{ Amazing Friends! }

The past two weekends we were blessed with two more visitors. First off was a visit from my old roomie, Kelly. She drove all the way from NYC just to spend a few hours with us. She stayed just the afternoon with us before turning around and heading back to NJ to see her mom. Wow! She made it seem like a 4 hour drive was no big deal. We felt so special.

It was so neat to catch up. I was barely pregnant the last time our paths crossed (for 15 whole minutes in Vegas) and now we have a 6 month old. Kelly was the one to see me through my wedding engagement while I was in Colorado Springs. We sure had a lot of talks and good cries together.What a trooper. It's really neat to see people you haven't seen in a long time and realize how much we have changed and yet how much stays the same.

Our next visitor was an old swimming chum of mine. I haven't seen her since right before Rob and I were married. She flew in from Boston. Again, it was so neat to catch up. If someone would have told us, while we were swimming at Shadle High School, that one day we'd meet up in Frederick, MD,and I would have a baby I would have laughed in their face. I can't wait to go repay the favor and visit these ladies on their home turf.

Thanks again for visiting!

Book Review

This was the topic of our book group discussion last night. It was fresh on my mind from a marathon read on Monday-I haven't read a book in one day since well before the baby was born-and boy did we have a lot to talk about! I thought this book was fascinating and thought provoking (one of the many things it provokes). I, unlike many of the online critics, found it exceptionally motivating. Don't get me wrong I don't think she's 100% correct in many of the things she champions, but who is? I loved her honesty and engaging writing and I most loved that she held the bar higher. She expected absolutely the best performance out of her children (at all costs) and herself.  She made being great something that is an every day expectation. Maybe we should all do this a little bit more. So please read and tell me what you think, good or bad. 

Now, this lovely book was gifted to us from my good friend Emily, whom I will highlight in a post tomorrow. This is such a wonderfully charming children's book, with beautiful illustrations. Did any of you enjoy this in your childhood? I was so pleased when she gave it to us. It reminded me how many wonderful things my mother introduced us to that I had forgotten about.

And did you know, this duck and her ducklings are immortalized on their journey, by little statues in Boston? I can't wait to visit!

What If...?

What if "potty training" your child didn't mean training them to use the toilet, but instead it meant training your child to change their own diapers? Think about it: The whole world would never need toilets. There would, however, be a lot more diapers in the landfill, certainly a negative. But for those trying to build their own houses, you wouldn't have to worry about using space for boring bathrooms. Instead, you could use the space for something like an adult changing station or something a whole lot cooler....Think about it.

{ Summertime is Sublime }

Summer is just better! There are so many wonderful things about every season but summer has an energy. Students young and old radiate it for weeks prior to school getting out. Then it explodes as they hear that last bell. I didn't even know when school got out this year, for the first time ever, and I could still feel it. Pools open, you get the itch to plan road trips and vacations, grills come out, the sidewalks are full of joggers, freezers suddenly are full of Popsicles, and everyone is invited to/planning a wedding. Oh summer. A fridge full of nuptial announcements and a week of sweltering temperatures has made it official. It is here and it is beautiful.

To get the season off the right start, Jeff came to stay this weekend. It was great to have him here. Des seems to have another visitor every month (since we all know that's who everyone is really coming to visit). Here were our adventures!

Ward BBQ...we rocked the socks off the softball game (I'm literally barefoot).

First Homemade Ice Cream of the Season

Visit to the National Aquarium in Baltimore

Eating Feet...

Eating Leaves...

Being Eaten.

{ 5 Months }

Peanut is officially 5 months old! He is rapidly gaining weight (he's still small, don't get me wrong) and, as of a week ago, is up to 13lbs. 5oz,  meaning he's gained about a pound and a half in two weeks time. He's also up to 25inches. He's making up for all that time he was starving. Looks like I'm an insufficient producer. I find that very sad. It's sad to fail at something so critical to your baby's health and to not really have any way of fixing it. At least I did what I could. So now we get to start forking out the big bucks for formula supplements and we're starting more solid foods. We tried out stage one apples this week. Next up bananas! Spoon feeding is so time consuming. It's a lot of fun though. This was fun to do too:

OTHER FUN FACTS:
*Not one, but two teeth have broken through!

