. I would try one on and stick Nealy in it from time to time, but she would just squish down in there like a roly poly with her head all flopped over, then she's immediately start shrieking and practice sling time was over. So I've just been strapping on the Baby Bjorn and going about my business.

The other day, Joe had a doctor's appointment in Birmingham, and he had the Bjorn in his truck. Nealy and I had errands to run, and I wasn't about to haul her around in her car seat. I had a mission: learn to use the sling or else. I threw it over my shoulder, did a Google search, and started following some instructions. We found that the Kangaroo is best for us. She just sits in there pleased as punch with herself. She's even fallen asleep in there. And I sweat like a freak show anyway, so I might as well be sweating from working my abs and back with this baby strapped to me. Check us out:

Happy as a couple of clams!!

And this next picture is for Joe - he says I never stop talking long enough for him to get a good picture of me. And I have to admit that he's right....