IHOP & Cougars

We went up to Binghamton last Friday to take the kids to the zoo.

We were a little hesitant due to the massive flooding that hit the area from Irene and also due to the fact that Grace had shots on Thursday, but neither ended up being an issue.

Of course we had to go to IHOP.  I am seriously burnt out on IHOP.  At the last minute, I confessed to Joe that I just couldn't take another IHOP trip and he conceded and agreed to go somewhere else.  Lo and behold Joe now has a partner in his obsession and Joey could not let go of the fact thatwe said we were going to IHOP. Needless to say, Joe won out :o).

 

 September 2009                                  September 2011

I had to laugh inside as this was going on because it is just such a commentary on our life.

We don't let Joey feed himself as much as we should (though this is getting better) and we never let him handle his own drinks in restaurants.  We just don't like the mess and one time Joey squeezed his styrofoam cup a little too hard and it exploded everywhere.  No more cups for Joey.  Well, I let Joey handle his own drink and you can see the concentration in his face.  This is serious big boy stuff here folks.  Also, he kept saying, "Mom, get the camera" before every sip.  I now have about 20 pictures of Joey drinking milk.

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 We were the first people at the zoo so we had it all to ourselves for a while.

Grace's first trip to a zoo.  We were laughing because we thought she just looked so tiny up there.

Joe was laughing so hard at me because I literally screamed twice over this crazy cougar. I think they forgot to feed it or something because it keep leaping from wherever it was and running at us.  They seriously move SO fast!

 Joey was thrilled to see the cougar.  He knows what they are from a book my mom reads with him and I think he was just amazed to see one in real life.

 Look at the eyes on this thing.  He would stand like this locked on us and then pounce and run.  It didn't help that we were maybe 3 feet from the cage.  I also don't think he liked the noise my camera makes.  Either that or he just wanted to eat us ;o).

This picture cracks me up because it totally captures how Joe feels about me encouraging Joey's new smile.

I have to admit, I do try to get him to smile every chance I get now. Plus, he is so proud of his smile that I can finally get him to look at the camera so I can take his picture! Joe thinks I should be encouraging a more .. hmm ... normal .. smile :o).

It totally reminds me of Mr Squishy face from back when he was 9 months old :o)

I was so sad when this ended :o)

Joey has a special thing going with the meerkats at every zoo we take him to.

They love him.

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Stroller O' Babies <3 

Make your day happy :o)

Hi Debbie :o) Happy Monday

I thought you'd like to start your week with these pics of your adorable grandkids :o)

Lina has the prettiest eyes.

 

These next three pics kill me.

And I love how Joey is touching Lina in every picture I have of the them together.

Too sweet.



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Please ignore Joey's crazed smile and note Grace's birthday party themed cupcake attire :o).

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Lina loves holding Grace.

Have a great day. :o)

2 Month Well Visit -- A+ for Graciekins

Grace had her two month well visit today even though she was 10 weeks old yesterday.

All her visits are off by about a week.  It kind of bothers me but life will go on.

Waiting in the waiting room.

I was happy Joe was able to come.  He is replacing our back porch right now and it is turning into a monster of a project.  It's one of those "everything that can go wrong .. is going wrong" kind of deals.  It's raining now too and we wanted to take the kids to the zoo tomorrow so Joe wanted to get everything finished today. He's never missed one of the kids' visits :o).

Gracie Pie is doing fantastically well.  To my surprise, she is blowing all the milestones out of the water.  Of course, in the three days since we decided we needed to try to help her along a little she started doing a million new things.  Isn't that how it goes?  I guess she'll teach me to think twice before opening my mouth :o).

Omigosh, this ridiculous" smile"! I kind of love it but is this what our Christmas pictures will look like this year?

We got the okay to give her cereal at 3 months.  We won't, I don't think, we like to delay the solids a little.  We introduced solids for Joey at 5 months on Christmas morning.  We liked that his "first meal" was something special we'd always remember.  We plan to let Grace eat for the first time at Thanksgiving dinner :o).  She will be 5 months as well.  It works out perfectly.

Grace now has very good head control, is tracking perfectly, smiles constantly, interacts with and bats at toys, holds her head in line when pulled up to a sitting position, and can hold her body in a seated position if you hold her hands.

 She is growing well.  She is on the small side but she is consistently maintaining her "small side" :o).  Her length is 22in ( she just surpassed her brother's length at birth) which is in the twenty-something percentile and her weight is 11 lbs 2 oz which is in the forty-something percentile.