*He enjoys sucking on his toes whenever he can.

*He attended his first Itsy Bitsy Yoga session on Friday.
He made it a whole fifteen minutes before we had a melt down. He probably thought, "Mom this is ridiculous," and it was, but it was free and sounded fun. We said lots of silly chants while "helping the baby's digestion" in a variety of yoga-ish ways.

*Eating is an aerobic event for this little boy.
He wiggles his arms everywhere (it looks like he's swimming the crawl stroke with one arm while he's nursing or taking a bottle) and he's constantly kicking his feet. He's always trying his best to throw off the nursing cover when we're in public.

*He's reaching for everything.
Dinner plates, hanging toys, watermelons...one day after we got back from the grocery store I put him in the Bumbo to put the groceries away and left the watermelon on the floor next to him. It kept him occupied for at least fifteen or twenty minutes.

*He's talking so much.
He'll wake up and just sit there in his bed cooing and babbling to himself. He also loves to make this high pitched scream when he's happy. It makes me think of a bird...a very loud bird.


*He's becoming quite the excellent pooper with all this extra food.

This is what he did to me on the return trip as we're standing in airport security waiting for my shoes and the diaper bag to come through the scanner. I looked down when I felt something warm on my stomach and saw a fountain of yellow-brown mush coming out the sides of his diaper. Gross! Oh and the bathroom was on the other side of the tram so everyone coming through security got to see the mess.

*He is starting to move like an inch worm. He scoots from one side of his crib to the other, ending up like this, the opposite side.

{ Disney World }

We love Mickey Mouse! Another wonderful family DISNEY vacation has come to a close. As always the days flew by and it was over as quick as it started. What a sad day it is to say good bye to family and blissful days full of Disney parks. Hopefully it won't be too many years before we can find an excuse to go back again! And of course, and epic trip requires and epically long blog post so just check out the photos if you want.

Our vacation began at 3:45am on a Thursday morning. We moved the baby from his bed to his car seat and we were off to the airport to catch our 7:00am flight. We had an easy go at everything, missing DC rush hour traffic, getting a parking spot, and getting through security. The only hitch was that Peanut was wide awake at 5:15 am and did not fall back asleep. On top of that he had a diaper blow out first thing when we got on the airplane. Timing is everything. This is how we all felt later that day:

We finally arrived good and tired in Orlando at 9:45am where my parents picked us up. My mother jumped from the car to hold her grand baby and the first thing she noticed, that we somehow failed to see, was that Des had sprouted a tooth! What a fun surprise. He is one tough cookie. He hadn't been extra fussy at all. He had already been gnawing and drooling on anything in sight for months now, so I failed to notice the tell tale signs. What a day!

We dropped our things off at our hotel and headed to our first park, Epcot. Why wait?! 

We headed to Epcot to meet my sister at her work site. She was the reason for our whole trip and boy did she get us special treatment. She's works at the greenhouses in the Land pavilion. She had reserved fast passes for the whole group to Soaring Over California and was giving us a complimentary "Behind the Seeds" tour of the green houses. This tour was my favorite part of the trip. If anyone has a chance to go on this tour it is worth it. We had an amazing tour guide.

Peanut's first ride: Living with the Land

This was the day we realized just how much slower you move through Disney with a baby. It was still fun just a bit more challenging to keep up the usual pace. We did Disney like normal people. We took rests. **GASP!**

We cruised all four parks for the next five days.  

Sunday, we rested for a bit, went to church, toured Katie's apartment and took a little dip in the pool, which means Des had another first here in Florida. He went for his first swim. I was so excited! We ended that day with food and fireworks at Epcot's World Showcase. 

 

Our last night in FL, we made sure to follow tradition and just eat ice cream for dinner. I think we've done this at least one night every Disney vacation that I've been on. It was just as much fun at this age as it was when I was a kid...and it gives you the exact same stomach ache every time. We love food. Can you tell? The dessert  we indulged in is called the Kitchen Sink and it's served at Disney's Beach Club resort. $24 of ice creams brownies, cookies and a whole can of whip cream piled into...a mini kitchen sink. Mmm! Worth every penny.

So to finish off this brief summary this picture about sums things up: Disney rocks and my siblings are super cool.

Oh and don't forget, it all started with a mouse.