Tuesday, September 18, 2012

More milestones, more pictures!

What's this?  I'm posting a mere week after my last post??  Have we turned a blogging corner?  Well let's not get ahead of ourselves, but I have to say I'm pretty pleased with myself...ha!  Anyway, as I was saying in the title of this post, we have more milestones to report!  Little 'Relia has teeth!  About 2 weeks ago her two front bottom teeth decided to make an appearance!  I tried to get a photo right after they came in (see above picture) but alas they were too small to photograph.  Then I tried again a week later and still had very little luck.
However if you zoom in you can almost see those chompers!  And her hair was looking particularly out of control that day, so that's always fun.

Then yesterday I tried again but she just wasn't giving me a big, wide-mouth smile.  She did look pretty cute nonetheless:


Meanwhile Dashiell was playing with a "baby toy" a few feet behind her and wanted his picture taken, too:


I personally like how both of my kids have long sleeves but no pants.  That's good parenting.

Other recent milestones: 

Aurelia now says "da-da-da-da" all the time!  She's also been experimenting with "ba" and "pa".  No "ma" yet, but that "m" sound is tricky.  I holding my jealousy at bay.

She's also starting to get the idea behind feeding herself.  I've been putting little banana pieces on her high chair tray whenever I eat a banana, and she usually pushes it around and plays with it quite contentedly.  Yesterday she actually put some of it into her mouth!  Avocado, too! Of course this morning when she ate some banana I had to do a quick mouth-sweep with my pinky because she started to gag on it, but it's a learning process.  And a good reminder that I need to stick close by after I give her pieces of food to eat!  No more "I just need to put the laundry in the dryer" after securing her in the high chair.  Guess the laundry will have to wait!

In Dashiell news, our boy is back in preschool and loving it!  He's there 3 days a week now (last year he went for 2 days a week) at the Central Cooperative again, and while he was "a little shy" (his words) the first morning and cried when he found out he had to go, he was fine by the time I dropped him off.  I knew he would be!  I think he just didn't know what to do with his new teacher and the fact that only 2 of his former classmates would be in his class this year.  It's only been a week and already this morning he asked if he could go to school everyday.  As much as we'd love to let him do that, it's not in the cards.  Next year, buddy!  Here he is in his "first day of school" outfit:


D has also been really into creating stuff lately, especially vehicles.  A couple of weeks ago we went peach picking, which involved riding on a tractor trailer.  As soon as we got home he NEEDED to make a tractor.  Here's what we came up with:


The scale of the tractor to its trailers is just a bit off, but that didn't matter to Dashiell!  All of his animals have been riding in the back since its creation.

Then the day that we got back from the wedding he decided he NEEDED to make a rocket ship!

After a long, fun-filled weekend all I really wanted to do was laze about on the couch while the kiddos watched Disney Jr., but who am I to stifle creativity?  Another empty box was found, we busted out the Elmer's, and D was blasting off in no time!

The upshot of the box-based toys?  Another good place to set Aurelia down while I run to the other room.  Maybe I'll get to that laundry after all.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Wonderful Wedding!!

Weddings are so much fun!!!  Rick's sister Elizabeth got married this weekend to her wonderful fiance (now HUSBAND!) Danny, and we were all included in the ceremony.  Yes, all four of us in our little family - Rick was a groomsman, I was a bridesmaid, Dash was the ring bearer, and Aurelia was the flower girl.  We all got dolled up in our best, the wedding was in a lovely location (the Chatham Bars Inn on Cape Cod), there were cameras present...and we took SHAMEFULLY few pictures.  Not a single photo of just the four of us (no Christmas card photo!), or of Dashiell and Aurelia together (no new header photo for the blog!), or of Rick and I together.  Sigh.  I'm hoping the photographers got some good shots that we can use, but until then, here are pretty much ALL of the pictures I took.

On the way to the Cape - Dash looking all stylish in his new fedora, eating the obligatory Ritz crackers:


At the Queen Anne Inn, Hello Kitty is cooler than cool:
 

(btw, Hello Kitty is Dashiell's - he likes her red bow and dress)

Rick assisting Dashiell with his socks and shoes:
 

Aurelia and I in front of the boathouse:

 Dashiell, before the wedding (while photos were being taken), digging in the sand:


The lovely bride and my lovely daughter:
 

After the beach photos, Elizabeth needs to clean off her sandy feet so she can comfortably wear her fabulous shoes (you can see them on the counter next to her):

I wanted a picture of Rick and Aurelia together, but she wasn't too into it:


Minutes later, we discover why:

The bride and groom are presented!
 
 Dashiell spent most of the reception exploring the beach.  Here he is with Uncle David:

 Grandpa looks like he may never let go of Aurelia!  Give her back, she's mine!

Soon-to-be Aunt Lindsay looking Sassy:

Uncle David being Uncle David:

Maid-of-Honor Lauren and I celebrating:
 


So there was our wedding weekend!  We had a ton of fun, and are so happy for Elizabeth and Danny!  

The inn we stayed at was lovely and the people working there were so incredibly nice (thank you Queen Anne Inn!).  We did have some issues around food service pretty much the whole weekend - seriously, how hard is it to know that if a family with small children order their food right when they sit down it means that they want it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE?  I swear every restaurant we went to did not understand that concept, and every meal took forever to get to our table.  And the Chatham Bars didn't have a single non-nutty baked good to serve our nut-allergic child while everyone else ate (almond-based) cake.  Even though Elizabeth requested it when they ordered the cake.  Grrr.  Good thing D was busy on the beach or we may have had a meltdown!  But all in all everything was wonderful, and we had a fantastic time.  Congrats Elizabeth and Danny!  We love you!!