 Just what do you think you're doing?

 Mommy, I can't believe you're letting this happen!

Disgruntled but rocking her super cool band-aids :o)

Grace got two shots and an oral vaccine.  She dealt with the shots much better than she did at her two week appointment.  That time I couldn't put her back in her seat until we got to the car.  Our poor little baby just couldn't calm down.  She put up a very dramatic scene as we left the doctor's office.  This time she was over it in thirty seconds and all it took was some Mommy snuggles. 

We'll spend the rest of our day at home; Joe has to tackle the porch monster and I'll be trying to snuggle away and side-effects our little girl may feel from her shots :o(.  My mom offered to make dinner for us tonight.  So nice to not have to think about it :o).

Have a happy day.

Go, Gracie, Go!

We kind of kid about Gracie being our lazy baby.

Not sure if the "kind of" refers to our kidding or her being lazy, but either way she lags behind her brother quite a bit the motor skills department.

I'm super-dee-duper cute, Mom! Don't make me support my own head!

On the other hand, she has hit social milestones faster so maybe they just have different areas of strength.

It's hard not to compare.

She seems content to do nothing other than perch on my arm and snuggle.
She also enjoys shooting killer smiles and squeals at people she deems worthy.

While part of me is more than okay with this, we recently decided to start pushing her a little more.

She will be 10 weeks tomorrow and has just this week really gained reasonably reliable head control when sitting.  Joey had this at six weeks.  He was sitting in the Bumbo at 7 in the same fashion she could almost do it at 9.

Welllll .....  look at our little lady.

All cool and super big-girl like, "I got this, Mom!"

Her back is completely vertical.  She is keeping herself from flopping side to side or forward.

This is very good.

On the other hand, is it just me or could this baby slay you with her cuteness?

She may never need to do anything for herself anyway since she has the whole household under her spell.

Breakfast Adventure

We had nothing we needed to do today so we went for a "breakfast adventure" :o).  If you make something sound fun now Joey gets so excited.  He decided he need to bring his "camera" on our "advempture".

We went to Dunkin Doughnuts for bagels and orange juice and a boston cream doughnut.

Joey yelled to the person working the drive through that he wanted  "Pease, a bagel too. And, pease, some orange juice too."  He always does this now.  When you look back at him he smiles a shy smile.

We took our breakfast to the little park by our house to eat .. maybe on a blanket? I'll admit thinking, once we got there, whether this was really a sanitary idea. But we forged on.  I contemplated going to a larger park by us with picnic tables but they have a large play structure and with the two babies I was afraid to take them alone.  We settled for eating on bleachers.  Very "adventure" in the eyes of a two year old.  

We even discovered grasshoppers.  Thrilling! :o)

  We sang songs and used the bleachers as drums.

Joey can almost spell Grace's name now too. 

I taught Joey how to lick his lips to get the cream cheese off from his bagel.

We finished up and headed for the slides but as we got close I realized they just weren't clean enough.  Joey kept asking if he could "Play dat? Big Boy play does swides?".  He gracefully accepted he couldn't and then I felt even worse for telling him no and I decided to brave taking the two of them to the big park.  I'm getting better at the two two-and-under thing, slowly gaining confidence about doing things alone with the two of them.  Grace is 9 weeks old now and I'm settling into the feeling of two babies.  It will be even easier when she will take a bottle I think.

Joey got to ride his slides after all.  We practiced skills that are suddenly so very important. Skills that include walking while holding onto a stroller (instead of a hand) and not letting or wandering away, and other fun things like "freeze" and "run to Mommy".  He finds "Freeze. Run to Mommy" super exciting right now .. wonder how long I can milk that one :o).

We gathered up rocks to throw in the water.  I think it might the more of the throwing rocks and less of the water that appeals to him right now.  He spent quite a bit of time throwing rocks into the bocci ball courts.  His teachers will love me for helping him perfect this skill, I'm sure.

Apparently someone also needs to teach Joey that the bigger rocks are better for throwing into the water.

Not sure why he was insistent on gathering a million pieces of gravel today. :o)

This is Joey smiling on cue. It's ridiculous. I love it.

This is him smiling for real.

 He loves to run now and is all about "On your mawk. Get set. GO!"

Little lady either perched on my arm or slept :o).

She likes adventure too :o)

It was a good morning.